The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Warriors Smackdown, LeBron's Next Stop, Doncic Deals, and Ovechkin Owns D.C. With Joe House | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 372)

Episode Date: May 29, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons connects with his longtime friend Joe House to mull over the Rockets' loss to the Warriors in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. Then they discuss the possible LeBron narratives for the offseason, including one that lands him in Houston, and who could steal Luca Doncic in the NBA draft before talking about the Stanley Cup final, the Vegas Golden Knights' incredible story, and how Alex Ovechkin is the top dog in all of Washington, D.C. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network brought to you by our presenting sponsor, ZipRecruiter. You know what's not smart? Firing 81 threes on two home courts over the course of two game sevens and making 14 of them. Maybe start going to the basket more Houston and Boston. I don't know. Call me crazy. You know what is smart? Hiring with ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter's powerful technology scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience for your job. So effective, 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day.

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We have a lot of good stuff there, including a big feature about Michelle Wolfe by Alison Herman, all of our NBA playoff stuff after two ridiculous game sevens. Michael Bauman's A Brief History of Chewbacca. Killing Eve, Lindsay Zoled's wrote about that. Roger Sherman wrote about the three-pointer, Betraying the Rockets, and a whole bunch more.

Check that out. Speaking of The Ringer, we announced on Tuesday, I'm taping this on Tuesday late morning, and I think we're running it Tuesday night. But we announced all over the place today, our new show that we have developed with HBO that I am an executive producer of. It's called Courtside at the NBA finals. It premieres on HBO on June 19th. And it's basically the show that I've wanted to see for most of my

life, the big picture parachute in on what happened at the finals after the fact. I think what happens with the finals is it's all in the moment. What's this, what just happened, what's about to happen. And it's very trapped in the small picture minutia of what's going on in the finals. And yet you think of a show like the inside the NFL right after the Superbowl, when all the guys are miked and you get to hear what Belichick said to Brady and just all these nuggets. And it kind of parachutes in a couple of days after the game. And it's like the last word on what happened with, you get to relive it, you get to learn some stuff. That's what we're trying to do with this show. It just doesn't exist right now for the NBA, which has always been amazing to me because the NBA is now a 12 month a year sport. And this is an idea that I had two years ago and have been pushing for really ever since. Like,

why doesn't this show exist? I would watch this show. Where is it? So we're doing it and we're doing it with HBO, who I saw firsthand with DeAndre, the giant thing. It's just when you, when you have a good project, they're the best at just delivering it, executing it, promoting it, the whole thing. And very excited. So it's going to be June 19th, which game seven is two nights before. If Cavs or Warriors go seven, who the hell knows?

But, and if it goes earlier, so be it. That's the date, June 19th. And it will be the show about the finals that you never realized you wanted this whole time. I think it's going to be good. That's the date, June 19th. And it will be the show about the finals that you never realized you wanted this whole time. I think it's going to be good. I am excited. I am pretty confident about this one, that this can work.

Anyway, that got announced today. Thanks to everybody who helped with that. I am heading to the finals for this for the whole time. So I'm excited for that too. Coming up, we're going to talk to House about the finals, round three, the caps, a whole bunch of other stuff. But first, Pearl Jam.

All right, Joe House on the line. He has not been on in a while. He's the host of House of Carbs and the Ringer Podcast Network, our phenomenal food show, as well as the Shack House with Jeff Shackelford, US Open coming up. We're going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about the Capitals who are in the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1872. How dare you? But first, NBA. Let's talk NBA first. We had two game sevens. The last time we had two game sevens, here's how long it was. The Les Boulets were involved. The Bullets. I saw that. Yeah. Bobby Dandridge. 1979. Yeah. Bobby Dandridge, the greatest moment of a guy that I put in my hall of fame pyramid in my book. I think I had him in the, in the late seventies or, uh, as a ranking Ralph Wiley's favorite player. He went toe to toe with the Iceman George Garvin in game seven and made the,

made the game winning shot with like 10 seconds left. I think it's on YouTube and it's one of the great moments in bullets history, but that's how long it's been house. You were like 10 seconds left, I think it's on YouTube. And it's one of the great moments in Bullets history. But that's how long it's been, House. You were like 10 when that happened. Yeah, secretly the most important player on that team. A team with Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld. Bobby D was the guy. Bobby D, if he played now,

everybody would be writing about how completely underrated he is. And he would actually become a slightly bit overrated because we would just be bragging about Bobby D all the time. But he was awesome. That's exactly right. He was that kind of player. So two game sevens and I called, I did a podcast with Hench yesterday and I called the Celtics game seven night of the living bricks, never expecting that we would be filming a sequel the next night, night of the living bricks to bigger and badder in Texas. I still feel like the Warriors were going to win regardless of

how many threes the Rockets made. I just felt like the Warriors, when they can ratchet it up, there's just nobody that can hang within 15 points of them and a half if they really, truly care. Am I wrong? Was there a point where the Rockets could have won this game if they had just made a couple more threes? I thought that last night was very much for the taking by Houston. I thought Golden State's energy was so flat in that first half. And we've seen it before and we know that they are a turn it on and flip the switch kind of team. But there was just so little urgency and they seemed slightly confused their rotations were out of order in the

first half and I honestly think that the contagion for Houston who who makes threes in avalanches if they could have continued to to just hit a couple at the very beginning, it isn't like the threes that they were taking at the beginning of the third quarter were bad shots. They were still shots that come out of their offense. That's the way their offense runs. It's what that offense produces. If they had just hit a couple, I think the whole thing could have been different. I mean, obviously Harden got tired as things went on.

And, you know, they didn't really have a plan B because Chris Paul was their plan B and he was sitting on the bench. But I really, I thought Golden State looked disjointed, confused, they were missing energy, and they started to look a little nervous to me. I mean, the fouls on clay at the very outset, that was an unexpected wrinkle. And I really felt like Golden State, there was an opportunity there to dethrone those guys for Houston if they could have just hit a couple of buckets at the beginning of the third. I agree. The stars aligned for the Rockets,

much like they aligned with the Celtics in the second quarter. And there was a moment I feel like in both of these games, I think the Celtics would have beaten the Cavs if they had just extended that lead from 12 to maybe like 17 in the second quarter, just because it was so hard for the Cavs to score. There was really no, there was no path for them to get to 90 points. I didn't feel like even they scored 88 with Jeff Green having, you know, one of the best games of his life and they still didn't get to 90.

And I, the Celtics just needed to get to 90 and they were going to win. But they, they went, I think after they got to 35, they scored 42 points the rest of the game. With the Rockets, the only chance they really had is if that game hit some sort of a lead tipping point. And it almost happened. There was this little three, four minute stretch. I agree with you. The Warriors looked discombobulated.

I was on a lot of what's going on with Durant texts. He didn't seem fully engaged. Curry was terrible in the first half. Draymond cannot make a three anymore. And there was this little window. He can't even shoot. I mean, his shooting form is an abomination. It hurt my eyes.

Yeah. And, you know, I've been waiting for teams to do this. It is funny as the playoffs go along. You kind of saw the Cavs do this with Jalen Brown and Marcus Smart as that series went along, where it was like, if you're going to make these, God bless you. Jalen Brown took eight threes in the first half of game seven. All of them were wide open. He made two. And it was clear that LeBron was just like, I'm not going to chase this dude around on picks on that. I got to save my energy for offense.

So if he makes these, I'll change my strategy, but let's see him make five. And it did feel that way with the Warriors game. Like by the end of it, it was Draymond was wide open by 10 feet all the time. Everybody else was being swarmed. And from a chemistry standpoint, this team has been so up and down, this Warriors team.

In the second half, all of a sudden it was like they were fighting and they were hugging each other and slapping each other's ass and all this stuff. And I didn't feel it in the first half. I was starting to get ideas like, wow, is this how they're just kind of broken? They're tired. They just want the season to end. What's going on here? So you felt it too. I just thought it was nerves to be honest i i thought uh durant because of you know um what for him were substandard durant games the two previous games there was

it looked to me like there was just the slightest sort of uh of confidence. It was kind of a confidence thing. Like his eyes, you know what I mean? His eyes didn't really get the fire until he made a couple, I felt like halfway through the third quarter. And then he was on fire in the fourth quarter. A couple of those post-ups from the wing. Oh my God. Those 18-foot jumpers that only he, you know,

there's a time in Dirk Nowitzki's life when Dirk would knock those down too, you know, in those big moments. He's the only guy I can think of who can just, you know, shoot straight up over somebody the way that KD does. But yeah, he got- That move he has where he goes,

he's on the, like the left high block and he takes a couple couple hard dribbles left, almost like he's going to dribble out of bounds. And then he does that like 14 foot fall away, away from the rim, is one of the most unstoppable shots in the history of basketball. I mean, how are you going to block that?

It should be one of the iconic shots. It really is. Never can be blocked. And then the other thing, and I don't feel like LeBron has always had this shot, but LeBron has kind of a similar shot, but he jumps off one foot and banks it. He takes the same hard dribble,

like he's going to go out of bounds, going to the left side of the basket and then jumps kind of to the side and does this one-handed kind of fast speed runner and banks it in every time. It's like, where did he get this shot? I didn't never seen him do this shot until like the last two years, basically.

But- I totally agree. And it looks like he's shooting off the wrong foot because he gets rid of it so quickly. It's a quick release shot too. Yeah, he's developed two shots that we've never really seen before, which is that shot. He has the MJ fall away now, which he would always try to shoot, but I never felt like he made the consistency of it. So I don't want to say he added that he started doing in game five of the finals last year and now has kind of perfected that and it it's either an offensive foul every time or it's

never an offensive foul i don't know how you call it but he just kind of kind of gets to the rim and knocks guys over and scores and what is that it was it was like how we never knew how to officiate shack all those years what what oh it's what is that a lot of a like how we never knew how to officiate Shaq all those years what what oh it's what is that a lot of a lot of his detractors have been begging for him to to incorporate that move into his repertoire and he's finally at the like the level of maturity and experience and and honestly out of necessity because of what he's surrounded by, that he has to have a go-to shot that he himself is relatively sure that he's going to make it with like 60% to 70% consistency.

And that seems to be that shot, right? Yeah. So the Rockets, the other move they have that is relatively new is that crazy play they were running where Curry would dribble underneath the basket and start going to the corner like the play didn't work. And he would dish it off to like Jordan Bell, but then quickly cut behind him and get the pass back for the quarter three.

That was like, what the hell? Like if you showed that to me 20 years ago, I would be like, wow, what is that? That's basketball? Is that how they play it in the future? Curry was great. He was awful in the first half. Great. And the second half. Yeah. He was great when he was great and he was bad when he was bad. What's interesting is they were able to come back without clay,

which I still feel like is the move for them this summer is I don't see how they keep this going with the four guys and just a bunch of below average guys. Why? What are you talking about? I don't think it's sustainable. I think they barely made it through these three rounds and I'm not even really sure why. The Houston thing,

it shouldn't have taken the Chris Paul injury to beat Houston. They have more talent than Houston. How are they even sweating that series out? I still don't totally understand it. That series was done. You had Kerr on earlier this season. It's really, really, really hard to repeat and keep the guys engaged. And I think we watched it.

It was hard over the course of the season. When we sat down together in October, it was the first week of October 2017. We're doing our over-unders. We look at how the Golden State Warriors are composed and say there's no way that team can lose 15 games this season.

We can't talk ourselves into 15 losses. And they ended up being a team that played hard like 85% of the time or so, right? Maybe 75. They took their foot off the pedal a bunch of times. They rested a bunch of times. Maybe it's just the way the NBA is now. JJ said on my podcast last week that it's so much harder to play basketball now than it was to play it 10 years ago.

Because this is something I felt pretty strongly about. But it was good to hear a player say it who does a lot of running, who's just like, it's just harder now. And maybe that's part of it. The difference with their four-year finals run and all the other ones, basically, is their best four guys are pretty healthy right now. I think when you look at some of the other ones, there's just been really bad injury luck. They had some bad injury luck. Obviously, Curry missed the first round and maybe first two rounds or whatever he ended up missing. But it wasn't poorly timed injury luck like what happened to Houston.

If you're into the what ifs from this series, what if Chris Paul doesn't get hurt in game five, which actually gets extended to what if, what was that crazy call, the inadvertent whistle? If that inadvertent whistle doesn't happen, Harden's called for traveling, Golden State gets the ball. Instead, there's an inadvertent whistle. Houston misses.

It comes back down. Quinn Cook misses the wide open three that blows the game for them. And then Chris Paul gets hurt in the next play. So the inadvertent whistle is almost like you could do a documentary about it. But to lose him and Mbamute, so if you told me,

what if I told you everyone's healthy for this series? They have Chris Paul and they have the healthy Mbamute from the regular season and Golden State gets Iguodala the whole time. Who wins? Golden State. Yeah, that's how i feel too i still feel like golden state could just it's like like those desserts that we love where you

where your favorite dessert as you've discussed in house of carbs many times is the dessert where you're digging and then it's like there's a little treasure on the bottom like you have the cobbler why i love the bread pudding yeah the bread pudding and it's like oh they put rice pudding on the bottom of this i didn't you're just cobbler. That's part of why I love the bread pudding. Yeah, the bread pudding. And it's like, oh, they put rice pudding on the bottom of this? And you're just digging underneath it and it's like buried treasure. Or there's a chocolate shell on the bottom of the bowl.

Come on, daddy. That's the Warriors. They always can dig a little bit deeper and it's like, hey, did you know there's rice pudding under here? And that was what happened in the second half. I always feel like they just have that side. So you're watching.

Well, Kers said it. And the point is the talent. They have more talent. They're more talented, especially, I mean, with Paul and Mbappe on the floor, then it's a little bit more even, but it's still the case. They have the talent.

The talent wins. The thing is, though, you still a couple of guys to do a couple of things that aren't in your top four. And it's really hard over the course of NBA history. It's really hard to win a title unless basically your fifth through ninth guys, you get something from somebody in a couple of the games. And what was interesting about this series, that didn't happen. I don't, can you think of anybody, I guess Livingston had maybe a couple half decent moments, Jordan Bell, a couple of half decent moments, but it just was really below average play, which speaks to those four guys that, and especially last night where Draymond can't make

a shot and Clay's in foul trouble the whole game. And yet they were able to get Durant and Curry going in, you know, those are two of the top 25 guys of all time now. And they got going in the same game and that's it. It does seem like their ceiling is still about as high as any team we've seen. The question is, they don't want to work. I would say so. They just don't want to put in the work.

You know? Who doesn't? It's like the Warriors, they're begrudgingly, all right, okay, here's our A game. I don't know. You disagree with that? I think it's a zig zag team

it's like they play awesome for one game like they played awesome in game three and then you and Sal and I were texting the next day like should we take the Rockets in game four the Warriors and I ended up I think I bet on the Rockets but it was like the classic oh the Warriors proved yet again they're awesome so they're gonna

let up for this game four which is how it played out they still haven't solved that part of their greatness you know what I mean? Sure that's fair I think they were genuinely surprised by how game five went I think that was the thing that caught their attention

Game four or game five? The fourth quarter of game five I thought Yeah They should have won game five? The fourth quarter of game five, I thought. Yeah. They should have won game five. I agree. I thought the Rockets should have won game four.

And I thought the Rockets just fought and clawed and did everything you need to do to extend a series. And at that point, I think,

weren't the Rockets like 9-1 underdogs? Something like that? I don't remember. We were tracking it. These last two rounds. Breathlessly. Yeah, these last two rounds have had more gambling swings

than anything I can ever remember. I know, I spent a lot of money on hedges. Yeah, I want to talk about that after the break. Durant and Curry together. Did you feel like that second half was the first time that they were able to really properly calibrate that so it was like these are our best two guys we're playing off both of them they're both involved

and this is our ceiling because it always seemed like over the course of the season they never could really decide whose team it was. And it was like either Durant would have an awesome game or Curry would have an awesome game, but they can never combine it. And then last night it was like, did they just blended it together like a nice little cobbler? Yeah, I love it when you put it in food terms.

Yeah. I thought in game one, they were pretty good about that. But last night it was the highest example because of the pressure and the situation. And them having the reps to be under that in the elimination game mode and able to rise above even after a crappy first half. And the interesting thing was there were a couple moments where I thought we were going to get to Durant where he was posting and they were going to start feeding him in the post, and I'm very, very glad that they didn't go in that direction. I think they learned the lesson the hard way about trying something

that's sort of out of not an elemental part of their playbook um but i you know that was a very uh high example of the complimentary-ness of those two you had the mid-range and the three and that's the difference between um you know the Rockets and and and the Warriors for last night's game the one thing that that I was surprised Houston didn't try more, it looked like Eric Gordon could get to the rim unabated and get either fouled or get layups. And my question is,

where was Harden on that? Was Harden a decoy that created the room for Gordon to get in there? And that's why Harden wasn't doing it also. But like that's Harden supposed to be the remedy to when the threes aren't falling. He's supposed to be getting to the basket and getting to the free throw line. I think that their attitude was we've made threes all year. They're going to start going in. And it was very similar to what befell my beloved Boston Celtics. Because I felt like Jason Tatum could get to the rim anytime he wanted to.

And there were other moments where they just jack threes over going to the rim. And it was the same thing. These have gone in all year. Why wouldn't they go in now? And it's like, yeah, because it's game seven and everyone's tired and there's a ton of pressure that's right uh-huh take that for data yeah that's what i wanted uh that was my my my sentiment uh after watching both of those teams with that that lived on a high quotient of of threes over the course of the season game seven ain't the rest of the season bros i mean that mean, that's the takeaway. That the two teams combined for 14 of 83, that's 17% according to my calculator. Take that

for data. Yeah, it's rough. I think those teams are going to take shit and that whole three-point revolution is going to take shit all summer. I don't know where I stand on it because I watched the Celtics make game seven of the finals with the exact same strategy. I think if I have a regret, it's that

they didn't audible a little bit in game seven. You know my theory. We've talked about a million times. Do what the other team doesn't want you to do. And it just seemed like every time Tatum had the ball, Cleveland was doubling him or scrambling or just trying to figure out what to do. And we didn't have any other matchup like that. And with Golden State in Houston, like every time Gordon went to the basket, it just seemed like a good idea.

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A couple of leftover thoughts on Warriors Rockets. I was, you know, I was a long time Eric Gordon guy because I was going to those Clipper games the first couple of years. And I wrote about him a couple of times. I never wrote a whole column about him, but I put him in trade value and stuff like that. I always felt the thing I really liked about him as a player was I felt like the bigger the stage or the light or the microscope, the better he played. And there was specifically like the Clippers were awful the end of last decade.

And heading into this decade, they'd blake, then blake got hurt. And it was a pretty bleak situation. But there were these times when they would play the Lakers and it would be the one good home game or the two good home games they would have where it was like, oh, the Lakers are in town or they play the Cavaliers the one time LeBron came or whatever. And Gordon just kind of rose to the occasion. He would go head to head with Kobe. And I remember writing a little piece in one of the pieces about this guy's got something, man. He was not afraid to go at Kobe. And then he gets traded, ends up in this weird situation with New Orleans, couldn't stay healthy. And Houston kind of stole him

for 15 million a year, I think for three years maybe. And when you think about it, this was the summer of 2016. Everyone's throwing away money like crazy. Courtney Lee went for basically the same price in an extra year to the Knicks, to put it in perspective. This was the Mozgov, dang, all these dudes. And- They hit me.

My point is how Eric Gordon would have been on my team. If I was one of the 30 GMs and I had a contender, I would have been like, we need this guy. This guy shows up when it matters, when he shows up in big games. I don't know if he totally showed up like in a execution way last night, but the competitive spirit he had the last four games,

I really felt like he belonged with all those best guys. I think he was, in a weird way, the biggest winner of the series, right? When was anyone having an Eric Gordon conversation? I left that series going. That's a real guy. Like if they somehow figure out a way to get LeBron, which is what we're going to talk about right now. Um, and you put LeBron Harden, Chris Paul, Eric Gordon. I didn't even care who the, that's really the only way to go. Um, am I overrating Eric Gordon? No, no, he. He was exceptionally tough. We have recency bias because it's been 12 hours since we watched him put on a really impressive display of toughness.

But that's the thing that you're looking for in a game seven. Yeah. Who's up for the moment? Who wants to be in there? Who's going to the hole to help his team? Who's trying to create opportunities for his team to stay in the game? Eric Gordon hit all those marks, and that's why we have a good taste in our mouth with Eric Gordon.

He's fighting and clawing, and this is why I love P.J. Tucker last summer. And I still don't fully understand why Toronto punted on him and paid three times as much for Ibaka, whatever they ended up paying him. P.J. Tucker was always one of these guys. And you could see it if you had league pass and you watch these shitty teams. And there's PJ Tucker, like clotheslining people and scrapping and fighting.

I thought he was, how many fouls do you think he actually committed yesterday? Like 17? Yeah, you beat me. I was going to say 16. He was a wrecking ball last night and was boxing out bigger dudes and I

loved how he played so if you have him and you have Gordon and you have Harden and you have Chris Paul now how do you get LeBron so I did some research on this why why did you do it um

because it's a sexy podcast topic house it's sexy Why? Why did you do it? Because it's a sexy podcast topic, House. It's sexy. Your podcasts are nothing if not sexy. We're doing a sexy breakout of this on Twitter where I'll be like, could LeBron go? And there'll be big headlines. It'll be awesome. There's a sexiness to this topic. But here's how they get LeBron. Ryan Anderson is due $41 million the next two years. You can stretch him out and he would count for $8 million a year for the next five years instead of $20 for the next two. They need to do that either way.

Well, you don't necessarily, you don't do that unless you have to, because he's actually valuable as an expiring contract the year after year three. So you don't do that unless you know you're getting LeBron. Okay. They have James Harden who makes 30. They have Gordon who I think makes 15. They have PJ Tucker who makes eight. I think it all adds up.

Like even if you count the Ryan Anderson stretch thing, it adds up to like somewhere around 64, 65 million, which I think I did my math correctly on that. The salary cap's going to be around 101 million, they think. Now that might go up a tiny bit based on, it might go up a tiny bit based on whatever. Maybe they miscounted the streaming numbers. Maybe they miscounted the finals, right?

The who knows, but it'll be around 101. Maybe it sneaks up to 103, something like that. So they'll have- Two game sevens should help. Two game sevens might help. Who knows? I never understand how it works now the cap goes up. So let's say they have $38 million to play with.

Now they're in Texas. So there's no state income tax. So that helps a little too. So guys can take a little less. LeBron gets swept by the Warriors, right? Okay. He gets his ass kicked or he loses in five. Whatever the case, it's like, wow, nobody's ever beating the Warriors.

I want to win more titles. What do I do? So at that point, the narrative, he has two narratives. He can either stay in Cleveland, just be loyal, or actually three narratives, stay in Ohio, be loyal to Ohio for life, which cannot be ruled out. And have the attitude of wherever I play, I'm a contender every year. It doesn't matter where I play. I don't need to chase a title. I'm the title. Like he could have that attitude. That's one way to go. Second way is- It's a reasonable attitude.

Second way is the way that we had discussed on this podcast for the last 12 months, which is he's a guy who loves narratives. He looks at Los Angeles. This is the last chapter of my career. I want to be the first billion dollar basketball player. I want to own a team someday. I want to be the media mogul that Magic Johnson is multiplied by five. I need to go to the Lakers. I want to play for the league signature team and learn everything I can from Magic Johnson and live on the West Coast. And this is the start of the next phase of my life. That's narrative number two. Narrative number three is I want to beat the Warriors. I want to play with my friends. I'm going to Houston and I'm doing it with Chris Paul and James Harden and Eric Gordon, and we'll get Carmelo in a year. And the only way to beat a super team is to form another Super Bowl team. It's like the old Corolla bit. The only way to catch a serial killer

is to become a serial killer. It's the same mentality. And he goes to Houston. I think this is more conceivable in my opinion than him going to Philly. Because I don't know if I'm guaranteed a title if I'm him, if I'm going to Philly. I don't know what the fit is with Simmons and Embiid.

Who the hell knows? And there was a while where I thought maybe Philly would be the move from a talent standpoint. But after watching that series and seeing how close Houston was, it actually seems like Houston is the safer bet. So out of those three narratives, what do you think, House? I think he stays in Cleveland. Okay. And the reason I think that is because I think he recognizes that over the course that he's, he's played 100 games or 101 games now. Yeah. Right. And he's going to play at least four more. It's a, it's a F ton of games. It's a lot easier when you have an F ton of games in front of you as as october rolls around

and the season starts now two weeks earlier than it did previously when you're sizing up that schedule you want a lot of nights with orlando you want a lot of nights with uh you know um atlanta yeah you want a lot of nights with brooklyn you want to you want a lot of nights with the knicks right you don't you don't want to have to go into san antonio where even no matter where san antonio is kind of talent wise it's always a tough game it's always a tough place to play you don't he's not it's not fun to go into utah those those fans are nuts yeah it's not fun to go into Utah. Those fans are nuts. It's not fun to go up to Golden State. Warriors, SAD. He doesn't need that.

If he's got 105 games, the way that he's looking at it, the Eastern Conference is the way. And now these consecutive finals appearances are a thing unto themselves. They're really legacy defining. I think a ninth appearance in the finals consecutive next season, that counsels in favor of staying East. And I think Cleveland is as good a situation as anything else that exists in the East. These are great points. And you left out the most crucial point of all,

which is like he has unanimous approval in Cleveland in a really profound way that is unusual in sports where we've seen- They're his people. They're his people. And we've seen it. It's something that goes with a lot of the greatest players, right? Like you saw it with Bird and Boston, you saw it with Magic and Kobe in Los Angeles. You never really saw it with Shaq.

And I think that's like one of the regrets probably of his career is that, yeah, he belongs to Lakers, but he also left and he went to play it up for all these other teams. Same thing for Kareem. I think he belongs to Lakers the most, but also had seven great years with Milwaukee

and stuff like that. Oscar Robertson doesn't even have a franchise. His franchise moved, I think, two or three times after. Duncan in San Antonio, I think, is a great example. But you go through and it's, Hakeem in Houston's another one. You go through and it's just hard to find guys who, every time for the rest of their life, they go to a city. They're the most important thing that happened in that city.

And he has that combined with, as Titus wrote, he's probably the most famous person from Ohio ever and the most meaningful. And also there's, as bad as this team was, and I still cannot believe, this really might be the worst finals team we've ever seen. 07 was really bad too. I haven't really gone through and crunched who was worse, but it's got to be up there. When you're relying on Jeff Green to win a game seven on the road, like that's got to be the worst finals team. But there's ways for them to get better this summer.

Of course. They have the eighth pick, which they could definitely turn into something. They have Jordan eighth pick, which they could definitely turn into something. They have Jordan Clarkson, who he has two years left. That's not great. George Hill's an expiring next year. JR's an expiring next year. Maybe he's got two years left too.

The George Hill contract they can get out of after a year. My point is they have at least a little flexibility. They could always play the Kevin Love card. There's ways for them to improve the people around him with that eighth pick. Now- I agree. Could they've gotten more for Kyrie, of course.

But let me flip this around on you though. Is the prospect of the Celtics with Hayward and Kyrie coming back next year on top of all the people they have, maybe this little nice run he's had in the East might be coming to an end soon between that and Philly. Like from a talent standpoint, he's looking at the most talent he's ever had to go through.

And then on top of it, you have Giannis with a real coach in Milwaukee, potentially for the first time and talent he's ever had to go through. And then on top of it, you have Giannis with a real coach in Milwaukee potentially for the first time and whatever they're going to do this summer. I've heard the narrative that, oh, well, who did he have to play in the East? Who did he have to go through? Which is horseshit because there should be no way to disparage eight straight finals. I think it's one of the most incredible achievements in the history of the league to have. I saw some stat. It was like most finals appearances and it was Celtics, Lakers, and somebody else. Then LeBron was fourth just as his own human being versus all the other actual franchises. I thought that was amazing. But it's going to be tougher. And the one thing you could say, and again,

it's not a criticism, but during those eight years, who was the greatest guy that he went against in the East? For whatever reason, just by some fluke, the top six, seven guys every year were in the other conference except for him. And this is now the first time he's looking at a situation where he's going to have to go against A-listers in multiple rounds, right? But you think about it, go through those eight years, who is the best player he had to go toe-to-toe with in a series. Dating back to 2011. The best I can come up with is Pierce. Yeah, it would be 2012 Paul Pierce.

That's the best I can come up with. Or 2013 Paul George. Yeah, you know, right. I don't want to be disrespectful to Paul George because before he blew out his knee. I'm just laying out the landscapes. Like DeRozan, Lowry, he's never had to have the duel against blank.

It's never happened. Jason Tatum, even the moments when he kind of went toe-to-toe with him, it's a rarity. And I think my point is that's going to change now in the East because you have Embiid and Simmons on one team, you have Giannis on the Bucs, and you have everything the Celtics have. It's just from a talent standpoint,

the East is now ebbing. I think it was flowing for a long time there, not to mention your Wizards house. Yeah, I just- I don't want to talk about them. I was trying to be nice. I was trying to be pleasant. So yeah, so I guess it comes down to what matters to him.

What matters first? Is it what's the narrative for the rest of my career? I just want to win titles or some combination of being competitive and still meaning something to a city that reveres him. And I don't know. The thing with him him he could just sign another one-year deal there's absolutely nothing that that requires him to go lock into anything just sign another one-year deal in cleveland that's what i think he's going to do and i think

that's the most likely thing well that's boring that's not sexy house. I'm sorry. Where was the sexy in that? None. None. I mean, all of the sexy I can come up with is Boogie coming to my chocolate city here in the DMV. Boogie and Wall. That's my get down sexy. Can that happen? It has to be Otto Porter has to be part of it. Otto Porter has to go.

So you're saying you're driving to the airport? Are you kidding me? Who? Would I put Otto Porter in the passenger seat and drive him to the first flight to New Orleans? Put his bags in your truck and make sure he got there? No, I wouldn't have to do that. But I mean, I would drive him to New Orleans and then I would have

some crawfish with him to show him how much I appreciate his contribution to the building of the team. And I would get Boogie and I would let him sit in my lap if he wanted to all the way back to Washington. Hold on. We're taking a break and coming up, I'm going to review some Skip Bayless tweets from the playoffs. You ready? Here we go. Hey, if you're like me and you're not so great at planning ahead, once again, yet again, I have good news for you. Our friends at Hotel Tonight have an awesome app that helps you find amazing hotel deals

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tournament. I had it on my app. I was checking prices. Ended up not having to stay over in the city my daughter was playing in, but it was in my life. And as usual, it was a great experience. Hotel Tonight's HT Perks program really allows you, the more you book, the better the deals get. And unlike other loyalty programs where you're trapped in a staying at boring chain hotels, Hotel Tonight's not like that. Start scoring amazing deals and incredible hotels. All you have to do is download the hotel app tonight. Right now. All right, we're back. Some classic Skip Bayless tweets last night. It's really performance art at this point.

I feel the same way. Like, you know, Maple Thorpe had his run in the 80s. That's the comparison? Yeah. That's the Skip Bayless comparison? Yes, exactly. I'm on board. I'm there with you.

Trent Reznor, I think. Sure. Marilyn Manson. Skip Bayless. Last night, he tweeted right after the Rockets game. This is great. I mean, this is really like, I don't know what Mapplethorpe's best photo ever was, but this is really as good.

Just these eight words, James Harden is made only for the regular season. It's just great. It's really, it's his version of Nine Inch Nails is closer. How do you top that? How do you top that as an eight word tweet? You can't. It's incredible.

It's incredible. It's just designed to enrage and anger but there's like just this little kernel of truth in it that's a good argument for the next day it's incredible just incredible it's very good at what he does that's skip bayless i'm not positive he's I am not prepared to put last night's failing on Harden listen you're laughing okay you're laughing I'm glad

I'm laughing but you gotta make the finals once you just have to that's a great segue to my guy who's your guy you gotta make the finals once. You just have to. You gotta make the finals once. If you're an- That's a great segue to my guy. Who's your guy? Alex Ovechkin.

Yeah. You gotta make the finals once. All right, hold that thought. I'm held. I'm held. I'm holding. So the Iceman, George Girvin. Yeah.

Who I think I ranked somewhere in the early 30s in my book, who had a phenomenal career and who was the best offensive two guard there for a solid decade during a really talent heavy time for the week and took San Antonio to the brink a bunch of times. The closest being Washington up 3-1

in the 79 conference finals. I forget. The conferences were weird. They might've even been in the East. San Antonio's in the East for some reason that year. They were in the East. Yeah. When the Bullets beat them.

So you're down 3-1 and you have the best scoring two guard from that generation, basically. All he has to do is close the door once and can't do it. Puts up 44, I think, in game four. But I've seen the tape of that game and I wrote about it in my book. In the last six minutes, kind of got shut down. And the ease that he could score game to game, what made him awesome, when the defense really went up to a quadruple level and he had to now find this inner, this

last piece of himself, couldn't find it that one year. Doesn't mean he wasn't one of the best 32, 33 players ever, but he never had that moment. And it's always a question with this stuff. How much do you blame the guy? How much do you blame the team? All that stuff. And the way to answer it is to do what Dirk did in 2011, where you're like, fuck everybody I'm winning the title.

And you do it. And George Garvin never played in the finals, which was a really, really important NBA outcome because you were there and I was there. We were kids. How the fuck did we watch the NBA in 1979? Either somebody came to see us or we saw CBS. All right. Well,

there must've been games on CBS all the time. There weren't. It was not even every week on CBS. I think there was one year where I think they ran like four or six regular season games and that was it. They taped delayed playoff games. They didn't show some playoff games. You and I combined probably saw George Girvin play.

I'm going to say, and I had season tickets through my dad. I probably saw him three times in person during his peak and maybe another 12 times on TV. I saw him once in person. Yeah. We had, we just had no idea. And if he'd made the finals and I think he would have won the finals that year. Everything about how we talk about George Gervin is different. And I just wonder 40 years later, if this is the scenario Harden's in where he's an incredible player, he's going to win the MVP. He's been a top three MVP candidate, I think three times. But when you don't have that last piece, it's tough. It's just, it's always going to get brought up. John Elway wins the Super Bowl.

Nobody brings it up anymore. Dirk wins the finals. Nobody brings that up anymore. And unfortunately, that's how sports works. The whole thing about- No, it's too early. We don't have to talk about Harden yet. Yeah, the James Harden is made only for the regular season

is ridiculous because he's awesome. Skip Bayless. He's one of the best four players in the league. But there's no way to prove him wrong until you succeed in the finals with James Harden. Yeah, sure. So I don't know. I will say the thing that would worry me

if I was Houston with James Harden is Golden State went into that series with the legitimate strategy of make James Harden waste time dribbling, make him pound the ball, make him monopolize the ball, make everyone else stand around and just tire him out by dribbling. I disagree that James Harden is made for the regular season because that's ludicrous for a number of reasons. But the offense that they were playing,

I think is better suited for the regular season than the playoffs. I think you have to have more wrinkles than just everybody spread out. One person just goes to the rim. I just don't think you can win a finals that way. I disagree with it. You disagree with that?

Or you agree with that at least? No, I do. That's what we miss with Chris Paul though. That's the ginormous what if. Because Chris Paul is really the leader of that team. And I think him asserting his will and not permitting that he wouldn't have stood for the team just raining threes and raining threes and raining threes. I honestly think that he would have used up some shot clock, gotten inside the free throw line, and tried to create some of those mid-range jumpers

that they find anathema with good reason for most of the season. But it was winning time. So you have to take what the defense is going to give you and that mid-range stuff, working that into there. Now, the reason that Houston kept taking those shots is because they were open shots, and that's what their offense produces. But they needed to have a plan B,

and we needed to see the plan B, and Chris Paul was the plan B. You're going to be very jealous of this next point. And by the way, I'm not done reading Bayless tweets, but I just, I had this point on Chris Paul that I think is a really important, crucial point and was missed by the national media. So they were very careful about protecting him this year.

I think it's year 13 for him. You love basketball. You've been following basketball your whole life. What's the shelf life for point guards after year 12? What happens? They're done. That's it. It's over. Either they're done or you have to do the Utah, Jerry Sloan, John Stockton, manage the minutes to the point that you'll even throw away six minute stretches of a game. You will not waver from that minute thing, right? Utah, I always thought Jerry Sloan,

this is one of the most brilliant things any coach did. He took John Stockton out at the same two points every game. It didn't matter if his backup point guard was your black sheep brother, Rich House. He didn't care. It was, you're coming out for these seven minute stretches at these two points of the game. And that's just how we're doing this. Now, why did he do this? Well, he wanted to prolong John Stockton's career and make sure he kept

them healthy. Well, what happened? John Stockton played for like 20 years. He was like the six foot two white guy version of Kareem. So Chris Paul, after they managed his minutes fairly well, the first few games, then here's what he did the last seven, 36.6 minutes. Hard minutes. Too many minutes. Hard minutes. These were the last seven games he played,

and he's in month nine of the season at that point. And D'Antoni cuts it down to the seven-man rotation, I think in game four, which is what he had to do. You got to win that game. It's a must win. You just got to. Game four, he plays 41 minutes, 41 and a half minutes

in game four because there's seven man rotation game five plays 38 minutes gets hurt with two minutes left the question is, is that a fluke? or did they, was Chris Paul like the fast and furious race car

that Vin Diesel, he's done the done the Nas already. And the things like fluttering on the nine on the RPMs. And he's just like, I got to win this race. And ends up getting Chris Paul hurt because I think it's the latter. I think they pushed him too far. I don't think that injury was a fluke. I don't think all the miles he has on his body as a five foot 11 guy.

I don't think he could hold up and unfortunately that's why they are not going to play for the title i i agree and i thought you disagree with this no i i i agree with this this is the way you get to this this point is with with a a managed um plan because you're you're you know your stated desire and goal for the season is to beat Golden State in the playoffs, and you anticipate that it's going to be a seven-game series in the playoffs. So you've managed Chris Paul throughout the season. You've given him rest appropriately. He was out for a stretch with this ding or that dong, whatever his various sort of Chris Paul injuries that occurred.

So he didn't have a ton of mileage or a ton of minutes entering the playoffs. And I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of managing those minutes all the way through because the point is you're going to be playing seven games in this series with Golden State. You're not going to beat Golden State in six games. Nobody's done it. So you have to be prepared for seven. How are you prepared to ride?

He is your horse. He's the horse. He's the justify. He's the, he's, he's the justify. He's the triple crown potential winner. You have to have him available for game seven. Anything that produces an outcome where he's not available for game seven is an institutional failure. That's my view. I agree with you. So Stockton, just because people are going to go back on basketball reference, Stockton was playing 37 minutes a game in the mid nineties. This doesn't fly. It was easier to play basketball back then. The pace was way slower. You did not have to chase

out on threes. Nobody was shooting threes. A lot of the pounded basketball, there's more big guys, stuff like that. Stockton, the first few years of his career, he had like an 88, he played 43.5 minutes a game in the playoffs in the 11 games when they really went toe to toe with the Lakers. As that kind of drifted to a different thing in 96, he was 37.7. In 97, when they made the finals, he was 37 a game. In 98, because he was starting to wear down, they only played him 30 minutes a game when they made the finals the second time. They were super careful with them. And I would say 37 minutes a game in 1997 is the equivalent of 32 or 33 now. And the point is they really took care of him. And Chris Paul is somebody who's had a lot of

injuries and who has a lot of miles on him. Like if you go back, so he's played 13 years. I'm looking at his totals, 31,500 minutes in the regular season and then 3,400 in the playoffs. So he's over 35,000 minutes, which is just a dangerous number for point guards for whatever reason. I have no idea why point guards don't age as well, but they are a lot like running backs, right? Where you just, the LeBron and Shaq and Will,

those guys just have different career trajectories. Duncan, Dirk, the bigger guys for some reason last longer. The point guards just they just don't see it. There's something to worry about with your boy John Wallhouse. I don't want to talk about it. All right. Let me give you a couple more Skip Bayless

tweets and then we'll talk about the caps. You ready? I'm ready. First of all, he doubled down on his James Harden statement a little bit later. He said, James Harden is going to win this year's regular season MVP, but when the stakes are highest, you cannot trust him.

He doesn't have that playoff it factor. More undisputed now at FS1. So good. Here's another one. Once again, the Mapplethorpe of sports Twitter, Skip Bayless. Just incredible. Performance artist. LeBron is a 12-point underdog in game one against the Warriors.

His finals resume is about to take another hit. A sixth loss. More undisputed now at FS1. Oh, God. How is Undisputed doing? I think it's doing well. I think it's doing all right for what they are. Here's another one right after the game last night.

Sorry about that, LeBron. Too bad about being three-6 in NBA finals you'll have as many losses as MJ had wins without a loss start man the lightning's perfect on that one he puts a little play in the background it's just great

that's it and then there's one more I wanted you to read eh fuck it I can't find it yeah that should we should just have a podcast where we have famous actors read Skip Bayless tweets it could be like the sequel to Mean Tweets

you should have a podcast where you have Skip Bayless read his own tweets that's good I'll ask him I'll float that up. We're going to take one more break. We're taking one more break. Let's talk about Grasshopper. If you're an entrepreneur, a small business owner, or even if you have a side gig like Kyle, I think nephew Kyle is bouncing at bars on the side. Who knows what that dude's up to at night? I don't ask. Let me introduce you to Grasshopper, the entrepreneur's phone system. Grasshopper lets you send and receive calls and

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That is grasshopper.com slash BS. All right. Before we talk about the caps and the Stanley Cup finals and the fact that your team is playing an expansion team. Any last thoughts on the Celts? Because we haven't talked about them on a podcast in a while. Do you want to give your 60 seconds? I love where the Celts are sitting. I hate it as an Eastern Conference participant.

And Washington has attempted to engender kind of a rivalry, this little bit of chippiness with Boston. What's curious to me is there is a limitless number of directions Boston could go in, including the possibility of trading the always injured Kyrie Irving. What do you think Boston could get at this stage for Kyrie coming back after, you know, a knee surgery? The curious thing to me is with all of the talent that Boston has accumulated and the assets that they have, we know that the true secret, I've read this in a book called The Book of Basketball, is chemistry. And what an interesting chemistry experiment with Hayward and Kyrie coming back.

Who's losing those minutes? And where does Marcus Smart fit into all of this? And how's Tatum going to get the touches, the alpha dog touches that he's become accustomed to over the course of this season? And where does Terry Rozier fit into all of this, if at all? It's a very interesting chemistry experiment. I'm not ready to crown their ass yet.

I do agree with the idea that talent-wise, they pose a formidable challenge to LeBron and the Cavaliers. But so much we've learned over the last two or three years, so many things change over the course of the summer. Yeah. The rosters go through radical transformations, and you can't even fathom who's going to become available, under what circumstances.

You have to wait until October, really, to have a view as to where any particular team sits, what their composition is, who the coach is, before you can really have a view. But I mean, in the East, Celts look good. Thanks, House. Is that 60 seconds? Appreciate that. Yeah, that was good. I don't know if Marcus comes back. He's been very adamant, no hometown discount for me, sorry. So there's probably six teams

with cap space that are ready to throw it at him i think the most likely scenario is they do the qualifying offer for him which never really works out i i can't remember a lot of happy nba situations with that um i think roger gets traded and when you talk about minutes you know you're telling me that Hayward can't take 35 of the 39 Marcus Morris minutes I had to watch every playoff game? Oh my God. You're telling me Kyrie can't just take the Rozier slash smart minutes and they can't make up for it? To me, it's like all the minutes can be evenly distributed in the most perfect way possible and everyone's going to get to play.

And their crunch time is going to be Horford, Tatum, Brown, Hayward, Kyrie. And that's the team. There's not going to be a minute thing. You're going to have shooters. Their dream was always to have the interchangeable perimeter guys who could all score and shoot and defend. And they have it. I don't think Kyrie, under any circumstances, gets traded. I think. Okay. I think the more likely-

Is this going to be the first season in four that he's healthy? Yeah. The question is, if he's not healthy again this next season, then you don't have to pay him $40 million a year because you can be like, you're never healthy. So either way, I think that plays out kind of in their favor. I personally think, I think he just had bad luck. They took out those screws and he had an infection. It wasn't like, to me, like somebody like Boogie Cousins coming off an Achilles is a hundred times more risky, but I'm really interested. It's just the gamble with him. You need him healthy for the playoffs and you just don't know whether or not you're going to have that.

I'm really interested in this draft, and we can talk about this when it gets closer, but there's a combination of things going on that makes me wonder if they're going to trade into the top four. In no particular order. It seems like Phoenix is going to take that center. The next three teams are wild cards to say the least. Sacramento at two, Atlanta at three, and Memphis at four. And if Luka Doncic, if he floats it out there,

I'm not coming over. I may never come over. And he does whatever he needs to do because Memphis is sitting there at number four. Who loves trading away players more than Chris Wallace that might end up being superstars? Anybody? Chris Wallace is still wearing the ring that the Lakers gave him for Pau Gasol. Right. But there's a scenario where they could say, we'll trade you Terry Rozier. We'll trade you the top one protected Kings pick next year. We'll give you the Clippers pick that we have that's going to be somewhere between 15 and 20 next season. We'll even give you the Memphis unprotected pick we have that is like top eight a year from now,

top five, and then unprotected to that is 21. We'll do all that stuff, Sacramento, if you give us the second pick. And then what do you do if you're Sacramento? I would take that's a long game. We have all these picks, fuck it. But if they feel like this guy is a franchise game changer, that if you put him and Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown on the same team, we're set for the next 15 years of our lives. They might do that.

It can't be ruled out. It's part of the glorious aspect of the summer season in the NBA. But I mean, they might be able to trade, they might be able to trade Rozier in that Kings pick to move at any point in the top six. If they were just like, we want to cash that pick in now, we have a chance to win the title.

And Rozier, I think has value now as a starting guard. And you look at like, he could start on Sacramento, Atlanta, maybe not, Memphis, definitely. Dallas with Dennis Smith, I don't know. Orlando, who needs a point guard more than them. There's a way for them to move in. I don't know if they will, but how many jokes have we made about some of those teams over the last few years?

Who's more likely to do something dumb than Sacramento, Memphis, or Orlando? Can you think of anyone? I just think it's very interesting. I can't wait to see. I know that the Ringer folks are super high on Doncic, and I've watched his EuroLeague highlights. I just want to see kind of that price, that market gets set as the draft approaches and the week before i want to see the donchage market kind of gets set how folks are valuing him because it was we

had such a like you know groundbreaking uh revision of the market the fultz market you know inside the final week of the draft really, with that Celtics-Sixers swap. That's where I'm interested in seeing exactly where these teams, you know, how they're feeling. I'm always skeptical of the Euro guys. I just, I'm

you know, I've been on record. I called that poor kid Markkanen, even though he played. He was awesome. We were wrong. We owe him an apology. He's the Markanator. He's fine. He's good. I called him the Finnish Marknani. He may yet have that career,

but it wasn't as kind. I'm just skeptical of the Euro kids. That's all. Well, there's one other team that can move up, and we got to mention the Sixers because they have the 10th pick. They have Fultz. They have Sarich.

They have a couple of dudes they've stashed away. And they could also move into the top three pretty easily. And if you're a team like Sacramento or Atlanta or Memphis that just needs, you know, you just need assets. You need numbers. Yeah. You need numbers and you need assets. And if they called Sacramento and they were like, we'll give you Fultz and Sarich and number 10 for the second pick, we'll overpay for it. I don't think they would do this, by the way.

So don't, the Philly bloggers and all those people, don't lose your minds. They're going to kill you. I'm just saying, you have Philly and you have Boston who would potentially pay 130 cents on the dollar to go and move into that top three. Because we saw it last year with Philly. Philly paid more than the price for the first pick

because they had the assets. It was stupid to move up when those three guys, who knew who was going to be the best player, they sacrificed this awesome Sacramento pick because they just became so enamored with Fultz and the thought of Simmons, Fultz, and Embiid playing together that they made a trade they shouldn't have made. And I think we could see that again this year. And by the way, it could be the Celtics. They could make a dumb trade here. They could do something they shouldn't do. I'm rooting for it. But this is the same team

that three years ago was trying to trade four first round picks, including the pick that ended up being the Jalen Brown pick for Justice Winslow. So Danny will move up if he becomes a neighbor with somebody. And if I have no idea, I haven't talked to anybody from there. They're not really allowed to talk about the prospects to even whispers to people like me but sure but luca i think imagine that imagine him on the celtics i i'm way higher than him than you well i i'm higher on him if he lands in the right situation if he lands in a situation where he's allowed to grow and he's going to be nurtured and you know learn the game without pressure because he's surrounded by seasoned professionals and by a franchise that has an institutional soundness,

then I really like his prospects. If he gets drafted by Sacramento, I think he's going to suck. That's my professional view. Okay. All right, Caps. So the Caps made the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since you were in law school.

97, 98. I was already out of law school. I was a season ticket holder for those Washington C-A-P-S. Caps, Caps, Caps. You beat the Penguins in a series. Nobody thought that was going to happen. You came back from 3-2 in the Eastern Finals. Nobody thought that was going to happen. You came back from three, two in the Eastern finals. Nobody thought that was going to happen. Yes. Ovi, who is one of the best players of this generation,

but goes back to the same hole. If he never made the finals, all of a sudden we have to talk about that for the rest of his career instead of how awesome he was. Now that monkey is off the back. Unfortunately, you're playing the stupid Vegas team that these idiot owners and the idiot commissioner decide to just grab the expansion money. They just, it's just a pure money grab. They did grab it too. 600 million. It immediately made Vegas like the fourth or fifth

most richest franchise in the league. Yeah, great. Good move, everybody. And then- 600 million. On top of it, put no provisions in there to make sure that Vegas isn't, there's no way they're going to be good. They don't say, Oh, first three years, you only have 80% of a salary cap. None of that stuff. Yeah. Just, just pick players from the other rosters and you'll suck for a couple of years.

And then Vegas is like, okay, cool. And just starts cherry picking these good guys. And even though at the time, nobody thought they were going to make a finals run, it is hockey and the dudes fucking skate around and weird shit happens every year. And now all of a sudden they're standing in your way for a Stanley cup. This little Bettman wet dream money grab of a team is now up one, nothing against your team in the Stanley cup finals. Now I do want to be fair. I want to be,

please. They, they do have revenue sharing in the NHL and the, the owners having the recent experience, the 2000, they let in Minnesota and Columbus, and it took a long time for those teams to get good enough to be competitive, to be putting asses in seats. And for them to turn themselves around from takers to givers in terms of the revenue sharing. And there are a lot of takers in the NHL. I had to give a shout out to my boy, Alex Shaw,

hockey agent Alex Shaw, reps old school James Van Reamsdyk, among other folks. Had a chat with him just to make sure I was being fair to the owners. His point was they just can't have any more takers

in terms of the revenue sharing. They needed another team that could give. He says this season's probably going to be a record season in terms of revenue. And the excitement of Vegas and the advantage that they had with an unknown but untapped fan base and they were immediately able to place 15 000 season tickets in in the run-up yeah gave everybody a lot of confidence now uh they they they obviously effed up i mean they nobody uh imagined that vegas would get this good this quickly. Part of the thing is Vegas gets all the dollars for this playoff run.

All the owners keep the money in the playoffs. Yep. So when your franchise is in, you keep that gate. You keep all that money that comes in. I think that they, upon reflection, would have liked to have tightened the controls a little bit to not be sacrificing all these dollars that are going right to the bottom line for the Vegas folks. I have a controversial statement on this. This is one of my wacky theories. You know who is probably in charge of that process in retrospect,

who was in the driver's seat with the negotiations? Who? The league that was deciding whether they wanted to allow the expansion team to come in or not. It just seems like if you're Vegas, you're like, whatever, whatever it takes. Sure. Okay. And if they were like, Hey, one last thing, um you only get 80 of a salary cap the first three years compared to everybody else and then it'll even out vegas isn't but no that's a deal breaker no can't i totally agree with you that you're right can't do it they were coming in under whatever terms the ownership uh dictated whatever the league dictated, here's the circumstances under which you're allowed to join. And by the way, we want that $600 million

in gold bullion. They were going to meet those terms. The league could have been like, you can't have Canadian players for the first four years. You get to have a Canadian player in 2022 and Vegas would have been like,

cool. Can we, can we make the announcement? Great. Where do we sign? So I, yeah, they look,

it's classic Bettman. Cause on the one hand it actually worked out and it's great. And they tapped into this Vegas market, which is clearly a much bigger, more burgeoning market than any of us expected. Now the Raiders are going to go there. And FYI, the NBA fucking A is going to go there at some point. You don't think they're watching this?

So they were first in. They just have to shorten up the intro. Goodness gracious. Well, so they planted the flag and Bettman gets congratulations on that. But meanwhile, fucked over the other 30 owners that he is supposed to represent in a really profound way. They were all complicit in it. They all went along with it.

And I think the splitting up the $600 million each way, I think that helped the pain. That helped soothe the pain a little bit. These guys are so stupid. They're like, oh, $20 million check. Oh. Oh. Okay. To be fair, the NHL owners are not the NFL owners

You're not talking 30 billionaires here, right? Yeah, true But it's just like You have a team in Phoenix that just shouldn't exist And is the eyesore of the entire league And just move that team to Vegas But that's the really interesting thing, right? It's an embarrassment

I think it's fair to question their expansion Over the last, you know 2025 years carolina uh is continuing to have a hard time with gate atlanta lost its franchise miami can't you know miami right miami's in trouble yeah florida panthers yeah so i mean i think that that's a that's a fair criticism that there's probably more teams than necessary. And that's where that revenue share that revenue share the distaste for more takers. That's, you know, all you guys look in the mirror. Yeah, Washington sports? A lot of, there's a certain generation that has him number one. I had this conversation a couple of years ago with the inimitable DC sports bug, Danny Steinberg. Oh, yeah. And there is a sentiment. Now, I'm old school.

So, like my hierarchy, my top five all time Washington. I wasn't saying all time. I was saying right now. Oh, he's number one right now. I mean, he owns the town. So he's over Bryce. He's over Bryce? Sure.

He's over Bryce. There's a sentiment here that Bryce is already gone. I know people that think that way. I slightly think that way. I slightly think that way. So he's ahead of Bryce, he's ahead of Jan Mahimny, who else? He's ahead of Bryce,

Jan Mahimny, and maybe slightly ahead of Alex Smith. Just a hair ahead of Alex Smith. Wow. Ovi's town. Unbelievable. So all time he's in the discussion now oh he was he's been in the discussion that's amazing you know because Washington doesn't have a long track record of um guys at the very top of their sports I mean

he's won the scoring title however many times in the 13 years he's been in the league he has two or three MVPs you know that that's not we don't have all-time players like that uh here in washington yeah it's true what a set well even the redskins who's the who's the best redskin ever i i personally think it's between uh daryl green and john riggins and i personally give it to to riggins by a nudge just because of that Super Bowl that they won against Miami. He made the iconic play. Yeah. And he really owned the town in 1983. But look, I mean, I'm old, so that's why I think that.

God, that's a really sad sports history. You guys haven't done enough press on how tortured the D.C. fans are. Now you're going to lose to an expansion team in the cup finals, potentially. Who'd you lose to the other time? I'm not accepting it. Who'd you lose to the other time? That's an outrage and I'm not accepting it. Who'd you lose to in 98? I like the caps. I like their chances in this thing. Who'd you lose

to in 98? Detroit. We were completely outclassed. I mean, we never had a chance in that. I went to those games, like I said, I had season tickets. Within the first two minutes of the first home game here in Washington, we were already in a 2-0 hole. We had a chance. We lost in overtime in the first game. But in the third game, the first two minutes,

Sergei Gonchar made a disastrous turnover, and one of the Russian Detroit guys went down, immediately scored, and that was it. Series was over. I remember in 88 88 back when i really truly loved hockey we made it to the finals and uh and played edmonton and i was like yeah now we're gonna fucking beat edmonton and then within like five minutes like oh my god what's going on oh jesus i did not i don't have that feeling with this we vegas yeah you can be vegas we can beat the golden knights we just can't play the way we played last night. You're not going to outscore them. They're very skilled.

And also, I think it was a little bit of a shock to the system for the Caps to play in Vegas under those circumstances. The ice was kind of soft because it's hot as balls out there, and the place is packed, and the pregame is like a nine-minute intro, and Michael Buffer and all of it. I just think they were a little, they just played a free-wheeling style. They can't win that way.

They need to be physical. They need to assert their advantage physically. They let guys just posting up inside the goal line and slapping away at rebounds and stuff. You can't win that way. So I think you're going to see a lot more physical Washington in game two. And I think you're going to see a lot more physical Washington in game two. And I think we're going to see some penalties.

And hopefully, you know, the cross check that led to Vegas' fourth goal to tie the game and really like seize the momentum back. Hopefully that cross check gets called next time. The Golden Knights fans, it's almost like the 40 year old virgin with Steve Carell, where it's just like, all of a sudden they're having sex. Whoa, sex. Wow. Oh my Lord. Whoa. And it's just, they're just having sex for nine straight months with this awesome

hockey team. And they have no idea what it's like to experience pain, trauma, having your heart broken, any of this stuff. They're just getting all the good parts. It's amazing. I've never seen anything like this. These fans, I mean, I'm sure a lot of them are transplants, and have probably had other teams that they rooted for that hurt their feelings. But I've just never seen a team waltz in like this. The Vegas Golden Knights. Credit to the NHL for being the first movers on this. It was an untapped thing. You know what's clear to me as we go through this podcast?

You're being so nice to Bettman in the NHL because you're clearly hoping somebody offers you tickets for one of the Caps games. That's a fact. I'm sitting here dying to get invited to Saturday's first game here in Washington. You should have defended Bettman more and be like, look, Bill, we've known each other a long time. You've never been more wrong about anyone than this. Gary Bettman is a good man. I'll do it right now.

Gary Bettman is the best. He created this wonderful opportunity for this franchise in Las Vegas. What a home run. An all-time revenue season. Bettman, get at me. I'm at House from DC. Gary, you did a great job.

It's you, David Stern, and Pete Roselle as the three best commissioners of all time. I love your work. At House from DC. Please email, please tweet at me. Please, NHL. Yeah, listen, you love hockey. I'm very happy for you.

You haven't had a lot of happiness over the last 28 years. I'm amazed the Caps even made the finals. Happy for you and Donny Kwok and Chubby Hubby and a bunch of our other friends. But it would just be classic Caps and classic DC sports to lose to the Vegas expansion team in the Stanley Cup finals. It just feels right. I hope I'm not right, but it just feels very DC to me. I know I'm offending you. I'm not going to dignify that. um i am going to dignify eating three

quarters of the menu at momofuku tomorrow night ccdc before i sit down and watch the caps game though i'm gonna i'm gonna really dignify that that'd be great uh who do you have coming up on house of carbs apl aka adam perry lang yeah adam perry lang coming on we're gonna talk about his new restaurant in la we're gonna get some some summer grilling tips since he's the barbecue master. And did you know that he has a forge? He makes knives? I didn't know this. Oh, his knives thing is really one of the crazier things of anyone I know. They have 250 knives there. I can't wait to ask him about it. Yeah, he goes in the dungeon of his new restaurant

in LA and he sharpens the knives like Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, I can't wait. I don't want to be on the wrong end of one of those, but I want to hear all about how he hit the thought process. The steak's amazing, apparently. I still haven't been. I will be there very soon, but the steak is amazing. The meat's amazing.

And LA certainly needed a place like that. So you got that. And then Shack House, you have- Yeah. When's US Open? We're two weeks away from the US Open. the meat's amazing and uh la certainly needed a place like that so you got that and then shack house you have uh yeah when's us two weeks away from the from the u.s open uh we'll be it's time for us to start giving out picks we're recording this coming sunday i think right after the memorial and so shack and i will have a taste in our mouths for a couple picks i really like what i saw out of the defending u.s open Open champion Brooks Kapka this week finished second to Justin Rose.

He might be on my short list of guys to pay attention to. He really showed me something. What about my favorite golfer Tommy Fleetwood? He's around. He's still inside. He's having a continued very good season.

What he showed us last year at the U.S. Open on a course that nobody had played before was interesting. I don't know if Shinnecock is his kind of place. But I'm good with Fleetwood. I'll pay attention to him. And El Tigre? Yeah, say no more. I think he's going to do better than he did at the Masters.

I think he's going to... Wide fairways? Wide fairways at Shinnecock? He's going to definitely make the cut. I want him to use the stinger. I really was inspired by what he did at the Players. If we can replicate what he did at the Players in terms of that game plan, I really like his chances.

Root for that. Root for his driver to break on the way to Shinnecock. What would be the funniest Jim Nance tagline of Tiger making the game, the tournament winning putt at Shinnecock? I'm going to mull that over for the next couple of days. Let's work on that one. We have two weeks. Tiger has whipped it out at Shinnecock. I don't know. There's something, something there.

It's just sitting there. It's sitting there for all of us. Joe House, enjoy the House of Carbs and the Shack House podcast. And we will probably talk to you at some point during the finals. Stay tuned. I can't wait. All right. See you, buddy.

Let's go, Cap. All right. Thanks so much to House. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Don't forget about Callaway. All you have to do is go to callawaygolf.com. Check out the Rogue Clubs.

They sent me some. They were awesome. And if you love golf, check out the Shack House Podcast with Joe House and Jeff Shackelford. Thanks to Grasshopper. Remember, they let you send and receive calls and texts from your new business phone number. That way you can run your business from anywhere, respond to clients quickly with Grasshopper's mobile apps.

Grasshopper, sign up today. Go to grasshopper.com slash BS and get $20 off your first month. That is grasshopper.com slash BS. And thanks to HBO. Very excited for our new show Courtside at the NBA finals. Courtside at the finals. Courtside at the NBA finals. It's called Courtside and then it's at the NBA finals is the subhead. But yeah, it's going to be cool. I'm going to be at the entire

finals and I'm very excited to see how long this goes and what the Warriors and Cavs are capable of. We're probably going to have a finals preview that we'll run when we are in San Francisco, maybe Wednesday afternoon, maybe Thursday morning, who knows, but be ready for that one as well. And until then. I don't have I don't have I don't have