The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Truly Sad Week in America, Plus the 2005 NBA Redraftables With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the recent protests, both nationwide and in L.A., after the death of George Floyd while in police custody (1:45). They then speculate on salvaging the 2019-20 NBA season (41:45) and revisit the 2005 NBA draft and discuss some of its subplots, draft comedy, and NBA legends before redrafting the top 14 lottery picks (1:04:05). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network brought to you by ZipRecruiter. We know things are going to be a little bit up in the air here for the upcoming football season. We don't know if we're going to be getting into games for a couple months, how they're going to do tickets, how you're going to order food and drink, are you going to be able to sit next to each other. Some things remain certain, like our presenting sponsor, ZipRecruiter's Mission. With everything happening this year, they're still dedicated to helping people find jobs and helping growing companies hire for their teams. If you're looking for a job, ZipRecruiter's app will send you up-to-date job openings

so you can be one of the first to apply by connecting job seekers with employers. ZipRecruiter, committed to keeping our workforce strong. ZipRecruiter.com slash work together. We're also brought to you by the ringer.com and the ringer podcast network where we launched a new podcast recently. It's called higher learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay. They taped earlier today, uh, about everything that happened this weekend. I thought it was really great. I'm so happy to have them here at the ringer. And, uh, I really highly encourage you to listen to that podcast. We are proud of it and have high hopes for it. So coming up, Rasul and I, this is basically a two-part podcast

because we had taped the 2005 NBA Redraftables on Thursday and thought on Sunday we would just put something here at the top that would lead into the Redraftables. And then you know what happened over the last few days. So we talk about that at the top and then just a little bit about the NBA finally come to a consensus with the 22 teams. It looks like in Orlando and then, uh, the redraftables after that. Um, I really hope everybody's staying safe out there and, uh, and I hope you're doing okay. I hope your family's doing okay. All right, here we go.

All right, we're taping this. It is Sunday night, almost seven o'clock PT. There's a weekend unlike any other weekend I can remember leading into the Sunday night podcast. Ryan Russillo is here. The country is in complete chaos. I don't know any other way to begin than that, and it doesn't seem like there's a roadmap to getting out of this. And it feels like it's going to get worse and worse.

And I'll let you start. I have something I wanted to say. But what has been your reaction watching all this all weekend? I was going to start by asking you because you've lived here longer. Want me to take it? Yeah. I mean, you've been here almost 20 years. and then i think both of us know going into this and i haven't had anything to say on social media because i just didn't feel like a tweet

was going to solve any problems but i don't blame anybody for you know just trying to say the right thing and say that the nice thing um but it's it's been uh i mean i don't really know how to use it i don't have a perfect adjective for this week because it's been it's been, uh, I mean, I don't really know how to use it, but I don't have a perfect adjective for this week because it's been, it's been unreal, but why don't you start? Because you, you've lived here far longer than I have. Yeah. I'd always heard about that 92 to 95 stretch here in LA when it felt like all hell had broken loose and you'd had the Rodney King riots, the verdict, the fires, uh, the OJ,

that whole disaster, and then the verdict for that. And the way it was discussed in the 2000s, as I got to know more and more people who lived here and just what it was like, it was just complete chaos and real fear and a huge spotlight on what a divide it was between the classes and different races, things like that. And just really ugly scars that as I lived here from 2002 on, it seemed like, I don't want to say they've healed, but there was distance. And it just seemed further and further away.

And now it's just back. And you look at that Melrose-Fairfax area, which was one of my happiest places to go in LA, certainly one of the most popular. And to see the Grove in peril, it seemed like they kind of fended it off a little bit. But then Melrose, Fairfax just getting destroyed. It was just surreal to watch. These are places, you know,

my son's baseball field was a block from that 7-Eleven where for like 45 minutes yesterday, it was kind of ground zero for the police versus the protesters and the Grove, all that stuff. So just seeing that in a place that you live was surreal. And, you know, it's playing out all over the country, obviously. And there's so much anger right now. And, you know, I, I, I just look at it from, I get it. I actually understand it. And I don't like what happened

the last few days, but I get it because I've never been in the position personally where I've been pushed to a point where I felt like I had no recourse, but you know, and it, it just, you could feel that the last couple of days, people push to the point that they felt like they had no other recourse, but, and it's, it's just scary and it's sad. And it's, it was an unforgettable weekend. Yeah. Sad's, uh, how I feel about a lot of it here. And I think you're smart to kind of preface it. It's just, Hey, we're, this is your pod i come on every sunday and we talk about it and you know i've lived out here now for like two years and um it was weird this morning getting some calls being like hey what if this heads because this was different this was like hey we're marching towards beverly hills and

and wiping out as you mentioned the grove and then s then Santa Monica has been chaos all day on Sunday. And for those that understand Santa Monica, where you're seeing the looting, which has evolved from protesting, which I think are two completely different things, which I think is important for us to talk about and point out at some point. But that area of Santa Monica is this amazing little waterside community where you're at the pier, you're a block and it's malls and it's amazing restaurants and the equinox that i used to go to was over there and it was just a free-for-all all day today and it still kind of is by the time of this taping stuff being lit on fire and that's really not that far it's just it just becomes completely different when you're not watching the news and you're going like wait a minute what are the local updates

like what happens if people decide to start going south or what happens? So that's the part of this where it was like, hey, whoever was organizing this, and again, that's the topic that we need to discuss. It was like, we're going after some of the higher end areas. So I think sad is the best way to describe it because I'm sad for so many different people. I'm sad for a bunch of different reasons. And when you watch the George Floyd video, the first is you feel I would hope is sadness you go I can't now I understand anger too but you're going how can how can this happen how can you hear this man screaming for his life and and you're just you're killing him

and you're not doing anything and your partners aren't doing anything and it's like all right now it's quarantine it's been three months of people basically have been inside and it's people feeling like hey and it's black people going you know we tried to protest peacefully in the past and you didn't do anything you didn't listen there isn't police reform um you know i can't imagine what it feels like to feel like the world is out to get me and i don't want to feel naive as a white person, but I think there are times where I know on much less important racial issues where I've done like, oh, is this coach paid more than this coach? Or is this coach losing his job because of this?

And it becomes a race topic. And I do a bit of an eye roll as a white guy. And then there's times I'll look back and be like, am I doing this wrong? Should I feel guilty about these things? And the much bigger issue deals are when we're talking about police brutality and there may be that white guy that's like, I don't know if it's really as bad as everybody says it is. And you think, yeah, but you don't know. You can't possibly know what it's like to be a black person that fears the police all the time. And so that anger with the climate of who's running the country, the climate of 1,000

police shootings a year, and the stats that show not only black men, but unarmed black men so much more likely to be shot, these things are indisputable. And all of that coming to a head and on top, like I said, like, Hey, we tried to do the peaceful protest before and that didn't work. But then I'm sad because the protest that was trying to maybe get people that do that eye roll as a white guy to pay a little bit more attention this week, that now some of the people that may have had an open mind about this are looking at not the protesters, but the looters who look like everybody, by the way, white, black, male, female, you name it, just breaking into sneaker

shops where it's no longer about George Floyd. It's about rare Jordans. And, and you may lose any of the support that you had because people are looking at just parts of different cities all over the country being destroyed. And that's another part where I feel incredibly sad because now I'm afraid the person that may have thought about changing the mind the way they looked at some of the social issues is going to go, I don't know, whatever. And it's like, no, man, that's not, those aren't the protesters. Those aren't the protesters. Those are assholes. Those people suck. And those people have a mask on and they're going in and they're grabbing sneakers and they're ruining a local business and they're taking this moment to be an opportunist instead of trying to actually do anything like they're doing the reverse of doing something for change because they're only making it worse. So I know there's a long rant, but I'm just trying to get a lot of stuff in there. And that these last few days and watching it all unfolds like what the end of the week is, is not what the beginning of the week was supposed to be about. And you go back to George Floyd, I think there's two reasons the anger is at a whole other level

this time around before we even get into the Trump piece. The first is what you said about the pandemic and the fact that we are in the scariest American moment since God knows when, from an economy standpoint, from a job standpoint, from a future standpoint, there is no light at the end of the tunnel with smaller businesses, with a lot of the businesses that, you know, either thrived or, or were pretty good for America for a long time, whether it was restaurants, whether it was concerts, whether it's sporting events, like you go on down the line. Um, I think there's, there's real fear about that. And then the George Floyd thing, we, you know, I remember when Ferguson happened and it was basically the same beats, um,

and people getting upset, but then you, they would list the names of it's happened again. And they go back all the way to like Oscar Grant, the guy that made the Fruitvale station movie about. And it just seems to happen every couple of years. And we have the same kind of outrage cycle. I just thought in two, maybe I'm just naive. Maybe I'm just too glass half full, but I just thought by 2020, if you're a cop and you're putting your knee

into somebody's throat who is in handcuffs and can't fight back anyway, and you're just draining the life and the oxygen out of that dude until he dies, his three-year partners are standing there watching. I think what made people so mad besides the video of just watching somebody die unnecessarily was like, we've been here before. We should know by now. This is like basic 101, learn from the past. And it's just the past happening over and over again. So I think you take those two pieces, that kind of anger that is just, you know, is unlike anything I've seen since I've been alive. I wasn't alive in 1968. And then on top of it, you have a president who has been trying to divide people

since he took over. Since he took office, you date, you know, the pivotal moment for him was September of 2017. And I remember writing a column about it for the ringer when the Kaepernick thing happened and how he dealt with that. Um, that set the tone. It's a lot of code dog whistle shit. And he did it again. The last three days, he did it when the looting starts, the shooting starts. When you pull a quote like that and you just say that it's not a coincidence that that has roots back into the 1960s and dredges up a whole bunch

of shit. It just seems like he wants to divide and he's the divider in chief in so many different ways. And you look at these last four days, is he leading? Is he trying to help? Is he trying to pacify or is he trying to divide? It seems like he's trying to divide. Yeah. Which actually surprised me a little bit tactically if he wants to be reelected like he's trying to divide. Yeah, which actually surprised me a little bit tactically if he wants to be reelected, just because it's like, look, you already have your base. The people that voted for you are voting for you again. So I don't know that you have to be this antagonistic

throughout the whole thing. Now, look, I'm not exactly a guy that had a hope bumper sticker on his car during the Obama stuff, but I know this. And look, the way I would vote is I would vote selfishly. I think most of us vote selfishly. Like I voted for tax purposes, you know, I voted for tax purposes when I had no money and I had voting. And I know some people can say, well, that's pretty self. I actually think most people vote selfishly anyway. Um, I also think that people that I know that voted for Trump, I don't know that they did it because they're this,

this, you know, the person that's getting off on all of these horrible tweets. I think they looked at Hillary and were like, I'm sick of the Clintons. I think they're crooks too. And that's why I went and voted this way, you know, and like that I kind of get. And if you voted for Trump, you don't want to be wrong. Like if you're super passionate about it and you're very conservative, and this isn't a criticism of it, but let's face it, like you just don't want to be wrong. You don't want to be, you don't want to believe that you could be so wrong about a president. But I do know this is that even if you didn't like Obama or you didn't like his policies, sometimes a leader, it's nothing more complicated than just saying the right fucking thing, man. Just being decent

in the moment, saying something that makes people feel better about themselves. Hundreds of millions of people in a country that you are the leader of supposedly. And just like, Hey man, can you say something that makes us feel a little bit better? And Trump just seems to be incapable of it. Like he's incapable of understanding tone or he understands tone so well that he ignores the fact that, you know, he, he could even say anything that would make people feel better. And at this point too, like it's just too late. It's too many years in office. It's too many quotes. It's too many instances. It's all these different things. But you you know, look, the Dallas brick thing that didn't make any sense. Like seeing videos of these pallets of bricks just dumped off strategically throughout the city. And you're like, wait a minute, like, that's probably not a black lives matter deal. Is it

like, that seemed weird. But then at the same time too, like I watched a sneaker shop out of Fairfax get worked for a half an hour on the news. And it was like, this isn't about a, this isn't about a protest anymore. So like I could find any video I wanted. And you know, that's the thing that always bothers me where it's, it's this constant selling of a message. The message was, is that this whole thing got co-opted into something super fucked up by the end of the week that the whole, I hope the message isn't lost because something needs to

change. Like I don't, I would hate if there's a younger generation of black people growing up in this country, Bill, where they just feel like everyone is out to get them. And if you're young and black and that's the way you feel, I can't tell you that that's not true. But as a white guy, you know, that I think a lot of times too we'll do this thing where it's like well hey i treat people well i'm a good person i haven't look at you bill look at the people that you've hired look at the company that you've started look at the jobs and the opportunities you've given a diverse group um which i know you're always looking to do you know i'm not bullshitting i'm not kissing up to you here like this is these are facts like you have tried for a very long time to make sure you're hiring looking to do. I'm not bullshitting. I'm not kissing up to you here. These are facts.

You have tried for a very long time to make sure you're hiring as diverse as possible, and you've done these things. And so every now and then it can be like, oh, it's just two white guys talking about race again. But I don't know if you look at this stuff as a white guy and you go like, can you imagine at any point if you were treated poorly, you would hold a grudge, right?

I hold grudges all the time when I have experiences with people where I'm like, why is that guy doing this to me? And then imagine if you knew it was only happening because of the way you looked, you'd be furious about it. You just would be. So even if you're, again, a white guy that doesn't necessarily believe all of the racial injustice headlines out there, you have to at least open your head up a little bit to, you know, this is why we're seeing this anger again this week. But I just, I kind of understood the anger midweek. And to close, I keep getting back to this point, but to see where we landed on this, and then we'll see what Monday looks like. But everything I watched the last two days, it felt like it didn't have anything to do with George Floyd. And that sucks. I talked to Obama in 2015. I interviewed him for a GQ magazine. And one of the things I, it always kind of bothered me that he didn't step

up fast enough in Ferguson and Ferguson. There was an extra day when it really ignited before he kind of said something. So I asked him about it. And he said, this is his quote to me in the interview. When Ferguson happened, there was a gap between how quickly we could pull together a police task force recommendations. And so in that lag, it feels like I haven't spoken to the moment as effectively. I suspect that if I were to do it over again, there might be something I could say that would have crystallized it more effectively. But Ferguson, the case itself was tougher because people didn't know what was going on exactly. In some ways, the Eric Garner case in New York was clear because you had on videotape

exactly what happened. And then he said later, you know, the challenge of Ferguson and all issues related to public shootings, race, and the criminal justice system is that in order to actually get something done, you have to build consensus. Expressing simple outrage without follow-up is often counterproductive. So two things in there. One is we're hearing a lot over the last couple of days, oh, Obama would have said something sooner. Our track record with him with that was Ferguson, where he admits that he was a little bit late,

but also didn't have the benefit of the video. And I think it's really important to talk about they're just tight, whether we, you know, we care about sports, we deal with sports, right? That's our, that's our thing. We think about all the time. We think about coaching a lot. We think about owners and GMs and just the concept of building something and leading it. I do feel like Obama cared about that. And I don't mean to turn this into a Republican Democrat thing. Like I really think he felt like

he wanted to lead everybody. And I think a lot of the presidents that we had over the years since I've been alive have at least tried to do that. Like Reagan was like that in the 80s. He really wanted to be our leader. He wanted to restore pride and patriotism and make people not be afraid of the Russians and feel like the Iranians could just grab our hostages, do whatever. It's a great point. Like, even if you hated his economics

and you can look back at it in hindsight, even more so in the deregulation of all these things, but what he did to gay people, right? Yeah. When he was on TV as your leader, you felt like he was all trying to get us to row in the same direction. I think it's your point, right? That's what it felt like as a kid. And I feel like Obama tried to do that. Not always to huge success, but it was in his heart at least. And I look at Trump and I don't think he's tried to do that since he took office.

I think he's politicized every single major issue. He has thought constantly about how will this help me get either reelected or stay in this for four more years. And you look at the way he did with the pandemic, it was the same thing. And, you know, I think he's almost taken too much shit for not reacting fast enough because all of us were not reacting fast enough. There was real science and there were stories being written. And I'm at my daughter's soccer game three days before, two days before Spotify's office shut down. All of us were negligent to some degree. My point is, it just seems like over and over again, when the person who's supposed to be in charge of a country that's got a lot of issues right now, not only doesn't care about bringing

people together, but seems interested in keeping them apart. That's where it gets really dangerous. And to me, this is not a Republican Democrat thing. It's just not, it's not, it's an American thing. And it's like, if you, I don't care what side you're on. If you don't see that the country is worse today than it's ever been since I've been alive. If you can't see that, you know, one thing I hate about this stuff is how it always has to become Republican Democrat. And, you know, it's like, sometimes I wish Trump was a Democrat because I think we would all be killing him a hundred percent the same way. This is not about political parties. This is about, can you lead a country? Can, can you put good people around you? Well, he's failed that one. Um, and do you care about human beings

in the country that you're running? Do you care? It doesn't seem like he cares. Yeah. I look, I'll even agree with you. Some of the COVID stuff at the beginning, I'm like, wait a minute, you guys are ripping Trump for this. And then you're so afraid to even say like, Hey, this is an unfair criticism of the president right now. Like he's this, this part is unfair. Like, do you think you even want to touch that in today's day like i'm embarrassed or i wouldn't even say embarrassed i'm scared to ever kind of say like which way i voted but i just want to be transparent about it because i think every time you say like oh hey i think obama would say this better it's like oh typical espn lib right you're one of those guys you're like actually i never voted for him so

then it's like wait a minute what's what is this guy you know right what why don't you fit into some box a little bit easier and i look at i get i get way too caught up and kind of like up this person's selling this and then this person's selling this and then it kind of turns me off for the whole thing and that's kind of like the original point is that if i'm just on the sidelines which i am in some ways you know you're going is anybody changing their mind that needs to change their mind about how a police force should work and then that becomes a whole other thing because you know i started going through the wormhole on all that and minneapolis that's had this pretty bad history here i don't know how much you know about it i didn't know that much about i didn't i didn't know that much about it so i went through it and

they had had the a female police chief that was openly gay going back i think 2012 2013 she brought in like a full federal review on their policing practices and she was like just go for it let us know what they're doing like you're doing this wrong you're doing that wrong you're doing this wrong and like people that have complaints against them you guys aren't doing any follow-up and this police officer had 12 complaints against them another one of the police officers on the scene in this death had complaints against him including a 25 000 settlement and it was the uh it was the asian cop that like knocked out another guy's teeth i think he may or may not have been handcuffed, depending on which story you'd read.

And so she's opening this whole thing up, and then Obama goes and meets with her and introduces her as part of this new kind of crime approach. Look, I'm just sort of paraphrasing all the different things I'm reading. And then she ended up losing her job in some other scandal. And it was like Minneapolis, the police force tried to do this very transparent,

hey, here's our problems. How can we fix our problems how can we fix our problems and then you go even further into it and you go because i don't believe like i don't i get argues with some friends about it like some guys in the police force that go hey this is bullshit like drive around with us one night and tell us we're doing our job wrong like i'm scared to death you know when i used to live in hartford and i worked out with a couple guys that were on the police force in hartford that were like, you want to, you think, you think we have like, you think we want to do anything wrong? I don't want to do anything wrong. I don't want that

attention. I don't want to do any stuff, but I'm, I'm scared. I'm scared patrolling the area I patrol. And so you hear that and you go, oh man, all right. Maybe I hadn't thought of it that way. And then on the other side, you'll, you'll hear, well, okay, the police are a gang and they're, they're too militarized, which then Trump gets blamed for, which by the way, has been going on since Clinton in the nineties, where there was these federal programs, the department of defense, where it's like, instead of commissioning all this military equipment, let's just resell it to cops. And so now cops look like military police. And then there's studies that say that that's led to more enforcement, more physical enforcement, and it's deterred crime. And there's another story. As soon as

you turn the page, it says none of that shit's true. So I don't really know what to believe. I just know it looks scarier. And honestly, cops, let's face it, like if you're into law enforcement, a grenade launcher and a fucking tank is cool. Because if you're one of those guys, like that shit turns you on as a guy. So I would never want to sit here and say, oh, the cops, the cops are the worst. And, and, you know, guys play and fuck the police as they pull up in front of a line of cops. And then it's like, honestly, all you're trying to do is antagonize the cops right now. This isn't about a protest. You're just seeing like what can happen and how many of you guys can film them with your phone. And what you realize is that a lot of the police problems are problems

we have in hiring and firing everywhere in corporate America because of the union and how much if you're pro union, fine. But the way the unions protect police where they just kind of get relocated and the way police protect each other or are fearful of calling out the other guy for some of those practices like that's maybe the scariest thing of all of this bill is that we can have a week like this in this country where we feel like maybe it finally is going to be different because i don't care who you are you should want it to be different you should want black people to feel better about police forces you should that. Why wouldn't you want that? Okay. And yet with everything that happens this week, I know how we also are as a country and we could be turning the

page to another topic in two weeks and none of this will meant anything. But I think that's why the last couple of days have been so angry and have, and I, in my opinion, we'll keep going because I don't think they want people to turn the page this time. Everyone who cares about this stuff and is out there every day trying to be heard, standing right there, staring down the cops, holding signs, all that stuff, those people,

I'm not talking about the looters. I'm talking about the people that were out there. They don't want this to go away. They don't want this to be like three days later, we're going to be talking about, um, I don't know the new Avengers movie or whatever. Like they don't want this to go into the cycle of it because we didn't want this to happen in the mid 2000s, in 2010s. We didn't think it was going to happen. We thought, Oh, this is it. This is this finally some good stuff is going to come out of this. Maybe we'll know now and go back to where we started. If I had a family member who's a cop, who I know is doing the right thing, trying to

do, you know what I mean? And that's not even popular to say out loud, but I thought it was really interesting watching the coverage on Sunday where the newscasters are like, where are the police? Where are the police? And then somebody came on from a local leadership groups like, you know SWAT team should have been here already and it's like wait a minute like can't you see what happened here is that a lot of the police forces were like the worst thing we can do is go head first into some of this stuff if people are going to start smashing cruisers and lighting them on fire and jumping on cars and putting themselves in danger and putting the police force in danger, then yeah, like a couple sporting goods stores are going to

get destroyed in the process. And I don't know how the math works on all that, but to me it was fairly obvious. And then I thought like this whole thing is about police. And now the people that were pro protesters are saying, where are the police once it turned into looting? And I that's part of me where, again, I feel like I get I'll get dragged for even mentioning any sympathetic angle to the police force bill. But it was just to me, it was very clear that, like, actually, we're going to let you trash these streets for a little while because we're not putting our guys into this situation where now they're going to be the targets. Or they we didn't have enough police to spread everywhere. I mean, the difference between how it played out this time around versus in the early nineties was they, they specifically, um, the looter, the looter side of

things seem like they specifically targeted certain areas that, um, I don't want to say wealthier areas, but areas that have a lot, a lot of commercial, they did. I mean, let's just say it because we both know what it is. Well, I don't consider the Grove like a wealthy area, but it's an area that has a lot of stores and a lot of wealth in it, you know, and like a Nordstrom's and an Apple store and things like that. But, you know, they went there, they went to Beverly Hills and the Melrose Fairfax, which again, is not like an upscale area, but has a lot of stores that have a lot of memorabilia and a lot of sneakers and a lot of all kinds of things. So, um, it just seemed like a more concerted effort than today with Santa Monica. It seems like tomorrow is going to be in the sunset,

Crescent Heights way. We're just talking LA. I mean, every city is different, but, um, but it, it, it seemed more coordinated. And I think it really exposed the limits of the, of the police just with strategy, how to handle things by all counts yesterday. And even today, the police got really aggressive. And you could see some of the videos online with people that it seemed a little out of whack compared to all the people that were peacefully protesting. So it's one of those things where going into the deep dive on social media almost makes it worse because there's so much information and so many things. and it just seems like a

lot of people acted badly um and then a lot of people were just trying to peacefully protest and get their points on the record and got swept and sucked into all this stuff and that sucked too yeah a lot of people in the midst of all of this with their anger and let's just i mean look black people that were out there protesting, and I'm not going to sit here and say the right way versus the wrong way, because if I were black, what does that mean? I saw a tweet where it was like, I'm not asking for permission on how to do this,

and I thought that that was a nice little reminder. But think about the protesters that were out there that were also like trying to stand in front of stores to be like don't screw this up for us that are out here trying to protest police brutality and you're taking advantage and that's the thing like part of me thinks this isn't totally fair so maybe i shouldn't say it but like i'll go our generation didn't do as good of a job our parents certainly didn't on the race relation thing and even though millennials take a ton of shit this seems to be far more important to them than it was to our group while we were growing up

and that to me is a positive sign but then i see the ages of some of the looters and i go wait but then they're i think they're i think they're different people i just think that they're the same age with different mindsets of what's important and one is change and one is free gear and it was it was it was really i mean it was just a different kind of i'm not going to sit here and say like i was all like really scared scared about it. I mean, were you scared? Were you scared about living not that far from any of this stuff? I was more scared because I didn't know. I didn't know what the end game was because it's not like it was a sporting event where you're like, Oh, we're in the fourth quarter now. And it didn't seem like there was any coherent strategy other than let's just try to wreak as much havoc as we possibly can. I'm talking about the nighttime stuff on Saturday.

We're taping this now. It's 722 on Sunday. I don't know what, this is how I want to send a message, and they don't really care what gets broken, what gets set on fire, what gets taken, who gets hurt, then it goes to a whole other level that it just scares me as somebody who likes this country. And it's not just LA. It's in all of these different cities. And I think, you know, the, the what's happened in Minnesota, which has just as many, you know, mom and pop

stores as anybody. And just, just to see people's livelihoods get taken out, just gone. Yeah. That's the thing. Like being anti police brutality doesn't mean you have to be pro-destroying shit. And that seems fairly obvious to say, but there were times where I think people are just so angry. And that's why I really didn't want much to do with social media. I would dip my toes in and go, okay, I'm not good at the, hey, I'm going to send the tweet that everybody sends to be like hey everyone let's let's hug this out you know i'm just i'm just not good at that that's not i didn't do it that's not what i but i'll tell you one thing i did push back on is that in the face of the pandemic worried about money because i i saw this argument i saw it from people that were you know real guests that were on television and uh it was well you, with everything that's going on

and all the economic uncertainty, how can you blame people for going and getting goods? And you're like, hey, look, in Katrina, I kind of got it. This weekend at the Grove in Santa Monica, fuck that. You know, I want to hear about, this is about, like you're not raiding Sephora, Jake Paul, because of economic concerns and where the next meal is coming from. So that was something this week towards the end of it where I go, yeah, I don't really think those two is related. It also obscures the message of why people are out there in the first place too.

And this is generalizing. But they interviewed one of the protesters. And they're like, hey, what's this about? He's like, oh, rioting is to give a voice to the voiceless. And he was like, OK, well, what's that message? The reporter was being totally open-minded with the guy. And the guy was a moron, total idiot guy. And he's just like, we're here to keep.

And you're like, you know what? You're young, and you wanted to break shit And you're like, no, you're young and you wanted to break shit. That's it. There's no message here. You memorized one line on Instagram and now you're here to break windows. I get the piece that I get is people who are frustrated to the point that they don't feel like they have any alternatives whatsoever. That they're out of ways to litigate this, this specific topic that they cared about and they've cared about for probably their entire life ever since they were old enough to even understand it. And they feel like they're not being heard. And this is a last

resort. And I get it. I do. I feel like I've never been in that position where I felt that way, where I'm just out of options, but so desperately want to get a point across. I'm not in the position to judge how somebody feels in that situation. But it made me sad. And it made me sad for America that so many people across the country, that was the difference with this in LA in the early nineties and, you know, other, other cities that have had issues like this over the past few decades, that this was all happening simultaneously all over the place. You had equal amounts of anger in cities that were 1,500 miles away from Minneapolis. And they just fucking had it.

And it's just really sad. I feel like I hear the friends that I have who root for sports teams that are just hopeless, like my friend Dave Chang with the Redskins, where he's just like, my owner sucks. I'm screwed. We're never going to be good. My owner's terrible. Any Knicks fan I know, same thing with James Dolan. And you're just like, yeah, you are probably screwed. The team's probably never going to be good with that owner. And it's weird to think that the country is now like this, but that's how I feel with the country now. And again, I don't mean to make this a Republican

Democrat thing. I just feel like you have a bad, truly bad president who seems to care about the wrong things and is surrounded by the wrong people. And you just start there and it's like, all right, well, every single major issue that's popped up in the last four years, has it gone well? Oh, what a coincidence. No, it's gone terribly. And at some point it just adds up i don't know what else to say yeah other than we got to vote him out you know the the thing that i think is important to say though is that the george floyd thing doesn't happen because trump's in office the reaction happens because he's in office right No, and I know you're saying that. But I think when you look around and you look at the combination of three months inside and the people that cannot stand Trump, and it's like a daily thing that the consumption of anxiety that he causes. And I would say like, hey, to know, to, to let it ruin every single

day is, is probably a waste of time. But the reaction is, is built more around him, which I think is, is the important, um, differentiation. Listen, if this doesn't push people to activate in all the right ways, I mean, I I've spent, I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, but I know I want to do something. I've been reading up on all of these different funds and, um, programs and things where just, just, just try to fix some of the social stuff that happened. But I think, you know, I, by the way, I'm not saying it's, it's necessarily going to be better with Joe Biden. I'm not sold on Joe Biden fixing anything. It, to me, he looks like an old guy,

a really old guy who by, you know, year three is going to be in his eighties. Um, and I don't know if that's going to be much better. Well, I mean, I think it's actually totally naive to think that, okay, a new president's in charge. Now, all of a sudden police brutality is no longer an issue and everybody feels safe that's good like that's that is not a snap of the fingers thing man it's just not and i don't i don't know i don't care i don't know if that can be solved by a president yeah i'm not even talking just about that are you you whoever inherits the presidency for 2020 to 24 is going to have more challenges than any president in our lifetime. You're talking about massive unemployment. You're talking about this virus that we still don't.

We're going to find out this weekend from this weekend once and for all about this virus because you had large clusters of people. I know a lot of it was outdoors, but you had a lot of people together in a lot of different places. And that's the first time that's really happened in a significant way. You have that. I mean, there's just so many, so many issues right now. I don't even know where to start, but that next president is going to be inheriting a one in 15 NFL team, which is crazy because it's America. I don't know. We're rambling. We'll take a break, and then we're going to talk about this basketball stuff really quickly. Hey, if you're doing more searching than streaming these days,

HBO Max is a new streaming platform where all of HBO meets the greatest collection of movies and shows. It's all of the HBO series, some blockbuster movies, some timeless classics, beloved TV, awesome animation, Rick and Morty, South Park. You got superheroes and supervillains from DC, family favorites, and new Max originals. It's a staggering amount of content. If you're looking to kill some time, I would highly recommend not just getting HBO Max, but checking out all the stuff they have. Sean Fantasy did a big picture podcast just with 25 movies that he was so excited that they were on HBO Max, but checking out all the stuff they have. Sean Fantasy did a big picture podcast just with 25 movies that he was so excited that they were on HBO Max. You can get all your favorites all in one place for just $14.99 per month. I think the most impressive thing is how

good the website is. It's nice to have a website that has this much stuff that you can easily zoom through. Plus, if you missed an HBO show like Insecure Tonight, just go on there and watch it. Start streaming today, download the app, or visit HBO Max to start your free trial. Free trials for new customers, only restrictions do apply. And since we're here, a hacker group called Shiny Hunters claims to have breached 10 companies and is now selling their user databases on a dark web marketplace for illegal products. The companies range from an online dating app to a food delivery service to online stores and newspapers. The listed databases hold 73.2 million user records,

which are being sold for around $18,000. Look, you put your information in so many places online, unfortunately, cyber criminals around the world keep finding new ways to steal identities. There's more threats than ever, so Norton LifeLock is giving you more protection than ever. Norton 360 with LifeLock provides all-in-one protection with device security, identity theft protection, a VPN for online privacy, and more. And if you have an identity theft problem, a US-based restoration specialist will work to fix it. No one can prevent all cyber crime and identity theft, but Norton 360 with LifeLock is a powerful ally for your cyber safety. Sign up today, save 25% or more off your first year by going to norton.com slash Simmons.

That's 25% off Norton 360 with LifeLock at norton.com slash Simmons. All right, we have the redraftables coming up in a little bit, but wanted to update the NBA stuff. There was progress again. It looks like we're going to have 22 teams. It looks like it will happen in Orlando. It looks like, for whatever reason, they decided five teams in the West, including a couple that probably would not have made the playoffs.

I don't feel like we're playoff teams and had a puncher's chance of making it at best. They're trying to accommodate those teams, the team, like the sons that's, you know, five and a half games out or six games out. I forget what it is.

And in seven or eight games, we'll have a chance to now make the playoffs seems dumb, but it also seems like they want to have enough quote unquote regular season games so that these teams don't go in the playoffs cold. My question to you, were we better off just starting with the 16 teams in the playoffs and screwing the regular season? Why are we even doing this? You know, there's part of me that thinks that that's the better version of this, but look, how we constantly talk about

player empowerment over the last few years, the players won again on this one. Because what do we keep hearing going back almost two months? Hey, you're going to need... When I was reading that stuff, it was like 45, maybe 60 days would be ideal to get people ready.

And I'm like, give me a break. It's kind of up to you to at least be in some sort of shape. And then a month training camp of practices isn't enough. The fact that this start date is still two months away from where we're at right now, it means that they really did take into consideration all the players' stuff, right? And trying to get them geared up again. And then the extra games before it, taking care of the regional sports network, where

I'm not going to tell the owners and the players that, sorry, for my entertainment and for my efficiency in consuming your product, I need you to lose out on all that money. I'm not going to tell the owners and the players that, sorry, for my entertainment and for my efficiency in consuming your product, I need you to lose out on all that money. I'm not going to tell them to go ahead and do that. So the fact that it's a little bit more congested and some of it doesn't make a ton of sense, I'm okay with all of it. I don't love that as soon as it happens, then again, because we're all selfish, it turns into, wait a minute, how does this affect me? You know what my favorite part of the whole thing was, is the vote on it. And it was like, just what, just over 50% voted to go top 16 status quo. No kidding. Yeah. Because those are the 16 teams that like we're in now. That's what we want to do.

And that's all that was really going to happen here so i'm i've been consistent here little things here there that i don't love i'm not going to trash them because of how hard this is but i think you and i would both sit here and say something that was concern over a month ago about a finish date no one cares about that now then and all the players are getting all of that extra time to ramp up again and be as ready as you possibly could under these circumstances. And my biggest thing was

I just wanted to have the feeling coming out of it that for doing this, it's got to feel legit. It can't feel like a gimmick. We can't be pissed off after because we just threw together a tournament just

so we could have a champion for this year. And then none of us respect the champion or respect the process or how it played out. I like that. You know, I don't like best of seven for round one. I'm on the record with that. But if you're doing a neutral court where the higher seed has no advantage really at all, probably makes sense to have a longer sample size for each series. I feel like we're going to be okay with how this turns out. Whatever happens, whoever wins the title will feel like it was legitimate. I did a mailbag on Thursday and somebody pointed out how the Spurs title is always the asterisk from 99 because it was only a 50 game season. The Knicks crept in there as an eight seed in the finals, stuff like

that. Why, why was that an asterisk? But yet the heat season where in 2012, when we played 66 games, we crammed those all together. A bunch of guys got hurt during that season, including Derek Rose as a one seed and Miami ended up winning, but nobody ever was like, oh, that didn't really count. It was the lockout season. It all is going to depend on who wins the title and how many people want to discredit it or not,

which happens every season. So- Yeah, but this has more built-in ways to do it. I've never done it with either one of those. You have caused a huge problem in my circle of friends, specifically some Derrick Rose people, with suggesting that

the Derrick Rose injury should diminish LeBron's title. So I just want to let you know that you're to blame for months of bad emails. Diminish is the wrong word. Well, you even brought it up. You even brought it up,

somehow gave another guy ammunition to feel justified for a terrible argument that's fair yeah that's fair uh i i uh i think this i think we'll look at this as a legitimate title now if somebody gets hurt it's one of the key guys let's say lebron like you know he rips his thigh muscle two games into the playoffs knock on wood i hope that doesn't happen but something like that then you're right it's good there's more like, you know, he rips his thigh muscle two games into the playoffs, knock on wood. I hope that doesn't happen, but something like that, then you're right. It's good. There's more asterisk style excuses ready to pop out of this. But I like the fact that everybody has the same odds, percentages, chances to come out of this. If anything, a team like the, uh, the Clippers

or the Celtics teams that didn't have home court throughout the playoffs, I think this is kind of weirdly an advantage for them. You know, like if you're the Celtics, it's like, does it matter that you're a three seed? No. It was going to matter though against Philadelphia. If it were three six and Philly who stunk on the road this year. Right.

Then now, like I didn't love Philly. I didn't love Boston even in the three six matchup considering philadelphia like to sit there and say actually believe in philadelphia a little bit more than boston feel stupid to say out loud i just didn't like that matchup for the celtics even though the six the sixers have that awful but that's one of the three that's one of the matchups where you go okay well whatever you thought about it before like who cares unless you're going to do philadelphia whenever they're outside of the city of philadelphia is a mess and that you're going to hold it against them even more. Like, it's a good point, but I can just go in circles on that one.

I think people are going to like having it back. I think we need it. I think the old sports is a distraction. Sports is the toy store. You're feeling it right now. You know, and all the, everything that would be happening now would be happening anyway. Um, but it's still nice to have an escape. And I think for three months, there hasn't been a lot of escape, both not a lot of sports entertainment options, people trapped in their houses and

apartments and condos, wherever they live, people who, um, were in college or, you know, seniors in high school who are just stuck with their parents for three months, families that have like four or five siblings, and there's seven people in a house all on top of each other. Basketball is going to help. It's going to be nice to have it back. Did you have any proposals that you didn't get to? Because I saw a few going around. Mine never picked up as much momentum as others. I wanted to expand it to 42 teams. I know the math doesn't work out, but it's going to be a few G League teams.

And then we were going to have the Hinkie All-Stars to see if they could beat Kentucky. So we were going to have Kentucky in there. And then Alabama football was going to be an eight seed. And then we're going to have Duke men and then UConn women to see if Yukon women are ruining the sport. And so I wanted to go like 40, 42 round Robin groups, a couple of big three teams.

Yeah. A big three team in there, but they only play half court. So they have six. So three play offense and then like lacrosse three play defense, which doesn't make a ton of sense either. But I was proposaled out by the, Oh, I also didn't want any charges because of social distancing and no high

fives after miss free throws for social distancing. Um, there's to keep everybody safe and germ free. But what do you think about the one seed against the eight seed is just up one, nothing as the series starts. Good. I'm good with whatever the first series is being over.

They ended as fast as possible. Um, I, it, it does kind of suck for Milwaukee and the Lakers that they get nothing out of winning the conference, which is why one of the things that was floated around was that they would get to pick their round one opponents. Maybe even each round you pick who you play. I'm not against that. I think that would be really fun to monitor and watch and guess who they're doing the slights that would come out of that and all that stuff. But, um, you know, if let's say you're the Lakers and new Orleans gets the eight seed and you're just looking at it and you're like, you know what? I'd rather play Dallas. I want to play new Orleans. It's just, we'll take, we'll just take out Luca. That'll be an easy series for us. We picked

Dallas. That would be an amazing, I'd be, I just little wrinkles like that would make this really fun. I know you don't mean you get nothing out of being the one seed because they get exactly what we're talking about. Like you get to play the eight seat. So like, yes, the home court. And then throughout,

that's it though. You get, you get around one easy matchup and really that's it. Okay. But LA would already pick Memphis anyway, because there are eight games behind the seven seed seven in the standings, but eight wins six in the loss column so there's your seven and then milwaukee would be picking orlando which would be fun like say say it was just picking who you wanted to be and they picked brooklyn 30 and

34 who's the seventh seed because the um percentage points here over orlando and then you're right like spite week or resentment week or whatever like all the quotes and it'd be all the nets. And like Kyrie would give us an amazing quote and be like, I can't believe they picked us to be like, I can, you have 30 wins, right? Okay.

Well, they lose four one. It's like, can you guys talk again about all the resentment that you had? Cause we'd like to follow up on that. Milwaukee goes, Hey, is you think Kyrie's going to play in the playoffs? And there's like, yeah up on that. Milwaukee goes, Hey, is you think

Kyrie's going to play in the playoffs? And there's like, yeah, he is. They're like, we picked Brooklyn. We're happy to, we're happy to battle them. Um, I'm excited to have it back and I've been really impressed. I know it always sounds like I'm in the bag for silver, but, um, I've been really impressed by every piece of how they've handled it and how the owners are just really believe in him and are kind of like we trust you you tell us how to do this and the players and you think like what's happening in our country right now and how it's almost the complete opposite it's just kind of funny that did you ever think the nba would be run better than the country um kind of sad yeah no that's that's one way of putting it but it feels a bit like the ufc model though like i

get you know dana white you're out there 20 years you're doing it long enough and the people that love the ufc be like oh well he doesn't but there's something to be said if dana white being like i want this guy to fight this guy and that's it like i don't have to sit there with a committee i don't have to and grant i would think at some point some point the UFC reconfigures it at some point. We're like, wait a minute, Dana White just got to run that. I don't know how many decades that would be from now. I imagine at some point there'll be some sort of pushback where the fighters decide, we want more control and all this stuff because it still feels so new. But that's what it feels like. The NBA owners deserve credit for just saying,

hey, Silver, we empower you to figure this out. Now, granted, the difference between basketball and baseball is that basketball is not trying to figure out a new CBA on the fly, which is what baseball is trying to do here with a fake deadline. And then there's eventually going to be a real deadline. And I wonder if baseball's deadline will pass. And then maybe 48 hours later, we actually have ball, meaning baseball. But then I worry that some of the revenue sharing owners who are like

look i was getting i think the marlins got 73 million in one of the more recent years just in revenue sharing from other owners how owners even allow that stuff to happen in your sport is is impossible to me but i guess it's because your franchises are still worth money but i've heard that some of those baseball owners there's a there's a group that's like we don't even want the game to come back because we're not even going to be getting that red re-sharing that we were getting in the first place. Basketball doesn't have any of that stuff. Basketball doesn't have to worry about that.

And baseball has a decades-long acrimonious relationship between the players and the owners that has not really gotten any better. Football has had the tendency where they just bully those guys into getting whatever they want. Well, it's set up to be bullied. Yeah. They, the players have just don't have enough leverage. They never can't miss a season. And if they were going to miss a season, the math on what it like Dominic Foxworth really mapped it out for me. Cause I was basically trashing. I wouldn't say trash to players, but I was like, man, you guys got smashed in the last CBA. And he got really resentful because he was on the committee and then he and i talked

about it afterwards and i was like look i still think you got smashed but now i completely understand why and it's like if you add up every guy that's voting the ones that actually vote in the nfl which is kind of embarrassing but you add it all up and it goes well i'm supposed to miss out on a full season for an increase that would be a few grand every check for the majority of us like i'm not doing that i'm not missing a few i'm not missing a full season's worth of earnings just to make a little bit more get a little bit more a bump in my check to have some of these things fixed so like that one they're never going to win and the owners know it yeah the owners are like hey we have all the leverage like literally all

of it so if you if you want to play chicken with us and miss the season okay i guess i guess we're all we're all rich we'll be fine and this is where i jump on the owners though with baseball a little bit here though it's like just because you own a business somehow in sports it's like wait you are guaranteed to be profitable like you're supposed to always like there's some law that was passed that guarantees that you're always profitable all the time yeah and there's an argument to be made of saying hey baseball is a restaurant that has employees that are coming back and you're going to have a really bad year. Have a really bad year.

But your restaurant, by the way, is always going to sell for profit. It's never going to go out of business. That's the part with every in baseball, football and basketball where it falls apart every time when they talk. And this was I was killing the owner. Exactly. Stern in 2011 with the whole we lost a million dollars last year. It's like your franchise has quadrupled since you bought it.

Just sell it then. Yeah. There's no rule that you have to make money every year. Just sell the franchise. If you don't like your profit this year, it would be like bitching about owning a mansion in a really exclusive place where the properties never lose value and saying, man, the electricity bill killed us this year. Yeah.

Like, okay, okay. Okay. Yes. Your electricity bill was okay. Then you can, if it's too expensive to have the lights on, then sell it at a massive profit. Sell your house. I remember when those guys bought the box that a lot of people like, they have a lot of friends all over the place, but it was, they bought the

box. And then it became the whole thing of, you know, if we don't get a stadium, not sure this is going to be worth it. It's like, you just fucking bought them. Why'd you buy them then? If he, if it was so conditioned to the stadium and then, then they're holding, you know, the possible relocation thing, they're lording it over Wisconsin and then they get help with their new arena. I mean, well, they're billionaires. Then they get Giannis and the investment triples, you know, could they sell the bucks for maybe with the pandemic, who the fuck knows, but could they sell the bucks for three times what they paid for? Probably if the new owner knew Giannis was going to be there. And by the pandemic, who the fuck knows? But could they sell the Bucks for three times what they paid for? Probably.

If the new owner knew Giannis was going to be there. And by the way, Giannis will be there. Yeah, the new TV deal isn't going to be some disaster in five years. So I don't foresee that. What was that in Giannis is going to be there thing? I noticed you just threw that in there pretty emphatically. I just think the cap, the thing that has not been discussed enough because there's so much other stuff to discuss is just like the cap's going to go down and it's going to be impossible for these guys to switch teams unless they actually put in some sort of rule to allow it. The cap's going to go backwards. Giannis makes, I don't know if he, I think he signed four years, 25 million,

but if he was going to jump to, let's say Miami in the old days, it would have been like, Oh, Miami is going to carve out all this cap space for him. Now it's like, good luck. They're not going to be able to do that. So you can resign with Milwaukee for more money than you made now, or you're really not going to make that money anywhere else. Unless it's a team that has no cap space, but you're going to be taking a path of it with what you going to make that money anywhere else unless it's a team that has no cap space, but you're going to be taking a path of it with what you wanted to make. It's going to be a disaster. They're going to have to probably come up with some sort of amnesty type idea.

Not where you get rid of the guy, but maybe you designate one guy in your cap who just doesn't count. For the Celtics, it would be like, Hayward's on our team, but his cap figure just doesn't count in our cap this year. And each team has Washington would have John Wall. OKC would have Chris Paul. And it's just like, these guys just don't count on the cap. That's the only way you would even be able to have a normal free agency, in my opinion. Did you just use the pandemic for an excuse

to hopefully help out the Celtics cap situation? No, the Celtics cap situation is solid. I'm just, I'm just messing with you. I wouldn't rule out. I would have though. Look, I, I'm not, you're right about this cap thing. It was just, we're just not ready for it yet because. Yeah, we're not, we don't have other details. But to rule out anyone changing because a cap going in the opposite direction, I'm not ready to do that because I still think people can always get creative if they want. If they know the guy's coming, there's ways. I still believe that there'd be ways to execute something. I don't think the coronavirus and the cap going backwards.

But when you talk about the opposite direction, you're talking about they're going to make 65% as much money as they would have the year before. And it's directly tied to how they create the cap. It makes it way harder. I'm not arguing that. I just don't, I don't ever like being in the mindset of like some transaction is impossible. Because every time we've said that with this league,

they're like, oh, wait, what happened? The amnesty will be a thing again. And by the way, I really loved when we had the amnesty in 05 and 11. But that was a much more negative amnesty. But like when the Wizards amnestied Andre Blatch right after they'd extended him and the Knicks screwed up. That's because they liked him. Yeah. That's because he was a good guy. We after they extended him and the knicks screwed up that's because they like amnesty yeah that's because he was a good guy we'll talk about him in the redraftable

oh yeah that's right um yeah he's a good guy the knicks the knicks amnesty the wrong guy the amnesty was just like this other device this new device for that is like especially that group of gms and we'll get to this because it's a really great point because i went back and looked at it after we were talking about it where you're like wow a lot of these gms never were gms again and it was another thing where it was like how are you going to screw this up like you're really going to find a way to like you're not good with the cap you lose trades you. You can't draft. Oh, and by the way, you have this other thing that you have to decide how to use it. And you might not do that right either. You're screw that as well. All right. Well,

we're going to take a break and then throw it to the redraftables. We tape this on Thursday, which is why we're in a much better mood than we were today. But thanks. Thanks for listening to us today.. I'll see you next Sunday. All right. Hey, as the original Light Bearer, Miller Lite has always been there to bring people together in real life through Miller time.

Even if getting together with a few friends in real life currently isn't an enticing option for a lot of people, Miller Lite can still be enjoyed with your people. Maybe not always in bars or gatherings, but somewhere. Some people are stuck at a house with roommates and partners,

others back home with family. Some are in lockdown alone. You can hop on a Zoom. I'm doing that this week with my Holy Cross friends just to see everybody. Maybe we'll have a Miller Lite, toast each other.

It's the original light beer that tastes great. It's less filling, which means it won't get in the way of enjoying time with your people. It's been my favorite beer since the mid eighties. Miller Lite, the original light beer while you're home. Enjoy a classic available for delivery today. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. Meanwhile, what's the number one sign of a bad home security system? It's a home security system

that's so complicated you never use it. It's exactly the type of security system SimpliSafe has spent a decade fighting against. They believe that simpler is safer. And it is why SimpliSafe is the home security for right now. When feeling safe at home has never been more important, designed to be easy to use while protecting your home 24-7. Order online with a click of a button. No technician or a salesperson has to come and disrupt your house. You don't need to pay any outrageous monthly fee, sign a two-year contract, nothing like that. Their 24-7 professional monitoring and emergency dispatch starts at 50 cents a day. That's a deal considering SimpliSafe was named best overall home security by 2020 by US News and World Report.

They've been sponsoring this podcast since we began in 2016. Super easy to put together. That's the number one thing. It's just efficient. Head to simplisafe.com slash BS. Get a free HD camera if you're my listener. That is simplisafe.com slash BS. SimpliSafe for two eyes. SimpliSafe.com slash BS to make sure that they know our show sent you. All right. The Redraftables is coming up. And just so you know, Rizal and I, we really debated whether we should run this in this podcast today. And where we landed was this. We had a lot of fun taping this a few days ago. It's a really fun draft to dissect, make fun of all those things. and it's been a pretty heavy last few days and we thought you know what we're just going to put this on here and if it takes your mind off stuff for an hour plus

then so be it otherwise listen to it at your own leisure but uh we just thought it was better to put it out now and you could listen to it whenever you want so here is, the redraftables 2005. All right. The 2005 redraftables. To me, this is the Chris Paul draft. This was when I was really still watching a lot of college basketball and it became clear pretty early that Chris Paul wasn't going to be one of the top two picks and it made no sense. It was illogical. I have a draft diary from that year where I repeatedly said how illogical it was. Even more illogical was that Marvin Williams, who was coming off his freshman or sophomore year at UNC, I can't remember, but didn't start for them. And he went ahead of Chris Paul. And all of this was really dumb. This is, in general,

a really dumb era for NBA. A lot of bad GMs. This is a year later. I wrote the atrocious GM summit for page two. There were so many bad GMs. And I think about this draft and I just think about mistakes and bad moves. What's your first thought when you think of 2005, I have a lot of stuff that I got wrong in this draft, but Chris Paul was not one of them. I loved Chris Paul. Uh, I loved his edge. You know, that's, that became a big thing. And it's still probably one of the most important things for me where I want to see how much you care. Not to the point where I would, you know, draft a four year or five year senior who has a nice run at Michigan state over a top

prospect. You know, that, that Dick Vitale argument every year in the draft when they still would let him do it used to drive me absolutely crazy. You know, he would do his Keith Bogans rant. Like, how do you let Keith Bogans go this late? And you're like, look, I know you love college ball, and I know you love the guys that stay a million years and all that stuff, but that's just actually not the way it works out. Like, you can think GMs are dumb, but the thing they don't get wrong

is take younger players instead of older players. Yes, there are mistakes, but the reason they keep taking the younger players is because they're trying to get stars. And generally that's the way it works. And if you're not some rock star at 22 or 23 years old, graduating college, you're not going to turn into an NBA superstar. So, um, the Bogut part, remember we're still in the big man world and that's what hurt Chris Paul, even though this whole thing at the top, which I know you'll want to get to, but I love that Paul had attitude and it's an attitude that turns a lot of people off now. Um, but I knew like this guy's a fighter and I loved him yet at the time I still would go, all right, well, Bo gets this really productive, big center and you need centers, which sounds

funny to say now, but that was just the way business was done back then and marvin had had a really nice run as only a freshman at unc when he came out so i think there was a feeling like the unknown of marvin was still better than a six foot point guard which again ends up being a massive mistake and that's why paul ended up going where he went and pre-pre And pre pre advanced metrics too, because even if you just look, look, look at college stats is pretty dumb most of the time. But if you look at his college stats, he plays two years at wake forest, tough conference. He's 15, seven and five, basically in his second year, both years, three point line, 46.5 and 47.4. He's just like,

statistically just looks like I can't miss. Then the eye test backs it up. What's fascinating is he punched Julius Hodge in the balls in that game. And I think it gave him something of a, of a bad rep. Like he was some sort of head case, which leads us to part two of the inexplicable decision to pass up Chris Paul. We'll cover Atlanta later. But at number three, Portland is sitting there

and Chris Paul's on the board. They certainly don't have a point guard you would want to write home about. This is a signature guy that they could just build around and they trade down. And the read between the lines of why they traded down was they wanted a character guy. They're coming off the whole jailblazers era. And you read the quotes that they said about Martel Webster, who's the guy they traded down three spots for. And it's all like, he's a great kid. He's a real, he'll be a real asset to the community and all this stuff. And meanwhile, like who turned out to be a bigger asset to the community and great kid, all that stuff than Chris Paul, you know, who is one of the best people

you could build a franchise around. So that part of it is amazing. Do you remember that though? It was like he had a little bit of a stigma. Yeah, I felt like that was even overstated though at the time because, you know, this is very early on in me getting any intel from people. And it wasn't like Chrisris was this bad guy like you

and i have both talked to enough people over the years of doing this where you don't need a lot of times you don't even share it all the time you might just do kind of an eye roll and be like i don't know man there's a lot of dudes around this guy that people don't really like and it's sort of a thing that wasn't really the case for chris and that's funny too because you go wait a minute so what's the knock on him as a community guy? Well, none of that has anything to do with it. The negatives here would be, so he's feisty. Yeah, there's shit he does that I think is annoying. I don't like when he backs into bigs in transition and then gets the call.

And he's one of my favorite players of the modern generation. I actually think he's underrated. I think he gets dumped on all the time because he doesn't have the playoff success. And I get it. I get those knocks against him. But the knocks of a personality or anything it's like actually the the nastiness is really all in a competitive arena it's not that he's this horrible dude around campus so that i remember the video of being they had a video of it was john nash with

portland at the time and and it was Paul Allen. And they thought they had pulled the biggest coup ever by adding draft capital and going back and taking a Martel Webster, who I'll tell you, out of high school, teams did love because of the size and the shooting. And you thought, here we go. But the funny thing is his nice guy thing probably led into him just not having the edge that a Chris Paul has where he's still an all-star 15 years later, which is always even better. When you do look back at these drafts, you go 15 years and look at how he's playing and how many of these other guys have been out of the league for five years. Do you remember the trade? Yeah, they move. They move from three to six and then they add two other firsts. They picked up a later 2005 pick, and they picked up a 2006 pick.

The three guys they got, Portland, to trade at a number three and trade down for Webster for six, they get Webster, Linus Kleza, and then in 2006, Joel Freeland. The lesson is always don't trade down in the NBA draft ever under any circumstances. Now, going backwards, we'll go to Bogut later because that's a whole separate conversation. Atlanta's on the clock at two. They have Al Harrington. They picked Josh Smith the year before and they have Josh Childress.

So technically three forwards, kind of hybrid three, four forwards. That's really, by the way, like I'm okay with multiple position guys. If you think this is the best player, just go ahead and take them and figure out that's real wing specific. Like of getting the same guys. I mean,

children's left the country and no point guard. So Chris Paul is the obvious pick. They take Marvin Williams. And then a year later, they take Sheldon Williams over Brandon Roy. So Billy Knight was just determined to take every forward he possibly could. They, he gets fired and never, never works again. The thing that got me with Marvin Williams from the get-go was the not starting at UNC. And, you know, it's not like this was 1989 and Grant Hill at Duke or 1990 Grant Hill at Duke or something.

This is by 2005. College basketball just isn't as good as it used to be. And if you're supposed to be one of the top three guys in the draft and you're not one of the best five guys on your college team, it's alarming. He gets taken. Some quotes from Jay Billis. Sky is the limit. Unbelievably long. Active athletic. The real deal. The complete package. Active, bouncy athlete. Really long. Wingspan of about seven foot three. And then he said, the thing that makes him special is his range as a shooter. And then when I did the draft, I wrote, the only thing missing was couldn't start for his college team. Should it have been a red flag that he didn't start for his college team?

I say, yes. I'm going to say no, because it was Sean May, Rashad McCants, Juad Williams, who was a senior, really lanky forward, who still got you some buckets and raymond felton who's a top pick too and then you know when i look back at that team there it just was a really good deep team that won a national championship and beat a really good illinois team so it wasn't like he wasn't starting on some 20 win fifth seed big 12 team. And I don't even mean to do that to the big 12 is diminishing, but you're, you're a freshman. It's UNC.

It's loaded. It's got older players. It's got a group there. That's what four or five pros. I mean, there's probably another guy that got a cup of coffee there. I'm just, you know, going off the top of my head. The biggest problem with the Marvin Williams thing is he has the drew gooden body deal where when i watched drew gooden in kansas i thought drew gooden was going to be a different

player until then his ass got so big that he became this rebounding like he just got thick in a way where i was like okay wait a minute drew gooden is going to be taking people off the dribble drew gooden is not going to be some kind of slasher he's going to be a big body box you out his body is going to develop in a different way. And it wasn't like Drew Gooden was bad. He just, Drew Gooden's a very specific thing for me where I go, his body morphed his game to match the body. And when I say ass and hips, like that's what Drew had.

Marvin, because he was a freshman and he's skinnier, I think we all tricked ourselves in, just like Bill says, is that I think he was going to be this slashing kind of create off the dribble guy. And very quickly, he started filling out in a way where he was going to be glued to the ground a little bit more. And I still think we were in this odd kind of combination thing. So I think his body type and what it ended up becoming

was as big of an influence on what his game developed into versus the high ceiling version that we thought he was going to be. So that's where I was wrong with Marvin. That's, that's actually a fun separate podcast. We should do guys whose bodies became untenable for what they were supposed to be as basketball players. Cause speaking of weird bodies, like Chris Paul, also a weird body, but made it work. Like when you see him in person, he's got a huge ass, but is still able to have all this speed. Marvin Williams was the opposite.

Big ass, big legs, but just didn't have the same athleticism. I feel like that happened to Derek Williams too. I still have some Derek Williams stock from way back when. Oh, you do? Oh, yeah. I was all in on Derek Williams. We'll cover that later redraftables i i just thought he was the perfect stretch for right i think derrick williams

no no look i didn't think he was going to be out of the league that quickly if i look it up something happened i there's i'm going to look it up because I think he shot 60% from three. In college? In college in that second year. Not the guy. I just thought because he also came through in March Madness too, but I just thought he was like the stretch for everybody was going to need going forward into the 2010s. So two years at Arizona, second year 10-11.

He's 28 and an assist and on two attempts from three a game he shot 57 percent and made some big ones nine free throws a game yeah and i'll never forget i mean that's just simple i mean you don't have to be anti-analytics but you would just go okay wow you can shoot the three like you wouldn't ever do a scattering report on him and going, he struggles to shoot when you shoot 57% and you're a four. But I remember guys going like, okay, well, you know, maybe I'll shoot 35 or 36. And I remember arguments from people being like, well, if he did it in college, why can't he be like, you know what? He's probably again, not going to shoot 57%. So I don't, I don't blame people for being wrong about Derek Williams. Do you, do you have certain guys that you're just

like, even though it's a loss, I refuse to admit defeat. Cause I'm still that way with Bo Kimble. I still feel like different, different team. It plays out a different way. I still feel like he could have been a 20 point a game score. I don't know why it didn't happen, but I still feel like it should have. And I feel that way about Derek Williams. I don't know why it didn't happen. I don't have answers, but I think it should have happened. Whatever he goes to Minnesota, weird team,

weird coach, too many forwards, the whole thing, and then just kind of loses his confidence. And that's it. It's too bad. Um, uh,

yeah, no, I definitely have guys like that. And you even mentioned one today on Twitter, um, or this past week, Robert Swift. Oh yeah. You, you liked it. You own some Robert Swift stock.

There was a, a smart and Grandy backed me up today with it too. And there's a window of pre homeless squatting Robert Swift, where you saw it come together and people use that as like an, I think you were trying to do it as an anti-ange thing. And I was kind of surprised out of you. It was a little, it was a little anti-angey for your brand. Yeah. I have some regrets, you know, once again, 280 characters, sometimes it doesn't come out perfect. It's more age has two non-trades that really, really, really helped him out. And I think that Swift one,

if that happens, and Swift is a disaster combined with the Scalabrini hiring and the Rafe LaFrance trade, all that stuff, I think he just gets fired because that's now insurmountable. Sebastian Telfair was another one.

But he gets out, gets Big Al. Big Al is at least good enough that he can flip him for KG and we're off. But the Winslow thing is another one because then they don't get Jalen Brown out of the Winslow thing. They give up four picks for that. But quickly on Marvin Williams. Can I add one thing to that, though? I'm sorry to do that to you.

There were people in Boston that thought the Iverson deal was closer to getting done than not getting done. And if the Iverson deal happens, the Garnett deal doesn't happen. And you get, get him for two years and then, and then you have Iverson at the end and, and, you know, you're not doing is, is raising a banner. Although the anti-ange thing is always, so when you did, I was kind of like, Ooh, that smells a little anti-angish for Bill. I'm pro-ange. It's not as bad as, yeah. The all-time worst is I did a radio show one day with Chris Broussard, and he wanted to do Isaiah is actually better than Ainge. And I was like, Chris, we were in a commercial break. I'm like, do you honestly want to do this debate with me? Because I have a master's degree in Isaiah Thomas mess-ups. It's terrible. I studied at the College of Simmons here. I go, I get that you may

not like Ainge, and you're going to bring up a couple of things, but this is going to be so devastating to you that you may not get resigned by ESPN. And I don't know that I want to do that to you. Cause I like you, Chris. Can I just say that if they had made the Iverson trade, I think there's a roadmap to the Celtics making the Oh seven finals. I'm not like, think how weak the league, think how leaked the league was in 07 where LeBron makes it with one of the worst teams he ever had like Delonte West was might have been the second best guy in the 07 Cavs it was just the league was wide open that year and if you had Pierce and Iverson playing well together with just like mediocre teammates that might have been enough in

07 we'll study the people 50 years from now. We'll be studying the 2007 East wondering what the hell happened. How, how that LeBron team made it. LeBron was like 22. They still would have had to beat the Pistons though. I mean, what LeBron did against the Pistons.

I always joke. It's a half a ring. It should count as half a ring. Or was that Pistons team kind of on the other side? You know, because at that point, Ben Wallace is gone. I don't know. Quickly on Marvin Williams. He played 36 games in 800 minutes for North Carolina. He took 19 threes out of 44 threes made 19. He averaged 11.3 points and 6.6 rebounds a game. If you look at his actual career, he averaged 10.3 points and 5.2 rebounds a game.

So it was just weird how it worked out. Anyway, that was a disastrous pick because I think if you, so if they had taken Chris Paul in oh five, here's the other thing that happened to them that summer, the Hawks, that was when they traded for Joe Johnson. They traded the two first round picks. So conceivably they could have had Joe Johnson, uh, Chris Paul and Josh Smith. And then you, we also missed out

on the whole Chris Paul, Josh Smith alley-oop thing, which would have completely reinvigorated Josh Smith's career. So it's a good what if. Then you go to number three. Utah smartly trades up. They steal this pick from Portland. And you're thinking they're going to take Chris Paul and they take Darren Williams. What do you remember about that at the time? How you felt?

I thought that was the mistake, but that Illinois team was so good. And I also remember, remember because they had the three guards. It was Williams, Luther Head, right? Frank Williams was the third one? No, Frank Williams was later. Luther Head?

I used to know this stuff. Who was the third one? God damn it. I'm going to have to now do this. I enjoyed Luther Head. For about five, six, seven years there, Chris Paul versus Darren Williams became a real basketball argument along the lines of Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, things like that. And

people were in separate camps. I was always in the Chris Paul camp. I never left. I was never threatened. Even with Darren Williams had more post-season success early on. I just always thought Chris Paul was better with worse teammates. I really thought Darren Williams, the situation in Utah was really nice. He had good players around him almost immediately and he had real success. And then eventually it became a non-argument because for reasons we'll go into later, Darren Williams,

his career tails off in a really unusual way that I still don't have an explanation for. He goes from, he's one of the five or six best guards in the league for a while, and then he's completely irrelevant. And it happens almost overnight. And I still don't understand what happened. I couldn't believe the pick. It was Luther had D Brown, which I can't. D Brown, the other D Brown. Forget that. And I don't want to do the now we've looked at their careers and one guy was done at 29 and Chris Paul still making all-star games

and say that, yeah, this was a dumb argument. It was a dumb argument when it was happening. And I really think the camps were only Utah Jazz fans and then everybody else. There may have been a couple people here or there that didn't like Chris Paul, but to argue that Darren Williams was the better point guard during those peak Darren Williams years versus Chris Paul peak years was embarrassing and

wrong. And to say like, Oh, well, Paul didn't have the same playoff success. What did Williams have that one year where they got smoked by the Lakers and the Western conference finals? Well,

they made, they made the Oh seven Western Finals and then got smoked by the Spurs. They won five playoff series in two years, which is, that's not nothing. And if you look at Williams, we might as well just do this now. Williams from 2007 to 2013. He's 19 and 10. All his percentages are solid. He makes two second team OMAs. In the playoffs, just for Utah, these are his career stats. 21 and 10, 46, 40, 80 percentage splits.

So that's about as high level as you're going to get from a point guard. So there was some legitimacy to it. The problem is- you really think so? No, no, I'm saying there's legitimacy to having the argument. I just thought it was absurd. You look at Chris's career. I mean, it's still going, but four first team all NBA is three seconds and a third for his career. Even now in his advanced age, he's basically 19 and 10. His percentages are ridiculous. 25 PR for his career is 180 wind shares. What's been weird about him is how friendly he is with advanced, how friendly he is to the advanced metrics. The advanced metrics like him as much as any basketball poor we've ever had, whatever he's doing, the advanced metrics are like,

this is our guy. We love this guy. All right. Because he can shoot and he's doing the advanced metrics are like this is our guy we love this guy all right because he can shoot and he's even though his usage is not like peak westbrook or some of that other stuff he's just efficient across the board he just is but you know back then because and i'm looking through it again they beat the rockets in that seven game series they lost um all right talk about williams spurs i'm talking about williams here but the fact that in 2007 so a couple years later you're right they lose in the five games of the spurs they had that good series with the lakers in 08 and then there was the other series with the lakers in 2010 where they got swept and a couple of the games were close and then but i mean again they still got

swept i just felt like it was they took down down the We Believe Warriors, which Barron was a little bit injured at that point, but that was still a legitimate win. The Warriors had so much momentum and it really seemed like we were headed for a Warriors Spurs finals. And then Utah kind of showed up and ruined it. Everyone wanted Warriors Spurs. It was like, this would be fantastic.

I guess I just feel like I'm doing that thing where I have to beat up another guy. I just, I was so, this was one of those arguments where I was so frustrated by it. Cause I go really, what we're doing is we're just arguing with a bunch of Utah fans. And the irony of this is that once Darren Williams was gone, no one in Utah cared anymore. And then they weren't arguing that he was better than Chris Paul. Cause it's just the way it works. And it's very similar to the irony of the Chris Paul now being on the thunder thing

where all thunder fans would argue Russell Westbrook all day of the Chris Paul now being on the Thunder thing where all Thunder fans would argue Russell Westbrook all day long over Chris Paul and then they get all of this Westbrook and they get Paul for a year and now every Thunder fans like oh really okay yeah like this is what it's like to have a guy that you kind of trust on late possessions oh this is actually kind of awesome so you know I'm sure there's still some jazz fans still hanging out there. And Darren Williams had a really good four or five year run, but even his best four or five year run wasn't as good as Paul's unless you're going to sit there and skew everything because I know I already know what the counter is.

I just I believe Chris Paul exists as this amazing Hall of Fame player that because of circumstances, some that he can help, some that he can't, is going to end up having this terrible playoff resume. And I do believe that that'll happen where some players, I go, that player's a loser. And another player, I'd be like,

Chris Paul wasn't a loser to me, but he just ended up not winning. When I had, so I was, I don't know if you know this, but I used to be a writer. And in my column, Which years?

In the late 2000s. Blogs and stuff? Yeah, yeah. Some stuff for ESPN.com. I used to dabble in it. And I used to have a lot of fun with the Chris Paul, Darren Williams thing because of the Utah fans. Because they would lose their fucking minds. Lose their minds.

Like militant. And I rarely pointed my flag in like a true trolling way with my column like that. But that was the one where I couldn't resist. And I had this column in 2008, like four weeks into the season. So it was the 20 questions. Question nine was, is there a dumber argument in sports than Chris Paul or Darren Williams? Which is a theme I'd said. So I wrote, I argued before the season passionately that paul was in a different

league and earned myself a few death threats from the salt lake city area princess state class of utah that was true right um no but it's just true like the rest of us aren't making this up because i started espn in 06 and was dealing with the same stuff on the radio show go ahead he was like go fuck yourself uh so then i wrote check out their 2009 stats through four weeks and it was Chris Paul was 20 and 12 but Williams was hurt so Williams' stats were like 7 points, 8 assists, he'd only played like two games

and then I was like that's a landslide can we stop arguing about this clearly a joke and the Utah fans lost their minds, hey Darren Williams is hurt, what the fuck it was really always funny to do. So anyway, Chris Paul ends up winning that. And when he falls to New Orleans at number four,

an incredible moment. Because this is basically a draft with three signature guys. I'm including Bogut. And then it drops off a little into this Marvin Williams, who knows are these guys going to make it? New Orleans needed a centerpiece forever, and then Chris Paul just falls into their lap.

It was clear when it happened, this is like, wow, this is going to be a transformative pick, especially because now he has the chip on his shoulder. All of that happens. The Bogoga thing. We knew this was bad when it happened. I actually would argue that he's probably turned out

a little bit better than maybe our expectations were. By 2005, we had such a shit detector for centers going too high in an NBA draft who had some flaws. It was the all-time uh-oh. And with him, so I wrote quote, I thought he was going to be the next Bill Wennington until

last week when I found out he was only 20 years old. Now I'd like to upgrade that prediction to the poor man's Mike Jeminski. That's what I wrote that week in the draft. I thought he was going to be a bust. What did you think? I did not.

I liked him. I did. Now, you know, again, I like Marvin Williams too much. I like Martel Webster too much. And I've got a couple other misses that we're going to get to. But I liked Bogut because of going back and looking at that stuff. He just, he's playing in a smarter offense, and we saw it later on at the end of his Golden State years.

This guy just kind of understood what needed to be done all the time. And by his second year, you're realizing, okay, he's 12 and almost 10, and his field goal percentage, like there's just all these numbers where you're going, okay, maybe he's not going to dominate like a Dwight Howard back in those times. Um, he's not going to be this hall of fame center, but this guy is really smart. He's really productive.

And he was so good on defense for help stuff. Like he was, he was really smart and understood kind of like, all right, here's my assignment now, but what can I, what, how can I cheat? How can I do some of this stuff? And the stuff he was doing with Golden State when he was actually healthy, which is a huge problem with his whole career, but Bogut was going to be really good

if he doesn't have his arms shatter in that way. I think it's Amari Stoudemire, who's third team All-NBA, which I had forgotten about. And so, yeah, on the redraft, you still have to factor in he couldn't stay healthy from that moment on, but he was, if healthy, he was trending towards a guy that was going to make, I think a lot of all-star games. 2008 to 2011, he's 14 and 10 with 2.1 blocks a game,

13 on bed in 2010. The defense was the underrated piece to him. He was a very good old school defensive center when he could move around and he could use both of his arms correctly. And the, the issue with him was just keeping them on the court. The elbow injury was a fluke, but then it was a mess. I kept forgetting how bad it kept getting after that. Yeah. It, yeah. All kinds of shit happened. What I liked about him was defensively. He could be the anchor and And then offensively, the assists don't back it up as much as I thought, but I always thought he had a nice feel for the game, the moving, and that's why he fit in so well with Golden State.

I don't know if he could have been the best player on the title team, but I think he could have been the second best player if he had stayed healthy. And that was way more than I thought was expecting in 05. And it's too bad. That's a, it's an underrated sucky injury because again, he's 20 in this draft and he didn't have like, you know, he ended up having leg issues later, but that elbow thing is a fluke that could have happened to any player in the league. And it's just a, it's just a bummer.

So we have that. Um, we should mention this was the last draft with high school picks. That's right. Gerald Green. Gerald Green, Martel Webster, and then the most successful one of all these guys, Lou Williams. Oh, I thought you were going to say that. Who ends up going midway through the second round. Who's, I think, still like 27 years old, even though he's been in the league for 16 years.

And then the other major subplot, which was just kind of amazing. Andre Blatch? Which one? Andre Blatch? No. The Granger thing was incredible as it was happening because he was really good in college and he was so clearly, so clearly an NBA player. It was just like, this is exactly the type of player who succeeds. I thought he was going to go like in the six to nine range. And when I'm doing the draft, I'm when I did the draft diary, you could see me, I'm just going nuts as it's going along. Um, Rob Babcock, the Toronto GM who drafted Raphael Rougeau in 2004 over Andre Godala famously covered that one

in this one. He takes Charlie, Charlie Villanueva with his top 10 pick already had Chris Bosch had already taken a Rougeau the year before says, fuck it passes on Granger. And then he's up again at 16. Granger's still on the board. And he's like, ah, I like this Joey Graham. I'm going to take him. So Toronto passes him twice. Twice. The other thing that's amazing,

the Lakers and Clippers pass him. The Lakers take Bynum, which we'll get to with the 10th pick. He was 17 years old, 290 pounds center. And this was at a time when they just missed the playoffs and Kobe's just pissed that his teammates aren't good enough, the whole thing. And then they take this guy who's a three-year project and everyone's like,

oh, they're going to trade Kobe. If they had taken Granger on top of and kept Karam Butler, who they traded for Kwame Brown, and they already had Odom, that's actually a pretty good foundation, right? Granger, Odom, Karam Butler, and Kobe. But they fucked it up for him. And somehow Mitch Kupchak doesn't get, you know,

the Bynum thing pays off later, I guess. But I'd rather have Dean and Granger. I'm not going to knock Mitch for Bynum thing pays off later, I guess, but I'd rather Dean Granger. I'm not going to knock Mitch for Bynum because he had the vision to go ahead and take this kid who was a different kind of recruit. Apparently, he was supposed to go to UConn. There's always these stories. You'd be like, yeah, this guy was supposed to go there.

You'd be like, okay, but he didn't. What are we doing here? I would give the Lakers and Mitch credit for taking behind him there instead of Granger, but Granger falling, it didn't make any sense. And I was at the Celtics draft party that night. I was doing the live broadcast for the Celtics radio station and the Granger falling thing. I'm like, oh my God, he's going to follow the Celtics. He's going to follow the Celtics. Like this is incredible. And then he

goes that one spot before him and Granger has a five-year run that's awesome like it's awesome we're talking 20 plus he has 25 on one of those seasons and he's exactly what you would want before the injuries to just take him over and then you know paul george comes onto the scene too but i was so excited hoping that they were going to get him and then i had heard like when gerald green was still there and granger goes they're like ah shit like now what are we going to do and it was kind of like a last minute thing. But there's a better story than that. Do you know the story? Well, I know there's two versions of the story

and it ended up, you tell yours and I'll tell mine because mine sucks for me. So go ahead. I heard they were on the phone with Bird who's running Indiana because they were moving up, I think for Gerald Green, assuming Granger was going to go to Toronto at 16.

And they're talking to him. Toronto takes Graham and Bird starts laughing. It's like, I got to go. We just got Danny Granger and hangs up. Because both sides had thought Toronto was taking him. And then Indiana is like, well, we're not taking a high schooler.

So Boston was going to flip picks with them, I think, and throw in something. And and then the Danny Granger thing happened. So that doesn't sound like that's a made up story. No, that sounds pretty good.

I that sounds realistic. What was your story? I ended up doing TV. You know, I'm confusing years. I'm confusing the Al Jefferson. So it was the year before. Because Ainge liked me. He was unbelievable.

Because I used to play hoops at their facility, but not the actual team part of it. They were connected to an open, it was a New York sports club, but it was his Boston sports club. It was in Waltham. And one of my favorite things in the world to do would be after I'd get off of work, I would just go and get shots up. And then every now and then like

somebody from the Celtics would walk by because it'd be connecting offices and they'd make fun of my jumper or whatever. You're going a little hard on your post work, dude. You're like 30 and no one cares and you're not playing against anybody. So what's your problem? You're like Leon and above the rib. Yeah. They're just like, who's this loser working on his post footwork and like pretending somebody's guarding him because no one was and angel would have me up and he was awesome to me because if it was before the draft we talked about some players and he would just straight up i'd be like well what about like rocco lenny ukich should he be like well if he's there at 45 he's going to be there 46 you know that would be and i don't even remember if that was the one but i went on to tv it was the jefferson pick now that i remember and somebody else from the team had said hey whenever we look at high school players we

want them to have this height this length this rebounding rate there's like all these boxes that you have to check so i went on tv and was like well you know when the celtics look at high school kids they've got to check these boxes and age happened to be seeing it and then age told somebody else on the staff he's like by the way who told you that thing about what we do with high school guys i was like well i'm not going to tell you who else told me but he was like Ainge was laughing at you watching that in the back room being like oh he was like why is Rosillo talking like who why would he say that like I don't and what you don't realize until you get older is that just because somebody works for a team it doesn't mean that the guy making the

decision listens to everybody else in the team right and if there's one thing you've learned about Ainge over the years, which I'm sure you have too, is that you can work with Ainge, you can be on the staff, but Ainge ultimately does whatever he wants to do, and he doesn't always share everything with his staff. That's how I run the ringer. It is, but it made me look like an idiot. And honestly, I was just young, and a team official had said,

these are some of the things. It wasn't even like it was some big secret. It was just, these are some of the things we look for. So I was like, oh it was just these are some of the things we look for so i was like oh that that's cool i'll go on can i share that like yeah it's not a big deal and it was the al jefferson pick but the green pick i have one other thing from that i'll i know i'm rambling here but you'll like this ike diago went ninth to golden state yeah ike and old school he he was just 30 years too late in 1972 ike has a good career he's in the league for 11 years so perkins and delaney west and all those guys that had just been drafted uh the year prior right or two years yeah they came out because the celtics put on this massive party at this facility and it was a great

spread tons of food and perk and delaney come out and start loading up on food yeah and they're not dressed up at all they're just like grab trays load it up with food and let's go in the back and get out of here like we're not here to do the meat and green that's take pictures by the way that's what nephew kyle does at ringer parties same exactly move same move it's perfect like you remember how young these guys are and ike tiago goes ninth and perk is right next to us but he's watching like the espn feed and perk goes boy went lottery his game is doo-doo. Like, and he was, he had this look on his face. It was so damn funny.

Perk is looking at it and he's looking at Delati. And he's like, yo, boy went lottery. Boy went lottery. Yo, he, his, his game is do, do, do, do. And I mean, just, he was, couldn't believe that Ike Diago went ninth. And you're right. Great scouting report from Perk. Ike, do, do Diago.

Well, another do, do guy in this draft was a friend Vasquez. I can't, I can't emphasize strongly enough how bad the GMs were in the mid two thousands before the internet really ran it in a shape and started bullying bad decisions. I can't emphasize strongly enough how bad the GMs were in the mid-2000s before the internet really ran it into shape and started bullying bad decisions. Orlando took Fran Vasquez 11th, did not realize he was staying in Europe. Also didn't realize he was terrible. So, I mean, that was an easy Danny Granger pick. They had Dwight Howard.

You just could have added Danny Granger to all the guys that were on the 2009 Magic easily. And they took Fran Vasquez. It's kind of amazing they made the finals in 09 anyway with all the mistakes Otis Smith made over that five-year stretch. He wasn't involved in that one. Who was the Orlando GM before Otis? Is it still Gabriel? Yeah, it was John Gabriel, I think who is the Orlando GM before Otis? Is it still Gabriel?

Yeah, it was John Gabriel. I think at that point, are we, are we sure? Let me, let's just make sure. Let's let's say both of them were terrible.

And we'll be covered. I don't know. Otis is like another level. Otis gave her, what did he get? He gave Lewis 110 billion or whatever. Give him a cup. One more thing about this draft. Big picture. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. He gave Lewis $110 billion or whatever he gave him. One more thing about this draft, big picture standpoint. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Gabriel was gone by then. Gabriel was let go during a 19-game losing streak during the 0-3-0-4 season. So that was Otis. Congrats to Otis. Can I add something to the Fran thing, though? I know I'm jumping you here, but it needs to be repeated what you just said. This isn't the 1959 AFL draft where a dead guy gets drafted in the 12th round. This is 2005.

The internet's been running now for a while. Right. And you're drafting somebody in the lottery who never plays an NBA minute. Well, let's actually go. We'll give people the draft so they can get a feel for it. Milwaukee goes first with Bogut. Atlanta second, Marvin Williams.

Utah third, trades up Darren Williams. Chris Paul goes fourth to New Orleans. Raymond Felton goes to Charlotte five, which we were all fine with at the time. Webster to Portland at six. Toronto takes Charlie Villanueva seventh. Um, the Knicks are on the clock at eight and in the draft hour, I write the new, most exciting words in sports are the Knicks are on the clock because Isaiah is running the draft at this point. They take Channing Fry,

um, which turned out exactly how I think we all thought it was going to turn out, but they pass up Granger, which is hilarious. Golden State takes Ike Diago at number nine. Just basically just a complete miss. Lakers take Bynum at 10. Vasquez goes 11 to Orlando. And then the Clippers are on the clock at 12 with a good team, a team that's about to be a title contender, the 0506 Clips. And they take Yaroslav Korolev over granger who i kind of liked oh you kind of

liked them yeah i still i still was susceptible to the chad ford flu yeah and the foreigners and this is not an anti-chad thing we both love chad i'm going on with chad uh on his pot at some point here soon but there was i i didn't hate Yaroslav Korolev's length. Well, I'll tell you, as I mentioned, every time we do the redraftables, I got my Clipper season tickets in 04 and got to know some of the people behind the scenes. When they did this pick, they were all like,

that's Dunleavy's guy. Dunleavy's convinced he's going to be a transformative guy for us. And I was like, you know who would have been good? Danny Granger, very aware that that guy's good. So you have that. And then even better, Sean May goes 14, I'm sorry, 13 to Charlotte. So Charlotte's just like, we know everybody hates us. We're just taking you and see guys. Rashad McCants, who is the head case of this draft, he goes 14 to Minnesota. And now the Danny Granger thing has reached the point where we're all going.

Does this guy, is there something wrong with him? Did he come to a crime we don't know about? Does he fail a drug test? What's happening? New Jersey, who it should be mentioned, have Vince Carter and Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson and are like not a contender, but they're in the mix. They're one guy away from being really interesting. They pass up Granger. They take Antoine Wright. Toronto passes him up again, takes Joey Graham, and he ends up falling to Indiana at 17. So let me tell you something. None of this made sense as it was happening. The other reason people in NBA circles really like this draft is NBA guys love drafts where there's a lot of value late. And if you look at this draft from the 25th pick on maybe 28th pick, Yama Himney goes 28, David Lee goes 30, Brandon bass 33 cj miles 34 irian eliasova 36 turiaf 37 monte ellis 40

lou williams 43 those are like nba players i just listed eight guys that went 28 or later and some guys who made real ryan gomes played eight oh yeah ryan gomes amir johnson goes amir johnson i mean when you start looking at some of the the advanced stuff on this draft class like amir johnson keeps popping up towards the top so when i was thinking on the redraft i'm like okay well i'm not just gonna marry myself to the analytics because amir johnson played a million years because he's still not as impactful as some of these other guys mikhail gelabel who i loved breaking him down this is when i started getting access to the Euros too,

and I'd watch him on my own. And I was like, this Jellabell guy, he's fun. A lot of Chris Taft. I think I may have had a little Chris Taft stock from Pitt even. Well, we'll get to the guy we still haven't given up on later. Orion Green? You loved Orion Green a couple of years. No doubt. It couldn't shoot.

I know. I like my guards to be able to shoot. So from a wind share standpoint, Chris Paul doubles the next highest total of anyone else in this draft. Shockingly, Marcin Gortat, sixth highest wind shares of anyone in this draft. We covered everything.

So I'm ready to do the sixth. I, well, I don't think it is we're gonna get into gore top but gore top comes out of this higher he's party he better be in your lottery he has to be in your lottery on the redraft here i feel like there was one other story i don't know there's by the way we i didn't mention him he went 57th uh from a comedy standpoint we mentioned a lot of the funny stuff. I wrote New Orleans when Chris Paul got drafted. New Orleans happily grabs Chris Paul at the fourth pick,

partly because he's the best player in the draft, partly because he's one of the four people in this draft who can handle playing in New Orleans, which turned out to be true. From a comedy standpoint, Stu Scott interviewed Darren Williams and finished the interview by saying, by throwing it back to Mike Tirico and saying,

Mike, seven tattoos on this man. Still, character all the time. Character. And Darren Williams is kind of like, what the fuck? And it got thrown back. I still don't know what happened there. Oh my God.

That's so weird. It's so weird. And the fact that Stern couldn't learn the name and it wasn't like it was Yaroslav Korolev. It was Darren Williams. And it's just forever. I still say Duran is a joke. Right.

John Nash explained the Webster thing. Here's his actual quote. First of all, we think we took an outstanding young man. He's a terrific character. Somebody that the community of Portland could be proud of in addition to a very good player. So you know you're in trouble when you have a top six pick, basically, and it's just character is the number one reason.

And then the only other really funny one, they had a must improve in 04 and 05. Jan Mahimny went 28th, and his most improved was must improve overall skills. Not wrong. Not wrong, though. Can I add to the John Nash thing?

Because John Nash, who had no reason to be nice to me after I made an 86 Sixers joke draft at his expense on a TV show at the same time and every it was everybody was it was so nasty of me to do it that people were on the set were like whoa dude and then i followed up with nash and he was like look there's things you don't understand this is why we did this trade whatever i was like yeah you still traded the number one pick and door you could

have had barclay moses malone and brad doherty in your front line and instead you didn't so i don't think i don't think i'm wrong, but he made an explanation and it was cool. Paul Allen, I believe back then, was absolutely running the draft and had been upset because of the things you brought up. And they had a video feed inside the Portland War Room that night and they make the Martell trade. Nash explains it.

But when they did that and they ended up with Linus Clayson and they made the trade back with Denver for Jarrett Jack, so they ended up getting their point guard when they did that and they ended up with Linus Clay's and they made the trade back with Denver for Jarrett Jack so they ended up getting their point guard and they argued that hey you know what we actually think there's a chance Jarrett Jack could be better than he is the way Paul Allen did like a like excited double weird awkward wanting to get into a high five I go this draft's a disaster just the base on the celebration. We didn't get Chris Paul, but where do you see Jared Jack? An actual

quote from Portland. We're doing the redraft. We have a half hour to do this. For scrap rating for this draft, it was a four to ten. Pretty conventional other than the Marvel Williams thing and Granger falling.

I'll give you the first pick. I know you're taking Chris Paul unless you're going to shock me and take Lou Williams. No, I'm not going to pull a Portland here. The Chris Paul thing historically, it's not even. I mean, there's nothing to do here other than take Chris Paul and keep moving. How many playoff series total has Chris Paul won in his entire career? Seven. Right.

Correct. Average 21 and nine in the playoffs. His numbers are awesome in the playoffs, and it sucks. It sucks so bad. They beat the Spurs in that seven game thing where the Spurs in normal years would have been a much higher seed. That's a great team that they beat in the first round. He hits the game winning layup and I get it. Like when we count wins and we count losses, he doesn't hold up. I just, I believe there are

coaches that are great coaches that have bad records for a bunch of reasons. I am in the Chris Paul camp that he's an amazing, amazing player. Who's not a loser. Who's not a big stat losing player. I think he's a big stat player who hasn't won. And I will go to the grave with that thought. So you're saying he's the Andy Reed of point guards. It's going to happen for him still at some point.

Well, unfortunately he doesn't get to like play for another 20 years. Um, yeah, true. But, um, I can't do it anymore. You know what I mean? So I get, unfortunately he doesn't get to like play for another 20 years um yeah true but um well you know i can't do it anymore you know what i mean so i get i get everybody rolling their eyes as i say this and that's fine two of the biggest playoff collapses of this decade 2014 okc an absolutely inexplicable falling apart in uh i think it was game four, where he just throws the ball away a couple times.

And it's so bad. And then the 2015 against the Rockets, when Harden gets pulled, the series is over. And then the Rockets just come back and nobody on the Clipper side, most notably Chris, can calm it down as it's happening. Those are going to go on his NBA gravestone unless he wins the title. Then the 2018, he gets hurt right when it seems like they are going to flip the script on the Warriors. And that's the great what if of his career,

other than the Lakers trade that doesn't go through, which I think for him, it's probably a good thing that didn't go through. He's catching Kobe at the tail end of his prime and a year of Dwight Howard, which didn't go well. And catching Kobe at the tail end of his prime and a year of Dwight Howard, which didn't go well and Gasol in the tail end. And, you know, I think, I don't, I think it, the going to the Clippers probably is better for him. The other thing with Chris Paul, we mentioned four first team all NBA, three second, one third at the MVP finishes are

really impressive. He was second in 2008. He was third in 2012 and fourth in 2014. For point guard, that's just way up there. So if you're making the case for him versus Isaiah and some of the other point guard greats, like the fact that three different years he was considered one of the four best guys in the league, it's legit. And if you're going to do,

the Houston thing is inexplicable. Like you said, it's on and if you're going to do the houston thing is inexplicable like you said it's on him forever um i hold other people's collapses against them and it makes it sound like i'm just making excuses and not being consistent when i i don't do it with chris paul as much but if you're going to do if you're going to do those you got to bring up like two blake injuries where all of a sudden it's like it just looks hey, how come you guys lost those series against those other teams? You're like, well, because Blake went down again. And that's a real thing.

Career-wise, mention the advanced metrics just really quickly. First, offensive rating. Fourth, wind shear 48. This is all-time. Fourth in assists per game. Ninth in PR. Eighth in steals. Eighth in VORP. Advanced metrics. love Chris Paul. Number two, Darren Williams.

I'm still taking him. You have to. The trade, we mentioned all the Darren Williams stuff except for the trade, but his 07-13 stretch, even including the first Brooklyn year, he's just really good and relevant,

but he ends up getting traded for Derek favors who had been the number two pick in the previous draft, I think, or he was still pretty young. So it was almost like getting a top three ladder pick. Oh yeah. Devin Harris, who was a real guy cash,

a 2011 first round pick that ended up being top three in his canter. And then a 2013 first round pick that ended up being top three Enos Cantor. And then a 2013 first round pick, which became a George, Georgie dang. Um, that was a huge hall and a shocking NBA trade. That was one of those trades. I actually remember where I was when I heard that trade,

because it came out of nowhere. Nobody knew he was available. He had just started a feud a little bit with Jerry Sloan. And Utah was like, you're leaving in a year and a half. Fuck this. This was right at the beginning of this player empowerment decade. And Utah, I think, did the best job of anyone of being proactive and being like, oh, you're leaving. You're going to be a problem.

We're cutting ties right now and getting as much as we can. It was really smart. It's a good trade. It was really smart. It's a good trade. It was incredibly smart and it's an unbelievable hall. And at the time, like I thought favors, you know, who's had a decent career. I thought he would be more,

if you're going to talk about, you know, guys you'd have stock in. I mean, I'd given up on him once I'd just seen enough like, Hey, the next, the next step that you want him to get,

that doesn't exist for him. Um, and then you end up with the top three pick and Kanter, who Kanter early on, you know, I'd still put Kanter up there as far as offensive skills around the rim. It's just unbelievable. He just, he can't, he can't guard anyone. He just, he gets abused in certain matchups. And I just love that Utah, because Utah's like, look,

we're not getting any free agents in here. It's just, it's just such a well-run organization. And they're like, all right, we're not getting any free agents in here. It's just, it's just, just such a well run organization. And they're like, all right, we're ready. We're ready to bounce on this. And then at the same time, like the, the New Jersey Brooklyn thing, you go, if you can get your hands on Darren Williams, who again, still had really good years there. But when it was over, it was over immediately. It was like, he's over at 29, right?

Like 29, just done. He has a little bit of a resurgence as like a three-point shooter. I do remember when, what was it? Cleveland added him in 17. right like 29 just done he has a little bit of a resurgence as like a three-point shooter i do remember when what was it cleveland added him in 17 and there's actually people been like oh the balance of power may have shifted now and it's like once again evidence exhibit 402 of how often the buyout guys do nothing and everybody gets so excited about it. And also how, how, how many people just don't actually watch basketball. Great point. It was like,

Oh, the calves D will. It's like, you guys fucking watch basketball. He's been done for three years. What are you getting? It was like, well,

there was Scott Stefan Marbury that time. It's like, what are we getting? The guy's done. It's there's a fork in them. Um, they also got bogus. And I'm telling you,

this is not, this is not a few eggs this is some serious blue checks out there that had said on their shows that adding bogut and darren williams had shifted cleveland to be the favorites from the 2017 warriors who were probably the best team ever and i'm like and, and you're right. I mean, this is the part where you and I can get really passionate about certain points that we have, because we know we'd never say something like that because we're still watching the fucking games.

It's pretty rough. Yeah, I remember one of the ones was the, Vergeau was another one. There's just certain ones where at some point somebody got excited because somebody picked up Vergeau. It's like, the guy can't stand the floor. What are you guys excited about? May say, because remember, Bogut played one minute for Cleveland.

But do you really think had Bogut played more minutes for Cleveland and not going to like all of a sudden- Yeah, because so I'm just expecting that potential counter. But it's it's always like that gm survey where after the celtics add kairi and gordon hayward and another top draft pick but the thunder had added paul george but then added mellow like right before the season

started the thunder were labeled to have had the best off season by the gms by gms guys that do this because of the recency bias and whenever that buyout post trade deadline stuff happens that recency bias of oh my gosh they added they added shannon brown that's gonna be a huge spark off the bench like all right they're probably my favorites in the west now you go everybody needs to relax i think uh the darren williams thing 30 40 years from now to people just learning about basketball looking Everybody needs to relax. I think the Darren Williams thing, 30, 40 years from now, to people just learning about basketball, looking up different guys.

Don't ask me why. I mean, we're in the middle of almost the end of month three of the quarantine here. I was on an Otis Byrd song, kind of deep dive the other night, just reading up on Otis. And it was really fascinating, the 1981 Kings, how a 40 and 42 team almost made the

NBA finals and Otis Birdsong and Phil Ford was their star backcourt. Both guys get hurt in the playoffs and they have Ernie Grunfeld at point guard with Scott Wedman, who's a small forward playing, uh, playing guard. Anyway, I'm reading up all this. And then I'm looking at Otis Birdsong, who was like the second pick in the draft who made like four all-star teams. Who's like 25 a game. One year, um, gets signed by, uh, the nets to a huge contract. You look at his field goal percentage is like 55 a game. Like he has this eight year run. We're like, wow, that guy was really like shockingly good. Most famously, they beat the 84 Sixers the year after the 83 Sixers won the title,

him, Michael Ray Richardson, Buck Williams, Gmo, they upset the Sixers. And then he just, he's kind of gone. And I feel like that's how people will look at Darren Williams, you know, 30 years from now, like this other guy in this draft, Darren Williams, you know, 30 years from now, I'm like this other guy in this draft, Darren Williams, you look at his stats from Oh seven to 13, man, me to all MBAs. Cause other than that, there'll be no Darren Williams conversations for the next 30 years. It's really surprising. I don't think that's, I wouldn't have expected that. Yeah. I, I don't, I don't like, you know, cause I had to argue Paul so much that it just always turns into you taking apart the other guy. But those things of like, wow, look what he's done in the playoffs.

You're like, one Western Conference Finals appearance, and now all of a sudden this guy's Magic Johnson? Like, come on. Yeah. He was good, though. I will say. He was really good. He was really good. Physical point guard.

And I remember Nash. That hard crossover dribble in transition. And he would always get the free throws. It was like, what are you supposed to do with this guy? The hair was a red flag. I remember talking to Nash once in oh nine range about, he was saying how Baron was the hardest guy for him to guard. Cause Baron was just like, you know, trying to tackle running back. And he was saying out Darren Williams was the other guy like that, where you just really felt it after you played those guys. We don't really have... Do we have a physical point guard like that right now? Like a punishing... I don't feel like that kind of guy's in the league right now, unless I'm blanking. Everybody is more

in that Dame Lillard type of body now for that position. They're more like the shooters and perimeter guys. Well, I mean, what do you do with Harden? I mean, Harden... harden i mean harden i guess yeah so if harden if you consider him a point guard i guess that would be the legacy yeah because i mean now it's a free-for-all but remember this though too the darren williams stuff with all those three guards in illinois because it was kind of like wait a minute because he wasn't always the go-to guy on that really good team and it's like wait he's going to be the best player and he was i mean it wasn't close between him and luther head and d brown but there was always that body type thing. And I also think complexion always comes into these NBA comps. We just can't help ourselves. The science of it where it was like, Oh, he's Jason

kid. And my thing with Jason kid was I don't want to hear anybody is Jason kid. Cause nobody's Jason kid you're on the clock number three i'm going bogut wow okay um now the part of my argument here is his health is not in my favor but when he went to golden state and they ended up becoming good he just didn't take any shots anymore because there were no shots for him yeah and he would have been a 15 to 17 10 rebound guy who always plays great defense to somebody who was a terrific passer understood all the complexities understood the angles understood again help defense versus iso defense set a million nasty screens i mean he's a dirty player in the way you'd want a player to be dirty, but he is. And I just, I love his game. And I think, I think somewhere else with a second part of his career, that's not a, you know, no available shot situation like Golden State. He still could have put up some points, but there's a real weird fall off in this draft where I feel like there's a million wrong answers and that may be another one but there's no one other than him like I know what some of the stats say historically and there's all

these other guys are going to go over but I like Bogut as a piece well when did he get hurt he got hurt in that in the Cleveland right? About halfway through the finals in 2016. Yeah, he doesn't play in six and seven. It's like an underrated. It's not why you lost the finals, but it kind of has to be brought up much like Perkins in 2010. There's these little tiny injuries that it's not to a key guy,

so it doesn't get mentioned. But if he is able to play in that seventh game, they don't have to play festus azili who's well they don't they don't lose they don't lose because azili is an absolute mess in that so bad game yeah wow i had bogut on my board later i know i expect to be ridiculed that's fine no i had him i had him either fifth or sixth. We should mention. It's not great.

The rest of this is not great. It's picking through a lot of stuff that you're going to have problems with. So if the teams at the time had listened to us, Milwaukee would have taken Chris Paul. Atlanta would have taken Darren Williams. And then you have Utah taking Bogut. That would have been like a science experiment. Although maybe Utah doesn't trade up at that point.

So maybe that's Portland instead. All right, with the fourth pick. Maybe they give up more for Bogut. Danny Granger, who ends up going 17th. This pick would be for New Orleans. But you mentioned his five-year run. From 08 to 2012, this is crazy. He's 22 and five.

His percentages are 43, 39 from three, and 86 free throw. He's averaging almost six threes a game. His 2009 NBA season is about as modern of a 2000s season as you can find. 25.8 points, 45% field goal, 40% three, 88% free throw. And he averages 6.73 attempts and almost seven free throw attempts. So now it's like, if you just put that guy into 2020 and he's 10 and 10 with those, he's probably a 30 point score. What's crazy is he doesn't make the all NBA team that year. Cause you have LeBron, you have Dirk, you have Paul Pierce, who was great that season. Duncan still chugging along

Gasol, really good season where the Lakers win the title. And then one of Carmelo's best seasons, oh nine. So he gets bumped from that. And it's a bummer because that, you know, sometimes the all NBA works that way. But to me, he's one of the best 10 to 12 guys in the league that season. We should mention the other thing with him. He gets hurt, and it's a really good LeBron what if. LeBron had a couple lucky things happen to him along the way, and I think this was one of them. That Indiana team, which kind of went at them in 2012,

the last year Granger was healthy. And then in 2013, George had gone another level, but Granger's hurt. He's out on that. So he plays five games. Yeah. And he's not Granger anymore. And if you had the real Granger in that series,

I think they could have beat Miami because I think Miami was pretty worn down at that point from the streak from three straight years with the bullseye they were kind of ready to be had as the Spurs almost got them the next round but if you put vintage Granger in that series I think that's a toss-up I really do yeah because the Granger thing when he's over he plays five games at 12 13 and what you just said is a totally fair point I mean it doesn't mean you're not saying it's 100 but it's certainly worthy of bringing up yeah yeah i think it is because that pacers team did a really good job and remember how weird those pacers series were too because it was like

i don't know anybody has ever gone as valuable to as as unvaluable as roy hibbert i don't know that anybody's ever had a quicker transition to wow look how terrific this guy is in this matchup to you're going to be out of the league like Like it felt like a weekend. League flipped on him. Totally. By the way, Granger was another one that we were talking about earlier. Remember when I think the Clippers signed him? People were like, Danny Granger?

It's like, you guys aren't watching basketball. He can't move anymore. Yeah, but everybody gets that. He was on one leg. Everybody, every one of these players that you go through whose career is over quicker than you think, there's like three stops from teams that get you in to like make sure you're done and as long as it isn't too expensive i don't know that

i blame anybody but you know 29 plays five games it's over he goes from 19 six a game 25 8 24 25 or 20.5 i don't know i'm doing tenths of a point here 19 a game to never over double figures again and the oddity for Granger too is that the team you were the star on you're immediately replaced by a better version of like the same body type a bigger more athletic a Paul George who's even a better player and you're like oh okay so in a way it worked out for the Pacers uh which is rare I mean it's so rare to come back and be like now I just lost my job because i'm hurt i'm not going to be as good but also not going to get the opportunity because they just came up with like the the terminator 2 version of me it's what they should have had on paper is a lot like what the celtics have with jaylen and tatum where you could add these two interchangeable wings george

a better defender but they could have had lebrron could have been dealing with that for the rest of the decade. These two guys on the same team, both of whom could guard them who are averaging 45 to 50 points a game. It's a, it's a tough one. Um, or like a Twan, Brandon Hunter thing. Stop it. You're on the clock at five. So you would have taken Granger three, like no question. Yeah. Because I think the peak of Granger was I think really, really, really elite and should have been all NBA elite. He just had bad luck that year.

Okay, totally fair. And maybe it's the right answer. I guess I'm giving Bogut the bump for the second part of his career. No, I'm with you on Bogut. I think he's now underrated as the years pass. Who do you have at number five? I'm going Lou Williams.

Yep. It's just an overwhelming resume of stuff here. He's only behind Paul and Monte Ellis points wise. The analytics like him in this group. He's only behind Paul and Deron Williams.

And, you know, look, Lou has his flaws, but he's still getting you buckets, and he's still somebody who can come in and get you like 15 and a quarter in a game that matters. And yes, defense is not something he's ever really been interested in. And I think there are even arguments

against, like, how many shots can we really give this guy if he's going to mail it in at so many different parts. But the longevity part of this, still going the way he is, this might be the lowest Lou Williams could go. For a while, he was like Jamal Crawford with bad PR. Like Jamal

Crawford had the best PR team and he became overrated. And Lou Williams is kind of the stealth guy, he bounces around. He played for six teams. He has two years on the Lakers that have just been basically erased from history.

I remember when Houston traded for him. That was when I was like, oh, is there some advanced metric stuff with him? And you go and you look at Lou Williams' 2017 season where he takes five and a half threes a game, but it's also getting to the line six times a game. And he was like that weird three point attempt, free throw attempt hybrid. I think what's strange about him is you don't usually see somebody take 10 years to kind of become the guy that they became. Because from 2015 to 2020, right now, he averages 18 and four a game, 36% from three.

He's over five for attempts for threes and free throws. And there's really no indication that that's going to happen from 06 to 2015. He gets better as the league moves in his favor. But it's not like he changed his style didn't change his body didn't change it's just the league started doing things that he was good at looking at his stat log on basketball reference is i don't know who else is like this first of all the fact that he's that he's 33 doesn't make any sense right um he was 22 a game for a full season just two seasons ago and that's his career

high so his career high was after 12 years in the league like you know whenever people show like the kawaii graphic where it's like these four years in a row his scoring went up all four years like this dude i mean lou it doesn't it doesn't make any sense like players like this they don't have no people don't have careers like this and so i feel like this pick is more out of respect and the fact that i still like why would he stop getting buckets it's not like he's gonna be like he's still gonna be getting buckets for a couple years here yeah the longevity makes it a no-brainer I'm with you for the six pick David Lee and Monte Ellis are still on the board. And it's tough because both guys are relics from a different era of basketball.

I think Monte has to get the nod here. Even though David Lee made two all-star teams, David Lee was 18-11 from 2009 to 2014. He was a good energy guy off the bench. But Monte averaged 25.5 points a game in 2010. Monte was at the point where I think he was considered

a higher value to the Warriors than Curry was for at least a little bit there. From 2008 to 2015, he averaged 21 a game, 45% field goal, could not shoot threes, is a guy who just kind of belongs to a different era. And I'm not sure how that would have translated to how we play basketball now. I guess maybe he would have worked on his shot. I don't know. But I just like him a tiny bit more than david lee so that's my case it's the right case and it's fitting that you paired him with david lee because it's big numbers bad teams

and every time david lee you go through all of those teams david lee story is a great story and it's a great pick by Isaiah, but it's big numbers. Team always stuck. And the minute he's done in his golden state run is when they get good again. And again, it has more to do with the rest of the guys around him and Trey coming in. Yeah, right. I mean, it's not like, Oh, Hey, stop playing David Lee and get all these other guys minutes. It's just, no, we put together this really great roster. David Lee's run in Boston was probably one of the more surprising things ever because it was over it was already over before he got there and then talking to people in Boston were like man we were almost blown away by just it just was over like their expectations for him were higher even I wondered like hey you know did you just sort of do that deal to do the deal and

it's like no we thought we were going to get something out of him. And like, you could tell Stevens was done with him pretty quickly, which was surprising. Remember in 2013, him and Curry, when they kind of revived the Warriors, Clay's coming on, they had traded Monte Ellis, they had Bogut. And I remember I had David Lee and Curry on my podcast together. And it really seemed like, I think a lot of us like David Lee. We liked his game. We'd always kind of wanted to see him on a good team. My dad always loved him. My dad loves like lefty rebounders. And by the mid-2000s, he just didn't make sense anymore

for how basketball is played because you just spread the floor on him and he has nobody to guard. And you can't play him at center. He's not gonna be able to protect the rim. So he's almost like a casualty of where basketball went, but he did make two all-star teams. So is he your seventh pick?

I just want to stay on Monta one more point though, because as David Lee, like you look at the numbers and you go, he went from 18 a game to like eight a game overnight with Golden State. But that one final year, he put up some big numbers with Golden State. They did win 51 games. So I want to be fair to him and bring that up

because every- Yeah, he was a good player. It was like the nine seasons prior to that between New York and Golden State, nothing happens. And remember, it was a new owner syndrome there. Yeah. And Lake up and they give David Lee all of this money

and they're like, look at these numbers. Because I mean, he's just a 2010 machine for the first almost decade of his career. It's crazy production. So I'll production so all and fun to watch too i always liked energy rebounder guys and he was lefty and he had nice touch around the rim and you know i i was a huge fan but i want to point out the monte ellis thing where you could argue taking him later because even even though it's the production, and I do think if you sort it by career points, is Ellis the second? I'm going to double check it here.

I think Ellis is, that's right. He's still number two all time in this draft class career points. So Paul's at 18,700. Monte Ellis is just under 15,000 points for his career, which is second most of anyone in the class, as I said. But his usage rate, he's one of those usage rate alarm guys where you're thinking, okay, so Monte Ellis had six seasons higher than the highest usage rate for a Magic Johnson. He's got usage rates that are beyond. This is this thing that you brought up,

and I've stayed with it. When people compare compare Barkley and Pippen and I go usage rate alone, this is an embarrassing comp. It just is. Right. Cause you think Barkley's usage rate would be through the roof and they're actually pretty close. Even though Pippen was playing with a guy like Jordan and these stars of that era that were in the twenties.

And then Monte Ellis has guys, well, excuse me. He has seasons flirting with 30% usage rate, which is really, really high. And Monte Ellis taking guys, well, excuse me, he has seasons flirting with 30% usage rate, which is really, really high. And Monte Ellis taking 20, 22 shots a game for your team. It's cool.

He scored a lot, but it probably means you suck. Yeah, he's a 43% shooter who couldn't shoot threes. It's funny though. There were two things we didn't really fully understand until the 2014 range. And I think he's a casualty. I think Rudy Gay was a casualty and David Lee, guys like that. With Monte, you mentioned the usage rate thing. If his usage rates highlight that, that's one of the reasons he's getting stats.

Doesn't mean you're going to win with it. And then he played a lot of minutes. Like he, he has seasons. He played 3000 minutes in a season. One, two, three, four times. He has these games where are these seasons where he's playing 40, 41 minutes a game. So if you look at his per 36 numbers, it's just not as impressive. Uh, so it's, there's a little bit of that Iverson thing where it's like, yeah, you're averaging 28 a game, but you're also playing 43 minutes a game. So it's bumped a little bit.

But yeah, I think nowadays he would have had to have learned how to shoot threes. Back then, it didn't matter. All right, eighth pick. I'm taking Andrew Bynum because from 08 to 12, I'm getting a 15 and 10, 57% shooting, really hard guy to guard,

and a guy who, before before he just went sideways after the Lakers trade, was a real asset and was really hard to defend and was an unusual guy. Now, he's probably a nightmare in the locker room and all those things, but he was an asset for five years. Slim Pickens the rest of the way, but Peek Bynum was really good, and it's better than the rest of the way but peak bynum was really good and it's better than the rest of these options we have so he's on my list this is his range for me i don't hate it who do you have nine i'm gonna take gortat because orlando didn't do anything with him the first three years of his career i mean it was yeah it was terrible and once he got they wasted reddick too him him and reddick were basically like these appendages for them it was weird would reddick be third all-time

in nba scoring behind malone and kareem if they had played him it's fair next week next week but i'm gortat doesn't even play he doesn't even play play. And then as soon as he goes to Phoenix, you're like, wait, did we just get rid of a 15-8 guy? And he starts putting up numbers. And with Washington, he has a nice little run. I mean, he only was out of the league two years ago.

Actually, no. You go back one year ago, that final year with the Clippers. So I go Gortat here and I... Is it low? He's a 12- 9 for seven years. 2011 to 17. 12 and 9.

Not bad. Could set some picks. If there was any sort of fight or altercation, he'd defend whoever. I remember being surprised how well he blended in with End of the Sun's Nash. Those last season or two seasons, whatever it was where none of us had any idea.

He actually had basketball skills and the ability to roll the basket and shit like that. And I don't know. I thought he was pretty good. I'm I'm down with that pick. I'm going to take a, with my tech, with my,

I guess the 10th pick Marvin Williams. I can't believe I'm doing it, but he made $109 million. He's played in 1066 games and he's a career 36% three point shooter. And as a kind of guy, if he's the seventh best guy in your rotation, it's not a disaster. Uh,

beloved teammate. Everybody loves him. Seems like he has friends all over the league, really well-respected. And compared to what else I'm looking at here, I thought he had good value. So who do you have at 11? People are going to think that's low for Marvin Williams because it's like,

Hey, you realize he like, he still scored, you know? Yeah. He was no better than ever. Like your third option, but maybe it's being held against,

but this is, this kind of feels right. I like your pick here. I think it's right for him. Okay. 11th pick. I'm going Ursan Ilyasova. I've always liked him. Yeah.

I think there's still some version of him that would have been better if people sort of understood him. If he did come along a little bit later, I mean, he really became kind of, he had some moments there where he really was that stretch four who I think could hold up at least physically

with some bigger guys. And I think there's a better version of the Ursan Ilyasova story setting wise. Although, you know, I'm not saying he's lighting up, but it's the 11th pick and I'm going with him. 37% three-point shooter. I had him in that spot. Nobody took Ray Felton yet. So I'm just with him. 37% three-point shooter. I had him in that spot. Nobody took Ray Felton yet,

so I'm just going to take him because he's somebody that was able to run NBA teams and was in the mix a few times and was on teams that were relatively successful and at the very least was an average starting point guard, which is better than basically anyone else I'm getting unless you wanted to talk me into Jared Jack.

So I'm taking him. All first team, I slept with your girl face, Raymond Felton. Okay? Like, all first team, captain of it. A productive player.

Productive player. I was going to take him next. Solid. I mean, not take him next. Solid. I mean, not a terrible career. He played 14 years. He played 971 games. Averaged at 11 and five. Not a disaster.

All right. We have one minute left. Two picks. Here's who's on the board. Jared Jack, Jan Mahimny, Channing Fry, Brandon Bass, and Chuck Hayes. Who are you taking? He was two ahead of his time. I'm not taking any of those guys.

He's 24th overall in Vorp, but I don't know that Vorp loves him. His nickname is Bulletproof, and it's Andre Blatch, who was just in all, everything, right setting. I mean, he actually scored one year 17 a game with eight boards and a couple assists and shot, well, that year wasn't great from

three um he was never a great three-point shooter but he's is he budget magic johnson i don't know i don't know if that's ever been brought up and i like that they extended him and then amnestied him when the extension was kicking in i thought that when the Wizards made history with that was delightful. The Wizards have had so many horrible stretches of decisions. It's a 30 for 30 on that one. Yeah, that's what you should be doing with The Ringer. We should be doing documentaries on what's the worst...

Weirdo players? No, but it should just be what's the worst five to six year stretch any organization's ever had. That could be the next bracket that's now i'm just giving you content for free i'm not even going to charge you for this is you just start going like what's the worst possible scenario of of of decision making could it get any worse and the wizards would be a one seed that's good like a five like a it should

be like a presidential term a four-year run all right right. Last pick. There you go. That's why you're in charge. Jared Jack, Jan Mahemny, Channing Frye, Brandon Bass, and Chuck Hayes, all still available. I'm going to take Jared Jack only because we saw him succeed on playoff teams as a third guard. Most notably with that Warriors team where Mark Jackson would actually play him kind of a little too much. So apologies to Jan Mahimny, Shani Fry, Brandon Bass, who had a couple of nice moments in the 2012 playoffs,

and Daryl favorite Chuck Hayes, who Daryl loved his low post defense. That was it. The 2005 redraftables. Thanks, Rosillo. All right. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Thanks to Norton 360 with LifeLock. Provides all-in-one protection with device security, identity theft protection,

a VPN for online privacy, and more. And if you have an identity theft problem, a US-based restoration specialist will work to fix it. No one can prevent all cybercrime and identity theft, but Norton 360 with LifeLock is a powerful ally for your cyber safety. Sign up today. Save 25% or more off your first year by going to norton.com slash Simmons. And thanks to SimpliSafe, it's the home security for right now when feeling safe at home has never been more important. SimpliSafe designed to be easy to use while protecting your whole home 24-7, starting at 50 cents a day. Order online easily. Open the box, place the sensors, plug it in. Your home is protected around the clock. No technician has to come to your house.

Head to simplisafe.com slash BS and get a free HD camera for my listeners. We will be back, I think, with at least one more BS podcast this week. Let's see how the week goes. Please stay safe, make good decisions out there. And that's it. Hang in there. I feel it's within On the wayside I'm a person never lost

And I don't have to be