The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Suns-Warriors Flip-Flop, A Sneaky-Bad NFL Draft, and Utah Groundhog Day With Rob Mahoney, Danny Kelly, and Jonathan Tjarks

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Rob Mahoney to discuss the Pelicans' Game 2 win over the Suns, Devin Booker's 31-point half followed by a third-quarter injury, the Warriors' new outlook with Jordan Poole, Hawks-Heat Game 2, the Grizzlies' win over the Timberwolves, Celtics-Nets predictions, and more (3:02). Then, Bill talks with Danny Kelly about the 2022 NFL draft, why he thinks the QBs will slide, the most abundant positions in the first round, and more (32:54). Finally, Bill talks with Jonathan Tjarks about the Jazz-Mavericks series, Jalen Brunson's 41-point performance in the Mavericks' Game 2 victory, surviving until the return of Luka Doncic, the electric Celtics-Nets Game 1, NBA draft thoughts, and more (48:07). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Rob Mahoney, Danny Kelly, and Jonathan Tjarks Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Network. I was on two Ringer podcasts yesterday. One was the Ringer Gambling Show. We broke down a bunch of game threes. And then the Prestige TV Podcast, me and Chris Ryan and Big Waz, we broke down the latest episode of Winning Time, a show that we really like, but also we have

some issues with some of the factual accuracy of some of the stuff. This is sports. This isn't doing the WeWork show where you can just make up stuff. We have box scores. We have stats. We have game logs. How far can you go with a show like this?

It's especially topical because it seems like Jerry West is going to get litigious about the character that they are portraying of him on that show. Anyway, check out the Prestige TV pod. We have a bunch of new shows coming up as well. The returns of Better Call Saul, Barry, the season finale of We Crash, me and Mallory Rubin are going to do that. And there you go. Speaking of me and Mallory Rubin, next week, Monday, the rewatchables.

We're finally doing it. We're doing one of the great baseball movies of all time. That's my hint. That's my hint for Monday. I have a hint for my Wednesday same game parlay. I have Fandle every Wednesday try to nail a same game parlay with better than four to one odds.

We're going to do a Boston one. And I don't know the specifics yet because some of the player props haven't come out yet. I'm taping this on Tuesday night, but we're going to tie in Celtics next game too with the Red Sox Blue Jays series. The Red Sox somehow won again tonight. I don't really understand it.

They have basically one and a half starting pitchers. Garrett Whitlock is, is my God. I don't, understand it. They have basically one and a half starting pitchers. Garrett Whitlock is my God. I don't, my God of 2022. Every time he pitches, good things seem to happen. He's the MVP of the team so far. But yeah, there's gonna be a Boston-Boston parlay. Coming up on this podcast, Rob Mahoney and I are gonna be reacting.

It's later Tuesday night. We're gonna be reacting to the three Tuesday night games. And then my guy Danny Kelly is going to come on for a new segment called 15 Minutes or Less, where he gives some draft predictions in 15 minutes or less. And then finally, our guy Jonathan Sharks. We're going to talk Dallas, Utah. We're going to talk 2022 NBA draft. And we're going to talk about what's going on with him because we get asked about that a lot.

And he's somebody that is near and dear to our hearts and we root for him. And you can go to the end of the podcast. We'll explain all about that. It is all coming up. First, our friends from Pro-Jet. All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is 9.33 Pacific time. We were going to go after Minnesota-Memphis. Rob Mahoney and I were planning

when we went to do this. And I remember saying in a text something like, well, we don't need to worry about Suns-Pelicans. But then the Timberwolves game was a bust. It was like, well, let's give that Suns-Pelicans, that wacky game. It's a little interesting coming out of the gate. Devin Booker puts up 31 in the first half and then gets hurt in the third quarter. And all of a sudden, the young, precocious Pelicans, who were like, plus at least 500 on Fanbill to win that game. Some crazy number. All of a sudden, they win.

The series is tied 1-1. We said going into the playoffs, at least I said, I thought Phoenix was the favorite and the prohibitive favorite in the West as long as nobody got hurt. And they didn't even make it. Four halves, Rob. We don't know what happened to Devin Booker.

It didn't look great. He didn't look happy on the sidelines. No. So that's one storyline. We don't want to speculate. All right, obviously he's hurt a little bit because he missed a game, two games. The New Orleans thing is nuts

because they missed a bunch of shots in game one, but kind of hung around that game too. This game, they legitimately won. They dominated the offensive boards. They were running, running, running the whole time, putting the Suns in their heels. Is there some sort of blueprint they're stumbling on with the Suns here?

Well, do you think you'll always remember the night when Jackson Hayes turned into Giannis for two minutes? Because I feel like I will. Giannis Hayes. Yeah, it was nuts. These young guys, Alvarado, not drafted, Herb Jones, second round pick, Hayes

who seemed like he was a potential lottery bust, and all three of those guys are contributing. And then the Ingram thing is just nuts. That was the prize of the Davis trade along with 100 picks. Hoping that Ingram could turn in a guy and he was a guy. He had an awesome game. Just as composed, as

balanced as we've pretty much ever seen him and certainly in a game of this magnitude. Not something we've had the experience to see him do before. But you're right about the pace. That to me was the big difference between game one and game two. Half court wise, I know they've been kind of a solid offensive team since they traded for CJ

in general. I've never fully trusted it. And then in game one, you saw some of why. They scored okay, but they gave up all those points in the fourth quarter to Chris Paul. In this one, it was just running at every opportunity. And let's just say the Suns did not exactly have championship focus

in their transition defense in this game. They were just getting lobs over the top of three and four defenders in the middle of the court on a pretty consistent basis. Yeah, like cherry pick layups and stuff that happens in November. Reggie Miller, who is kind of growing on me. I don't know if it's like Stockholm syndrome because we've been with him a long time. He was never one of my favorite announcers, but I think maybe the other announcers are getting worse. He was on the pace thing immediately. He's like, I see what they're doing. They're pushing, they're pushing, they're pushing.

They're trying to beat the Suns before the Suns can get set. And it worked. They shot almost 55% in that game. They 11 offensive rebounds. And the Ingram thing, you know, you think about that draft where it was him and Jalen Brown and Ben Simmons. How many times it's vacillated who was like the biggest think about that draft where it was him and Jalen Brown and Ben Simmons. How many times it's vacillated who was like the biggest prize from that draft.

I think Jalen probably had the steering wheel there for a while. Simmons had it at one point where it seemed like, oh, if we do that draft again, Simmons is probably one. And now Ingram, who I'd kind of written off

as being the best guy from that draft. But what we saw tonight, going against a team that has multiple wings to throw at him, that was the thing that I was impressed by. How about you? And with his own injury, fighting through a pretty bad ankle turn in the middle of this game to the point where every time he landed, I was just kind of wincing, waiting and hoping that it wasn't going to turn again. And it didn't. It held up. And he was taking tough turnaround fadeaways he was going in the lane he did

not let any of that stop him from being as aggressive as he needed to be in as dynamic as he needed to be this was the full you know not quite the point forward we saw at times during the season but as a facilitator as a play maker you know connecting dots off the ball just a really sharp

game from him yeah I guess my two big takeaways. One, I was talking to somebody about this last week. I can't remember if I mentioned it on a pod. If Phoenix was allowed to pick who they played, would they have picked New Orleans? My answer was no. I think they would have picked Denver

because I think Denver was the worst of the eight teams. As great as Jokic was this season, I just thought the 2 through 12 guys were so porous that if Phoenix really was looking at this, that is an easier matchup for them. Then going against this team

that has Ingram and Valanchunas and CJ McCollum and a bunch of role guys who I kind of like, you know? And if you're just like, what's a harder series? I think it's New Orleans.

So that's been borne out. But do you think if they could have had to choose do you think they pick new orleans because i don't i think they might just because well i mean the question is would they have any intel or concern that zion might play under those circumstances you know the wild card element with new orleans is certainly stronger although with denver you know you have the jamal murray, Michael Porter aspect of that. So maybe it's equal on both sides. Yeah, that's true. I didn't think of that. Yeah, they might have been worried about that piece. Who knows? But I think you're right to point to this team as

one that was competitive down the stretch of the season that was better than its seed, that could overachieve relative to its circumstances. They look like a team that could make it through the play-in at the very least. I still don't think they're really going to put the fear of God in the Suns unless something very serious has happened to Devin Booker,

which again, fingers crossed that didn't happen. But if the Suns are even close to operational, they're a team that adapts. They're a team that evolves. They're a team that works through you. You would think. It was surprising to see them lose a game where they were

in striking distance with five minutes left. Very true. Kept waiting for them to make the run. Never happened. And the irony of Booker getting hurt,

he was magnificent in the first half. It's about as good of a Kobe impression as you can see in a basketball game from a modern player. He was doing everything

to the point where he hits a shot at the end of the second quarter and you think it's going in. It was like a 29-footer. I mean, down to 31 points in 25 minutes. Very reminiscent of that. It was at 62 that Kobe hung on Dallas in three quarters.

You know, just that kind of like explosion in such a limited time. But I think that's probably where the first red flag popped up for the Suns was Booker was hitting everything. He was going on this unbelievable run and they just could not separate. They could not put any distance between themselves and the Pelicans

during that stretch. Then you have Golden State a day ago where we went from wondering who we're getting in that series and is Curry going to be healthy and what's going on with Clay? Can they write this shit before round two and then by the end of game two people are getting in fights on twitter about what

the nickname of pool curry thompson should be going on and on about that i like what i like the lineup of death or death lineup whatever you want to say like 2.0 like something like that people are trying to get 3G. I heard a PTSD, which I thought was really weird. I don't know about that one. I think, here's the thing, we probably don't need a nickname. Maybe we're just good. Maybe the nickname should be organic, but the Warriors, that whole thing flips where people are taking that team super seriously now. And then the Suns thing, a little neck, a little shaving cut on the neck all of a sudden.

But has anything, did you see anything in the last 24 hours to make you shift where you were going with the West Finals? I think I would still pick Phoenix to make it. But I'm certainly a little more bullish on Golden State than I was. I would say I was on, you know, a, I'll believe it when I see it, a little more skeptical side of the spectrum when it came to the Warriors in general, just because of their health. But this version of Steph,

that's just a plus minus machine in whatever minutes he gets off the bench, apparently. The engine of that offense looks completely healthy and functional. And Jordan Poole is the greatest basketball player I've ever seen play. So that combination of things seems to be working out pretty well in terms of Golden State being, you know, angling for a trip to the West Finals.

But as you alluded to, this Denver team is a total mess. They're getting no help from any of the supporting cast whatsoever. Jokic is completely overwhelmed with Draymond Green's defense. They've just been completely stifled and exploited on both sides of the ball.

I'm not sure this is the best litmus test for who the Warriors are under pressure. It's certainly a great display of who they can be, but I will believe that that version of the Warriors can show up against Mikael Bridges and Chris Paul and Devin Booker gumming up the works of what they're trying to do. I'll believe that when I see it. Well, on FanDuel, the Suns have dropped to 3-1 to win the finals, and the Warriors are up to plus 340. Now, earlier today, the Warriors were 5-1,

and the Suns were, I think, like plus 240. So the Booker injury has affected that. I'm with you. Jordan Poole might be the best part of all time. I thought it was Michael Jordan. I'm starting to switch. You're in the bay. I mean, this guy was in the G League last year. That was the main reason I voted for him for most improved. He got my number one vote. And my thing is, if you were in the G League last year and now there's finals MVP odds on you a year later, I have to consider you for most improved. But was there any sign of this last year? When did you start to believe this was a real thing with him? Well, I mean, it's come in

stages, right? There were signs that he could be a productive NBA player after some stints against lesser competition, against being plugged into lineups that were injured and depleted. There were those signs. And then this is a whole different thing. I mean, he's gone through a whole journey this season in terms of when should he play? What lineup should we put him in? To all of a sudden now, Draymond Green is saying from the podium, this guy's going to have to start.

He's too good to mess around with this too much. And you put that firepower on the floor altogether, it looks incredible. And the way that those guys are able to triangulate each other's positions already, and keep in mind, the combination of Poole and Steph and Klay in particular, and Draymond has played very little altogether.

Yeah. But all of the elements have had their moments. Poole and Steph have had a good synergy. Poole and Klay have figured it out. And Draymond is obviously just a genius in terms of connecting the dots, playing four on three and three on two, all those situations. They look terrifying when they're against a team like the Nuggets. And I hope that that's the level of competition they can

reach on a consistent basis. It will be a little different when they play Memphis in round two. Assuming Memphis is going to be there. Yeah. I saw a lot of stuff. I was flying yesterday. I was watching all the games on JetBlue, which was really fun. I flew back from Boston and the times were perfect where I got to watch every minute

of all the games. I had to flip back and forth a couple of points. But, you know, I was on Twitter because I was bored watching the games. And a lot of people were doing this whole thing with pool about like, that guy's getting the bag. Got to take care of him. I don't mean to throw water on this, but the move for them is to roll it over and do what the Suns did with Aiton, I think. And just play him. He's 3.9 million next year. They're at like 175 million next year, even before you fill in minimums and first round picks stuff like that I would not give him the extension

they have a Wiggins final year which is like I think like $32-33 million they've got to figure out the Wiseman thing and I just don't know why they would all of a sudden commit to all this money on pool if they don't have to he's like one of the biggest assets in the league next year. If I were them, I would be thinking about how do I get rid of

Wiggins, maybe tie Wiseman to it and either bring back an impact guy or a role guy or whatever, but try to cut some salary because I know I have to pay pool down the road. They have Clay for like 40 and 43 the next two years. They have Draymond coming up for an extension that they're going to have to pay up for him too. So my point is, it's going to get really complicated for them. The way it is now is kind of nice. The pool is still like, you don't have to worry about him yet. Kaminga is a rookie. But I think it's about to get complicated. Big picture, ceiling standpoint, you think like Poole even getting better, Klay with his sea legs under him a year from now, and then Kaminga in the Wiggins spot.

If Kaminga can make a jump from year one to year two, which is usually how it happens in basketball, now we're really talking about a lineup of death. Yeah. And the money thing is inevitable. I mean, Jordan Poole is going to get a giant bag. We can debate over the degrees and the timing and all that stuff. But so long as we're spending Joe Lacob's money, this is a team that is capped out beyond recognition that does not have any sense of real flexibility. So why not at this point? If he is a guy who is a part of your long-term core

and he's shown every indication he should be that, maybe you just take care of it. Maybe you just get that thing done. Maybe you do. I mean, this is a team that gave Klay Thompson $190 million like two weeks

after he tore his ACL. I'm not sure. I'm not sure they're hesitant with throwing bags around. Well, they're also a team that has talked about, at least Joe Lacob has talked about, wanting to contend

in perpetuity forever to basically extend eras one into the next and just be great forever. And this is the way you do that. You know, James Wiseman is going to be whatever he is. Jonathan Kuminga is going to be whoever he ends up being, which I think both you and I are pretty high on what his potential could be.

Yeah. But Poole's, I mean, he's far along. He is a playoff level contributor right now, no questions asked. And honestly, more dynamic off the dribble than pretty much any non-Kevin Durant teammate Steph has ever had. Yeah, I feel like Rossello and I

had multiple conversations during this season about Poole trying to figure out what's going on here. How is this? It doesn't feel like a hot streak anymore. And then by March, you just kind of accepted it. Like, alright, they struck here? How is this? This doesn't feel like a hot streak anymore. And then by March, you just kind of accepted it. Like, all right, they struck a deal with this kid.

It's going to be fun to watch. There's a weird Klay dynamic, and please don't aggregate me. Just something I've noticed. You know, he was on the sidelines for two years. It's a tough for an ego thing, right? You're playing, you want the... I thought when he was talked about being snubbed with the NBA 75, I thought that was not a great sign. That was very un-Clay-like. The best thing about Clay was the ultimate teammate,

even in games, didn't need a lot of touches, was just so additive in all of these different ways. And the one thing I've noticed since he's come back is there are these moments where they're either trying to get him going or he's trying to get himself going. What he hasn't found yet is that kind of clay, I'm here, I'm here to help, I'm additive. I'm not here to bother anyone, but I'm going to end up with 23. And it doesn't feel like he's found that balance yet. And I wonder what the pool thing does to that, where you have this other guy who's even more dynamic than he is and how he handles that as this playoffs are going on, as he's getting his sea legs, as he's trying to figure out who he is defensively. Cause I don't think he's where he used to be defensively, at least

so far, it could come back. But what do you see from clay in compared to, you know, as we look at this whole weird Warriors stew that we're watching? My read on it would be that Poole relieves some of that pressure. You know, that Clay can be a little bit more on his own time. And there are frustrations that come with that, as you alluded to. Coming back from injury, wanting to be

your best possible basketball self. All that stuff is totally understandable. I mean, Clay, that is a dude who lives for these kinds of moments, to deliver in huge games, to be there for his team when it matters most. And he's going to have those opportunities. But if he's not, great.

You know, if the crowd is gasping on his threes and they're just not going on a particular night, like a one for seven, one for eight, three-point shooting kind of night, it works a little better when your team is still up 18 points because Jordan Poole is going crazy. I think from that aspect,

things will be a little bit healthier in the dynamic there. Just in terms of what's asked and expected of Clay at this point in his career, post-injury, still trying to rediscover who he can be as a two-way player. I'm with you on the defense. It's not there yet. I've been more optimistic

about his offense lately. And he had some great games at the end of the regular season. And in this one, I mean, looked pretty much like Clay. Popping into his spots. He wasn't quite moving as dynamically as he usually would.

But the accuracy is there. The threat projection is there in terms of what he does to defense. The quick release is still there. He'll have that when he's 70. I just like Splash Brothers for them. Just add Poole. Poole just joins the group. Why not? Still the Splash Brothers. We just got

one more. We saw another great effort today, Jimmy Butler. In Atlanta, it was predictably pretty frisky, that Atlanta team. I just think they feel like they're one guy short on the front line. And Hunter got into foul trouble, which wasn't helping them. But Butler was on one.

And he doesn't get like that very often. But when he gets like that, you can feel it pretty soon when it's happening. And he just had it. And he had it going. And that was the best I've seen him offensively. It's funny. A month ago, we were wondering, is this team imploding? What's going on? And now everything seems hunky dory. But what'd you see from that performance in Miami in general?

Well, I don't know if you have this experience with Jimmy Butler, but I feel like more than any other star player, I'm watching his game and I'm seeing him try to post up Kevin Herter and it's not really working. I'm like, what's going on with him tonight and I look up and he has like 23 points in the second quarter yeah uh he's just kind of ground him out he's just you know getting out in transition getting out on the break I would say in terms of his performance and you know kind of taking a temperature check on the Hawks Jimmy Butler had a concerning number of dunks in this game yeah for a guy who that's not really what he he does. He wants to bait you into fouls. He wants to do his turnaround jumper.

But the dunks to me are representative of bad turnovers, complete breakdowns in half-court defense, and just, again, really sloppy transition play, which is apparently the theme of the day. And Jimmy was just getting out in those situations for all kinds of easy scores. And if you are giving that stuff to the Heat, they're going to kill you.

It's just the way a series is going to go. You have to cut off the water on all the easiest possible points with them. We talked about it. I did bring our gambling show today and we were talking about the Hawks. There's a world where the Cavs just win that playing game and we don't see the Hawks again.

There were multiple times in that game where they were up 12, they were up 14, they couldn't get a call. They had like a half hour stretch where they just couldn't get a call. Ever. Everything went against them. And then Trey got hot and they didn't double him and all of a sudden they were losing and the game was over. Atlanta's a 9 seed.

You know? They played today, they had Bogdanovich. 28 minutes, he had 29 points. He was 12 for 18. And it was the kind of game that when he plays like that and Trey's okay, which he was, that should be a win. It doesn't, but not only was it not a win,

they lost by 10 and they got destroyed. And as you mentioned, it was a layup line and it was just too easy. And it's starting to feel like, I don't think they're going to get Capella back in time. They were trying to go small to try to, you know, I just, I don't see it. I was trying to figure out what could be the sweep.

I think it's going to be the Miami series. Because Phoenix is out. Gold State's another possibility, but who knows, Denver, Altitude, Game 3. I probably would put my money on Miami in that one. And then the Hawks, three-for-one trade coming, right? Especially if it's a sweep, there will be some sort of overcorrection move, I would think. They certainly have a roster that's ripe for it.

If the answers aren't here with the youth and the versatility and the options that you have you gotta start looking somewhere else but the Capella part of this hurts and it hurts in a game like this where I mean this was one of the worst bam out of bio games I think I've ever seen yeah what happened to him tonight I mean just total in foul trouble most of the night and then when he did get opportunities,

struggled to score against smaller guys, which is kind of the nightmare scenario for Bam. Obviously, he's incredibly versatile defensively, can switch, can cover everybody. But he has to be able to exploit smaller players when they get mismatched on him. And he just, I don't know if he was just worried about picking up charges or what it was.

Looked totally out of his element. Bad turnovers, wasn't able to work as the hub of the offense either. Just awful. And so then you have Miami going super small and my brain is going, how does this game look differently if Clint Capella is out there pulling down 18 rebounds in this game? How does that change

the dynamic of what they have? Every lob that Trae Young tried to throw to post-injury John Collins that went a foot over his head, is that a clink-a-pella dunk instead? And how does that change the outlook of this game? I can't help but wonder that with this. You know what else I couldn't help but wonder

is why Sacramento let Bogdanovich go for nothing. It's another thing. Anytime he goes off in a playoff game, it just kind of has to be brought up. The gift that keeps on giving, podcast-wise. Well, I think Sacramento has really locked down the most incompetent franchise the last 15 years. All these other ones have had moments.

Even Minnesota, who we're about to talk about, they hit a couple picks. They made the playoffs. They had a winning record this year. Charlotte, they at least made the play-in game. They have LaMelo. They have somebody to put on a poster like Sacramento. Jesus.

Memphis, Minnesota. So I guess the Memphis series is basically going to come down to is Jaron Jackson going to stay on the floor or not? Because Memphis made their instead of waiting, you know, 20 playoff games like Scott Brooks would have in 2014 before realizing it's not the series for Steven Adams, maybe not the playoffs for Steven Adams. Memphis just said, fuck it. And he got two fouls early and they were like, okay, so long, Steven Adams. And they started playing Tillman.

They were going small. And they seemed to unlock something with that. But Jackson, his stats didn't add up to, I thought, the impact that he had in the game on both ends. I thought every shot he hit felt like it was momentum shot. Defensively, he was all over the place. And Towns was just awful, which we could talk about in a second.

But that was more like the Memphis that I think we were expecting. Then again, they're supposed to win this game. Minnesota already got the game they won. Three games at home and they win the series. Any big takeaways from that game for you? Well, I am glad that order has been restored to the universe because I'm just getting used to the idea that the Wolves are good. So the idea that

they would have been 2-0 great, putting the Grizzlies on the ropes, I wasn't quite ready for that kind of development. It's good to see Memphis back in its element. Playing how they play. It was kind of all the bench. Yeah, it was the development. It's good to see Memphis back in its element. Playing how they play. It was kind of all the... Yeah, it was the bench.

It was the transition game. The offensive rebounds, they'll still have to figure out how effective they can be on the offensive glass, but they had some big ones. Jaron Jackson Jr. had maybe the dunk of the playoffs so far on a putback.

Incredible stuff from him, but I do agree that him just seeing some threes go down felt big in terms of how the Grizzlies are covered, in terms of his confidence and his teammates' confidence in those situations.

Jaron Jackson Jr. has to hit shots. And he may not have to hit them to win this series, but if the Grizzlies are going to go anywhere meaningful, he has to be able to space the floor. He has to be reliable from three. That's not really been the case this season.

Although historically, we've seen him do it in previous ones. I mean, this is where I go to with stuff like this. When he shoots a three, do you think it's going in? His form feels very rushed to me. Every time I see it. I never think it's going in.

Whereas Nas Reid is like Clay Thompson circa 2016. It's like, just run that guy off picks set him up from 25 unreal unreal um on the minnesota thing i just have to say this edwards who didn't have a very good game but i loved his spirit i'm just edwards is i treat like my kids now i'm just even when he has a bad game i'm like yeah but you see the third quarter. I loved his competitiveness. I loved how hard he was trying to bring them back, even though that game was pretty much over. He was really into it down the stretch. I just thought that was such a garbage Towns game.

He's just such a disappointing player sometimes. And I put it this way. I do not have any Carl Anthony Towns stock. I have some Alvarado stock. I've been able to, you know, been able to put in the market and have some fun with. But Towns, just the typical shit game from him. Five fouls, three of them were idiotic.

Super slow, complaining. Jackson was just kind of out hustling him. And, you know, between him and Russell, who I guess could someone tell him the series started? Between those two, it was like, oh man, I'm so stupid thinking this was, you know, Minnesota potentially winning this.

Both of those guys kind of rolled over in the game. I was disappointed. It feels like bad news that Memphis has kind of pulled the plug on the Adams thing because Towns can drive right past him on the perimeter. Memphis seems like they want to guard towns one-on-one as much as they possibly can. That was not working with Steven Adams, but it was with Kyle Anderson. It was with Xavier Tillman.

Maybe you just start one of those guys. Maybe you start Tillman so you can keep Anderson coming off the bench with that all-bench lineup that works pretty well for them. 21 minutes. We were calling for him on Sunday night. 21 minutes for Tillman. Both were huge. And Tillman, he's exactly that combination of strength to a degree where he's just not going to give up a spot. He's not going to give up a step.

Towns can't just kind of push through him in the way that he can. You know, bless him, Brandon Clark, who's a little bit wispy in terms of, you know, covering bigger guys, like when they try to drive on him. That's just the reality of playing with that body type. But Tillman is tough to score on. And he's been a guy who's been in and out of the rotation over the last couple of years for Memphis for a variety of reasons. But he's just such a solid defender.

It's cool to see him find a place in a series like this, kind of as an anti-towns specialist. I am a fan, and I was waiting for them to play him, and they finally threw him in, and I was excited, and then good things seemed to happen, so I felt vindicated.

Listen, this is set up for Towns. He's at the right age where he should have a good playoff series experience if he's good. Kind of what we saw from Ingram today. Three home games. Crowd's going to be nuts. They seem to be healthy.

This is set up. And Edwards, who can still have these moments where for about three minutes, you think he's the next Michael Jordan. You know? Or the next Jordan Poole, you know? Or the next Jordan Poole.

Somebody named Jordan. Before we go, Brooklyn Celtics, anything you're expecting tomorrow night, game three? Or game two Jordan Poole. Somebody named Jordan. Before we go, Brooklyn Celtics, anything you're expecting tomorrow night, game three, or game two? Oh, good question. I don't know.

I honestly have no idea what to expect from that series. There's not a lot of, like, matchup play that can be done unless you're just exploiting Brooklyn's smaller defenders. I'm not sure what, like,

the evolution of that series looks like, but I'm fascinated to find out. I mean, that was as turbulent as eventful. The Drummond thing would be the one thing where I wonder if they punt on him the same way Memphis punted on Adams today. Oh, you think all together

just excise him from the rotation? Yeah, do you play him for four minutes and then we just don't see him again? That wouldn't surprise me because that small lineup I thought the Celtics had trouble with no matter who the combination was. That is when it seemed like Brooklyn would get going.

So you think we'll see more Drummond? I mean, I wouldn't expect him to be totally gone. Some of it is as simple as when you put these small lineups in front of teams like the Celtics for too long, they find very easy ways to, say, for example, get Jalen Brown critical layups at moments of the game.

It's just terrifying when you have wings that are that big and physical that Seth Curry can't do anything with that guy. Goran Dragic can't do anything with those guys. And so you're really asking a lot of Bruce Brown in those situations to play six inches above his head to body up some of the

best wing scores that are in the NBA. Do you think that was the East Finals? What you watched game one and what we're going to get more games of? Does this feel like a whoever wins this series is going to be there in June kind of thing to you or is it too early to say that? I'm still thinking Milwaukee makes it.

Okay. All right. I don't... I want to see how Milwaukee handles this Chicago thing if they get a little distance from a Chicago team that, you know, I think without Lonzo is pretty beatable. And then we saw play after Rosen came back. Unfortunately, that was sad. But...

It was a much closer game than I would have expected given that matchup. Yeah. How is that game close when DeRozan's like six for 25? Why are they sweating that out when they have healthy team? I'm still not a hundred percent sold in their wings, but I, from what I saw on Sunday,

I can't get out of my head that it's hard for me to imagine another team of the East playing at that level. And yet Giannis, just putting them over here. Yeah. So who knows? All right, Rob Mahoney, you're gonna be on the ringer NBA show level. And yet Giannis, I'm just putting him over here. Yeah. So who knows? All right. Rob Mahoney, you're going to be on the Ringer NBA show tomorrow talking about a lot of these

subplots. And then you writing anything this week? Yeah, I got a thing coming out this week. So just take a look at theringer.com for all of our great coverage. Yeah. Every day we got something. All right. Good to see you. Thanks, Bill. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance.

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So we're starting the clock right now. Danny Kelly is here, the hardest working man in show business. He is on multiple ringer pods. He is the mainstay of our ringer draft guide. The draft is Thursday night. Before I...

I'm going to ask you for five predictions. We got to get done in 50 minutes or less. Hutchinson, number one on FanDuel, minus 185 for first pick. Are you okay with that? Yeah. Yeah, I think I am. I mean, he, to me, is the safest player in the draft.

I mean, everybody else has just glaring either red flags or question marks or whatever. He, to me, is going to be a guy that you can come in and he'll start for you. He'll be a good player. I don't know if he'll ever be a superstar, but he'll be a good player. Sell your season tickets now. He'll start for you. He'll be a good player. Oh, boy. The alternative is

picking a guy like Trevon Walker who is really physically talented, intriguing, has all the measurables, but you don't exactly know what he is yet. You know what I mean? So he could be just a wide range of outcomes for most of these other players, I think, compared to Hutchinson.

Well, he is plus 550 to be the second pick, Walker. What do you think of that? Yeah, I think Walker, it comes down to Thibodeau versus Walker for the number two spot for the Lions. And the opinions are all over the down to Thibodeau versus Walker for the number two spot for the Lions and the opinions are all over the place on Thibodeau I think and he doesn't maybe fit

exactly what Dan Campbell is trying to build in Detroit or at least that's sort of the rumors right now because Thibodeau has off field interest he's into cryptocurrency he has a deal with Nike he has plans for after football and and sort of i guess the going rumor is that they want like a guy who just loves football doesn't care

about anything else just wants to play football oh my god you know just a meathead so i don't know that's my only concern there but i think i think thibodeau should be the pick, but I think it's going to be Walker. Well, on your mock draft board, you have Hutchinson as your one, and Thibodeau as your two. Yes, and this was from a week or two ago. I got a new one and my final one coming out next week. So I think I'll probably put Walker there for the last one. Wow.

Well, in this whole thing, you have Walker ninth just on your big board of favorite players what so if he goes two but he's ninth that's usually a bad sign if you look at you're pretty good at this stuff if you're if you're if i'm taking a top two pick of somebody that you have ninth that would make me nervous if i was an n team. Right. But I think that's a good encapsulation of this whole draft. Walker and another guy, Jermaine Johnson, another pass rusher from Florida State, both of

these guys have been really pushed up in the postseason process, the Combine, the Senior Bowl. All this stuff where teams start to really fall in love with the traits and the size and the speed and all that. But with Walker in particular from Georgia,

he has basically the look of a superstar pass rusher, but he didn't really do that at Georgia. His stats and his pressure numbers and everything aren't what you'd expect to be. I wouldn't expect our first pick

overall to be, certainly. Not the second pick either. And more just like, I think like in that range where you're taking a chance on a guy, what he's going to turn into in terms of his potential, his athletic potential.

But he hasn't been that guy yet. They didn't really ask him to just pin his ears back and rush the passer at Georgia. And so he hasn't really done it, is kind of the thing. You see the flashes, but it's still a projection.

So that's why it makes me a little bit nervous. I do think he will be good, but it's just more of a risk. So that's why it makes me a little bit nervous. I do think he will be good, but like it's, you know, it's just more of a risk. Kyle, turn the camera. Here's my take on the 2022 NFL draft. F minus.

It just sucks. I know we've been able to get content out of it, but this is like a one out of 10 draft from a fun entertainment standpoint. The quarterbacks stink. Yeah. We don't even know who the number one guy is. There's not like the two or three awesome dudes. We don't have the Lamar

Jackson huge argument that turns into these polarizing camps of what he's going to be. It's just a big fucking turd sandwich. I'm down on it. I'm not even that excited about it. And I know we're going to get to number 21. My dad's all excited. I was telling him this weekend, he wants the Alabama receiver with the torn ACL. I know the Pats are going to number 21. My dad's all excited. I was telling him this weekend he wants the Alabama receiver with the torn ACL. I know the Pats are going to trade back. And I just know I'm going to be watching the playoffs on Thursday night.

And I'll have the drafts on one of the TVs. And I'm going to be bored three-fourths of the time. Wait, is there any way this draft's going to be exciting? What would make it exciting? Something happens

where like Laramie Tunsil does the bong hit in a gas mask, some random thing or something like funny happens with the stage at the, at the draft, like they're doing in Vegas and there's water or someone, someone falls in the water or something wacky like that. Um,

I think that's the thing is this, like, I think you're actually right. This draft is kind of weird. It's not blows. Yeah. I'm, I'm,

I'm remiss to say, I'm, I'm, I'm not really ready to say that just because I've been spending so much time doing this. I'm actually kind of, it's fine. It's not... It blows! Yeah. I'm remiss to say... I'm not really ready to say that just because I've been spending so much time doing this. I'm actually kind of excited. It's fine. It's not your fault. Let me put my Rob Williams board on. It's not your fault.

You guys did nothing wrong. You did a great job with the content. The only thing that's going to be funny about this draft is when these quarterbacks go way higher than they should because the law is every year... And all of a sudden, E.J. Manuel is going 16th, and we're going to have three of those.

I'm sure one of them will hit, but these quarterbacks, I would say it could be a 25% accuracy rate this year with the QBs for starters. Well, we did the take purge in the draft pod today, and my take was that all the quarterbacks

are going to be good because it just makes no sense. Like last year... Oh, so you're zagging? Zagging against the grain because every time anyone agrees, any time NFL draft Twitter and the draft apparatus agrees on anything, it's always the opposite that happens.

Like last year, for instance, Mac Jones was kind of like the butt of everyone's joke. Like why would they trade up for number three to number three to pick Mac Jones? Yeah. And then it turns out that he's actually maybe the best quarterback in that class. Yeah.

I'm going, I'm going that way with every quarterback in this class is like, maybe they're all actually going to be kind of good. Like starters. Danny, I think you, I think you're just drunk on the draft. That seems to be like the bartender,

I think just cut you off. My guy Ritter, though, that's the one guy I like. I'm following... Ritter is the one guy I'm a little bit invested in. I think he's actually very intriguing. And he's probably going to be a first-round pick after kind of going through the processes. I think a lot of people thought he'd be a second-rounder. But, I mean, he processes so well.

He's smart. It's kind of the Mac Jones thing. He sets guys up at the line of scrimmage and gets the ball out on time. He's smart. It's kind of the Mac Jones thing. He sets guys up at the line of scrimmage and gets the ball out on time, things like that. He doesn't have any, I'd say, outstanding physical trait. He is fast. He's an athletic guy, but

he doesn't have a huge arm. He doesn't have incredible quickness or power or anything like that. But he plays position a little bit more polished than anyone else in this class. And so I think teams are starting to fall in love with him, too. There's been a lot of indications in this throughout this whole process that he's

wowing teams like on the whiteboard and in the interview process and all that, which is important to them. Well, the Jets taking Thibodeau would be fun. And he's plus 300 on FanDuel to go forth. The quarterback bets, you can bet all the quarterbacks

individually now, and then I can't... I thought they used to have the over-under for quarterbacks. I feel like we're going to have four in the first round. So it's going to be somewhere around there, but I just feel like there's always the surprise one. People trading up. People get panicked.

And the other weird thing about this draft? Then you got to do your predictions because we only have eight minutes left. The last half of the draft is weirdly more exciting than the first half of the draft. Oh, 100%. Like I'm actually, when has there been a draft where it's like, ah, wait till we get around pick 14

then I'm going to make sure I'm watching. All right, go. Five predictions. Prediction number one. Okay, so you already contradicted me on this, but I don't think there's going to be an early run on quarterbacks. I think the quarterback class is going to sort of,

or this quarterback draft is going to fall just sort of naturally. I think that there's not going to be a lot. So no trade-ups? No trade-ups. I think they'll just sort of fall to the teams that want them. I think that's kind of like

what this class is going to end up being. Then you could have a guy come in, or a team maybe come in to the second half, the late first, last couple of picks in the first, and trade up to grab him and get that 50-year option. But I kind of think that the top 10 is just going to be chalky and be a bunch of edge players and offensive tackles, which is actually one of my other predictions,

which is there's going to be an early run on edges and an early run on tackles. Oh. I think that's going to be the two big position groups. Poof. Hold it. Buckle up. Exciting stuff. Pull that to your seats.

Yeah. Am I selling it to you? Yeah, that's good. Okay. All right. So those two predictions. I'm going to interrupt before you do your third prediction. Yes.

The teams that we know will take a quarterback potentially in the top 40 are Carolina, Pittsburgh. I feel like New Orleans. Why else would they do that trade? I just feel like you do that trade if at least one of those two picks is a QB. So I'm going to say

two and a half New Orleans. Is there anyone else you feel like has to come out of here with a quarterback? Detroit? Has to come out? here with a quarterback? Detroit? Has to come out? Is Detroit on that list for you? Strangely, not really. Okay. I wouldn't say have to come out

of the draft. And I don't think the Seahawks are a team that has to come out of the draft, nor are the Falcons because I think both of those teams still have a ways to go in terms of rebuilding

the foundation and trying to compete. Plus, every team now that has a need at quarterback is sort of hedged for the draft. The Seahawks have Drew Locke. Obviously, no one wants to see that happen. Congratulations. I know. But it's one of those things where they can talk

themselves into it. That's why, ultimately, I don't really think there's going to be a lot of trading up and down. I don't think any of these teams are so desperate that they feel the need to jump around and grab a guy. And then Baker is just in the fire extinguisher case like an axe, just waiting for a break

when you need a quarterback. Alright, prediction number three. I think the Panthers are going to trade back from number six spot. I've gone back and forth on this a whole bunch of times, but if you start to put together the pieces and the puzzle pieces or whatever, they don't have

another pick until the fourth round. They have number six and then a fourth rounder. And so this is not a team that's one player away from competing. And their GM comes from Seattle mindset where they're constantly trading back, trading back, trading back,

trading back. Volume drafting is the key in order to build that foundation, get a bunch of guys that'll come in and play roles for you. I don't think they're going to be happy with the fact they only have X amount of picks and one pick in the first three rounds. So I think they're going to trade back and try and

pick up a couple extra picks and then still may end up picking a quarterback in the first round, but I think it'll be after they trade back. That would be a really fun Fandu bet. Which team is most Which top 12 team is most likely to trade backwards? Because you can't say the whole draft because then the Patriots would be like minus 700 favorites.

But out of the top 12, who's likely to go backwards by at least, what, seven spots? Yeah. I think the Panthers. Official trade back is seven spots. Yeah, Falcons would be another one. Listen,

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I feel like Baker for a year getting him for free healthy is a better option than 20 quarterbacks

we could list. All right, prediction number four. I agree. All right. Seven receivers in round one. Seven?

Run on receivers. I think if you look at just the receiver talent in this group, it's one of the better, I'd say, position groups in that first round range. There's a bunch of guys

that could come in immediately and produce for you. I think if you look at the, you know, the market for receivers is like exploding. So teams will see this as a potential value

to come in and grab receivers that can play on, you know, on a rookie deal, you're saving like millions and millions and millions of dollars with these guys

potentially coming in. Yeah, the Tyreek Adams deals make that great. It's almost like, yeah, it's like the cousin of the rookie QB salary thing, the rookie wide receiver salary thing. So I think there could be

something there. Plus, I just think if you really stack the board, a lot of these receivers are some of the best players in the draft, period. So I could see teams just being like, look, we're going to take the best player on our board, and this is this receiver. So you're thinking a little bit like the

Metcalf, A.J. Brown, Debo that whole year. Yes. Feaster Famine plus McCall Hardman. Andy Isabella was you that year? Yeah, I don't year. Yes. Feast or famine plus McCall Hardman. Andy Isabella was you that year? Yeah, I don't remember. Okay. All right. Last prediction. Last prediction is there's going to be at least one

super random dude in round one that I'm going to have to end up writing up on Thursday night because he's not in my top 100. Oh, like a total monkey wrench wildcard? Like out of left field guy lands in the first round. And I'm going to be like, what?

And I'm going to have to go and write him up real quick to put him in our draft guide. Because I was going to do 100. And I'm trying to cover all my bases here and have everybody I think could go in the first round in that draft guide. But I feel like this is the year. It's finally going to happen.

Some random dude. out of that draft guide. But I feel like this is the year. It's finally going to happen. So you feel like 20 to 120, like player number 20 to player number 120, there actually might not be the same kind of separation as always. I think this is

especially the year where that's the case. There's just this massive plateau. There's not really any top, top blue chip guys in this class. Yeah. There's just like,

like you said, 120 players that could be no late first rounders or whatever it is. There's just such a huge plateau there. And I had a really hard time narrowing my top 100 down because of that reason.

Like there's probably going to be some random offensive tackle that sneaks into the first round. That's not on my list. Oh my God. I hope it's not to the Patriots. offensive tackle that sneaks into the first round. That's not on my list. Oh my God. I hope that's not to the Patriots. It sounds like Belichick's dream draft.

All right, we have 40 seconds left. What do you want to Seattle to do? What's your dream Seattle scenario? My dream scenario is either Derek Stingley, the corner from LSU, or somehow

Kayvon Thibodeau falls number nine and they scoop him up right there. Wow, you think he could fall past the Jets? I don't know. I think the Jets fans would go nuts if they didn't take him. I've gone back and forth on it this entire draft period

because there's a lot of smoke around Thibodeau. The team's not liking Thibodeau as much as, quote-unquote, draft media does. So I think that there's this chance that he falls a little bit. So if it wasn't Thibodeau or Stingley, just one of the tackles. Boring, I know. One of the tackles. The Seahawks don't have any tackles, Bill.

Or you'd have a lot of things. Need a tackle. That was it. 15 minutes or less with Dan and Kelly. You can hear them on the Ringer Draft Show and then on Thursday Night as well. And you'll be updating live as the draft's going on. Oh yeah, we're going to be doing all kinds of stuff.

Have some coffee because I think it's going to be a boring draft. Good to see you, Data Kelly. You too. 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. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right. We're taping this part of the podcast. It is 1130 AM. So we're more reacting to last night's games and look at big picture. Our friend Jonathan Sharks is here from the ringer. First of all, it's awesome to see you. I know you were at both Dallas games. What was that like to see some

playoff basketball in person? Oh, thanks for having me on. It was fun. Actually, game two, the crowd was actually into it. It was funny. Game one was like the first game on Saturday morning. And of course, the Dallas crowd is up at halftime, basically. Everyone's getting their pregame brunch and whatnot.

But the game last night, I was like, okay, this is the juice. Everyone's into it. The stands are going crazy. And you're like, this is what you remember. This is what you miss. So they did the classic spread Utah out, try to use Gobert against the Jazz. They did the whole game plan perfectly

and it worked. But it also helped that Jalen Brunson had an out-of-body experience and everybody was talking about my God, he's going to get paid. I thought he was getting paid anyway. I think we both thought he was a very good player. What is different about when Luka's not out there? Does it change the way you think about, like if he went to a different team and he had his own team, he had his own car to drive, is there a higher ceiling with this guy like what we saw last night

or was last night a fluke? I would say last night. I would say last night was more about Utah's kind of inability to guard the ball. I mean, the number that's really wild from game two, I think Dallas had three turnovers all night without their primary ball handler, which just tells you there is just no pressure being put on the ball with Utah. It's just you walk it up, you get whatever you want.

They don't have a ton of different guys you can switch on to you. They don't have one or two good defenders. I would say with Brunson, the main thing is it's a little deceptive in that, okay, this guy's like six foot one and he's not super fast, but he's a bucket getter. That's really who he is.

He's a guy, he loves to get to like 15 feet, use the floaters, put his shoulder into you and just score. He's a primary score first player. I think if he was running his own show, you would see the numbers I like to look at with a guy like that is, okay, yeah, he's scoring a lot.

How many assists are you getting? How many free throws are you getting? To me, that shows real dominance. And he's not a high assist guy. He's not a high free throw guy. He's a guy who just gets buckets. I think this is the perfect spot for him. Though I would say that being a Dallas guy. Kirk Goldsberry had

a couple tweets today about the signature short range shot that Brunson had. And he does that thing where it's like the leading scorers by every zone. And Brunson has a specific zone where in front of the basket, it's Giannis. To the right of the basket, it's Mitchell. Right in front of the basket, it's Jokic from like three to six feet. And then from the other side, it's Brunson. Like that four to seven foot range. Now, there's some wild cards in this list. Like there's a zone that Russ is the number one scorer from.

P.J. Tucker from the right corner is somehow the leading scorer in that. So some of it's situational, but I thought Brunson was a name I did not expect. Then the other thing he had was out of 37 guards that took at least 200 shots between three and 10 feet, he said Brunson ranked first in efficiency this season, 57.5%, nearly 10 points higher than the NBA average for guards. That backs

up the eye test, right? Yeah. Brunson, he's like an old school pitcher. Remember Jamie Moyer? Yeah. You're thinking, okay, well, he's going to throw a little faster. He's like, no, I'm actually going to go slower. Right. Like I'm going to really, like Brunson's at his best. He's like, he's not a fast guy, but he plays into his strengths and he'll just go even slower towards the basket, throw you up with his change up. And he just needs a little bit of space to get his shot.

It's really, I mean, you can kind of see his dad being an old NBA point guard. He kind of has that old school YMCA mid-range game. And the nice thing, like last night, he hit a couple threes early. He normally doesn't take a ton of threes. Normally, he loves to get to that 10-15 foot area. Well, in game one, the Knicks sent

their brain trust mysteriously. Worldwide West was there. There were a couple other people. West has a long relationship with Brunson, but it's no secret that the Knicks are circling Brunson. What's the feeling in Dallas on, A, are they 100% bringing him back, or is there going to be a sign-and-trade potential?

Or B, is it just, this is it? This is the last run? Is it just up in the air, depending on how this plays? What do you think is going to happen? Well, I think the tough part for Dallas is that he's unrestricted. So the Mavs are a little more limited than in a normal setting with a younger player.

Ultimately, Jalen has the cards more than Dallas does. But they have the sign-in trade cards, though, if he wanted to make more money from a team that's a little bit over the cap. I think it's a couple things for Dallas. Number one, it's very hard for other ball handlers to be comfortable with Luka. So the fact that Jalen is comfortable with Luka is a huge plus for him. And I think number two for Dallas, you're in the classic spot where you're already over the cap, and then you have a guy coming into free agency. If you let him walk, you don't get any cap space.

You just lose him for nothing. So you're kind of forced to play his hand. I think for Dallas, no matter what happens, you're just like, bring this guy back. Worst case, he's an asset. Ultimately, it's like, what does this guy want to do? Does he want to be the number one somewhere else? And if he does, there's just not much you can really do about it. You just have to hope.

You're kind of forced to deal with the cards you've been given. Yeah. If he decides he wants to be in the Knicks, at some point, the Knicks can probably figure that out if they have to shed salary to make it happen or whatever. If I were advising him, not that I would, but I would stay in Dallas with Luca and do some sort of contract where it's like a no trade closet type of thing. But if he does get traded, he gets a bump so he can make even more money if he leaves. Like there's, there's ways to rig that. And I would, I mean, I personally think, is it a bad idea to play with one of the best scoring perimeter guys we've had in the last 20 years? Probably not. You know, you could go to whatever, pick a shitty team and you could be the guy there. You could be

Jeremy Grant in Detroit. But ultimately, I think this is a guy who likes winning and being in those spotlight in playoff games. And I just can't, I'd be surprised if he gave that up for a lottery team, basically. I mean, the Mavs are projecting confidence. They seem to be confident that he'll come back. But obviously, at the end of the day, it's his decision. I think one thing in their favor, there's been a lot of ex-Knicks coming through Dallas the last couple of years, from Hardaway to KP to Frank Nilekina.

So if Brunson wants to know how things go up there... Bullock. Bullock, yeah, he's been great in Dallas. There's a ton of guys who can tell him how things really go in New York if he wants a different perspective on what the Knicks are going to tell him. So that might play to the Mavs' favor as well. What was the optimism before Luka went hurt for this team? Were they thinking possible overachiever, final sleeper just because Luka is that great? Or

let's wait and see? Or this team's in flux? What was the mood? I think it was definitely in flux, but they were playing so well in the last few months of the season. And it just seemed like everyone had found their role. And after the whole KP experience, it's hard to underrate everyone having a role

that fits their game, being comfortable, being bought into a system. I mean, there was a ton of optimism. And then you're expecting, okay, the last few years, Lucas had to have this Clippers, Kawhi Leonard gauntlet in the first round. All of a sudden, this bracket's wide open. There are no Kawhis, no LeBrons, no KD even.

Well, and he gets Utah with no perimeter defenders that can handle him, which is great. That seemed like a break. Yeah, everything seemed to be lined up. And then, you know, game 82,

like it's just, what are you going to do, right? And now it's just like we're just trying to stay alive. I think the big thing for a game two last night, getting that win, means worst case,

he can come back game five with two weeks of full rest. I think that was what made it. And then you're not having to bring him back in Utah facing elimination at the very least. So I think that was major. And I'm just excited because I think now at least you'll see Luka in a game five at home in Dallas.

Worst case scenario. And the good thing for them, it's a well-coached team. As you said, everybody knows their role, even Bertans, whose role is just to basically lose ground every time he's in the game. The team's just going to lose, whatever lead that. But when I look at Utah, it's almost like if they can just be methodical and put Utah in a position to start having those warts popping up, That's where you want to be. Because that Utah team over, I don't trust them at all. I think over and over again, we've seen them, you know, when they're in these tense situations, they seem to go sideways. The Mitchell thing to me, I think it's so interesting. You know, like I went to the game on Sunday and I watched Tatum go toe-to-toe with Durant. He's guarding Durant and Kyrie. He's, as a two-way guy was just

absolutely elite. It was so impressive. He played 45 minutes doing everything he could to help the team win. And I'm watching Mitchell last night. They can't stop Brunson. Conley looked like he was on a bad wheel. And it's like, where's Mitchell? You're supposed to be one of the, if you are one of the best 15 players in the league, that goes both ends, dude. That's not just you can score and make some threes with three minutes left. Go defend the other team's best player. And over and over again,

it was Brunson just torching all of these different guys on the Mavs. I didn't understand it. I don't know why Mitchell didn't want the challenge. That's a great point. We were talking about it in the press box last night. At some point, you got to take Conley off Brunson like this guy's yes five like he's just getting killed out here and mitchell you're the best athlete on the perimeter on the team no one can stay in front of anyone

like this the really the only adjustment for quinn to make is say mitchell like you need to lock in on defense right now and just start playing ball because there's really not a lot of other moves he can really do and yeah you're right you would presumably you would think you look at Mitchell you watch how he plays there's no reason logically he can't be a good defender he's got a very he's not tall but got very long arms he's very powerful elite athlete I mean like and Jalen Brunson's dropping 40 on you at a certain point, you just got to make the adjustments, say, this is my guy. I'm slowing him down. I'm the best player. He never did it. And I expect in Utah, he's going to have to. Yeah. I wonder with Mitchell, he's kind of is who he is now for a couple of years here. And maybe this is just who he is. I don't know. Maybe he's like, I didn't vote him for all NBA, but he was right on the fringe. He was the seventh guard for me.

I only had six guard spots. He's right there. He has games where he looks awesome. He could have a game in game three where he could have easily have 50 points against Dallas. We wouldn't be surprised, but there's that one last piece. And I think as everybody talks about what's going to happen with this jazz

team, Quinn Snyder, is he going to be gone? What do you do with go bear? How do you shake this up? How much did the Miss Joe Ingalls, did this team make its run? And then you have the people on the other side going, no, no, no, no. This is a team that can win 47 to 53 games every year. Like, don't take that for granted. You want to add to that. But I come back to Mitchell. Can you be the best player on a great team? And I'm not sure. So I wrote about that during the season. Yeah, I remember. The next step for Utah, for Mitchell, I think ultimately is this. Okay,

you've been here five years. We've helped you grow a lot. But I think if you're Utah, Utah really can't sell Mitchell on, hey, we're going to bring in another superstar and we're going to go like one, two super team. That's just not Utah's... That's not really what they're going to be able to do. What they have to sell him is if you stay here, we can continue to grow your game, make you a better player.

And I think the obvious next move for Mitchell is to move him to point guard full-time. That does two things. One, if he's at point guard full-time. That does two things. One, if he's at point guard full-time, okay, automatically your points are going to go up, your assists are going to go up, your numbers are going to go up. And if your numbers go up, that moves you up the awards. It moves you up the rankings. This is important to players. That's the primary. And then secondary, if you move him to point guard, well, now we can put

actual size around you. And that's been the issue in Utah for me the last few years. They've had so many secondary ball handler types, like a Mike trust to run the offense full-time. You just get your numbers. You're part of a system and it's fine. We have guys who run the offense, control tempo, move the ball, and you just get your numbers. The problem is it's very hard to have those kind of players and those players also be great defensively. So you're kind of left with this catch-22. Either you can improve the defense around Mitchell or you can improve the playmaking and scoring around him. You're probably not going to improve both. Because if you were, you were getting Jason Tatum or something, right? Right.

So therefore, if Mitchell, to me, the next step for Utah, if he's going to stay in Utah, it's because he can keep growing his game. They'll say, we've got this great offensive system, great offensive coach. We can put you in a role to increase your statistics and then find better defenders around you. I mean, in the game, you're talking about like last night, they had to play Daniel House in the fourth quarter because they're just getting crushed on the perimeter. It's good to see him. Yeah, this is the guy who was on a 10-day contract a month ago.

Yeah. They're like, he's got to play. I always kind of like this guy. Yeah, Mitchell's, his stats are basically the same for the last four years. I mean, in 2019, he was 24 a game. This year, he's 26 a game. Not a lot of difference. The usage rate is in that low 30s.

And I agree with you. I think at some point, what is he? Is he just that kind of fringe all NBA guy who can get hot in a couple playoff games? Or is this a guy that should be used like Westbrook, 2017 know, 2017, 18 OKC, where he just has the ball all the time and try to leverage that? I don't really know the answer, but it does feel like this team is at the precipice of something. To me, it's more likely instead of Dallas winning this series, Utah losing this series. If I seesawed it, it would be more like we look back at this series like, wow, I can't believe Utah blew that series over.

Wow, I can't believe Dallas took that series. Dallas played great yesterday. And my takeaway was like, wow, I can't believe all the weird shit Utah did. You know, so I don't know where they go. From a Dallas standpoint, if they can somehow survive this, and as you said, get to game five, Luca, and just claw their way out of that series and get Luca at like 90%. I like a lot of the stuff they do.

You know, I don't, I don't think that's a fun playoff series for anybody with the shooters that they have in the, in the fact that they have an identity and the superstar at the end of games. I would not want to see them. Yeah.

Then Jason kid's been really good too. I got to say, he's passed every end of the game. So I would not want to see them. Yeah, and Jason Kidd's been really good too. I got to say, he's passed every test with flying colors. You know, people can learn from their mistakes. Imagine that. Right. I mean, two different coaching stints, but this version of him has been great. I mean, you think like if he had maybe,

I don't know what he learned from the Lakers and the LeBron stint, but it was obviously helpful. But if he had done this in Milwaukee, he'd probably still be coaching them, right? Yeah. And then for, you're right, with Dallas, it's like, it's so weird because right now with the Mavs, it's just about survival. It's just about get to the tomorrow, cloud wins without Luka. And then when you get Luka back, you're saying, we've got a player who can be the best player

in each series. And then not only that, the difference this year, we have the player who can be the best player in any series, and we play good defense around him, and we have a number two in Brunson. And if you have all those three things lined up, it's like, let's just take our chances and see what happens. But obviously now it's just ultimately just about Luka and how he can get back. It would be heartbreaking for me if he didn't get back this year, but you just never know.

Well, one last point on Dallas. Really weird year from a dysfunction standpoint where you have this huge lawsuit now with Donnie Nelson and all kinds of rumors. And I'm sure the stuff you hear when you're in the Dallas area and the stuff you hear at games is probably even crazier than just what I would read on Twitter, stuff like that. But is that stuff hanging over this team at all?

Or is it just kind of on the side? Nobody's talking about it. I'm hanging over the front office, hanging over ownership. I think on the team level, it's just like, we're just here. The players don't care.

Yeah. Nah, they don't even really notice. I don't, for the most part. Is that a big story in the Dallas area? Um, it's, I think it's one of those things, given the history of the organization,

given the climate we're in, everyone has just got 10-foot gloves. Everything is being handled so carefully. I'm sure you saw our old friend was tweeting last night about it. Yes, I did. No one wants to talk about that, obviously. So it's just like, no one wants to say anything. It's like, well, let the justice system decide all this because it's so touchy and controversial and no one really wants

to go out and allege it all about it. Well, the one thing that jumped out was that they offered him a pretty big settlement that he turned down, Donnie Nelson. I mean, a settlement that was large. It was, what was it, like 60, 65 million, something like that? And he said, no, that's too low. So when I saw that, I was like, Jesus, what's going on with this thing? Anyway, I'll look forward to the reporting.

All right, we're going to take a break. We're going to come back. I want to talk about the rest of the playoffs. Okay, what else? We've had one, two, three days of games. Anything shock you? Anything jump out from the couch watching? I mean, Celtics-Nets.

I'm sure you've talked about it to death now, but that was by far the best game of the first weekend. It was incredible. There's so many different elements to it. There's such a generational thing going on. I mean, that was awesome. That is like, okay, the other series, I want to stay up on them,

but Celtics-Nets is the one where it's like, I got to actually clear my calendar. I got to make sure to see this one because that's where all the juice is right now, it feels like for sure. Russell and I talked about it right after the game on Sunday, and I'm not sure I made this point hard enough. The Tatum-Durant thing that was going on was so fascinating minute by minute

during that game because I think Tatum comes into the league his first year, goes all the way to the conference finals, goes toe-to-toe with LeBron, had that dunk over LeBron in Game 7, took over for a couple minutes, but for the the most part was a pup in that series. Wasn't remotely ready for so much that came with it. And then he had these baby steps as he climbs.

I think going to the, playing for the America's team, being with these guys probably helped him realize I'm on the level of everybody else I'm going against. And then during the season, same thing. And the guy I saw Sunday was convinced that he was as good as Kevin Durant. And it wasn't like, I'm feeling it today. He was like, I'm as good as this guy. And that was how he approached everything. He guarded him. I think Kevin O'Connor said he guarded him on 37 plays in the game, which is a lot. And then in some of those other plays, he was jumping off Kyrie. But the two-way game that he played,

I didn't think it was like an amazing Tatum game. You know, like it was really good. But statistically, it was like he could probably do better. But the game that he played, I was just so impressed. And, you know, it's the kind of game that was what made Durant special once upon a time. The ability to score when you needed one, but the ability to, on both ends, to grab extra rebounds if the team

needs that, to guard whoever the other team's best forward is, stuff like that. And I don't know, it felt a little, it didn't feel big brother, little brother to Manny for. It felt like more peers. What did you think, Washington? Yeah, I mean, if you go back and look at it, you look at big brother, little brother to Manny for? It felt like more peers. What did you think watching? Yeah, I mean, if you go back and look at it, you look at KD's

career, and it's something he's talked about a lot in various pods. These kind of... KD can run point, but he's ultimately a scorer. And these big-time wing scorers, apex-mount, alpha-dog guys, they're all about those matchups.

It's not even always one-on-oneups. They say, yeah, not even, it's not even always one-on-one, but it's okay. When we're in a series, I know I can always score. Like I have an unlimited amount of offense. It's like a faucet. I can turn it on to max volume. No matter how many points you score,

I can score more than you. And if I'm scoring more than our team's best score, my team, that's my job as a scorer. My team has a chance to win the series. And if I'm scoring more than our team's best scorer, my team, that's my job as a scorer. My team has a chance to win the series. And if you go back historically, KD always wins his matchup. Even against LeBron when they

lost, KD was still scoring point for point with LeBron. He was. He was, right? In 2012. He was even. And then the one time last year against Giannis, it was literally Giannis to go game seven with the full squad over time. And KD was going point for point for him still. That's where KD's made his mark.

And that's what's so exciting to me about this. To me, it's like, it feels, I've always kind of said at the highest level, it's almost like tennis for these guys. It's like Federer, Nadal. And then there was a point somewhere along the line where it's like, okay, Jokov and then there was a point in like somewhere along the line where it's like okay Jokovic isn't the younger brother he's just on our level now and every series is like go time yeah and now we'll see like KD had a bad game you've got to

expect I expect him to come back with the heavy artillery this series he's not going to go down without swinging and now can Tatum match that Because that's the other thing too, like in the series last year, I think Tatum had like 40 points like twice and KD still outscored him in the series because that consistency night after night, 30, 35, 40 points. And that's like, that's basketball at its highest level.

That's what everyone loves to see. And I just can't wait to see this play out over a series because, yeah, I mean, Tatum for as great as he's been, this is what puts him in that conversation of top five. If you beat Kevin Durant in a series, that is passing the torch.

And he's done it once. Let's see it over seven games. I want to see it happen for him. You know, let's just see it happen before we crown him. Well, a series near and dear to your heart, 2011 OKC Dallas. Dirk beats up that whole Dallas, that whole OKC team, right?

And that OKC was the young guns, here they come. They weren't quite ready to win a series like that and Dallas veteran team, that kid, that Chandler. And you could feel like KD felt like a little bit of the younger brother in that series. But then as the next couple of years went on, all of a sudden he's KD. Same thing in the 2012 finals,

even though he matched LeBron point for point, LeBron was still older than him, way more experienced. And OKC a couple of times in that series where they took a couple of haymakers and they responded like a young team does. But then by 2017, he's like, I'm as good as this guy. And he parted, you know, I think he had like 35 a game in the 2017 finals. And he added like passing and defense to his game too over the years. Yeah. And if Tatum can, if the Celtics can get by Brooklyn, I think that will be a little bit similar of a moment for Tatum. I don't think, I think Durant, you know,

I'm on the record. I think he's like one of the 10 best players ever. I don't think Tatum's career will ever hit the peak Durant's has, but I think for his generation, he has a chance to kind of, you know, that would be the guy Durant would pass the torch to. Durant's been in the league 15 years, you know, and if you're looking at what forward is he going to pass the torch to, Tatum's probably the odds on favorite. So I think Tatum sees it and I think he senses it. I think he sensed it all year. I think Adoka, you saw yesterday when Marcus Smart got the Defense Player of the Year award and Adoka ran over. And I think this team really, I think he's had a huge impact on these guys, on the toughness and on the professionalism. And I think they talked to him about this, that you can be the guy in the league.

Whether that's true or not, they want him to think that. So that's what I saw on Sunday. I saw a guy who felt like he belonged on Durant's level. And then Kyrie's out there. He has no level. He's just like, I'm over here. I'm the best player who's ever lived. You want to boo me? Bring it on. I'm going to come out of timeouts, tell people to

fuck off. I'm ready to roll. Let's do it. So I'm with you. This series is amazing. We're taping this before Memphis, Minnesota, but I think that has a chance to be a junior version of this too. Just a super fun version of it. It's just two exciting young teams with multiple options. I mean, yeah, it's very deep, well-balanced. Yeah. And to go back to what you were saying about Tatum, yeah, and it's like, who knows historically? All these historical

conversations from people like us, right? For someone like Tatum, it's just about who's in front of you now. How long do you wear the crown? And who are your peers? How long do you stretch your prime out? How many guys can you beat? Beyond that, it's like, I mean, who knows, right? Just wear it as long as you can wear it. And after that, let people like us talk about it. One of the cool things about it is that they guard each other.

And I always thought that was an underrated rivalry thing because people would always talk about bird and magic, but they didn't actually guard each other. In Jordan, I think one of the issues, if there were any issues with the last dance era, was it was really Drexler was the only person who played his position who was a real rival, and then he just destroyed him in the 92 finals. I love when the rival is actually the head-to-head rival.

That was what made 2017 so much fun because I felt like the guys when the rival is actually the head-to-head rival and that was what made 2017 so much fun because they felt like the teams I think were a little more even than people realized and both of those guys played great in that series

Durant and LeBron was really really as high level as either of them could go yeah and kind of what we were talking about with Mitchell before at a certain point

like you've got to take that responsibility and that to me that's what makes basketball so great it's only one of the major sports where it's like, yeah, you got to guard me. I got to guard you, but you got to guard me. That's the only sport where the quarterbacks are guarding each other or the pitchers are pitching to each other. That's what makes basketball different. For as good as you are in this series tonight, you've got to go through me. A good example of that is Drew Holiday. No one's going to say Drew Holiday is better than Dame or

Chris Paul. But in a series where I get to guard you one-on-one, he's taken both of their lunch a couple of times. Just because I'm that good at defense, I get you in a series where it's just me and you and no one else. And the game just totally changes. And it's awesome to see. Yeah. Any surprise potential 180s we could see during this? I know it's early in the playoffs, but are there teams that you've just written off?

Because I feel like I've written off Denver. I've written off New Orleans. I think I've written off Chicago. So there's three. Then Dallas, Utah is up near the Brooklyn series, obviously. Memphis. Is there anybody else?

Those feel about right. To me, Utah is another team. We've been talking about it. Win or lose, you would write them off for round two? I think so, especially with Phoenix looming. With Utah, and we're talking about everything we've win or lose, you would write them off for round two? I think so. Especially with Phoenix looming. I mean, with Utah, I was like, and we're talking about everything we've seen in this series.

It all happened last year. They had the exact same problems last year, and their solution was to sign Rudy Gay. It never made much sense to me after what happened the year before. I guess in terms of writing off, you had Denver's in a tough hole right now. It feels like right now,

like the first round, there's only like three series that really feel super competitive. It feels like we're kind of, it's a really slow build this year. Yeah. Rookies. I voted for Barnes for Rookie of the Year.

And I battled between Barnes and Moby the whole time. And I just thought Barnes' contribution on a good team was meaningful. Cade was pound for pound the most talented rookie from an upside standpoint last year. And that was somebody we debated a lot. If you redid that draft,

would you still have Cade won? Well, I had Mobley won last year. No, but I'm saying if we both did, but if we redid it now, would you have Cade or Mobley? I would still have Mobley. Okay, I would too. It's just in terms,

I mean, for Mobley, Cade for as good as he is, I just feel Mobley has higher levels to go. Me too. I think, look, I just have skill set. And I just think like, for me also, I look at too, is just the way the game is going.

I think seven foot guards are the future. If I can get a seven foot guard, I'm just going to take that. Literally, and I was sleeping on how good Mobley could be as a guard, as a rookie. That's what's really incredible is he's playing guard. They have Jared Allen at the center.

Mobley's at the perimeter on the three point line. He's handling the ball, making all the passes. It's like, if I have a seven footer who can do that, I will take that version. For me, that's what it comes down to, these very high levels, right?

I want that kind of player more than any other kind of player. And like Cade, for as good as he is, is a six foot six point guard. I'll take a seven foot wing over a six foot six point guard every day of the week. Yeah, I think that's where I've landed as well. I think the passing is the thing that pushes it over the top for me with Mobley.

He's just one of those guys that he just brings a ton of stuff to the table and he doesn't take anything off the table other than the fact that he can't shoot threes yet. But I like that he is trying them. He's not, oh my God, I shouldn't shoot this. He's like, I'm going to keep shooting these because three years from now, they're going to start going in. Other than that, everything he does is additive. Yeah yeah and i think the passing is the key thing with mobi it probably is a little underrated is like yeah that's what makes everything else work in terms of playing him as a wing next to jared allen it's the ability to make passes and cracks find the openings allows you to play without ideal spacing like it's it's that

combination of skills together is what unlocks everything. And then also too, if you're already a good passer, that to me, that's the ultimate level of this guy can see the game. Like it's a leading indicator.

If you're a good passer, that means you're a really smart player. It means you're pretty good at selfish. It means you have a high basketball IQ. Everything else can fit around you if you're a great passer when you're an elite player. So we go Mobley one,

Cade two? No? Who's your two? I think after this year, I would have Barnes over him too. Wow! I'm not as big a Cade guy as most people. Interesting.

Pick that for what it is. I mean, Barnes to me, he's six foot nine he could also run point more or less like be a primary be a playmaker create his own shot

the number I look at too a lot I think is two point percentage yeah to me it's like always been the worrisome part with Cade

it's like he doesn't consistently create his own shot I think very efficiently that's just a hard skill that's something he doesn't really have in his game as far as I've seen.

So yeah, I would go Mobley and Barnes. I might even put Franz Wagner over. Me and Kyle debated this back on Upside High a few weeks ago, and then K exploded. I'm not trying to say I'm hating on K, but there's a lot of really big, really fast, really skilled guys. This is a very, very good draft, obviously.

Oh my God. From a basketball card standpoint, you throw in Kaminga, you throw in Jalen Green. It really has a chance to be one of the iconic classes. I remember there was 2013 Panini made cards that year, but there were no cards in 2012. So it was the two classes together. So it was the 2011 and 12 drafts. So it was like Davis, Kawhi, Dame, Paul George. And it's just like this crazy box that you could get. And I feel like that draft's going to be the same. All right. This year's draft quickly. Jabari Smith on FanDuel is the favorite to be the number one pick. He is plus 105. Chet's second at around 2-1. And then Paolo is plus 270. We talked about this on the Ringer Gambling Show today.

And my advice there was, I think Jabari's going to be the number one pick. And I think this is our last chance to have plus odds on Jabari, basically, because by the time we get to June, as more and more people study his shooting, how bad his guards were, how he just fits in to pick a lottery team.

He fits in with them. There's no lottery team where it's like, ah, we can't, don't know what we're going to do with this 6'9 shooter who's just a good athlete. I don't know if he's going to play for us. I think by the time we get to the,

around the draft, he's like minus 200 at least. Where do you, what's your top three now? Do you have Jabari first still? No, I've been a check guy all year. I'm still a check guy. When you all shake it all out. But you don't think he's going

first though? Oh, in terms of how it's going to shake out in the draft, like the order. I mean, I've heard a lot of Jabari buzz recently in terms of teams really loving his game. But I got to say, ultimately, I respect anybody who gambles on a draft order before the draft order is set. I respect that because that's literally gambling. I mean, obviously, it depends on who goes number

one, which team. I mean, every team is different, right? What do they value? It's hard to say. I mean... But at the very least, Paolo's not going to go first, I don't think. I think that's the one we can cross off. It seems like it, but I think there's an argument for it. I'm very confused. To me, I'm surprised at the amount of Jabari buzz there is. I didn't see him and say, oh, he's for sure the best player in this draft this year.

I'm a little surprised, honestly. What worries you about him? I think, number one, I was talking about two-point percentage. And yes, he's had bad guards. But I went back and looked at the last 10 years. So guys who played college basketball their last year of college, who went in the top five,

care to guess where Jabari Smith's two-point percentage is? I thought it was probably 60, 70 guys. Like 50 guys who were top five in the last 10 years. Oh no. Can you guess where it is? Is he near the bottom? Dead last. Ooh.

By a significant margin. Uh-oh. Not the end of the world, but to me that just tells you this is not a guy who's getting easy shots for himself. He's a guy who depends, you're right, like he had bad guards, but what does that tell you?

He's like, he needs to be set up. He's not one who's going to, not only is he not going to get shots for himself, he's not setting anyone else up for shots either. And that to me is the concern if he's number one. I would like to have somebody who can create his own shot, create shots for others if he's my number one overall pick. And that's me. I think Chet and Paolo are ahead of Jabari in those categories Jabari is the best shooter but it's like that is a by necessity

that's a skill that means you're the number two for somebody else right if you're on the perimeter spotting up you're not the primary option you're spacing the floor

for someone else to be the primary whereas I think Chet and Paolo can handle a bigger load on offense and let me make the case for Chet real quick yeah I want to hear it if you look at last year's draft okay And Paolo can handle a bigger load on offense. And let me make the case for Chet real quick.

Yeah, I want to hear it. If you look at last year's draft, okay, who were the two players who rose the most after the rookie season? In the draft, it would be Scotty Barnes and Franz Wagner. Now, if you go back to that last year in college, these are both guys who only averaged like 10, 11, 12 points a game.

They weren't primary options. And I think everyone recognized that they were very skilled. They were top 10 picks, top five for Scottie. But it was at the end of the day, when a guy's not scoring a lot, it's kind of hard sometimes to see him. You don't necessarily expect, oh, a guy's going to go to the NBA and score more than he did in college. But that does happen. It happened with Scottie, happened with Franz. And you look at their efficiencies, they're very efficient in a smaller role in college, which indicated maybe there's room, untapped room.

And then Chet was incredibly efficient. I think one of the most efficient seasons ever at Gonzaga. I think there's more room to grow there on offense than people might realize. And then everything else he does, he's seven feet. He's an excellent defender. He's a really smart player. He's got the length on everyone. I think there's room for

Chet to grow that people aren't giving him enough credit for. Wow. All right, so Houston gets first pick. Who would you want? You think they'd take Chet or Jabari? If they already passed on Mobley, that's why I wonder. Is Chet in a lot of ways like a lesser Mobley?

So if you already passed on Mobley once... But did you pass on it because you love Jalen Green? Maybe. Me personally, I would take Chet number one almost regardless. I think for Houston, it'd probably be Chet or Jabari, yeah. If I'm looking at teams that I just know if Chet goes there, he's going to fail. Houston, Orlando,

Detroit, OKC, Indiana, Portland. Orlando's the one that jumps out at me. And I don't think they would take him either because they have 100 centers, but I just don't like the thought of him in Orlando. I think Orlando's the team I would bet on the most with Tech Chat because they're so wingspan oriented, right?

These are the guys from Milwaukee. They drafted Mo Bamba six basically because he had long arms a couple of years ago. They're going to pass up on the big wingspan length, seven footer. I don't think so. Plus him and him and Jayden Suggs play high school ball together.

So there's that little connection as well. I feel like we have to bring in Steve Cerruti for a quick second. Diehard Orlando Magic fan. One of two on the ringer staff somehow. Cerruti, given all the Orlando baggage with this team and some of the big man misfires,

can you walk us through your emotions just hearing Chark say that Chet was a good option for the Orlando Magic? I agree with him. Whoa! What's going on? If I had the first pick, I'm to the point where I would be disappointed if the Magic didn't take Chet because, again, all the

things that he can do, and you're 100% right, Chark, he is... If the Magic could create a guy in a lap that they would draft, it would be Chet Holmgren. That is who they take. That is their history. Now, their draft lottery luck is terrible, so I assume they won't get the first pick, but I would genuinely be disappointed if they didn't take Chet number one.

Wow. Maybe we should be looking at Chet for the odds. I think Chet was plus 190, something like that. Maybe Chet's the guy. Maybe that's the bet. If Orlando wins the lottery, I would hammer Chet real hard that night

before the odds move too much. That's what I would do. And then you don't have to pay Bomba either. So there you go. It's a win-win. So you let Bomba leave.

I mean, you already won with the freaking Vucevic trade. Jesus. Oh, yeah. It's highway robbery. How about Orlando finally winning a trade?

When was the last time that happened? I guess you definitely won the Dwight Howard trade because you got a whole bunch of things. Well, the trade nobody won, but yes. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then a little more with Charks. All right, Charks is still here.

Before we go, let's get an update. You wrote a beautiful essay about what's going on with you physically and some of the challenges you've had over the last years for the ringer. You talked about it with Kyle on the Upside High Pod. Where are you at? How's life looking right now? It's been a very, very surreal experience. I think where I am right now is I'm reaching the limits of what conventional medicine can do for me medically. So I'm moving into this very new world of experimental treatments, clinical trials, alternative therapies. And it's a very surreal thing because there's no safety net anymore. When I got diagnosed, the traditional medicine, traditional chemotherapy options,

the thought was at the very least, they would buy me some time. These have been proven to work in similar treatments, et cetera, et cetera. But now it's like we're past that. And now the doctors are kind of flying blind. I'm flying blind. And I always tell people, you never want to be on the cutting edge. When you get diagnosed with cancer, get yourself a very simple diagnosis. Any oncologist can make. If you got to get one where you got to fly out to see an expert, that's not where you want to be. Unfortunately, that's where I am.

And so right now, I'm living day by day and I'm just praying for a miracle, honestly. So how rare is the cancer that you have? According to the, I talked to a researcher in my, and the sarcoma, so I have a sarcoma and sarcomas are 1% of all cancers. And then among my sarcomas, I have a very rare one. The number that was given to me was one in 25 million. Jesus.

Does your age help at all, the fact that you're a young guy? Well, that's the weird thing is most people who get these kinds of sarcomas are actually teenagers. So I'm actually even more of an exception that I was so old when I got it. And unfortunately, no. The funny thing is kids actually respond better to chemotherapy than adults. It's one of those weird things because their immune system is recovering faster. So actually it's not. Unfortunately, I'm young for his life, but old for this kind of cancer, unfortunately. And you've been through like two pretty major rounds of chemo at this point. What are the cycles for that? I mean, chemo is like, it's very, there's a lot and each one is different.

So for me, I was on one. I was on two where I was getting it five days a week, every other week, every third week. And I did those for about a year. And now I'm on some new chemos now. And the difference is basically is the chemos I'm on now, they're more about, hey, we're just trying to stop the growth of it and then do experimental therapies that might work. But they're not expecting these chemotherapies to actually get rid of the cancer. Whereas the first two I tried, there was a chance they could actually

get rid of it. But that's now looking unlikely. So you're trying to buy time until there's a better version of the medicine you need. Well, unfortunately, that was the goal. Now we're just rolling with whatever the better version is now. So the goal was I buy three or five years. And then in that time, research has progressed. And maybe the stuff I'm trying now is further along.

But unfortunately, there's no more time to buy. So now I'm just kind of rolling the dice. I'm going to be enrolling in like a... For the doctors, I'll buy, I'll be in a phase one clinical trial. Where clinical trials, there's three phases normally. And I'll be at the very beginning. So it's like, whatever's out there, we're just going for it and just hoping for the best. And how are you feeling day to day these days? Are you tired? What are some of the side effects lately? It's tough.

What seems like the basic rhythm I'm in right now is when I'm not doing chemotherapy, the cancer is progressing. So I'm feeling the effects of the cancer. And then when I'm doing the chemotherapy, the cancer is not progressing, but I'm feeling the effects of the chemotherapy. So it's almost like one or the other. Yeah. And then over time, your body starts to

wear down. I'm just tired a lot. I've been doing this now for a year plus. And then what I've realized is in a lot of ways, I have the maturity of my two-year-old son and that when I feel bad physically, I'm grumpy. I'm not feeling good. I'm crabby. But when I feel okay physically, I feel better mentally and emotionally as well. But when you're feeling sick all the time, it just wears on you. And you've been, but you were at least like, you're able to go out, you're able to walk around sometimes. Like you went to the two basketball games. Does that depend on what kind of energy you have? It's more like I'm able to do, I can still do stuff like that, but I just have less energy after. So it's like, okay, now to recover physically. And that's hard too, is you have to accept that you can't do as many things as you

would when you are healthy. I remember me and my wife were talking about my goals. And then I'm listing my goals for the day. And she's like, that's a lot of stuff to do. You're not healthy. Right. So it's hard. You have to adjust your mindset. That's almost the biggest thing. What kind of feedback do you get for the piece? I know it was pretty overwhelming. Yeah. I mean, people, I definitely, or definitely an overwhelming response. There's just so many people who reached out and were just really said a lot of kind words. And it's, I, what I've, I've found in with this kind of, when you have this kind of situation, you just kind of, you hear

so much and people will say, hey, I really moved by this piece. I've gone through X tragedy in my life. I've gone, my kids, my parents, my spouse, myself. And you're just like, man, you kind of go through life with like, you're not even really paying attention a lot of times and how much like pain and suffering is in the world. You go through something like this and your eyes are opened because you know it's like you want to feel sorry for yourself when you hear so many stories you're like man actually no i actually have a kind of good compared to this person like it's just it's crazy when you put a piece out like that how much is there a line where you're like i I'm not sure I want to share this? Or do you feel like you're at the stage where it's like, I actually want to share this. I feel like

I might be able to help other people. As you're putting yourself out there like that, is there anything holding you back? I mean, that's a good question. I think for sure, it's very hard to be that open about it. And I think for me, what changes how I look at it is my faith and the chance to talk about my faith with it'd be tough. I'd be like, you know what? This is pretty personal. This is just for me and my family. Because it is like, it's weird. It's definitely weird to put yourself out there like that. And I think without that element of, I probably wouldn't. But it's like, okay, no, this is a chance to talk about this, how I've gotten through

this experience, what's been important to me. And then it's like, okay, now all this very personal things, it's not just like kind of exhibitionism and putting it out there to put it out there. Like there's a greater purpose behind it. There's a message behind what I'm trying to say. And I think that is what gives me, that's what allows me to do that, I think. Well, so what would have happened the last year or so if you didn't have that faith? I'd probably be like Christian Bale, the first Batman movie,

like was wandering Asia, looking for a Buddhist mentor, drinking all the time. It's like, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, especially the podcast you did with Kyle, it was so intense, like you talking about it. And I don't know, you're right. Like sometimes we can drift through life and we do these, you know, whatever. Like we just talked about basketball for 45 minutes and then that becomes the next day and you just kind of go and you don't take a lot of people are asking about you and just how's he doing is the most common thing. So that was one of the reasons I wanted to have you on. Well, I appreciate you saying that.

Yeah. And kind of what you were saying, I talked about this in a piece I wrote maybe last year. I love this metaphor and it's like this metaphor about life and kind of how like life and modern society, it's like you're a car driving on a cliff and you look around and there's just billboards everywhere. And it's like the billboards are like Netflix, sports, culture, politics, news. And you think that's everything. All of a sudden you reach the cliff and the billboards are gone. And you're like, where was I headed? What was I doing? I'm here now. What's going

on? It's like, you never know. That's life, really. It's when those billboards are gone. You have to decide what you think is meaningful and important to you. You always have a place on this pod anytime you want to shoot the shit about hoops. You just tell me.

Tell them about the uh what else do we need to know what do the listeners need to know about like you have a website that your wife's doing what else oh yeah yeah um yeah my wife she's doing a she owns a caring bridge where it's just a little more if you're interested in like the kind of nitty-gritty of my illness and the more like if you really like yeah like she just kind of updates it and talks about it. That's the main thing. Um, yeah, other than that, I'm just, you know, I'm just living day to day. I'm just believing in the best and I'm praying. I'm just praying and hoping for a miracle.

All right. Well, I look forward to talking about the playoffs with you later in the postseason. I really appreciate that. And I've, of course I love, I've really appreciated ringers been awesome. You've been great. And it's really been meaningful to me to just be cared for like that from my company. It really is meaningful. And I appreciate that a lot.

Well, you've been with us since day one. I told you we were, we were talking about you. I think it was like two, like near the end of Grantland. We were kind of, that was when you first went on our radar. And as soon as we started the Ringer,

when we were talking about basketball writers, you were always on every list we have, you were on it. So we always knew like at some point something was going to happen for you. I'll tell you a funny story, actually. I think you'd appreciate this. So right after I got hired at The Ringer,

I met my wife like a week later. And then we're starting to date. Yeah. It's like bam, bam. We're starting to date. And then she tells her dad and she's like, I don't know about this guy. He's like a sports writer bam, we're starting today. And then she tells her dad and she's like, I don't know about this guy. He's like a sports writer. I don't understand this career

exactly what's happening. And then her father-in-law goes, he works for Bill Simmons. It'll be fine. Like, don't... Oh, that's high praise. Yeah. So there you go. It was an important step in my journey in many ways. All right. Well, that was good, dear. Sharks, take care of yourself. I look forward to talking to you about basketball later this postseason.

Good to see you. For sure. Have a good one, man. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Danny Kelly. Thanks to our guy, Jonathan Sharks. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing. Thanks to Steve Mahoney. Thanks to Danny Kelly. Thanks to our guy, Jonathan Charks. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing.

Thanks to Steve Ceruti. Thanks to Dylan Berkey. Back on this feed on Thursday night. Go Suns. I don't have.