The Bill Simmons Podcast - 2026 NBA Draft Winners and Losers With Joe House and J. Kyle Mann

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Joe House, and J. Kyle Mann go LIVE on Netflix to react to the 2026 NBA first-round draft picks and discuss the winners and losers. (0:00) Intro (1:15) NBA draft reactions (6:59) Winners and losers of the first round Host: Bill Simmons Guests: J. Kyle Mann and Joe House Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers Brought to you by PayPal. Learn more at paypal.com Get 30% off snacks and groceries on Uber Eats. https://www.ubereats.com/feeds/wfootball_2026_us Presented by @MichelobULTRA #ULTRACourtside LDA 21 and over. Drink responsibly. The 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 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, all birds, 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. The Bill Simmons podcast live on Netflix for my favorite day of the year. It's pretty sad that this is my favorite day of the year, but it's the NBA draft. I'm with Jay Kyle Mann from the Ringer.

I'm with a deliriously happy and possibly drunk Joe House, whose team had the number one pick. and took AJ DeBanza. We'll talk about that later. We have a little gimmick. It's just for the live Netflix show only. We're going to have some voting. They started this poll thing that they did during Star Search,

and we have borrowed the technology, and we're going to be able, if you're watching this live on Netflix, you're going to be able to vote on stuff, including House's blood alcohol level. Wanted to mention we put up a new rewatchables. On Monday night, we did domestic disturbance, the funniest from hell movie.

Of all the From Hell movies, had a great time with Sean Fennessee and Chris Ryan. We have another one coming on Thursday, The Good Sun, you can hear Houses, golf podcast, Fairway Rowland, and you can listen and watch Kyle Mann on the Ringer NBA show. Okay, guys, winners and winners and I have mostly winners. And I'm going to start here, Jay Kyle, Mann, as a guy who works on our Ringer NBA draft guide

and does lots of YouTube clips and studies and obsesses over the draft. The drafts become less and less fun over the course of the decade. as everybody just makes logical, smart decisions. And nobody messes up. And we have no monkey wrenches and no wild cards and no great players falling. I had the first 12 picks, regardless of the order, I thought were the 12 best guys in the draft. There were no stumbles at all.

Is this just where we are now? We have too much intelligence. How do you explain this? It seems like the nerds have taken over and the math has kind of crept into the point. where even, I just feel like it's created these little guardrails for if you have a wild take, you know, I just feel like we have so much more numbers justification. You know, scouting has improved. The information is improved across the board.

I feel like we have fewer and fewer just kind of like good old boy network GM kind of front office people out there. I mean, there's maybe one or two left, but they're dwindling by the day. Yeah. But I went through and I was doing my grades on this and I was like, it was hard. hard to really ding anybody hard for anything. I was like, I don't, I don't really have any, like, D's or F's, you know. There aren't any, like, Kentel Woods or what was the, what was the Juco guy that you guys took,

Keegan Brown or not key, or what was his name? Kendrick Brown. Kendrick Brown. Yeah, yeah. We don't get those. How about the 20 guys' houses team took? Yeah, I mean, 20 years ago, I just feel like the Kings would have taken Nate A-Met, and we would have been like, what are they doing?

And now they just take Darius Acuff House. You don't care. because your team ended up with the number one pick. And by the way, my team is about to kick the pick at number 27, the Celtics, who have had a tumultuous week. I don't know if we're taking a team psychiatrist or an actual player, but were you going to experience my reaction live? How's your reaction?

We had a lot of little birdies telling us that AJ was going to D.C. for the last month, and that's what happened. But were you scared in the moment of truth that that wasn't going to happen? No, no, no. And honestly, you, You have to just keep to faith, let all of the stuff happen out on the periphery, let everybody talk their talk. I do want to set up right away.

My blood alcohol content level is at equilibrium. I'm at 0.0. No booze or boozer. No booze or boozer. I stand with my Mormon brother, AJD. I welcome him to Washington, D.C. Me and AJ the band, where no booze for us tonight. because we're setting the path for a very clean start to our careers.

Well, that's not the house I know. And Chris Ryan stepped up for you last night because we brought him on for the, it wasn't an emergency podcast because we knew Janus was getting traded. So we called it an urgent gathering. It was being CR and barrier. And Sierra had come home from dinner and it had a couple cocktails. Yeah, CR. He was a lively CR.

And he was especially, oh, here we go. This is the only time. I'll do this during our live Netflix trap. The pick is in. They're showing Isaiah. Adam Silver is on the clock, and he's going to tell us that the Celtics are taking. Oh. A Houston forward, Kyle, man.

What do you think of that pick? Snack. Yeah. He's somebody that I've been a little more skeptical on because I said I thought he was kind of in this. Well, caveat. He's a guy that he's one of those conditional kind of, kind of dependent guys. It's like if he went to a team with like poor developmental structure,

I would be worried about him because I'd worried that his offense was just in this weird purgatory that needed to be straightened out where he was like a hypothetical stretch four who really only got ran. He really didn't attack the rim even if he got run off the line. He would take these like long twos that weren't pretty. He had to kind of be spoon fed any offense that he got, but he's very big. He's very athletic. He has long arms. A good rebounder. I liked him. Defensively really active. I trust the Celtics to kind of detangle him and make sense of him.

So that's a good one. Six double doubles last year, House. Pick 27. Okay. You needed size. I mean, it's why you got your asses handed to you by the Sixers. Man,

one of many reasons. One of many. Including the fact that we started Ron Harper Jr. in game seven who had him played the whole series. Maybe overthought it a little. All right. So winners and I have mostly winners. And we're going to go through this.

I did not send you the list. I'm going to be surprising you guys with all of these, and we can react, and it's a way for us to talk about the draft. As I mentioned, the big winners is just competence, just teams over and over again, doing what seemed to be relatively the right thing.

Boring. I'm not a group big guy, but you just kind of, it was always like, okay, they should take him, and then they would. Here's how you know.

The Kings just sat tight. They didn't do anything crazy. They just sat tight and let the guy that made the most sense for them, the guy they had their eye on, he just landed in there. No irrational behavior out of the Kings. Now you know. You saw what the Quippers tried to do because there's so many, there's so many info guys and newsletter guys. And you can basically get any message that you want out. All of a sudden, within two days of the draft, there was a, the Clippers are really becoming intrigued by ACOF.

they like them they've spent a lot of time on him he could go screenshots of the player development coach's son that was one of the more that was one of the more entertaining like i don't know if that was an angular approach could you play handcuff and dares carling together it might happen and vevec you know it was like it was just like watching somebody stay disciplined at a blackjack table for the first time ever We're like, nope, I'm just going to double down on 11 here.

Do they keep Vivek in like in the Wolfman, like they have leather straps over his wrists and he can't touch his phone. He's just like, or Hannibal Lecter or whatever it is. They definitely like that article came out and they're definitely like, we can't live Vivek's he's going to trade our unprotected 2,029 first to move up two spots. So yeah, House, I'll start with renewed hope. Like legitimate renewed hope in Washington. Utah, Memphis, Chicago, Sacramento. Five punching bags.

Five teams that have been in the lottery a bunch of times or have rebuilt a bunch of times, teams that I think during the course of last year were either egregiously tanking or not as blatantly tanking or actually screwing up the tank in Sacramento's case. And now that's one sixth of the league has hope. Well, and the crazy thing is in the context of,

a third of the league tanking last season. For each of the teams you just rattled off, you can come up with a decent, interesting core of guys, two or three or four young guys, all on this kind of trajectory. We're on the same rookie contract. Like, look at this little nucleus that's coming together.

The bummer for those teams, and this is one of the things I'm looking at from the Washington perspective, the league is good. The league is better. Like, you know, if teams aren't tanking next year, I was going through the Eastern Conference standings

trying to find who the three worst teams are. You know, is there a pathway for Washington to get to the play in? Well, yes, but you know what? It's not easy. It's not an easy path. And obviously the West is,

you know, just nails across the board, especially like I look at that Utah roster. I'm like, wow. Oh, I can't wait to talk about that. This is coming together. But look at the West. Your stupid team paid Trey Young, but you have Trey Young.

The Nets traded for Julius Randall, but now they have Julius Randall. So you have this whole weird thing that they did, Kyle, with the draft order and the two ping pong balls if you're in the bottom three. It already seems like it's affected some of the stuff we've seen, right? Like that teams are actually okay getting, you know, basically good stat, bad team guys, which, sorry House, but that's what Trey Young is, is, is, is, Ben, and that's what Julius Randall is. Just say sorry to me. It might be what Michael Porter is, but Kyle, is this where we're going? I mean, it seems like it.

Well, it's going to be interesting to see how things shake up here now as these teams. Like House was saying, it's such a radical shakeup that all these have-nots and hopeless wanderers in the desert are just no longer. It was like quick change. It was like the jazz just have this like side unseen team that might be. I know House, you were talking about being like a playing team, like the jazz might be I was we were joking about it on group chat where I was like are they better than the suns and the Blazers instantly with the roster that they have like and they're rolling this out

and I know we'll talk about it more in detail but pretty pretty dramatic shift in terms of the competency in the in the way that these teams are being ran well let's talk about them first house we'll save your team that's fine talk about them for a while um oh we have the biggest winner around one was the first poll we did on the live Netflix and house is wizards 36 percent go. So maybe the audience wants to talk wizards first. That's fine. We'll do that.

Winner, the WIS. Yeah. AJ DeBanza. DeBanza. I'm just going to call him DeBanza and DeBanza. I'm going to screw it up for 10 years. Yeah. House, your first kick-ass competitive wing since when?

Oh, wow. Otto Porter. Otto Porter was a pretty, you know. They passed them. They matched the poison pill. Otto Porter. He was supposed to be a high-quality. He was part of the big three. He was part of the big three. We almost beat the Celtics to make it all the way to Eastern Conference finals.

I remember you texting me during his rookie year being like, I'm out. The saddest thing is that you and Jalen, that was the era where you and Jalen were interviewing the prospects as they came in. And you fed me some information that wasn't very flattering. Well, yeah, we were lukewarm on him. We like to call him the most. the one we were the most worried about was the kid who lied about his age whose name I can't even remember because it was so far ago but uh so favorite a j's ever thon maker right was that right no not thon maker was uh it was the shooting card i can't remember blank and he was a lefty i can't remember anyway favorite js shabazz mohamma'am there we go wow incredible so a j soprano is

the worst case a janeer i think house right j fay pholey healy's in the middle. Okay. I don't know. I couldn't come up. AJ Foyt. You didn't get A.J. Foyt. Don't you remember that? AJ Foyt's a good one. Maybe this will be your age from our youth. Now here's where Kyle fills a pot of water and dumps it on your head. Kyle, you think they should take a boozer. Just make the case.

No, this is a can't lose draft. I mean, I gave the top three picks, all A plus is because how often are you going to get? And they said it repeatedly on the broadcast. It's true. You could choose your flavor here of this Neapolitan sweetness of prospect goodness at the top of this draft and become away satisfied. There's a perfectly reasonable case for taking AJ that I understand. That is very sober like House tonight, unfortunately. But I just thought that I thought the basketball, you know, I said this to you all repeatedly.

I just thought in the basketball sense to make them a competitive team that was going to be very efficient and focused and get the most and elevate their guys. I thought Boozer made a lot of sense. But if they end up having Trey on the team, which it seems like they're going to, And if AD hangs around and you think about putting Sarr at the four and then you put AJ at the three and then you got Trey or Bub or whatever it's going to be at the two or Kaishan or, you know, Will Riley's been showing out and looking good. I'm about the two, but I think they suddenly have a pretty balanced team. Like it's going to be pretty interesting, I think. So, House, I was studying him carefully this whole week and all the interviews and then even today.

And at one point, the pre-show, somebody complimented his outfit. it and he said, I actually went to France to find this and brought it back. I'm like, I don't know if I love that. Why don't you love that? I didn't love it. How about getting in the gym and work about some threes? But he's very polished, almost a little too polished. Like, polished enough where I'm like, huh, he's young.

He almost seemed like a 19 year old. He's trying. I mean, this is a part of a very polished 19 year old, right? Yeah, that's right. So polished that the league selected him as their sort of youth draft correspondent to go participate and interview people and, you know, be in the playoffs and be kind of a digital media guy for that. That's a lofty role. That's, I loved that. I thought it was very positive reflection on his maturity.

By contrar distinction, it was, you know, when you're splitting the hairs so fine, his, his personality. coming out was kind of the opposite of what we saw out of Darren Peterson. Now, you're not drafting personality here, but, you know, we are trying to come up with a reason to choose one guy over another. And that's part of why I like DeBanza. Yeah, Peterson seemed a little better after he got picked. He, it felt like you could see the weight. We'll talk about him in a second. So, winner DeBanza, who, you know, we've talked about him a bunch in the pod. I remember, when was that, early February I had you on the pod, Kyle? And I was like, DeBonelon, is going to go first.

Like, this is, this is a wrap. The guy's, he's, he's too filled out already. Like, what's he going to look like when he's 27? And there's just not a lot of guys like him. He's somebody that could have played in any of the last three playoffs series we watched. He could have been thrown out there. He would have survived physically.

There's, if you're nitpicking, I don't know. He, like, he talked about his off ball defense. Like, some people don't love his shot yet. It's all stuff that will get better and better as he goes along. But he seems like at one point, house, said, I've been number one my whole life. I expected to go number one in this draft. Kyle, that's just like the kind of confidence I think you would want from your number one pick,

right? Yeah, I mean, he has earned confidence. I think an interesting thing about Devonsa, too, that I've been amused by watching him come up through the grassroots circuit and knowing people that have interviewed him and his family, there is just a stern focus about them, you know, as a group. And I have friends who know his dad who were like talking about he would have AJ talk to these different players and just to like kind of get on his ass basically on purpose to give him feedback critical feedback and he and he and his dad specifically I remember said I don't kiss

his ass ever he's just like on him all the time so that you got that going on that's the Rick Brunson strategy worked when the next the title and and the other thing I wanted I wanted to tell House is I was thinking about this this week if we watch these playoffs and we think about the way it gets officiated if you watch your beloved Dennyovdia if you watch your beloved. just any of these downhill guys, or whether it be Shea or whoever, you think about DeBonce's specific set of gifts. He's not like I'm just going to roast you with a live dribble.

He's not like one of those nuclear athletes, but he's his gracefulness and his balance and his power. Combined with being a pretty good athlete, getting downhill makes him really potent. And I wanted to throw this stat at you house. I was looking up at this. Did you want to jump in, Bill, real quick? No, go.

You do it. Keep going. There was paint touches in Division I college basketball this year. Guys that averaged over 20 per game. The top five is all point guards. Number one is Abuco Corey who got drafted tonight. He was vicious downhill. This is efficiency among guys that over 20 a game.

Darius A Cuff was number two among these point guards. Number three, downhill paint touch efficiency scoring the ball, A.J. DeBonsa. Let's go. That guy's six. foot nine. Yes, he is. He's set up to just get to the line and score a ton. Just by the way he plays.

I mean, we could do a whole thing of a fusive praise for what he's bringing to the table. How easy it seemed like the scoring came, especially after Saunders got hurt, where he became the focal point of the offense. But what I really love is he goes both ways. I love seeing him go left with the Euro step. Oh.

Pause. Jesus. Go ahead. It's like 1130. Are you drunk? I'm trying to rat on. No, I was kidding. Go.

Three hours ago you would have gotten that. I got it immediately. The, here's the thing with AJ. He's not LeBron, obviously. Nobody's going to be LeBron. We'll probably never see LeBron again. So don't aggregate this.

I'm not saying he's next LeBron. How many guys have come into the league since LeBron where you say to yourself, eh, kind of a LeBron body. Right? Where you look at him and go, I could see him at age 27 looking a little LeBronish.

That is not a long list, Kyle, man. I would say that's less than 10 guys that we've had come into the league. And sadly, not all of them are good. Like, maybe you could have said that about Josh Jackson. Like, oh, Josh Jackson, when he's 27, he might be ripped. Turned out he was in the league.

But physically, I think it's just going to be really easy for him to get his points. And the fact that he produced in college, I think matters, which is same thing for boozer. The whiz are a winner. Sadly, they're also a loser house because you gave Trey Young four years, $212 million with a player option year four that I think he's already picked up. I don't know who you're bidding against.

I don't know why he did it. It was inexplicable. We're going to do worst contracts with Waz and March. I was screenshoting you pictures of us with the first, second or third pick next March. We have to wait until March. Why can't you have good things? Why can't you have good things for a week?

Why did this have to happen? I this is what I said with all the local folks here like did they have to announce this on Monday? Why couldn't we just wait till Friday or something? Make it a Friday news dump. Let everybody be in the honeymoon period with AJ. It would have been fine. And I had already wrapped my head around the idea that Trey Young was going to be in my life for the next three years. I imagine three years, 140, 100, maybe like you were crazy.

How about a hundred? How about three for a hundred? It's great. all it really you know um but the you have to like sort of go oh well there's a floor to the salary you have to have a floor to your salaries and it's you have seven guys on rookie contracts you got to pay somebody you got to pay somebody how's that you sound like c a you're just making i'm just telling you i am literally making shit up because it makes no sense whatsoever to pay that man 53 effing million dollars a year no sense

under any here's my problem with it and then i'll stop give me one example i need one bit of evidence that this guy at the point guard position has made a teammate better give me you yes he helped john collins rim run yes he helped clint capella rim run neither one of those fucking guys are still with the hawks he didn't help them like you know extend their careers with the Hawks and he was just in a situation where they had the number one overall pick in the draft and they had a real young stud and Jalen Johnson and Trey couldn't coexist with those guys for whatever the reason was stylistically whatever the vision is whatever Quinn Snyder's offense was, it didn't work there.

So that's a lot of money for a project, by which I mean, you're projecting. You had two minutes. You took two and a half. Done. It was horrible. It was egregious. It was a crime against the Wizards. And I don't know, this would be the only reason I wouldn't want to go to a

Wizards game next year. And Trajong's not, obviously not a bad player. But I just think, we did this when you did Bradley Bueh. Bradley Bill was coming off a good season when you gave him the dumb contract. Trey Young was coming off a season where his team gave him away. And the vicious history of this where it's like, well, Trayong chose the Wizards. He did? Who wanted to trade for him?

Not one person. How did I have this friend at CAA, Kyle, who's relatively powerful? And we were texting him like, you guys, why did you do that to the Wizards? Why did you, I congratulate him like that? Yeah, we were congratulated him. Like, somehow you found the sucker at the poker table. just hilarious stuff. Who leads that team house?

Who's the leader of that? That's what we were speculating about. I was just like, I could see, I don't want to speculate too much here, but I can see AJ and Trey being at odds at some point. They like to have the ball. I'm just wondering who where that seems like a lot of personalities that I could see. Well,

the biggest problem with Trey is he's this three point curry lookalike three point shooter, but the threes don't go in. And he doesn't play off the ball. He's style. It doesn't make sense if the threes go in, But he's been, you know, low 30s now for three years. Well, he's going to set up. Trey Johnson is going to have nothing but open looks.

He's going to be, this is the master facilitator version of Trey Young, one of the all-time leading assist guys by, you know, per game. This is true. He did lead the league in assists in recent memory. We were going to do a poll for, do you think the Wizards made a mistake with the Trey Young contract? but Netflix said we couldn't do polls where it's 100%. Yes, they made a mistake. They wanted us to have polls where people had two votes.

Another winner. So we mentioned this earlier, Utah. They take Peterson. We'll see how this turns out. Obviously, the ceiling of this is the highest of all these guys. On paper, and it didn't really fully cement itself until they actually took him. And he was walking up there and he seemed really relieved and happy with Triple J, Kessler, Lori marketed, George, Peterson.

So you're starting five. Ace Bailey is your sixth man. They have Sensabaw. They have some good pieces. They have an owner who's going to spend money. And you can see how they would have talked themselves into like, this is actually, Boozer would be an awesome pick for depth.

And maybe he's the best guy in the draft. But if we hit with Peterson, this is like the missing piece for us. We could be like a six seed next year. So what do we expect from him next? year, Kyle, man. I mean, he could average over 20 next year, I think, for sure. That's definitely possible.

Yeah, I think so. He's like, I mean, you can't say he's one of the generational scoring talent and then not kind of, I mean, I think he could definitely do that. He's not 20 missed games, right, 20 points of game. 20 points a game. Okay. He and Keonté, I think, are the biggest question about just how do those guys find kind of a synergy together?

but man, just the shooting on a one through five shooting on that team. I mean, it's crazy. Let's work for eight years when everybody on your team in a playoff series can shoot. House, did you have a moment with him where maybe like a 1 a.m. You cheated on AJ and you looked at some YouTube clips and watched a little Darren Peterson and you started thinking about it. Took your engagement ring off for an hour. Well, I don't want to talk about.

Careful, stay married, house. I am married, super happily married. Hey, I don't wear one either. Not a ring guy. I don't wear a jewelry. I lost three. I was like, three.

I don't either. I lost wait a while back in my ring fell off and I never got a new one. I lost three. I wore it three, three, I lost three different ones anyway. I did flirt with the idea of a, I will say,

I did, Darren Peterson and I had of like 24 hours. He had a fling. We had 24 hours together. I mean, you know, I took a look. I was like,

wow, maybe I, I didn't do. Wow, he looks like Kobe. I didn't give enough. I don't think I gave this guy enough credit. I need to think about this a little bit.

It really was the movie list. That's what really pushed me like, he's a deep thinker. It was the most important thing he did. He's a calm guy. Oh, he likes interstellar. It's outstanding.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, this would be really fun. Look, great coach, stable owner. He goes with Will Hardy,

goes with a stable ownership franchise, goes with a really thirsty fan, base, a fan base that has been there for a long, long time since they moved there in the 80s, has had some really good moments, made two finals in 97, 98, had a nice almost run there with Williams and Boozer. And then the Mitchell-Gobert thing just never really played out. But they've been, once a decade, they've been relevant. And they were obviously the most relevant with Malone and Stockton. But that's a really, really starving fan base that will show up in big ways. So that might be great. I will say this, Kyle, man. Danny Aange, really awesome track record with taking elite guys.

And if he likes Peterson, that makes me feel a lot better about Peterson as weird as that sounds, right? This is the same guy I took Durant over, or wanted to take Durant over Odin. I think he hones in on star talent in a unique way and obviously likes this guy. So I think that's a great sign for the jazz. He's never going to cower from like, oh, are you going to be able to handle, you know, But unless it's just like a, are there examples of just totally, you guys had him for a long time, Bill? I mean, you know the track record really well. Is there a guy that he ever was scared away from? Like, it's just not worth it.

Even though you told us the story. No, he went the other way. Yeah, he would take like the J.R. Giddens types, the super talented screw up types just because they had talent. Like he kind of couldn't, he couldn't resist those guys. He always saw the talent. So with this, you have talent, work ethic, a whole bunch of things. So Utah, I don't know, this would be a good Netflix poll. Utah be a playoff team next year?

House, do you think, could you see them as one of the top eight seeds next year? Is that conceivable to you or no? You're basically saying that they're going to replace Phoenix. I think that's how you get there. And at least on paper, like the talent is there. They're way more talented. Like, it's not even close. The enormous unknown is like, what's Will Hardy capable of?

Like, how can this all come together? with this team actually trying to win. And it feels like we might have the answer in the first 10 games of the season. You said you think that Peterson's going to start. I think it's fine to bring them off the bench. Let Ace start. Either way, it doesn't really matter.

But it's kind of an embarrassment of riches and a really fascinating challenge for them. But the West is so good. It's Portland and Phoenix that they're going to be competing with. In Portland, we still have. a chance to get better. We'll see with Phoenix. The Netflix audience thinks Utah should take him Peterson, 16% on that.

Question on, you mentioned the fugitive. I was noting this in our draft grades. I was like, do you think Darren Peterson sees any sort of kinship with, you know, Richard Kimball the way he's in a bus, his, you know, his college season is like a bus crash and it's rolling down the hill

and he miraculously escapes it as it explodes and still gets taken. Number two, do you think there's like maybe some parallels? Shaves his beard, dives his hair. Yeah. It starts out that. I mean, there was one game where he told the coach, was not a big game, like 15 minutes before the game. I'm not playing. Not going. Yeah. That was when I've got really concerned. Look, the talents there,

we've talked about it a bunch on the pod. There's no question. If you're going to pick who is coming in the league in the last 30 years, who's looked the most like young Kobe, you would pick Peterson. There's red flags that I can't ignore. I don't know how it's going to play out. I'd be hesitant to make a prediction. but I will say this is the best scenario, I think, for him. It's going to be far away in the Pacific Northwest. Is that where's you?

No. But that's not Pacific. Mountain West. Yes. I mean, it's like almost 9 o'clock. How's that? I had a whole John and Vinny's two hours ago. To think Vegas, but like four out, it's like sort of, it's closer to Vegas than you

think out there. Yeah, West Coast, whatever. Yeah. Perfect spot for him. Well, I'm going to take a break and regroup after saying Utah. I was in the Pacific Northwest. We're going to be back in one second. We'll do the rest of the winners and losers.

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Product availability varies by region, exclusions, may apply. Winners and losers, we got to hit Memphis. Shout out to our guy, Verno. Verno was at a draft party. He said the entire city was rooting for Boozer. No disrespect to Peterson, but I think that city's had a little bit

of a roller coaster ride the last few years with unreliable guys. And I was basically looking forward to a guy who you could just come into the league in pencil in for 20 and 11 every year for the next 12 years of his career. He actually sent him the video. The crowd exploded at the draft party when Peterson went number two.

So this is like a classic Memphis guy. This is the Grin'Grind Grizzlies. He would have fit right in. You have him and Boozer. Him and Coward and maybe Eady. Wells? I like Wells. Well, yeah, they have a bunch of dudes.

And I think you just tell them coming out of the gate if Jock calls you to go out and celebrate the pick. Tell them you have the sniffles and maybe get out of that. that one. What do you think of Boozer, Memphis, Kyle? I think it's going to be great. I mean, like you said, he fits their sort of organizational identity, you know, from the past, but he also, you know, they're big on analytics. They're big on efficiency and winning players and things like that. So he checks both boxes. And I feel like whenever we say grit and grind, I think sometimes we say we make it sound like, you know, we're prioritizing that over skill over everything. We're just going to claw you to death. It's like, Boozer plays that way. And he has all those things,

but he's just kind of like a modernized version of his dad. I heard Legler say, Kevin Love, that was something we had in the guide. That's something that I've thought for a while, that he's just got all these kind of intangible skills that he can, you know, he can space it if they want to play him and Zach Edie together. I think he'll make, like, Cam Spencer. He'll make Cam Spencer and Cedric Howard better with his passing so they can work off the ball. It's a great fit, man.

And it's organizational mouthwash. Like we were saying, you know, if Peterson had been there at three, do you think they even would have taken him? Like, would they, you know, it's such an opportunity. Maybe you don't pass it up. But I think this is the outcome that they all wanted. You know, I asked for an O earlier in the night. I was like, I mean, is that who in resounding?

Yes, they wanted Boozer and they got him. Would have been an interesting one house if Boozer goes to naive Wilson, who is the most Memphis kind of guy ever. Like that's a classic, couldn't try harder. Great kid. Like, would have fit in with all the different teams they had. would they have done that or would they have rolled the dice? Then later house, they deal 16 for 17 and two seconds.

So OKC can take Bennett starts, which is the most predictable moment of the night. And then they go backwards from 17 to 21 with Detroit. So Detroit can take a Corey. They pick up three more seconds. And I'm like ready to stand on my couch and applaud because I think they're going to take Phylon and they took Lopez. So I did not stand up on my couch and applaud. I'm going to give them both a winner for picking up five seconds to move five picks backwards. But let me ask J.K.M. I don't understand. I thought when they picked for Detroit, when they took a Corey for Detroit,

I thought he would be an awesome guy for that young nucleus that they have going in Memphis. What do you think the thought process was not taking a point card? Yeah. The thought process is probably they're stuck with John Moran. They didn't want to bring in another point. I don't think they have a landing spot for him. That's kind of a similar profile to Moran except Akori. A Corey's super downhill, but he just leans scoring more than playmaking than Jha.

But, I mean, yeah, it would have been really fun. I think he would have been a nice change of pace from the size and the grinding kind of thing that they're going to have going on. just an interesting off-speed pitch in the way that Mara is going to be for OKC who I don't know if we're going to probably get to him in a minute but yeah I thought of Corey would have been really fun for people who haven't seen him I mean he's just like ultimate jitterbug I always say he's he's like

if an NFL kick returner was playing point guard like you just can't you can't stay in front of him and you can't grab onto him he's just he's greased lightning with a basketball on his hands he was one of the guys I was praying well I was praying for the one of those guards to fall to the Celtics in 27, Anderson, Phylon, O'Corey, like, just one of them,

just hoping that there was a run on other positions and sometimes guys get shoved down. And it started to happen with Phelon, because it felt like if he didn't, if Philly didn't take him, it really felt like the next couple teams wouldn't have taken them. And that,

sometimes that happens, but that never really happens. What were you going to say, House? Just I think it was a sneaky good pick by Detroit. O'Cory. Yeah. Yeah, really going to help them.

Yeah, you know what they needed? Somebody who could create a shot. Greed. In April and May and maybe even June. Well, great times for Memphis. They end up with the third pick. They don't win the lottery that might have gotten the best guy. House, are you, you'll root for boozer, but you don't want him to be too good, right?

You're hoping he's like a solid A-minus. I'm rooting for all of those guys. It's such a good draft. I'm fascinated to see now. You don't want him to be better than AJ. Just admitted it, House. No, it's all situational. Like, it's going to be impossible to, like, parse who, you know, we'll see, like,

from the raw offensive talent, you know, we'll be able to judge some. But, like, Peterson's going to look incredible in Utah. I'm prepared for that right away in the same manner that Dylan Harper looked absolutely bonkers. But remember, Dylan Harper played in the G League this season. Like, it wasn't right away. I think we screwed that up. I think Carter Bryant did.

I'm not sure Harper did. I might have screwed that up, but now you took my screw up. Oh, well, I, he, there was extended stretches where he was not getting minutes. No, well, that is true. Yeah. Stretches where he couldn't get on the floor. And it was clear that they were doing something in terms of the work. But the, it took him a while.

He was a slow, slow burn. I don't think that's going to be the case with Peterson. I think we're going to see him right away. I have another winner. This is a quick one. the Knicks being a defending champion at the NBA draft. It was weird. Was that weird?

Happy Nick fans. They celebrated the title multiple times. The Knicks were on the clock. Everybody was cheering. They showed the trophy. It was just happy. Nobody was booing. They weren't showing Spike Lee looking like he was ready to have six drinks.

They weren't booing the pick. You didn't see Nick fans just ready to be angry. Like the Jets fans are at every draft, it was just happiness, cow, man. Did you wonder for a minute if the booing would continue him or, you know, just that a habit? Just that they won and, you know, that would be just like a nice soothing balm on their bad feelings. I wondered if they booed silver, but of course, they immediately booed him when he came out. They did boo the San Antonio Spurs, which I enjoyed.

All right. I'm bouncing around. We haven't gotten to Chicago yet, but we'll get to them because they needed a loser. Loser, number 10, Brandon Burry. who I love, probably one of my three favorite guys in their draft. Could have gotten drafted by Dallas and played with Cooper Flag at number nine and Kyrie and just been in meaningful basketball games right away with a bunch of role players. He could have fallen to 11 and joined Steph Curry,

one of the 10 or 12 greatest players of all time on their last run of relevance with two years with Steve Kerr and Draymond and maybe LeBron going there. And the whole thing, he could have been part of that playing for Arizona. Steve Kerr, the Arizona connection. What happens? He gets drafted by the Bucks at 10, the crappy Bucks, the all-time mediocre.

There's never been a more likely 31-win team than this Bucks team. And now he has to fight for shots with a bunch of guys on their team. And I just got bummed out, Kyle. I think the good thing about Burrys, though, is that I don't know that he'll necessarily be bummed about that because he's just such a

quality, like, fits in wherever he, he is. I mean, it's a missed opportunity for him. Can I be a bump for him? You're welcome to do that. Yeah, I'll permit that. He's, yeah, I mean, he missed out on being in a more fun basketball environment in the, in the short term, obviously. I think for that you can clearly see the thinking for the bucks, though, it's just like they don't necessarily, I, you know, I hope they're not thinking they know they have a centerpiece right now. They're still going to try to figure out what their direction is and taking somebody that Burrys will fit into whatever they choose to do, you know, and then they took aim at with their other pick as sort of an upside swing. But I, I,

I thought he made sense for them to pick because he's just going to be around for whatever happens. And that's one of the things with this draft house. I feel like 20 years ago, they'd take Amen at 10 and Burry's falls to the Warriors at 11. And then we spend the next five years going, are you fucking kidding me? How does this happen?

But no, the Bucks wisely were like, you know who we should take the guy who's by far the best player in this spot right now? So now Burrys has to go to this weird team. If he gets a text that says, Kevin Porter Jr. and Kyle Cousbun want to take you to dinner tomorrow night. Again, I'd go with sniffles, maybe some bronchitis, maybe some tinnitus, maybe went to a concert. Your ears were hurting.

Right. Three years. Did you, were you surprised that the Mavericks did not take him? Because they took Mores Johnson instead. All of that whole situation with Dallas changed, I think, in a pretty dramatic way with the Dusty May thing. Yeah. Yeah. Like look at that situation that presents itself. And the most interesting thing is

Dusty May got to choose his favorite, who he thought was going to be most impactful at the pro level. And he chose Mores. Here's the best part about that house. He can also say he didn't choose it. Of course.

No, you're absolutely right. Yeah, so I just got the job. They were already locked in on Mores. Obviously, I told them he's a great kid, but, you know, I can't, I just got hired. I can't, come in and start telling these guys what to do.

Like, I, I just got hired a week ago, but, you know, he probably was like, yeah. Because everything, and this is why we all loved them, Kyle. Like, this was just the classic. These are the guys that would fall in the draft 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Just the heartbeat of a great team in college, the engine, all the quotes about him was like, we could never have a bad practice because of this guy. every time we needed to pick up in a game, he'd do something,

he was relentless, the most competitive motherfucker on the planet, all the stuff you want to hear. All things that we discounted for years and years and then finally started listening to, but you were a little more down on him in the draft guy than, where did you land on him?

Oh, I ended up with Merez at 13. So, I mean, I wasn't like out of him. Four ahead. Yeah. No, I mean, the argument there for him, he's really young too. I think people should keep that in mind. Like, Mores played a year of college at Illinois and went and played like Fiba U19 with like AJ and Michael Brown and those guys.

So he's really had a year. So he's young for a college sophomore and just really dogged. I mean, and I think that Cooper being there and making like the playmaking progress that he made and then you got Kyrie coming back where granted we don't totally know what's going to happen with that. Because you were thinking maybe they make a swing at like a playmaker type guy. there, but you talked about it that, like, I think the conventional wisdom has just kind of evolved over the years where you would just see teams get in the top 10 and be like, it's this illusion of being in the top 10 that makes you feel like you have to be in this mindset of like,

well, we're here. We got to like take this chance on an upside pick, right? It's like, and the upside picks year to year can be like pretty volatile. They can be huge risks. And you'll see teams take the swing at those guys and end up with like a Kevin Knox or somebody like, oh, you get tantalized. Like, oh, he's inefficient, but I'm tan. And the safer thing to do is to take the dude who can switch one through five like

Morez Johnson, who's a winner who's going to be on your team. He's not going to be a star, but it's a safe, smart pick. I like it. Yeah, I think it's good. I told you, I did this exercise. I went through the last five drafts and tried to separate the guys based on studs, playoff guys, or just wild cards. And wild cards can be upside or small guards or shooters.

And the playoff guys year after year, like in last year's draft, that was Cedric Howard, Murray Boyles, Carter, Brian, and Hugo were the four guys that are just guys that have that playoff profile that can guard different positions that have energy. They bring some sort of skill set that seems to matter when it

gets to April and May. In 24, the playoff guys were your guy, Saar, Pous, I can't give him a stud. But he's, you know, maybe Sir Jabaka in the right situation. Better Sir Jabbaq. Klingin. A.J. Mitchell.

Jared McCain Baylor Shireman right so again like no like small offense first shooting guards no kind of upside guys these are just dudes that play

and then the year before that was Kamara Kaysan Wallace Hakez Derek lively and Puzzemski as like your playoff guys so I look at Mores and I'm just like he just feels like he's in those three classes

I can just see him in a playoff series everybody seemed to think okay C was either going to take them or trade up if they didn't feel like they could get them at 12 and I do wonder if they've infected the thinking of these teams a little bit. Back to Milwaukee though.

I had as a loser the honest trade already 24 hours later which I didn't like yesterday when we did the urgent gathering podcast. I usually like to get a blue chipper when I'm trading one of the best 25 parts of all

time. One of the things they got was the 13th pick in the draft and they took Nate A. who I think was the most polarizing guy of these first 15 classic. He hits, I don't want to be mean about somebody who's 20, but hits the draft checklist of, well, he didn't shoot last year, but he's a good shooter. Well, he struggled down the end of last year, but he was injured. You could see the upside. It's all like upside and not stuff if you actually watch the games and you're just like, what is this guy? Is he Brad Sellers? So what is this guy? Billis was like he got fouled a lot. He stuck his nose in there. It was just kind of, yeah, he sounds like he's talking about the coach's kid. We're really getting creative with it.

I mean, I do think there's something there. It's just a matter of where you, what level of investment you want to put in him. I mean, I was lower on him than consensus. I ended up with him at 20 just because of where I was comfortable with that. I mean, I heard somebody on another NBA show say that he reminded him of Perry Jones the third, which is kind of honestly, the way people used to talk about Perry Jones, he'd be like, oh, it's so big, watch him move. Oh, my God. And you just get caught up in these hypothetical vortexes where you're like, oh, the hypotheticals, man. It's like, no, I kind of would like to see something not hypothetical at some point.

But he's like Senac. It's like he's a guy who was a streaky shooter and he's just not comfortable at the rim. It's like maybe you can kind of develop him into like a solid role player. I don't know if it would be a star, but I think role players what I would aim at first. At least with Sanak, he rebounds, right?

He's got one scale of that. I can be like, well, at least he does that. Right? I don't know if they, amen, I think the Perry Jones thing

is a really good, it's a really good one. There's so many of those guys' house. Why do us feel like we had way more of those guys than the 90s and the 2000s? We probably did. Maybe just the whole infrastructure

for youth basketball is just better now. But listen, maybe it'll happen. I don't know. but he set off a lot of red flags for me. My favorite, though, about The Honest Trade, Shams, who seems to really want to make it work for the bucks that this trade was a good trade,

when it was, as I said yesterday, this is a trade you make when you want to keep your job and everyone else's job in the front office for another three years. Just a lot of picks that are out in the future. You're sort of rebuilding. You have these guys that you might keep or trade, and at no point does anybody look at you and say, well, why aren't we better?

just traded for Jalen Brown. Shouldn't we have 50 wins? Why do we have 30? Shom said at one point during the draft, the calls are continuing to come in for the Milwaukee Bucks for their guys. I find this hard to believe. I actually literally heard the opposite, that the calls were going out from the Milwaukee Bucks

asking if anybody was excited about this. Huss, you never gave your thoughts on the podcast about the Miami-Hannis trade. my first reaction was wow this is a rare lose lose trade you don't get a lot of those in the NBA now for Miami had Miami had to do it because what the hell else were they're going to do but yeah I didn't like the trade for that it is yonness so yeah I'm being a little I get it from their side yeah I get it from exactly right but like okay great job they moved up from being the playing 10th team to the

fifth best team in these. Six best team? Yeah. What do you think, Kyle? You think they move that high? I mean, this is the conversation to be had, right? Well, you're factoring in five seed. You're saying Janus is going to play 70 games with five six. Exactly right. That I am doing.

That all of their top six guys are going to play 70 games because they can't afford for any of those guys to miss 15 or 20 games here or there. They really can't. When we did the pod yesterday, we're like, well, they'll bring Norman Powell back and then today it's like yeah norm pal is not coming back then have enough money to pay them so we'll see they can patch it together but would you think defensively i think they could be pretty interesting yeah i mean they're gonna they're gonna have to work their magic in the margins and finding guys though i mean because you're gonna you're gonna need some more uh you know shooting yeah you're

gonna need some more shooting i mean but that's kind of their specialty they pull those guys just out of the out of nothing like they find them they target them and there's a few guys in this draft i think that they could go target. But I'll be, I'll be interested to see if they climb as high as five. I mean, Yonis being on your team automatically makes you dominant in some capacity. And he's always something you got to deal with.

So you guys might be right. I might be a little on the cynical side. I'm just sad for the Milwaukee fans. The Milwaukee fans deserve the end of Yannis to be better than it turned out. They got bummed out, blown out of the playoffs two years ago. They got blown out of the playoffs or three years ago, two years ago,

then didn't make the playoffs last year. Yeah. I just, it's a bummer. And one thing I forgot to say yesterday, and I wish I had been harder on this part yesterday, you know, they shouldn't trade Yannis a year ago, which we've covered on many pilots,

but I should have said yesterday. Not only did they not trade Yannis a year ago, they went all in with that Miles Turner, Hail Mary that involves stretching Dame Lured for $22 million a year all the way through this decade. And now they've just traded Yannis for way less than they probably could have gotten.

another loser. It's 2026, guys. The NBA still has to do this thing where teams make a trade, but then somebody's on the clock and they make the pick, but we just found out five minutes ago that the pick got traded.

Why can't we figure this out, Kyle? Why not? How hard is this? We have everybody on the desk just said they flip 16 for 17. It's not, it's OKC in the clock at 16. No, Memphis takes Bennett starts. no, they're taking for OKC.

We just heard that, why do we have to do this? Is there like some kind of legality thing there where they can like speculate about it on the broadcast but on the NBA like can't officially say it? Is it like House, is it something more strict like that? Like, or what is it? Well, they have to, I'm sure there's a process for submitting the trade

and the trade has to be approved by the league office and until that's done, you know, no trade is official. So. House, they can do whatever they want. There's a lag. They can. make to do anything. Speaking of doing anything, you can, you can, uh, you can vote on Netflix right now, whether you think Janus will ever make the finals in Miami. Not even win the finals, make the finals.

What would you take beyond that house? No chance. No chance. No chance. Oh, no chance. Zero. Never say never, but unlikely. Can we talk about how it should not be two nights again? Don't, do you not, do you not miss the one night experience? Because the second round's so bad. Like, isn't it a waste of everybody's time to do it in what, like in two nights? I just, I want to go back to one. I have always wanted it to be, especially after having done the draft a couple years, just the first 14 picks and take 10 minutes between picks.

Oh, I like that. That way, they can have, this is my next loser, by the way, the Lisa Salter's interviews when there's real basketball shit going on. Who are these for? Who are they for? Who are they for? They do a set with the freaking living room.

What the fuck is that for? Kyle. What? does this moment mean to you? It means a lot. It means a lot. I just got drafted. It's so meaningful to me.

It's my dad. Really, really, yeah. Catheretic stuff. There's real basketball shit. Like the Clippers took, you know, Wogler at five, and it's okay, now what's going to happen

with these next four picks? And we, it's just, I just feel like everybody watching this draft cares about the basketball stuff, not the family stuff. Does we just some more, in the weed, like, maybe not too far in the weeds,

but just can we get a little more like, what's this going to look like on court, like go to the screen, show us a clip. They had two channels. They had ABC and that ESPN, and somehow they had Lisa Salters on both of them doing interviews. Pick one. Have ABC be the one my wife would watch because she likes the interviews.

I want to know all the mechanics of the draft as it's happening. Atlanta's on the clock at number eight. It's like, are they going to trade this? There's been rumors all week that they might trade this. Who would trade it? What are the candidates? Could they trade this right now for Trey Murphy? But no, we had to, we had to interview Darius Acuff and his family.

And I just don't know who that's for. I don't get it. What's a back of the envelope math guy's name? We could have that feed where they go to him and he just for 30 seconds shows you like the, the analytics or the. Oh, Kornacki? Yeah, Kornacki. Something like that. He's on a different channel.

But yeah. Jim, well, we'd just, we'd run him for this. The equivalent. Indeed. Good news, guys. the calls are continuing to come in for bucks players. The phones are just ringing. Yeah, you just got a Kuzma call.

Winner. It was Sampsonite, the luggage company. Oh, his bags are packed. The votes came in, too, for Janus, and 87% of people watching this said, no, he will not make the finals of Miami. 87. Sorry, Miami. Winner, Darius Acuff going to Sacramento. Is he the most fun Sacramento King we've ever had?

What's your top three house? Well, C-Web? They were so cold. White chocolate? Yeah, I mean, like, dude, yes.

I mean, come on. Mitch Richmond? All, sure, sure, yes. Would you put boogie on there? That era,

Doug Christie was an endless source of the amusement. Doug Christie wasn't fun. Oh, yes, he was. He was. Entertaining to talk about. He sure was.

He sure was. Doug Christie inherently fun is kind of, I don't know about that one. I'll phrase another way. Who is the best league pass guy? We've had, I've had league pass since 2000 or 2001. Who's the best league pass guy they've ever had? That's white chocolate, end of story, right?

I mean, that run, like early basketball internet where they were like the clips where you could watch the top 10. I don't know. I always joke about this. The white chocolate is a problem versus what it was like to just watch white chocolate for 82 games. But that was pretty big disparity. That was pre widespread league pass. So perception was reality.

I was seeing those clips and I was like, he's great. And I didn't realize he was not great for years. It was a long time. There's a chance. Acuff is just absolutely awesome on the Kings. And everyone in Sacramento is going to be wearing A Cup jerseys. I'm all in. House and I have been all in, really for the entire college basketball season.

He loves him. He checks every box for me, including it's not perfect because he's not gigantic. He might get picked on defensively. He's going to a franchise that has had been living under a ladder and has black cast cats on the front door when you walk in and every sort of bad luck broken mirrors everywhere and every sort of bad luck thing you can have. I just think the kids got it. And we'll talk about one team that passed up on him. But Kyle, are you as on a scale of one to 10? Where are you compared to being house? House and I are 10? I think the framing of how I like Acuff is maybe a little

different than I don't know, I don't know what you all are envisioning for him. But I thought of him, If you're riding him as your primary offensive star, who's just always got the ball on his hands and you're living and dying with what he does in the half court, I don't love that as much as I like him as like a very, very good game manager guy who can hit open shots, who can bring stability.

Lord knows the Sacramento Kings could use that in all facets. I mean, it's funny. It's almost been 10 years ago since they took Fox. That was the last time that they took a promising guard who was, you know, kid and everything. I'm with him as not as necessarily like this. Our whole solar system revolves around this guy. I think he's probably better as like your third star. I think if you're going to build a team like a high level team. How's, could he be as good as Kyrie, in your opinion? I have a

different comp for him that I felt this way for a long time. I really feel like he's a second coming of Dame. I feel like he's Dame 2.0. And that that's what's great. I'm going to steal it. 44% from three as a freshman in fucking college. And could just, they weren't easy threes. Volume three. They weren't open threes. Yeah. He didn't play with anybody that can pass the ball.

He was the only dude on that. That team was yakety sacks. They were athletic, but they didn't have anybody. He shot like 51% on catch and shoots. And he barely got any. That's another. I think dames way better. The Kyrie, he just doesn't wiggle.

Oh, as a can't. He reminds me with the Kyrie part that he reminds me of is just the either-hand thing in traffic. Like his ability to just finish at these weird goofy angles. I don't think Dame could do that. Dame came in in the league after, I think he was 22 and was good right away. But it took him, I would say, three years. Like I remember he had a really bad playoff series in 2015 against Memphis. It took him a couple of years to then go up that next level.

I feel like A-Cup's going to be further along and he's younger too. but I like the dame thing. To me, that's the motto of like, could he be at 25 points a game, like 25 and 7 has the ball a lot? Maybe you need some extra offense next to him, but that would be what I see, Kyle. Yeah. I said, when did dame hit the game set,

the series winner? Was that 14 or 15? Yeah, it was later. It was, I think, the 17 range. It was after KD left OKC. So anyway, the Kings, who, you know, have been, are probably the biggest train wreck in the league. I would say, do we have a bigger train wreck?

Now they have a fun player. I'm excited for their fans. I don't know if this was a winner or a loser, but the Warriors, it seemed like Joe Lacob had an argument with Mike Dunleavy in the draft party. And it might not have been. I'm just seeing what I said on social media,

but I thought that was pretty funny. Winner, Kyle, you love this one. The Spurs at 20. It drafted your guy. You've been riding for somebody. Why don't you tell us about him? Jane Quaintens was like a pretty highly regarded prospects. He went to Arizona State last year.

And everybody that watched his tape from Kentucky this year, I've had people be like, oh, you're just, it's just Kentucky. I'm like, he barely played for Kentucky. It's like it really is not that. All of his tape is for Arizona State. He was 17 years old and was like defensively just ridiculously dominant. I just think that I had this thought process during the playoffs. He's he's probably, if he's.

he's healthy. That's the big question is that's the thing that happened between now and when he was dominant Arizona state. He, you know, towards ACL came back too early. There's some, like, real, like, time lord kind of worry about, like, is this going to keep happening with him? But if he's right, I think that he could net out where he could be as high as, like, five in this draft in, like, a few years from now because he's that defensively special, in my opinion. I know people have worried about his offense, but I'm just like, this dude dunks everything. We don't worry about what Mitchell Robinson does around the basket. I'm like, he screens and he dunks everything.

So he's time lordish. You had this, you tweeted this one in May. You tweeted how he'd be the perfect guy for the Spurs. This was like a month ago. I mocked him. I mocked him to the Spurs in one of our mocks because I was like, I didn't have any intel. I was just like,

I think this just makes a lot of sense. He fits their brain in terms of the type of kid he is, too, a little soft spoken, pretty bright kid. He plays chess. He's a big chess player. And then, yeah, after one game during the playoffs, when OKC beat the Spurs,

I was like, they need acquaintance. They need draft quaintants. would you would you rather would you rather drafted him or a head coach what a setup so rude

so rude why did you make me make that joke you texted me to set you up with that now he didn't now listen Mitch Johnson's a great coach none of that finals was his fault except for the 43 things that happened

that were port of the coach the whole team is young they're all experiencing this for the first time together as young Don't blame him. They're all young. All I know is we, House and I made fun of Rick Adelman during college and then after the college.

By the way, R. IP Rick Adelman. He was, Hall of Famer. No, he was great, but we would always get mad about his game management. And Mitch Johnson's game management was a hundred times worse than all the,

all the stuff we had with him or Dunleavy or some of the other coaches we used to make fun of. So I don't know. He gets a pass for that. He's younger than Steph Curry. He's young. He's young. That, that whole thing I chalk up.

But I think Quaintance is absolutely perfect because, you know, it solves a lot of the defensive challenges that this team. They just need, they still need size, which is a very weird thing to say with Wembe. Who cares whether or not Quaintance can score? It doesn't matter. You're not worried about. You have a year with them too because you have Cornette.

Yeah. I think Carter Bryant's going to play for them next year. By the way, Netflix did a poll for is Darius Acuff the most fun King's Rookie basically ever and 54% said yes Kiki Murray had a lot of buzz when he when he brought him in

more fun than Kegan Murray. Come on No but I'm saying the buzz surrounding him and as he arrived there there was a big excitement exciting cutting yeah one more winner before we go to break Darry

trades Jared McCain for pick 22 in three seconds and then Jared McCain goes to OKC and does really well there. And it's, I think, one of the reasons Darrell Murray gets fired. Well, Philly with 22, takes Phylon, who is one of my favorite guys in the draft.

I think he's been vindicated. Great trades. Just like that. Love it. McCain was a declining asset. He just turned him into Phelon and two more years out of a rookie contract. Let's go, Daryl.

Somebody hire him. I had it on good authority that they wanted bylon last year. They might have promised him last year. the Daryl's vision fulfilled. And yeah. Some Daryl juice behind him. Some Daryl sprinkles.

Daryl juice. Do I like Phylon too much? Or like because the knock on him is he's getting too skinny and there's a whole weight limit thing with point guards where if you go below 175 pounds, people get concerned, I don't care. I was a little more leaning towards the Hornets taking him. I thought that's who they should. have taken, you know, I know the Christian Anderson pick that I know our guy Con is going to have

another dude who's a great, uh, dual pull-up shooter fits their brand. But I thought A-Cuff is a tougher player. Like I thought that he would be a better fit. Phelan, yeah, yeah. I thought that Phelan would fit with the Hornets better. I was surprised they didn't take it. I agree. I thought every pick after 14, I was ready for him to go. And guess what? House, now he goes to 22. He goes to Philadelphia, a city that takes everything personally and hates everybody else. And he's going to have a giant chip on his shoulder. It's going to fit right in. It's going to be a great situation for him.

All jokes aside, I think that with that backcourt and, you know, what they're capable of them together. Yeah, let's do it. All right, we have a lot more to get to. We're going to take one more break. It's like going to be a little bit longer one. We have time to look at Twitter for two minutes.

But we're going to take a break and come back with the rest of the winners and losers. And now for a special part of today's episode, where we're going to be talking about the superior matches, teams and players of FIFA World Cup 26, brought to you by Miklob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26 and a superior light beer. So let's get into the moments that stood above the rest and made a superior level of impact, at least so far. We're still pretty early in the World Cup. My MVP's right now, messy has to be number one, already a legend, already probably leading the go combo, had five goals in two games.

Missed a penalty kick to make it a little interesting in the second game that he played, but it was so great to watch, so special. And I was thinking he might have the highest approval rate of any athlete in any sport right now. Who doesn't like Messi? If somebody said they didn't like Messi, you would look at them like they were staring at you cross-sight or something. It's an insane opinion. Everyone loves Messi.

That's it. This just reinforced that. So that's one. Second one for me, Team USA, which, through its hat in the ring as a perennial power. It's not perennial because it's the first time it's happened in 2010, but it sounds really good that it's a perennial power. But yeah, this is the first time we've actually thought

that an American team could make maybe the final eight, maybe even the final four as crazy as that sounds since 2010, since Donovan with the Algeria goal. And it's been a long 16 years really ever since. And now hope again, very exciting. To the point they're playing their third World Cup game, they can rest most of their starters. So that's been great.

Third thing for me, Alexei Lalas, great job getting everybody talking about the Fox Studio show. Good job. People are talking about it. Fourth one, the African nations. You have Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, Cape Verde, and the D.R. Congo, all probably making the Final 32. I think the record before was three,

but I just watched today. I watch Ghana, Thai, England, they parked the bus, which as somebody who's been involved in a lot of youth in high school and college soccer watching over the years, it's mostly annoying when teams parked the bus. But in this case, Ghana did a really good job. They needed a tie. They parked the bus. They knew what they were doing.

And they got out of it. Now they're going to make round 32. So just cool, though, to see like this entire continent kind of make their presence photos. with the extra teams. So you have that. Goals. We have more teams, which, you know,

there's six to eight teams that probably have no business whatsoever being in the World Cup, but it has led to more goals. It's led to, you can do parlayes where you bet somebody to have two goals in a game

with somebody else to have two goals in a game, like all kinds of fun things. Who doesn't love goals? As we keep going in the World Cup and the games get better and better, it's going to be a lot of one-nothing, a lot of two-one. You're going to miss some of these goals.

Ronaldo, that's been fun. Is he washed up? Well, he scored two goals today against a team that wasn't good. But he had two goals. But it's fun to watch somebody just trying to hold on who doesn't have it anymore. Who can't identify with that? And then last but not least, for me, just out of the early stuff, it really looks like we're getting France versus Germany in the round of 16.

I like when we have World Cup matchups that also feel like they could have been any sort of major conflict that we've had in the world in the last 400 years, right? France, Germany just feels weighty. It feels important. It feels like that's a game that should be in the finals. Now we're going to get it in the round of 16

and it's going to be awesome. And we're going to get Mbapé and a very, very fun France team who if I had to pick right now, I'm leaning toward Argentina just because of Messi and just because they play so great together, but France would be the other one. I think those would be my two. And not hot takes because those are two of the favorites.

But anyway, those are my superior moments. Ultra wants to hear your superior moments from the FIFA World Cup 26. You have the chance to vote after every FIFA World Cup, 2026 match for the superior player of the match on the FIFA Plus app. That player will get the superior player of the match trophy, representing the host countries of Canada and Mexico. And of course, the US of A. Celebrate every goal, save, and win with U.S. soccer and Mikhailob ultra.

So before we continue with the winners and losers, one of my favorite things is to go back and look at the top 100 high school class of all the high school guys who then just got drafted, which is the DeBanza class. And if you go back, DeBanza was one, Peterson was two, and Boozer was three. Wow. Start there. Can you guess who the number four pick was? He was somebody taking in the first 20 picks.

But House guess because I follow with this stuff. Oh, you already know the answer. Kyle. Kyle probably knows the answer. A win in the top 20. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I'm scrolling through super fast. House don't cheat. Amen. Amen. Amen. That would be my guess. House cheated. No, it's just, I have the draft up. I have this is the draft. How old is. Okay. Nate Amette was fourth. Some track pad action over there. I was suspicious up. Yeah, because I'm looking at the draft.

Taylor Wilson fifth. And number six, the Celtics pick. Yeah, baby. This is something... They used to do in the past with Danny Aange. They would take these dudes that had a weird college year. And I don't think he even had a weird college year, but they would take somebody that they're basically banking on what he was the year before his college year.

I remember they did this with Avery Bradley, because Avery Bradley was the number one pick in the draft. They took him whatever. A-Cuff was seven. Brown was eight. Co-of-Pete was 10. Burry's was 12, and we could keep going. And then Kingston Funming's 22.

Can I give you an example of a good version of a guy falling the way that Snack did is an example of it working is Jane McDaniels coming out of high school? Oh. Was a kid who thought Bill gets got very happy. Tell me more. Jay McDaniels was a kid who basically thought he was Kevin Durant coming out of high school and played. He was just like, I'm as a dribble pull-up guy, a tall, dribble pull-up guy. Something happened to him when he was in between. between college and the NBA,

where someone got in his ear and was just like, hey, man, you can make a lot more money if you do this. And it got through to him and he turned, just the switch flipped. And suddenly he's this defensive monster. Sanak, I'm just saying, there are many paths to being successful if you have the right people around you.

So I hope that's what's happened here. That's what I told House when I wanted House to be a competitive eater when he was in law school. And I was like, you can make a lot more money eating. I know you can do this. He didn't listen to me. All right.

So more winners and losers just quickly. Dusty May we mentioned, who gets this Dallas job, has Cooper flag, and then three of his kids get drafted in the top 12. That was pretty fucking cool. Like that. Okay. This is a combo, the Hawks and the Pelicans.

Hawks as the winners, Pelicans as the losers, because they traded Derek Queen for Kingston Fleming. as it turns out. That is the final final haul on that trade from a year ago. So I'll ask both of you, who would you rather have, Derek Queen? Maybe this

would be a good Netflix poll. Derrick Queen or Kingston Fleming's. Who would you rather have for the next 10 years? I was amazed by Derek Queen. So you're pro Derek Queen. I think it's the way it shook out,

it's now a closer call. It doesn't excuse the unprotected nature of the pick. There's no excusing that ever under any circumstances. But having seen Derek Queen play NBA basketball against NBA players, I know that he can play in the NBA.

I know he's got, you know... I really liked him too. I don't... I think he's going to have to be on the right kind of team with the right kind of people around him. And that person is not Zion Williamson. But, uh, but I do think it's quite, we'll see with Fleming's. What do you think, Kyle?

Uh, Queen was, I mean, they both have issues, right? I mean, when you weigh them and get this, because Kingston's a little small. Derek is like, is he a center? You got to put him next to like a stretch five to afford to really work. So there are a lot of kind of caveats to work through. I personally think I think I would lean towards Kingston right now. Just because I think Kingston is going to be additive in that people are like pitting him against these other guys as like scoring guards.

Kingston like is very, very fast like getting off the ball. I think his shot's going to come around. He's a transition monster. I compared him to like Tyrese Maxie a little bit and transition with his speed. But then, you know, I don't know. I'm still not sure if Queen is going to be like a playoff level guy. Like the defensive stuff just really concerns me.

Is the shooting going to come around? Right. Could it be a good stats, bad team guy, basically? Can you imagine Queen playing in like any of the last two series? Like I just kind of feel like they'd go at him every single time, you know? I like him. The thing I do like about him is he's always excelled, wherever he's been. He's one of those guys, which is like the best part of Camboozer, too.

Like wherever he's been, he's been on good teams. He's been the guy. They're putting together a little Netflix poll. We're going to have the, we're going to have the people decide. Fleming's or Queen? This would be one of the only polls ever. The Hawks end up with Fleming's. They took Zuby, one of my, at 23, who was one of my favorite. I thought he, I was hoping he would get to the Celtics. And they used their cap space to trade for Aaron Wiggins, basically got him for free. And I really like Aaron Wiggins. It wasn't his fault. He was at this completely loaded team. And they resigned McCollum. I like where they're at. The one thing they were really missing was somebody like Fleming. Fleming's like, you know, a point guard who could guard other teams,

point guards who could push the pace, create a little offense. I like the pick. I thought that's who they're going to take. And I still really like Burry's. That was the only thing I was thinking was could they take him, maybe play him and McCollum together. But I get why they did. what they did. So we do have results. Netflix audience, 67% for Derek Queen. There we go. 33% for Fleming's. Joe Dumas vindicated one year later

after getting pillared on this podcast everywhere else. How many of those people have seen kicks and themigs play and you think? Yeah, well, we'll see what that poll looks like in a year. No offense to them. Good night for the Hawks. Good night for the Clippers, who is another winner. They turned Zubots

who I voted for 13-M-M-Bah couple years ago. but last year it was not playing like it. They turned him into Wogler and a 2020-9 pick. I thought Burry's made a little more sense, but Wogler the higher upside. And it really seems like, Kyle, it feels like that 46-point game against Purdue was a transformative draft pick thing.

Even more than the final four, like every time I saw Billis on a show, he was talking about it like he watched a UFO land. Like, what this kid did against Purdue? And I watched all the highlights from it. It really was great. He was nine for 11 from three, but that's kind of the,

that's the game you point to. If you're like, hey, can I spend me 10 minutes on what this kid's like? And you'd send him the Purdue game and be like, this is, this is the best version of him, right? That was an example of a team that Purdue team was especially,

like, not equipped to check a 6-6 ball screen savvy point card who has like crazy triple pull-up. Like, he shot 40% on pull-up three's just in pick and roll on pretty high volume. So if you conceded that shot to him, he made it. And that, you know, Purdue had a kid, Oscar Clough, who was just kind of this like,

he kind of looked like a dad in a men's league out there. He was a good player, but he just, he was not, not fleet of foot out there to guard a Keaton Wogler. And he lit him up. So, yeah. But overall, man, I think this pick makes sense because I'm putting less pressure on him and Garland, like being on the floor all, you know, together all the time. I think you bring him along a little slow, let Wogler get the reps with the second unit, let me play with the starters a little bit and be like the secondary kind of guy because he's capable of that.

Like he has a lot of spot-up chops too. So he'll be a spacer for them until he's ready to kind of take more of the car keys. I mean, potentially three 20 point a game scores. Here's the big test for Wogler. I'm going to ask House. House, you're in town. And I have quipper tickets. They're not, they're not playing anybody.

It's not like Golden State or somebody that we would be like, of course we're going. It's like a middle of the road team. It's not Milwaukee either. It's like, it's not Brooklyn. Let's say it's like the Pistons. Well, you'd be excited to see the Pistons. Definitely, yeah. It's like a, it's like the, Phoenix.

Phoenix is in town. And I'm like, we could go, we could drive down the game. It'd be like 45 minutes. This will be, we'll eat at the game. And you get to see Keaton Wogler. Are you saying yes or no? Is that pulling you away from a good meal house? Or we could just order food at my house and watch games on the three TVs.

Does Keen-Wagler get you to get in the car and go 45 minutes to the Intuit Dome to go see him? The problem is I have really good seats. I haven't been to the Intuit Dome yet. So I would definitely say, yeah, whenever the first time is that I'm there that we can go to a game, I'm going to go. You don't want to go. It won't matter. But I do, I am interested in whatever. this Clippers team ends up being

because they're in the midst of not quite, they're retooling. It's interesting to me. And I love Wogler's IQ. The thing I was wondering about, where was he on your high school list? Because he didn't exist.

Right. He didn't make the top 150. Right. He had one of the great out of nowhere runs in the history of college basketball. Yeah. What about the Stanford kid, the point guard? Didn't he also come out of nowhere. Yeah, not like that.

I mean, people knew who he was. Okay. Well, he was going to Harvard. He was supposed to go to Harvard, so I don't... The thing with Wagner, Wogler, I'll call him Vogler, like he's related to Franz Wagner. The thing with Wogler, if you're just going ceiling from the fifth pick on, he probably had the highest ceiling, right, Kyle?

Like, that's somebody that, like, he might be Shagg, Gilges, Alexander for all we know. because if you're talking about just watching, I actually went back and watched Shea's Kentucky, his year, like the 15-minute YouTube clip of Shea. And it's like, you can see the pieces of it. You couldn't see the MVP version of it,

but you could see the pieces and the footwork and the two-way game. And he was a better two-way poor than Wogler was. But Wadler offensively was way ahead of where Shea was at Kentucky, right? Yeah, it's interesting because they're kind of inverted, like in the way that they, like, Wogler is all like, he's just so methodical,

like setting up ball screens to get to his shot, and he can just burrow his way into the mid-range and in college. Shea was the opposite. He was just like, he was just uncheckable getting downhill. Like, you know, he was just a lay-up master.

Well, a lot different than the way he plays now. In terms of having an upside, I mean, upside at this spot, the upside, I feel like kind of falls, fell off in terms of like the legitimate swings of they could be stars.

It's only like two or three guys past five. And I mean, including Wogler. So who are the other guys? A-Cuff is on that list for you or no? I feel like I kind of know what A-Cuff is. I don't know. I don't know where the levels are that we go that are just like.

Is Brown on this? Brown is, yeah, I think Brown is one of the guys. Another, a sneaky one is Dailen Swain, who the Bulls ended up with. I think he's like a sneaky. We have the Bulls coming up. Yeah, 15th pick. So, yeah. I think Clippers had to do it.

It's one of those things that if they had the eighth or ninth pick, it probably would have made more sense than would take in Burries. And it would have been a classic two guard, but they'd take a swing. Loser, Steve Kerr, who's going to have to coach Yaxel and Draymond at the same time. What is this going to be like? Two of the most passionate guys we've had in the league in 10 years.

Both winners, both super competitive, and they might fight to the death. I don't know what's going to happen. What's going to happen, Kyle? I kind of wonder what Yaxil is going to look like in a system that is going to require his attention to be divided a lot. We will see about that because he played on just a battering ram of a Michigan team. And his job was to guard the ball most of the time. So he had everything that was important to him was in front of him.

So I'll just be curious to see in the speed of the Reed React Golden State system while it's still there. They're going to have him probably pass this into some other era of a different style that I'm sure he'll define him. But in the short term, I'll be curious to see how turbulent his ability to keep up with the speed of what they do is. Because you could see some like, I mean, you don't want to say Jordan Pull. I'm not saying he's going to give him a concussion for a punch. But or to be the opposite. The vets will bring him along and give him like guardrails. That'll be good for him.

I don't know. It's going to be fascinating to watch. Well, he's almost the same age as some of the vets. so it's fine. It's going to be 24 in December. Are you older than Moses Moody? I 100% agreed with the pick. I thought they would have taken more as there if they,

but, you know, Dallas jumped on them at 9. House. Drayman, Yaxel, Curry, Porzingis,

and LeBron James. How far am I going? How far am I going in the West? That changes things. I think you can make it out of the play-in. I think you can make it out of the play-in. What if I changed Porzingis for Anthony Davis? Oh, no joke.

Anthony Davis, Draymond, Yaxo, Curry, and LeBron. I just go big. I have size everywhere, and I have two guys, Drayman and Yaxo who can guard perimeter guys. He made a face. Like, he'd take KP back. No, I would not. I would not.

There's no scenario. I mean, Kyle, it has to be. that would be one way to get in with Jalen Brown. Jaylen Brown loved them. There we go. We didn't really try to trade you. KP's coming back. So a three-way trade.

All's forgiven. House didn't seem that excited about LeBron and Yaxel and the Warriors with Anthony Davis. It didn't seem like a change of finals pick of San Antonio. Okay, C. Winner quickly, Chicago, they get Wilson in number four with a chip on his shoulder. I love Wilson. I just think I'm completely all 100% in. I'm all in.

and he's the first legit bull star since Derek Rose. You could tell me that Vucevich was a star or Jimmy Butler pre-Maiami. Fine, whatever. This kid has it. They'll probably build the team around him. I hope they keep giddy. They'll be playing up and down and everybody's going to love him. And then they get Swain at 15.

Kyle, would you say this is your number one winner of the draft, Swain and Wilson together? I like it together. I had a funny moment where I sat down, and I was like, huh, Caleb Wilson with this Bulls roster, and I started looking down the Bulls roster, and I was like, ah, fuck it.

I was just like, what am I even thinking about? I was like, you start trying to do the gymnastics of like. What if they had had I.O. and Kobe White on the team that they just could have brought back with their bird rights on top of Kitty. And Caleb Wilson probably would have maybe made more sense. I got a wild one for you.

I think, I think Daly and Swain could be swappable for Josh Giddy because they're similar place. Like, I think he could be, he could end up being a better two-way player than Josh and do similar things, similar size, playmaker, athlete, and then he can play defense.

So, well, to that point, every year there's the Kauai, right? Where Kauai in 2011, I sent house-equipped today of when the Wizards, Jay Billis is at the desk, and he's like, I think Kauai Leonard would be a great pick here at number six. I think he's going to be a really good player, blah, blah, blah, blah,

it fits in with the Wizards. And then it goes to the podium, And they're like, with the sixth pick, the Washington Wizards take Jan Besley. It wasn't quite Leonard. But every year there's the Kauai Leonard of, wow, if this guy could just blank, he'll be awesome. So with Swain, isn't it, if this guy can just, he can just figure out how to shoot, this kid's going to be awesome. Because he rebounds, he defends, like he runs the floor, he does everything else. But the shot is why he wasn't a lottery pick.

So what if he learns how to shoot, Kyle? He can score. He can really score. He's just got kind of a deliberate wind-up shot. And I don't know if it's a rebuild. He got to the point where if you gave him time, it wasn't like Thompson Twins where it's just like, all right,

let's just run the other way. This ain't going to happen. He can score. And he has touched. So you kind of can talk yourself into it happening. But somebody was asking me about like, who has the best handle in this class? And I was just like,

Swain has some of the best dribble separation in the class with like a Corey. Like he's, he's nasty. He can like, you'll watch him get low with the ball. He'd be like, I can't tell if that dude's like 6-1. And then when he stands up, you're like, holy shit, he's huge. He's like 6, 7 and a half in shoes. So it's a great bad for Chicago. Before we do our next winner and loser, we have to wake up house a little bit because it's 1230.

So House, I ordered from John and Vinny's. No, no, I'm just going to, I'm going to talk about food to get you excited. Okay, good. It's my wife's away. That means that means the food delivery order for the source. solo, you really have nobody judging you or anything. I did John and Vinnie's. I got the chicken cutlets with the gem lettuce salad that they have with the spicy dressing. And then you know what else I did? I just got a pizza. Even though I don't eat pizza and I don't really need bread.

I got the Sunny Boy pizza, which is bacon and cheese and there's some like caramelized onions on it. You didn't ask for a gluten-free crust or any of that bullshit, right? I did it. I gave the crust of the dogs and they were very grateful of it. rest of the dogs. I got a big plate. I cut up the chicken cutlet. I put it, put it in their spicy little salad. I put a little balsamic on it. And I just chowd down. And it was wonderful. These rare special unexpected where you're, you know, because you're married, you have reagnosis. You're with your wife and you have your time. It's a negotiation. For dinner. We're going to have to do this together. And JKM, you share. What are we going to share together? Oh, no.

Just like when you get the time where it's like, I'm going to order for me. and I'm going to have a cheeseburger, one of the hot dog with little cheese on it too. See, this is why I always win because I always play the only child card for this stuff. I don't want to share. I'm the only child. People just sleep alone. You do have that card.

You son of a bitch. I do. I just say, I don't want to share. I do that with everyone who is friends with me knows like desserts. I don't want to share dessert. I don't want to share ice cream with you. I don't want to share pudding with you. I don't want to share Sunday with you.

I never tried to share dessert with you. I don't want to share a piece of pie with you. I don't ask. I might grab the first bite, but I don't like sharing. I'm an only child. I'm not used to it. That's a great point. I don't know.

House had multiple brothers. He is his sister. Yeah. He's used to sharing food. Anyway, back to the draft. Winners and losers. So, Sean Marks, I don't know whether you give him a winner or loser. I'll let House decide.

Loser. I don't need any more information. You just said John Marks. The draft room, they're celebrating. Like they just won the finals. The whole that strapped from is celebrating. And it was because they were taking McCell Brown, who missed 14 games last year and has a bad back. And high fives around.

I mean, he's the guy out of all these top 12 guys, the guy I was worried about the most. I might be wrong. I'm not saying he's going to be a bust. I just have concerns with the injury prone stuff, durability. And the fact that he's talking in interviews about, I was in so much. pain with my back. Like, you're 19. Why do you have back problems? This makes me nervous, Kyle. Yeah, they just kind of slid it in there that they were like, yeah, he played fewer games to Darren Peterson. And the Peterson thing, we were speculating that. We still didn't

totally know what it was. And we're like, I think we're on the other side of this. It's not really bad back is like, that's not one that you won coming in. Like Michael Porter Jr. came in and had the, what, the microdiskectomy? I haven't had back surgery. But I think that was the procedure. Yeah. I don't know if he's out of the woods in the back thing, but even if he was, if we're just talking about him as a player,

my whole thing the whole time is just, he's super talent, man. I mean, like he pushes you to have like a high pickup point. He can shoot the shit out of the thing. He can really pass the ball with either hands. It's just he's a little chaotic. Maybe he rains that in and the half court like he gets it.

He seems to drive without a plan a little much for my liking to the point of like, it's a little bit of a lamellum. Esk chaos in a way that's, that's, but Lamello is also. You think Julius Randall and Michael Porter Jr. will enjoy that or no? I'm not saying, it could happen for him. He really does have a lot of talent. He has more, and it makes sense for the Nets if you're looking at the guys. They don't have anybody with that kind of upside on their roster right now.

Every year, Kyle gets super conflicted with one guy in the lottery. And this has been your guy for three months. You're just like, I, I thought you were saying, my God. Yeah, I've been conflicted about it for sure. Because he is probably, if you're building the buildings of all of these guys, he is one of the biggest buildings because his basement goes 10 floors down. But the ceiling goes pretty high, too. We're up 20 floors the other way.

I don't know. Listen, House, I'm admittedly terrible at analyzing guys like this. Because I gravitate away from these guys. They make me nervous. And I always am glass half empty on these guys instead of glass half full. these super talented, kind of chaotic. I'm not sure if you're durable. Like, I just get worried.

Where are you on this? It's the exact same place. And here's the problem. I feel like we've earned the skepticism. Like the Nets had, was it five or six first round? It was five first round picks last season. We set the over under at one. Will one of those five picks?

A year ago, we did this. A year ago. look like an actual NBA player. The plantation guy in April and May and June. Do we think that they got there? Do we think they got to one? Demin. That's it.

Maybe Trier is a 10th man? I mean, JKM, are we being too harsh? No one's rough. No on Danny Wolf. No on. It was Drake Powell was the other one from North Carolina, the athletic guy. Well, here's the thing.

This is one of my favorite draft things where you do a draft last year. And it's like, well, we took point cards last year. We can't take A-Cuff. Are you sure? Because eight-cuffs better than every point card you have. Name one who can play. It's like when teams do this in the NFL with quarterbacks.

We can't take a quarterback. We took one last year. It's like, yeah, you took a shitty quarterback last year. You still need a quarterback. Just because you took a quarterback last year, you still need one. I just would have taken A-cuff, and I would have figured it out

and tried to figure out what he looked like with Demmon. and just gone that way. I think if you're the nets, I'm not looking for upside. I kind of just want somebody good. I've just lost the city, which I had lost anyway. I lost it 19 times over with this next finals.

And I thought Aikov would have at least solved a little bit of buzz problems. Now they're keeping their fingers crossed with Brown, who has the upside. There's something bigger than Aikoff. Sure. They're past him being good. Who is he?

Who's your comp for him if he's actually really good? Who is he? Well, I mean, I've comped him to Anthony Simons and Keonté throughout because I've said, I'm not sure that he's like a bona fide. Like, I know I can build a team, a basketball team around. Kianti worked towards earning a little more positivity and optimism on that front this past year, not according to the jazz because they were like, hey, we want us to you to do it again. But I thought it was interesting that Mike L.

compared himself the Anthony Simons. So I kind of feel like he's going to be, that's kind of what I expect him to be. Like, this guy could go get 30, 40 on a given night. He's kind of our, he's sort of adjacent to our superstar,

but on any given night, he could look like a superstar. That's kind of what I expect him to be because he's super talented. And defensively going to be a struggle, but the talent's there. House, did that make you feel better or worse? Absolutely terrible.

I feel worse. I don't know. Ephraney Simon can't find a team. Poor guy like, everyone was, well, we tried with Hepherty for a little while. And,

you know. So the injury, he's injury prone. The defense might not be there. And he's adjacent to my star. I'm trying to get not conflicted for a minute. Just give me that.

Let me have that. Hey, y'all's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up?

That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style. love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Well, I'll give you a positive winner. We can

end on. Charlotte gets Steinbach at 14 and they take Anderson at 18. They take two German guys. They just said fuck it. We're double German in down. And guess what? There's another one tomorrow in the second round that they could take the guard who's the teammate on the young German team, right? Jack Kale, yeah. Yeah, people kind of like him. I wasn't that impressed with the thing. They should bring in Rondo

while they're at it. I mean, Schroeder. Rondo. Shruder. Yeah, Schroeder has a plate for sure. The German Ronto. Yeah. So other than Con having to learn German, I think both of those guys

are playoff rotation guys. I like Anderson. I just, he was another one of those guys. I was hoping would miraculously follow the Celtics where he's just, I know what he is. Like, he's going to be able to create offense. I don't think he's one of your three four best guys on a championship team or a high playoff team. But I think he could be the third guard on a really good team,

which is what he would be on the Charlotte team. So I like that. And then Steinbach, House, you would like Steinbach? Now, I'm not sure he'll ever be able to play defense successfully ever. But he is a motherfucking rebounder. Holy shit. I really, he was one of the guys I probably spent the most time on

because he's definitely an NBA player and he's definitely a rotation guy. and he might be a little flawed, but has a couple above average skills, Kyle, like seems like pretty high IQ, played, you know, with adults overseas when he was like 15, 16, 17, just got the shit kicked out of him. And he is an awesome rebounder, like awesome.

So I don't know, I kind of like the pick for them at 14, even though I'm not sure if he's ever the fourth best guy in a really good team. I think that he, I've said that he's like the spiritual successor, of Stephen Adams because you can watch him play. And he's just an absolute pain in the ass, tedious,

like, annoys people with his ability to just get his hand on every ball. But the fit with this Charlotte team, it just makes so much sense because you're basically just putting, like, a garbage disposal at the bottom of, like, he makes so much sense. I made this comparison that I used to, I love to shoot threes. I used to play pickup with this, like, 5-7 dude who was, like, the best rebounder I've ever played with. His nickname was The Wolverine.

His name's shout out to Kitty. But I would literally just shoot threes, and he would walk the ball back out to me at the top of the ark and hand it back to me. And I was joking with very, I was like, this is the equivalent of that for the Hornets. It's like they've got these guys who want to get shots up.

Christian Anderson 100% in line with that, one of the best pull-up shooters in the country this past year. Steinbach is just going to just inhale. Every rebound that comes like him is like a rock near an event horizon at a black hole. It's just like, it's going in the black hole. Like that's Steinbach. is like, I haven't seen any of this guy. I haven't checked him out. I love this.

He would have been the guy we would have loved to have played pickup with where he's like moving toward where the rebound's going to be as the guy's shooting it. He's just like, he's over there. That means the ball's probably going to go a little long and maybe bounce here and I'm just going to move here now and then I'm going to tip it in. Like he just

he's going to be a double figures rebound guy playing like 24 minutes a game and then probably will give up a bunch of shit on the other end. They need it though. They're dying for that. They need that size. They need that rebounding bolster. I wouldn't have liked them 9-10, but I thought 14 was the right range.

And the last thing we didn't talk to, which I'll let you guys decide if they're a winner or a loser. But OKC, who had 12 and 17, didn't trade up. And they took Mara, who was being rumored to be going 6 to 8 range at one point. I did this on my pod last week. The Maura stared at it. The minutes per game just weren't there. Like he barely played a UCLA, played 23 minutes a game last year. I think he is what he is, which is like he's coming off the bench.

Maybe Luke Cornett crossed with Porzingis on the Celtic style as like a change the game type thing and giving you eight, nine minutes in a half. I don't think he's a starting center. Eadie was different because Eadie played big minutes at Purdue and showed the work. Now he already broke down. But I think for what OKC wants, Kyle, this guy comes in. He's certain matchups, seven, eight minutes, some heart. Stein insurance. Pretty good passer, really good hands.

Seems like his teammates love them. And I thought there was a chance he could fall to Charlotte, which I think would have been great for them. But I think for OKC at 12, if you're not getting Mores and you're not getting Yaxel, this was the logical next pick, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it checks a lot of boxes.

You know, obviously there's that big guy in the West that this is akin to when Shaq was in the West. Six more fouls. just started affecting roster construction in a way that we haven't really seen in a while. That'd be interesting study to do, like, which guys caused the most ripple effect of roster construction? But Mara, yeah, the other thing, too, is that the idea of Mara kind of fits what I thought OkC might do with Edie a couple years ago. I thought that it would be interesting if they just took Edie and was like, we play this one way, but for 16 minutes a game, we're going to play in this other way that is going to be brutal for you to deal with.

We're fucking you up. Yeah. And I think Mara, but also Mara adds, he adds the women insurance, but he also adds another, he instantly would become one of their best passers, I think. And you could, you could play him with those movement shooters like McCain, who loves to play on and off ball, get him to what you, you got Isaiah Joe still. I forget his contract situation. But then Jalen Williams, like, I think he makes sense on that front, too, if they,

if they choose to keep him. You know what he just, what he just laid outhouse reminded me of in the mid-80s? when we had that Celtics Rockets finals, and it was Hakeem and Samson, and Mikhail Parrish, Walthenberg, and then everybody in league was like, we got to get bigger, need centers. And then all of a sudden,

there were these hilarious draft picks for like three straight years. John Conkak, Joe Klein, Ovee Blob. That was the error. People were just grabbing centers because it was like, oh, we need them, we need them, need them.

I don't know if this was the version of that, but you liked this pick too for them, right? Absolutely. For all the reasons, as JKM just laid out. But in addition, it's so consistent with the path that they're on because they have to flip out a couple of these guys

that they're at the end of the roof. Might be hard and stand. Yeah, it could be. And maybe Dort. And now we've got two viable sturt and Marr both. Guys, they slide in, rookie contracts. Not in a hurry. We don't have to, like,

they don't have to immediately contribute. They can get some minutes. They're sitting on Topich and the kid from Georgetown, right? And those guys might be, they may be punting on those guys. Maybe so. They never set the floor. Well,

Sturts was, thanks to Kyle and Tate's prodding, I became more and more fascinated with Sturts. The Minutes thing is like one of the craziest things I can ever remember in all the draft studying. He's like an Alabama running back. The marathon man. He played over 1,300 minutes in college.

It's like impossible. Nick David used to do to the final four. to the running backs. And now it just doesn't come out of games. I don't remember college basketball players. This being like part of the appeal is I don't come out like the way we would have centers 40 years ago. Good shooter. You seem to think, Kyle, you thought he could be a little initiating the offensive in the right?

Oh, yeah. In the right system, right? Yeah. I mean, he transferred up from Division 2. I think it was Northwest Missouri State and they just kicked ass and his coach Ben McCollum. And they just leveled up together. Went to Drake kicked ass one in the tournament. leveled up to Iowa, kicked ass.

And he just carried a gigantic pick and roll load. I just kind of feel like sturt's when he gets in the NBA is going to be like, you mean somebody else could handle the ball for a little? Like, oh, what am I going to do? I can just catch and shoot it? That's okay. I love this. You know, I just think that that's going to be a nice breath of fresh air.

But he fit, he grew up an Oklahoma City fan, if I'm not mistaken, he's a Midwest kid. And he's just a profile. He fits their profile. He's like, this kid will love it here. He won't complain once. He has one of those haircuts from like the late 50s, not early 50s, late 50s. Real big tin haircut.

He went to his uncle's, uncle's barber shop and he got like a little, but I thought that was a really nice one. It was right around, again, this goes back to the problem with talking about this draft. It was right around where he was supposed to go. You could call out the picks in real time as they were happening for the first,

I don't know, 15, 16, and probably be right most of the time. So, yeah, so, House, do you feel like, I think Wembe's losing sweep over this Maripick or now? Absolutely not. He's like, oh, another Oklahoma City chump that I'm going to put into my French fry machine and slice him up. He was like, you should have, should have gotten a PEDs dealer for Chad Holmgren.

She drafted that because I'm just going to run all over him again. All right. So before we go on winners and losers, this is a day after the Muwa. Oh, wait, I had one more thing. What was your favorite pick after like last 12 picks of the draft Kyle just for a team and matchup?

Because some people like the Lakers, the guy they got from Baylor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Carr. He's awesome. He's a good fit with them because I think that that's the right around. It's the right environment for him. They'll be able to bring him along slowly. And he's going to get the types of shots that are

going to be good for him. Luke is just going to, you know, baby bird feed him the types of looks. That'll be good for him. You know, I said I like the Quaintons pick. Other than that, I mean, Josh Jefferson is a good player. You know, that, of course, that's another sort of dubious shooter that Brooklyn picked up. Alex Caraband's a good ad for, I just actually just now notice that Sacramento is going to be, if you want to add two culture guys that are going to, you know, maybe start to shift some of the vibe.

Sacramento caravan's another dude who that's the last place I would have thought he would have ended up but you know guy played for Yukon one and I'm a really really winning player um so yeah maybe things are changing house where do you think Hugo would have gone in this draft Hugo Gonzales I call him Hugo where do you think Hugo goes in the draft second round house maybe where do you think Hugo would have gone no in all seriousness so where does he go he's 20 years old which version of you if he had come into this draft as the player that he is right now. We start for a year.

There's a new rule he gets to reclassify and go back in the draft and get drafted by someone else. Top 15. I don't know. Oh, thanks, House. Top 15? I think I would have him much higher than, yeah. Like, I think he would have been around Yaxel, honestly.

Listen, that's top 15. The national basketball fans having a lot of fun about Hugo potentially being the deal breaker for the honest thing. Is that what this is about? It is funny. I'm just telling you, they value him like he would have been in the top 12 of that draft. Okay.

And the thing is, here's the thing. And I don't know if I said this strongly enough yesterday. Like, they made one offer two weeks ago. And it was, you know, Jaylin and two picks. Was it a firm offer? Was it we'd probably do this? I don't know what they said. They never made another offer.

And I think the bucks were waiting for them to circle back. And they just, they were like, eh. I don't know. It almost made me wonder if they had buyers remorse after they made the first offer. We're like a day later, they're like, fuck, why do we do that? And then Milwaukee's like, hey, still waiting on that next offer and like, yeah, maybe tomorrow. And they just like never, they never made another offer. So I don't know how badly they wanted, Janus.

But I'll tell you this. A day later, I'm actually really relieved that that didn't happen. Now, we have to figure out the Jalen Brown part, which I think is going to be for an interesting ride. summer. How do you think it plays out, house? I think it's completely solvable. I don't know why.

I think that if they all say the right thing to do is to bring the team back together and we're going to go in and we're all together on this effort, then that's it. You know, Jalen can come in and they'll do a team meeting. Like those guys want a championship together. And I think that like, you know, it's business that's happening around them on the outside. But I think inside the locker room, J.B. and and and Tate them, like, they, they carry weight. And if those two guys, the most important thing is, are those two guys on the

same page? Does it seem like whatever? They're both in France right now. So there we go. All right? I don't know if they're together. They spend any time at all. Go find a bottle of Bordeaux together. Are you okay with that bill? I mean, they're in France. What if they're picking out clothes? It was a problem with AJ. I'm just wondering. I'm just asking questions. I just didn't know if I think I had to fly to France to get a suit. Now, the thing with those guys, I think a lot of the times the problems with the NBA is it's not the two guys.

It's the people around each guy. That becomes a problem. Okay. And, you know, you have somebody like House in my life being like, I can't believe the ESPN did that. It's fucking assholes. I'm like, yeah, they're fucking assholes. You just need me for that.

No, I didn't know that. They actually were assholes. I actually didn't need House for that. But yeah, I was thinking about the maddest I've ever been at somebody I worked with where I still did to do my job. But it was definitely after I got suspended for three weeks, two without pay. And then I had to go back and start writing my column again and do Grantland Basketball Hour. And you know what?

Like, I sucked it up and did my job. But that's what Jaylon Brown's going to have to do because he's making $57 million a year. So I'm sure his feelings are hurt. But what's he going to do? It's going to pay to play basketball. And he was in a trade and he's going to have to figure it out. Now, the bigger question for me is, do the Celtics think it's salvageable? And what happened over the last six weeks that made them think that they should pursue a trade with J.

Landin in the first place? So only they don't that. We did have a last poll house for the Netflix audience. Who is the most likely to end up in my will? And the choices were Hugo, Khan Knapple, or Joe House. And Khan won 62%. Of course. I was hoping all three of us might make it.

Why can't all of us get a little something? Cool. 33. Maybe that's how I'll split it up. I'll split it up by the results of Netflix. It feels fair. Listen, Khan and I have to work on our German this summer. We're going to have a very busy, busy summer.

Put him in the car. You can drive him. I wanted to be prepared. Drive him around L.A. You know, Gella 110. What are some of the good German food suggestions? Strusal? German food is the sausages and those, yes.

spetzel. It's like it's very heavy. It's good fall food. We've ordered, there's a good German place near us that we've ordered worst house. Yeah, that makes sense. It's good,

but you feel sick for like two hours after. That's why they have to drink the dark beer because the key is to make yourself feel even worse. Silly your stomach. Yeah, the food is heavy and it's like, what can we add to this? I'm German.

We're a brooding, vice-driven people. We want to sit around and, you know, that's what we want to do. What's your favorite German food? How's your last in the poll? You're 18% right now.

I don't have one. Who's ahead of you two at 20? I got cut out of the will. So what happened? Jesus, I was going to at least leave you some of the uncuts. Carpool con. Uncut sheets of my action in my attic. All right, Kyle, any last thoughts?

Oh, man. I mean, we covered a lot there. I think that draft from a talent standpoint was an A and from an entertainment standpoint, probably a C minus. Little uneventful, yeah. We got the lay couple argument. It'd be interesting to see what went on with that.

I mean, I didn't get to monitor the social media as much because I was writing as it went. But takeaway here, I mean, like we've said, all three, these top three teams could come away happy. I really think that's a distinct possibility. I don't know that we're going to have a secretary at Gap. We might, but I'd be surprised. House, last thoughts?

Other than AJ DeBantza is on your team? I want to find a young aspiring writer that we can do running diaries with, bring back the running diary, but I don't want to have anything to do with it by name. I don't want you to have anything to do with it. And I want J.K.M. There were amazing, amazing jokes to be made about many aspects of what we observed tonight. There were lots of things that we saw. Yeah, there was some texts.

There was like the sitting down in the living room thing had a ton. there was some very interesting family dynamics. So there was, there was like, you know, unexpected relationship. Some random aging cameos. It was,

there was the ESPN cameraman just honing in on the guys who hadn't gotten picked at. It's like, hey, it's filing and just. Get out of his face. That's a tradition, though. Are you sad?

Do you feel sad yet? Where are the tears? Show me the tears. Good. ESPN had five people on the booth, which would have driven crazy. Yeah, See, we need a burner diary.

That's my takeaway, because we can't have anything to do with it anymore. We can't make the jokes we used to make. I think you're right. Well, I'm sorry you lost in the poll house. Kyle, man, great to see. Great work on the draft. I thought it was one of your best ones. Joe House, congrats on the whiz.

Great as always. Thanks to everybody at Netflix. Thanks to Cahall and Eduardo and Jack and Chris as well for helping out with the live stream. Guess what? I'm not going to have a podcast on Thursday House. Do you know why? Are you going to Hawaii? No. I'm getting a colonoscopy. Finally. Fuck. Thank God. Not right by you. I'm doing it. You have no idea how you're going to be, you're going to come out when they wake you up. You're going to be like, oh, no, no, no, no, just put me back. Let me sleep for another hour. Give me more of the special. It's incredible. It's the best.

I mean, if I wish I had a call and ask me on Thursday, maybe I'll sign myself up for one. It's the best snap. That's the lesson at the end of this two-hour podcast. Take care of yourself. I'm going to take care of yourself. I take care of myself in all these different ways. And for whatever reason, this was the one thing I hadn't done. So I'm doing it on Thursday.

No new rewatchables on Thursday, though. We have the good sun going up. And then I'll be back on Sunday with a good son and the good butto. A new live show. The only way I will do a podcast before Sunday is if there's some sort of Jalen Brown trade. Even if it's right after the colonoscopy, I'm coming on. I don't care if I'm drug. That's the pot. Yeah. Post-Colonoscopy Jalen Brown trade pod. The drugs are good. Yeah. All right, Kyle. House. Thank you. Thanks to everybody, Netflix.

And I'll see you on Sunday. Must be 21 plus in president's select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in president in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. GameProhm. Call 800, 800, my reset. Call 888-79-7777 or visit CCP. dot org slash chat in Connecticut or MD gambling help.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline, MA.org or call 800, 32750 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 8778. Hope, NY, or text Hope, NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 8777-770-7867.