The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Bucks-Hawks Blahfest, CP3’s Legacy Run, NBA Announcer Slumps, Replay Fixes + Summer Trades w/ Bryan Curtis and Chris Mannix

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons shares his thoughts on a superstar-less Bucks-Hawks Game 5 (3:00), before talking with The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis about sportscasting legend Marv Albert’s upcoming retirement, the play-by-play Mount Rushmore, how instant replay has plagued the NBA’s television product, NBA Finals media story lines, and more (25:00). Finally Bill is joined by SI’s Chris Mannix to discuss Chris Paul and the Suns defeating the Clippers to get to the NBA Finals, how the Trail Blazers may handle Damian Lillard wanting out of Portland, the new-look Celtics, fake Ben Simmons trades, and more (1:11:00). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Bryan Curtis and Chris Mannix Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if the Len Bias story, hosted by Jordan Ritter-Khan, is The Ringer's latest narrative podcast? You can find new episodes every Wednesday on the Book of Basketball 2.0 feed. Here's a quick trailer. You've heard his name, Len Bias. 1980s phenom, second pick in the NBA draft. And then, cocaine, tragedy, one of the most shocking deaths in sports history. 35 years later, Bias' legacy is still making an impact. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, this is What If, the Lynn Bias story.

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standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that are when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com as well as The Ringer Podcast Network. I hope you're listening to our music podcast.

We have some really good ones. We got something for everybody. 60 Songs That Explain the 90s is fantastic. Rob Hervillo hosts that. I actually feel like it's gotten better every month. He really has complete command of it. He did Cakes the Distance this week, I think. I just listened to it. I love that band.

I love the 96 album. It's one of my favorite 90s bands. So I love that one. You can listen to No Skips with Shea Serrano, Brandon Jenkins, a.k.a. Jinx. We launched that a few weeks ago. They're about eight episodes in. The Ringer Music Show, they did a Jay-Z song draft. Black Girl Songbook last week did an incredible podcast.

Daniel Smith did it about Tupac as he hit what would have been his 50th birthday. And then last but not least, if you didn't listen to every single album with Nathan Hubbard and Nora Princiati, you can find it on Ringer Dish. You can also find it on the Spotify playlist. But I'm telling you, we really took it up a notch with the music stuff. I'm really proud of what we're doing there. Uh, the rewatchables, we did boys in the hood. That went up Monday, was really happy with that one. And then we have a special rewatchables coming on Sunday night, independence day, because it's July 4th. So,. So sometimes we like to drop big rewatchables on July 4th.

So that's what we're doing for that one. Independence Day, me, Chris Ryan, Shea Serrano, a surprisingly influential movie. I didn't actually realize how influential it was until I started doing the research and really thinking about it. But that is coming Sunday. I am not sure of the schedule yet for this podcast. It depends on if there is a game seven of Bucks Hawks or not.

But we're definitely not going to have a Sunday podcast and we'll either have a Monday or a Tuesday. So play it by ear. We'll see what happens. Coming up, I'm going to talk a little bit about Bucks Hawks at the top. Brian Curtis from The Ringer. We're going to talk about NBA broadcasters

and Marv Alber and media storylines, like how much the media loves Chris Paul and a whole bunch of other things. And then Chris Mannix from Sports Illustrated talking about the whole Chris Paul legacy arc as well as summer trade rumors and some really interesting Celtics stuff. So stay tuned for that.

It's all next. First, our friends from ProJet. All right, I'm taping this a little bit after 11 o'clock. On Thursday night, game five, the Eastern Conference Finals, which will go down in history as the least star-studded, important conference finals game of my lifetime. I actually went back over every basketball reference. They have like the playoff series where you can just go through playoffs,

then you click to the last one, you click to the last one. I went through every conference finals and even specific ones, looked through some of the games, trying to figure out if there's ever been a worse conference finals game. All due respect to the Bucks, all due respect to the Hawks, but the conference finals, this is usually when our bread is buttered. This is usually when we

have some of the famous playoff games of the history of the league. This is when Bird steals the ball against the Pistons. This is when LeBron puts up 48 against the Pistons in 2007. This is when we have the Chris Paul hamstring game against the Warriors in 2018. On and on and on and on. There's a million of them. I could just keep giving you examples

forever. Tonight, a huge, huge game. Series tied at two. Trae Young's not playing. We find that out within an hour before the game. And then we find out a few hours before the game that Giannis isn't playing either. So the two stars in the game, the two guys we wanted to see, the two guys who were healthy when this series started

in a league where basically every star was going down as the playoffs kept going along. But at least we had these young guys. At least we had Booker. At least we had Trey Young. At least we had Giannis. Well, Booker breaks his nose in 17 places, but keeps playing, has to have the mask. Giannis gets hurt.

It looks like his leg, he almost looks like plastic, man. His kneecap is going five feet backwards. Somehow it's only a hyperextended knee, but he ends up not playing tonight. And then Trey Young gets hurt in game three by stepping on a referee's foot. And I asked a bunch of people in my life

who love basketball, have they ever seen anyone get hurt by accidentally stepping on a referee? And none of us could come up with another example of this. So these playoffs, they're jinxed. They're bizarre. I've never seen anything like it. And it leads to tonight where we have, these are the best players in the game and I'm going

to rank them. This is how I rank them. Actually, uh, Chris Middleton, Drew Holiday, Bogdanovich, Lopez, Kevin Herter, John Collins, in some order, they're 5A, 5B, Capella, P.J. Tucker, Danilo Gallinari, Lou Williams. Those are our best 10 players in this game. I'm going to read that list to you again.

Middleton, Holiday, Bogdanovich, Lopez, Collins, Herter, Capella, Tucker, Galanari, Lou Williams, and let's throw in Bobby Portis too, just for a clean 11. I ask you this, if that was an actual team that played together for the entire season, would that be a 50-win team? I'm combining everybody that I just listed. Let's throw them all into one team. Is that a 50-win team?

Maybe. Could they be as good as the Jazz? Maybe. That was our Eastern Conference Finals tonight. So I went backwards. I targeted from the last 50 years trying to find, has there ever been a Conference Finals game that didn't have a superstar in it? That didn't have even like a high-end all-star in it?

Because I don't even think Chris Middleton, God bless him, he's on the Olympic team, he's an all-star. I wouldn't call him a high-end all-star. He's not somebody who would like start an all-Star game. Have we ever had a conference finals game ever that didn't have an A-lister, that didn't have the guy for the movie poster to put on the front, didn't have the Vin Diesel even? Well, all right. So I narrowed it down to these four. The 2015 Eastern Conference Finals. The Cavs swept the Hawks.

It was an awful series. The Hawks never had a chance. But guess what? At least LeBron was in the series, right? So yeah, you can do that a bunch of times over the years. You're like, wow, that series was terrible. The Warriors Blazers that year. Well, at least Curry was in the series.

At least a famous person was in it. Going backwards to the 2003 Eastern Conference Finals, which was awful. Nets swept the Pistons. The Pistons had the foundation. Wallace was there by then. Hamilton was there. They had the foundation of something, but not that year. Anyway, best player in that series was Jason Kidd. That's a good one. He's an A-lister. You can put him on a poster. I have him in my top 40 of all time. So that's still, Jason Kidd is better than anybody in the game we had tonight.

All right, let's go backwards again. The 1999 Western Conference Finals. This was the lockout season. The season sucked. This playoff sucked. If you're complaining about this season, man, you would have hated 1999 because this was on top of a condensed and injuries

and all the other stuff we had that year. No MJ. We had guys that were literally out of shape. The lockout ended, guys showed up and they're 15, 20 pounds overweight, guys making max money. Spurs swept the Blazers.

This was a Blazers team that had some talent. Rasheed Wallace is there and a whole bunch of people. Rasheed Wallace is about as good as Chris Middleton. I'd honestly rather have Rasheed Wallace in a series in his prime, but about the same.

Spurs had Duncan and Robinson. Two top 40 guys. Duncan's one of the 10 best guys ever. Robinson I have somewhere in the mid-30s. And both of them were throwing their fastball at that point. Duncan's a little young, but those were two A-list guys. All right, let's keep going backwards.

The 1981 Western Conference Finals. Rockets Kings. This one's a doozy. This one is probably our closest comparison to now because both of these teams were terrible. And when you talk about weird playoff series, this one probably takes the cake because the Rockets were 40 and 42,

which is nuts. And they have back then because the league's expanded, but it hasn't quite expanded enough. You have the Rockets take out the Lakers in a best of three. The Lakers defending champs, Magic, Kareem, the whole thing. And Moses is at his peak at this point. And they just knock out the Lakers.

At some point, we're like, wait a second. What's happening here? Well, at the same time, the Kansas City Kings, not even in Sacramento yet, they beat Portland in a best two out of three. They go to the next round, and they shock Phoenix. They shock them. Phoenix had Dennis Johnson and Walter Davis and Truck Robinson.

No. Sacramento says, we're taking this. Well, it gets even weirder because their whole starting backcourt is gone. They have Phil Ford and Otis Birdsong, who's starting backcourt. Both really good guys. High lottery picks. Otis Birdsong was one of the first overpaid free agents eventually because the Nets signed him. But those were their two best players. Both of them go down. They're not in this series. The Kings win anyway, led by Reggie King, Scott Wedman, Ernie Grunfeld, and Sam Lacey.

Have you heard? And Birdsong gets hurt two games in. Have you had a conversation about Reggie King, Scott Wedman, Ernie Grunfeld, or Sam Lacey lately? No. Ernie Grunfeld's playing point guard. Have you seen Ernie Grunfeld? He was the guy that ran the Wizards. He's like 6'6", had a mustache.

He was a small forward. It was the equivalent of, I don't know, Danilo Guarneri playing point guard now. So somehow they beat them. And now we end up with this kooky Western Finals, which is the Rockets against the Kings. Two teams with losing records in the Western Finals. So what happens? The Rockets win in five. The Rockets win in five because they have Moses Malone.

What does Moses do in this series? Well, he puts up 27 and 15 every night. Plays 45.6 minutes a game. Nobody else on his team that you would even say was an all-star. Robert Reed, Calvin Murphy, Billy Paul, Tom Henderson, Bill Willoughby, Alan Lovell, and the immortal Mike Dunleavy. The Kings have Reg King, Wedman, Grunfeld, Lacey. Phil Ford comes back,

but he's hurt. Birdsong plays a game, but he's hurt. John Lambert, Leon Douglas. Here's the thing. Even this game had more stars than the game we saw today because Moses was one of the top 12 players of all time. And Moses' five-year run here

from 79 to 83, he's the best player in the league. It's kind of him and Kareem, but Moses probably, the totality of what Moses does over those five years is probably better than Kareem. They're 1A and 1B in some way. And then Moses really from 81,

this is the first year, 82, 83. For that three-year run, he's the best player in the league. So even that year, with two under 500 teams, at least we had an A-lister. At least we had Moses. Keep going back to the 70s, there's nothing. I mean, there's a really weird Celtics Cavs series in 76, where the Cavs, a team that had no stars, They almost get the Celts. But the Celts had Havoc and Cowens and JoJo White, Charlie Scott. Havoc and Cowens are...

I have Havoc like 15th or 16th all the time. So anyway, my point. I cannot believe that this was the conference finals tonight. I can't believe... First of all, the lack of drama. You knew the Hawks didn't have it from when it was 10-2. You just knew that Milwaukee was winning.

I don't know what's going to happen in game six. You have Phoenix sitting there. Phoenix is now almost a two-to-one favorite to win the title, mainly because they're just the healthiest. So, I don't know. I feel weirdly disappointed. I love the conferenceiest. So, I don't know. I, I feel weirdly disappointed.

I love the conference finals. There's always like real drama in the conference finals. We got a son's Clipper series. That was good. In this series, this Bucks Hawks series felt like it had a chance to at least be, you know, it wasn't going to be artistically the greatest thing we ever saw,

but at least it had a chance to be unpredictable. Maybe we would get a Trae Young villain game, all that stuff. And the basketball gods, they just hate us this year. I don't know what happened, but I don't know what we did. But anyway, I'd like to commemorate it with the opening of this podcast by telling you that was the worst conference finals game of all time. I really think it was. One more topic, and then we're going to bring in Curtis and Manix.

So Chris Paul, I had him in May 2000. I do my pyramid every month or like every six weeks or so. And I move guys around and try to figure stuff out. Chris Paul, a year ago, was 42 in my pyramid. By the time we got through round one, when they got past the Lakers, and it became clear they were probably going to beat the Nuggets too, I moved Chris Paul up to 30 in my pyramid, level three. He's the last player in level three. Before that, it was Stockton was the last player,

now Chris Paul. So when I wrote my book, he was 90th. Heading into the conference finals, I had him 30th. And here's what that list looks like. So here's top 40 right now. Harden, 40. Walt Frazier, 39. Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Dave Cowens, Willis Reed,

David Robinson, Bill Walton, Rick Barry, John Stockton, Chris Paul. And then it jumps to level four. Level four, it's really the differentiator is titles and finals. So you go level four, 29, Scotty Pippen, 28, Dwayne Wade, 27, Isaiah, Bob Cousy. I had Kawhi at 25. We'll talk about that in one second. Barkley, 24, KG, 23, Carl Malone, 22, Bob Pettit, 21, Julius Erving, 20, Elgin Baylor, Dirk Nowitzki,

and then John Havlicek as the last guy, number 17. Well, Chris Paul is now in the finals. I'm going to leave him at 30. I think if he wins a title, the question becomes, does he get in my top 20? By the way, this is my list. I'm not saying this is the official list.

You're probably thinking I'm insane right now that anyone even cares about this. But I'm just telling you, I put a lot of thought into this over the years. I have my list. I really care about this for whatever reason. And if Chris Paul wins the title, it has to move him past Barkley,

past Garnett, past Karl Malone. I think. Because I was talking to House about this today, and Isaiah Thomas, who I have at 27, and House was like, no, I'm not ready to move him past Isaiah Thomas yet. Even though statistically, the resume of Chris Paul,

the fact that he's doing stuff at the point guard position that nobody has even approached at his age these last three years. And House's point was just what Isaiah did in that Lakers series, what he did against the Blazers. His high-end stuff in the biggest pressure moments was better than anything I've seen at the point guard position except for Magic. Fair.

So you put Chris past Isaiah, statistically he's there easily. The resume is better, the OMBA is the longevity, everything. The question is the ceiling of Isaiah versus Chris Paul. Well, last night, Chris Paul has the classic I've got this game, where it's

just like, I don't, I'm not going down. I am not fucking losing this game. And that is honestly the last level for a player. For the great players, it's the reason we always

were annoyed by Karl Malone, for example. Because he just didn't have that one piece in him. The, I am not fucking losing this game. I'm just not. I'm not. I'm not going home. I'm not risking this. I'm stepping on this other team's neck. That's what I'm just not. I'm not. I'm not going home. I'm not risking this. I'm stepping on this other team's neck. That's what I'm doing. Chris had never had a game like that either. Isaiah

had games like that. You go through this. Barkley in 93, he did it to the Spurs. He did it a bunch of times over his career. He definitely had it. Garnett never really had it. And then in 04, it creeped out a little. and took care of the Kings, even though Weber was pretty banged up by that point. But then in 08, the Celtics were not going to win the title unless he had a couple moments where he had a couple, I got this moments.

And he actually pulled them out and he did it. But then you go through to Pettit, Julius Irving, LG Baylor. Go look at LG Baylor's stats in the 62 finals. It's ludicrous. Dirk Nowitzki, most famously for him, 2006, but then 2011, when he just rips through the league,

actually wins the title. My point is Chris had not had a moment like this. And now at least he has heading into the finals. So if they win the title, he's, he, I, for in my, sorry, house, I think he passes Isaiah and he probably passes Koozie. And I think I have to move Kawhi a couple spots back because of, I was projecting with him with the, uh, you know, well, you know, they might make the finals again with this Cooperstein, but then not only does he get hurt, he's had some really untimely injuries.

I think the unreliability of that, maybe he goes backwards a little bit. I think I have the 25th spot available for Chris Paul. If he's awesome in these finals and he's clearly the best player, maybe he jumps higher than that. Anyway, I did not expect any of this. You think about Chris Paul, they're trying to dump his salary a couple of years ago. You think about his age, it just, all of this seemed inconceivable. This is one of the most shocking late career legacy flips that I can ever remember. You know what's a good one, a good example of this actually is Tom Brady.

Because I think Brady, it was Brady or Manning, and Brady's going to go down, and he's going to basically be the Jeter of football, and he had some great stats and all that stuff. But you could always ding him on either, well, other guys, Montana won as many rings and Manning had better stats and there was ways to ding him.

And then when he won the last three and especially the Falcons game, the argument just became unassailable and he completely shifted how we were ever going to think about him historically. Elway was another one. Elway is the most famous football example of the late title, late career title,

changing your legacy. I think West, you know, West was a guy, he was always the bridesmaid, never the bride in these finals games that you just could never get past the Celtics. And then finally the 72 Lakers, him and Wilt just get it done. And I have West 11 on my pyramid right now.

If he doesn't ever win the title, I think it would have been really hard to put him in the Pantheon. But he's in there. So listen, the stakes for Chris Paul are pretty obvious. He's trying to win the title. He doesn't care about my stupid list. But when you talk about the point guard, that nickname, which just always rang hollow for me when he had never made the finals.

And now he has a chance to flip that narrative, to really go down as one of the great veteran star coming into a team in any sport and just transform transforming the culture and the ceiling of that team overnight. This Suns team, they hadn't made the playoffs since 2010. If you go look at their basketball reference, every year they're just awful. Year after year after year, they didn't make the playoffs last year and he shows up and now they're in the finals

and there's just not a lot of, not a lot of doppelgangers for this, certainly in basketball history, but really in any sport. So I'm rooting for it. Out of everybody that's left, I think it's the most fun story. And I really respect that guy. And I respect especially what he did last night. So that's the good side.

The bad side of this playoffs are all the injuries and then the fact that we have an Eastern Conference Finals that's just depleted, to say the least. Hopefully those guys come back. The good side is that Phoenix, Chris Paul,

this is one of the more compelling stories we've had in a long, long time. We're going to talk about it with Brian Curtis and Chris Mannix in a second. Let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the

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Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, he's the editor at large of The Ringer. He once left ESPN because they wouldn't give him $5 million a year. He is Brian Curtis. What is it about the NBA finals that every year there's announcing salary drama? Even I was involved one of the years. Every year with ESPN, I don't know what happens. It's weird how that always happens, isn't it? And it seems like it's like, I can't tell if it's coming from the announcer or one particular executive who might, you know, be, have a real

interest in putting those stories out there. I just, I can't tell. Well, you know, you know, my theory, Curtis, anytime they put the salary of either what they want or what they're already making in one of those stories, it's that's, that's the network move to try to basically undermine the talent a little bit. That's always how I feel when they do that. But what do I know? What do I know? Uh, cause the fans read that they're like, Whoa, they're making what? Um, anyway, I wanted to talk about some media stuff.

We'll start with Marv Albert because this is going to be it pretty soon. And we might have Jay Adande made the joke about if Giannis comes back for game seven five minutes before game seven, we could have Marv do, here comes Giannis and do the

1970 finals callback. But we're at the tail end of Marv. What are your final week thoughts here? I think it's incredibly important to remember that the first year he does the National NBA telecast is 1991, which is also Michael Jordan's first title. So he comes in with amazing timing. And you and I are old enough to remember

when the NBA was like everybody's third choice for a sports media career behind baseball and football. And I just remember that first year of Marv doing the NBA on NBC and watching it and going, oh my God, this guy's not just a great announcer. He's actually a basketball nerd. He actually loves pro basketball in a way that i don't think i'd heard a national announcer express in quite the same way like i think i've written this for the ringer but like the way that zach low writes about basketball you write about basketball that was the way marv announced basketball like oh middleton beautiful beautiful move. You know, oh, Chris Paul, beautiful pass. He just, he had this appreciation for it

for its own sake. And, you know, we had Dick Stockton in the 80s, Brent in the 80s, but I just never got the same vibe that that was it for them. And Marv was exactly where he most wanted to be in the world when he was calling those games. That's the first thing that stood out to me.

Yeah, basketball announcing from a national level, a pretty storied history of bad combinations and bad decisions. I did a whole, I think in my book, I did like two pages about just how over and over again, how many mistakes they made. Cause they would always just put the famous X star in the booth with no rhyme or reason to whether the person was going to be good or not. So Oscar Robertson was in there. I think he got, I think he got kind of pushed out during a, during a playoffs in 1975. I think, um, you had Bill Russell was in there, Elgin Baylor. Um, you had Pat Summerall announcing basketball. Then you had Stockton and Heinzen, who everybody felt like was a Celtics homer. And he was trying really hard not to be a Celtics homer, but he obviously was. He bled Celtic green.

So we never really found the right combination. It didn't feel like until it was Marv and Fratello. And that, yeah, it was his love for basketball, his sense of humor. When my parents got divorced, I moved to Connecticut for eighth, his sense of humor. I, when my parents got divorced, I moved to Connecticut for eighth grade and I got to hear him do Knicks games. It was a revelation. You know, you'd heard kind of the rumors and he had done some NBC sports stuff and done boxing and things like that. He'd done some football games. So I'd heard him in other platforms, but I'd never heard somebody with the rhythm of the game that sounded like, you know, somebody that

cared as much as I did. And I think you even felt it, uh, during that Hawks game, when Giannis got hurt, when the Hawks are playing really well and Marv was getting into it and Herter had a three and Marv did the Kevin Herter, you know, he did the pause in the name and I was like, oh, old school Marv, bringing it back. So yeah, it's hard not to be nostalgic. He's certainly the greatest ever. I think Breen has approached him in a lot of ways, but Marv being first gets the advantage. But I do think Breen who reveres Marv and grew up listening to him and respects him and really has cribbed some of Marv's style, I think he has carried the torch. Would you agree? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. But I had, it's very funny.

I had a famous announcer tell me a couple of years ago, people don't understand the difference between prime Marv and prime Breen. I don't know what to tell them yet because there is a difference. And it was a sense, I think with Marv and again, I'm with you with Breen, man. If you're in Breen's hands to call a game, I feel great, you know, that shot where they show the ping pong balls in the hopper and Marv comes back and he's just like Bill Walton mesmerized by the flow of the ping pong ball. And Walton doesn't even respond. I don't think Walton said anything. And it was almost Marvis. Marvis very different than David Letterman, but they had this commonality that I felt with both of them that they would make jokes and you and I'd be sitting there as kids watching on TV and go, I don't think everybody got that joke, but I got that joke. And in a way, that's kind of the greatest feeling of somebody funny on TV when you feel like, oh, I got that. I hear I know what you're doing.

Maybe not everybody else appreciates it. I love that. Yeah, and he took Mike Fratello, who half decent color guy, decent in his prime. He's okay. When he was with Marv, he became transcendent because Marv was selling him

and putting him over. He was like Ric Flair. He gave Fratello a nickname. He was calling him the czar. Was just selling him left and right, cracking jokes. And I think there was this last level, and Breen is, I love Breen. He's an awesome guy. There's a sense of humor level and a sarcasm that Marv had at his peak that you just haven't seen it. Al Michaels has it. Yes. Pretty. It's pretty rare for somebody at that level. Joe Buck has it. I think he's developed into it over the years, but, um, you know, the, for me, like growing up in, uh, in the eighties, what really pushed Marv

over the top was the Letterman appearances and, you know, and, and him going on live at five, which was like the, uh, the big New York afternoon show and things like that. And his personality would always come out in those. And then was finally cemented in the mid 80s. Chris Elliott, when he was on Letterman, he decided to do this Marv character and he would come out with this wig and he would do these Albert Achievement Awards. And they were like, really watch this. Oh, and it would just be like people getting kicked in the balls. And so it felt like

that cemented Marv even further. Like he became this parody character on Letterman. But man, what a career. You think like it goes back to the 60s with the Knicks and then the 70s finals was his breakout moment.

He also did a lot of hockey. And I, you know i i don't know if he's a mount rushmore guy but he's in the conversation right from marv oh yeah i think he's and i think for play-by-play guys so who's who's about rushmore then michaels has to be on there yeah i think michaels and marv are the are pretty comparable characters in terms of like really really great at play-by-play and also really fun you know they had extra gears to them um we're talking national guys here summer oh yeah yeah just for i think somewhere else somewhere else got to be there for well but also like there was with football it's, there was a weightiness and a rhythm to his games and how he clicked with

Madden that we just haven't heard before since my opinion. Yeah. I think the Marth thing that you pointed out is just that he's so, he was so much better than any national basketball announcer, or at least one that had a big run to come along at his time. You know, it was like somebody coming and just resetting the home run record by 40 home runs and and by the way you mentioned random color guys there were that was marv's whole career at nbc people now remember people now are like hey look at magic johnson's tweets

they forget that magic johnson's tweets were announcing the nba finals with marv yep magic would come in and be like mar Marv, this is great. First quarter action in the NBA finals. We're watching on NBC. And Marv would be like, uh, magic with the plug, uh, in the middle of the first quarter. Yeah. He, he definitely worked with a lot of different people and, and, you know, sometimes we just have the wrong partner. I think Chris Weber was an atrocious partner for him. I don't know why it happened. I continue to be dumbfounded by it, even though they're no longer a team. And it was interesting watching Grant Hill step in after they got rid of Weber during the season.

And Grant Hill's not incredible or anything, but at least Marv's sense of humor started to come out again because with Chris Weber, it just sounded like two people on a bad date every single game. Two people that had nothing in common, no commonality, anything. And at least Grant Hill grew up listening to Marv and kind of gets it and would throw a zinger. And you could feel like Marv kind of come out of a coma, basically, from a comedy standpoint.

So I think it's been a decent farewell uh, farewell for him. Obviously he's hit the stage that you and I have talked about on this podcast in the past when the, you know, when the announcers get old, they start mixing up the names. Marv's had a couple of games this year where he's just convinced that number 26 is number 36 for four quarters, you know, and it's not like he doesn't make the mistake one time. He makes it eight times, but he's in his eighties. It's, it's going to happen, right? This is, this is how it always ends for announcers. It always, I remember Vern Lundquist once telling me, he's like, he developed this thing at the end where he just go, Whoa, when something really like amazing and confusing happened. And that would give him like three or four seconds to kind of figure it out.

You know, that was kind of like his trick and the color analyst would come in and kind of, Oh, well that's, you know, there's all these little, by the way, this is as basketball nerd,

you got to tell me this, who was Marv's best partner ever? I think the partner that he clicked with the best nationally was Fratello. Okay. But the guy that I thought he was the best at was his name, John Andrees, I think was his name, and the MSG games in the mid-80s. And I thought they were great together.

They play this game sometimes on Hardwood Classics, the Isaiah versus Bernard King, the 1984 Game 5 Pistons-Knicks when it was the best of five series. And Isaiah single-handedly brings the Pistons back. Marv's doing that game. And you can, that's like peak Marv because it's an awesome game. Bernard King takes it back in overtime and the Knicks win. And just, I always felt like at MSG, those were his best days. I think nationally, it speaks to the bigger issue

that we've really had for my entire life with basketball is there's really not a lot of great color guys. There's never the Collinsworth for NBA. Van Gundy's probably the closest, and Van Gundy's had some really good moments in the playoffs. I actually think he's had a better postseason for him. It's been up there. I think he's very some really good moments in the playoffs. I actually think he's had a better postseason for him. It's been up there. I think he's very, very good.

I don't think he's great, though. I don't know if we have a great caller guy. And I don't know if we've really ever had one. Do you think we've ever had one? There's no John Madden of the NBA. And I don't think. I think the guys we talk about are kind of like the Matt Millen of the NBA. They're good, right? They can totally do a good game, but they're just not

like, and I think I've asked people about this and they always say it's the nature of basketball that basketball is a play-by-play announcer sport and that you just don't have windows for the analyst to talk in the same way you do in football and baseball. So maybe, maybe it's just that you can't be good. But I mean, again, thinking about the nineties, I mean, Isaiah Thomas announced the finals, magic Johnson announced the finals, Steve Jones announced the finals. It was, I guess Doug Collins is probably somewhere on this list. You know, when you talk about guys that were, were good, you know, but it's, it's not a long list. Yep.

Steve Kerr, I thought was the best I'd heard. And he had, he crossed over with Marv for, I don't remember how many years, but that was probably Marv's best national partner, just from a talent standpoint. And Steve Kerr got the Marv jokes, you know, he, yes, he could speak the language, so to speak.

And I think that was important too, but I think, you know, it's interesting. I was really glad I announced, I announced a couple NBA games, but we, me and Jalen did one with Tirico and the job,

it made more sense to me why nobody's been great at it. Like Madden was, it's really hard to get a feel for the game from those seats. I know, I know this sounds like a weird thing to say, cause it's like, what do you mean you're courtside? You're in the middle of it. You don't really have a perspective on the wide shot, like when we're watching games on TV and you can see the spacing and you can see the geometry and all the stuff that you kind of need to see for the game to fall into place. When you're that close, it's just kind of chaotic and you end up like staring in the TV for replays. And I just feel like from a feel standpoint, it's harder. And in a weird way, the fans have the advantage watching it on their widescreen TV at home

over the guy who's sitting courtside. So I always wondered if that was a thing. Have you ever talked to an announcer about that? Because I was always stunned by how hard that was. I don't think I've ever asked one, but I'm totally with you. I always wondered how they can get it out of their mouths that quickly from that vantage point. Because it just seems like an Iron Eagle does it really well. And Harlan does it really well. I'm just amazed at how you can, how you can sort of process a play in basketball, especially

across the court, right down the court and across the court that quickly from, from those seats. No, I don't understand it. Yeah. I actually think they'd be better off, you know, behind the basket and a little bit up, like how the vantage point that, you know, the networks usually have for when they're doing the halftime shows. Because I remember like we watched the Spurs heat finals in the Miami seats where you were like kind of right above and you had this awesome angle of it.

And it was like that. You could see everything and you could see the angles and the way it unfolded. But, um, so Marv's going to be out. Breen now becomes the elder Statesman beloved announcer, right? He just immediately gets that torch.

And then Ion Eagle becomes probably the, the heir apparent on TNT. I'm guessing. Who do you think gets that job? Is it Harlan or Ian Eagle? I don't know. You know, they're kind of comparable figures in a way, because I think they both, first of all, if either one of them got it, I think I'd be totally happy listening to either one of them call a conference finals. I would not be upset at that. They're both really technically good. they both also are a little weird i mean harlan you know is yeah as those you know with the cats on the field or the streakers on the field and

he's doing his thing and and even ian eagle though he is certainly you know was a student of marv albert as young i mean you know he's doing uh major kawaii light uh zoo blocker you know he's he's got this this sense of humor that kind of ranges out there and i think it actually goes to a point i was made at the beginning which is now we have tons of guys who seem like and gals who love basketball announcing basketball harlan eagle breen doris burke like these are people who when you're listening to call a game they're like they don't want to be secretly calling the nfl right now they want to be right here calling the nba they love it and i think in a way that's part of the legacy of marv too i love doris and she's a great person

she developed a bad habit over the last year she calls everybody by their first name which is just a personal pet peeve for me when i'm listening to it again. It is where it's like, what a play by Donovan. Rudy, Rudy said him the pick. And then Joe came over and it's like, what are we like at a cocktail party with these guys called it by their last names? I think like LeBron Giannis, there's certain guys that are just first name guys like Madonna. But for the most part, uh, I would, I would vote for using the last names. By the way, I have a scoop for you.

Okay. I think it's going to be Stan Van Gundy for TNT next year. As the lead analyst? As their lead guy. Yeah. Wow. And my bet, I'm not reporting this, but this is my bet, but I'm betting on Ian Eagle and Stan Van Gundy as the lead group,

which would mean we have two Van Gundys, which is interesting because as I've told the story before, Van Gundy was supposed to be on countdown with me and Wilbon and Magic when I finally agreed to do it that year. And then Stern blocked it and was like, we don't fuck the Van Gundy. They hated the Van Gundys. Now it seems like they're in a slightly better place with the Van Gundy. They hated the Van Gundy's. Now it seems like they're in a slightly better place with the Van Gundy's. But yeah, I think we're going to have Van Gundy's as the lead guys on both games. We're going to take a quick break and then I want to really talk about Instant Replay with you. So we're going to do that next. All right. Instant Replay. This has been in our lives for 40 plus years. I am old enough to remember the game that caused everybody to push for football. Instant replay. It was when the

Oilers should have beaten the Steelers. The Oilers are now the Titans for the young ones keeping score at home. I think it was Mike Renfro caught a touchdown. They ruled it incomplete. It swung the game and that got the momentum. And we've been on a 40-year odyssey with Instant Replay ever since. It works in some cases. I think in tennis, it's been fantastic. It's really, really, really improved tennis in a lot of different ways. Other sports, not as much. Football, we have a complicated relationship with it. Ultimately, I think it's okay. I'm okay with football replay. The basketball, it's just terrible. And here's how I know it's terrible.

It has a 0% approval rating, Brian. There's nobody in my life who's like, you know, a lot of people give instant replay shit, but I'll tell you, I love it. I'm so glad we have it. I loved when that Clipper Suns game, when the last 90 seconds took 33 minutes to play, I thought it was fucking awesome. When we had five instant replays and five field goals in the last 90 seconds of a close game, that was great. I love when the game stops. I love watching the same replay 10 times. My point is nobody likes this. And at some point when nobody likes something and you're an entertainment company, in this case, you're a league, but really you're a company,

you're providing entertainment and you're hoping people will pay dollars to go see the entertainment or stream it at their homes. And you have something that's failing this badly. The lack of urgency, the lack of transparency, the lack of just self-admission about this doesn't fucking work. We have to fix this. We get it. We know this doesn't work.

We are going to go back to the drawing board this summer. The fact that they're not saying anything is so dumbfounded to me. And I really think it's terrible. And I don't know what they're doing. What's your take on instant replay? We both know that the one way you get sports to change any rule is when it makes a bad TV show. Because sports is a TV show.

That's where the money comes from. That's where everything comes from. And it made that game last night into a bad tv show we're gonna stop the game to see if jay crowder tripped nick batum in a common foul way or in a flagrant foul way why are we doing that why why are we pausing for that moment and i just find i just find it makes the game so long first of all the game was so long last night for a game that wasn't even close down the stretch. And you just go, I'm just watching that

when every one of the, the flagrant ones are the ones that really get me. The way they're like, we're going to look at this and decide if this was a regular foul or a flagrant foul. Why does that need a replay

to stop everything? Right. Well, you think like there's, there's basic smart moves they can make with this a foul is a foul you could wait until the tv timeout and then review whether it's a flagrant or not and then if it is come out of the timeout and be like hey we looked at that again it was a flagrant we're gonna shoot an extra free throw here i think everybody would be fine with that what we're not fine with is just stopping the flow

of the game for five minutes when we have commercials that do that anyway. Or if we're going to stop the game for that long, run the commercials then. There's got to be some better way to do this that didn't involve adding 25 minutes to the game. And what's nuts to me is we just came out two years ago, Adam talking about, now I sound like Doris, Adam Silver talking about of the, the, the whole, we got to speed up the game. We get it, the flow. Should we go with 40 minute halves? It's like, you can't, you're not speeding up the game. You're doing the opposite. You're in molasses. So I just feel like there's here, here are two ideas I have for you that I think would make this actually,

I have a couple, I have more than two. One is when it's, when it's, when the fouls already been called and they're deciding whether it's a common foul or a flagrant foul, just do that during a timeout or do it at halftime. Just let us know later what it was. I don't need to know right away. We're good.

Keep the game going. It's not like we're not adding fouls to somebody. It's not a technical. If it's a flagrant two possibility, stop the game. But how many times have we had a flagrant two in a game I've watched this year? Maybe five. So that'd be one thing. Second thing, I think they really have to narrow what they're reviewing. I don't ever want to see another block and charge reviewed again. Get that out. Also get get out the thing that we had near the end of game two when Beverly crashed into Booker and caused the ball to go out of bounds, and then they slow it down to one one-hundredth of a second.

It's like, oh, that actually barely touched Booker after Beverly knocked it. And it's like, at some point, we're just violating the spirit of the game. Beverly knocked the ball out of bounds. It might have grazed Booker because of it, but Beverly still caused it. And it's like, at some point we're just violating the spirit of the game. Beverly knocked the ball out of bounds. It might've raised Booker because of it, but Beverly would still caused it. And if we're playing basketball, we know he caused it. So why are we reviewing that? And then on the flip side, like if we're reviewing that, but then we're not reviewing that somebody missed a field goal because somebody else slapped the backboard and the ref missed it. And we just let that go.

So it's like, we're letting some stuff go. We're hyper, not letting other stuff go. I don't get that either. And then the third thing is I just would have the possession arrow. I would bring it back. I think it works in college and all these moments where it's like the refs kind of don't know what happened.

So they just like jump all, let's spend five minutes reviewing it. Just be like jump all possession arrow and keep the game moving. I think the fans would be okay with it. The whole point is keep the game moving. It's an entertainment product. And I don't think this would be that hard to fix. Like if we, if each team football, would it have three, two challenges per half, both teams? I'm good with that. Two challenges per half, both teams? Per half. I'm good with that. Two challenges per half, both teams.

And then maybe we review whether a three is a two. So the Durant situation would be the big one, right? Durant against the Bucs. He makes what seems like it might have been the game-winning shot, but they review it. But the thing with those is it takes 30 seconds to know whether the guy's foot was on the line or not. I still feel like we could review those. What's killer is the block charge stuff.

And like, so I just threw seven ideas at you. Like, did any of that seem like a better idea than what we're already doing? You know, I think it all did. And I think the the the football example is a good is a good one here because one football just stops all the time. So if you stop to review something and let Mike prayer come in and talk about it, it just kind of is part of the TV show now. And I don't mind it at all, really, but what football has done successfully. And I know they've gone around a couple of times on this is they're only going to review certain things. You're just

not, you cannot review everything. You know, refs are going to miss some calls. You can review out of bounds, right? You can review two feet down, whatever it is, but you just can't review. You know, refs are going to miss some calls. You can review out of bounce, right? You can review two feet down, whatever it is, but you just can't review. You can review turnovers, but you can't review everything. And I totally am with you on that. I just think you have to be able to just take certain calls as annoying as they may be and be like, we just can't review this. This isn't, this is going to be block charge is going to be the referee's discretion. We can do out of bounce. We can maybe do a goaltend toward the end referee's discretion. We can do out of bounds. We can maybe do a goaltend toward the end of the game. We certainly do Kevin Durant's foot on the line.

That all seems easy, but you just have to kind of shrink down what you're actually going to review. It seems like they live in fear of the Mike Renfro moment. And now they've overcompensated the other way. But then when you think about all the stuff that they miss and we're okay with it, like I think it was game seven, Philly, Atlanta,

somebody made a play and they showed the replay where the guy jumped in the air, he landed and then he took the shot and it went in and it counted for two points. And they're like, whoa, yeah, his feet were down before he took the shot. And we're like, okay, cool. Well, they gave him the basket. It's fine. Let's move on. What's the next play? Like it wasn't like there was like a national riot because this guy's feet came down. I think it was shake Milton before he got the ball off, but that's just the way it goes with this stuff. So I, that's the part that just breaks my brain. We are, you know, fanatically picking over these dumb plays like

that Patrick Beverly Booker play. And then other plays it's like, Oh, did Deandre and hit the back port and make that Bob? Oh, it turns out he did okay ref missed it it's fine it's basketball I think when it's a situation where KD hits a three that would have won the game but his foot was on the line yeah we got to review it but that should

take 30 seconds and you know there's been talk about should you have a fourth referee who's right there with the instant replay? Like my short answer is fuck. Yeah, let's have a fourth person. It can be retired refs.

How hard is this? You're playing to play during the playoffs. There's two games a night. Max, put the fucking refs at mid court with the instant replay thing. And let's get this going to, to me, tennis is the model and Wimbledon is on right now.

Um, they've mastered it. It's great. They, and this was this thing that hung over tennis all the time where it was like, there seemed like there were no rhyme or reason to some of these umpire calls.

Then they, they fixed it and it was ready and now it's much better. So, uh, I just, I just want Adam to take charge of something here. Like own something. So I just want Adam to take charge of something here. Like own something.

You have this situation where over and over again, he seems like he's a substitute teacher sometimes where he doesn't want to like offend the parents and the kid in the front row put his piss in a bag and threw it against the chalkboard. It's like, oh, we better clean that up. Don't kick him out of school. At some point, you got to crack down and try to take control of your league. And I just don't feel like he's doing it.

It's a fundamental problem with all these leagues in the age of the big screen televisions and how good everything looks at home now is that you can just be so worried that everybody on Twitter is going to see something that the refs miss. But I think you point out, you make a really good point, which is that they're missed calls all the time. And as long as they're not the egregious late game, oh my God, that changed the course of basketball history call. People will mostly roll with it because by the way, those are going to be in an NBA game anyway, you know, guys flopping and getting a call guys, you know, selling a call. Like it's all

part of basketball. And I just, yeah, I'm with you. I, I think more rhyme or reason more in charge and shrinking the court is shrinking. The length of a game is, is where I want to be. Clear path fouls are a great example. That's something we can review at commercial. They, you know, it was a foul. They're getting the ball anyway. And it's like, oh, you get an extra foul shot because it was a clear path foul. Well, five minutes later, we had a timeout. Hey, we just realized that was a clear path foul. We looked at it.

So we're going to come out of timeout and they're going to shoot two free throws for it. I don't know a single basketball fan would be like, wait a second, fuck this. What, wait, what? You're going to shoot the free throws five minutes later? People would be delighted that we didn't have to, you know, slow down. I look, as you said, when it becomes a bad TV show, that's when you have to fix stuff. And the league has had crisis

points in the past. 2004 is a great example of this. The defense became better than the offense. The games were too slow. The fans didn't enjoy them. We had that Pacers-Pistons series when it was like, what were those games? Like 77 to 70, 73 to 69. And all of us were like, what is happening? And then they fixed it. They got rid of some of the hand checking.

They changed some of the legal defense stuff. They eventually put in the 24 second. Now it's 14 seconds after an offensive rebound. And they just quicken the pace in a bunch of different ways. And it worked. And now they're at this point. And the reason I'm making a big deal out of it is just, I just don't feel any urgency from the league side.

I really don't. I don't. I haven't heard one. Have you heard one quote from anybody league side. I really don't. I don't, I haven't heard one. Have you, have you heard one quote from anybody? No, but like, yeah, we know this isn't working. We, this is a real priority for us. We have to fix this. Then we're getting more reviews, not less. I also feel there's a bigger point here, which is that basketball telecasts are always on the verge of seeming way too choppy. You know see this with cbs when they do college basketball and they cram all those commercials into the last couple of minutes of

a game you have a timeout it's a tense game and then you're coming out to a commercial and you're just as a viewer you're completely taken out of whatever drama there is and watching espn watching them last night yeah by the way and you're the ESPN studio expert here. So who decided that it was a good idea at halftime to have every ESPN person offer one soundbite in order and then just go to commercial

without any discussion about what just happened in the game like you would see on TNT? Like what viewer wants is like, you know what? I want everybody on here to get a touch.

I want Jalen to get a touch. I want Jay Williams to get a touch. I want Woj to get a touch. And then I want to go, the host is going to bring you back in. That's 30 seconds. Now we're down to three minutes and you also have to leave room for the last 20 seconds when the host brings you back to commercial. So now I'm playing with two minutes, 45 seconds for three people. Nobody can make a really good point in probably less than 30 seconds on those shows. So that's why they do it that way. They want to make sure everybody gets the ball once and then you're probably out of time. You're right. It's ridiculous. Guess what? Guess what?

You don't need four people to do a three and a half minute television segment. And I, I w I was always like dumbfounded because with the re they really don't want to hurt people's feelings, right? Like you could just have Maria and Jalen and just have a back and forth for three and a half minutes. But then what do you do with the other two people that did the pregame show? What they should do is have the pregame show and then just keep one person and then have a real back and forth. The reason why TNT is so good, it's not just because Barkley and Kenny and Ernie, those guys are the best studio people we've ever had. They actually have a seven and a half minute halftime. Watch it. Think how much time they have. They have time to go all the way around. Kenny has time to

go to the big board, do his pictures thing, run back. And then they have like two more minutes because they actually care about that show. I didn't, ESPN has never cared about that show for as much money as they throw at it. They just don't care about it. And then at the end of games, they throw it right to sports center because they care more about Van Pelt than they do about the studio show. So the game ends. The one time you really want your studio guys is So the game ends. The one time you really want your studio guys is after the game. What happened? Like, think about our ringer podcast. We don't do podcasts before the game. We do them after. Cause it's like, what happened? What'd you

think? That's the whole point. Their, their countdown guys are gone and then they'll bring them back. And it's like Van Pelt comes on, and then he interviews Van Gundy and Jackson. I just listen to them for three hours. I get to hear them again. And then they'll bring in like, all of it is just nonsensical. I'm really confused by it. It sounds like you are too.

I think we've hit on something here, which is the touches problem. Everybody having to get their touches. You know, because the NBA on NBC, which we were talking about a second ago, they used to come in halftime and it was like Costas and Pat Riley. And that was it, you know, it was like two people. And now not only do you have the four touches at halftime, then they go back to the court

and Breen gets a touch. Van Gundy gets a touch. Mark Jackson gets a touch. Rachel Nichols gets a touch. We have, we have two sound from both locker rooms, which is usually completely uninteresting. Like, Oh guys, come on, hang in there. Here we go. So it's like, you've heard, what is that?

Like eight or nine different voices. Yeah. And, and you don't have a single idea in your head that like Barkley would have given you on TNT or something like that, where they would, again, actually had a conversation. I mean, think, think of Barkley coming back at that one bucks game. It was against the Sixers. I want to say right where he was like, Milwaukee is going to win, but this is the dumbest team ever.

Like that was that again, you take something from halftime and whether he's full of shit or not, you're like, I remember that. That's a good, that's, that's interesting. And then the other guys can, can argue with them or whatever, but it's like, it's actual human interaction, not overproduced too many people like TV for TV's sake. I just don't like that.

Barkley, yes, during the Milwaukee game was great, but with the game, Giannis got hurt at halftime. It goes to him and he's just like,

he's like, he crushes Milwaukee, but he's like, this is what I worry about with them. They don't want to step on your throat. This is a team that it's there. They're a very good team. That's perfectly content to compete, but they don't have that killer thing. You saw it last night with Chris Paul, right? Chris Paul is like, I can smell this and, and stepped on the Clippers neck. And that's what I'm walking

down. But my point is Barkley identified it and said it in a really smart, big picture, clear way. But you can do that when you know, you have time. And I, listen, I was in those situations for two years where it's just like, first of all, especially if somebody takes too long, like Wilbon, I love Wilbon, but sometimes he would take like a minute. You'd have, you'd have the first minute. So now all of a sudden Jalen and I are looking at 40 seconds combined to get our points out. And you're just thinking like, I just want to get a point out as fast as I can versus like a point that actually has some depth that has a chance to breathe and have people

react. That's the other thing that's missing when you're talking about like the, it's just going around the table, basically, would you call it the, yeah, the point, point, point, point. Nobody's reacting to anybody. So they might as well be in four days. They might as well be in a zoom. Why are they at a table together? Yeah. And the NFL shows do this too. I think CBS, you know, it's like, Oh, let's get Phil Sims and then late Burleson or how we long is going to give us 15 seconds. I'm like, this sucks.

Well, yeah, the NFL is worse. The, the five people, um, the five people at the table and then the halftime where it's like, we got to get Terry Bradshaw more involved.

He's going to do the highlights. It's like, what? Terry Bradshaw barely knows involved. He's going to do the highlights. It's like, what? Terry Bradshaw barely knows where he is. He's going to be narrating the first half of the Cardinals-Rams game. So I just think there's so much laziness with this stuff, with just how they approach the studio stuff. And honestly, do we need three people for an NBA broadcast booth? I don't think so.

Does anybody think we need three? I just think it's a two-man job. You're famously against this. You're famously against the three-man booth. Yeah, because especially after having done the games, it goes so fast. Like you'll have, you know, it's just, there's so much action and the play-by-play dominates all that stuff. So it's, they just fall into habits. They do it with the draft too, where

they, they want to produce it. And I did the, I did the 13 and 14 drafts where they want to produce it because they care more. The producers are always about, you know, they, they want to control things. They don't want things to go wrong, right? That's their job. It's, it's, I want things to go seamlessly and really, really awesomely. So they'll have these things like, you know, Billis after every pick, Billis is great. I loved working with him. He would have 75 seconds to talk about the guy, right? There was like this cookie cutter way to do each one where it was like, Reese would talk about the pick, blah, blah, blah. Watch the guy go up. Then Billis does 75 seconds. And then the other two guys quickly have time to react to the pick before we get to the interview, which is always bad.

And then all of a sudden it's the next pick. But the problem is, especially in the first 10 picks of the draft, like there's a lot going on. There's major, you know, major storylines. There's Marvin Bagley getting picked over Luka Doncic. There's shit like that. And you, you have like 40 seconds to react to it, you know, and I don't get that either. There's a lot I don't get Brian. This is when television has problems is when you're producing television for other producers. Yes. For you, for your pals in the business and not producing it for fans. And by the way, I'd say the same thing about writing, you know, as soon as you start doing it and you're saying, who, who is this show for? Is it for basketball fans, sports fans, or is it for, you know, my sizzle reel for the sports Emmys? And I just think when you start

doing the second thing, it, it becomes bad. And it just, it feels, again, it feels like you're producing for producing sake rather than I'm going to make a really effective TV show that people are going to like. Well, you know, it's the single most nuts decision. How is Stephen A not on countdown? Great question. I mean, what are we doing? The most powerful person at ESPN, but not on the NBA pregame show. How is he not on the halftime show should just be him and Jalen. I don't even need anybody else. Like, what'd you think?

Can I hear Stephen A's thoughts? I really care. I would have loved his thoughts immediately after the, the, uh, Chris Paul game. They've, they've tapped into something with Wilbon,

but I, I just, you know, Stephen A, I just enjoy his stuff. I would just try to put him on the show somewhere at some point. It's, it's all very strange. It does feel like, um, I know, I know, uh, Jalen's contract is up. It sounds like

Maria Taylor might not, her contract's up before the last game in the finals. And, you know, as always with ESPN, it just seems like things are, uh, things are in motion. Jalen's had how many countdown partners at this point? It's got to be double figures, right? It's like Marv. He's had his own Maddie Gukas and his own magic. Yeah, he's had like 11 people in nine years. But it feels like, once again, we're going to start moving around. It's always interesting how the people behind the scenes never change, though.

It's always the talent. The talent's always moving, but it's never the behind-the-scenes people. Any finals media storylines you're looking at before we go? It's always the talent. The talent's always moving, but it's never the behind the scenes people. Um, any, uh, any finals media storylines you're looking at before we go? I'm, um, the Chris Paul love in that's coming.

I think I'm going to write about this for the ringer. I'm a man. Oh God. Yeah. It's going to be, it's going to be amazing that I'm interested in the year of the old guy. Our pal Jason Gay wrote about this in the journal cut when Mickelson one, right?

We've had Brady. We've had Mickelson, we've had Elio Castroneves at the Indy 500. The year of the old guys thing is kind of hilarious. Makes us old guys feel better about ourselves. Yeah, a couple of things like that. And everybody's been complaining, not complaining, but saying about, oh, the NBA, all these superstars,

they lost the finals. It's going to be a disaster. Listen, Chris Paul versus Giannis is a good finals from a star standpoint. Giannis is an up and coming guy that needed at some point a bigger platform and a bigger stage, which he's about to get. And this is a guy who has a chance to be an all-timer potentially. And then Chris Paul, I feel like is really famous. And it's a combination of he's been in our lives for 16 years now, but also the State Farm ads,

which is, I think, one of the best ad campaigns we've had. I just feel like everybody knows who Chris Paul is. On top of it, he has the story that is everybody's favorite sports story. The old guy trying to get the ring. Is there a better and safer bet

for a good sports story than that? It's the old John Elway thing. It always works. It always wins. Jerry West trying to get it in the 70s. You go way back. It's a win every time. Yeah, yeah.

And the fact that he's had like a reported COVID diagnosis, the sprained shoulder against the Lakers. I mean, he's actually had like four storylines within the larger Chris Paul tries to get a ring story over the last couple of weeks. Yeah, no, it's, um, I don't, you know, you know me, I don't, I, when people start talking about how ESPN executives are going to be mad that it's Milwaukee and, you know, and I just Phoenix in the finals, I just like, who gives a shit? Like if you, if it,

if you don't like this basketball, if you'd rather have other stars in the finals, other teams. Okay. But yeah, why would we, why would I, I'm not getting any money if ESPN gets higher ratings or lower ratings. It doesn't matter to me at all. All I care is if it's a good series and I'm compelled by it. That's what I'm rooting for. Also, we had Cleveland in four straight finals. We did fine. We're okay. It was okay. Brian Curtis, we can hear you on the excellent PressBox podcast. I look forward to reading your Chris Paul story. And we've been working together officially for 10 years now. Can you believe it? Yeah. We're like in our second decade together. The sirens in the background, the sirens are even excited.

They finally caught on to us. Yeah, but I've loved working with you and I'm excited for decade number two. You got it. Same here, Bill. All right. I'll talk to you. All right. Our friend Chris Mannix is here from Sports Illustrated.

And you're always popping up all over the place. You'll pop on random boxing cards. I never know. You always keep me on my toes. The Chris Paul. Chris Paul makes the finals. People love this. They love when the old guy, the quest for the ring, stuff like that.

Watching that game last night, there were all these different storylines going on, including some real animosity, it felt like, with the Clippers and the Suns. But I'm not the first person to say this. That was the complete package Chris Paul game. It was the, I'm putting my team on my back game. There's no way we're fucking losing this game. I'm going to throw in a couple of flops here. I'm super annoying. I'm super competitive. I am the fulcrum of this team. It was kind of like weirdly his defining game. I loved it. Yeah, I loved it too. I was in

Phoenix for game five and watching them kind of choke that game away. You had to know that in the back of Chris Paul's mind, he loses this game six and every story for 48 hours is 3-1. Chris Paul, could he lose 3-1 one more time?

I feel like that had to have been a motivating factor for him in this game. It probably wasn't the only reason he played that well. It wasn't the only reason the Suns won that game. I did feel like after game five, we saw the last stand of the Clippers. We saw everything Paul George had to give. You had a remarkable DeMarcus Cousins stint. I mean, Ty Lue pushing every button that he could to make it work. But I got to believe Chris Paul just didn't want to hear the,

you know, going back home to Phoenix 3-1 story. So will Chris Paul blow it again? Will this be a line in his resume? I mean, so I think that was that was part of the motivating motivation for him in that one. What was cool about it, this has been an issue in his career, right? Where it's like, I'm giving you a 22

and 11 in every playoff game, basically. I am the most consistent point guard who's ever lived. But if we really need me or else we're going to lose, then it gets a little dicier. Now, we saw it with Spurs 2050, and he made the game-winning shot.

He's playing on one leg. But for the most part, it seemed like he would wear down. It seemed like in the biggest stages, sometimes he just didn't come through. And just in general, it's the curse of the little guy, which we've only seen a couple people really overcome. Isaiah Thomas was able to do it. We've seen people do it for short, short stretches.

Isaiah Thomas on the Celtics that one year. But for the most part, we're selling. I did a book of basketball pod about him in December. And the premise was basically, can you call Chris Paul the point God if he's never made the finals? Like, how do we reconcile this? The way he's flipped his legacy, even just making the finals was a legacy flipper. If he wins it, then it becomes a different conversation where it's like, you start talking about,

was this the second best point guard of all time? Did he officially pass Isaiah? I feel like he has to. Does he move into, like, on my pyramid, is he a top 20 guy? Things like that. I had him 40 before the season. I have him 30 now.

I have him right on the cusp of level four, like right next to Stockton. But now we have this chance for this guy to rewrite it. It doesn't happen that often in basketball. I can't even remember the last time it happened, but had you given up on Chris Paul as this possibility? No, because I feel like he reinvented himself last year.

And I thought last year you could make the case was the finest year of his career before this season. Because to go to Oklahoma City and not just embrace it, accept it and embrace it, but to elevate that team,

which had no business as a sixth seed, no business being a sixth and embrace it, but to elevate that team, which had no business as a sixth seed, like no business being a sixth seed in the playoffs, to elevate that team the way he did, that showed me a different side of Chris Paul. Because up until that point, I kind of felt a similar way as you. Like, is there an underachiever in him? Are we going to look back and say, like, he should have done more with the Clippers teams, with the Rockets teams? Like, it would always be, like like maybe he wasn't on that level.

Like even though they got beaten the first round, like I thought that was like that seven game series with Houston was one of his finest playoff performances. That year in general was his finest year. And look, I'm among the people that believe Phoenix was on the upswing anyway. You know, I don't believe that the bubble games were an aberration. I thought that they caught something in there that was going to carry over no matter what. But the way he elevated DeAndre Ayton, the way he picked up some of these young guys

like Mikael Bridges and made them better. I mean, he's written an entire new chapter in his career. And that's not something you say about a lot of guys that, you know, some guys are able to kind of recapture old glory. Chris Paul never really had old glory. He like now is finding new glory at 35, 36 years old. And that's, you know,

that's not something you see very often. Yeah, it was interesting hearing him talk in the postgame about, you know, and I had great years here and six years of the Clippers. And I'm like, this was the Amityville Horror House for you. Like, it's like somebody going back to the haunted house, but I had some great years here, except, you know, that time the blood came out of the

walls and my daughter was levitating over her bed. He had some of some awful playoff losses. And I think the, you look back at the 14 and 15 teams and it's almost like a documentary. And then it seemed like the ship had sailed. And I think this became, I did a podcast, I think it was beginning of April, about basically the case for the Suns. Because I felt like they had a game in Utah when they beat Utah in overtime. And it was the first time I was like, wait a second, this is a weird year. It could be just one of those years where like Toronto in 2019, where it's like, wow, that happened. This team is the first team that's built for him.

It wasn't intended to be built for him. But when you look at like, he's got the shooters, he's got the second score, he's got the big guy, he's got the force of personality, they revere him. And it just seemed like, wow, could this happen? With that said, I still feel like the Lakers are better. And I still feel like Kawhi, if he's healthy, I think this Clippers team

would have beaten the Suns. I think they would have too much stuff. You can make the case for Denver too. Does Denver beat him with Jamal Murray? I mean, it's not their fault. You play who's in front of you. Yes. is the old Patriots argument right where the Patriots I don't know where you stand like the asterisk thing is stupid to me like you know like I don't remember like the Mavericks won the championship in 2011 I don't really remember off the top of

my head who won in 2010 like it's just like you don't remember you're not going to look back and say well that's Suns team if they won the finals, they had to beat a Kawhi-less Clippers team. That doesn't really happen. Nobody actually thinks like that as history begins to unfold. So I think this Suns

team, the impact of Chris Paul, I look at the DeAndre Ayton stuff. That to me is the biggest part of all this. Yeah, it's like one and a half Chris Pauls. look at the DeAndre Ayton stuff. That, to me, is the biggest part of all this. Yeah, it's like one and a half Chris Pauls. It is. But Ayton, he always had this potential. I didn't really

love him in the bubble either. In the bubble, I'm looking at a guy, his hands aren't great. He gets frustrated. He doesn't get post touches. The impact Chris Paul had on DeAndre Ayton this year, basically convincing him that it's okay to be a lob catcher. It's okay to be a lob catcher. It's okay to be a defensive staple.

It's okay to, you know, I'll get you to your double doubles. I'll get you your touches so you get your points there. Like, I think Paul's impact on DeAndre Ayton's mindset, you know, was one of the biggest influencers of the success of this team. Booker was going to do Booker things.

Like, he was on his way up no matter what. But Ayton was the linchpin. That's a top 10 defense. And that's largely because of DeAndre Aiton. I don't think DeAndre Aiton plays the same this year

if Ricky Rubio is there and not Chris Paul. I had some Celtics pangs with this Chris Paul thing. There was a couple different times when it felt like they could have had him. The draft,

they almost traded Pierce for him. There was Rondo. When were the Rondo-Chris Paul rumors? What was that? 2010 range? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Rondo found out. Rondo got pissed.

Yeah, he got pissed. Yeah, there was a whole feud with them. I'm sure there were moments in 18 and 19. That's another hilarious thing with this Chris Paul piece where he's the worst, one of the worst contracts

in the league for two years. You have to give away draft picks with him to get rid of him when you're Houston. And now he's going to get a massive extension. And I'm sure the Knicks will be waiting just in case, but I would assume... I doubt it gets that far. I doubt it gets that far. I wouldn't be surprised

if he... Everything I've heard, you opt in, then you extend two years on the back end of that deal. So you basically finish your career with... And you can save the Suns a little bit of money on the final two years because you're collecting that $44 million on this next year. So I

think he's retiring in Phoenix. It seems like it works there. Are you sure Big Shot Bobby Sarver is not going to get a little... That worries me. That does worry me. Bob Sarver worries me. That's going to become an expensive roster in the next couple of years. Yeah, because you've got to give

eight in a bag. They're already talking about giving eight in a bag. Booker's making max. And then Chris... Look, this probably isn't the time to talk about it as we're having this Chris Paul celebration thing, but do you want to be paying Chris Paul $40 billion three years from, but do you want to be paying Chris Paul $40 billion

like three years from now and he's going to be 40? He's already... But the stuff he's doing now has never happened. Like three years from now, he's going to be doing this? Don't you think

Chris's game's going to age really well, though? He doesn't rely on athleticism at all. Like his... Maybe. His entire game is like dribble across the lane

and shoot a mid-range jump shot. He doesn't even defend at this... Like his defense is like reaching in and kind of swatting balls away at this point i think like the way he's playing now and the fact too bill like he like after that that season when he went down with that hamstring injury he went the brady route like he started to do that plyometric stuff and and work on his flexibility and it worked yeah and it worked like he's he played what 70 plus games each of the last two years. So I think health-wise, he's figured some things out too. I wouldn't hesitate to give Chris Paul two more years on the back end

and let him go till 40 with this team. You kind of have to at this point. Well, I wonder if it's going to end up being like football quarterbacks where it seemed inconceivable that Brady was going to play into his 40s, even though he was telling us he was going to play into his 40s. And he did. Now we have Rodgers. It's going to be 38.

He wants to play another five, six years. And it's just where it's going. And it makes more sense now. We haven't seen this really happen with basketball in the same way, but it feels like it's about to. Like LeBron is at a minutes number that the history of the league says his career is going to end pretty soon. But if you use the quarterback analogy, like maybe he can play 75,000 minutes. 60,000 has been really the limit for everybody. Like that Kareem kind of set the standard, but

maybe he goes 75,000. So then when I think of Chris, like, could he play 30 minutes a game, 70 games a year? So he's basically paying 2000 regular season minutes and then another 800 in the playoffs. And you're just very careful. It's almost like having the fancy, awesome car in your garage that you're not driving to California, but you'll take to the beach and maybe, yeah, maybe you could get to 40. I just feel like with Sarver, that guy has had no history of ever spending. And really they should have won in the mid 2000s and didn't because he just wouldn't go over a certain number. So the thought of him having three max guys seems inconceivable to me. Yeah, it would worry me. But what choice do you have? Like, if you don't discuss those two extra years with Chris, he'll opt out and he'll get a big offer from the Knicks.

Like, somebody's going to pay Chris Paul big money this off. The Knicks are interesting. They might run a Mike Conley, too. Like, there's a lot of the Knicks are might be leverage for everybody at this point the next couple of months so if you don't like what are you telling your fan what are you telling your team like you're going to replace

Chris Paul with Cameron Payne like I love Cameron Payne but I don't want to see Cameron Payne in a Chris Paul role for an entire season plus the playoffs he found lightning in a bottle in this series deserves to get paid for it but I don't want to see him replacing Chris Paul. You've got to do it. You have no choice or else

you're going to wind up blowing an opportunity to create this three-year window to be a championship team. I agree with you. Sarver's crazy. He would worry me a little bit if I'm a Phoenix fan, but I'm not sure. He's kind of boxed in here. I don't know what else they do,

but bring Chris Paul back. And also, if you bring him back, the three-year run thing is a great point because everything else is in place, right? You have the swing guys either on rookie contracts or in Crowder's case on a real contract. You have eight and you're going to pay.

Booker's under contract. You get Chris. You get some veteran minimum dude to be like your eighth guy replacing Sarich and you're good to go. Booker's under contract. You get Chris. You get some veteran minimum dude to be like your eighth guy replacing Sarich and you're good to go for two more years. I think the West has a chance to be really great next year because you feel like the Lakers,

LeBron will have this whole summer to really get in crazy shape. Same for Davis. Golden State's up to shit. I don't know what, you know, I don't believe the Dame stuff. There's some Dame rumors floating. I do not believe them.

I did get excited when I heard the rumors are. I started to think like, all right, Wiseman, Wiggins, seven, 14, and two more firsts. And they would just have Dame, Curry, Clay, and Draymond. Like, okay, that's something. Dame comes back to the bay but um i don't think that happens but you know the warriors are going to be better murray comes back

february march range hopefully and they'll add one more piece the nuggets are there they're for real and then who are we leaving out there's got to be one there's one more uh clippers clippers are right back yeah clippers back and then whatever happens utah utah which utah will be fine like i i think mike conley will will be back that's another team that can't afford to lose who's conley i mean it was a 2017 when hayward walked away and they had to kind of rebuild from there you let conley walk away and you're you're kind of in a similar position where you have no cap space and have to, you know, you know, replace him with like Jordan Clarkson as your,

your full-time starter. You got to pay Mike Conley, you know, real money to come back on, on a multi-year deal. But if they do like, I was pretty disappointed in Utah this year, like to lose to the Clippers those last couple of games,

but I still believe, you know, that Donovan Mitchell can carry a team at that level. I still believe that Gobert, I mean, that was such a crappy matchup for Gobert against the Clippers. I still believe he can be... Like we said what Aiton's doing.

I still believe Gobert can be championship level on that team. So I'm a big believer in the Jazz being right back where they were this year record-wise if they bring Conley back. Would you feel good about giving Kawhi $50 million a year? No. I'd be...

I mean, again, but you have no choice. These free agents, they've got their teams over a barrel. What do you do if you're the Clippers? You gave up every asset you have to go and get him, so you're going to let him walk to Miami at the end of the season?

You can't do it. So, yeah, I don't know. As we record this, I don't know the extent of the Kawhi injury, if that's going to wind up being surgical or whatever. But even if it is, you got to pay the guy and deal with the consequences

of maybe missing some of next year because of it. There's no choice. There's no choice that they have. We're taping this before the Milwaukee-Atlanta game. Yep. If for some reason, Milwaukee doesn't make the finals, if that's how this plays out,

but they're stuck with the team they have, basically, they don't really have a lot of moves. They just gave holiday, this giant extension trade, all these picks for him. And Giannis obviously isn't going anywhere. So then you'd kind of look at Middleton.

I do feel like they'd run it back, but I still feel like maybe the coach change is where that would go if they lost this. I'm convinced Rick Carlisle was going there. And that was why he left Dallas when he did before that Bucks-Nets series ended. And look, I have no proof. I'm not reporting this. I'm just a tea leaves guy. And I've talked to a couple different people and I'm just,

I'm convinced he was going there and then they won the series. And now he's in Indiana. I just feel like it's gotta be finals or bust for coach, but I don't care that he got by Brooklyn. Well, does the Yannis injury though, create an excuse to bring him back? I agree with you.

And like, I had heard the same gossip, you know, Carlisle leaves, here's a ready-made contender in Milwaukee. He would be one of their first choices to replace Budenholzer. But I, I feel like Mike's winning that series and having Giannis go down.

Um, I feel like that's going to be enough to rationalize, bring him back. I don't know that that, I don't know if that's, to be enough to rationalize bringing him back. I don't know that that... I don't know if that's... I'm not sure that... They don't beat Brooklyn if Brooklyn's healthy. I think that's pretty clear.

And probably don't next year as well. But I don't... I look at the market. Who would they replace him with at this point? Do you call Terry Stotts to come in and coach? Steve Clifford? That's a good point. Yeah, they might have missed their window to get somebody. The window's kind of... You want to elevate Darvin Ham, like, you know, Steve Clifford. That's a good point. Yeah, they might have missed their window

to get somebody. Yeah, the window's kind of, like, you want to elevate Darvin Ham? I mean, I don't know. But then you end up in that, like, mid-2010s OKC situation where it was clear Scotty Brooks wasn't the right guy,

but now all of a sudden you've lost another year when you realize, or even, like, the Brett Brown thing. I never buy that Scott Brooks wasn't the right guy. Like Scott Brooks, like... Wow, a zag with Scott Brooks. A zag with Scott Brooks.

I've always been a fan of Scott Brooks. And like all those years that they didn't get back to the finals, there are reasons for it. Like Durant goes down, Westbrook goes down. Like that team stays fully healthy, and they keep James Harden, of course. They win a championship. They do. I can't fathom a scenario

where they don't. And that changed the perception all over again. Were they supposed to beat Miami in 2012? No. They were completely overmatched by LeBron at his peak and having experienced the loss in the finals the year before. I think... I love Scott as a coach and I think they would

have won. Wow, you love Scott. This is amazing. One of the best Zags on my podcast in a while. I'm a big Scott Brooks guy. I wish Joe House could come in right now to tell you about his wizard Scott Brooks thoughts. I mean, look, I don't think he's the greatest in-game coach.

I do think he's an excellent player development guy. His empowerment He's the greatest in-game coach. I do think he's an excellent player development guy. Like, you know, like his empowerment of Westbrook early was huge for his development. Like when everybody else was saying, Russell Westbrook's not a point guard, Scott comes in replacing PJ in one of the more disastrous coaching stints ever. Oh, yeah.

And, you know, empowers Russ and says, you're the point guard of this team. And, you know, when like Magic Johnson's calling Russ like the worst point guard in the history of the finals, like, you know, Scott never veered off that. And you can say like every coach, you know, would support their guy, but I think he was really influential

in the development of Westbrook, which Westbrook, who still backs him to the hilt right now, would probably tell you. So I don't think he's Phil Jackson out there, you know, coaching in-game situations, but I think he can be a championship coach. As we start thinking about past finals, what's the most shocking thing that you think

could maybe happen in the next three months? I'm not even talking basketball. I'm talking after the finals. The most shocking thing that is actually even if it's a remote possibility should at least be being discussed.

For me, it's are we sure Kyrie Irving is going to be in the Nets next year? That would be mine. I don't know, man. Oh, you like that one. I do like that one. But even if Sean Marks wanted to do it, well, first of all, you like that one. I do like that one. But even if Sean Marks wanted to do it... Well, first of all, the biggest problem with trading Kyrie

is that no team in their right mind would take him on unless he's telling you he wants to be there. Because otherwise, he will either sulk his way through the next two years or retire and travel the world, go to Zambia or wherever and just fall off the map. He's too hard to trade for that reason. Not because maybe you'd have to deal with the Durant fallout or potential locker room issues, but nobody's taking him on.

What team would he want to go to? You're not going to trade him to New Orleans. There's no scenario I can see where Kyrie would be happy going to a place. So in that sense, I don't think it's possible. So you don't think Kyrie for Ben Simmons, like some sort of as the framework or something is a possibility? I'm just completely making that up. Don't you know that like, I mean, you've covered Kyrie a lot.

Like, you know, I mean, he has such a thing about control, right? Like that was his big thing leaving Boston. Like I want to control my destiny. He chose Brooklyn. He chose to play with Durant. Like, if he gets dumped on Philadelphia, it could turn out to be a great situation. I actually like the idea of Kyrie and Embiid playing together. That's a pretty dynamic, that's a 1-5

pretty dynamic duo, but I just can't imagine him being happy if he's shipped off to another place that he doesn't want to go to. I still look at the... My offseason is just fixated on Lillard. Can these two guys have a... These two sides have a meeting of the mind

and realize they both kind of want the same thing. Dame is sending out all these signals, like these cryptic Instagram posts, the leaking stuff to Chris Haynes. He wants to go. He just doesn't want to look like the bad guy in saying he wants to go. Meanwhile, if you're Portland, if you're Neil O'Shea,

you can't look at this team and say we're a piece or two away from winning a championship. You're not, especially with the Western Conference loading up again for the next couple of years. You can't do it. And you saw Dame this year, as dominant as he was,

top five, top six type of player. He was banged up at different points during the season. And he's like one, like two month long injury away from being, from his trade value going from like 100% to 75. So if you're looking to deal him, now's the time. Like you can get back with the right team. One of the great halls in trade history. You can get, if you want Ben Simmons, you can get,

I hate even discussing Boston as a possibility because we always do this. But Jalen Brown, young players in every draft pick you've got, that might get the job done, too. So you can get a pretty big haul for Damian Lillard right now. And I'm not sure that's going to be the case a year from now. Paul George. But does that do anything for you? That was theorized. Paul George but does that do anything for you like that was Justin Barry brought that up on the ringer NBA show last night and I was

like you know you deal like CJ McCollum for Paul George and try to you know keep it going but if you deal for Paul George aren't you just getting on the same hamster wheel where you're way better than CJ McCollum though no I if you could I'm saying trading I'm saying Dame the same hamster wheel where you're... Yeah, but Paul George is way better than C.J. McCollum, though.

If you can do that. I'm saying Dame. If you're talking trading, Dame. You don't feel like Paul George's trade... I feel like for me, in my mind, in my trade value rankings, Paul George really won me over in these playoffs. I actually thought he did some stuff, especially after Kawhi went out, that I didn't think he was capable

of. I don't hold last night against him. I think to do that every other night where you basically have to be LeBron on the 2018 Cavs with this roster you have where everything's got to flow through you and also he's got the defense. He's got to play 40 minutes a night.

They're being really physical with him. They had multiple swings to just throw at him over and over again and Aiton in the paint. I was really impressed. I thought that was the best I physical with him. They had multiple swings to just throw at him over and over again. And Aiton in the paint. I was really impressed. I thought that was the best I've seen him. No, I was impressed too. But what's the point if you're Portland?

If you're going to deal Damian Lillard, don't you want to kind of rebuild this thing? I honestly think Portland should become Oklahoma City. Honestly, I think they should deal both those guys and try to get back blue chip, under control players like Oklahoma City did with Shea Gildas Alexander and a million draft picks. That's why I look at Jalen Brown, who's got, what, three years left on his deal. Ben Simmons signed through 2025. Those are the type of guys who are both 24 years old that you can start to rebuild this thing around. Paul George is, what, 31, something like that?

I don't know that that's going to point you in the direction you want to go. Wiseman, Wiggins, 7-14 and two more firsts from a thousand points to late? I mean, Wiggins is like the contract, though, right?

We're not looking at Wiggins as an asset, are we? No, it's a contract. I mean... Wait. We got to take a break and then I want to talk some Celtics stuff.

So you mentioned Oklahoma City. This is something you mentioned to me that I don't know if you've discussed anywhere. And I don't know if I've heard it anywhere. But you were surprised the Celtics didn't kick the tires on Sam Presti, who is from Massachusetts, who I think went to Emerson, and who I think everybody has just penciled in to be in Oklahoma City for the next 60 years, but is somebody that has a unique understanding of the Celtics as a franchise, the history of the franchise, what they mean, what that opportunity is, the legacy of Red Auerbach and people like that. And you were, just do your thing on Presti.

Well, I believe unequivocally that if the Celtics made an offer to Sam Presti, he would have taken it. I think that the Celtics are Sam Presti's dream job. Like, as you said, grew up, conquered Massachusetts, played college basketball at Emerson. This is a guy that still brings his family back. I think his father still lives in New England.

He still brings his family back in the summer, goes to Fenway Park. You know, it's, there's a connection between Boston and Sam Preston. I think that if the Celtics had just had a little patience and kick the tires on Sam Preston, they would have liked what they heard back. And for Preston, like there's no better time to leave Oklahoma City

than right now. Like you've, you took them almost to the mountaintop. You built a incredible small market success story. And while they are down now, the cupboard's not bare.

Like you've got a potential. The cupboard's not bare. Things are falling out of the cupboard. Yeah. You're overflowing with assets. Lou Dort, excellent player. All these draft picks. Before the lottery,

before the lottery happened, you had a chance of getting the number one pick in the draft. Now you've got the top six pick. And if you're Presti, you have a succession plan in place. Rob Hennigan is being positioned as the heir to Sam Presti.

He's one of only a couple of guys in the organization that have direct access to Clay Bennett. He is being groomed for that spot. So if there was a time for Sam Presti to leave, outside of winning a championship, this would be it. And I just... I have no problem with Brad Stevens taking that job.

I think Brad's super smart and will find a way to be successful at that job. My problem is if you have arguably the best general manager in basketball potentially available to you and you don't even call...

And he's from here. And he's from here. And you don't even call. And he's from here. And you don't even call? I don't know what we're doing. I don't know. Then it opens up the can of worms of could Brad have continued as head coach? Did Brad want to continue as head coach?

I don't know the answer to that question. I asked him that. He said he would. But I've heard some different things. I think we both know the actual answer to that question. Yeah, I think he was a little burnt on, you know, I mean, like eight years is a long time.

I think he was burned out and I think that it seemed like the team was a little burned out on him too the more we learned about stuff. Probably. I would be willing though to give him a, like it's such a weird year with COVID

and like quick turnaround, things like that. I mean, I would have, if this had been a full season and they had played like this, I might be more willing to buy that. I would have brought him back for the year.

But let me say this, like Sam Presti and Brad are like super close. Like they talk all the time. Like there was talk back in 2012 that to bring it back to Scott Brooks, like that Presti wanted to hire Brad Stevens after the Thunder

went to the finals. Like they got to the finals and Presti was interested in Brad Stevens after the Thunder went to the finals. They got to the finals, and Presti was interested in Brad Stevens back then, but you can't fire your coach after getting to the finals, of course. That's among the reasons that didn't happen. So I think if Sam takes that job, Brad Stevens is probably still there as the head coach. And then at that point, if you're the Celtics, you are positioned with a guy who I think is still a top 10 coach in the NBA. I'm still a believer in Brad Stevens' coaching skills. Me too.

And the best general manager in the NBA, outside of Masai Ujiri or Pat Riley, right in that group to build this thing. I mean, that infrastructure, not to have it, or not to at least try to get it, that to me was a little maddening to kind of watch unfold. The cynical side of me wonders, they gave Brad an extension a year ago.

We're coming, we have this three-year run of, we have the Kyrie season, which was just unhappy. Then you have the pandemic season, followed by the stoppage, followed by we come back, they make this bubble run, then this new season starts right away, another unhappy unhappy season you have all this basketball and this roller coaster rider drama and all this

stuff packed into three years he's got kids i think he i think is a huge family guy i get it um i don't think he was that happy i don't know if he felt like he was reaching the roster in the same way, especially a couple of his stars. The chemistry was a little off. And at some point, they're looking at it and they're like, this guy has a huge contract. He's not going to walk away from it. They're not going to fire him. And maybe they talked themselves into this front office thing.

That would be my fear. The glass half full side of me thinks he wanted a break. He's an incredible basketball mind. And they became enchanted with the possibility of, yeah, this guy can rebuild our roster. He's our best option. And maybe it never occurred to them

to call Preston. I mean, that's almost like, that's like malpractice. If that's the case. Like you've got to, if you're with Groesbeck, like you've got, you've got to have that awareness. Like you, you've got to, I mean, this is like. I think that Danny thing was weird for them though, because Danny clearly was leaving.

Yes. They, they, they had Zarin who's thought he might have a chance to get the GM job. So you're dealing with that too. You have Danny's son still there. You also have a pretty white organization and they knew they had to address that. They knew that diversity had to be the number one thing they had to figure out

just from a decision-making standpoint, from a forward-facing standpoint, all that stuff. And how that related to how players felt about them, all those things. So I think the coach they hired, by all accounts, sounds great. That sounds like an awesome hire. And I like everything I've heard

about the Brad front office thing, but I just wonder how we arrived there because I've heard this plan might've been in place even long. I don't think this came up, this happened in a week. I think this was months where they really started talking

about this you you probably were hearing all the same things i was over the last few months that danny was was done like you kind of knew it and i still think he winds up in some capacity in utah um as an advisor at this point too i would say lock it down yeah i'm pretty sure that's uh that's gonna happen you knew like i happen. The domino effect was, people were talking all along, Danny leaves Boston, Dennis Lindsey leaves Utah. The third part of this was that people thought Dennis Lindsey was going to wind up

in Houston. I don't think that's going to happen, at least not right away. But I can see a year or so from now, if Tillman Fertitta wants to make a change at the top, Dennis Lindsey, who's only 52, could emerge as that guy. I just, you know, this is such an important decision. And if you have a crack at the best in the business,

why not take a swing at it? I mean, you can back channel through anybody. You can make a phone call, see if he's interested. And if he is, let it play out. Let him and Brad talk. I mean, the first deal Brad made, which I don't know was the... I don't know if I'd do my first deal with Sam Presti. That's just my opinion.

I don't know. I'm not sure that that should be good. And by the way, that deal still feels too knee-jerk for me because now Damian Lillard might be available. Don't you want that extra draft pick if Damian Lillard is potentially on the table? Do we really believe an Al Horford deal wasn't going to be there? Do you think that people were beating down the doors for Al Horford?

I can assure you they were not. So... Yeah, that's interesting. I just... I assume that they had one option to dump this Kemba contract.

And if it wasn't going to be OKC, I don't think they thought there was a second team. Yeah, but that... I think they had to get rid of that contract. They were talked into it, though. I think Presti probably, and I'm just guessing at this,

but probably was like, yeah, you know, maybe an Al Horford deal over here, over there, you better get this done right away. And they jumped on it. That's what a good GM would do in a situation like that. A good experienced GM. So you think he took advantage of the new guys? Like, ah, this is on the table for 24 hours.

That's it. Sorry. Presti is going to use that one roster slot for crappy contracts. He can keep flipping over and over again. Like, doesn't it feel like next year Porzingis is going to be a, like he'll be on the Thunder roster. Like Kemba, they'll find a way to get Kemba to play like 60 something games and Dallas will turn around and go, you know,

we need a point guard next to Luka. Maybe that Kemba Walker guy who's only got one year left on his contract. You flip Porzingis for him, and you throw a first-round pick into the mix, and this is like the never-ending story of Oklahoma City rebuilding guys. The point is, I felt like that deal would have been there in August.

I don't think anyone was clamoring for Al Horford, and you could have made that deal after the combine to see if you kind of really liked anybody at the combine. I mean, that would have been worth it. Yeah, but on the other hand, they were interviewing lottery picks at the combine, which was also confusing.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Because there's some... My feeling is either Marcus gets extended or traded, but it will happen the next six weeks and it'll be one or the other. And I would lean toward the extension, but I wouldn't be surprised if they traded him for

I don't know, the seventh pick with the Warriors. If they were... The contract stuff would be tough, but actually, I think the contract stuff would be really tough. Like Sacramento or whatever. Like the 7-9 range is probably his value

because I do think contending teams really value him because they've seen him in three conference finals teams. You know, they know he could be like the fourth or fifth guy in a really good team. No, that's like if Portland keeps Lillard, like that's why McCollum is intriguing for Boston because Smart would probably compliment Lillard. That's why McCollum is intriguing for Boston because Smart would probably compliment Lillard differently, at least, than McCollum does. The biggest problem in Portland is that

there's no defensive backstop there. There's nobody that can guard wings the way that Smart can. So you put Smart next to Lillard, you take a lot of pressure off him in that sense. So I think there's a good market, to your point. There's a really good market for Marcus Martin. I'm going to whisper this because I don't want the 29 other teams to hear this, but are we sure he's as good as he was three years ago? Because I don't feel like he is. No.

Athletically, I think he's really slipped. I don't think he's the same defensively anymore. Now, maybe he had an off year, and maybe there'll be a new conditioning program, and it'll be plant-based diet, and he's the same defensively anymore. Now, maybe he had an off year and maybe there'll be a new conditioning program and it'll be plant-based diet and he's back. But I just think guards were going by him left and right last season. Yeah, I think the shine has come off him

a little bit defensively. And you kind of saw that in the all defensive team stuff. And like when I vote for that stuff, I don't like, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I spend most of my time like texting assistant coaches, asking them who I should be voting for. And that's why I kept hearing know what the hell I'm talking about. I spend most of my time texting assistant coaches, asking them who I should be voting for. That's why I kept hearing Dylan Brooks over and over again. That's why I put him on

my ballot. Not a lot of them told me smart. I wasn't hearing his name as often as I've heard it in years past. It may have just been an off year. Again, this COVID year was bizarre on so many levels. He's still young enough to bounce back. I think he still has

something left athletically. But he definitely was not the same defensive player this year that he's been in previous years. Do you think there's going to be a team this summer? I don't give a fuck anymore. I just want to do something to make a splash team. Almost like Chicago with that Vucevic deal where they're like,

fuck it. And they just traded picks. And Wendell Carter for Vucevic deal where they're like, ah, fuck it. And they just traded picks. And Wendell Carter for Vucevic, they were just like, screw it. We need to have something happen. Is there a team out there for you? What a disaster that was, though, for Chicago. You make that deal and go into the crapper.

And now you give away that lottery pick. I don't know. I'm trying to think of... Is Minnesota a team to you that you could see getting frisky? Because that seems like a Ben Simmons team. What, do you deal Russell then? Yeah, if it's like Russell and Beasley

and maybe it's not enough. I got to be honest, and I've talked about this before. This is the first time I've said it. I honestly have gotta be honest. And I've talked about this before. I'm just in the first time I said it. I honestly have no idea what Ben Simmons's value is. Somebody sent me a Sacramento B article today about, they wrote this whole piece about buddy healed, Marvin Bagley,

and the number nine pick for Simmons. And my first reaction was, that seems like way too much. I don't know if I'd want to give up buddy healed and number nine pick for a guy who basically had a psychological breakdown offensively in the, in the playoffs. Like I don't know if I'd want to give up Buddy Hale to number nine pick for a guy who basically had a psychological breakdown offensively in the playoffs. I don't trust him. And then on the other hand, I'm like, maybe that's not enough. They're not even getting a guaranteed all-star back for somebody that we thought could lead a franchise.

So I don't know what his trade value is. What do you think it is? I hear from executives all the time that are loving this Ben Simmons trade value is cratered conversation because they hope that Philadelphia believes that. I think his trade value is actually higher than what's being publicly portrayed, but you're going to continue to hear a lot of the negativity around Ben Simmons. In other words, I think people value him pretty high across the league because I do think there's a belief

that someone's going to figure the shooting thing out. Someone's going to get to him and figure out a way not to make him a reliable three-point shooter, but at least a willing three-point shooter and adjust his shot with his blessing to make him a reasonably reliable free-throw shooter. I mean, that's all we're really talking about here. We're not talking about Ben becoming Chris Middleton.

We're talking about him just being willing, being able to shoot like 30-something percent from three-point range, low 30s from three points, points shooting 70 something percent from the free throw. And he does that. And all his other positives are just accentuated. Like his ability to lock you down, like four positions,

the human fast break that he is. Like I, I think there are teams, I'll put it this way. There are teams absolutely salivating at the chance to get ahold of Ben Simmons and try to fix the things that Philadelphia couldn't. Maybe it's impossible, but there are teams really chomping at the chance to get a hold of Ben Simmons and try to fix the things that Philadelphia couldn't. Maybe it's impossible, but there are teams really chomping at the bit to do that.

How much is, I know he's under contract for a while, but I wonder how much is his agent dictating where he goes and teams being afraid. Like if I trade for him and he's not unhappy and I'm giving up all this stuff, like why would I do that? Yeah.

Because we saw Clutch do that with Anthony Davis, where they're like, he's going to the Lakers. Like, you can trade for him, but he's still going to go there in a year. And they just put this cloud over any possibility. But there was leverage there, right? Like, Davis could walk in a year. That's why, like, when the Boston stuff came up, like, you can trade for him, but he's going to hit for agency the following year. Ben Simmons can't walk until 2025.

So you've got some wiggle room there to figure it out. Like, they'll work with Clutch. Like, you work with any agent. Like, that's certainly... OKC? Could OKC be a possibility? But what do they...

What do they get back in that one? Like, Six and a bunch of their other picks, and then Philly has, like, an arsenal of stuff to go after Lillard with? Because really the picks are going to be the move. There'd have to be another domino to fall, right? Like you'd have to... You couldn't just deal Ben Simmons

for a whole bunch of draft picks, which you could with Oklahoma. They just absorbed the contract. But you couldn't... You couldn't do it without having that second move with the team. But you can't leave Embiid by himself

with you know just Seth Curry and you know well I was thinking like like basically a three-teamer where the Picks go to Portland Lillard goes to Philly something like that

yeah I gotta be honest though I said this the other day I don't if I'm Lillard I would be worried about going to Philly having them gut their team

to trade for me and then basically my title chances are tied to Embiid, who gets hurt every year. That would make me nervous. Yeah, but you got to think, like, Dame just kind of looking around being like, man, we couldn't beat Denver this year.

Like, Denver got smoked by Phoenix, and we couldn't beat them. Like, six games, I had 33 points and a half. We were down by 12 in that game. Like, he's got to be looking around at halftime. He's got to be looking around saying halftime. He's got to be looking around saying it's not happening in Portland. As big a risk as Embiid's injury is, I got to believe he'd embrace

that rather than staying in the same situation he's in. The most fun trade from a drama standpoint would be Lillard for Davis and LeBron turning on Davis. Such a heel turn. It Davis and just a heel turn. It's not just the basketball trade.

It's a wrestling heel moment. It's Hulk Hogan hitting Macho Man over the head with a steel chair. That'd be great. It probably makes him better. It probably makes the Lakers better. Yeah, because they have, you know, Kuzma grabs some of those minutes, all that stuff. Give me two fights that I need to see this summer.

Oh, the two easy ones fury wilder three will be fun for however long it lasts um it's like deontay wilder's last stand and legacy a legacy fight for him he gets knocked out by tyson fury again and he'll be like you know i don't know like the club of, of boxing in the sense that like he was knocking out guys that weren't very good. And then he goes up against a top guy and couldn't, couldn't get it done. So huge legacy fight for, for Deontay. And then,

you know, Pacquiao Spence, August 21st, like that, like the fact that Manny Pacquiao at 42 is not only coming back to fight, but fighting the top guy in the welterweight division, an absolute, you know, beast in the ring andweight division, an absolute, you know,

beast in the ring and Errol Spence. Like that's, if Pacquiao wins that fight, like there'll be a lot of people that even though he lost to Mayweather will elevate him over Mayweather because he will have, he will have at this stage of his career taken out the number one guy at welterweight. I'm honestly shocked.

He's taken that fight. I really am. I thought he'd like, you know, wait for, and he did this for a little while, but I thought he'd wait for the Middle East money to open up and fight a Mikey Garcia or somebody like that and collect a relatively easy check. He might even lose

the Garcia fight, but he won't get beat up. This is a fight that he could get beat up. He could wind up like he did against Juan Manuel Marquez, face planted on the canvas. I'm honestly shocked he's willing to do this at this point. But those two are clear tentpole fights for the summer. I might go to that one because I'm sure you know this. That's the same night as SummerSlam.

Yep. And they made SummerSlam a little early so they could give people time to go from SummerSlam to the Pacquiao fight. That sounds like an amazing night. I don't know how I can turn that down. It's also, if you stay, it's like the back end of Summer League. I think Summer League ends on Wednesday of that week or something

where they crown the Darren Ehrman All-Stars, the championship team out there, and then you walk right into fight week. That's a wild week out in Vegas. That could be the Poku coronation week where his Summer League MVP, we talk about Poku 40 and 20 in the final game.

I'm surprised Sam Preston didn't offer Poku for Jalen Brown. I bet he did. I bet he did make that offer. Probably did. This Poku guy, you saw him that last game

of the season. He puts up numbers. What's your podcast, by the way? What's the name of it? Crossover. Crossover NBA podcast, yeah. Oh, with our guy Howard Beck.

Howard Beck. Love Beck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Say hi to him. Newest addition. Mannix, thanks for coming on. Anytime.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Curtis and Mannix. Thanks to producer Kyle Creighton. We are not coming back on Sunday night. We might be back on Monday night if there is a game seven of Hawks-Bucks. If not, I will see you on Tuesday. Enjoy the weekend. Fourth of July weekend.

Stay safe. Don't get too crazy. I don't have.