The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Less Scary Brooklyn, All-NBA Arguments, Unexpected Trade Guys, and Tiger’s Return With Ryen Russillo and Joe House

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the top of the Eastern Conference, All-NBA, Luka Doncic creeping up in the MVP rankings, and more (3:22), before Joe House joins and assists in throwing out the names of some players who could make a sudden exit from their current team by next season, as well as surprisingly important playoff guys (1:00:56). Finally Bill, House, and Ryen discuss some bets for the upcoming Masters Tournament (1:36:01). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Ryen Russillo and Joe House Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It launches this week. He is there at WrestleMania as we're taping this two-day event. They did a great job with it. Shoemaker actually interviewed Cody Rhodes, who made a dramatic, unexpected return to WWE. Semi-expected if you kind of were following the tea leaves. But still, Shoemaker, that was right after Cody Rhodes.

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house and Nathan are going to be breaking down their initial expectations of what's going to happen. Then Tuesday, we'll be there with the BS pod. Wednesday, we'll be there, the three of us doing fairway rolling. And then Thursday, we'll be there as well. Going to fit a bunch of basketball stuff into next week as well. Do not worry. We're not ignoring the NBA. It is an unbelievable last week. Rizal and I are going to talk about it in one second. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. Ryan Vassilis here. Taping this a little before 6.30 Pacific time. Most of the relevant hoops is done today. Vassilis, since the last time we talked,

I think the one thing has changed is that the top four in the East are no longer afraid of Brooklyn. And there's no longer going to be the jockeying and the high-stepping to get out of a possible Brooklyn matchup because I don't know if Brooklyn is as scary as it was a week ago, two weeks ago, three weeks ago.

Everybody and their brother can score 120 points on them. We have no idea if they're going to be the seventh seed or the eighth seed. Right now they're 10th. And my takeaway, especially watching today, where I thought Milwaukee tried hard in that Dallas game. Dallas just played really well. Philly tried really hard in that Cleveland game and they won. Miami tried really hard in Toronto and they won. And then the Celtics beat Washington by like 40. 42, yeah. Yeah, 42. I think that's a decent takeaway. Brooklyn, not as scary when you really unravel it and you look at it and you stare at it and you're like, all right, let's give Durant and Kyrie their 70 a game. That's fine. We still think

we can win. Yeah. The Seth Curry injury is definitely hurting them. You know, I've watched the Atlanta game pretty closely the other night. Atlanta took 49 free throws and it still was a close game. They were plus 30 in free throws. I mean, it's just one of those gross, like, oh, you guys just call it everything. Cool. Right. Um, and Durant goes for 50 plus and Durant was absolutely on fire, but you, uh, you, you offer up a good point here. Cause you had said, you were texting me before, and you said, you know, maybe it's a little different now when Kyrie doesn't get to play erratically.

Because clearly, like, I went through it again. When he dropped 50 on Charlotte, it was his second game in nine days. And when he dropped 60 in Orlando, it was his first game. It was one game in a 12-day span. I've been making this point for a while. If you only have to play once a week, basketball is a lot easier.

Yeah, why are people like, when you're a certain age and you're this good of a basketball player, which Kyrie is, and they're like, man, I can't believe this guy's just out there scoring. Have you watched him? Whatever you think of him, he's insanely talented. And then you don't have to like you

have these gaps where you aren't playing that much and now we're starting to see him dip now i had expected he's going to figure it out because now he's having to deal with the conditioning part of this so i just pivot i have those stats by the way before you go okay kairi with three plus days rest this season 33 what about 11 days six well three plus 33, 5 and 6. Well, three plus days, 33, 5 and 6, 51, 45, 93 splits. And for the year, he's nowhere close to that.

The last five games when he actually had to play a real schedule, 21, 6 and 4, 36% field goal, 38%, only 3.0 free throw attempts.

And I just think like, he's somewhere in between. He's not as bad as he was in those five games for him. He's also not a guy who's going to score 33 points in every game. He's somewhere in the middle. He's around 24, 25. And I do think it's easier when for your body and for mentally and everything. If it's like, I only have to play once a week and this week I get to play at Orlando, I'm going to light them up and then I'm not going to play for eight more days. You know? Yeah. I don't, I feel like we were the only people talking about this going,

this is actually a good thing for him where we light it up. And on top of this, he's barely playing. And you're like, well, that might be kind of the point. Here's what I would ask you, though. Is it because no one's afraid of Brooklyn? Or is it because you have four teams? And you could even have argued like Milwaukee before the day started could have ended up in the sixth seed and I that may have changed now with the results later on in the day I don't

have it off the top of my head is it that it's just so close that what's the point like just do what you need to do as a team and where you land is where you land because if you try to plan for something by jockeying there's so many other teams bunched up and it's so close that your whole plan could backfire anyway. So you might as well just do whatever you want to do. I think that's fair. I think Boston, until Rob Williams got hurt, was not afraid where they landed. And I don't think Milwaukee is afraid.

I think they could care less. But when you look at Brooklyn's last six, they gave up 132, 95, 119, 123, 120, and 122. Seth is, I mean, he came out and said, like, not going to be healthy until I get like a month to rest this thing. And I just don't have it right now. We got to keep going. So Seth is 75%.

I don't think we see Simmons this year. We don't see Joe Harris this year. Patty Mills has been dead since the All-Star break. I don't know what happened to him. I mean, he's... I looked up his stats. He's averaging a 6-1-1 after the All-Star break. Six points, one rebound, one assist.

That's 19 games. 35% shooting. Griffin is DOA. They might just be a 500 team with one great player. It's very possible. Yeah, I just hate writing that one player off because of how special he is. And I kind of was always like,

I think I've given Milwaukee the most benefit for the doubt, right? It's been harder for me to come around on Boston, but we gave them a love fest a week ago. So we're on board. Hit that Milwaukee point because I really wanted them to beat up Dallas today and that would have been the lead of our pod.

Here comes Milwaukee. Three in a row. Giannis playing 40 minutes a game, playing playoff minutes. This is the finals team from last year. Here we go. And then Dallas just outplayed them

and played really well and I thought controlled the game and Luka was the best guy on the floor. So now I'm like, all right, what did that mean? Right. And nobody played in the Clippers game

just so we understand. I'm not counting that one. Right, right. When you see they're like, wait, they gave up 153 to the Clippers Now I'm like, all right, what did that mean? Right, and nobody played in the Clippers game, just so we understand. I'm not counting that one. Right, right. When you see it, you're like, wait, they gave up 153 to the Clippers. You're like, okay, but nobody played in that one.

I thought the Brooklyn win was incredible, and it felt like, you know, I know we're going to get to this as well. It was kind of this Giannis stretch of a couple weeks where you're like,

this guy is, you know, I don't, I have a hard time with the Giannis Durant thing because I'm always going to prefer shooting but yannis has put together these plays the block in the philadelphia game that was close so it always felt like just when i wanted to start to buy in there would be a weird loss in there with them you know the golden state won a few weeks ago you're like what the hell's wrong with you guys like let's go let's go um and then today i just think luca destroyed him i think bud's a little

stubborn me too is that fair well when van gundy just let me finish real quick because when van gundy's like you know i think i might try this that's like the most you're going to get from van gundy saying that maybe the coach like his glue could just diced him up every possible way and the other great thing about this, and Dinwiddie didn't even play in the second half, I don't think. He only had 20 minutes today. But not having Porzingis out there, despite whatever you think about Porzingis,

now you don't really have a thing you can attack. And I love Dwight Powell. I've always liked his game, and he's not necessarily someone that you can attack a ton either. And so Luka just put on a master class today. But I don't look at Milwaukee being like, hey, this is super telling. Maybe it's just really positive about Dallas

because I want to give Milwaukee credit for those last two wins or the previous wins against really good teams. Yeah, I guess the only telling thing is I'm a little worried about their wings. I think everybody in the East has something that you could get really worried about if you stared at long enough.

And their wings like, you know, the Wes Matthews, Connaughton, who's on his way back, who I think they're going to really need in the playoffs, Grayson Allen. That's really it. So when you think, like, who's going to guard Luka on this team, a lot of people have that problem. But at the same time, that really athletic, like, what happens if they see Zach Levine and DeMar DeRozan in the same series? How are they going to defend those guys when I would say their swings are other than Middleton below average. And you would say, well, holiday, but I don't know. I don't want to use holiday

guarding like a six, seven guy if I don't have to. I want to put those miles on them. So that was the takeaway is I didn't feel like that's when you really feel like, oh, Wes Matthews actually plays for this team. You felt that in the Brooklyn game too. I don't think he's dead like Ariza where the Lakers get Ariza. That guy has been good for four years, but he's probably a level above that. Maybe that's it.

Yeah, I miss when the Lakers were getting off to a tough start. They kept showing us Ariza on the bench five times a a game they're like well you know once they get a reason back yeah he's on his way cool uh Wes Wes was assigned to Durant you know for all the times we'll look and get really excited about like who's gonna guard who I I know what you're saying but then I look at the other wing situations and yeah I'm not as down like at least I have a Drew Holliday if I'm going up against Chicago to put on one of those guys. You know, I know he's

at least physical enough. I mean, the problem is with Luka, nobody's really going to stop him. You know, it's a matter of he's going to be hitting his shots that night. And now they're so locked in positionally, too,

that he's making some of these passes to the spot. Like, it's like a quarterback just throwing to a spot as opposed to looking at how the corner and wide receiver are aligned. It's like, well, look, here's the timing in my head. This is where you're supposed to be. I'm just going to put the ball out there.

They ran pick and roll with Luka a million times, and then even if it didn't work, they'd reset it again. I don't know that Bud really changed it all that much. They brought pressure, but it was almost way too late. That's the thing that I love about Dallas defensively. They did different stuff today. They had a zone that every time Giannis was ISO'd to the side, it was almost like a zone looking at him. I mean, I don't know how

many possessions. And then if Giannis were the roller, two stayed with the roller instead of two staying with the ball, which is what we see so much, right? And so with Milwaukee on the other side of it, it feels like, you know, I even noticed in the Sixers game that they won. Harden has no interest in doing certain things that exert energy, which is not unlike Harden, but- That was nice. Milwaukee- That was a nice way of phrasing it. Milwaukee, Milwaukee like doesn't attack hard. You're watching as the other teams play the Sixers and they go, all right go let's go hunting for Harden Milwaukee's like nah we're not going to do that they didn't even do it

we just hurt in a playoff series remember all of us like going what's going on here so you know I felt like it was kind of just Luka got to do whatever he wanted and when Luka's on like that I mean it's the reason why we think he's so special we talked about him on this pod on Thursday with Mahoney the one thing I didn't say that I'll say now is Luka took that first month.

I don't want to say took it off, but he was just out of shape and he sucked. Then he ended up getting hurt, missed 10 games. I have him fifth for MVP right now. Ahead of Booker or Tatum? Ahead of Tatum, I think. Wow. I think the case for Tatum was always,

I was kind of penciling in, they had to be the one seed for him to get it. But I would say it's slight edge to Luka at this point because you watch what he did today, you cannot pull him out of that and replace that with anybody, which is the whole point of most valuable. All-NBA is a little different.

It's a little more of a performance achievement. This is like, who else could even run that team the way they have it? They're so dependent on all of his decisions for two and a half hours. The quarterback analogy is perfect because it's like watching the Brady short yardage offense where it's like, oh, James White out in the flat.

Edelman over the middle. Gronk on the side. That's what he's doing play after play. It's fucking awesome to watch. It's really, really, really high level. When do you think you'll pivot to? It's kind of like that Mac Jones throw out to the flare or like out to the flat, flare it out to the flat.

No, I was going to pivot to it's kind of like Mac Jones weaving it downfield to Devante Parker finally with a good quarterback with a little hop and a step. He's back, baby. Pats are back. Stay home, guys, from the Dolphins. It's like 0-7 all over again.

I just look at... I feel the same way about the Mavs supporting cast as I do about the Nuggets, except the Mavs cast makes more sense. The Nuggets didn't choose to have the cast they have. Their top two guys are the New York kids are just gone. This Mavs team, it's kind of carefully selected role players that just make sense with him.

And it's an expensive supporting cast, but they, if you said who's their second best guy, who's their second best guy? I still think it's Jalen because he can kind of

carry you when some possessions go awry. You know, I know people are sort of down on him after the playoffs or anything. I just really like Jalen Brunson a lot.

But Finney Smith, his passing now, and then you can switch these guys. And I'm telling you, Dwight Powell has always had this max energy, and he can move all over the place. And look, Dinwiddie, I don't think you can...

This is one of those arguments where you go, okay, well, here's what you were, and this is what my expectations were, and now you're completely different. And so does that mean I'm wrong? Because with the Mavs, he's been incredible. He's averaging 17, 3, and 4. But the shooting, this is somebody who's been around 30%, even below 30% from 3, and he's 37% now. And he's somebody that likes to kind of run possessions.

But he's a really smart guy anytime you ever heard him talk so you just wonder if it's just his own awareness of i need to adapt in a different way i mean he's hitting big shots left and right well do you think sometimes this happens in sports though where you have the guy who's miscast as you know a star why he's not a star yeah you know he's not the lead in a movie. You don't want him on the VHS tape box. But in the back, he's fine in one of those square pictures. It's good. He's like the fourth lead. Like Jim Murray? Yeah, like the Expendables. He's not Stallone.

But in the back, it's like, oh, and Dinwiddie's in it. And there's Del Flundering. Just keep going. But I think Dinwiddie's in it and they're still flundering just keep going but I think Dinwiddie's problem is he kind of felt like he was the front of the box and he just isn't oh that's the way he's played that's the way he's played his entire career so yeah maybe he's just like all right I don't know if the shooting's gonna hold up I mean the shooting the efficiency numbers for him for years you're like oh my god but he was really really talented I mean you get to the hoop he could make you miss he was big he could drive but it just felt like and i always make this joke the nets

had this insane run of these heavy heavy like get the fuck out of my way guys between d'angelo russell dinwood and laver it was crazy i'm like what what are you guys like what are your scouts be like hey let's get three guys in a row that are so terrible to play no one likes playing with them let me ask you this though so here we are glowing about dallas great win today what's your level of like expectation for a team that hasn't gotten out of the first round good question i have them slightly over golden state as third most likely to get out of the west and i think they have a chance to move to second for me in my brain, depending on what happens with Ja.

Is this Ja thing? It's all fine now. They have a deep team. They win every game without him. Jenkins has to be Rookie of the Year unless you just want to give it to Monte. I think it's down to those two guys. Coach of the Year?

Coach of the Year, I'm sorry. But now we get to the playoffs and it's like, guess what? I'm going to need Ja now that we actually have to win a playoff series. Yeah, of course.

I would have Dallas three. I just don't trust the Golden State thing. I don't know who they are. I don't like these teams. I don't like when you're falling behind by 15, 18, 20

in these games and it's April. You know? And Klay is hit or miss. They rely on Poole a lot. They have to play Kamingo even though, you know, and I think they should they rely on pool a lot they have to play comingo even though you know and i think they should because i think he's spectacular but um they're going to be relying on him and he's a guy who really has no idea where he's going draymond physically can he hold up for

two and a half months i just think if you're looking at do i feel safe with this team i don't feel safe with the warriors i almost feel like they're more sleepery to me, which makes no sense because they have a chance. They're going to be a three-seed possibly, four-seed. There's just too many moving parts with them. Dallas, I know who they are. I watched it today.

That's their team. The Golden State point is totally fair. I was a couple weeks ago ready to start buying all the way in and then Marcus Smart fucked up Curry's fair. I was, a couple weeks ago, ready to start buying all the way in, and then Marcus Smart fucked up Curry's ankle. And so I was like, okay, so now this is derailed again. You don't need a huge, you know, you don't

need tons of centers, but you kind of need a couple options. And Looney is a tough option if it's your only option, and I like Looney. Clay has been a struggle, although last night against Utah, man, I watched the whole postgame because they lit the Jazz up in the fourth quarter. Yeah.

I mean, every single thing they ran, they went small, and it was Draymond. They bring Gobert out, so it's something to think about if that ends up being your first-round matchup with the Jazz and Warriors, which, again, the scene has changed constantly here. But it was so alarming. And then on the other end, the same thing with Gobert. You're like, okay, you have Jordan Pordan pool on your back it three feet away from the rim and his teammates don't even want to pass to him because they just don't expect him to do

anything with it and so you know it's a lot to ask gobert to cover all this ground but clay in the post game was like we kind of knew what they would do with gobert and then he drops he's like so it's a really easy shot for me and clay was terrific pool was terrific and there was like a joy to clay that he was kind of talking about the bigger picture like you know i got a text from one of for me. And Clay was terrific. Pool was terrific. And there was like a joy to Clay. Yeah. He was kind of talking about the bigger picture. Like, you know, I got a text from one of the guys today. We had a lot. And he goes, you know, I've just been so miserable about it all.

And he was happy. And you're like, okay, but if Steph comes back and they go small and pool, they're just going to guard you to death with all of these guys that can dribble and can shoot. Can it happen? I don't like writing them off, but it's such an unknown compared to Dallas that I totally get. Yeah, I'm not writing them off either. I just feel like I just want to see it. And I think it would be a mistake to just assume all of it's going to fall into place right now, the way we have a Golden States right now, we're taping this the second quarter. They're up double digits against Sacramento. So Clay's not playing tonight

either, by the way, they would have 50 wins. Dallas has 49. Denver has 47. Utah, 46. So, I mean, the more fun from a basketball standpoint, that 3-4-5-6 would be if it was Golden State-Utah-Dallas-Denver. Dallas-Denver would just be like a series right out of like 1985 with these two awesome offensive players just going at it and then gold state utah just find me the person who's rooting for utah in that series there's there's

also a weird thing though about dallas their record i think it's now 13 and 3 since march 1st i just kind of did a march 1st sort from today yeah like i kind of do like a few weeks and kind of just their metrics offensively and defensively are average. Their net rating is 18. They're actually negative. And yet they're winning all of these games. And the other thing that I brought up in my podcast, maybe a month or so ago was I still think we did a really bad job with the usage rate and not understanding what it meant, what your team's profile was, even up until a couple of years ago. Like we knew what we knew what it meant, but I don't think we knew what it meant in relation to playoffs. Those heliocentric teams with the high usage guy, and Doncic

is the highest usage player in the NBA, the playoff, it's not a certainty, but history tells you those teams don't do well in the playoffs. Yeah. Got by the name of James Harden. I don't know if you've heard of him. So we'll have it. I mean, who knows

with the East, but right now it, it is Miami, Boston, Milwaukee, Philly in that order. And the weirdest part of all of this is Brooklyn being 10th. Brooklyn tied for 10th was Charlotte. Charlotte has Milwaukee,

Boston, Chicago, Minnesota left. And Brooklyn has Houston, Knicks, Cleveland, Indiana left. So they actually have a way easier schedule.

Cleveland's a shell of itself. I mean, Philly just rampaged them today. They had Markkinen just in these keys, using him as like Robert Williams on defense because they have nobody else out there. If Markkinen retired tonight on Instagram, I wouldn't be shocked. I mean, the poor fucking guy

has to guard and beat again, by the way, when Mobley was playing. So by the way, if you're missing, Cavs haven't had Allen now for a while. Mobley's now done. And they're like, you know, Markkinen was guarding Embiid when Mobley was still playing. And now there's no Mobley. So, Markkinen basically down the stretch against Philly today was either trying to defend Embiid or then ended up with Harden outside of the three-point line.

Doing like a half-decent job on Harden. Like half the time. A couple times Harden just went right by him. A couple times it was gross. Yeah, a couple times it was bad. Yeah, Cleveland I still feel like is probably going to miss the playoffs. Even though they're in the seven seed right now. Seven.

Well, Atlanta could catch them. They have Orlando, Brooklyn, Milwaukee left. Let's take a break. I have a couple of fun topics for you. Golf's first major is a tradition unlike any other. And right now, new customers can get 30 to 1 odds on 2015 champ Jordan Spieth, four-time major winner Roy McIlroy,

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If Tiger comes back, Tiger plays. If Tiger's there at the par three on Wednesday, I'm going to be losing my mind. But, you know, the big things for me, and we're going to talk about it all week on this podcast and on Fairway Rowan, can the young guys really grab control of the sport this year? Are the young guys, the under 30 guys, is this it? Are we going to have a little passing of the torch?

Or the older guards, the guys who've won a couple times, are those guys going to hold on? We will see. It's all going to start at the Masters. There's no better time to get in on the action with FanDuel Sportsbook. The app is easy to use. So many different betting options. When you win, you'll get paid fast. Drive down Magnolia Lane. Take a swing at betting your first major. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app starting Tuesday. 30 to 1 odds. Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, or Dustin Johnson to make the cut at Augusta. FanDuel Sportsbook official betting operator, the PGA Tour. You must be 21 plus and present in select states only. Must wager a designated offer market.

Max bet $5. Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? In Arizona, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP. Connecticut, 888-789-7777. In Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, 1-800-GAMBLER. In Michigan, 800-270-7117. 1-877-770-STOP. In Louisiana, 1-800-270-7117 for confidential

Michigan. 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. Tennessee red line is 800-889-9789. And in West Virginia, 1800gamber.net. Rossell said Mulvoo's done. He meant for the regular season. Playoffs, he's back. We'll see if they make it. I mean, they're going to have to win at least one of the two playing games. And I don't love their odds.

Every time you watch them, really frisky. I love their color commentary guy. He's great. Super supportive. Yeah. But I don't, I don't see it long-term for that team. Great run.

Hearts with them. It would be fun if they made the playoffs and LeBron didn't. It would be fun to see if LeBron went to one of the Cavs. Oh, that's why you're so pro. Cause you've been very pro Cleveland all season long. It's been a lot of fun. I just wish they had all their guys.

Yeah. All NBA stuff. We're just doing a lot of fun. I just wish they had all their guys. All NBA stuff. We're just doing a check-in. Final votes due I think a couple days after Gabe 82, which is next Sunday. Here's where I'm landing on the Jokic and

Bede thing. I'm just going to plant my flag in this now. I don't know. You have a vote this year. I don't know if people are lobbying you. I'm not bending the rules. I'm not putting Jokic and Bede on the first team. I went through know. You have a vote this year. I don't know if people are lobbying you. I'm not bending the rules. I'm not putting Jokic and Embiid on the first team. I went through all the all-NBA teams.

At no point in history did anyone do this. I think it's bullshit for us to tweak the rules. Jokic is a center. I know he plays point guard on offense, but he's not a guard.

Putting him at forward is ridiculous to me. Until they actually change the requirements, to me, it's like you have to pick Jokic or Embiid for first team All-NBA center, and the other one goes to second team. And that's just the way it goes.

And if you want to pick one for first team and the other for MVP, that's fine. I'm not going to judge you. But I'm just telling you, I'm not risking putting Jokic at forward, and then with the dumb way they count the total votes, all of a sudden he doesn't count. And all of a sudden he's on the second team because we didn't do this correctly. So if I think Jokic is better than Embiid this season, I'm voting for him first team.

I'm voting Embiid second team. And that's how I'm doing it. How are you doing it? I really wish I'd had a couple more years under my belt before I got yeah you're rookie you're young I know frisky

impressionable yeah impressionable people lobbying you you're an easy target I feel I feel so bad for anybody that lobbies me knowing there's a pretty good chance even if it's a GM

where I'll be like I doubt you've watched as many games as I have this year so I don't fucking hear it I listen i've tried to make it clear to multiple people please don't lobby me it makes me less likely to take your guy it's just really insulting yeah i mean it's really insulting as if like fine if you don't think i pay attention and i don't mean that i understand the game better because the gms have to watch their own teams play all the time um yeah i'm not saying that but what i'm I'm saying is that if you reach out to a voter

to be like, hey, you should do this. Don't do that. You're basically telling that voter he's like too dumb to notice what's going on. Yeah, think of us. Think Roussel and I are in a cockpit flying a plane. Don't knock on the door and peek your head and go, hey, I was thinking maybe you should take a route,

maybe go through Charlotte. Like, we don't want to hear from you. Let us fly the plane. We're qualified to fly the plane. We care about this. We put a lot of thought into it. We don't need your advice. I was going through it. When you look at the historic first team stuff, it is straight up position. Now, people can argue that it's dumb and that Jokic is he really a center is he really a whatever I mean it's kind of like the old Tim Duncan thing Tim Duncan was a center but he wanted to be listed as power forward so he was listed as power forward even though they

would like bring a center in every couple years that barely played at the end of those games right right like Fabrizio Alberto like you go through all these Duncan years and you're like, look at all the minutes and then look at all the minutes of the supposed center where Duncan, I mean, the idea that the way Duncan set up on the floor, if he was playing in today's game, they'd be like, Oh, he's one of those old school centers, you know, because of how we set up and they'd run that block action and all that kind of stuff. Uh, you know, like with the Oscars, if, if I really liked the guy from Coda, but I like somebody else, the best supporting actor, I wouldn't just be like, I'm going to put the CODA guy in best actor so he has a better chance to win. Like, you can't change categories.

Jokic is not a forward. I'm just, I'm not doing it. Okay. Now, I'm deferring to you here on the history of this. were there years where there were just three outstanding guards and one was kind of a perimeter small forward shooting guard hybrid where you know that's probably the easiest one to kind of manipulate it a little bit i know what it says on basketball reference i know what it says with certain players of where they're aligned on the espn.com there's people that track the minutes part of it but i'm always kind of like are you tracking the minutes where they're actually on

the floor are you tracking like which game they start, which they're supposedly assigned some position. So were there years where they just said, ah, you know what, we're going to kind of bend this a little bit and put three, what we would see as guards, but I'll make first team. No, we don't. We didn't do it. Like for instance, two, 2014 2014. Durant, that was the year Miami lost to San Antonio in the finals, the rematch finals. The best two players that year were Kevin Durant and LeBron James.

The third best player was probably Blake Griffin. And Blake was the third forward. He finished third in the MVP voting. Just the way it works. You go back into the 90s and the 2000s over and over again. There was sometimes there were three guys for two spots. You go back to the early 2000s, especially when we had the Weber and Duncan and Dirk and Garnett.

And it's just like, got to pick two. So for us to say now, well, it's more positionless basketball, which I agree with, by the way, but they haven't changed the actual requirements. So we can't just kind of make it up until they change the requirements. We have to go by how we're supposed to pick it, which is guard forward center and Jokic and Embiid are centers. And I think to just be like, oh, well, let's vote one of them for forward to get around this. That would, we haven't done that for 70 years. Why are we going to do it this year? People hate anything that's traditional now, though. So I think there's going to be.

I get it. Yeah, I wonder, I think more people are going to disagree with you. I think the reaction to this would be like, oh, that's stupid. Here's what happens. If you do it that way, if you go say Jokic, because it feels like Jokic has more momentum as the MVP, at least from what I've seen. And I know ESPN had the straw poll up there too. So it felt like it was Jokic has more momentum as the MVP, at least from what I've seen. And I know ESPN

had the straw poll up there too, so it felt like it was Jokic has more momentum than Embiid. So if it's Jokic, then it's Giannis. Well, Jokic is

minus 240 on FanDuel now for MVP. Embiid's plus 230. Okay, so there you go. Giannis is plus 550. So yeah, he's a

pretty decent favorite now. Okay, so if you went Jokic, Giannis, Tatum, Booker, Luka, is that your first team? Well, so this leads to the second conundrum.

Because honestly, I'll tell you, I did it this morning. If you go that route, it's actually not that hard to figure out the three teams. Well, that was a benefit, but my question is,

is Durant a first-team All-NBA guy? Durant's better than Tatum. He's a better player. He's one of the best players in the league. He right now, he has played, I think 50, 51 games and then Tatum's played 73. Right. So he's four games left. He'll get to 55. Now, this is important. This is how much I care about this. This is why I don't need anyone's advice.

I went through all the All-NBAs to see lowest games played. Look at you. For somebody who made first team. Thank you for this. Bernard King, 1985. 55 games. First team All-NBA forward. So we have planted our flag with that.

We have Bill Walton, 58 games, 1978. First team All-N So we have planted our flag with that We have Bill Walton 58 games 1978 First team all NBA center And Shaq 2006 59 games First team all NBA center Now

COVID season Why did Durant miss his games? He had that one injury Where he missed I think 21 games Because he got hurt He had a legit injury Yeah, the MCL, right?

He also had The fucking I was too close to somebody Who had COVID And I can't play for three games won games because he got hurt. He had a legit injury. Yeah, the MCL, right? He also had the fucking, I was too close to somebody who had COVID and I can't play for three games. I think that happened to him twice. The other games that he missed were bogus COVID-era injuries. Normally, my whole thing was like, I want you to play in two-thirds

of the games, which if he plays his last four, he's going to. It's going to come down the wire. If it's 54, I don't think I'm going to vote for him first team or second team. But if he gets to 55, as dumb as this sounds, that's enough for me. I want him to be a first team O&B guy. He's one

of the best guys in the league, and it's not his fault he was hanging out next to Buddy or Bobby who had COVID and he didn't realize he had to miss four games. This was a stupid year. We have to relax the games played at least a little bit, across the board because tatum and yokich and derosen they're the exceptions i throw trey young in there as well you guys are gonna land on like 75 76 games by the time this thing is all said and done uh i have no issue with any pro durant

argument none i mean just i just to say it now, anybody that wants to come with me and say, hey, you want to hang out and talk about how awesome Durant is? Yeah, absolutely. Pull up a chair. Yeah, Durant's 37 and six this year, 30 points a game,

52, 39, 90 splits, 26 PER, 64% true shooting, only 31.5 usage. He's had, what, 30 guys on his team? Night to night, he has no idea who he's playing with. And he's one of the best players in the league. And if he's going to play 55 games, he has to be first team all NBA.

So, and I say this as a Boston fan who would really enjoy it if Tatum got there, but it is what it is. Okay. I think it's a little ridiculous though when you go like, if it's 54, he's second team, if it's 55, he's first team.

But it's a little bit like the all-star voting. I didn't want to make history with the vote, I guess is my point. Like Bernard at 55 to me is like the, that's,

I have somebody I can point to. Well, Bernard made it at 55, so now I get to ran. But that's without COVID that we know of. Oh, good point. So, all right, fine. If he gets to 54, that's two-thirds of the season.

I can have him first team. He's better than Jason Tatum. I love Jason Tatum, but he's better. I am okay with the voting process having just a little bit of what is your standing in the game? Not like what's your career resume, but right now, if we're talking about you can't get to five players in the league

without saying Durant's name, it just sort of sucks for Tatum in this amazing turnaround and the chance that they're still, what, they're two games out of the number one seed in the Miami team. Yeah, caveat, if they get a one seed, I think you have to rethink Tatum

in first team NBA. Because one seed's like a legit thing. What if Katie plays 53 games and the Celtics finish a game out of first? Now my brain's gonna break. Listen, Tatum's been awesome. And I think him making second team all NBA and probably getting either fifth or sixth in the MVP is a huge thing for him. He's already a winner. So,

I don't know. I just think you and I both think Giannis is one a Durant's one B or Durant's one a and Giannis is one B, whatever it is. You're just talking about guys you'd want for a playoff series or playoff game. Those are the two guys. And to not have them on first team on BA because his buddy who was visiting him in Brooklyn or whoever, however, he was had close proximity for the three games he needed to make it a lot more logical to bet him first team. By the way, I was looking through. You'll love this. We'll get to teams

in one second, but you'll love this. Least amount of games somebody made first or second team all NBA. Gus Johnson, 1966. 41 games. No, he's a forward. 41 games made it. Now, they had 41 games. No, he's a forward. 41 games made it. Now, they had less games back then,

but we had Pippen in 1998, 44 games, third-team All-NBA, the last year, the last dance year. He got voted in, third-team All-NBA forward. But the other thing that you're doing, which I know you're doing, is that it isn't just the number of games. It's also, okay, but who were you going up against?

And there's weird years where you'll look through it. I felt like the league didn't have a bunch of two guards for a long time. You're like, do you see the drop-off after the top four two guards? You're like, wow, that's a bad group. And right now with the forwards... Centers in the 2000s. Centers had a

brutal stretch, but when you look at the forwards, there's a handful of them that are the single... Centers in the 2000s was a good one. Centers had a brutal stretch, but when you look at the forwards, there's a handful of them that are the single best players in the game. And then it gets real light. All of a sudden, it's Pascal Siakam. You're like, whoa! But see, the forward thing... I don't know.

Are we doing the rest of the teams now? Yeah, do it. You go. Why don't you give yours and I'll give mine? I had Jokic, Giannis, Tatum, Booker, Luka. With obviously the caveat that I could change my mind because of how much I always wanted. This is our snapshot with four

games to go. So we had the same. I have Durant in the Tatum spot. Then I had Embiid, DeRozan, Durant, Steph, and Jha. Steph still played 64 games. All right. I'm glad you're sitting down. I have Trey over Curry.

Okay. Floor's yours. The stats are insane. I looked at it pretty carefully. He's going to end up playing 12 more games Steph's at 64 Trey's going to end up like 76 Trey's averaging 28, 10, and 4 28 points a game

his splits 46%, 38%, 3 90% free throw 25.5 PR and he's going to end up at like 76, 77 games Curry is 26, 5 and six, 44%, 38% three, 21.5% PR. If you're going to advanced metrics, Trey, Trey beats him in every respect. If you go, I test what you mean to a team leadership, better record. It's Steph. But I watched this.

I think Trey's kept this Atlanta team afloat. That team's a mess. Like that, they lost John Collins for the year. Guys in and out. Cam Reddish is out. Oh, Cam Reddish is out? You already get the Cam Reddish part of the argument? Just like they, we went into the season thinking,

oh man, this is this deep, athletic, awesome team. And it's like one thing after another went terrible. The only guy that's been good for them is Trey. Who else has been reliable? His numbers are incredible. No, I mean, there's all sorts of guys that go through these massive shooting slumps for them. Up until, what, a week and 10 days ago, they've won five in a row,

so now they're over 500. They were 36 and 37. I tweeted out something being like, they're the most confident 36 and 37 team I've ever seen. They're the most disappointing team in the East, Bill. I get it. I don't think any of it's Trey's fault, though. I think it's

a weirdly constructed team that was a little too big for its britches last year, but from what I've seen, especially down the stretch, it seems like he's trying to play them into some sort of momentum as we head to the thing. They've had a play them into some sort of momentum. As we head through the thing, they're the 80 right now. They've had a nice stretch for a couple, you know, 10 days. I'm just saying, I have my hair right now, Trey.

But if you apply your KD rule to this, there's no way you would have Trey over Steph. I guess my question is, did Steph have that good of a year? By his standards, no. It was like, what, the seventh best year of his career? His team hasn't even won 50. That's not the game. His team hasn't even won 50 games yet?

It's not like, if you're telling me this is a two seed, 60 wins, his stats are a little off, but look what he means. I'm in. But now you're telling me, man, there might be a four seed

and he's having the seventh best year of his career. I don't know. Trey crushes him head to head from stats. He's just better. Yeah, I went with the guys that I just think are better players to winning teams. And I might revert back to that in a week. And Trey gets hunted.

Just tell me where my head's at. The smart teams go at Trey. I mean, it's like from the jump. Yeah. Atlanta has to figure out how to like hide him sometimes defensively and I know I'm

gonna hear about like oh well Steph isn't that gonna do Steph it's it's totally different I'm just telling you it's it's different I just wish Steph had played better before he got hurt that like once

well you have that two months stretch where it looked like he was the MVP I mean honestly we've trained we change who the mvp is like every two weeks this season yeah that's true and then i think once people started defending him he was forcing it and then he got weird when he was changing or chasing the record he started forcing it too and then there was this really long stretch where he just wasn't shooting it well by his standards now you could look at his overall numbers and go hey wait if you actually look at it, this is pretty good.

And you're like, yeah, but that's the point. Whenever we look at the greats in the game, we go, this is not the season you expect from the greatest shooter that we've ever seen. And yeah, he's had bad stretches, but they've collectively been a mess. The defense held up for a little while after Draymond was out, and then it fell off the face of the earth. So I get your point, but I still think Atlanta's actually,

because I had high hopes for them, because of all the things you talked about. I also think Atlanta's kind of sneaky, a team to pay attention to this offseason, of just going, hey, can we throw a bunch of these pieces at a team and just add a guy, the next guy that's mad? Yeah, three for one. Three for one with some picks. Right. Wouldn't happen.

Look, Atlanta might end up at 45 and 37, something like that. And they might end up passing Cleveland and getting a seven. And so I don't happen. Look, Atlanta might end up at 45 and 37, something like that. And they might end up passing Cleveland and getting a seven. And so I don't know. I think it's tight. I just didn't love the way Steph, I didn't love his second half of whatever those 64 games were. I just didn't feel like he was awesome in those games. So, but you're right. Legacy standpoint, that does matter with this stuff. So who'd you have for third team? This is where it gets a little tricky because of the forward part of it. As much as I love Bam, he just hasn't played enough games. And I kind of look at Cat.

Cat's not perfect, but they've figured this thing out in Minnesota. And it's something you hope to build on. We'll see what happens in the playoffs. And somebody who was, I think just a mess defensively, you know, his help was, was bad or he didn't know what he was doing. Like it's,

it's all, he's competitive with it at least now. And I mean, he shoots the hell out of the ball. So I think if we're going just straight center, then it's cat. I have them too. Then it's LeBron.

And Trey, who are my certainties for third team. I'd love to find a way to do Chris Paul in that final spot. I'm not sure. Donovan Mitchell is still on the list. And that last forward thing after LeBron, that's where there feels like there's this forward gap where I go, I'm not sure what to do with that final.

That's the biggest question mark that I have for the all-NBA teams going into the third team. I have CP3 and Curry or Trey, whoever I end up not putting on second team as the guards. Mitchell is just a casualty of the fact that we can only vote for six guards. I think I wish there was a way to give him one of those other spots, but the voting doesn't work that way. And you're right. It's like

Levine or Siakam. Now the LeBron thing is a really tough one. I mean, he's played 56 games. They're 25 and 31 when he plays. The team is one of the all-time train wreck dumpster fires. It's one of the most disappointing NBA teams in NBA history. And I don't know why we have to be in a rush to throw him on one of the three all-NBA teams. They have the eighth worst record in the league. I am on record on this podcast in my column over and over again, not wanting to vote guys on losing teams on one of the all-NBA teams. I think the winning part should matter at least a little bit. And if he's going to play 58 games and they're going to have the eighth or seventh worst record in the league, why do I have to reward him?

That's the part I don't get. Like I get it. Now if you're going to say legacy stuff, it would be stupid not to have mine. Like he made it in 2019, which is he made 13. And it was like a total legacy pick. He didn't deserve to be on the team. They didn't make the playoffs. He played 55 games. Basically, if we're going to give it to him this year,

we're just saying LeBron is on the team every year that he plays at least 55 games. He has to be on because he's LeBron James. I'm not sure the voting works that way. 19, you have an argument. I don't think you have an argument this year. You can't make the Durant argument that you just did for first team

with those qualifiers. And then, like, we're out of forwards. Siakam has tore it up. The last, like, you look at his March numbers, they're incredible. I guess I always have a little bit of a problem

because I feel like if he gets somebody who's really good defensively, it's like, oh, all right. Jimmy Butler's missed too many games, even though his numbers are always really solid what about Levine is eligible of forward and I mean he is a forward I mean LeBron's going to win the scoring title

and you're not going to put him on third team he's going to play 56 games and they're going to be one of the 8 worst teams in the league congratulations here's your 13 ball NBA they have a worse record since March 1st than three teams that are tanking. Did you think

he was fun to play with? Do you think he made his teammates better? I don't think anyone had fun this year with that team. I think he started looking for points because we know he's chasing something here. I think you know it. I mean, it'll be on the next edition of LeBron Sneakers,

scoring title at age 37, all that stuff. He was going for it. That's fine. I'm kind of at a point where I can't make a really good argument for the other forwards that I'm on the fence about to put over him. So that's the better thing. It's like, are you just shoehorning in? So if LeBron doesn't make it, it's probably Levine and Siakam

as the two forwards. And that's just like... Levine, I think I would feel better about than Siakam. Because Siakam, like, Waz and House and I did a thing like two and a half months ago where we did the worst contracts and we had Siakam on there. His resurgence has really been

2022 where he's turned. But the game today, he's been really good. I think he's been one of the best turned, but like the game today, like he's been really good. I think he's been one of the 25 guys in the league. Yeah. It's tough because so last year I didn't vote for Bradley Beal because his team was losing and I thought he was going for his own stats. And I was like, I just, those stats don't mean that much to me when your team couldn't even make the playoffs. So I'm not voting for you. He made it anyway. He made 13, but it's like, I'd already kind of planted my flag on the, I don't care about your stats. If your team can't even make the playoffs, you have a lot of flags. That's one of my flags. So now it's like, well,

LeBron, he's putting up stats on and on playoff team, but so I got to change the rules there. So I don't know. I don't know where I'm going to land on that one. Okay. But that's back to one of the points I just made is that you can have these rules, but you will contradict your own rules depending on the field. So that could be your Beal rule, but you may have had six better options at that position, which you likely did. That's a fair point. I'm saying with your LeBron rule, I don't know that you have six better options. Like my guards, I got it. I got Booker, Luka.

Mitchell would be an awesome option. Right. I got Steph, Jaw, and then Trey. So my five guards are good. I don't know how I would argue. We talk about slotting, Trey over Steph, which I think there's probably a lot of people that would agree with you on that one. I'm the wrong guy

to argue that with, but Trey's on it. Wait a second. You know I love Steph. Steph's one of my all-timers. No, I know that. I know that. I just don't know if... Hey, look, I can't win a stats argument. I can't. But I don't

love the stats argument only because your defense piece with Trey, I think, matters and should factor into whether he gets second team or third team. But, you know, if they run the slate and they finish the season with like a nine or 10 game winning streak, whatever it would end up being and Trey's playing the way he's playing. I don't, I didn't, that would give me pause. Let's let's take a break. Cause I have a couple more LeBron things on it. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at

Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention,

and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you can still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. One more thing on LeBron.

I saw this Anthony Davis quote. Mike Andrews tweeted it. After the loss today, the Lakers lost again. He said, quote, that's the most frustrating part of this season, not being sure of what we could have been. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure what the Lakers could have been. That team made no sense

from the moment they threw it together. They had a bunch of washed up dudes or never wases. They had a Westbrook situation that they never figured out from the first game. And LeBron and Davis together were 17 and 20 when they played. They were a 500 or worse team, no matter how healthy those two guys were. But then you think like,

you also build a big three with all these 12 men, basically. But you have LeBron in year 19 and you have Davis who gets hurt all the time. So you can't be shocked that this didn't work out and that you had injuries. I was looking at LeBron's missed games from 2003 to 2014, first 11 years of his career. He missed 46 games total. Goes back to Cleveland next four years, misses 25 games total. And by the way, there was

one stretch in there, maybe two stretches, where it was almost like scheduled time off too. Remember when he went back to Cleveland? Never got injured, never. My back isn't right. So it wasn't like he was even hurt. It was more maintenance for him. I think twice. Last four years, Laker years, he's missed 80 games.

So he's missed more games in the last four years than he missed in the 15 before. And you could say, well, it's not his fault he sprained his ankle, but it's like,

this is what happens when you get older. You become more susceptible to getting injured. You have slightly worse balance. You're carrying a little more weight. Like, there's just things

that are going. There's wear and tear. There's things that's happening. So, I think it makes perfect sense that this Lakers season didn't work out. I think what's surprising to me is that they're one of the eight worst teams in the league.

I could have guessed they would have been in that play-in mix, that maybe they were going to be 500, that it was going to be an unhappy season. But New Orleans now has a 26% chance of getting a top four pick this year from the Davis trade because of how bad the Lakers are. Say that again. Say that again.

New Orleans has their pick. They're now in the number eight spot, which is a 26% chance for a top four pick. It's not protected. It's not protected. People were like super unprotected the last couple of years. I'll tell you that. There's not a lot of protection. No.

No. All right. Look, Davis has played 38 games this year. And I mean, hell, he came back today against Denver, turned his right foot again, and wasn't the same guy, even though I thought he looked great. I think you've been on this. You've been right about it, about the way his body looked. I think he got sick of being called a pussy, essentially,

by the guys on TNT. So he bulked up, came in bulked up, and that's the wrong direction. As you get older as a big guy, you should start getting thinner. Yes. Unless you podcast. Maybe follow Duncan and Garnett and some of these other guys who were like, this is how I'm going to keep playing. The Duncan one was masterful.

He goes, I'm going to get skinny, actually. I'm going to keep playing. The Duncan one was masterful. Like he goes, I'm going to get skinny. Actually, I'm going to get skinny. And then all the foot stuff. I mean, Duncan, if you go back and look,

as you know, there were years like, Oh, this is probably done. And then it was like six more years because he did one leg. It was unbelievable. So the only pushback I have, and by the way,

I was wrong about a couple of things. I didn't think the team was going to be necessarily good, but I didn't still think they were going to get caught by San Antonio. I thought the Pelicans would, because Pelicans have these weird numbers. They've actually been a pretty good team the last month plus, statistically. But maybe it's the Popovich thing.

Does this mean it was his final year and he didn't want to tank? I don't know. I mean, it's just a theory that's out there. It gets the record. Hey, you can't tank in Pops last season, and then they catch the Lakers. So I didn't think the Lakers would get caught. I'm wrong. But I still feel like I'm the only one

that pushes back a little bit that even though the record with LeBron and AD is what it is, and it's not what, 300, 500, a normal AD season, this still wouldn't have been a play-in game. And I think they would have hit the trade deadline that way. And I think they would have hit the trade deadline that way.

And I think they would have been different with the minutes. I think if they were more competitive, that Vogel would have said, fuck the Westbrook thing, where you're coming in the second unit. The season was such a mess. It was almost like, what's the point of fixing this stuff

that's just going to fall apart anyway? So I do think a normal baseline expectation, Anthony Davis season, the team is better, not a championship contender necessarily, but I feel like people completely are dismissive of that idea. You think they would have been better than 500? Cause I do not. I think they would have been a top six. I don't think they would have beaten Utah from a record standpoint. I don't, I did too many terrible players out there. I mean, they had dudes,

Avery Bradley, who plays all the time for them now, was cut by Golden State like a week before the season. They were like, we don't need this guy. They have a bunch of dudes who just wouldn't play for other teams.

So, I was thinking most crazy, disappointing seasons ever. You'd think this was a longer list, but it's really not. I was disappointed. I went through it.

I tried to do all the research. You know, people talk about the Nash White Lakers, obviously. 45 and 37 swept in round one. I think that 2014 Brooklyn team, the year after the KG Pierce trade, do you remember what their record was that year with KG and Pierce first year?

500? 44 and 38. Lost in round two to Miami. That 99 Rockets team, people were bummed out by when it was like, Pippen, Hakeem, Barkley, the dream team. And they went 31 and 19 and lost in four games to the Lakers in round one and then Pippen blowtorched his way out of there

that wasn't good for your guy no it wasn't a great ending I actually bought tickets to go see Barkley's last game in Boston that season he blew out his quad on Wednesday yeah I went to that game too.

I didn't have a lot of money back then and I bought two tickets. But he showed up. He gave a speech. He gave a speech. It was an awesome speech. So it was sort of worth it. I think I had an old EEI poster. I hope it's still around.

Other than that, you go for disappointing EEI. You should frame that one, the EEI poster. I wasn't quite ready for them when I applied. I was told. The disappointing... I mean, when the Magic got Grand Hill and TMAC and nothing happened with it, I guess that's disappointing.

That was nobody's fault. But still, remember, it was like, we got Grand Hill, we got TMAC, new dynasty. Nothing happened. I remember that was the first time I really like understood the cap space planning right and being like this John Gabriel's fucking genius I think that's the first time anyone understood it

even though Shaq with Jerry West like five years earlier so then you go to like the 76 Lakers they traded all that stuff for Kareem finished 40 and 42. They missed the playoffs. I looked at this on Basketball Reference.

Yeah. I didn't know that. Or did I? I just didn't know. There was 18 teams in the NBA that year. It was the year before the merger. They had the ninth best record and there were 10 playoff teams. And somehow they didn't make it.

They had, there was this weird division thing where. Were they in the Southwest? Yeah, like two teams had to make it. It was this weird division thing where... Were they in the Southwest? Yeah, like two teams had to make it from each division. So there's this division in the West. It was like Milwaukee and Detroit had 38 wins. Both of them made it. The Lakers had 40.

They didn't make it. So they fixed that rule. I love looking at all those old years. Like every now and then I just go to a wormhole and I'll be like, Rochester coming out of the West. Right. Yeah, there's teams that just

switch conferences. Like Houston was in the East for some reason for a while. Then they switched to the West. San Antonio was in the East. Well, Memphis being in the West sucks for them, if you really think of it. Oh, yeah. Like, oh, we got a West Coast swagger, Tri-Cities. Well, actually,

if you think about it, Memphis should be in the East and Chicago should be in the West. And probably Milwaukee, too, if you're really doing this correctly. Memphis shouldn't be in the West. Memphis should not be in the West. But other than that, then we go disappointing. It's all teams that had high expectations,

had good seasons, and then just didn't do well in the playoffs. So you could make a case the Lakers being one of the eight worst teams in the league, they really might be one of the most disappointing teams of all time. They might be on the short list. Yeah, you know, I think the victory lap on it

though is them. It's the LeBron tweets like, hey, have the same energy. And I'm just going to make a social media observation. Does it ever work out when someone says, have that same energy when dot, dot, dot? Like a challenge? Yeah, whenever I see that presented, I'm like, I don't like your chances. I think people will have the same energy because people are going to look at LeBron and say, you put together this team.

Everybody knew these guys were old. Like, yeah, Melo can make shots. He's not super interested in moving around. He set a screen on Melollow it's not going to happen the westbrook thing which lebron was 100 behind which he will distance himself through the media this offseason which you and i have talked about is i wish i could bet money on this happening because what day is that coming out uh it's the season's going to need a little air to breathe but there will be a major media member that will write a piece that will say LeBron, actually, if you dig into it, wasn't fully on board with the Westbrook acquisition.

Someone will write it. I think they have to wait until they are able to trade Westbrook. And I think within 36 hours of that trade, as Brian Curtis calls it, the empty the notebook piece, or the, no, he calls it the, why didn't you tell us this before piece? Where the guy gets traded or leaves and all of a sudden two days later is the huge feature about

what a pain in the ass the guy was or all the dysfunction behind the scenes. And I don't think they can do that until they can make sure they get rid of him. Yeah, because I have some thoughts of who's going to write it. And I've already gotten pretty mad about it where i might say something and just go because i already know that this is happening behind the scenes the rumblings of yeah should we

talk to me fando sportsbook bet i'm just telling you right now somebody talked to me about it and tried to like it was almost like a test drive with me. And I was like, no. I'm like, don't even fucking start with me on that, you know, LeBron wasn't totally on board with this. Like, don't even, don't, like, I'm, don't tell me that. I don't work on the jump, all right? Like, that's not happening. And I almost now, because we're saying it,

I'm almost going to have respect for the person that does it because it's going to be so ridiculous. It's just too many ways to get in trouble right now. Can we play a little game called Unexpected Final Season Watch? Yes. Good pivot. So here's the point of this game this happens every year

sometimes you just don't realize oh this guy's time is about to come to an end and city X or team X or whatever and it's like I should have realized that in the moment but I didn't but so anyway I'm gonna throw some names at you unexpected final season watch. Meaning this was their final season.

We didn't realize it in time. Donovan Mitchell on the Utah Jazz. Scale of one to 10, how surprised would you be if he's in another uniform in November? Surprise scale? Yeah. 10 is most surprised.

One is least. Oh no, is 10 least surprised? One is most surprised one is least oh no is 10 least surprised one's most surprised oh I say let's let's keep it 10 big surprised 10 most surprised okay

so one is least surprised Donovan Mitchell on a different team next year one one is least surprised I think if you had to do a fantasy draft

of guys most likely to be somewhere else, he might be the first pick. I mean, look, the rumblings have been going on forever, and I think this is a very important season for Utah. I've just audibled the idea. We're now doing a draft. So Donovan Mitchell is your first pick. Yes.

Seriously, if you were giving me the league, I'm like the next guy that matters, right? That's really important. That's good. That everybody else would want. Yeah, I would take him first. I like it. Okay, what do you think of that though?

Would you take somebody else first? I would also take him first. I think, look, we're betting on the recent history of the league. And every year, the recent history of the league is Superstar X decides he doesn't want to be somewhere and it ends way faster than you think. And in this case,

there are some teams that could do some pretty big-ass packages. You also have Danny Ainge there. I think they'll try to trade Gobert first, but they will not bring this team back. This team now, it reminds me of those mid-2010s Clippers teams

where it's like, all right, this is done. This is not broken. There's no coming back. It sucks because actually when they're healthy, they're still a pretty good team. I really liked what I saw in the Milwaukee loss at home a few weeks back. I was like, you know what? I know. I'm a pushover sometimes when I just like what I see as opposed to the results.

The Ainge part, I don't know what it means. I would say Utah's been pretty aggressive trying to make sure it is as catered to Donovan Mitchell as it can possibly be with some of the hires that I've heard about potentially. But I don't really know if any of that stuff's going to work out. And I don't know, maybe if you went to him and said, what if we get rid of Gobert first? And I'm not even talking about them not getting along, just, hey, let's change it up. He's an asset.

Can we figure something else out here? And I'm not even talking about the dynamic between the two of them, just, hey, we lose in the first round or whatever, if that happens, do we have to do something different? Coach, I imagine they're going to exhaust every possible way to see which direction he has to go but if you want to get your way you got to be tough about it you know you can't do the the dame lillard thing where you're still not sure because you don't want to you know you don't want to piss off the city the kg thing like kg it took forever for him to finally be like all right yeah he was like he he took three years too long so danny the history of this with him is he did this with Paul Pierce in 2005. He had the trade lined up with Portland. He was going to trade for the, I think it was the number three pick in the draft

before they traded back and took Martel Webster and Pierce found out about it. And his whole team threw his body in front of it and ended up staying. But that trade was going to happen. It was going to be Pierce and the Celtics great Chris Paul and they were going to reboot. Danny in 2013, same thing. He felt like something had come to an end with Pierce and Garnett and Doc

and all those guys and he rebooted. Like he will reboot if he has to. And depending on how much of a say he has with Utah, which I think he does, if he's looking at this Mitchell thing and he's like, this guy's not going to be happy here. He's probably going to leave at the end of his next contract.

Um, let's, let's just pounce now and we'll get this guy back. And I like this guy and we could get this top pick or whatever it is. I think he'll convince them to do it. And then the other piece of it is that Mitchell just says, get me out of here, which who knows? I think he'd be them to do it. And then the other piece of it is Mitchell just says, get me out of here, which who knows? I think he'd be

careful because those fans are pretty passionate. But... Right. But he's still under contract for a while here, too. The extension is new here. So it's like four years, but as you've said on this podcast and on your podcast, the length doesn't matter anymore.

No, it doesn't matter anymore. The guy wants out, they're getting out. I'll tell you, if Mitchell doesn't make All-NBA, that can speed this up. Because he's just like, wow, we're a six seed. Nobody talks about our team. Nobody thinks we have any real upside. And on top of all this, I'm not even an All-NBA player. I need to go to a bigger market.

Could happen. Would you do Jalen Brown and Grant Williams and Pritchard seasoning? Stop. Not touching my J's. No, I think it would be, I think the Knicks

would overpay for him. I do. With what? I think that, I think they would go RJ and lots of picks. Oh, you think they'd move RJ for him? I do.

I have no inside info. It's usually not how those trades work out. Have you checked out any Randall games in New York? That doesn't get nearly enough attention for how checked out he is. I don't understand what happened with that.

Why did he re-up there? What happened to break it? It was just the money. It's a good thing he did re-up when he did because if he were hitting the market oof be disaster all right my first pick for don't be surprised if this is suddenly their last season i love what this is turned into my first pick is deandre Ayton of the Phoenix Suns. Ooh. Spicy.

Yeah, thanks. I think they sniffed around before the season started. I think they sniffed around near the deadline. And I am not convinced that that team is going to pay for like three and two-thirds max guys in the same season. I don't see it. So I think I could see a move where they move him and get a cheaper option back and some other stuff and point to like, look at all these other teams

that like just get like a 10 and 10 from their center. And it's really about the perimeter guys and they'll spin it however they want. That would be my first pick. Okay, I'm going to give you some props here. You've been very good on the eight and stuff. Thank you. Where I thought like, okay, fine. They didn't want to do what Denver did,

which is a much bigger risk with Michael Porter Jr. considering all the red medical flags that he had coming out where I've been like, well, if the team doesn't have to do it, they don't have to do it. And then if he gets an offer somewhere else and they just go ahead and match it and they did him a favor because it's a shorter term deal so whatever like sarver's the cheapest he shouldn't own a basketball team for a million different reasons

it's been covered on and on again so i just thought like whatever you know like i almost thought you're being a little dramatic about it but it's it's gone in your direction the entire time so now i have much more of an open mind for Sarver in particular and because your information has been very good on this. And by the way, side note, more praise. It's not about Grantland. You've been good on the Brady stuff,

Arians, the expansion. Thank you. Brady's retirement and the unretirement. You're saying I'm on a hot streak? You are. You're doing well, man. We're going to bring in a third person

to be in our unexpected final season watch draft. Who doesn't know he's in the draft? Kyle, can you bring him in? All right, Joe House is joining us. He's going to talk Masters with us a little bit later. But House, we're in the middle of an unexpected final season draft. Which players would you be least shocked if this was suddenly their final season for an NBA team? Which stars?

Rusillo went first. He took Donovan Mitchell. I went second I took DeAndre Ayton Now you're up First round You could have anybody That

This The All of a sudden This guy could be on a different team next year And you wouldn't be shocked Who is it? Oh wow Right on the spot

Jimmy Butler. Wait. I had him on my board. Wow. That's a good one. What we saw over the last couple weeks, you know, at some point,

Pat Riley is like, eh, I've had enough of the bullshit. What do you think of that, Russo, though? I feel like the Heat are going to be in the NBA Finals. I'm going to go, I still don't see it.

I'm there right now. Did you see the Vic Oladipo 21 points? He lit it up today, man. Unbelievable. He looked great. And by the way, Oladipo's looked terrible for the most part. His numbers weren't very good, I would say athletically, Oladipo, I don't know where we're going to see prime athletic Oladipo.

He was terrific today against Toronto. Seventh game back, so let's see what happens. But finally, we saw something really good because the other games hadn't been that good. What's interesting about him as a playoff guy is he could just... If he's their seventh man,

two times in a playoff series, the guy could, you know, win them a half. Yeah. Who do you have? Who are you picking next, Russo?

Okay. A lot of good options here still on the board. Love, love all the options. I almost want to make a hardened joke here

and take them. But I'll hold off the comedy routine here for later rounds. Give me Zion. Amazing. So there's been some Zion. He lost some weight. The Pelicans are looking good. I've even seen a couple tweets about David Griffin's

turn this thing around. He's on the road trip, by the way. There was rumblings. What does this mean? It's back. They're back. It's like Ben Affleck and J on the road trip, by the way. There was rumblings. What does this mean? It's back. They're back. It's like Ben Affleck and J-Lo. Griffin and the Pelicans. He would have been my next pick, Rossello. I wholeheartedly agree.

It would be the first time somebody got traded before their giant contract kicked in since we've had the maxes and all that stuff. So it would make history. Hey, when we did a preview this summer, I said, as much as I love him, let's not forget, I mean, after Duke gets eliminated

and it felt like everybody was rooting for North Carolina on Saturday night because it was one of the great games ever. Zion, I was rooting for Duke. I loved him that much. That's how much I didn't want to stop seeing him play. Zion did the impossible. He got people that were just casual fans to root for a team that everybody roots against.

So I still want to see it work out. But even going back to last summer, guys, I remember thinking, you have to have some really hard conversations if you're David Griffin and maybe do something unprecedented here because he doesn't want to be there. It's very clear. This season has been another mess. I don't understand him releasing the photo of him dunking as if it's almost to say, like, I am ready to go, which is like, well, wait, dude. Every indication any of us got that had any information on this is that there's been this massive disconnect the whole time,

which is backed up by the C.J. McCollum All-Star Break interview where he was like, I haven't even talked to him, but C.J. specifically did for a reason to kind of, like, get that out and maybe rattle the cage a bit for Zion and be like, you know, you need to be professionals here and figure this kind of stuff out. I wouldn't want to give him the extension knowing that almost every team just would. Yeah. So, well, also if you think like you got Jonas and you have CJ and you have Ingram and you like some of your young guys, you have all these picks coming. Maybe you turn Zion into one more awesome player

and you're fine anyway. We're going to take a break and then we're going to finish this draft. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend that powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days. And the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide.

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Gobert is the best guy on the board. He's the best asset. He's the most likely trade. He should have gone sooner, but it's just not fun to take him in the top four. But now it's like, you're just looking at it going, all right, twist my arm. I'll take Rudy Gobert. If Mitchell stays on Utah, Gobert

is on another team next year. So I don't even think we need to talk about that. House, who do you have for your pick? I really, really, really want to say LeBron James because I absolutely adore the narrative of him and Clutch saying, oh, you think you got us, LA? Suck on this. And they all pick up and they evacuate. They all go home. They laid the foundation to be going home to Cleveland. I just can't get there because I feel like LA is where LeBron

and his heart wants to be. He believes he's a Hollywood star, and he's not going to abandon it so quickly. So I will say Kyrie. I don't have a great answer for what they get in return for him. But the experience of having a player, it's very funny for Brooklyn. They have a player who chose to not play any regular season games this whole season.

And then a player who could only play at most half the games this, this past regular season. Some, somebody that's going to play, I think KD has the right to ask for somebody who will come play basketball with him in Brooklyn. You know, what are they, like 17 and 23 at home? Or 17 and 21 at home?

Something like that? I got to say, I don't think Kyrie leaves. I think him and Durant have this insane bond that I don't fully understand. Really seems like those guys genuinely love each other. Like in a really unique basketball way that almost like what LeBron and Wade were like there for a while.

They really seem like they're just aligned. So I don't know. I don't know how that plays out. But I thought that was a very good pick. Any thoughts on that, Rosillo? If he declines the player option, he's eligible for five years, about $250 million.

He's not getting that. What if Durant's like you're giving it to him? You know, I really think that front offices now, they look at it and it's the same thing

as the Harden thing. Harden, I think at 2027 is going to clip $60 million on whatever the new format of his extension would be, which I also think is kind of a weird thing too, because there was a deadline there that he missed.

And I was going back to reading some of the stuff he said, but you're never going to hold coaches and players accountable to saying that this is where they want to stay and they never want to leave. But the backend numbers are hard and they're scary as hell. Giving Kyrie 250 million makes zero sense. But I feel like the teams operate with, you know what? We got to spend the money on somebody. So if it's a two-year window that's absurd at the back end, we'll just do it. And I think that's what teams do.

I don't think you can do it with Kyrie. I don't know who you're bidding against. What if Durant says you're doing it? Because you're right. But they say, Kevin, you're under contract for the next few years and we're not doing it. And if you want to get upset about that,

we're pretty sure the Nets fan base is probably on our side that we can't give this guy $250 million who played 20 games this year. Sorry. Rosselli, you're up. All right. I can't wait for this pick. There's some good ones

left. There really are. Or it's stacked. I'll do it just because it's the best odds, but I actually don't... I'm not going to say I don't know what's going to happen because I don't have any information on it. But the fact that Anthony Davis has been circulated as a potential trade piece tells you

that I think Team LeBron is maybe throwing that out there. Not LeBron himself, but other people are throwing it out there to kind of like take a temperature on what that is. Now, the problem is what do you believe? Cause I've heard people say, oh, what are you going to get for Anthony Davis at this point? I think that's wrong. I think there'll be other teams that go, Hey, we get them in here. We make them the focal point of the second half of this career. We get the new, we get nutrition training, all this shit.

We get it right. We get them away from LA and all this stuff. He is an impressionable guy. So like in a good way, he's probably will adapt to whatever it is that you want from him. But the assets have to be really special. Even if you think his values diminished, because you're still figuring this thing out on the fly and you're not going to get draft picks and young maybes back for Anthony Davis. So this trade for Davis in a normal NBA landscape, we already know what the pieces are. LeBron's not going to want any of those. He's going to want real guys coming back. So it complicates it.

So I take him as a value pick, but there's a lot of arguments against it happening. It'd be interesting if, like this trade wouldn't happen, but it's something like Aiton and Mikael Bridges and other stuff for Davis, but Phoenix isn't doing that. But that's what you would need,

like these two big chess pieces back for him that LeBron could win with right away. I think the Knicks would overpay for him. I think the Knicks are ready to dive in this summer. That's my take. I think they're, who's the most attractive player from the Knicks though? Who do you want from the Knicks? Listen, the Knicks fans love RJ and they should. RJ's been really good and I have Knicks fans in my life who are like,

RJ's untradeable. Like, if we're going to do trades, Julius. RJ's untradeable. Julius, our guards, and you can have

seven of our picks, but we're not trading RJ. We need RJ. I think he's tradeable. The Knicks fans who watch the Knicks are all in on RJ. I like RJ.

If you just look at the metrics, you're not going to love it, but I do think that RJ turned some kind of career corner the last couple months. He's a kid. Yeah, I'm into RJ. But normally these trades, we go back in history, but that's why the Davis thing is complicated. We're not going to solve your problem.

You know what I mean? So RJ plays with whatever we bring back. We don't trade you a player for your guy. We just give you a bunch of maybes. I am taking with my next pick, just because I can't believe it's still on the board, James Harden of the Philadelphia 76ers. It's just good value.

You get the guy who quit on his team twice in 13 months. Who knows how terrible this playoffs could go for him and them. I have no idea. It does allow me to ask you guys about the Philly sliding doors. Kyle, turn the camera.

If Philly just trades Ben Simmons two months ago for CJ McCollum are they much better off or still you go first we all know the trade was out there forever

I'm a CJ fan I still think peak CJ isn't peak Harden but I don't like when's the Harden when's it gonna like click when think peak CJ isn't peak Harden, but I don't like, when's the hardened, when's it going to like click? When's it going to happen? Does peak Harden exist?

No, it doesn't. It doesn't. He's got, he's got two major issues right now. He doesn't move all that well and he doesn't finish at the rim. He's basically the worst at the rim since he's, since he was a rookie.

And, uh, you know, he still has his moments. He's always going to put up numbers. Cause he could, and the other thing they're doing too, there's a lot of possessions.

They may not fall into the isolation category for him, but there's a lot of these possessions where it's like, hey, we're just going to watch you dribble here for 20 seconds, man. Well, and they can run the pick and roll when the basket's being protected by Laurie Markkinen. But when we get to the actual playoffs, it's going to be a little different.

House, door A is James Harden and DeAndre Jordan. Door B is CJ McCollum, Andre Drummond, Seth Curry, and two first-round picks. Which door do you like? Which door do you want to walk through? It's definitely door B. It's door B. I mean, we know this because the single thing to me

that's been the the the true brilliance of the of the trade from brooklyn's point of view is how what it did to the depth of philadelphia and how important that depth was yeah for the sixers i mean they're just they have nothing off the bench they have nothing off the bench. They have nothing off the bench. Does Daryl hate depth, Bill? No, I was thinking, I was talking about this with somebody this weekend. Daryl, one of the smartest guys I've befriended over the years. Really, really Spock-like. Spock, old Star Trek reference for the people under 25.

He's a Vulcan who had no human emotion. Is it a compliment? No, he just, he took emotion out of all of his decisions. He looked at it as rationally and analytically as possible. And I think James Harden was his kind of kryptonite because I think he had a great relationship with the guy. And I think he was with him in Houston when Harden was fucking incredible. And I think he assumed that Harden was unhappy that last Houston season,

that he was unhappy in Brooklyn. And that when he came to Philly, he was going to blossom into the old James Harden. But I think that guy might be gone. And he's still good. He's still one of the 30 best guys in the league. But I think they thought they were getting the guy. Like when we did the,

the, uh, one of the podcasts right around the trade and KFC was like, I'm all in on this trade. And I, by the way, I think he was right. He's like,

they're getting James fucking Harden. James Harden's amazing. Like you have to do this trade every time. And I was like, yeah, but what if that guy's gone? Like that, that was a real question that we're wondering,

is that guy still there? That was a real question that we were wondering. Is that guy still there? I haven't seen from these Brooklyn games the 2018 Harden is gone. This version of Harden's good. But that guy's gone. He might be gone. He might be gone. I still like to trade because of the arguments

around how much the Simmons value had declined. So I feel like I'm arguing both sides of this because I was like, okay, wait. People kept thinking like the longer this went. By the way, that guy still hasn't played yet. As you said earlier, might not even play, which is kind of like, I don't think he's playing this year. But I will always have a problem. Here we go. I will always have a problem with a competitive athlete who's okay playing like shit on purpose

twice in 13 months. Me too. I think that's beyond a red flag. Can you imagine Giannis going, I'm going to play like shit for a month? And you didn't mention the playoff performance yet. There are two really big red flags

with this guy. We went over those, I think, two pods ago. I still got them right here. I want a little bit of a hard and truther angle, though. What if he really has been injured? And what if the right grade to assign at this moment is just incomplete? Let's let him...

It's a good what if. There's no point right now for us to render judgment on the value and quality of that trade the playoffs start in 10 days let's let's let's see playoff james doesn't have a great track record i understand i concede it but look he's never played with a big man like joel and bead and maybe some of this iteration of Philadelphia has been a bit of a chemistry experiment out of Doc. Again, not a guy with a great track record in terms of personnel and rotation.

But I'm just saying, the grade for right now is incomplete. Let's let the playoffs begin. I don't know. Part of the reason you make that trade is they don't want to squander this incredible and beat season. But they created a team that I don't think the three of us feel like has a realistic chance to win four straight playoff rounds. Are they in anyone's top three in the East right now? No. I mean, even go to FanDuel, I was looking at the East odds and

they were fifth in the East. Yeah, Milwaukee plus 250, Brooklyn plus 360, which is crazy. Celtics plus 420, Miami plus 440, and Philly was 5-1. I'll tell you what they did do. They beat the shit out of the Laurie Markin and Lamar Stevens at Davis front line today.

They really did. Fucking worked them. Listen, part of might turn around. I'm just like, I think McCollum was better than I think he was getting credit for. And I think Harden might be a little worse than people are factoring in. Like, oh, he's just not happy in Brooklyn.

It went a little deeper than that. So we'll see. All right, we're going to end this draft with our apologies to the guys who didn't get drafted. Carl Anthony Towns. He can't be drafted. He kind of turned himself. What are you talking about?

He played himself out of the draft. It was a great job. He would have been a top three pick the last three years. He came back for his junior season. Dame Lillard, too easy. I don't feel like it's unexpected if he gets traded. I would expect it more traded I would say it's I would expect it more than I would unexpected

um wait this didn't turn into a surprise draft though then he should have been taken no we said unexpected final season it was unexpected that this was their final season I don't think it's unexpected that this would be drafts final season we thought were most likely didn't we

most likely that it. Most likely that it's also be unexpected. What were the rules again? We did it again. I somehow, this is like top 20, top five guys. Top 20,

top five guys made sense. This makes sense too. It's a draft of guys that people would be shocked if they got traded, but it's actually

not that shocking. That was the draft. That's fine. It made sense to me. But I do think the Dame thing is just... I mean, they're tanking. You need great internet when you watch a Portland Trailblazers game now. Yeah. And it's been going on

for like a couple months. They are clearly on the banned list on my league pass rotation now. Because I was like, I got it. I don't really need to watch a ton of this. I wonder if they just look at it and go, hey, we get the first pick. We get a guy like Chet. He'll like it here. He'll never want

to leave. And then Dame goes, what are we doing? Wait, before we go to the draft, can I just run through you quickly? I'm amazed how important you are, playoff all-stars. I know you love this, so I want to give you the floor here. You can react to each one. Miami, Max Struess.

I can't believe how important he is now. He's out there a lot. He makes big shots. He was playing incredible defense on the Celtics the other night. Wasn't expecting that. Did you see his missed dunk today? That was nasty. Good missed dunks. Phoenix,

Cam Johnson? He's terrific for them. And a lot of people didn't get it. Another candidate? Yeah. Would you have another candidate or would you go Cam Johnson? I can't believe Cameron Payne resurrected his career. Yeah, I don't trust him.

Celtics Al Horford would be my pick. He's plus 8'7 net this year. He became super important as soon as Rob Williams went out. Not Grant? The Horford numbers are actually better, as crazy as that sounds. If you go advanced deep dive, I know the Grant,

but Horford was this 35-year-old guy who didn't play last year who basically they took because they wanted to dump Kemba's contract and had their fingers crossed he could play 20 minutes a game. It is now a crucial piece of their round one puzzle. It could be either. I'll give him

Coe. Memphis. Steven Adams. Plays 27 minutes a game for that team. There's 10 rebounds. He's like their enforcer. I thought that guy's career was over. House is nodding. Well, he's the only adult.

I mean, that team needs an adult, and he is it. Do you expect a Steven Adams or Sergio Rosillo? I have two versions of the Steven Adams. I have the guy that I would love on my team. I know tough he is. I think everybody at least needs a big as an option. I also think it helps out Jackson defensively because Jackson is really adaptable to different defensive assignments. I mean, we're talking about some really special shit from him this year.

I also think having a big guy that's going to fuck guys up a little bit, that's important. The Adams that I saw in that playoff series against Houston when it went seven games, that was an incredibly frustrating one. It made the open of every six o'clock newscast in New Zealand when I said

he plays like he's way smaller than he actually is, which I also can blame Westbrook for because I think his entire career he grabbed a rebound and it was immediately yelled at to throw it back out to somebody else. So I think it got in his head. There are things with Adams that drive me sort of crazy. By the way, Cam Johnson, 44% from three this year. You feel it when he's not playing for them.

Adams, hopefully, will lead the New Zealand newspapers today. Steven Adams is back says two American guys Milwaukee Wes Matthews I just can't believe he's as involved in the season as he is I would go with him Golden State we don't need to talk about Jordan Poole but he's fucking incredible I think

Jordan Poole probably highest Q rating of any non all-star in the league right now for people who just love that guy we're still is like lighting up right now he loves Jordan Poole I'm speechless because I'm so I'm like this guy's in the league right now for people who just love that guy. Rossell is like lighting up right now. He loves Jordan Poole. I'm speechless because I'm like, this guy's like, we had a segment idea

called recalibrated ceilings. We could save it for next Sunday if we want. And I don't know what to do. We're just telling people, we told the contractors, we're like, just let the sun shine in right now because we don't want to put a ceiling on any of this. If Priscilla was in a front office that had cap space and Jordan peel was

like an unrestricted free agent, he would, he'd be maxing it out. Not even, not even a question. Philly. It's gotta be Niang. How many big shots does that guy hit for them?

Smart player, man. Loved his game in college. It feels like he's going to have to be out there for them in the playoffs, like in big moments. I think he has to be one of their five guys. He gets attacked a little defensively, and it never looks great.

I think he would admit that, but it works. He's a smart player. And he's always, you know, to have that kind of big, it's kind of like the Grant Williams thing, where Grant, when he was in college, did a bunch of stuff. And you're like, okay, but how often are you going to be allowed to be this involved with what you're doing offensively? And it's like, okay, but figure this out.

And when you have this big guy that can kind of just be around, but then also hit threes, I think it's a good pick. Dallas is, we already covered him, Dwight Powell, who was awesome today. By the way, former Celtic Dwight Powell. Does that mean they won the Rondo trade? Maybe belatedly. Maybe the jury is still out on the Rondo trade. Still out. Because people are like, Crowder.

Toronto, I don't think there's an I'm amazed guy in this thing. I do. I have one for you. Yeah, Boucher? Boucher? No. I couldn't believe this number. The Raptors record with OG. All right.

When I saw this, I had to go double check it because I was like, wait, there's, is it serious? I'm kind of, I'm kind of burying the lead here. Let me just double check something here. Okay. All right. So going into today is what I want to make sure I had. Going into today, the Raptors record with OG and Anobi, 31-16 without 14-16.

Jesus. Yeah. All right. So he wins that one. Denver has housed this guy, Bones Highland. I do love Bones. He's on a bender right now. He's like 15 a game basically since the All-Star break. Bones is like

those guys like Caleb Love yesterday in the UNC Duke game. Just these guards that just know how to shoot and they aren't scared and they can create things. I'm going to from now on, I'm picking NCAA just based on what guards fit that

prototype because it seems like that's the only thing that matters once we get to March Madness. I'm telling you, when the Final Four was set last week and Carolina was available at 5-1, it's like, what's the difference between these teams? Why is Carolina 5-1 and Kansas is plus 175? Yeah, I'll definitely take the 5-1 odds on Carolina. I watched Caleb Love single-handedly take out UCLA

who easily could have been in the final. They're really good. That game was awesome. I really enjoyed that game. Bones Highland, Black Poku. Because Poku had a big point guard game today. Just, you know, that confidence. Trip Dubs.

How many triple doubles does Bones Highland have? He doesn't want triple doubles yet. There's no other team that matters for this discussion except Brooklyn. And there I'm amazed how important you are, guy. Is weirdly Ben Simmons? Because I think they're going to feel it in the playoffs when they don't have him and they have to suddenly figure out how to guard Jason Tatum or Chris Middleton

or whoever in a playoff series. And they don't have the guy. No Jared Vanderbilt for the Timberwolves? Oh, that's a good one. They're a non-contender to me, but that's a good one. He's been shocking. He's definitely a crunch time guy for them.

I like him too. Yeah. That Boston matchup was terrible because you was right out of the Celtics playbook of, oh, wait, this is who your power forward is, so Rob Williams doesn't have to guard him, which would have been great advice to give out to people betting on FanDuel.

But there's other times at Vanderbilt where I go, he's kind of important. He's important because he doesn't need anything. So Rudy just, I think he's trying to get me to antagonize you, Rosillo. He asked if Kevin Love is the, I'm amazed how important you are, guy, for Cleveland. I was amazed when he threw the most important amounts

pass of the game to the other team today. Wasn't great. Not the way you wanted to end that one. Yeah, it's tough. You would think like with Mobley and Jared Allen out, Kevin Love would have stepped up today,

but wasn't even out there in crunch time. All right. House, who do you like in the East before we get to golf? Milwaukee. Yeah, me too. So we all like Milwaukee.

It's Milwaukee-Phoenix. Phoenix is still plus 115 to win the West in FanDuel. And I just don't understand why I haven't wagered on that yet. I just don't see anybody beating them unless somebody on Phoenix gets injured. That's the only scenario. I think they're the best team. Did you say you haven't bet it?

You've been touting the fact that it's plus odds for a few weeks now. I did the Milwaukee Phoenix finals bet and I did a Boston Phoenix finals bet, but I didn't just bet it straight up because the odds, at that point, you just bet it series by series. You're going to do the same. Alright, we're going to take a break. Come back and House is going to tell us Masters bets.

Alright, House. Fandel, our friends, gave us a very special opportunity for the 2022 Masters to create some special bets you love golf betting more than anyone I know Russell have you been to the Masters

yeah I have it's amazing what was your sandwich I didn't make any. No, when you bought, were you like egg salad or PB&J? Egg salad is like, I can't even believe people order it

when there are other options. I also think it's disgusting. It's so disgusting. I can't even stand looking at it. If I know somebody that orders it, I'm like, what's wrong with you? I order it and I love it. Okay, well there you you go i try to buy the pimento not for me i you know i went with a couple of the chicken sandwiches you know what i really love those the peach ice cream sandwich and i'm telling you because a non-golf guy it's one of the five best sporting events i've ever attended it is that it blew my expectations out of the water. It's one of the few things I, usually when I go to

anything after a couple days, I'm like, I got it. Let's get out of here. I'd left my Saturday tickets with my friends because they're huge into it and I'd already been there a couple days and I didn't want to leave and I regretted giving my tickets to them. So it's that great. Preaching to the choir. No peach ice cream sandwiches here, Simmons.

They're gone? Supply chain issues. It's a fluid situation. It's what's being reported from the grounds right now. I don't understand. Where do they get the peaches from? It's not on the menu right this second. What?

There's still a possibility. I have a sneaking suspicion there's a freezer full of them for the green jackets. And maybe in the Berkman's I think there's going to be I think there's a small stash maybe a couple of select preferred media members are going to get them

not us but you know are you guys going? we're going we're going for FanDuel this is amazing. I'm not going now. If there's not going to be peach ice cream sandwiches. That's not true.

All right, I'll still go. House. El Tigre might be there. I think there is an outstanding chance that he is going to tee up on Thursday and try and play competitive golf in the masters this year. My God, it's absolutely astonishing. What were the odds a year ago? What did we say? Like, I mean, we, we honestly didn't think we were going to see him again. I mean, with good reason, the reports in terms of the severity of the injury to his ankle was that the ankle was effectively

pulverized. And so you can rebuild, you know, foot bones and ankle bones with metal rods and, you know, plastics and so forth. And that's all fine. That would mean that you could walk around still. You could walk or maybe jog, but to play competitive professional golf. And the thing that has given everybody great encouragement around this is the, the every, what folks have observed with the swing is that his swing speed, the ball speed, everything looks fine. He's in tremendous shape right now. He's lean, he's muscular. And, uh, one of the things

that titillated over the weekend was a report Brandel Shambly from the Golf Channel shared this anecdote about Tiger. He's the host of the tournament at Riviera, and as you guys know as LA guys, on the 18th hole, to get from the green on

18 back up to the clubhouse, it is a staircase that is yeah it's it's steep it's many steps it takes it's hard and somebody observed him just bounding right up it no problem i'm talking about tiger woods and that's what the thing that that you know the golf community now is like wait a minute if he can do that and we're getting these these little bits and pieces of anecdotes about him practicing at his club down in Jupiter Florida and we know from what we've observed with him playing with his kid in Florida that that some of the metrics are in place for him to swing hard and hit 290 yard drives I mean feels like a bunch of the ingredients are there. Well, the thing, the walk in the course would be the biggest.

It is the singular, and it's a one of one at Augusta in terms of that, that challenge and what that, that poses, both in terms of just the physical challenge of going up and down the hills, but also the uneven lies, having to hit from downward lies, having to hit from lies where your feet are not even and what kind of ground forces that creates what you need to do to take a swing and not fall down. What a story. We're going to see him play golf. Unbelievable. Yeah, there's no way this isn't happening, right? I mean, I know it's not confirmed yet. Oh, wow. His plane's been there for how long well he just flew in today he went home he went and practiced last week yeah and you know again if there was really any question if he was harboring doubts he would not have done what

he did last week which was fly his jet which is traceable and trackable with Justin Thomas and his kid and let people know that he was there with his kid and Justin Thomas. Like there, he could have easily flown on an unmarked net jets. He could have flown on JT's jet. They could have white banded like he could have been in and out without anybody knowing, but nope. He just wants everybody to know that it's out there. He's prepared us for this i know absolute miracle i know brucillo is really concerned about the number of school days the kid might miss i know you're focused on that i don't want to derail it so i'll let you guys keep going yeah i'm locked in i'm excited about this i want some of his life advice for Charlie Woods. Who's your drapes guy?

It's my wife. It's a drapes gal. It's in the basement. Good drapes. Yeah. Yeah, Charlie. I feel like Charlie, if Tiger plays,

Charlie's walking the course and Charlie's prominently involved. And with, they allow a third person, right? Or is it just Caddy? Do they allow one more person out there? No, you cannot be. You cannot be on there, right? But is it just caddy? Do they allow one more person out there? No, you cannot be. You cannot be on there, right? But he can be like right in the vicinity.

There's no way he can caddy. He can't caddy for him, right? I mean. Wait, what? This is insane. It's the math. Yeah. Maybe Tiger's looking at this as a father-son situation.

Not yet. I don't think it's ceremonial that's the point remember though when tiger came back all right and i'm actually going to add some insight to this because it's all from the van pelt years but after tiger went through all of his stuff and then it was like okay when's he going to play again and it was the masters and i thought okay wait you don't want to ease into this a little bit like this doesn't make any sense and then i thought like you're so driven about the majors record, which I think you're always going to remember, too, of anyone.

Like, he's probably thinking, hey, if I can put four good days together, who fucking knows, which may seem absurd to the rest of us. But then I think sometimes we underestimate the ability of people to be able to recover with the access to the best medical care imaginable. So when I talked about him coming back, being like, why would he do it at a major event? Why would he come back to Augusta? And Van Pelt was on it. And maybe that plays into what we're dealing with this week.

He goes, this is where he's most protected. This is a place that cares about him. This is a place that like, and as you guys know, when you're there, it is like walking through these gates and it's this whole new world. And it's this like big hug around you. Like you made it. And now you're almost rewarded with the way that we treat you. And I'm talking about like everybody who walks through that place.

Nevermind somebody who's won a green jacket multiple times. So I think that probably is part of it. Cause I remember Van Pelt like going, no, no, you're, you're looking at this the wrong way. He can come back to Augusta because it's a safe place. And even though it's a different return based on what he went through the last time through and it's medical this time, it all makes sense. House thinks it's

a safe place for House too. It feels the same way. The sandwiches are $1.50 and the beverages, they went up by $1.00. The domestics, I think, are now $4.00. Yes, it's a safe place. It's the safest place do you guys have the double eagle setup across the street the hosting area you know we've been

in there before um that was that's the espn haunt that's the spot yeah we had this up yeah in fact i think when skipper was pretty sure i was gonna get laid off he was like let's throw priscilla four double eagle passes fucking guy and the double eagle setup was amazing and it was great too because i was the youngest by about 30 years yeah yeah now you're aging toward the double eagle crowd yeah back when i went yeah everybody everybody that was waiting on us was like can we hang out by you guys for a little bit yeah i i can't wait house give House, give us the bets you created. Let's hear it.

Yeah. So, you know. By the way, you're going to fly through these and you're going to break them down on fairway rowing in more detail tomorrow. Just in big picture terms, you have to remember the Masters is literally a one of one. For many of the reasons that Rossello was just sort of going through, it is, you know, a golf tournament unlike any other the field is the smallest uh competitive major field and there are really only about 30 guys that that can win

i mean every winner since 2010 has been ranked in the top 38 of the last 10 were ranked in the top 30. Eight of the last 10 were ranked in the world's top 20. Recent form matters. Recent major form matters. And so you're not really looking way down the list at guys that have either... No debutant since 1979 has come in and won. That's what made Will Zaltoros last year so impressive, by the way. But there's nobody coming in for the first time and winning the Masters. And so as we sit here

Sunday night on the Bill Simmons podcast, we don't have full odds for everything. But here are the things, the bets that I am prepared to make. First and foremost, Tiger Woods is going to make the cut. If he plays, he's making the cut. The only time he missed the cut was in 1996. That was his second year as an amateur. If Tiger Woods puts a tee in the ground and hits it off of one, he's going to make the cut. I'm also very favorable on the idea of Bryson DeChambeau to miss the cut.

Now, part of the thing for poor Bryson, this is not a knock on Bryce. He's not healthy. He played in a golf tournament in Texas this week, didn't make the cut, and didn't hit driver on the par fives. He's played in five golf tournaments since the Ryder Cup last September.

He missed a cut in two of his last three appearances and he played in the match play the world golf championship match play uh down in austin a couple weeks ago and and was dfl and that as well he didn't win one of his three matches he was oh two and one he's also a bad putter at the masters he does not putt well and to top it all off he he got together with the guys from Dude Perfect. Now, I don't know how you guys feel about the Dude Perfect. My kids love Dude Perfect. Sure.

That whole shtick. I am not prepared to weigh in on this shit. I'm still sort of processing it. I think we know how you feel. Well, no. Augusta National granted those guys access to AMN Corner, and they did one of their all-sports competitions through Amen Corner where they're hitting tennis balls

and hitting croquet, and they throw the football that makes a sound kind of thing. And Bryson was the pro that was with them. I'm not sure how the golf gods feel about this. So that's Tiger to make the cut, Bryson to miss the cut. That's right off the top. Good for Dude Perfect. You know, those guys kill it.

But like, was Bryson talking to his people going, hey, is there anything I could do that would make people even less popular? He's like, is there anything I can do that could take the heat off Phil Mickelson at all within the golf community? Anything? They're like, what about ruining on my corner?

Now, I will say they immediately got like, you know, over a million views, like within the first hour. It's up. It works. Yeah, it does. I'm also looking. Race through the rest ones. We're not going to get great odds.

I love Colin Morikawa to top five. I honestly think he's a great bet to win this week. He's right now not awesome odds to win. He's 16-1, but as a top five play, that feels like it carves it off. Brooks Koepka. So wait a second on that really quick. He's 16-1.

Hovland's 18-1. Cantlay's 22-1. Xander's 22-1. Our guy at the Z spot, there's been some action. He's down to 20 to one. But it would all be what I'm going into the Masters from a gambling standpoint is I think it's a young guy this year. And it's a young guy who got a taste of it. And it seems like it might be too young for this year, but no, all of a sudden they're winning the Masters. So that's what I'm focusing on as we start talking about this.

Well, that's nice because I do have a cream of some young guns top 20 parlay here. Great. Colin Morikawa, Victor Hovland, and Scotty Scheffler. Oh. The only one that might mess this up is Victor Hovland, who's never done better than tied for 12th in a major, which is

just a weird thing. Do you have that t-shirt when you were in college? Cream of some young guns? No. What t-shirt? She should sell that as a t-shirt. For the Masters. I'm sure they would love that. With the Masters logo on it.

We'll just sell them on Almancour. Just don't sell them inside. I can go down, you know, that's right, I can go down to the Hooters with John Daly. You know, John Daly sets up a big RV at the hooters parking lot there can't wait to see him we can go say hello i think we should i mean at least get a picture taken he'll gladly do that there's a place i paid for bottle service the next night when everybody was like that's a great idea and then the next day everybody's like none of us want to do that and then i called the guys like we told you last night and i was was like, yeah, I know.

He's like, you know, he's like, I'm probably just going to keep your money. I'm like, all right. Yep. No, that's that's an L. Put that down. But I may I may give you the contact house in case you get a little loose and just say, is there a credit here? Is there a solo credit from years ago? Well, I'll try and recoup it.

I still owe you $200 for my Vegas trip. Maybe I can get that back for you. That's like four years ago. You didn't pay Rossello yet? I never forget a debt. Apparently you do. I don't know if I paid, but I forget it. When she picked out the drapes, did she say,

I want it to be something where a GI is coming back from Sicily, and he goes, ah. You can't get the palette that's down here this is like it's like who does your finishings down there it's like 1950s basement it's it's a puzzle vibe there's a whole puzzle thing going on here like look look at the the toy table with that work back there look here's the bear we have the whole thing look it's it's like it's got a full you know the the color i can't justify it i don't know i'm just i'm shocked at the finishings

it's hashtag basement life what do you want me to do only two more bets at this stage bs x stands for top 10 i'm on zander uh He feels like he's a little under the radar. 64 birdies or better over the last three years. That is number one of anybody that has played in the Masters Championship. He let us down last year on the 16th hole. Xander hurt my feelings last year. I know. Yeah, he hurt my feelings.

Yeah. And we're also going to do a little bit of the Z spot. I have him in at a top 10. And then we have Brooks Koepka, another guy spot. I have him in at a top 10. And then we have Brooks Koepka, another guy that's quietly under the radar at a top 10. So we're going to go through all of this. We're going to go through the rationales. There are some more plays out there.

I really like Corey Connors this week, the Canadian. I'm going to come up with a way to work him into some of this. Got a couple parlays, a couple combinations that we want to do. I want to layer up a few, make the cut, miss the cut. Put two or three or four guys together and really try and make some noise. This is a good appetizer hopefully. Anybody you're

looking at, Rossello, before we go? Masters? No. Anyone you care about? I would just drop names here of guys. We had a bunch of caddies over when we were there. John Rahm's caddy came over. Shout out to my man, Matty, Mark Leishman's caddy. Well, Rahm's the favorite, by the way.

He is. He loves the course. With good reason. Plays to his game. Everybody knows that. I just feel like 10-1, that's just not enough value. It is not. You want to be in that 22-30 range, I feel like. that's just not enough value. It is not. It's too, it's too, uh, you want to be in that 22 to 30 range. I feel like,

or the, at least the 16 to 30 or seven, 18 to 30, something like that. Uh, house. What's, what's the problem with Homa?

Um, nothing. The, the only knock on him is he didn't finish in the top 40 at his debut. And so he can't win, but I like him his um advanced metrics right now are good and i think this this golf course is a good fit for him i'm gonna do a homie home a top 20 play let's just put it on the menu right now okay um all right so when are when

are all these officially gonna hit tomorrow house yeah we'll have we'll go through the full card um on fairway rolling we're recording late tomorrow afternoon east coast times that's monday east coast that'll be up monday night into tuesday we have our data analytics expert justin ray coming on the breakdown uh whether the metrics that we think matter actually matter and our beloved kevin clark on for some storylines and his own dance card. He'll help us sort some stuff out and our PGA Tour corner spot on the ground, Nathan Hubbard, as always

my co-host. Rocella, who do you like in the game tomorrow? Well, look, I mean, Duke was the more talented team against UNC. It wasn't really close. I think it's actually a good thing for Duke basketball that Shires is going to be taken over because I still can't believe they lost a rematch to a team that just embarrassed him in Coach K's last home game in Cameron um but Caleb Love's on another level right now and despite Kansas being in this title game you know I'm always kind of like

deferring to talent which isn't always the way to you know unless you're around the teams all the time I just think this UNC thing is on a tear. I know all their starters played every single minute other than when Baycott went out towards the end. There's a theory, oh, 48 hours later, the emotion of Duke. Are they going to be tired? I think when it's young guys, I don't think we give these guys enough credit

how quickly they can recover and play again. This Kansas team, they don't shoot it really the way UNC shoots it. And it's crazy. Like, Bill Self's a terrific coach. This is one of the least talented basketball teams he's had at Kansas, I think. I mean, I'm not saying it's the worst.

It's a one-and-done tournament, so weird things happen, and there they are. But I'm going to stay on this UNC momentum train here. The Duke thing, all those talent, the talent that they had out there. Five first-rounders. Five first-rounders. And Griffin absolutely sucked. And unfortunately, House's guy from the DMV

didn't really show up either. And yet, it felt like they were always one possession away from all of a sudden being up 10 and they were going to win by 20. And then every time they're up six, they're up seven, UNC would make a shot. And it was like a weird get over the hump type game where Duke just couldn't get over the hump

to get it to like nine, 10, 11. So I think those guys would have been done. It would have been a wrap. UNC just kept hanging around. I'm with you. I didn't think K did a good job. By the way, House, I was half watching PTI on Friday and doing some work. And they led the PTI with this whole thing about Coach Kay. What did you think about Coach Kay's decision to hand over the team

to John Shire heading into the final four? And they debated it for like two and a half minutes. And I'm like, I can't believe he did that. That's like the craziest thing. And they debated it for like two and a half minutes. And I was happy. And I'm like, I can't believe he did that. That's like the craziest thing. And it was an April fool's. Of course. I fell for an April fool's joke.

I couldn't believe it. It was Frank Gasola and Wilbon. They sold the shit out of it. And I was like, I was like ready to go do a tweet. I can't believe coach K what a coward. They totally got me. I'm glad that's all you fell for. I can't believe Coach K, what a coward. They totally got me. I'm glad that's all you fell for. I fell off a golf cart last week,

and I'm just happy to be here alive with you guys. I was holding on to a moving golf cart, and I lost my grip and did the thing where you try and roadrunner your feet to try and keep up, quickly catch your feet. And I couldn't do it. And then I went down. How many drinks were involved? Just see now, only one. But the guy who was driving the cart did not know that I had jumped on the back.

It was a very short ride. He didn't, if he'd known, he would not have gone as fast. He would not have taken the big bump the way that he did. That's what threw me. Wait, so are you injured now? I feel like I'm okay. We'll find out when we're walking the hills of Augusta. I'm going to the Masters with Anthony Davis. This is terrible. Anthony's like, I'm fine. Yeah, I put on some weight. It'll be good. The good thing will be, though, House can give great context on walking the course injured.

I'll give you my Tiger breakdown. He can channel Tiger. All right, as we're wrapping up, Golden State won. So Golden State, 50 wins for them. I'm going to end on this. Our over-unders that we did. Oh, I got to go. It's great.

No, you're staying for this house. You're staying for this. We had the locks. Here's how we did. Right now, I am six and one unless the Pelicans are at 34 wins with five games left. Did they win tonight?

They're getting killed. Right. OK, so that's covering. Great. So that covers. So I'm going to be 6-1. Rosillo and I have the Orlando Magic, who are at 20 wins.

We have the under at 21.5. So they have to go 2-2. I feel like we're going to win that, Rosillo. They've lost six in a row. It's a gritty group. But if you look at the lineups lately, they don't want to be gritty anymore. Yeah. So I could finish 7-1 on my locks.

Russillo could finish 3-2. And you have OKC standing right now. Their over-under was 22.5. You have them at 22. One more win, you lose on that. So, you either go 3-2 or 2-3. How are you feeling on that one, Russillo? Well, I mean, they're another team.

They're trying, and then the guys go out there and play their asses off. So they've had two wins in the last week where I was just kind of like, you've got to be kidding me. But this is what's happened is the tanking teams have all actually played a little harder than you'd expect. I mean, honestly, the Suns win today. Booker didn't play. Aitons win today. Booker didn't play. Aiton didn't play.

Crowder didn't play. And they won by 20. Well, that top four lottery thing, it kind of doesn't matter what spot you're in, one, two, three, or four. So it's weird. Those teams all know they're in that four, so it's a little more erratic to bet against.

The Pelicans won is really frustrating because that felt like it was a lot but like look me being no we hit that though we had the unders on that yeah but it should have been 39 win yeah we we're hitting that one and then house house is one in five with orlando looming so house you're gonna either be one in six or two and five not a strong performance performance by you, the critics are saying. I think I bet the opposite of what we did. I think we did that show and then talked through some stuff. And I bet heavy on the other side. House had the over for the Lakers 52 and a half.

That was my worst. I can't believe I locked that just out of... Historic. You had the Knicks over. You had Indiana over. Yeah, I think I'm straight up. I swear to God, whenever I do these, I go like 500. I'm the least exciting person.

You know what? We did it probably a week too early because I even would have changed a couple. But anyway, I won that one. We'll have the rematch next year. Rosillo, you have two podcasts this week. I'm sure you're going right after the Monday night game. And for heading Tuesday morning, that'll be up. Your thoughts on the Monday night game on your pod?

Yeah, we got that. And then we've got an awesome, awesome setup this week, too. The creators of the WeWork show, WeCrashed. I think Michael Lewis is coming by, too, as well. Jack McMullen. So, yeah, we got a lot. Thank you. I like WeCrashed.

I think it's awesome. Do you guys want to hear my impression of Jared Leto on We Crash? Yesterday. I'm very excited to announce that we have now opened 13 more locations!

Is this Borat? That's what he's doing he's doing the borat he's doing oh i gotta watch it's jared leto is borat with no i'm in aesthetic nose doesn't it kind of look like jim carrey though like it's he does a little bit there's some by the way it's working though like at first i was like oh i'm like, is Jared going to be weird? And then Anne Hathaway plays the wife perfectly. And then I think, like I have a theory that I'll get into this week and I'll ask these guys about it. But I think the big short kind of set a template for all of us to be crazed about how some of this stuff works that maybe most people

wouldn't have been interested in. And so the big short works. And then we have this out- out of control CEO bubble right now. We've got the Hulu show with Theranos. There's been two, three years of Theranos content. You've got your buddy's show, David and Brian.

The Uber person. Yeah, right. Super pumped. That's what he's saying. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to list all the, there's the one other one too though. There's three.

Is there another tech one? Netflix feels like they pound one out like a weekend and then um i feel like it started with social network though uh i think it took a while for and then big short and then the combo of that and then i think the oj thing was the other piece yeah but when the ryan murphy oj show worked everybody was like all right let's reallife biographical stuff with super famous people, really well done. This will work. Yeah, but I still feel like Facebook was an easier pitch than it was

The Big Short, you know? Because you're like, all right, it's Facebook, the story. Okay, great. Everybody has Facebook at the time. Got it. Where The Big Short was was like they were like what are you nuts i'm gonna do a movie about this so maybe yeah maybe you're right maybe you're right it just what about jerry west as a temperamental sex freak winning time she's

pounding away sweaty face in awful shape oh my god yeah fat jerry west what are we doing jerry west that's the part i can't get over house that show's shape. Oh my gosh. In terrible shape. Yeah. Fat Jerry West. What are we doing? Fat Jerry West. That's the part I can't get over. House. That show's good. Anne Hathaway is really good in We Crash. All right. Her performance in the fifth episode I thought was really, really great. Enough said.

I don't need her anymore. And then you've got Severance, which is based on living in Bristol. Is that true? It's in Hartford? Is that where they go after they leave the Severance work? They go to like- They don't want them to know. Yeah. still is that true it's in Hartford is that where they go after they leave the surface work they go to like they don't want to know yeah they're like yeah yeah

just just work the podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton thanks to Steve Cerruti and Dylan Berkey as always and we'll see you on this feed on Tuesday don't forget new rewatch must come on Monday night we did die hard to in honor of our guy Bruce Willis, who has retired from acting.

We tried to figure out why they crashed a plane with 200 people on that movie for reasons that were unclear 30 plus years ago and are still incredible now. It's a really weird decision. Anyway, good to see you guys. I don't have I don't have I don't have

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