The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Giannis Dilemma, Butler’s Alpha Destiny, the Too-Cool Clips, Kyle Lowry, and Homer Corner With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Bucks’ playoff turmoil, whether Giannis will re-sign with the Bucks, the Heat’s rising playoffs expectations, Clippers-Nuggets, Raptors-Celtics, Steve Nash as the Nets head coach, Bill’s son Ben’s first-ever fantasy football draft, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Lakers, Rockets, Celtics, Raptors, you name it. We're talking about it. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Four months ago, we're still in Iran here, breaking down Michael Jordan games from 30 years ago, wondering how the hell we were going to fill 90 minutes. And now all of a sudden, it's Labor Day weekend.

We have a really, really exciting bubble playoffs in the second round. And we have the NFL coming. We're not even going to talk about the NFL today. The first thing I was going to talk about, I assume the Bucs are going to get swept today. And we're going to have the whole Giannis-Milwaukee's future discussion.

Giannis goes out. Milwaukee avoids a sweep. Kind of a heroic effort, gut check by them. Did you see anything in that game that makes you think we shouldn't be leading this podcast with the what the hell does Milwaukee do conversation about Giannis?

No, not at all. I think that's kind of the thing that's everybody's on everybody's mind. I think we should dive into like, what do you think about bud? But I mean, to me, it's doc rivers theory one-on-one where he'd always said, I want the best players out there. And sometimes when the guy like the best player, Giannis goes down, at least from Milwaukee, something, something different could happen, but Middleton was terrific. He was terrific late, hit some big shots. So, you know, congrats to those guys, but I still think this is a Milwaukee big picture podcast before it is, hey, are they going to come back from down 3-0?

You could see Miami let up a little bit. They did not have the same alpha doggy, crazy intensity fourth quarter and even overtime that they usually had missed a couple shots to. Let's start here. I want to talk about Giannis the player first, because as this thing snowballed last week, listening to some of the TV shows, some of the pieces, I tried to stay away from social media. I saw a little bit of it, but there seems to be a real misconception here with Giannis who he's supposed to be. I think people see him like a LeBron Durant.

He's this guy who's going to be the focal point. And then all of a sudden it veered the other way because Richard Jefferson made that pipping comment. And to me, he's just Shaq. And I said that last year. I said that during the season this year, I said it again, where I think the problem, because he's not a typical center that we grew up watching. He's not Shaq. He's not Moses. He's not Hakeem. He's not all these guys. We don't think of him as center, but he really is a center. And as much as basketball has changed over the last seven years, and it's really hard to compare Kareem on the 1972 Bucks versus the stuff we're talking about now, the reality is centers don't win titles unless they have that awesome second guy, the creator guy.

And all you have to do is go back and look at Shaq 97, 98, 99 before Kobe became Kobe, where he's just getting annihilated in these playoff series. Utah twice, San Antonio once, all the way down the line to Moses, who was the best player in the league for five years, could not win the title until he actually landed an Philly at Andrew Toney and Doc and all these guys. Why don't we think of Giannis as a center? Why do you think people get thrown off by this? Well, because I think there was a stretch in the league was going small that we didn't even think centers mattered. And in a really quick correction from that, it feels like centers are really important to a lot of these teams now. But we just don't see the way the game, we just don't have the game played that way. So even if we don't think of Giannis as a center, which we don't because of his handle,

because of his end-to-end, all of these abilities, even if you were to say, hey, let's be a center, who's going to, is he going to post up? I mean, it just seems like nobody ever, ever would want to run that offense because you'd be costing yourselves attempts to run at threes. You know, one of the things I think is always kind of funny is when i think about imbeed and his post touches right we all want more imbeed post touches we wanted to get all these different touches and then the counter will be we'll look at his post touches it's more than anybody in the league not that long ago al jefferson led the nba in post touches and it's double what imbeed averages for a season so the game is played different so you're right like we should look

at his just numbers and where he scores from and all that stuff. But he doesn't in a way where we just started thinking that centers just weren't available. But your best point was the first one in that. These these playoff teams that survive have a guy who can get you a bucket in a bunch of different ways, like Durant could do a bunch of different things to you. LeBron could do a bunch of different things to you, Even Steph, even Harden, you know, some of the Harden shortcomings in the playoffs. But Giannis, if it's not momentum where he breaks through the wall, that's kind of it. Right. And it's hard to rely on. Like, how many possessions have you seen

in this series specifically where he brings it up, defensive rebound, the wall is set up, and then it's off to a guy to the left or right where it's now, okay, you start the offense. And now I'm going to try to figure out some way to get down to like, if it doesn't happen on the first action with him, it seems like it's a struggle. Well, so that's why I feel like there was a fundamental flaw in how they approached his career and what he should be in Milwaukee. This last couple of years,

I was talking about stretching them out. Got to shoot threes. You got, you have to shoot the three. It's like, does he, does he have to shoot three? Because the thing that I think makes him so special as a player, and I really did think he was the best player in the league during the regular season, but we had many conversations about that doesn't matter in the playoffs. We, you and I both think Kawhi is the best playoff player and what it takes to win in the playoffs is just different than regular season.

I think what makes him special is just when he's within 10 feet of the rim. And it's the same thing with young Shaq, you know, way back when, where it's just like, Jesus, how do you fucking stop this? You can't do it. Or Shaq in the finals when he's going, when he's ripping through the nets and the Sixers and you're like, oh my God, how do you stop this? So to me, he's doing everybody a favor if he's 25 feet, 20 feet from the basket, because now I can set up a, I can set up the wall thing. I can force him to shoot jumpers. I can foul him. He's not a great free throw shooter. And then

kind of everybody else stands around and watches him. And you know, if I had a do over for the Bucks the last couple of years, it's a little like where the point LeBron was at after the 2011 finals for different reasons, where Dallas was guarding him with Jason Terry and Beret at different points. It was like, LeBron, you're going to have to figure out how to make teams pay when they do that. With Giannis, it's not a, you have to figure out how to make things pay thing. To me, it's just how he should play. I don't want him 25 feet from the basket. I want him in transition or I want him

near the rim. And then the second piece would be, he needs to be, have that second guy because everybody's actually won the title who doesn't have the skill to create their own shot really, which he, he does and doesn't, but he's not like the Durant Luca type of guy. They need the second guy and they just don't have it. And we'll go into the organizational stuff later, but do you think it's still time to change how he plays or is it too late? Is this who he is? Because he's still great. He's still one of the best players in the league, but does he have to change to actually win in the playoffs? This is where I get a little scared because, you know, remember when LeBron, when they had those early losses, when they lost to Dallas, it was,

okay, LeBron has to go to post-up camp. Like all of a sudden LeBron was supposed to be this post-up player, or they were supposed to trade Bosch for a point guard, you know, or trade him for two other pieces because this isn't going to work. I mean, that stuff was real. It was happening and it was definitely real when Hibbert looked like a guy that was like a problem for the Miami Heat, which seems insane. Right. You'd even say it. It's a million years ago.

Right. That's actually a real conversation that happened. And first of all, point guard with LeBron is pointless, especially when you also have LeBron and Wade. LeBron didn't need to post up and learn all these post-up moves. He actually didn't really have any, even though he was catching into the post. It was kind of like this freak out when he got in the post, but I didn't know that he was ever that clean in those moves. So to say, okay, Giannis needs to change all of these things. I think the first thing is for Giannis that I've noticed, and I went back and looked at all three

point attempts is that there's too many early three point attempts. I don't know why he would pull up in transition to take threes. I know people are obsessed with the idea that bad shooters are supposed to take threes to keep the defense honest. I don't know. My counter to that would be, why would you keep doing something you're really bad at? In the first three games, he took 13 threes, 11 of the 13, and I was nice about it. I would say were early threes. So basically my cutoff was 10 seconds or less on the shot clock is a late three. And that's not even that late. And Miami's delighted. Miami's delighted every time he's doing that. So I say 10 even those 11 early ones i think it was with 14 seconds or more left in the shot clock and he doesn't hit any of them so i would stop

doing that uh the transition thing when people were bringing up how many offensive fouls he has i love that i love that and we saw this at the beginning of game four he was ready to go so there's no like hey what's wrong with him that we've done with Chris Paul in some big spots. We've done with James Harden in big spots. There's evidence he's been in this league long enough. I don't think with Giannis it has anything to do with his mindset. I loved his mindset and his attacking early in this game. It's just exhausting.

And we're going to get to the minute stuff here. But whenever any of us are at home or the announcers, more on the home team announcers, get mad, it's like drive to the hoop, drive to the hoop, drive to the hoop. You're like, you know what? It's impossible to just drive to the hoop all game long. I don't care who you are because it's exhausting. And that's why you'll see guys settle for threes every now and then.

Well, and you need, there's a predictability with them that they've had in the playoffs the last two years where, you know, I was talking to somebody who loves this stuff in the basketball community. And he was just saying how much he enjoyed how Boston and Toronto play and how much action there is and how unpredictable it is. And just the coaching adjustments that have gone on in that series, which we'll talk about later, but just the unpredictability game to game. Whereas with Milwaukee, it's a little like that Luka Harden problem that we talked about when Dallas and Houston can fall into that four guys standing watching the fifth guy. And it was weird. It was kind of freeing to watch them without

Giannis today because they actually started playing basketball and guys were moving and guys were chipping in versus just Giannis and the specialists. And I think Jalen made that point in the countdown today that when you build a team of specialists around your main guy, this is the same problem LeBron was in 10 years ago in Cleveland, right? It was him and the specialists. And then in 2014, Miami, same thing. Once Wade started to slip, it's just him and the specialists. Same thing, 2018 in Cleveland. It's him and Korver and all these dudes who can only do these one things.

My goal with Giannis would be, how can we be more unpredictable? Can we post them up sometimes? Can we move them around? Can we not give the same look all the time? And I think the post-up is part of that because if he's playing my team, if they're playing the Celtics in these finals and he's on the block, I'm the most nervous there because I feel like we have to double him. I'm not saying you do it every time, but if you're mixing up and moving around and just turning him into this Swiss army knife versus the way they use him, to me, that's his destiny as a basketball player player i don't think we've hit the ceiling yet

by any means do you no i don't because i i really thought at the end of last year during the regular season i know we brought it up you could start to see a light go off with him on his three-point shooting where it just started to look a little bit better and he put together like a couple months on a game log there where you're going whoa whoa like this might be something and for all the shit ben simmons takes for never ever wanting to attempt those shots. And we have to be consistent in that. Okay. Well, at least Giannis is trying to take some of these, but I would mention specifically again in this Miami series, I don't know why you're taking them early. Cause in Jeff Van Gundy even says, I mean, forget what I say, but he's like, I love it. He's like, I love it.

Keep doing it. If I found Miami.ami um but the specialist thing is really good it's also some of the westbrook stuff we talked about in the past where you spend the entire season getting out of one guy's way and then in your playoffs and you go wait now you're relying on me to hit like a big shot like wait a minute i'm used to only getting the ball once you've given up on the drive i didn't know wait a minute you actually want me to make a play off the dribble wait you're sending me a pick? What am I supposed to do? Yeah, wait. Why are you doing it?

So you play 80 games like that. And it's also my struggle of what do I watch? Because I care about this stuff. I care about watching it and coming up with stuff to talk about. Where Houston in their shortcomings, you go, is this a continuation of the biggest gap between regular season and playoff basketball we've ever seen? But then Houston starts to put together some good games. You go, you know, you're just better off. I mean, some of these games that I'm taking notes and trying to break down, I'll just look at the three point percentage and just go who shot better from three. Oh,

they did. Okay. They won like some of these games. We don't need to spend a lot of time breaking down because the three point shot is so dominant in deciding what the hell happens. And then you can do it with this stan van gundy was basically like he had nothing else to offer he was just like hey man it's a make or miss league boston made him the first two games now toronto's making him it's really that simple it's like yes he's semi right yeah i kind of hate that it's that simple and it's the same thing with a miami thing you're like oh they're up 20 on threes here okay they're up 12 again on threes here they're making all their threes can. Okay, they're up 12 again on threes here. They're making all of their threes. Can I offer one thing that's not an anti-Yannis thing, though, at least?

Please. So for all of this playoff concern about regular season versus postseason Bud, which I'll admit I still have some of these reservations, and it's not even specific to Bud. It's about these three-point spread-em-out dominant teams going, you know, people just try harder in the playoffs, so some of this stuff can get a little stagnant. And even though you like Middleton post Giannis, I thought even though he had 22 in the third quarter, it was incredible. I thought there were possessions in the fourth where he went 0 for 6 where I go, what are you asking him to do?

Those were hard. And he hit some shots in OT, but those weren't easy. No, they were all bad shots. Yeah. It was just like man you're not making it easy on this guy but here's the thing regular season offensive efficiency so per 100 possessions versus playoff last year they were 113 points per 100 possessions in the regular season about 111 in the playoffs. Not necessarily a huge drop-off, both fourth.

Fourth in the regular season, fourth in the playoffs. And it's also a playoff team for all those concerns we had that were destroying teams the first 10 of 11 games. And if they had won that double overtime game against Toronto, like, who knows? I mean, this team was still, despite all the angst that we have, very close to playing for an NBA championship last year, okay? So pretty close this year. It's even closer regular season, offensive efficiency, about 112 points per a

hundred in the playoffs. It's about 111. So you're like, what's the problem? The problem has been the defense. And I don't know that this is really brought up because it does look like they get stuck and are predictable. And it's Giannis gets cuts off. He passes Giannis gets through everybody. Oh my God. Great donkey ends up with 30 again. Their defense from the regular season to the playoffs is about five points worse per 100 possessions. But against Miami, they go from the number one defense in the NBA,

102 plus points per 100 possession to these four games, Bill, they're allowing 115 points per 100 possessions. That is the difference between best in the NBA to like bottom third. It's awful. And well, they look, that's they're chasing these guys around and it's, it's freaking them out because Miami keeps moving and moving and moving. And they're, they're a little slow and they're a little unathletic, which is ironic because

they have the best athlete in basketball. But Miami has exposed a lot of stuff. I'm pushing back on Giannis offensively in the playoffs. All right, these two series, I'm just going to throw at you. Toronto last year, he falls down to 23 and 13, basically 44.8% field goal, 58% free throw. And it did feel like they figured him out a little bit, at least had to slow him down. Because in my opinion, for Milwaukee to hit their destiny,

you got to think like, almost like with Shaq with the Lakers, where it's got to be between 28 and 35 a game, I feel like, for them to realistically win with the team they have. Then you look at this series in the three games, I'm not counting the one today because he got hurt, but he was 23 and 13 again, 45% field goal and 54% from free throw.

It's like, that's just not good enough when you're in do or die series like that. And that's why I feel like there's still a ceiling for him to go higher. And the question for me is, is it in Milwaukee? And if it's not in Milwaukee, should they get rid of him now? Because we've seen this happen. You just did the sweep analysis here. But that's fair. I don't think they're coming back, so that's okay.

All right. Let me set this up Greeny style for you. Uh-oh. I'm intrigued already coming up after the break i'm gonna tell you what milwaukee should actually do with the honest right after this not good enough now here's one give me what do aaron rogers and yannis have in common they could be leaving the cheese state next. That's good. All right. Let's take a break to talk about FanDuel. You know, we've been doing some contests with them,

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I want to, I want to talk about whether they should trade Giannis or whether they should roll the dice and hope he stays. But first, I want to talk about the Bucks organization. Okay. And how much we blame them for this. Because the Bledsoe-Brogdon screw-up, which I think everybody's hit on, everybody's talked about.

I actually don't feel like people understand how bad that was. And it wasn't the Harden trade because it wasn't as sexy of a move. And he didn't, Brogdon's never going to become what James Harden was. It was a two-step mistake that's very reminiscent of what Philly did with Tobias Harris, where the trade was a mistake. All the assets they get up for a guy that they didn't even know really was going to fit with them. And then they doubled down by overpaying him and then it becomes unrecoverable.

For Milwaukee, Bledsoe was playing really well for four months in the regular season. He was going to be a free agent coming up. And they said, fuck it. And they gave him an extension, I think February, March of 2019, knowing that Brogdon was going to be an RFA. So they gave him an extension, I think February, March of 2019, knowing that Brogdon was going to be an RFA. So they pay him this big number and he sucks in the playoffs.

And it's like his new contract hasn't even kicked in yet. And they're like, oh my God, the old buyer's remorse thing. They had this Brogdon RFA thing. So here's the thing people always forget with the RFA. You can always just match the offer. It's not like the guy's going to leave. Bledsoe could have left if they didn't take care of him. Brogdon has to get some offer from somebody else and then Milwaukee has to decide whether to match it.

So Indiana, it ends up being, I think, 85 for four years. And Milwaukee's looking at it like, all right, we have this short window with Giannis, who has a chance to be a generational superstar. We're heading into year

two of a three-year window. This is a major asset we have in Brogdon. This is potentially the third best player on our team and somebody that doesn't seem to be afraid in end-of-the-game situations. We're going to get rid of it. And we're going to get a non-lottery pick from Indiana for this Brogdon thing. It's indefensible. It's not as indefensible as the Harden trade was. But on the other hand, at least with the Harden trade, they got with the pick that turned out to be Steven Adams from it. And they got Kevin Martin for a year. Milwaukee got nothing. And I know people have talked about this, but I actually think it's kind of unconscionable that they did it that way. I didn't like it when they did it last summer. I hate losing assets because I feel like match it. Worst case scenario, you can trade them or put his salary together with something else. The guy, I think, almost made the all-star team

last February. And my point is, when you have this short window, you can't cheap out. And they cheaped out. They cheaped out just like OKC cheaped out in 2012 and 2013. And these owners always think to themselves, well, we have this awesome guy. We're going to be able to contend every year. And it's like, you can't fuck around. You have so many assets. You can't just be like, oh, we're fine. You have to keep the assets. Figure it out after, but keep the assets. What'd you think of the Brogdon thing when it happened? And what do you think now? I did one of those, uh, weirder deals where I kind of deferred to the team in that Brogdon,

who was an incredible success story, considering the Virginia part of it and being a second round pick. Um, and we could talk about rookie of the year stuff but i mean that whole class was was a mess um but he missed a lot of time and i think the fear there was and all the restricted free agent offers that are out there for anywhere halfway decent they're so massive because they're trying to scare the other team away like being restricted is incredible really because it's like all right all these teams have cap space and never get to use them you know most of them all whiff and then you go all right well let's just absolutely overpay malcolm brogdon to scare milwaukee off from matching it so it's a great spot to be in but i felt like milwaukee probably was uncomfortable with his health situation and the fact he was only available for seven games the playoffs last year and who knows like if they have him it would have

been better and seeing brogdon be one of the few guards that actually break down the defense for miami you can see it being a glaring myth so i'm not saying you're wrong i just think you have to Like if they have him, it would have been better. And seeing Brogdon be one of the few guards that actually break down the defense for Miami, you can see it being a glaring myth. So I'm not saying you're wrong. I just think you have to bring up the injury part of this when you were going to give him four years, 80 plus million. And the fact that the Bledsoe deal for like the going rate of some of these guys wasn't terrible.

So it's like, and again, I don't even think it's as close to as bad as Harden because Harden, those guys could have done it for another year. They could have kept him for another year and then figured it out later. And it wasn't like the package they got back was so overwhelming that it was like, oh, we have to do this now. And I've always loved Houston's quote at the time where they were like, well, if they hadn't done it now, we wouldn't have, this offer would have been on the table a year from now. And you're like, really the 12th pick and like

Jeremy Lamb, right? Really? You guys would have offered that. You're right. On the indefensible scale, Harden's a 10. I still feel like this is a 7 or an 8. I just haven't seen from them. They spend money, but I don't even think they're a luxury taxes team this year. I think they're right on the fringe, but I don't know if they are. Just in general, they end up with Korver, Marvin Williams, and Connaughton, and Wesley Matthews, and Robin Lopez, and Devin Chenzo. But really, Middleton, Brooke Lopez, Giannis, and then Bledsoe.

So you got three and a half guys you would really trust. You said tax, right? Yeah, because they're over the cap, but they're not over the tax. They're not over the tax. Good call. No, good call. All right, so put yourself in Giannis' shoes. All right. You're, you know, you're from Greece. Maybe you didn't grow up reading hoops, hype rumors, stuff like that. Maybe actually you might've, maybe you're not a huge basketball player. I don't know. But

if I was a superstar and I was a back-to-back MVP and my team wasn't spending everything they could to put the best possible team around me, I would hold that against them. Would you? Well, okay. Um, we know LeBron would, right? LeBron is always almost like excessive about it. And you remember when he was with Miami and he was mad, they hadn't like rounded out the roster, the full allotment. And he said something about like practice once. You go like, are you serious? It was like, hey, keep the pressure on him.

One year deals with Cleveland and the option. Keep the pressure on him. Keep the pressure on him. Where it actually you could argue like, hey, that works against you. I'm not again. Maybe he's pissed. But when you try to figure out like where Giannis's head is at and would he be the guy that gets so mad that he asks out? And then you have to then have that conversation

with Milwaukee about wanting to trade him. Now, I think he's a little different in the sense that he didn't, because he didn't grow up here, I don't think he has those AAU high school ties like some of the other players that have been lifelong friends that eventually once they get to the league

and been around, they're like, hey, are you mad? Like, yeah, I'm mad too. And like, people love bitching about work. And then you just start saying, hey, let's do this. don't know if yannis is cut that way i don't know i don't think i hear the same stuff about him with other play do you because i don't think i'm wrong about this i don't hear about him teaming up with other players unless you were to say messiah is his guy and that's why that toronto rumor started up because that one piece that i read about oh

this executive says he's gone and maybe it's toronto and maybe it's miami there wasn't a ton of depth to it other than just connecting the dots that he has a relationship with Masai. And I would, I don't know. I mean, look, Masai's have an unbelievable track record here. So do you trust him a little bit more than you would Milwaukee? But I also don't think Milwaukee, despite the Brogdon thing you bring up, has done a bad job. You pay Middleton.

The Bledsoe contract's not terrible. George Hill was a good signing. The Brooke Lopez signing was terrific. I don't like The Bledsoe contract's not terrible. George Hill was a good signing. The Brooke Lopez signing was terrific. I don't like the Bledsoe contract. I just don't think it's as egregious for somebody. Look, I know he's been super disappointing there, but I think it gets back to, would Giannis be the type of guy that gets so mad

that not only does he turn down the numbers, which we should get to at some point too, because that's another conversation itself, whether the cap may be changing. The 250 or whatever? Well, here's the thing thing with the honest and we should talk about that one second he's a different kind of cat like he's a word agreement there yeah i think he's i think he's more competitive than team up guy i really do there's a really good recent example of it if you really read the stuff from the boycott and that day closely, they're in the locker room,

they're dressing for the game, and George Hill asked to talk to the team and he's like, I don't want to play today and here are my reasons. Sterling Brown then says, I don't want to play either. And at that point, the Bucs still could have played. Giannis comes in and says, we're all not playing. We'll forfeit the game. And that leads to the three-hour thing. And I'm not even positive most people know how important Giannis was that day because he doesn't care. He's not like a self-promoter like that. And he's not out there trying to spin stuff to different people or whatever, which makes me think, could this be the one guy that says,

yeah, I don't care where I play. I just want to be happy. Just can I make the most money in Milwaukee? Will you guys spend money on my teammates? And I don't care where I live. I wouldn't be shocked, but if the NBA has taught us anything in the last 15 years,

nobody's loyal to any team. And I wonder like the Reggie Miller. So Reggie Miller is a good example, right? We did the book of basketball podcast about him. There's a great Reggie Miller story. He's in Indiana. It's the early nineties. And I don't think Magic's retired yet.

And he's going to be a free agent and Magic's lob, or maybe Magic's retired and lobbying him to come to the Lakers. But they're playing basketball in LA and Magic's like, you got to come tell, you got to come tell. and you can go and you can Google these stories about this. And Reggie Miller, who's, who played at UCLA and in, in 2020 terms would have been like, great, I'll play for the Lakers. This would be great for me. But the, you know, playing in Indiana really meant something to him. It really meant something for him to start, succeed, and finish his career there. I don't know who the guys are in this generation who are going to care about it the same way.

Maybe they shouldn't. I don't even know. But Giannis might be the one guy who does. It was funny because I was talking with somebody about... Actually, I was on a Cowherd show. We were talking about Kawhi. And he was like, if Kawhi were to win three titles with three different teams, this short amount of time, don't you have to like put him a lot higher up in the greatest ever because nobody else has ever

done that. I go, well, look to go greatest ever with Kawhi when it took a while. Like I think Kawhi is the greatest development story we've ever seen in the history of the NBA. There's maybe some other examples. I mean, Giannis could be one of those guys too, but you also have to remember the times like no one as good as Kawhi in the 80s or 90s would ever do that. Nobody would ever say, okay, I'm out of here. And then I'm going to go play to this other place, win a title there. And then I'm actually going to leave and go do this. So we don't have a great to really comp with that because this is all basically 10 years old since LeBron decided to go to Miami.

Yeah. So I'm not comfortable enough saying, he's definitely gonna be like reggie miller because of the times now or duncan could be the other example but he doesn't have the popovich yeah and then if you look at the extension that he's uh eligible for here because he's made the all nba teams because he's the mvp i want to get to some of these numbers here if this is good timing for it yeah let's um it was it was rumored to be around like five years and 250 and the numbers i mean the annuals on these were just so ridiculous it was i mean we were north of like 56 million in the last year but as you know um and i'm making the cap could go backwards well so this would be the case for him to stay right where in free agency could he

make even anything close to what he could make for milwaukee would people what if cap space goes backwards what if there are different wrinkles like he just wouldn't be able to make it and then put yeah this is a team around him this isn't a mistake like some other people have done talking about like the nfl like deshaun watson just got absolutely paid well like wait a minute what about those pandemic pieces? I was reading or the Mookie Betts one is my favorite where one prominent national baseball writer was like, you know, he'd be lucky to get 200 million now. And you're like, why would you think that Mookie Betts at this age and being this good

is going to get like, it's not some of these people, whatever the economic hit is, they may not even know what it is yet. Right. But you go ahead and get that with basketball. The rules are just different because it's like hey i'm this player what am i eligible for and people aren't thinking about it now yeah the last year of an original deal with if everything were normal if all the projection were normal and escalating cap the last year of yannis's deal in the fifth year the extension would have been over 56 million okay now i think you would agree here

from the stuff we're hearing that the cap is probably going to stay flat at 109 109 for the next couple years that could change I don't know at least that's the discussion or they'll come up with some sort of gimmick to keep it around there even if there's some chicanery right because they don't want a dip and then a spike again they don't want a Warriors Kevin Durant thing like the feeling around the league is more of we don't whatever that was we should have softened it. The Players Union did not want the softening. I don't blame the Players Union for not trusting those people. So now the new numbers on it- Hold on. You left out the part, Giannis signed a $100 million extension a few years ago. He's been underpaid as far as superstars

goes the last two years. I think he's been on the books for 25 a year last year and this year whereas you got guys like chris paul and westbrook are making 40 so he well he hasn't been in the league long enough though either though to like the chris paul numbers i'm just saying he's never played for a real max yet okay so and this would be this would be his chance a cap guy that i was talking to said 220 million is probably the likely extension for him. Because one of the other mistakes everybody makes, and I like this nerdy stuff because I think it's important, is that they'll say, oh, you know, originally he was eligible for 250, but the new team, it's only four years and 188 million. Yeah, but you can't leave out what the fifth year would be with the new team. And so the fifth year with a new team, even though it sounds like it's 250 million, or

in this case, 220 million versus 140 million, oh my God, you can't leave that kind of money on the table. Guys have left it on the table. And what he could also do is he could do a shorter term deal and decide to get to 10 years of service. And then he can make all that money back up again. Anyway, I think it gets back to the original thing. Do you honestly think as much as you don't like the Brogdon trade, this front office is not one of these

incompetent front offices that has made monumental mistakes and it's this team that he can't get through? I don't think that he's been done wrong necessarily by this team. I agree. If he's mad... The Brogdon thing was bad, though.

I'll give you that. But it's not like this continual what the hell is wrong with these guys, Milwaukee Bucks organization. I think better of them than that. And I don't know enough about Giannis, the personality, to know would he get to the point? Will he go home from Orlando furious and turning down an extension because he's like, I can't win here?

That's an answer I don't have. I mean, there's a reason why his brother's on the team. There's a reason why his other brother's on the Lakers. One of them apparently can't play ever. Right.'t have. I mean, there's a reason why his brother's on the team. There's a reason why his other brother's on the Lakers. One of them apparently can't play ever, but you know what I mean? Like all this stuff is happening. Well, I wanted, I wanted a team like Toronto or Miami or Dallas to sign both of his brothers to four-year contracts this, this summer as a preemptive Giannis enticement. How funny would that be?

If the heat were like, we've signed both the Giannis' brothers for $2 million a year combined. Four-year guaranteed contract. $16 million investment hoping to get Giannis to come in there. I don't think he'll ask out. The question for me is, if you're Milwaukee,

do you trade him a year early if you think he's going to leave? And they'll know that better than anybody. But we've seen over and over again, teams just, they go down with the ship, right? OKC, so many signs Durant was going to leave that last year. And they were like, well, fuck it. We'll try to win the title.

And then we'll guilt trip him into staying. Didn't stay. LeBron, 2010. No, no, I'll figure out what I'm doing after the year. He leaves. Miami, 2014 with LeBron. Same thing. Uh, Kawhi with Toronto last year, where it's this thing hanging over them the whole time. They figure he might leave. He leaves. When do we think the guy might leave

when he's actually like, Oh my God, what a surprise. He stayed. Usually the guy leaves. Well, when Paul George stayed, that was a big surprise but i think paul george stayed because he didn't want to ruin their free agency party so he's like ah these guys are throwing a party that's true paul george stayed and then a year later he went this way out i'm still counting him i'm still counting him with that whole thing it's still one of the stranger ones ever because it was like wait he's not i thought this whole thing like when you tell everybody you want out of indy to go to the Lakers and then you get traded and then you're like,

actually, I'm not going to go to the Lakers when you have the chance to. I was like, what? Can you be the Milwaukee GM? I'm going to be some different GMs calling you trades. Oh, yes. Great. So I'm John Horst.

Yeah. Young, vibrant. Hey, it's Elton Brand. How are you? Hey, what have you been up to? Oh, you still have a job? Okay. Yeah, they kept me. I don't know what happened.

I went 0 for 7 with the biggest moves I could have made over the last two years, but I'm still working. Are you allowed to make trades or are you calling me for something? Well, yeah, the owners definitely have to sign off. They're active over there. I was thinking Embiid, Giannis. Giannis, you might lose them in a year. Any interest?

We got Embiid under contract. You could have him for the next four years. You're getting a top five talent. And a year from now, you could lose Giannis for nothing. What do you think? Embiid for Giannis? Any interest? Yeah, I'll go down with the ship on that one.

I really would. You go down with the Giannis ship. Yeah, I'll go down with the ship on that one. I really would. You go down with the Giannis ship. Yeah, yeah. I gotta say. Hey, look. Look, I tell you what. I've always loved Embiid, Elton. I've loved him. Super talented guy. I could kind of see it as a fit. You know, we have the shooters around him, you know, so it's a little different than the duplication you have there.

But you know what I don't love is that every time he's home early in the playoffs, he's just motherfucking front office with tweets. And I'd rather not have that. I'd rather not have an employee during the playoffs basically saying, I don't know how to do my job. So at least with Giannis, I'm not going to get those. So I'm going to go ahead and pass on that.

Wait, wait, don't hang up. Don't hang up. Any interest in Ben Simmons? Any? Ben Simmons, something else? get those so i'm gonna go ahead and pass on that wait wait don't hang up don't hang up any interest in ben simmons any ben simmons something else i'll throw in what do you want tieball ben simmons and tieball i give you some first or second round picks but i traded all them yeah you don't have any uh the simmons for yannis thing simmons contract. Yeah. You could have him for five years. Can I call you back? Can I call you back?

Talk to your owners. Yeah. Call me back. Okay, cool. Hold on. Your phone's ringing again. Exactly.

I need to see what else is out there. It's Hey, John Horst. How are you? It's it's James Jones and the Phoenix suns. James. How you doing? Did you see us in the bubble?

We were looking great. I don't? Did you see us in the bubble? We were looking great. I don't know if you saw Aiton, but he was, he came back from the suspension. He's a 2012 guy, blocking shots, looked awesome.

How old is he? He's good for a 30-year-old, right? No, he's 22. We have his birth certificate. I was thinking, I don't know what you're doing about Giannis, but maybe Aiton, as the building block for something. We'll throw in an expiring contract and we'll do three unprotected firsts and maybe a pick swap.

Something a little bit like the Paul George deal and we'll get Giannis. We'll put him with Booker. Everybody's happy. Athletes love playing in Phoenix. Any interest there? Well, I think Booker's going gonna try to bail on you guys so i'll take your what yeah what do you mean uh no actually yannis in probably the west you know even in the west would be good enough to probably get the playoffs at least in the back of the playoffs so i don't know how good those underprotected picks would be. Maybe Booker

would then be more excited if Giannis was going to stay there, but I don't know. This New York Knicks thing, by the way, this is an aside. I'm no longer Horst. It's not even a secret, but the whole Knicks, like, just, hey, let's just get this entire staff to just go after all the Kentucky connection guys.

I'd like to talk about that in a second. I have one more phone call for you. All right. Oh, you know what? Not a terrible offer. Thanks. My phone is somebody's somebody's calling. Somebody else is calling.

See, I'm Wheeler deal. I'm like, I have two more. I've got Ainge on the line. And you're like, oh, my God. Ainge is calling. Hey, John Horse. How are you? It's Bob Myers.

Bob. How you been? The best GM in the NBA. How are you, Bob? So I couldn't help but notice you only have a year left with Giannis and he might leave. And I don't know.

I think I could put together a pretty enticing package. We have the second pick in this draft. We have Minnesota's top three protected pick next year. We would need a contract to match up with Giannis. I was thinking Wiggins,

but if you want to talk to me... I wasn't thinking Wiggins. I wasn't thinking Wiggins. I figured you'd say that. So, look, Draymond's on the table. And if you want to talk about Draymond, the number two pick, our Minnesota pick next year, and two unprotected firsts from

us, we're willing to have that conversation right now. I love Draymond. I love his effort. The idea that he would be like a number one offensive option or a number two with Chris Middleton. I don't like him as much in an offense without those guys running around in the backcourt. This draft stinks. And yeah, that's a no. That's a hard no. That's a hard no. that's hold on hold on there's somebody else on the phone it's pat reilly pat great series really hey thanks man uh you know it's two great teams so listen if we don't make the finals i really want to talk about ianis possible trade with you. Bam Adebayo, who you just saw, is just an incredible player.

Really good. Nice role player, Pat. I'd put Hero on the table as well. The best 20-year-old player in the league. Hero and Bam? Bam's more than a role player. I'm just trying to be the GM there. It's kind of like when they go to

Pawn Stars. You're trying to neg my offer. I it no no but when the guy shows up with like a really nice piece from pawn stars he's like oh man mahogany he's like mahogany the price of mahogany has actually gone down in the last six months and like the guy with the chest is like really mahogany prices are down like yeah um oh now you've got me interested throwing duncan robinson we got a deal bam Bam Hero and Duncan Robinson? Yeah. And you've got Jimmy, Dragic, and Giannis. Now, I would have to.

The problem with this whole exercise, as much as I know you love it, I got to know that Giannis, I got to be less than 50%. Because if I'm 51%, he's staying. It's a hard no to all of this stuff. Here's the right answer. You keep them.

Yeah, I know. But middle of the season, near the trade deadline, basically you become a fortune teller psychic. You're reading the tea leaves day after day. You're trying to find as much information as possible. Would you hire a spy? Would you hire a spy to follow him around? No, I couldn't know

because I think he's, I just think he's a genuine guy. He's one of my favorite athletes. I love this guy. And I really do think you could guilt trip him into thinking maybe he should stay.

It's been like, you know, you've been here seven years. Or telling you, or telling you or telling you i'm leaving like for all yeah we're being honest you're right right for all the mellow stuff it's a great debate like who is better lebron letting you think you had a chance up at the last minute and then he leaves like he did to cleveland and like he did in miami and he can do whatever the hell he wants that's the whole point of free agency all right you shouldn't be criticizing

these guys even though i get when you're emotionally attached to the whole thing you're not rational about it all right we don't need to go over that uh morality lesson but mellow just straight up said to denver now it sucked like i talked to george carl on his pod where it was like what you had to deal with every day going to the arena and you know ask the same questions it's like look he still doesn't want to play here moving on. But Mello told them I'm out of here. Right. And they got something.

So what you'd have to hope if your horse is like, can you please tell me? And I know they're going to be Chris Paul did the same thing with New Orleans. Right. And in the moment, it feels like it's just way worse because you're messing with the team. And the Anthony Davis thing at times was like, man, this is kind of ugly, but it's a hell of a lot better as an organization organization surviving, losing one of these, these players. It's maybe the best player or a top five player at the time. It's a lot better for him to kind of sabotage your season, but at least the longevity of the team. So that's what you got to have. You've got to hope that you're close enough with horse close

enough with, um, Alex, the agent on this, and to be able to pull this off. I think if you're trading him, because you said something that I think is important to talk about is that let's see how the season goes. And then you could trade him before the deadline. Like if you're getting the tea leaves and you're thinking, this guy's going to be out of here, I got to get something for him. People would say, well, you're not going to get as much before the deadline as you would have had before the season. I don't really buy that. I don't think that's always true because then you got to trust your agent contacts to go. If I'm trading him to somewhere that he wants to go, then now I'm pretending as if I'm not trading a guy that's an expiring. I'm not trading somebody

who's just a rental. I'm trading somebody that you now will be able to resign and have control of, and he's already going to be in your uniform. So you need to give me real assets for a price here, even though they would counter that and say, oh, that's bullshit. He's leaving. So, you know, we can do it this way. That's what you have to do. If you're the GM,

that'd be the number one thing you have to do going into next year. Cause I don't think I would want to check. It's the answer is no. Cause you can't really trade them until you know, you can't. I got two more phone calls for him, but you can hang up whenever you want.

I need it. If one's Isaiah Thomas, I'm probably going to stay on, even though he's not running a team. john it's joe dumars i'm helping out vivek and the kings i don't know if you realized uh i didn't so it's a fucking shit storm here i don't know i don't know if you knew but like they could have had donchich and they took part of it bagley i saw that what the fuck were these guys thinking so I'm just you know and they paid Buddy Heald and he's

unhappy and you know it's a fucking shit show but you know even though it makes no sense for us to trade for Giannis because there's no way he's going to stay in Sacramento I was still thinking what about Bagley and Buddy Heald and three of our unprotected

first round picks alright now you can hang up. Yeah, I'm just going to hang up. Okay. I can't trade for Bagley. I can't trade for Bagley until Bagley to me is... He's a bad trade asset in that you may like him if you're another team,

but you can't do it. But if you're Sacramento, you can't just give him away because of what you've put into it. And you'd like to see him play a bunch like there's still a version of the bagley story he has a has a nice run you know he just he just isn't healthy would you agree like he's had some moments where you go oh this might this actually could work i mean it's haunted by the donchage thing but i'm a bad person to ask because

i genuinely enjoy bagley i just think they it's a cat that was a catastrophic draft decision. You're arguably the worst one in the decade. Yeah, but I don't know that there's many guys higher on Bagley than you. I like his game. I just can't believe they took over Luka Doncic. I just don't know why you have scouts. The more I talk to people about this,

there's something weird with Vlade and Luka. It would be a great investigative story for somebody. But Vlade is Serbian. Doncic, what country is he from? He's Slovenian. If he's even, he's Slovenian. You don't like that catchphrase?

I try to give that to Kilborn. There's something weird with Luka. Luka threw water on that. I mean, I'm sorry. Vlade threw water on that. I mean, I'm sorry. Uh, Vlad, I threw water on that whole thing with them. And now that he's gone, I think that Vivek and his people are now putting out the, Oh, we want to take Luca the whole time. Vlad, I told us blah, blah, blah.

But some, there's something that doesn't add up and that would be a great investigative story for somebody. All right. So Joe Dumars, you, you hung up on him. I can't remember who the other person was who was going to call. Not Danny Ainge. Danny Ainge isn't calling.

He doesn't want it to get out that he called. I can't remember. What would you do, though? So are we on the same page? This is fun. It's a fun exercise. But I know you get mad at GMs. I remember you did that no balls allowed

trade deadline column years ago the no balls association yeah the no balls association everyone's afraid to take on money you're afraid to take on money and you basically called out like the entire industry for never wanting to do anything yeah you weren't wrong in that hey what are you going to do with this guy that's a free agent well he's going to be really expensive he's not worth it well we're just going to sign him to keep the asset. Okay. Hey, let's do this trade. Well, we draft him. We still kind of like him. So we like our guys better than you like our guys and vice versa and all this stuff. So there's always kind of this default to just keeping it as is, but it's just very, very hard to go. I'm going to pull the

trigger on trading one of the three best players. And I'm not going to call Giannis the best player in the world anymore. I caught myself literally this week going, why do I keep saying he's better than Kawhi? Because he's just not. He's just not better than Kawhi. Best regular season player in the world. Yeah, but wouldn't you rather... Is there any hesitation for you in a playoff game? Game 7, Kawhi or Giannis? We've talked about this before.

I'd rather have LeBron too. That's when people get confused with the MVP. I'm like, well, I voted for LeBron. Because it's like, well, that's not what the award is. The award is for who's the best player in the regular season. I'm glad you said that. Because it happens with the Heisman too. Like Deshaun Watson has this unbelievable run.

And then you're like, how did he not win the Heisman? You go, well, what? You understand how they vote on this. It's not who was on the best team that won a title because then if you did that then the only person that would ever win an mvp would be whoever won the title and i don't really think i think it's okay that the award isn't that well the thing is they should have a playoff mvp and that's isn't that that's where they really it's a finals mvp yeah but nobody would ever win that other than the finals mvp so it's that's where they really fucked up it's a finals MVP yeah but nobody would ever win that

other than the finals MVP so it's fine the playoffs MVP is not necessarily always the finals MVP because I did all the work on this and went through and tried to figure it out

everybody since 1955 and there's years when it wasn't the finals MVP and I think you know especially like alright take 2007 for an example there's no record that Duncan was the best player in the most important team that season.

He didn't win the MVP. He was in the finals MVP, but we were there and we had the stats, but more importantly, we fucking watched it. And if you had the playoffs MVP, it was like, who is the playoffs MVP? It was Tim Duncan. And I think they should have that. And it's fun to go back and look at, at you know some of this stuff and there's good arguments too like if you were going to say who's the 2015

playoff MVP the year the Warriors beat the Cavs I would say it was LeBron even though the team didn't win I mean just all the work that he did to bring them that close to the title I would say LeBron was the playoffs MVP and I think that would be cool to commemorate

maybe you're right but I don I think that would be cool to commemorate. Maybe you're right, but I don't think people would vote that way because I keep getting back to college football, but literally every year, whoever won the title on one of these teams, we'd start with this. It could happen with Vince Young. Texas wins this game.

Maybe it's the greatest college football game ever against USC. They're like, oh, the wrong guy won the Heisman. You go, did he? Hold on. Someone else is on the phone for you. Uh-oh. Hold on. We're going to take a break. He's on hold. He got another call. We're taking one quick break.

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Enrollment required. Keep your receipts. Other conditions apply. See Pennzoil.ca slash warranty for full details all right uh this guy his his uh assistant just patched him through it's mark cuban hey john how are you it's mark cuban oh did you see some of those porzingis games this year look awesome didn't he you know he's a really talented guy. Do you know that he's younger than Giannis? Don't look this up. But, you know, you think like everyone says Giannis is a unicorn. I got to be honest, like Porzingis is just as unicorny.

And you could argue like playing with Luka, like he really needs his own team. And, you know, if you want to talk trade, you know, Giannis Porzingis will throw in some picks. Any interest? Giannis' ankle thing bummed me out, but at least it's not knee issues left and right.

So we're going to go ahead. Double knee injuries? Yeah, yeah. We're going to go ahead and pass on that. Do you think when Cuban calls these people when he talks trades, do you think he's like the kind of the way he is in real life where he's

always like on the aggression he's on the aggressive where he's just like, well, no, you don't understand. Like he's, he has a way of putting people on the defensive when he's talking to them. And I wonder if he does that with trades so the easy answer is yes there's no way he's any different but i don't know what level like owners call each other and owners will do stuff like i remember working with steve phillips when he was the gm the met so it was after we did this baseball radio show there's a long time ago so i was like what would you do like give me a scouting report on other gms and how you would do deals in baseball. He goes, well, I knew if there was like a really influential, kind of a malleable, impressionable owner,

and the GM was getting in the way of my trade, I'd go to my owner and say, hey, call their owner and offer him this because the GM's saying no. But you can talk to him. It's like a rich guy thing. Yeah. You can talk him into it. He's new money.

He just bought the team. I can't get through the gm because the gm's smart but get the owner to think this this deal's awesome um then he used to have this other thing jim uh jim bowden who used to run the reds remember that was a while ago he's doing a lot of media stuff he was like jim would call you in the middle of the night and be like i have the trade that's gonna win you the nl east are you ready steve are you ready for this it's unbelievable and then he would offer just dog shit and he'd be like are you kidding so i do think that whatever level of cubans um you know his whatever level of of actually part of the process i can't imagine him being any different than the personality that

is the personality that we see every minute we've ever seen him on TV. Right. I got to say, I'm good at trades in my fantasy drafts. I'm not saying good at winning them. I'm just good at convincing people. What's your approach? So I'll email or call and I'm in my AL keeper league and my fantasy football leagues. I'm in, I just kind of stay in contact with people. I think that's what the good GMs do be like, Hey, we haven't made our annual trade this year, but I think some people, the people that aren't good at it,

I think we'll call like, you know, John Horst and be like, Hey, what's the deal with Brooke Lopez? You think of their shit? Like they immediately tip off who they care about. I like more of like the go back and

forth feel somebody out we should do this it'll be fun we'll mix it up and i have a feeling that the best gms probably do it that way right they just check in with different teams the checking and the key is not checking in at the time where you need to check in check in when people don't think you're going to check in because even i'll admit there have been times where if i asked somebody about the draft in october and then they end up with some pick that they didn't think they were going to get i'll have a better idea of oh wait like i actually think this team likes this guy and they were forthcoming and telling me about it because and i think the same things happen with gms be like hey what's going on with uh you know what's i'm just trying to think like i don't know I'm trying to use somebody like a little off the radar you're like hey what's going on with Gary

Trent you know and it wouldn't even be a trade but then you can maybe get some vibe from like a Neil O'Shea and Neil's really good so I don't know I'm just using a dumb example here where if the GM would say you know he's coming along but man he's gonna have like a high price and then you just start gathering all this information with all these constant conversations where you go, does that team like their guy or does that team? But I do think that the league is so much smarter. It used to feel like a third of the league. You just pick these guys off.

So really what you have to do now is wait around for a new owner to screw up in the first two years like they all do. It's like it's a law. And that's kind of what happens. The vultures just start just swinging around the new owners going, hey's go get his players because he's he doesn't know what he's doing yet yeah i had a person who runs a team told me once i only need 25 of the guys to be bad so it's like seven it's seven or eight i don't know that it's seven or eight anymore

but as long as there's seven, well, then you think like, oh, these teams will get smarter. And then you see Sacramento, they hired Joe DuPars as an advisor. And it's like, well, how's that going to go? Joe had a really good run there for a very long time. And then it went,

at one point he was arguably like doing it better than anybody else. And then when I said that, I swear I jinxed him. From that point on, it was atrocious. It was like he was two different people. I actually did a whole thing in my column near the end of his reign about how there were two Joe Dubars and one guy. Oh, really? That's perfect. He was the all-time Feaster fam and GM, right? It was either Charleville Nueva or Tayshaun Prince. And it was, there was no in the middle Joe Dumar

saying, I mean, what he saw in Ben Wallace and stuff like that. I think another problem with owners that I always hear over and over again is they become enamored by the former players. They just like being around them. Totally. You know, and

have somebody like, now Jerry West is a good example because he's Jerry West. But to just have that guy in meetings and stuff, they're just, they're fans like we are. You know, and the reality is you're probably better off with some nerd running your basketball team because they're going to use numbers and look at things differently. We have some other stuff to cover. I think we hit all the honest angles. The only thing we didn't hit, last week on this podcast, I told you Miami was going to win the series.

I'm usually wrong. I'm just, I want to take a victory lap. And you should. You should. When you picked them, I got off of it because I was like, all right, now I'm not going to do it too. Yeah, you thought I was doing a bit.

Well, no, I didn't think you were doing a bit. I knew you believed it. I knew you bet it. But I felt like then all of a sudden, it was like, wait a minute. I thought I had this unique thing where I'm going, I think I'm going to take Miami. And then it felt like, wait a minute. Now everybody's doing it.

I was like, all right, now I'm back. I'm Milwaukee. And I wish I hadn't changed. Well, my question is, throwing away today, because I think today was understandable, especially when Giannis went down. Their odds, they have the third best odds to win the title now. I got to say, I think I like their team as much as the Clippers at this point. Because, and we can talk about the Clippers really quickly,

but yesterday what happened in the Clippers, you and I were texting about it earlier today. It was so predictable. They were awesome in game one, huge favorites in game two. And I'm looking at it going, I don't trust this team after they play a great game. This is when they're carrying themselves like they're seven-time champs. And they fucking sucked in the game. They had no energy and intensity at all.

Denver, Jokic and Murray scored, I think, what, 44 points combined in the first half? The first half, yeah. And it's just like, they do shit. I remember the late 80s Celtics when the big three started to get old and they would just have these games where they're like, yeah, we're the Celtics. We're not trying today. The Clippers haven't won anything yet.

And they've done this all season where they win these little battles and then they take a break for a week. And I really feel like at some point that's going to bite them. And Miami, I think is different. And I'm going to throw away again today. I think today was a fluke. Miami is just coming and coming. They're tough. They go hard. They know who they are. They always have shooters out there. There's always action. It's hard to shut them down because there's no like one great guy. And with the Clippers, I don't think you can win the title with the on-off switch

that's as egregious as the one they have. What do you think? I talked about their arrogance and it looked bad. It looks bad in the podcast title. And look, we all understand the business. Sometimes you try to really throw something out there. It's like the Clippers arrogance

was the title of a podcast I had done. Good title. I support it. Right. Yeah. Because you're like, oh, this. And it made it seem like I was really knocking them. But it is an observation that for a group that's never done anything collectively, they carry themselves all year long. Like, okay, we're a year three or four of winning championships. So we're just going to coast because we know who we are. And it's like, you actually don't. I mean, you just got Beverly back again, which is terrific. And for their lack of energy, which we saw in the Dallas game, and Van Gundy pointed it out, it was actually incredible

as they came back to close out Dallas, where you could see they probably had a meeting about their lack of energy. And then it was one of those, from the minute the game jumped ball, everybody was amped up. And you're like, okay, all right, here we go. You got your energy back. I do love when the announcer with a minute left and teams down 10, it's like, I do not like their body language right now.

You're like, you think so? They're down 10. It's a minute left. They lost. Like most people's body language at that point is, is not great. Rare, rare is the team that's still really fired up and excited down 10. I just feel like you are who you are. And we have a pretty big sample size now that that team has an on-off switch that's just a fact Paul George had a moment I thought maybe it was

the third or beginning of the fourth where he drove hard and it was one of the I'm so sick of seeing guys drive to the hoop for wide open layups and kick it out to a marginal corner three-point shooter just because that's what the game is now. The three-point shot is too easy now, but there's also too many guys just in the flow of an offense. You go, no, just take the layup. Like now, we like to corner, five out, space it, zing, drive and kick, drive and kick. You're like, or you had the wide open layup.

And Paul George- Yeah, the layup's nice. Paul George went at Jokic, I think, and he finished over him and it was a reminder of how amazing paul george is with his physical talents but i think even the defense was like wait a minute he took the layup and didn't kick it out like that's weird we weren't even ready for this so i thought you know when he hit that three they were getting close they're gonna bring this thing back but yeah the clippers but then who do you like do you like like who else

do you like do you like better than the clippers now my my point do you like? Do you like, like who else do you like? Do you like Miami better than the Clippers now? My point is this is one of those weird years like last year was where once KD got hurt last year, it was wide open and you just don't fucking know. And whoever makes some threes and makes a couple big plays and wins like

some crazy swing game could actually win the title this year. And I think on paper, it's like, wow, Miami could actually win the title. That's And I think on paper, it's like, wow, Miami could actually win the title? That's crazy. You look at their team, like Jimmy Butler's their best player. I like Jimmy Butler, but that's not the typical best player on a title team guy. But the totality

of what they're doing and how well coached they are and how malleable they are, I think makes them a real threat. And I look at the Lakers, I just hate their supporting cast. We're taping this right now. We both think the Lakers are going to win tonight. We'll talk about that series the next time we talk.

But if Houston beat them tonight, then we're going to have to redo this part and put that at the top. The way Houston would beat them is because their 4-12 guys are just really shaky. Then you look at the Celtics. The way Houston would beat them is because their four through 12 guys are just really shaky. Then you look at the Celtics. It's like the Celtics were one play away from being up three, nothing. And now we're reeling. We'll talk about them in a second. Miami, this team that was this adorable roster that now has a real chance.

Then the Clippers who still don't know who they are. Like why couldn't Miami win it? It still seems weird, but you're not wrong uh i think when you look at the winning percentage in a normal season they're at like 49 wins that's that's crazy like that team's gonna win a title but when you watch duncan robinson and the way they use him dragetch reminding everybody what he's capable of bam's a utility i don't know if that's the right word all the different things he can do in these center based

he's a little Ben Wallace but it's more because Ben Wallace could score four points and do nothing and by the way like the defensive assignments oh BAMS the Yana stopper maybe he's going to be that's not been a story in this whatsoever it's Jay Crowder for the most part against him

but Hero there's moments where Milwaukee it's like where are you the most part against him yeah but hero there's moments where Milwaukee it's like where are you guys and I even I even felt like early on even though it was the Pacers Miami came out more ready from their first round matchup than Milwaukee did against Orlando and there's simple things we're all noticed just a pass to the left or right off the dribble bringing the ball half court pass left or right to start your offense. And in Miami's jumping out into the passing lanes and you go, do you guys realize that their weight, their level of intensity,

their dog right now is way beyond. There was even a game four where Butler almost stole the inbound pass on one of those Middleton possessions late. And you go, how the hell could you be this lax about an inbound as you're facing elimination right now? And I think it led to the diva genzo missed free throw where they tied it instead of winning it regulation and i'm watching

that going miami keeps doing stuff like this to you and you don't do it hero's terrific duncan's terrific dragoch is really good lennox is a fun age man totally but would you agree that there's this butler love fest that is kind of funny in that now he's taken on this like Western Desperado role where he's the biggest badass in the league and people like, I like it, but the idea that it's getting dangerously close to people been sleeping on him. And I go, no, I think Butler's always been about where you think he should have been. Well, a couple of things on that. I like Gary Washburn. Um, i saw on the hoop site rumors thing he had a tweet about um about what was that what was that wallet uh jules had in pulp fiction

bad with his wallet the the badass motherfucker or whatever was on his wallet it was like that's jimmy butler's wallet because he kind of carries himself like jules But I think Iguodala said something when I did a podcast with him on Thursday. And you could tell how confident he was about Miami. But we were talking about Jimmy Butler. And I was joking to him about the Boston guys because Jimmy always has this chip on his shoulder. He's always looking for some slate

that then he could, you know, take out against whatever team he's playing. And I was joking that the Boston, if they ended up playing them next round, the whole time they should just be buttering up Jimmy, Tatum and Brown, talking about what a great player he is. Such an honor to go against somebody

who's done all the things he's done. And Iguodala's like, no, you can't do that because Jimmy would get mad because he would think you're pandering to him. And I just think that's the way the guy carries himself. He's, he has a chip on his shoulder. He's

only meant to play with certain types of guys. I thought the way he moved his way out of Minnesota, I still think it was kind of disgraceful the way he did the Minnesota thing. But now we're watching him in Miami with people who think like him and compete like him. And it's like, it kind of makes sense that Townsend Wiggins were just like, were torture for him day after day to play with those guys where he must've been just going

nuts. And now he's with these dudes, heroes of 20-year-old badass. Duncan Robinson has worked his ass off to get where he is. Crowder and Iguodala are awesome, competitive dudes. Adebayo, same thing. You go on down the line, even Olenek, who in a game seven against the Wizards when he was on the Celtics was the best player on the court. All of those guys are ballers. And I think that's all he ever wanted. And that, you know, if we want to go dig deeper, maybe that's why he left Philly. Because he didn't feel like those guys were like that. He wanted to play with ballers. That's what he wants. I had his side in the Chicago thing.

He was the better player than Rose. And Rose came back. And Rose still wasn't really ready to give him the team. And management messed with Jimmy. Totally took his side. I completely agreed when Jimmy lost it on Towns and Wiggins. He's right. He's not wrong about those guys.

I didn't love all of it. I didn't love how calculated it was. It was super, super calculated, but he got his way. And then what you saw with Philly is, you know, you need a dude that is not afraid of anybody. You really do. That's why Matt Barnes kept getting contracts, you know, with all the Draymond stuff, Golden State needs Draymond's personality even that peak golden state team because steph is laid back katie's super laid back i mean think how laid back three of those players are and clay katie and steph and you need draymond as much as it can drive you crazy at times ready to go with anybody and just have it like this too who's yeah smart of all those guys but same thing carries himself like he's the best guy on the court. So the Heat have this collection,

like Jay Crowder. You're right. All of those guys. Well, Drogic is another one who's been a badass his whole career and has just had trouble staying healthy, but has always been a guy you could rely on in big games.

Now, the Philly thing, there's also the talk that he wasn't going to get that extra year. So he's like, all all right i'm out of here like i'm not i'm not sticking around for this but i mean if there were ever two guys that needed a badass and not tobias harris it's the sixers we still don't know the full story and i feel like it's going to come out like a year from now or maybe it'll come out if miami makes the finals mb's probably tweeting it out this week a A thread. Oral history, Jimmy Butler, Philly,

a thread. I don't know if it was they insulted him money-wise or Riley just did Riley stuff or both. Because the thing with Riley is, and people have done a really good job talking about this, and Iguodala on my podcast on Thursday talked about it. They have a specific type of culture that's almost like the Ravens in football. They go for certain guys. They like certain personality archetypes. And Butler is a Miami Heat guy. And it doesn't even make sense to be like, oh, what's a Miami Heat guy? Well, we know what it is. It dates back to the 90s. The guys that Riley goes after, again, he wants tough guys who are going to be there in big games, who are team guys,

but ultimately are fucking alphas. He goes after that. That's why he wanted Wade in 2003. He thought Wade could be an alpha. That's why Udonis Haslam was there for 100 years. Those are just the type of guys he wants. Butler and Riley must have just clicked in some fucking weird alpha dog way.

And Riley must be able to sense it. Like the way bears can sense fear. He must be able to smell alpha dog. This when he meets people, he's like, ah, Ooh, I smell your alpha.

Here's a five-year deal. Please come play for me. I don't know that I could follow up any of that with anything. So I'll just thank you. That's the end of the segment for that. All right. Great. All right.

Let's take a quick break. Then we'll talk about Toronto, Boston. OK, so Toronto and Boston. Boston. I thought they were going to sweep. I thought they were going to win in five. This is such a fascinating basketball series. It's now 2-2.

The Celtics are reeling. They took a huge confidence hit. It was the first time they have looked tentative in the bubble. They couldn't make anything. They just got knocked out of their comfort zone. They're playing too small. And Toronto has just figured out all these things. It took them three games, but they finally figured out we should crash the offensive boards. That's a weakness for the Celtics. They figured out some cool stuff with their guards where it's like,

oh, when we do the pick and roll for Van Vliet or Lowry, instead of setting it at the three-point line, let's move it back. We'll set it 40 feet from the basket. So now they have a head of steam and they could do some stuff. They figured out, fuck it. We can't take Lowry and Van Vliet out. We can't beat Boston. Otherwise, we're just going to have to ride these guys into the ground in the second half. There's always stoppages. There's always like some five minute review and we have to cheat it.

We literally can't take these guys out. Boston didn't make the adjustments. But the question I had for you, um, just as a Celtics fan, I'm asking you cause I'm nervous. There's not some Nick Anderson for free throws game one, 95 finals potential with that last second shot, just completely,

uh, flipping a team, right? Like in that the Celtics would be Orlando in that situation where the confidence hit from something freaky like that and all of a sudden you kind of lose your identity and you went from, oh my God, we're cruising, we're the best here, we're a better team

to, oh my God, we might blow this. And you start playing differently and you're like, oh shit, now we have to beat this team five times. And stuff starts going in your head. That was what I saw from them in game four. I don't want to overreact too much, but that was a really tentative,

kind of discombobulated Celtics performance. I'm really concerned. You should be concerned. But first of all, 4-0 would be a lot weirder than 2-2 because Toronto's that good. It would have just been weird. Like they're going to be, they've been of all, 4-0 would be a lot weirder than 2-2 because Toronto's that good. It would have just been weird. They're going to be, them being up 3-0, but think about Toronto's offense

and those half-court numbers and the transition stuff that we talked about in the past and where Boston won game one and we both were like, it didn't even look that great. And then when you looked at the numbers per 100 afterwards, their offense wasn't that great. They weren't finishing a lot of open looks. The defense was that good.

Siakam was totally missing in action, like a non-entity. He's getting crushed by Barkley and Shaq on the TNT show. He was really bad the first three. But he was good. I don't want to say he was great yesterday, but he was better. No, he wasn't because the shooting numbers, he had production, but the efficiency of it wasn't very good at all because he's still missing a lot of shots.

But if you want to make it about Nick Anderson, I mean, look, Nick Anderson, you're the one guy the spotlight's on you you're missing those free throws anybody that's ever missed free throws you could start to like really start thinking about it you that's why you have teammates you're supposed to rely on other people jalen stunk in game four so was it was jalen off in game four you start the game what oh for nine from three like those those are huge huge numbers like if you can hit two of ten maybe that game goes the other way and that's that's not exact 20 it's exactly good and then jaylen you know after the fact hey that's on me it's not on anyone else man it's not on anyone else you let somebody now it's a ridiculous pass by lowry who's been you know really the guy that

gets them going lowry was so good at the start of game four he gets six free throws right away he didn't take free throws again until almost the end of the game. He attacked, attacked, attacked. He set a toughness tone for them. Three charges. Yeah.

And you know what? As much as I hate his charge game and smart, just as bad with the flopping. Those weren't egregious by any stretch with Lowry. You know, he actually was in position in some of them, even if he's selling it. I don't like the arm extend one where you see the guy react like second time

through, but it looks a lot easier to dissect in slow motion. But yes, I think Boston is in trouble, but I still think based on how it's played out, like Boston, I couldn't believe was even hanging in game four because they looked so bad on offense again. So I don't think

you should be totally like, I don't think it's irreparable after the game three game winner, but they were really bad in game four on offense and they still I don't think you should be totally, like, I don't think it's irreparable after the game three game winner, but they were really bad in game four on offense and they still were hanging in there. It's now a best player in the series series, which as this so often happens, Lowry was the best player in game four, even though the numbers didn't really,

like he's just put his imprint all over this thing. He's the toughest guy in the series. He is in the Celtics heads in a lot of ways, like especially on drives. These guys are now driving to the basket over and over again. There's been charges and they, you know, people are poking at Tatum when he's dudes does his little spin move. They're diving at the ground on him. And he had a look on his face that I haven't seen since last year in that game. Now, granted, maybe he's not having it and his stats weren't that bad, but from a demeanor standpoint, they were able to knock him out of the level that he was at the eight weeks before

the pandemic. And even what he was like in the bubble, he's just, you can see him thinking now and, you know, they basically, they're riding with seven guys. They've finally figured out Ibaka is a really bad matchup for the Celtics. And now the chess moves for the Celtics are as follows. More Time Lord.

They're now relying on this guy. He checked in two and a half minutes into the game. I was like, whoa. He, and really didn't play that much in the second half. I actually think they need him in this series the way it's going because Toronto's figured out how to slow it down. They figured out how to just use their guards

and try to target Kemba as much as they possibly can. They're leaving certain shooters open. Grant Williams, knock yourself out. Marcus Smart, go ahead. Semi Ojale, please. Here. We have a wide open 24-foot three for you. Please take it.

They had, by the way, they had a second unit. The second unit thing's bad for Boston. But they had a unit in there where it was Brad Wanamaker, Grant Williams, and... Oh my God, how am I forgetting? Semiad wanamaker grant williams and um oh my god how am i forgetting semi wanamaker semi that's right wanamaker semi um and grant and it was with jaylen

brick fest and then kemba who took only nine shots so and kemba said after the fact like i apologize for taking nine shots okay well don't apologize after game five kemba like you got to go you and j Jalen have 20 shots apiece, and that's pretty much the first one. Well, but here's the thing. Playoff experience really matters. And you hear these guys, you hear the talking heads talk about it. It's like, you know, playoff experience, playoff experience. But

Toronto has a fucking shitload of playoff experience. Kemba Walker, this is the highest level of basketball that he's been in since he was at UConn, right? With the amount of adjustments and the intensity of this and the shit like of basketball that he's been in since he was at UConn. Right? With the amount of adjustments and the intensity of this and the shit like that,

he's just, I'm not saying he can't handle it, but he's just never played in stuff like this. Tatum had his rookie year and Jalen had his second year where they had the Cole Cleveland series. But it's different when you're the favorites. It's different when you're up 2-0

and now things are slipping away a little bit and you're the favorites. It's different when you're up to, Oh, and now things are slipping away a little bit and you're going against this tough team that is like Michael Myers. I mean, what are the odds of scoring was 0.5 seconds left? You watch these games. Like we had one today, Miami and a regulation had the ball at 1.9 seconds. So I've got a terrible shot. I watch basketball type you to two 495 out of 500 times. It's a terrible shot. I watch basketball type you do too. 495 out of 500 times. It's a terrible shot. It's not even close. Toronto runs the perfect fucking play beats them. And now, and I just, I didn't like the way the Celtics responded to it yesterday. I really thought, I thought they were a better team. I thought they were going to win. I left that

game yesterday. Like, fuck, like if, if Tatum or Kemba doesn't get going, Toronto might be able to steal this series. And I was thinking about like, this is now becoming a classic playoff series where you have the younger, kind of a little unproven guns, the future, the futures perennial contender at the beginning stages of it going against the old guys. Not that, you know, Siakam's not old, stages of it going against the old guys. Not that, you know, Siakam's not old, obviously, but going against the old dudes who've been there, the former champs. And I had a couple written down.

2015 Clips Spurs, I think was a good one, right? Clips still trying to... That was a Chris Paul game winner, right? Right. And the Spurs were the defending champs, gave them everything they could. 2011 OKC Dallas is another one. You have that young OKC team. You have Dirk in Dallas and Dirk is just like, you know what? And all these old guys playing tricks, right? Sean Marion, Tyson

Chandler, Jason Kidd. And it was just the old guys with the tricks beating the young team that had more talent. 2009 Bulls Celtics was another one. No KG on the Celtics. You had that young Bulls team with Rose and Dang and all the Joe Kim Noah. Ben Gordon went off too, didn't he? Ben Gordon. And it was like, whoa, this is a series. And it was like the Bulls weren't quite ready to win a series

like that, but clearly had the talent. And I think this is becoming one of those series. I really have a lot of respect for Toronto because I don't think they have as good of a team. Yeah, when things are right, it looks like Boston's a better basketball team, and maybe that's too impressionable on the beginning of it, but I still, I mean, that would have been really weird

if they just smoked him like that, and I thought the Hayward thing was going to hurt him, but it wasn't really hurting him because Boston's defense was so good, and if Boston plays good transition defense, Siakam just isn't that great. He's a nice player. He's not a star, it wasn't really hurting him because bosses defense was so good. And if Boston plays good transition defense, you know, Siakam just isn't that great. He's,

he's a nice player. He's not, he's not a star. And when he had those up and down playoff games last year, like everybody lost track of him because Kawhi was the guy. I thought they would attack Kemba a little bit more and they've done some things like they had one game. I forget if it was three or four,

they started the game with a double screen. I think it was game three with Lowry. It was like a double handoff around two screens. And it was kind of try to get Kemba on Lowry early. And then it ended up getting all messed up anyway. And Lowry made the shot. But I also don't understand why they keep playing Gasol as much. But they closed with Ibaka in game four for the most part.

Unless Gasol came back for like another little stretch. I love when Gasol's out there as a Celtics fan. Yeah. Because Ibaka... He looks like he's hurt. Doesn't it look like he's not 100%? I just think he's older and he's huge. I just think he's a lot of minutes, a lot of minutes on those bodies. Speaking of minutes, though, by the way,

because nobody would listen to me about this, but I have mentioned it. Not all minutes are created equal. And the comparison I'm going to say is this. When you look at pitch count for a pitcher, there could be a guy who throws 105 and those pitches could be way easier than 88 pitchers for somebody else.

Seriously. The guy could be a change-up guy. He could be pitching a contact. He could be, you know, whatever. Maybe he's got a three-run lead. Again, that's a little bit different. But guys have talked about the stress of like 80 playoff pitches

versus 100 and something regular season pitches. So even though the number is higher, the stress was actually in the situation of the other ones. So whenever people talk about like, this is a good example because this was making the rounds after Denver got housed in game one. It was you're coming back from this emotional game seven win. You're down there.

You're finishing late local time. Good luck getting any rest and then 30 hours later that you come back and play the clippers and people have suggested this the rest warriors that you just punt on game one so that everybody's fresher now for the rest of the season and that is god that is the dumbest thing it's one of the worst things i've ever heard brought up considering people who don't play sports that's the whole like the whole point of being an athlete is to compete and see what can happen and that same premise that people actually thought was like a decent enough premise as Denver's getting just drilled in game one well you would have said the same thing about Houston but guess what as great

as Houston is defensively offensively they're not moving around like 48 minutes for Houston in that system is not the same as 48 minutes for somebody else in a different system it's just not it's not the same thing like Golden State moves around more Miami their guys move around a ton Houston you stand and watch and by the way it's working but the other part of this is with these stoppages and these reviews it's like a five-quarter game it's unbelievable how much extra time you're getting now to rest that was never there before. And some coaches haven't figured this out. It's almost like once bonds, you didn't want to pitch to him. And then in his last year,

people kept walking him still. And you're like, you realize he's fried, right? Like it's over. It's done. You could pitch to him a little bit more. And guys are still like, ah, you know, scares the shit out of me. Some of these coaches haven't figured out nick nurse is one of the best coach of the year figured it out and he finally said it so if you look at the stats for the raptors minutes wise in this series lowry 41 van vliet 42 siakam 40 plus og and anobi's at 38 those four guys are playing major minutes because nurse goes late in the game. We've got these breaks that didn't even exist before. So I can play these guys the entire second half now knowing I'm getting these free breaks and everybody should be doing it.

Lowry was 46 in game three and then 44 in game four. And I didn't think that was sustainable because you talk about cheaper minutes versus real minutes. Lowry's fucking going hard the whole game. That guy's getting knocked down. He's on the ground the whole time. He's taking charges. He's flying at shooters.

That guy doesn't take a break. Sometimes he's knocked down, yes. Sometimes he's knocked down. Or sometimes he's flapping. Right, right. The layup ones, Lowry cannot finish a layup attempt unless he's on the ground.

There's a rule. Well, you know, the other coach who figured out the minutes thing is Stevens. Because Tatum went 43 and 43 in those two games. In game four, Kemba was up to 41. Smart was 41. Jalen played 37 only because he had foul trouble. But I think both of them realized these idiotic stoppages. I thought Van Gundy, Jeff Jeff Van Gundy did a good job talking about how dumb the challenge was today,

where the Jimmy Butler gets, it goes out of bounds off him, but it went out of bounds because he got hacked. So they can review that it went out of bounds on him, but not review that he got hacked, and that's why it went out of bounds. It's like, what the fuck are we doing? Why do we have instant replay? If we're going to have instant replay, go actually review it.

They spent four minutes trying to figure out if it was a block or a charge. I hate it. I think it ruins the flow of the game. Get rid of all of it. It ruins the game. It really hurt Miami today and the regulation. Because they were really coming on there

in the last minute in regulation. And that Butler thing slowed it down for four minutes. And it just made it weird. And I hate it. I hate it. Everybody talks replay. Get it right. They don't get it right.

If you got it right, fine. I'm all for it. It ruins the whole fun part of basketball. And the NCAA tournament ruined this with all the ads and the million timeouts. And it's younger. So you're going to foul a little bit more because you should be fouling kids. But I miss a tie game let's go back and forth for four but we don't get four possessions in a row under two minutes anymore we just don't because it's all these stupid reviews they don't even get right all the time and for the nba which again

i've invested a lot of time in this but i have moments where i go when i watch the end of the the middleton three-point shot foul with Dragic, I don't know what the hell you're supposed to do as a defender. As much as I hate charges, thank God they're in there. Thank God flops, which I don't think are as bad now, but in a way, I'm glad they're rewarded because as an offensive player, if you're allowed to kick your legs out and then it's just contact, okay, fine. Now, the contact at the top of the shot, like we saw with Brooke Lopez in game four against Bam like that's real contact that's a foul but everybody's looking at brooke's leg being kicked forward but the foul on dragage isn't really a foul but now we're calling

that and of course mark davis calls the foul on yannis in the right we got the right result on those free throws from butler but since when can you not put your hand on a guy's torso from the side after the ball's five feet out of his hands and then I think Mark Jackson's always like oh there's there was contact there and you're like wait a minute no one is allowed to ever pierce the invisible bubble around these guys and so look forget the kicking your legs forward where shooters who kick them straight up and then decide to kick them out like when they're wide open they go straight up and down the screen thing. That's driving me absolutely crazy. Where if you're trailing me on a screen, I just jump back into you and then flail and throw up a three. And they're like, oh, there's contact there. So what am I supposed to do? Just not chase you.

So I can't close out on you anymore. And I can't contest your shot on jumpers. I can't follow you around a screen anymore. And by the way, you're all chucking us with your off and by the way you're all chucking us with your off arm and if you're not chucking us with your off arm sometimes you're grabbing my arm in and then the ref calls that it's larry larry knows every trick larry's every single one and harden does the best job of flicking everybody away with his off arm because he keeps it close and he's so strong but so many of these videos where it's like harden got by this guy or flick this and you're like dude he's just shoving him and yet they'll call it if it's in a wide open space like harden's just great at hiding it i there's my

ref rant but the refs the league has to do something about what they're letting the offensive player do because now there's there's just nothing you can do like i'd almost tell my guys yeah when they're from three just get a hand up but you know you almost got to run past them to the side now you have to do this drive by to the side because forget landing space if you're if you're in their area where they can make contact with you if they can touch you after the shot like guys are getting rewarded for that and it's it makes the game worse there's no debate i'm i want to start a new segment called homer corner i'm no longer bill the objective podcast host i'm just bill the the fucking homer okay what are you worried i'm a rational celtics fan bill right now your tone has changed because the celtics are the balls The fucking Homer. Okay, what are you worried about? I'm a rational Celtics fan, Bill, right now.

Your tone has changed. Because the Celtics are the balls. I can't stand Stan Van Gundy because I feel like he's rooting against the Celtics. All of his announcing in game four, and I got to the point where I was like, should I mute this? But then I might not be able to hear. He's just rooting for Kyle Lowry and all the bullshit. Again, this is Homer Bill talking, not podcast host Bill. He's rooting for all this Kyle Lowry stuff Kyle Lowry does. It's just

brilliant to Stan Van Gundy. Well, all the tricks. He's got all the tricks and things. It's a fucking jerk fest for Kyle Lowry. And then Marcus flops. Yeah, twice. And Stan gets on his fucking high horse and crushes Marcus for the flop. I knew where this was going. Well, like, you know, he's known for that. And I just, I don't feel like there's any place

in basketball for that. It's like, you just finished off ejaculating about Kyle Lowry. And now you're mad at Marcus Smart? What the fuck? Over and over again. Again, I'm Homer Bill. I'm not Podcast Host Bill.

This is such fucking bullshit that he is so biased for Toronto and against the Celtics. Don't think I can't see you, Stan Van Gundy. He was disgusted with Marcus Smart on that one possession. Disgusted.

Disgusted his voice was noticeable. There was an absolute... Multiple times. He doesn't like Marcus Smart. Multiple times there's been disgust in his voice was noticeable there was a there was an absolute multiple times he doesn't like marcus smart multiple times there's been a voice like everybody that comes at me to say oh you hate lowry's flopping but you love smart oh i hate i hate smarts flopping too okay i hate it how about the play where lowry when he it was game three when he got knocked down and he tried to get the flagrant foul and he was lying on the ground when he got kicked in the, in the, when watermaker need him. Oh, I thought we went down like his appendix had burst. Uh, I think watermaker got a pretty good there. No, no. But, but then it was,

he's really going for the flagrant. He's oh my God, is this guy going to have to go to the hospital? And then it was like, yeah, no flagrant foul. Larry was like, good. All right, let's run play number two. He's totally fine. Where was Stan on that one? Your hero, Kyle Lowry. He's like, yeah, no flag or foul. Lowry was like, good. All right, let's run play number two. He's totally fine. Where was Stan on that one? Your hero, Kyle Lowry. He tries to defraud the refs just like Smart does. That was, and as somebody who's as anti all the Lowry bullshit as anybody has been for years now, in that game, Lowry's stuff wasn't as bad as Smart's was.

So I think Stan was being game. Smart with the fake flop on the fast break. That was bad. Where it was the off. It wasn't even the guy with the ball. Yeah, he just jumped off Siakam. Right. Honestly, I can't believe Smart. These guys are the same guy. You can't be 4-1 and against the other. They're the same guy. You either have to support it or be against them.

I hate all of it. I hate all of it. Justin Anderson's my hero. I'm buying a Justin Anderson jersey. For him in the first round, it'd be like all caps. What was it? Like the integrity of the game. He was just going at Lowry.

So I'm a big Justin Anderson fan because I don't like any of it. Look, I'm telling you right now, smart, when it sucks, when it's gross, it's gross. I don't ever like it.

I'm not like, oh, that's cool. I don't ever like it. I'm not like, oh, that's cool. I hate that shit. Well, Stan should just put a fucking jersey on. Anyway, that's put a Raptors jersey on just to just openly root for them. He must have some sort of vice against Boston. Anyway, that was the end of Homer corner. Now build a podcast host is back. Uh, all right, quickly. Just want to talk about the Steve Nash thing. I know you covered a little on your podcast. One of the dumber basketball stories of the last year. I never talked about it. I just wanted to say two things because sometimes I'm amazed when things become quote unquote controversies. First of all, the legacy of great players being hired as coaches

is part of the history of the game, but especially guards. And you look at guys who just became coaches without being an assistant just since the merger in 1976, Doc Rivers, Jason Kidd, Isaiah Thomas, Steve Kerr, Mark Jackson, Magic Johnson, Danny Ainge, Jerry West, Reggie Theus, Doug Collins. This is a thing that happens over and over again in the league because I think teams feel rightly so that guards tend to have the best sense of how a game is played. They're in leadership positions and just how it goes. Plus, Willis Reed, Larry Bird, Paul Salas, Billy Cunningham, all of them became head coaches right away, too. Don Nelson was an assistant for a year.

So that was one thing. The second thing, Nash, I would say out of any top 50 player ever, and he's a top 50 guy, was probably the best coaching candidate just because of what kind of player he was with the Suns, where he was such a cerebral player on the one hand. The understanding that he has for basketball is so high level, but on top of it was a beloved teammate and leader. And I told this story before, but we did 30-30 with him. We went to dinner with him and some of the sons at Sundance. And Nash, Jared Dudley was there and a couple other people.

And Nash was ordering for everybody because they trusted Nash because he was like one of the first health guys. And Jared Dudley's like, Steve, should I get this fish with the butter on it? And Steve's like, I mean,

the guy is like a beloved whatever. And people always thought, well, if he ever wants to coach, the guy would be an amazing coach. But which brings me to the third piece, which is he didn't want to coach because he got divorced. He got remarried. He had small kids. He wanted to be with his kids.

He's carved his whole life out the last four or five years to be with the kids. That's the third piece. But then the fourth piece is the biggest. Who do you think hired Steve Nash? It wasn't Sean Marks. It wasn't Joe Sy. It's fucking KD and Kyrie. Who do you think got rid of Kenny Atkinson? If they wanted Kenny Atkinson to stay the coach, guess what? They would have kept Kenny Atkinson. It's a player's league. Luke Walton last year in the Lakers. Guess what? If LeBron wanted Luke Walton to stay as coach, they would have kept Luke Walton.

The best players decide the coach. James Harden, Kevin McHale. He didn't want Kevin McHale to be his coach anymore. They got him the fuck out. They got D'Antoni. The stars run the teams. They pick the coaches. Nash has a relationship with Durant.

As everybody wrote about for four days, Durant clearly wanted Nash as his head coach so how does this become a bigger situation than just that that this guy is a top 50 guy who everybody thought would be an awesome coach if you ever want to do it and KD wanted him as his coach done there's no story

that's it I just wanted to say all that. All right. Quick parent corner, Rosillo. My son had his first fantasy football draft on Friday night. He got invited to be in a draft with eighth graders. Eight team draft. He's really gotten into football in the last year. He's learned all this stuff from the video games. He actually knows who's good. He knows who the players are,

stuff like that. So I got to watch him dive into this fucking weird world of rankings and just who do I have and what round? What do I do if I have the first pick? What do I do have this seven pick? He hand wrote on a piece of paper, all of his rankings for, from like one to 50. So he'd be ready. And then I was trying to explain to him the tears thing didn't go very well.

Um, but so he took him new number one overall. No, but I was like, look, it's an 18 league. I think you have to prioritize like quarterback or getting one of the top two tight ends because you'll be able to make a,

there's so many good running backs after in an 18 week, you'll be able to get those later, but try to get like my homes or Lamar, try to get Kelsey. So I explained the whole thing to him. He's like, all right, I got it.

I got it. So we're doing the thing. And I'm like, you got to have Clyde Edwards. Hilaire has got to whole thing to him. He's like, all right, I got it. I got it. So we're doing the thing. And I'm like, you got to have Clyde Edwards. Hilaire has got to be your fifth one. He's like, who does know he is? Cause not in the video game yet. I'm like, he's the chiefs guy. He's going to put up a lot of yards.

Like that, that, that's stupid. So he's going through all the things. He's like, no, I don't like hearing that. He's ninth on this list. He's 10th on this list. I'm like, Ben, he's just trust me. He's going to put up a ton of points. How could he not trust you?

I get the dad-son angst, but he still isn't capable of trusting his dad who built a sports empire. He doesn't want to give his dad credit even on that. So that was my point. I was like, A, don't ask me for my help if you're not going to listen to me. And B, I kind

of fucking know what I'm doing. I was playing fantasy football when you were minus 17 years old. I was like, put Clyde Edwards-Hilaire. He should be the fifth. He's like, I want to take Michael Thomas. He's really good. I'm like, well, that's fine, but that would be stupid. Take Clyde Edwards-Hilaire and then try to run on the Chiefs. So I'm explaining to him, get as many Chiefs as possible. He's like, yeah, yeah, good idea, good idea. I'll do that. I'll get as many Chiefs as possible. Then we could watch the Chiefs and anyone who scored. I'm like, yeah, you're getting it. So he takes Clyde Edwards to their fifth,

coming back second round, gets Mahomes. And then it goes to the third round, and he's all excited because he's like, and then I'm going to take Travis Kelsey, and it's going to be great. I'm going to have Mahomes. I'm going to have Clyde and Travis Kelsey. We're going to have the Chiefs.

So we're waiting, and guys are going up, and he's one away, and the guy in front of him takes Kelsey. And he had this fucking meltdown. Yeah, meltdown. It's just like, oh, fuck, what? Just throwing his things. And just in real time, I got to see somebody become actually addicted to fantasy football in this moment

where he thought he was getting Travis Kelsey, had no idea the rug was going to be pulled out from under him. And anyway, so the draft goes through. Or you saw the beginning of a kid who's 16 smoking cigarettes at 7-Elevens, picking fights with people. Maybe.

Hanging out with skateboarders. Who knows? By the end of the draft, he was like, that was awesome. Can I be in yours I want to do more of these as you know addictive personality

addictive personality my son it's like I want to be in more of these that was so much fun he's staring at his team he's showing me the guy he's going against

in round one and it was just like you know it's fantasy football is never going to die is my point they added another 12 year old is now in for life.

Fantasy football. I got to, you can't be in the league with you though. Cause that's collusion. You would, you would ask him to start trading you stuff. No, he wants to be my partner.

He wants to help me pick my team. Yeah, but you're not, you're not going to be good at that. You're not going to be good at that. You're not going to listen. Well, I'll just do whatever I want

yeah right yeah but he wants to be involved I'm like you're not going to care unless you're picking the guys so it was the whole thing um I was really psyched though to watch in real time him get hooked are those those little moments

as a dad where you see these things like you're constantly learning more about your kids the whole time um well it's such a dorky thing it's such a waste of time as you know i hate fantasy football but i i get sucked back in every year you hate it you talk well i hate that there's there's 11 losers and only one guy is happy at the end and you get a couple congratulatory phone calls and you win some money but But ultimately, it's not nearly as satisfying as it is frustrating. It's 100 times more frustrating than it is

happy when you win. So, do I wish I didn't play fantasy football? Yeah, but I can't stop. I can't. I'm in two leagues. I didn't know it was that big of a problem. Kyle, come on. Kyle. Yeah. Kyle really loves on. Kyle. Yeah.

Kyle really loves it. Kyle's like kind of like over the top a little bit. Who's your go-to guy, Kyle? Who do you trust the most for fantasy advice? I mean, it's Bill. I've never won a league.

Let's just be honest. I think he said that he's won a league once. So that's good enough for me. I've won a couple. I've won a couple leagues. Yeah, I think it's been more than that. Yeah, exactly. Kyle's not popping on the

video. I think something shady is going on with Kyle. I think he's doing this from like a bodega in Venice. I just don't want you guys to see how I'm living right now in the pandemic and you can't change my mind on that. That's fair. We won't. I think there might be something going on. Yeah, but I mean, he's under 30.

It's Labor Day Sunday. This is a bonus going out night, but you can't go anywhere. But you're going to find something. What's your... Go ahead. I was going to say this is great for him because we told him we might do something after Lakers Rockets, but now fuck it. Unless like James Harden has 80 points, we're not putting something on top of the pot. We're just letting it...

Just putting it up. What's going to happen to this Lakers Rockets? You're going to... Well, just because you said that, now Houston's going to win. It's going to be 2-0. It's going to be the lead, and we're going to have to do it at the top of the pod. We're just letting it, just putting it up. What's going to happen to the Lakers' rockets? You're going to, well, just because you said that, now Houston's going to win. It's going to be 2-0. It's going to be the lead, and we're going to have to do

it at the top of the pod. Nah, we're not doing that. Anyway, check out CarMax on Parent Corner. Rosillo, we're moving to Thursday night,

starting next week. So this upcoming Thursday? No, a week from Thursday. Okay. All right. No problem. So I'm not going to see you for like 10 days, but we're pretty pumped for the Thursday night possibilities. How much football homework have you done?

I'm about 10% of where I need to be right now. It's bad. So you're 90% there or 10% there? No, I'm 10% of where I need to be. now. It's bad. So you're 90% there or 10% there? No, I'm 10% of where I need to be. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm behind, but I'll pick it up like that. My whole thing is like mindset season wise, like all the college football, but I mean, the basketball thing every day, that's, that's just what I've got my routine down. And then it's basketball. My big thing on the West coast is like, once they're over, I don't really know what to do. I mean, I'm getting a couple other side projects.

You know me, very creative guy. Get the side projects going. So I try to get to those. But like if I don't get to them in the morning, then I really like doing them at night. But all right. So that means no next Sunday. That means next week or back a week from Thursday.

So that's why. We're doing Thursday nights through basketball and through the first week of free, through the draft, through first week of free agency. And then God only knows when the NBA is coming back. Yeah, that's good news. You were right about that

early because you can already tell by what Silver's saying. It's not going to come back even close to it. Well, I just don't think they're going to want to miss any of those Christmas games, though. There's no way they're punting on that day, I wouldn't think so did you see the um the patriots go position players is it depressing as the red sox rotation this past week have you paid attention at all to they

had a guy who hadn't pitched in a game in six years then this other dude andrew triggs was that the name they had a tbd on the on the this red sox thing is brutal do they understand that when you tank in baseball it's not the same like it doesn't guarantee you a chance for lebron that turns everything around this tanking in baseball shit it has to be the most overrated approach to anything and i still i could do the whole, uh, the Houston Astros thing. Everybody loves the idea that they tanked. If you really went through that roster that won all those games, you know, tanking to me is completely different for baseball. And I don't, is that what's happening? This Red Sox season's gross.

So I only have one friend that I text about the Red Sox with my friend, Hench, who's still torturing himself watching these games he's watching all of these games? well he claims he's not but I know he is because I'll get some texts like oh my god JD just turned on one I'll be like what? he we're both so angry

at the big giant shit that the Red Sox owners mailed to every Red Sox fan this year and it's like we year. And it's, it's like we won four titles. It's so hard to complain, but you know, you want like a modicum of feeling like they care about us and the pictures they're putting out.

I, you can't overstate how bad they are. Like routinely somebody will come in. The guy today gave up six runs in an inning. And it's over and over again. It's people you've never heard of. This is a big market team. They're one of the five most lucrative franchises.

And then Mookie's just crushing it for the Dodgers. It's just getting worse and worse. Are you talking about Matt Hall, who had a career 31 innings with the tigers the previous two years yeah and now is is pitched in uh three games for the socks and has an era of 19.89 yeah i mean he gives up over two runs an inning if you went through this who pitched today oh triggs hall lair springs bryce this is their rent there's their rotation is the baseball video Hall Lair Springs Bryce This is

Their rotation is the baseball video game Without the player's license John Dowd, shout out With the Patriots You know This Cam Newton story is inspiring He really seems like Everybody's fired up for this

Comeback season They elected him captain Belichick's been raving about him he really seems like everybody's, everybody's fired up for this comeback season. Uh, they elected him captain Belichick's been raving about him. Although I have some longtime Patriot people are like, Oh, anytime he's raving about somebody like this, he's up to something. So I don't know what he's up to,

but they have, they gave him the worst skill guys. So it's like, you might have this rejuvenated Cam Newton season, but it's like, knock yourself out with James White, Julian Edelman in the last stage of his career, Jacoby Myers, and hopefully Nikhil Haro would be half decent and two rookie tight ends. Go nuts. I'm just nervous, but as always, I believe in Belichick and I'm trusting the process is my point.

Belichick, if you ran a restaurant, you'd be like, great parking, great front of house, salads are unbelievable. Yeah. Appetizers are on point. Entrees are great. Desserts are terrific.

But why are they playing pantera while we're listening like i'm bringing my grandmother here she loves the filet she loves the salad bar but they're playing pantera and it doesn't mean the meal wasn't amazing doesn't mean there wasn't great value doesn't mean we didn't we like we're craving their food again, but why? And that's what Belichick is with wide receivers. He can't, he just can't like, yes, the Welker thing was great. Great job on Edelman, but to trade a second rounder for Sanu and then cut him and all these guys he's drafted, he just, he needs a wide receiver specialist. He needs someone that could be like, Hey Bill, what are we talking?

I love these ads about not turning into your parents where the guy's circling the thing on the whiteboard. He goes up here. He goes, it's silent. And the woman's like, I don't have silent on my phone. He's like, yes, you do. It's up here at the top. And then he's at the Home Depot and he's on speakerphone like, hey, we're in a public

space. Why are we? Why are we on speakerphone? Just keeps reminding him. Belichick needs somebody to go, hey, what are we? Hey, six, two guys that weren't that productive in the pack. 12. What do we say about Florida,

Florida guys that are just, they run a good 40. What's the rule? Have they made any catches? No. Okay. We don't take them. So would you see the list of all the,

all the second rounders they've squandered either by trade or picks? I think he's like nine for 34 in the second round. It's almost like he likes, he, the list that, uh, my friend, Jay Jara, Jaro said was, uh, picks. I think he's like 9 for 34 in the second round. It's almost like he likes... The list that my friend Jay Giroux said was 9 of 34. Wait. From

Bill Marshall? Yeah. You're friends with him? Yeah. He's a... I didn't know... I know all the Boston sports fans who are out here. You know, he's a Summer on the Vineyard guy. So I knew him when I was a teenager. I didn't know you are out here? You know, he's a, he's a summer on the vineyard guy. So I knew him when I was a teenager. I didn't know you were friends with Jay. Well, he is, he's like my friend, Han. She's like hardcore. And he, he went and he looked up every

second round pick in the last 20 years and how it panned out. And we were nine for 34 at the second round and we won six Superbowls. How's that fucking possible? Wait, before we go, you have to do your imitation of Mark Jackson as a movie critic. Yeah, okay. All right, all right. Here we go. Ready?

All right. Three, two, one. Tenant. Unbelievable budget. Great expectations. You walk in. You grab your popcorn. You sit down.

Boom. Stars everywhere. Explos in. You grab your popcorn. You sit down. Boom. Stars everywhere. Explosions. Buildings. They're moving. But what day is it? Am I traveling through time? Or am I asleep?

Or am I not asleep? I thought we already did that. What day is it? Is this time travel? Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't get enough credit for what kind of actor he is. Can't buy me love. Now look, I like pizza too.

But at some point, you have to mature. You can't just run around town, sleeping with everybody delivering pizzas at some point you have to open up your own pizza shop people don't talk enough about hot dog the movie no you know what i don't think they do anymore so that's accurate that's that would be accurate are you mixed up movies you mixed up pizza boy and can't buy me love i wasn't gonna say anything oh i said he buys he he pays the girl to date him. Yeah, no, no.

I know. Cindy Mancini. I can't believe I said Can't Buy Me Love. But actually, that might have been part of the routine. That might have been part of the routine. I'll do Can't Buy Me Love instead. People say, how do you spend your cap space? Well, look at Ronald McDonald.

That was great value. No, remember? Oh, Ronald McDonald. Yeah, the mom mess. No, remember the around McDonald. Yeah, the mom with the name on purpose. Right. Got to say best signing of the offseason.

Great value there for $1,000. The girl gets a new dress. She doesn't get in trouble. He dates cheerleaders. I'd say that was a good use of cap space. Mama, there goes that

thousand dollars. Meryl Streep doesn't get enough credit for what a good actress she is. I like Mark Jackson. He's a good guy. St. John's, he's one of my all-time favorites. I was so happy when I won Rookie of the Year, so I want people to understand that.

Mark Jackson as a movie critic should be a bit during the NBA games. Like during like third quarter when people are getting a little groggy. Just like Mike Breen should be like, Hey, Mark, seen any movies? And just let's hear what happens. Watched The Great Escape the other night. My question, Jeff Van Gundy, how great was The Escape? To be honest,

day one, prison did not set the tone. Very lax. I just watched a great escape the other night. That was a real lax prison. Like the guys just got to walk around and do a ton of stuff. Like, no wonder.

I mean, come on. That's the whole movie. Um, all right, Kyle, thanks for working on Labor Day Sunday you can put this

pod up no matter what happens with Rockets Lakers hopefully James Harden doesn't have 70 points Rosillo we can listen to two of your pods

this week I'm sure you have some football stuff coming and then you're back here we move to Thursdays officially so for programming

that means that means after I tape Thursday I'm off for a couple days yeah there you go uh-oh i might i might try to get in the car go somewhere but still be locked into the hoops all right rossillo it's good to see you