The Bill Simmons Podcast - All-Star Weekend Buzz, the Ludicrous A.D. Saga, and a Surprising Knicks Scoop With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 484)

Episode Date: February 18, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to talk NBA All-Star Weekend, some interesting angles in the Anthony Davis situation, NBA ownership, titillating Knicks buzz, All-NBA front-runners, and more. 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 as always by ZipRecruiter. You know what's smart? Betting on LeBron to win the All-Star Game, apparently. It feels like he wins every year. I should have thought of that. You know what else is smart? Go to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS to hire the right people for your business. ZipRecruiter. They identify people with the right skills for your job and they actively invite them to apply to get qualified candidates fast. Right now, my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com. Slash BS, ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire.

Meanwhile, State Farm, whether it's a friend helping you drive across country to start a new job or a neighbor helping you move into your new home, a little help can help a lot. Let State Farm help you protect your car and home with your very own agent here to help when you need them. Talk to an agent today at 1-800-STATE-FARM. Again, State Farm, here to help life go right. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com, the world's greatest website, as well as The Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find a new episode of The Rewatchables. We were putting up at some point during President's Day. Happy President's Day, by the way. It's Dave, the Kevin Kline classic, my favorite movie president of all time. That's why we did it. It's a President's Day rewatchables celebrating the man I think is the greatest movie president of all time,

Dave Kovic, playing Bill Mitchell. Kyle, did you end up seeing that movie or no? No, no. You suck, Kyle. It was a long weekend. Hopefully the rest of you out there won't suck because this is a good podcast.

Coming up, Ryan Russillo. We're going to be doing this every week. Every week. Every single week from now all the way through. I guess mid-July, second week of free agency. So yeah, it'll either be Sunday night or Monday morning, depending on what kind of mood we're in and whether we can get Russillo to drive in from the beach or not. You never know with that guy.

Coming up, Russell and I talk an all-star weekend, NBA at the two-thirds point, and a whole bunch of other things I have planned. But first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, it is Sunday night, close to 9 p.m. Pacific time. We're in my guest house in the back. Ryan Rosillo is here. What kind of rent do you get for this? This is promising. This is your backup plan if you're placing

things on the beach that didn't work. We're coming off the All-Star game. The All-Star weekend was not great. The three-point contest was fun. Joe Harris won. I've always been a big Joe Harris guy. Slam dunk contest, not fun.

Diallo won. He has a chance. We were arguing about this. Him or Jeremy Evans from Utah, who is going to be the least successful NBA player to ever win the dunk contest. Jeremy Evans is still in pole position, but Diallo can't be ruled out.

It's not like he's playing. Yeah, you just feel bad if you go and the two g league members that have won the dunk contest now yellow plays so i'm not trying to do that but it just plays a little i mean we can go in any direction you want but well let's start with the game because it just happened okay all right i was excited for the game i went last year and they played really hard this year reverted back to the old let's not play defense except for the last six minutes strategy. Giannis looked like he was going to make

an MVP run at one point. A lot of dunks. Very Shaq, late 90s Shaq kind of all-star performance from Giannis all around the rim. Kept waiting for Curry to make the run. He never did. And then Durant won the MVP.

I thought Westbrook should have won it because he was the MVP for LeBron's team, which he was not on. Westbrook came in and completely swung the game by just taking terrible shots. And I think his plus minus was like minus 20. I was big on plus minus tonight. So this is the first full all-star game

I've watched in a decade blame me i'm 100 blaming you because we knew we were going to be doing this weekly pod you go okay we're going to start at this point and then you sent me a text you're like we're going to go live right after the all-star game and then i sent a text to you and i said does that mean i have to watch it and you're like it was not an ironic text either no no i'm serious like i here's the thing i i don't get mad about it i think the dunk contest is for kids the three-point contest the skills it's it's a celebration of the nba and as much as i love this league i don't get mad about this weekend because i think it's for kids i think it's for the whole deal all weekend when you get

to go to it it's awesome it's for kids and middle-aged white guys right and i guess who it's for i've been to a couple and it's just a big party it's like a mini super bowl week but personally i don't like the dunk contest the three-point things whatever i can't stand the game my only thing with the game after watching it tonight like i was always trying to figure out who is selfishly going for that mvp because that's really the only fascinating thing throughout it and i don't even think yannis even though he had like the first 10 points, was trying to do it to get the MVP. He just was around the rim and he was dunking.

And nobody was playing defense. And so that's what happens. Kawhi at one point had a serious layup attempt where almost guys were looking at him and being like, are you seriously just driving up and getting a clean layup? Yeah, what's happening? I was a little nervous during that Chris Middleton run. I go, wait a minute, what are we doing here?

Because this isn't going to sound right. Reggie kind of undermined him. Do you hear him? Those guys were going... Reggie when Middleton made like two threes and Reggie said something like, yeah, you know, he never knows if he's going to be back here.

He's getting shots. It's like, no! Drive-by! And Weber at one point was like, no help. And I go, wait a minute, are you going to break this down like it's a real Thursday? Yeah. And then I'm like, oh, drive-by. And Weber at one point was like, no help. And I go, wait a minute, are you going to break this down like it's a real Thursday? Yeah. And then I'm like, okay. And then it just kind of turns into this free-for-all and everything. So Westbrook was-

Yeah, give me your Westbrook numbers. 19 minutes. Wow, that's it? Eight for 20. One for eight from three. So he's on brand there. Only one turnover turnover minus 19 well he's okay but the irony is is that right he's he supposedly changed a lot and if you watch a lot of thunder games like he's deferring to george in a way i don't think he's ever deferred anybody but

yeah it's it was him and then how about lillard look at lillard's stat line did he take 18 threes i think he took 18 shots and all 18 were threes. And you could see early on, like some of the guys that are big time scorers in the league, if they go a minute or so without a bucket, it's like, okay, I'm not going to stop until I, you know, I'm not getting a donut. Well, they all want to get on the board, right?

Yeah, they have to. That was your attitude in the celebrity basketball game. Just want to get on the board. You don't want to get the donut. I didn't know I wasn't starting because somebody told me I was starting and I go this isn't really so i went out for center tap and a espn producer with a headset's like get off of the floor screaming at me and then harden wasn't going to put me back in and i just kind of sub myself back in so yes

lillard six for 17 from three took no twos that's's right, 17. And then James Harden, four for 13 from three took no twos. That was a very low key. He's used to people defending him and then fouling him. So it was weird to be open. Well, if we're going to hand out awards, I think he wins the award for looks most hungover. Definitely. First half, he was sweating it out.

He always kind of looks hungover. That's true. He's going to win the MVP this year looking hungover definitely first half he was sweating it out he always kind of looks hungover that's true he's gonna win the MVP this year looking hungover uh yeah LeBron's team for the most part looked hungover I thought Embiid looked pretty pretty worse for wear there was a video going around this weekend of him singing some hip-hop song late last night with no shirt I don't have a problem with that and uh I was like when I I saw that, I was like, uh-oh. Joe Howe's going to have trouble rallying for this one. And the tough thing for Embiid is he's probably going to get hacked a few times around the rim. And he's looking for a call. And the rest

are looking at him like, hey, guys, can we do one night off of this? So, crunch time was I think it was the starters. It was Kemba, Curry, Giannis, Embiid, and George against Kyrie, Harden, Lillard, LeBron, and Durant. Yeah, because Lillard had said it felt good to close. Tough night for...

Oh, yeah, so Lillard wasn't a starter, right? No, he wasn't, but he said afterwards. Yeah, Lillard was the closer. Yeah, Lillard was out there to close. Tough night for Coach Bud. This was not the crunch time for Joel Embiid. I actually would have gone a little smaller, tried to match. Here's a question I have for you.

Yeah. We know that this was sort of a showcase game for Anthony Davis because Charlotte's on the list of teams he would go to. Is Charlotte really? Oh, yes. Yeah, they put in that team. So you have to think now, are you less interested in him if you're Charlotte because he only played five minutes?

Do we know if he left? Did Davis leave? He played five minutes in the first half. He did stay for the second half. You saw. I jotted down some notes of things I enjoyed. I forgot my notes. Well, you can play off these. Okay.

Rich Paul sitting courtside. For this game? Yeah. Why not? That's notable because the NBA controls all the seats. Oh. All right. I'll put it this way.

The NBA was not ducking the Anthony Davis drama this week by putting the guy who has basically lit a grenade into the league the last three weeks. They're like, let's put this guy courtside. Right, but they're not going to put him in the 300s either. Eh, put him in the third row. Davis' shoulder miraculously healed. He was able to play five minutes

after a train wreck of a Thursday night, which we'll talk about later. But he was on a minutes restriction, obviously, because of that shoulder. Rough name for Marv Albert. He called Jokic, Juric, and Vucevic within a five-minute span. It was just going fast for him. We had a lot of big heroes out there tonight. Yeah, I love Marv, but the Marv mess-ups would have been a good prop bet.

Ten and a half, I might have gone over. I bet on Curry to win the MVP. I think that's the worst I've ever seen him shoot in a game. Yeah, he was bad. He was terrible. So I think the reason was he's probably getting tickets for 230 people he knows in Charlotte. It would be like if the All-Star game was in New Hampshire and you were the cat. I don't know.

Where are we from? Vermont or New Hampshire? Martha's Vineyard. Martha's Vineyard. If he's in. Were we from Vermont or New Hampshire? Martha's Vineyard. Martha's Vineyard. If you said the All-Star game was at Martha's Vineyard. That'd be a tough ticket. Why did I think you were from New Hampshire?

I don't know. That's the least amount of... Well, probably Maine. Yeah. If the All-Star game was at Martha's Vineyard, would you have trouble getting everybody tickets?

Probably trade some with Clay Thompson. Most hungover, I go with Harden. Least fun All-Star is a fun topic. Who's just the least fun all-star? It's got to be Kawhi, right? No question. I'm telling you, when he drove right, when it was left to right on your TV, he drove right and it was an open layup. I think there's an understanding there. It's like, if no one is guarding you, don't just drive to the hoop. Yeah, don't take the easy, do something fun. If you're cherry picking fine or whatever,

it's almost, I think there's so many threes because guys are like, well, at least let me take a deep three with somebody pretending they're defending me. And Kawhi drove and that was kind of boring. Early on, I had a massive conspiracy that I was tracking LeBron's passing and he was only passing to Durant, Kawhi and Kyrie.

You were tracking this? Yeah. I don't know. I'm going to have to get stats and info on it. Well, LeBron, his Westbrook trade, I think, saved the game for him. Remember, he picked Westbrook, then traded him for Ben Simmons? Yeah, right. He knew.

It's a client. LeBron wins the All-Star Game every year. There's a while there that Ben Simmons is going, why can't it be like this all the time? Yeah, he was having to get right around the... Well, he was most excited that he wasn't on Embiid's team, I think. Right, and then he swiped at Embiid, Yeah. And I don't think Embiid liked that. How about Dirk's blow off to LeBron? Do you think that was real?

A little bit real. I think he still got a little edge to him from 11 because they were making fun of him about how he was sick. Remember? Yeah. He and Wade fake coughed. Yeah. Has Wade been retiring for five years? It's unbelievable.

Did you see that article that he said, you know, it's a weird year and all this stuff. And like, look, he's still putting up some numbers. You know, I watch him every now and then if there's not another game on because I don't think the Heat or something. You're going like, oh, he must see TV. But he, remember when he said, like, I've gone from being the best player in the league to now a role player? Like, when were you the best player in the league? He was never at any point the best player in the league. There was not one year.

He was unguardable for a stretch there. But, you know, when he was by himself, he couldn't even get out of the first round. 09, he had one of the great single season random years of any perimeter player. And I don't think I'm knocking him. He was like 37 and 5. He was not the best player in the league that year. But he just never, at no point was he ever like, hey, end to end, he's the best player.

I don't think he was ever even one of the two best players in the league. Now he had the iconic 06 finals. And he was unguardable. Two finals with LeBron. He's my all first team plays much bigger than he is. Alpha. Right. I remember going to those Dallas games.

I just feel like this makes it sound like we're dumping on him. No, we're not. He's just a retirement thing going on. I think he's a top 30 guy all the time. Yeah, he's awesome. But I do think, you know, he's been filming behind the scenes for like nine years. He's got, he's going to-

This is going to be like a Ken Burns, Dwayne. Yeah, I think that's, I think he's shopping it. I really do. I think it's like, Ken Burns, Dwayne. Yeah, I think he's shopping it. I really do. I think it's like, hey, here's part four. I married Gabrielle Union. No, part four. I went to Marquette. Good tweet here.

Tweet I was jealous of from at R. Kaelin. Two L's. Do you know this person? No, I just saw it. You must really like this tweet. Somebody put it on our Slack. I'm stealing it, but I want to give him credit. He tweeted,

KD winning MVP in a game where everyone is going to talk about stuff Steph did seems appropriate. Kind of like that. Yeah. KD still can't win when he wins. I know. He won the MVP. Nobody's going to talk about him for the next 12 hours.

And if you were going to say what were the biggest shots hit tonight, not just that he had the most points for the winning side, the threes that he hit down the stretch were. He was good in the first quarter too. I still like the all-star game because I do think it's a nice, and I say this every year, it's a nice little snapshot of who matters during a season, right? And there's always like seven or eight guys.

I think Paul George moved into that group this year. I don't know if he's really been in that group before. We really felt like he belonged as an A-lister. We wanted to put him there, you know, when he was at the Pacers. We were like, man, he might be the second best player. Then it was just the playoff disappointment, all that stuff. I like that. You know, when you look at the overall rosters, you go, this is what it should look like.

Yeah. That part I love. I like that the NBA, you know, it's always weird whenever you see like a weird vote total you know a week or so away and you're like what's going on here and then it always feels a little game it seems to auto correct you know um the one guy now he might have had a rough weekend so i i don't want to make excuses for him but last year and bead looked like he really belonged out there as like an A-lister. And this year it didn't seem like he belonged out there.

And it didn't really feel like Jokic belonged there either, but I think that's more of an outcome of centers just have such a hard time in these games. Yeah, I wouldn't even, especially Jokic. He's a guy who defers in real games. Yeah. He's not, I mean, some of the stuff he was trying to do passing-wise, he was just having fun. He did do one

incredible thing in the game. Did you see when LeBron, he got a rebound and LeBron was standing out of bounds and his body was turned the wrong way and he just threw it against LeBron's shoulder? Yeah. To make the ball go out of bounds? I don't think LeBron liked that. No, he definitely didn't like that. LeBron was like, really? But when you say that about

Embiid, okay, but I mean, it's not like you're going to be starting next week thinking differently of that. No, he definitely didn't like it. LeBron was like, really? But when you say that about Embiid, okay, but I mean, it's not like you're going to be starting next week thinking differently of him. No, but I thought last year it really felt like, oh, this is like there's eight guys who matter in this game and there's one of them. And this year he didn't really make an impact. But again, I'm not blaming him.

Good. LeBron, I wrote this down for you. I thought he spent All-Star weekend acting like a divorced cougar at a wedding, hitting on everyone else's husband. What do you think of that? I like that. Scottsdale. Scottsdale LeBron.

Like a 42-year-old, got divorced from her high school sweetheart two years ago, now at a wedding. Some married guys there, hey who knows everyone's fair game that's how he was treating ad did you are you talking about what you saw kairi no i'm talking about just he was in the mix with all these other players on other teams that it's you know there were these pictures of him like here's him and anthony davis shaking hands in the shoot around and then here's him and anthony dav hands in the shoot around. And then here's him and Anthony Davis and Ben Simmons with a picture around each other.

It's like, what's going on here? Is this the league we have now? Just guys basketball flirting with guys on other teams? That's just where we are? But if you think about him and like the two paths this can go at the end, if they don't have somebody with him next year, like this is going to get really ugly. And I think it's going to get ugly for LeBron.

I think people are going to start beating up on LeBron in the media that have wanted to take their shots. And for somebody who's been as in tune with the way he's talked about as any athlete as I can think of, I mean, LeBron's a very aware guy. Don't you think that, I mean, he doesn't really care at this point. He's going to figure out a way to solve his Laker problem. How do you solve it, though?

Not the way they just tried. That didn't seem to work. They just blew the Davis thing. Did they blow it? I mean, look, the Pelicans were always going to say no to that offer until they knew what was going to happen this summer. So the handling of it was bad. I actually think they blew it.

You think there was a deal to be made with the Pelicans before the deadline? I think there was a road to be made with the Pelicans before the deadline? I think... I don't. I think there was a road to get close to one. And what they did was antagonize the Pelicans, piss them off, and make it adversarial, which is not how it needed to play out. Okay, but let me put it this way. I know there was animosity from the Pelicans' side. But if you're saying the Lakers blew it and that animosity got in the way, then you're arguing the Pelicans like the deal but decided to say no that doesn't make any sense if i say to you if if i say to kyle i'm gonna i'm gonna try to buy ryan's car and kyle goes that's weird rusella really likes that car i'm like i'm just gonna try to buy it watch this like my car and then and then i just start pointing stories

that you have to sell your car, the mortgage is too high, and the only person who can get it is Bill. Have you been talking to my accountant? And you're like, what the fuck? I'm not getting rid of my car. Why is this story out here? That's kind of how this played out. But what if I also knew that two of your neighbors

were going to offer me more for my car once they get a bonus check this summer? There was never any reason for them to trade him to the Lakers when he had a year and a half left in his deal. So we do agree. I think we still agree here. I don't think... Everything that I've heard is that... No, we don't agree.

Because I think they made it harder to deal with the Pelicans based on... So you think there was an approach? You think there was a tact that Rich Paul and Clutch and the Lakers could have collectively taken where they'd have Anthony Davis for the deadline? I'm not sure the... I don't know how involved the Lakers were in that whole...

in all that chicanery. I really think that might have been a Rich Paul audible where he was just like... It was so orchestrated. Right down to that Monday morning woge right to start the Monday morning news cycle so that every show during the day could get it and then everybody would write about it. I mean, if you're going to do that, you want to do that on Monday morning, 8 o'clock, which is basically how they did it. And I thought about LeBron.

He's asked a question about Anthony Davis, and we beat up on these guys too much for an answer when we ask him that question. But I do think that LeBron consistently sends warning shots to ownership and management of every team he's on, and that may have been part of it. But I just, I'm asking, like, you think if they handled it in a more secretive, professional way, that they'd have Anthony Davis now?

And I don't, and we do disagree. I don't know if they would have him. I think the way they handled it made it impossible. I think they made it really adversarial with an organization that was clearly in turmoil since they just fired their GM and an owner who has no idea what she's doing. So if you're Rich Paul and you're clutch, though,

you're going, okay, he's got a year and a half. This is a little bit different. We got to go nuclear. That's what you're thinking. But that's what he did. Yeah, right. But that part I even kind of understand. But then when it doesn't work and you go nuclear and then i'm wondering when they sat davis against the t

wolves on that friday night game in the fourth quarter of a close game and then actually came back and won it what was what was leaving early with your agent was that was that payback because that made it look even worse and that and that's my point with this whole thing they went nuclear it didn't work. They hurt his standing with the Pelicans fans who have just, however many of them are out there, who have rooted for this guy for the last seven years. Take it easy on Louisiana. Even if you're a team like,

if you're a Boston fan, you're looking at this like, wow, this guy seems like a schmuck. Wait a minute. Are you having second thoughts then? I'm just like, he seems guy seems like a schmuck. Wait a minute. Are you having second thoughts then? I'm just like... He seems like kind of a schmuck, the way he's handled this.

I'm not saying I won't rally if the Celtics trade for him, but I'm just watching this from afar going, are we sure he's a good guy? Okay, well, first you're going to rally. I would suspect that you will rally if the Celtics acquire Anthony Davis, but is schmuck the right order? Is it impressionable?

Sometimes I think we forget that a lot of these dudes have really sheltered lives. We obviously forget how young they are, and I don't want to get into that because everybody can see. But it could be that he's just as impressionable as it gets, and I still think he wanted to do the KG thing. I think he wanted to be liked in the exit. And it's like, well, if you go nuclear, nobody's going to like you.

You have to be all in or not. KG stayed with the Timberwolves like two years past when he should have. Like all of us were having interventions on radio shows with newsprint columns, all that stuff. Right, he's traded in 2007. He was drafted in 96.

Yeah, right? No, but it was 05, 06, 07. They didn't make the playoffs. He missed the playoffs three straight years in his prime. And by like the second year, it was like, KG, just ask for a trade. Remember though, when some of that stuff about KG though, like what people like, hey, this guy, how good is he? You know, is he a loser?

Right. Can he finish? You know, he doesn't really like the ball in his hands. Like think all the stuff you say about a guy like KG he wins and now he's like the ultimate winner davis went from the incredible run last year to then this year being like hey man i care about my legacy and every night i'm gonna be bringing it and this is who i am now which i think he said in like november he had that big thing about you know i what my goal was to be great every night. And then within two months, it's, I got to get out of here. I got to go to the Lakers, trade all your guys so I can play with LeBron. By the way, we won't have anyone else on the team.

It'll be us and just a bunch of buyout guys. And Oh, the trade didn't work. We traded for Diallo. Yeah. The trade didn't work. Well, now, now I'm going to leave with some bogus injury and get on a charter to All-Star weekend with my agent when the game's still going on. I thought it was lame. Well, I'm not sitting here saying that it's not lame, but if you're going to go the nuclear option,

this is the way you're going to do it. And then once it doesn't work, I think everybody should just settle down. And I think now everybody's feelings are so hurt that you can't settle down. And I thought him leaving early was terrible. And then, you know, Demsev's getting fired the next day because ownership is just so frustrated with the whole thing.

But wait, hold on. We got to take a break because I want to keep talking about this. Hey, let's talk about SimpliSafe. Here's something interesting. Studies show that security systems deter burglars. It's a fact. There's still a burglar every eight seconds in America, despite this fact. How? Burglars don't give up just because some houses have security systems.

They find a house that is not protected, which is why securing your home is truly a necessity. Let me recommend this brilliant security system built by our friends at Simply Safe. They believe fear has no place in a place like home. They made Simply Safe ridiculously smart. It sensors protect every point of access to your home, doors, windows, garage, you name it. If a burglar even tries to break in, an ear-shattering siren will let them know that the police are already on the way. 24-7 monitoring. It's only $14.99 a month. They will never lock you in a long-term contract. More than 3 million people already know it feels good to fear less with SimpliSafe. Even Kyle's using SimpliSafe.

I just set it up. It's awesome. He just set it up. He loves it. Go with the only home security I trust, SimpliSafe, by going to SimpliSafeBS.com. Today, once again, SimpliSafeBS.com. SimpliSafe with two I's. SimpliSfebs.com. SimpliSafe with two I's. SimpliSafeBS.com. So I talked to, I was at All-Star Weekend for a couple of days. Yeah, give me some dirt here. Yeah, I'm going to give you some dirt. I have some good dirt.

One of the things that was a recurring conversation was how strange it is that this Pelicans owner is in the middle of this whole thing. Gail Benson got the team. Her husband died. I can't remember how, I guess it was a couple years ago, but the grandkids and the daughter were suing her basically since 2015 because they were claiming she shut them out, tried to change the will, did all this stuff. And she ended up getting the Pelicans and the Saints out of it. So when I was flying to Charlotte, I was like, I'm going to research this a little bit. I don't know that much about the story. And I went deep dived it. They got married in 2004. The guy was 72. She had been married twice. That's a red flag. Sorry.

About 10 years in, really started to have a family kind of chasm between her and all of the people he was related to. Red flag. She ends up cutting all of them out of the Pelicans and the Saints. And there's this whole thing big lawsuit about he changed his will changed how where the trust was going to change put redirected the pelicans and the saints toward her and the family contested it and they were saying he changed it he wasn't in the right state of mind he had dementia all this stuff and ended up it worked

and now she's basically in the middle of all this. It feels like this should be a bigger story. I can't believe- She has no credentials whatsoever to own a sports team other than that she married some dude who was 72 and he got sick 10 years later. Okay, but that happens. I mean, that has happened before where the male owner dies.

Has it happened where the kids have been just shut out? I don't know. I mean, maybe- I don't remember this happening. I mean, maybe it it happened where the kids have been just shut out? I don't know. I mean, maybe... I don't remember this happening. I mean, maybe it's happened in the previous decades. Do you feel like there's thought to be more stability, though?

Because Mickey Loomis has done such a good job of the Saints and that if he has the final say on all this stuff... I mean, that's what I thought is that he ultimately... But I don't think anybody's

done a good job because if you read the stories, like, Haberstroh had a thing. He wrote about the Pelicans this week about how they've had the second most injuries of anybody since they had drafted Davis. He wrote that a while ago.

Yeah. They were saying one of the reasons was they share a training staff with the Saints. They do a lot of like sharing resources. Yeah. Which doesn't seem great. And the Saints had the whole thing where the guy was diagnosed with a bone bruise,

but he had a broken leg. And if you look through the Pelicans injuries over and over again, it's been more than bad luck, it seems like. It actually seems like kind of shoddy. They've had ridiculous injury problems. So now they have this GM that everybody was like, how is this guy still the GM who botched the Chris Paul trade? David Stern did a drive-by shooting of him in September.

Remember that? He was talking about, they're going to lose Andy Davis. That was in the Ballard piece, right? Del Demps is a terrible GM. So he's been in charge this whole time. Now he's not in charge. Now we have Danny Ferry,

who got a raw deal on that Atlanta Hawks thing, if you actually read the story. Yeah, if you read that story, I mean, what... People remember the original story. They don't remember the actual investigation and what was actually uncovered that actually happened i did the first big interview with him on national radio after the fact and i don't really have much relationship with him other than i say hello and you know i have his number

it's not like somebody i'm texting or ever and anything like that but i had him on because i was like i want to hear your side of the story because i didn't feel like anybody ever listened to his side because if you only knew the headline there you're like oh this guy oh this is terrible and they're like wait a minute it was a classic sports media thing where the first story came out and became the story but then the second story that was the real story and nobody really saw that story right he was reading quotes from a scattering report talking about and maybe could have been a little more diplomatic or or i'm not saying it's a good look but I'm saying right so he he's making the calls now or is he though

or is it all he's like an interim GM I don't think he and Demps were working together by the way Danny Ferry was bad in Cleveland if you go back and look at the last

five years of moves with LeBron I think he was better in Atlanta here's the thing though when you go back and look at the end of the Danny Ferry run

in Cleveland they kept doubling down on longer contracts for other guys so they trade out it was a disaster yeah but they were doing like it wasn't good on paper and you're gonna win the argument but in the moment when he would trade i remember i forget the order but like he would trade wally zerbiak who was one year shorter for ben gordon who's another year and it was like let's get. And then, okay, now let's do something else. So they kept taking on all this money

for a marginally better player. Just to try to prove to LeBron how invested they were when apparently he didn't care anyway. So it was, I think, fairy. And I think those guys were so desperate at the end that you can look at all the transactions and trash them. But I kind of understood what he was trying to do. So you have him,

he's kind of involved, I guess they'll dump, stay fired after the way that Davis thing, which was one of the more egregious things that's happened with the NBA in the last 10 years of just a player being like, screw you guys. I'm out. I'm going to leave in the third quarter and I'm just going to go to all

star weekend. Now tell me how the game went. It's crazy. You're the max player. RightStar weekend now. Tell me how the game went. It's crazy. You're the max player. Right. I'll let you know how the MRI went. I think that reflects terribly on him. These guys have to really think about some of the stuff they do

and just how it reflects on them. But I don't think they're professional. I think they're so in their own world and insulated for so much of it when you're that great of a player. And I'm not saying he's right, Bill. I just think that you can understand how he'd get there, that his agent's going, all right, let's get out of here. Let's go to All-Star Weekend.

These guys are doing you wrong. Right, right. You know, look what they did. They sat you in the fourth quarter of that T-Wolves game. He just needs to listen to more people, I think. Gentry's trashing you. You know, so I can understand getting to that point and not realizing, like, bigger picture.

Like, maybe I have to stand up for myself here a little bit to protect my reputation. And then, you know know the quotes that he had this week were brutal all 29 teams are on a list which is like wait a minute did well that's not true so there's and then the whole you know when i leave i'll want to be remembered and i'll take out a big ad in the paper when i leave on instagram yeah. Yeah. That was horrible. I'll do what the other guys do and post something. Yeah, he should have stopped talking like a week ago. Yeah.

Then he had something about how the Knicks are a great franchise, which I tweeted about today. Please explain this further. Because I don't think people realize the real like bullet points of who the Knicks have been. The Knicks are an awful franchise. Now, you could say I'd love to play in New York because they have incredible fans and MSG is awesome. Think how great that

place is considering what their team has been. They have incredible fans, MSG is awesome, and it's the biggest city in America. That's it. That's the case to play for the Knicks because every other piece of it is train wreck. They've been a train wreck for two decades. I think I counted up today. They've won four finals

games total since 1973. Games. Which has to be like bottom five lowest of anybody. They've had 12 coaches in 17 years. More than the Pelicans. They traded their franchise player just now who's like 22 years old and who was on a rookie contract for Capspace. That happened.

They're just really bad. They're the most paranoid organization we have meet they they actually tell media members they're not allowed to come to things that they have like access yeah yeah frank isola has made a living on it it's an absolute shit before anybody thinks i'm dumb i love frank but like frank is constantly like oh hey look at look what they made yeah this is what they did today. They are certainly not a good franchise. They've had five, six people running them.

Did you know the David Griffin thing? No. I don't know if this was new or it came up again. But apparently Griff, and I don't know. I'd read it. I've never talked to him about this specifically. But Griff was close to taking the gig. And then they went and gave Hardaway that massive deal. And he was like, wait a minute.

You're making these kinds of decisions? I don't know if that's true. I read it, I think, this week. And I think Griff bounced from Cleveland because Gilbert doesn't really value GMs as much as other organizations do. And I don't know if that was the end all be all. The greatest thing about the Hardaway deal, too,

is there's a 15% kicker for a trade. Can you imagine? And who are they bidding against? Could you imagine being like, okay, we're going to pay you 70 million and Hardaway's probably a better player than he gets credit for because everybody makes fun of the contract.

But then, hey, I'm also going to ask you for a 15% trade kicker. And he got it. It's amazing. He's finally on the right team though. I like him with Luca. So you have this Knicks organization that's incredibly dysfunctional and has been for two decades.

A mecca. You have the Pelicans that are incredibly dysfunctional. I'd like to throw in the Lakers. That's not fair. No, I think it is fair. I'm going to make the case for it. Since the Doc died, you think about this decade, Kobe Bryant, that last contract they gave him,

the 25 million a year for the last two years, that was one of the dumbest things. Remember the argument for that? What was it, loyalty? No, that it was a way to recruit other stars to know they'd be taken care of at the end of their deals. Yeah, that didn't work.

But you even go back a little further to the Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, that whole thing, leading to the Kobe double contract. Leading to, they finally, they're basically doing the process, but they're not calling it the process. Because they signed Carlos Boozer.

Yeah, they're drafting all these dudes in the top five. It's a disaster. They end up trading D'Angelo Russell, who just made the all-star team. They traded him after two years to get rid of Mozgov's contract. And they had Mozgov's contract

because for some reason they were splurging in 2016. Yeah, that was weird. Even they knew all these free agents were coming. The cap went up. The cap went up, but they spent like 30... It's a joke. Yeah, $33 million a year on two guys who... Well, that's just me. I don't know if you know the cap went up joke cap went up but they spent like 30 it's a joke yeah 33 million a year on two guys who you know well that's just me i don't know if you know the cap went up joke for me but i've been

saying it for a few because literally every contract we're like evan turner 70 million and then somebody'd be like oh no the cap went up right hardaway gets that and the cap wasn't even up the year they signed that was like reggie jackson what no ryan the cap went up oh i got it but everyone talks about like oh genie bus man Buss, man. Yeah, she's really good. Is there evidence that she's good? Because they finally had the cap space this year. They landed LeBron. And then you look at all the other free agents they signed. Caldwell Pope. They let Brooke Lopez go to sign JaVale McGree. Rondo. Michael Beasley for three and a half million. Think about all the money they threw out the window. This is why LeBron's not happy with his team because they have the same young guys they had last year,

but they used the cap space, like, horribly. Okay, let me make a counter to this. Please. All right? First of all, to compare him to the Knicks isn't fair when you have recent championships like that, okay? The Kobe contract was absurd. The Kobe fans will never think,

and they could have paid him a billion dollars and Kobe fans would have argued for it because the kobe fans are the most obsessive sometimes difficult people that you're ever going to run into but um i think what jim bus did even though he was just an absolute um punching bag on first take because kobe was telling steven a how much jim bus sucked but But when Jim brought in Dwight, had Gasol there, traded Nash for Nash when they figured those picks are going to be in the 20s anyway, which totally backfired, and still had Kobe, everybody else would have done that. They were showing a willingness to do whatever it took to put those four guys together. The

problem was, is you doubled up at a position that was being outdated. Dwight is soft as it gets. Kobe was going to hate him because he was soft. Dwight is soft as it gets. Kobe was going to hate him. Dwight was defensible. The Nash trade was less defensible because he was hurt. No, I'm not even saying that. It's just like, what point guard is going to succeed with Kobe? Probably one that could shoot as well as Nash. Like, I still feel like Nash is somebody, if everything had been right, would have figured

it out. I had a theory that if Nash were healthy. Yeah. I honestly like think that Nash couldash could i never saw that one i think nash if he were healthier could have played two guard and just sat in the corner giving you 20 minutes and made every open three like i wish he shot more kobe had developed just so many bad habits at that point of just the hero ball iso ball stuff you're not going to get any i don't know i just but d'angelo look d'angelo russell was a was

a skilled difficult player and some of those younger dudes when they first got out here to la they were kind of about the scene and i think this front office was sick of that so that's why they hauled it over i can't defend the brooke lopez thing at all i can't defend the mozgov the russell trade's rough though because of how young he was it's rough because of who he's been now but last year he was a high usage disaster. Yeah. I mean, D'Angelo Russell had a couple years there where we're talking like he was approaching

Westbrook usage numbers for D'Angelo Russell. And they got the Kuzma pick out of it. Right, and he's a better player now. Like, D'Angelo Russell, like, I still thought he was the same dude at the beginning of the year. Here's my issue, though. And we saw this with the Porzingis trade, too. When a team does something really, really, really, really damaging and then to erase the mistake that was really damaging, they then have to sacrifice an asset.

Absolutely. And then they're like, well, look, this was a smart move. And it's like, yeah, but you're in that position because you guys are dumbasses. It's all the same people who decided to sign Mozgov and Dang, except for Kupchak who was out. And then you look at this year. Basically, they had all that cap space. They clear out. This is the other part of the Mozgov trade. They clear out that cap space for the second free agent to team with LeBron.

And then they don't get the free agent. So they gave away Russell for all the cap space that turned out to be Caldwell Pope, Rondo, Lance Stevenson. Beasley. That makes it worse. No, it does. And that's why I always was arguing that when LeBron was looking at the Cleveland situation, he goes, all right, nobody's coming here. And then I was like, okay, he's probably out. He's probably out. I held on longer than other people did. Maybe I'm an idiot. But I don't, and I'll argue with him, I just don't ever think he thought he was going to be here with this roster. And that's where I think he's upset.

And that's why he's like, are you serious? This is the best we could do? I have a prediction for you. But they thought Paul George was at least going to give him a meeting. Doesn't happen. And I don't know immediately if they loved Kawhi's personality with LeBron.

Because I think LeBron, like Paul George would have been perfect for LeBron because he knew that Paul George was going to bow to the throne. Kawhi wasn't going to do that. Jimmy Butler's not going to do that. That's why I think there's still some like, okay, well, who's coming here? Who's coming? And that's where I think it gets weird.

If they don't make the playoffs, it's going to get really weird this offseason. Anyway. If they don't make the playoffs, that actually helps their chances to get Davis, I think. Because the pick is better? Yeah. How much better, though? I mean, you can make a case that pick gets to like eight. This draft kind of stinks.

The KOC and Jarks and those guys say that after like five, it drops. It's weird. I was looking at it again today because I was watching all the games yesterday. And then this morning, it's not like, you know, the Ohio State and Michigan State was packed with prospects. But it's kind of a weird, it's, you know, look at this time of year,

that always seems to happen around June. Guys are like, oh no, it's got more depth. It's got more of this or all that. I don't know. There's last year, you could look at five or six names and go, holy, like this guy's going to go six. I don't know. There's last year. You could look at five or six names and go, Holy, like this guy's going to go six.

I still feel like we'll have, this always happens. We always get two more in March madness, two studs. And just by mid March, there's two more guys we're excited about. I have a prediction for you. All right. This is the thing you were about to say when I was kept going,

right? Well, no, I just, this is a prediction about the Lakers. Just, this is just from a decade or so of, of studying the ebbs and flows

of the LeBron experience. I feel like there's going to be a story written in the next 12 to 14 days by somebody. And the story will go like this. It will have no fingerprints to LeBron.

There will be no quotes from LeBron in it. But it will be about people close to LeBron or something say, LeBron feels really let down by Magic and Polinka. And they're playing for this year. And the free agent they signed. And they told him Paul George was coming. They couldn't get him.

And it's like every promise they've made hasn't come through. And he loves being a Laker, he loves being here, but he's a little disappointed that the front office slash ownership part of this hasn't gone better. That will happen the next two weeks is my prediction. Somebody will write this.

I would not bet against that prediction, but I would always ask, you know, whenever we start, what else were they supposed to do? What else were they supposed to do with the free agents? Now, LeBron can be mad and be like, this wasn't the deal. This wasn't the agreement. Well, who do you think put together? Because they clearly went after dudes.

They were snapping guys up quickly. And Magic made it seem like they had really thought this out, the types of guys who LeBron wanted to be around, and he wanted to have Rondo there, so he was playing off the ball more and didn't want to build another roster like Cleveland. He must have talked to Magic and those guys about, he must have signed off on these guys, right?

Do you think they were just signing dudes and not running to buy them? He's always loved Rondo. Yeah. Rondo was the only defensible one of all those signings. He's always loved Cousins. LeBron's always liked Cousins. But they wouldn't go pay Cousins, remember?

I don't... I think Cousins got so mad so fast that he called the Warriors. I think other teams are like, well, wait a minute. He's going to do $5 million for one year. You know, what? But you think about it, they did the KCP, right?

Yeah, they did a huge number two years ago. Two years, $30 million for Cousins. If it's going to make LeBron happier, it's better than KCP. Was it $13 right now? For one year. One year. And then. Or could you give Cousins, you know, one year 18 team option, second year, you can buy it out for two, something like that. Or one year 15, whatever. I just think there was no ingenuity

at all with what they did. They put together a roster that I thought LeBron was going to be just good enough because he's LeBron was going to be just good enough because he's LeBron to get it to 50 wins. But it became clear pretty quickly that defensively, they were just even worse than I thought they were going to be. No, and it's weird because they were good. They were competitive last year defensively.

And then the beginning of the year, Rondo and LeBron were probably their two worst defenders. And then LeBron had a bit of a resurgence defensively. And now that he's back, he's just trying to figure it out again. But here's the thing. Like we keep doing all this stuff, right? If he doesn't miss 18 games,

they're probably a four or five seed right now. He's at the 55,000 minute mark. Like I think it's unrealistic for him to play 82 games at this point. You know, he can't take on that burden. Like it's 2009 anymore where it's like guys i'm gonna get us there i'm lebron james i don't think he's physically capable of that anymore but what i see in games and like philadelphia's a good example of this

and he was doing this before he got hurt he gets his numbers which is a testament to how freaking good he is. But he will float for long stretches in games. And sometimes it'll be like the first, and sometimes it'll be like the third. And then it's like he even, look, he was pushing it and trying to get, he ended up with like a decent stat line in that Philly game. He hadn't done anything in that game. So even though you're giving me the 55,000 minute mark, he's so smart that i think he's going okay look it could still be the 30 something minutes i can still play 70 games but i am i am coasting

but there's nobody because you know that means that just means kuzma is going to go nuts and sometimes kuzma is really good and sometimes he isn't he's bad defensive remember there was a theory last year they were played really well last year, his last cap season all the way through the Christmas game and then went into a tail spin and he wasn't playing hard. This is the biggest reason I wouldn't consider him for MVP because I just felt like there's a five to six week stretch there where he

just wasn't playing. He stopped playing defense wasn't playing defense at all. And there was a theory that he was not sabotaging it, but coasting because he was trying to pressure them to trade for help, to trade that Brooklyn pick. And I think people even wrote about it about, they were like,

we're not trading that pick that that's, if you leave, that's our insurance for, you know, the next few seasons. If we trade that pick and then you leave, we're left with nothing. So now I don't blame.

Yeah. I don't blame Cleveland. But Cleveland is smart. But I'm saying this Yeah, I don't blame Cleveland to do that. But Cleveland was smart. But I'm saying this year, I wonder like when he had that groin injury, if part of it was like it was the same kind of wind it back, wind it down a little bit, but really wanted those young guys to get all those minutes because they're showcasing them for the Davis trade. Only in this case, it backfired because because like ingram i felt worse about him after that

month than before it i'm not going to rule any of this stuff out like i don't think any of this stuff is crazy because i think with lebron that especially as he closes this thing out over the next couple of years it's it's going to be about him yeah and i'm not even blaming him for that but he handles it in a way that is different and you can say it's driven you could argue it's selfish you could argue all these things but if you go back to the calves pick who are they trading it for that actually made sense deandre jordan like there wasn't a great market for it right so that and honestly deandre jordan is somebody now where you go great so we're going to trade an asset imagine that that would have been one of the worst trades of the decade of course and then you know you can't you can't trade for

guys like that and we're like okay this is cool we have this big guy and by the way when it's five minutes left in the close playoff game you can't be in the game so you can't trade for those guys so even if he wanted to showcase all these dudes before the trade deadline say this was a he was healthier say this is conspiracy say everything you're saying is true you still have to tell me what deals were actually able to pull off like what did the lakers not do to hook up lebron before the trade deadline with these guys? And they, like the Celtics, knew they couldn't package these guys for something else because they still got to stay in the game here. They still have to stay in the game for Davis in June and July.

Well, so of the guys that bounced around, I think Miritich would have been a good fit with LeBron. Would you have given up an asset that hurts your chances for Anthony Davis from M meritage to lose to the warriors or thunder or rockets would you have traded your would you have traded your first for it yeah a lakers first for meritage yeah because i think picks in the 20s they sound great in trades and i think they're overrated but and i don't know if i would have done that i was just trying to think of like tobias harris would you've gone all in with like a Kuzma and something else? I wouldn't have jeopardized. My answer is going to be the

same every time. I wasn't going to jeopardize any Anthony Davis deal for a deal to probably get my head beat in, at least in the second round. It's kind of amazing they couldn't pull off the Davis deal. And I think it goes back to why I brought up the owner. I think if it's a normal organization, they're looking at it rationally and they're going, this is a lot of assets for this. We should just do this. Who knows? What happens if Tatum kills it in the playoffs and Boston says, we can't trade this guy anymore, it'll cause a riot. What happens if the Knicks pick, they fall to four and they're like, we'll trade you Kevin Knox on the fourth pick for davis

suddenly that's not as good as the lakers trade either like there there was a point during this where the lakers trade probably made sense if they had thrown in a bunch of future picks and just done like the godfather offer but i it's like what we talked about on the trade deadline i think she was looking at it like why do i have to trade this guy he's under contract i don't understand. Did I bring it up in the trade deadline? We talked about this a little bit in the trade deadline. I did keep saying to people,

maybe it's because I was doing some of the ESPN stuff, but everything you just said about the structure of what this team is right now, the Pelicans management structure, it's a massive challenge for anybody dealing with it. Yeah. Because from stuff I've heard, there's kind of a football mentality

from the Saints side of it being like, wait a minute, you know what? How does this work? So yes, if it had been just a basketball ownership and it had been Demps

and better standing, let's say, than he is right now. Or just one person. One person who's like, I'm the person here. Yeah. The buck stops here.

I know what I'm doing. And then there's still a pretty persistent buzz that there's a chance this team might get sold, like that she would just rather own the Saints instead of trying to do both of those. So if that's true, then why would you trade your best player right as you're kind of shopping your team around? Which leads me to my best piece of gossip from All-Star Weekend. Okay.

How long did it take, Kyle? I feel like I should have just shut up for 15 minutes. Hold on. I'm going to do a greenie tease. Oh, no. Do you have a good one? Coming up, I'm going to tell you the one rumor from All-Star Weekend that almost made me drop my Kaiser Soze cup right after this.

Let's take a break to talk about Hulu. I love hulu hulu's paying some of the league's best players a lot of money to do some pretty crazy stuff joel changed his nickname from the process to joel hulu has live sports and bead that happened damian lillard got a tattoo that says hulu has live sports clearly they really want you to know that Hulu has live sports. Hulu plus live TV offers 60 plus live and on-demand channels, tons of shows and movies, and exclusive originals. So get rid of cable.

Switch to Hulu plus live TV for only $45 a month. You know who loves Hulu? The Simmons kids. In fact, they love Hulu so much, they've gotten in trouble for watching shows on Hulu that we didn't realize they were watching. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't get Hulu. You just have to monitor your kids.

I have a better... I need to do better on that front. I guess, Kyle, my son's a lost cause, right? I give up on him. I don't give up on Hulu, though. Watch your favorite teams in the biggest games all season with no cable required. Watch on the go and on all your favorite devices. Restrictions apply.

Learn more at Hulu.com. All right, this is a doozy, man. Hope you're sitting down for this one. I am. Multiple people told me this. Kyrie. Who know things. Kyrie.

James Dolan is courting offers for the Knicks. It's happening. It's on. It's go time. Wow. He's courting offers for the Knicks. What was the latest valuation? That is what I heard at All-Star Weekend from people I trust.

It's gone so well. Why would he want to sell? So here's – this is what I've pieced together. He really cares about buildings in the in-game slash in-concert experience. And he wants to put even more money to that, like the Forum in LA, which is an amazing place to see a concert, what they've done with MSG. He really cares about the buildings.

The Knicks are just a pain in the ass. People shit on him for it. He feels like if he can just sell the Knicks for some crazy price, then he can put that money back into some of the music slash game experience stuff that he cares about so the knicks are available from what i've heard what's the number because when they say i think i saw what four billion in the latest so he the late but does that include he wants five without the

without without the building he owns the building i think he knows he's not going to get five. So I think... Is the valuation of them with the building? The building is not included. So that's the thing. Not only is the building not included, but you're going to have to swallow up a bunch of perks with like, he's going to get this and he'll get this. And you're basically just getting the team.

Instead of fish on New Year's Eve, it's his band. I think that might be part of it. But here's the thing. And we saw this, and this is why I still think somebody's going to overpay for this because we've seen it in the Bay Area. Joe Lacob, you go to those Warriors games. He's the man.

He has Eddie Q there. He's got the freaking Reddit CEO. He's the man. He has Eddie Q there. He's got the freaking Reddit CEO. He's got the Salesforce CEO. The guys from Silicon Valley. Jeff Bezos is in town. He's got the benchmark guys. They're all coming to Lakob's place. Lakob's the guy.

You're so into tech. He decides where everyone, oh, this guy needs tickets. Oh, this guy wants to come to the owner's club. It's his party every night. Can't put a price on that. And I think in New York, the person that owns the Knicks, it becomes their party. And I don't know how that changes the price for this,

but from what I've heard, the Knicks are available. Everything you just said, though, about ownership is so perfect. Because do you remember when they first did the Barclays deal? And I forget the first guy that was in. I forget the name. Was it Ratner? Yeah. The guy was doing all the railroad stuff, and he was talking about it. And look, if you look at that area now, I mean, it wasn't like I was hanging out in Brooklyn when I was younger.

But you can see the attraction of the whole thing. Brooklyn, some of the stuff you'll read, they'll say it has like a higher median price than Manhattan does now. Yeah. Try to get a place to live. So it's not because of the Nets, but there's this revitalization.

And he was sitting there and he was talking about like, it's this painting. I'm buying this painting that there's no real value on, but I know people want to come look at my painting and there's a value in that. I can bring people here and show them what I own and I can show them off and there's a value in that and closing deals. And I don't know if it was

somebody from the Players Association that wrote it or if it was somebody that was just very pro player and CBA stuff that was like, this is the argument though. Like all of the owners cry poor about year to year operations, but yet the appreciation of every franchise, you clean up every time. I haven't read an article about anybody losing any money in a long time so the last time this happened was right before the lockout and this is why we had a lockout where you had they basically gave the the hornets to mj right because bob johnson was he paid nothing he might not have even paid like 100 million cash for it he took on a lot of debt, all this stuff.

The Sixers deal goes down as one of the biggest heists ever. I can't remember what the exact number is, but I think those guys have like quintupled it since they bought it. But that was also a weird thing too. Cause you remember like that had a weird transaction at the beginning to get it to these guys. It was, there was a two year run there where they, and I remember writing about it a bunch

of times for uh when i was still at espn like it seemed like one-third of the league was available and that was why they ended up having lockout because attendance was going down they didn't know streaming was coming they didn't realize the league was about to transform into this 365 day social media just everything that's happening in the live rights with all the new technology, like guys, some smart people called it, but I mean, here's the thing when you're,

when you're really, really, really crazy rich. Yeah. There comes, there comes a point where ultimately there's not really a lot you can do with that money. You can,

there, there's a bunch of like super, super rich guys. Nobody's ever heard of. And if one of them buys the Knicks, you will now have heard of them. And they'll be the guy who bought the Knicks and they're going to restaurants and people are pointing them and going, oh, that guy owns the Knicks. This is the same reason Balmer, I was on TV over and over again that year saying the Clippers

were going to go for like 1.8 to 2 billion. Everyone thought I was crazy, but he doesn't, he didn't care. He had the money. He just wanted to own the Clippers were going to go for like $1.8 to $2 billion. Everyone thought I was crazy, but he didn't care. He had the money. He just wanted to own the Clippers. And by the way, we know Steve Ballmer way more than we did five years ago, right? Raised his profile, put him in the mix. Developers, developers, developers. So I think he can get $4 million just for the team.

I really do. I don't know how you would cap that price especially you get some bidders and some banker that we don't know of three people this book that I reference all the time and I just referenced it I actually did a baseball podcast on ESPN it was crazy oh wow Lords of the Realm it's the best

sports book besides the book of basketball that I've ever read and it breaks down the entire history of the economics of baseball and it's the kind of basketball that I've ever read. Thank you. And it breaks down the entire history of the economics in baseball. And it's the kind of book you should read if you want to understand sports better. And one of the great quotes,

because they get into how the owners treated players, the collusion and arbitration, all this stuff. It's unbelievable if you like that stuff. And I do, I love it. And one of the owners says, what's the point of being rich if nobody knows who you are? And that's what this is. Wick Grosbeck, when those guys bought that team,

people laughed at his ownership group for spending 300 million. They didn't even own the fleet center, right? knows who you are and that's what this is with grosbeck when those guys bought that team people laughed at his ownership group for spending 300 million they didn't even own the fleet center right like dude you don't even have the fleet center and yeah what could they sell that for now lake up got dumped they were like wait a minute at least the celtics are a historic franchise in boston for three you spent 400 for the warriors now granted live rights and how rights i thought it was smart i i think like... Is it still smart though? Is $4 billion still smart for the Knicks? Without

MSG? That's a lot. That's what I always wonder is... Now if you're that rich like you just said... You're buying the crown jewel of a league that... Here's the part I don't understand. I don't understand how much streaming money they're going to be able to get as the streaming keeps going. The big thing, they've talked about India and Africa.

They're already in China and they're in Japan. In the old days, there was one game a week in China or in England. You get the two NBA games a week. And now it's like all these people have the internet and could just watch NBA. So I don't really understand how much money is going to come in. I don't think the league does either.

You could argue that they're going to like triple their revenue in five years. I honestly don't know. Well, everybody, because of the big short now, like saying bubble, right?

Everybody's like, Oh, it's a bubble. It's a bubble. It's a bubble. And it's like, yeah, but the counter to that would be that is there's more and more competition

and uncertainty about how people watch stuff it's still hard to bet against the most well-positioned league in comparison to age of globally age of fan um the basketball fan like look football fans can talk about caring about their fantasy lineup but i think the regular nba fan watches the trailblazers on a random night because he wants to watch damian lillard like he'll just he just i think that's what's the best part about this league so i don't know how you'd bet against the live rights of this stuff unless you know an espn or somebody would get annoyed with the fact that wait a minute there's you're providing so many different revenue streams different ways to consume you that now you're sort of cannibalizing what we have.

I don't know if that's a conversation. I could be totally wrong. I don't know. Well, that's the new deal coming up in a couple of years. I mean, I saw Masai on Friday, the Toronto GM. We were just talking about Siakam, who, you know, was a really important guy for him. And as somebody that came from the basketball without borders program, and we were just like, how many more Siakams are coming? This is a guy we wouldn't have found 20 years ago. And now there might be 10 more Siakams from

not just Africa, but another Giannis from Greece. And just because they're showing basketball in all these different countries. So I don't know. I think it's a great bet. And if you're buying the crown jewel of the league, the number one team in the number one city, I mean, the biggest team in that city, one of the most historic franchises we have, even if they haven't really won that much. And if you have the money anyway, what do you care if it's 3.3 billion or 4 billion? I know you've done well, but could you be part of that ownership group? You want me to buy it? The ringer is now a pay site. Here's the other thing. Remember when the guys bought the Red Sox?

The Red Sox had horrible owners and the joke was always like, this is following the guy who was the worst boyfriend of all time. It's like anything. You take her out to dinner twice and tell her she looks nice and buy roses once and it's like anything you you take her out to dinner like twice and tell her she looks nice buy roses once and it's like the greatest thing that's ever oh my god i can't and that's how we all felt with the new owners it was like oh my god they're gonna

they're gonna add more food to fenway oh they're buying another bar like we were we were like so honored and touched i remember they're spending money on lansdowne do you remember how screwed up that thing was though it's yeah gave it to henry because you know who was bidding there's a local bidder who was part of the well that was the big what if it would have been frank mccourt well there was one of them but then it was also dolan oh don't dolan so i remember wanting it to be dolan okay okay? And it was Charles. It wasn't James, right? Charles Dolan. Oh, my God. And I was convinced because I was so into it then. I had bought into the whole idea that they couldn't win. They couldn't compete as a mid-market team because of Fenway.

I was convinced of it. So I was like, all right, Dolan wants to tear down Fenway. Remember that? There was the whole save Fenway thing in the late 90s. Right, and then Harrington- We're not going to be able to compete with this part. Do you remember Harrington put together a new Fenway? Yeah.

You're going to move it, and then they're going to sink it into the ground. You're going to be able to walk by the green monster and look down on it because it would be street level. And like, that was the whole plan. That was, in retrospect, horrible. One of the worst ideas ever. But I was convinced that they couldn't win

unless they had more revenue, which is, again, stupid as before. Live rights, regional network, what Nessun was worth, all these stupid things. And I was annoyed at they couldn't win unless they had more revenue, which is again, stupid as before live rights, regional network, what Nesson was worth, all these stupid things. And I was annoyed at the time too, that like Seelig was blatantly just hooking his buddies up with franchises. And then Dolan complained and said,

what kind of bidding is this? You just like, I make a bid, somebody else makes a bid. And then I outbid Henry. And then the bidding's just closed. Like bidding's closed. Like Seelig's the one that got McCourt,

the Dodgers. I mean, you go back and look at all this stuff. It's nuts. So anyway, the point being that... Actually, I forgot the point. Well, I left out one part with this next thing. Yeah, keep going. This is the...

I mean, I'm just... This is the dun-dun-dun. Somebody told me that as long as the dad's alive, he's not going to sell. I don't know if this is true or not. The dad's still alive, Charles. Kind of like an inception thing here. It's just like maybe waited out because who knows? So I don't know. But I do know that he's courting offers now, which was not the case before. I would imagine whatever the number is, you're right. Whatever number we have in our the number is, it's, you're right. Whatever number we have in our head right now,

it's going to be bigger. It just is with that transaction. I always feel like it's a 40% tax on whatever you think the number should be, which it's almost like buying a car. You buy a car and it's like, whatever it is, is the price. And then you have it for two months

and you're like, whoa, fuck. I can't get, my car's now worth then you have it for two months. You're like, whoa, fuck, I can't get, my cards now were 60% what I paid two months ago. There's just sticker tax. And especially if you have multiple people bidding, like we had it here at the Clippers, five people were in on that bid. It was like, remember Russ Caruso,

the guy who built all the Groves, he was in and the Dodgers were in and it becomes like a fucking eBay. And people are just like, dude, you bid out bid. Like what? And then you're putting another bid and all of a sudden

you're just going higher than you ever thought. Yeah, eBay's brilliant that way because like I'm not losing. And that's the best version of this. Imagine being one of these guys. You don't have kids so you don't know this,

but if you, the school auction where you have drunk parents and they'll have thing like, it's a weekend at Big Bear and you just have the two guys who are like, I'm not losing to that fucking guy. And it's going up and up.

I'm aware of how an auction works. Well, no, this is not the drunk school parent auction. So anyway, yeah. So Knicks. And here's the other thing. If for whatever reason, Gail Benson decides to pick the Saints over the Pelicans and somebody comes in and says,

I'm buying the Pelicans and I'm moving them to Seattle and I'm going to pay extra so you don't take shit. I'll put in an extra 400 million or whatever to wet your willy on it. Because Seattle's still sitting there as the NFL LA version of what the NBA has now. And at some point, somebody's jumping on it. And I don't know what team, but I think New Orleans

is probably still the odds-on favorite. Maybe Memphis? Memphis, I would think, would be in the running there too. Clippers would be the other one. If he doesn't get the Englewood thing, from what I heard, he wants to be next to the football stadium. Ironically, Irving Azoff and Dolan own that forum, and they would want to be cut in if Balmer put a basketball thing there because you can't have three things right next to each other. It might just lead to Balmer saying, F it and going to Seattle. Can't be ruled out.

But he would own it. He would own it and just go to Seattle. Balmer. Yeah, because I think like 2023, something like that. Seattle not having a team is now insane. It would be like if the Warriors, if there was no team in the Bay Area. It's just stupid.

Like Seattle, there's so much money in there from Amazon. They would sell out all the suites in five seconds. They just have real basketball fans there. It's just insane. No, I hate that they don't have a team there. They have a history. They do. And I just want to give the Oklahoma City Thunder

a lot of credit for not having Sonics jersey night like the Hurricanes did with the Whalers. That was horrific. That was horrific. Did you just tweet, fuck you, at the Hurricanes? I did. That was the only time I've ever done that. The Carolina Hurricanes were like, hey, man, look at these Whaler jerseys.

I was like, fuck you. We're not even Whalers fans and we get it, okay? It was like kidnapping someone's child and then 15 years later, send him a prom photo. Kid throwback jerseys of the prom photo. Look at this. Little Billy's all grown up.

He's having a great time. He got into con college. We, we're going to take one more break. Let's take a break to talk about Roman. Did you know that more than half of guys will experience erectile dysfunction at some point in their life? Most of them don't talk to the doctor about it. That's why Roman has made it so easy for guys to get checked out.

Listen up. ED is more common than you think. 52% of men will experience erectile dysfunction at some point in their life. Even worse, about 70% of those guys don't talk to a doctor about it. Well, it's time to take care of it with Roman. ED is like a check engine light for your body. It's often the first sign of something more serious going on, like high blood pressure, a heart condition, diabetes, and more. So Roman, a one-stop shop to treat ED from the comfort and privacy of your own home. Handle everything online. Getting started quick, easy.

Go to getroman.com slash bill. Complete a brief online visit. Once your doctor ensures treatment will be safe and effective for you, they prescribe FDA-approved medication to be delivered in discreet packaging to your door, free, two day shipping. So talk to a doctor. ED can be tough to tackle, but it's really important to get checked out.

Today, Roman is giving the BS pod listeners a free online visit and free two day shipping at GetRoman.com slash bill. Once again, GetRoman.com slash bill for a free visit to get started. So I'm trying to think what other all-star buzz. The Dempsting really hit everybody on Friday. The timing of that was so bizarre. You usually don't want to do something like that on a Friday because then it becomes all the media member there just whispering and talking about it, and it's never a great idea.

So I think they probably rightly felt like nobody had any control of the steering wheel, and it was time to reevaluate. So now we have this situation where Davis, I guess, isn't going to play the rest of the year? This guy's just going to throw away? We saw this with Paul Pierce, I guess, in Boston in 2007. 2007, yeah. Where he could have come back and they just kind of told him to stay away.

No one cared back then. But see, here's the thing. The reason this is an issue, and I give Silver a lot of credit on this one, is that you have your partners in TNT and ESPN, and it was becoming a joke that that Saturday night ESPN game, everybody was sitting it out for rest. Yeah. And they'd be sitting out, guys,

like they'd play them on the Friday, then sit them on the Saturday game. And you go, no, no, no, your regional network won, sit them on Friday. And then people do this thing where it's like, oh, you can't tell, but you can't keep dumping on your partners that are paying you triple the rights fees than they were in the past.

So to have the first kind of like right when the football season is ending, first Saturday night marquee matchup, Lakers, Warriors, LeBron's back. He had played one game and then sits out Saturday for load management. And so if you're ESPN, you're going, are we doing this again? Give me a break. You know, like this is our time now, this Saturday marquee game. So my sense is, and it's just that, you know, Anthony Davis, the season ticket holders, different television packages, we don't want to just be able to tell them, yeah, actually,

we get your specific situation, even though it makes sense for the Pelicans to want to shut them down. They should just tell them, you know what? Don't come back. After you fly away early, don't even bother coming back. But I also can understand the TV part of this because they don't want this leniency because that was becoming a joke on those Saturday night games.

I remember when I got suspended from ESPN for three weeks and I came back and I just faked a shoulder injury and just... Oh, no, I didn't do that at all. I just kept handing in columns and doing podcasts. I did the Gretla basketball hour. I still ran Grantland. Was that the Goodell? Is a liar?

Yeah. I just feel like if somebody's paying you, you should work. There's an idea. That's been my theory throughout life. It's just like you should probably, don't cash your checks then. just say, you know what? I'm not going to cash checks.

I'm going to give the next two months. I'm going to give all my paychecks to charity. Cause I feel bad about how this happens, but you never hear somebody do. No, but okay. But the thing is like, I'm proud of what I've done. You have been a pioneer in this thing. Have we ever been remotely? And I'll just defer to you.

Have you ever been important enough as an Anthony Davis? No, I'm talking about pride in what you do for a living and you sign a new contract and you're somebody's max guy. And then three and a half years in, you decide, I don't really want to be here anymore. I'd much rather be in this other situation. It't work out and then you're just like all right i'm out oh just so what's what's acceptable here's my thing are we because i i don't like it either and i think it's ridiculous how often people just keep referencing like good for the player player empowerment take control that's the part i understand this isn't none of this is good i find myself rooting against the media people that say that more than actually a specific player

but what we have is a combination of how many of the top players have been unhappy. LeBron's been unhappy. Durant's miserable all the time. Kyrie is miserable. Kawhi didn't refuse to play last year. Kawhi quit for a year and everybody gave him a pass by the way. Imagine if LeBron had done that.

It would have been unbelievable. And I bring it up all the time because I still can't believe what a pass Kawhi got for just shutting it down because he was mad about the davis point it's like we've turned into this thing where guys are they want to get paid max money and then they'll decide if they want to play for it or not i don't understand how we got here yeah this is a problem and so many people in media don't think and so jimmy butler's been pissed off only what three times in two years yeah he didn't show up for the whole summer you know if we went further down the road we could do the the cp3 thing from before when he wanted out of new orleans and you

know look there was more weird stuff going on with that but you know look you could make an argument if you went 15 deep more than half of the top players in this league have been so mad and have forced the issue like in a weird way like people want to be mad at lebron the dude leaves as a a free agent, at least. And maybe you don't like that he goes year to year and doesn't commit to you, but at least he doesn't sign the deal and then demand to be traded somewhere. So when I see Silver address it this weekend, or I see people write about it and all this stuff, not every player that decides to bail, not everybody's situation is the same. And I'm wondering now, as you and I talk about it, because I think we do agree on this thing. I can't understand, like, why are so many of you guys so

unhappy? Are you right to be this unhappy? Who's right? Who's wrong? But collectively, like, it's just bad for the league. If this is the future of the league, that seven of the top 10 players are just going to be pissed every six months and want to go somewhere else. That's not a good thing. This isn't about a player empowerment. And guess like there's still an employer employee relationship as special as these dudes are and when you sign it like when you sign that deal i'm starting to think some guys like i think mellow did five years because he's like whatever i'll just take the five years and i'll worry about it later and that's exactly what happened it's not a starting to think i know for a fact that's what happened. It was the most money.

And he knew it wasn't the best basketball situation for him. And his thinking was, I'll take the money. And I know in like two years, I could just force a trade. Yeah. And I'm never going to get that fifth year. I'll never get that back when I become a free agent four years in if I sign with the Bulls. What really backfired, and some people have written about this, so I'm not saying this is my original point. They thought that this new max thing where the team had an advantage a year before the contract ended to sign the player to an extension was going to be this huge advantage for the incumbent team.

Right. And it's the opposite. Not only is it not an advantage, it's a disadvantage because with the term that my listener made up, pre-agency, which now people are using. But the pre-agency year has now become a real disadvantage for the team because now we're seeing with a year and a half left in the contract, two years left, players are trying to use that leverage. Well, I'm not resigning a year and a half from now. I'm out of here. So you should do something now. That's never happened before this last, I don't know, 18 months.

No, Kawhi had almost two years left. Yeah. And you were starting to hear these rumblings. And I could tell it was real because I sent Woj a text. I go, are you hearing anything about Kawhi? Yeah. And he's on his way out. Roach is like, I'm with him right now.

Crickets. And then a week later woj wrote the whole and i don't blame woj i mean he doesn't you know he gives it to me if he goes yeah ryan totally then i'm on the radio later that afternoon going i'm hearing some stuff about kawaii so i don't i don't blame woj for not getting back to me on that one because he clearly was ready to to you know break this story that was a big deal and it was the first time we're like wait a minute we thought kawaii was the guy that would never be that guy and he was that guy more than any of them and he's not playing for an awful franchise he's playing for the the the model franchise and maybe all of sports

and he's unhappy so i i just don't you're right about the contracts thing because it also coincided with everybody's money basically doubling like it's one thing to make 15 or 20 but then when you're like all right so i can make 38 or i can make 43 like who gives a shit like i'm out of here so this doesn't work both ways because either you end up in the john wall or like kemba or kemba's kemba's a perfect example kemba's gonna make potentially make 220 million dollars don't you just have to say no if you're the If you're the Hornets? They're going to do it. How do you have a basketball team at that point? That was my Joe Johnson thing.

When the Hawks did the Joe Johnson deal, and I was talking to somebody that was close to it, and they're like, you know, just... And I was like, yeah, yeah, I guess you just have to kind of do it. You can't lose the asset. And that's always the way business has been done. I'm starting to think with these super maxes that maybe you'll see more GMs just go,

you know what? Here's what I'm not going to do. Have Kemba on the books for 200 million. How about year five of Kemba at age 34 making like $47 million. Yeah. Guaranteed. It's a tough one.

Yeah, I would just go, go you know what i don't care i'm like i'm not i'm not gonna have that on my books well the thing is if you're the hornets and you do that well you should have never winning the title so i guess what's your goal is your goal to win a title or is your goal to just you know go 47 and 35 and your fans at least have a guy they can wear his jersey 47 and 35 maybe i do I'd do it. And he's been awesome. I think at one point we did our first team all NBA. I think I may have had him on there. Oh, I have that for us to do really quick before the end of this because we're at the two-thirds mark.

I'm not ready. I don't mean to sound like the old guy, but I just feel like when you have a year and a half, two years left on your deal, like play basketball. You signed a deal. So I own it. No, this is, we're right on this. We're not, the young guys are wrong on this one.

Okay. The young guys are wrong. Like this is not good long-term if everybody just gets assigned four or five years deals and then say, because then when's the guy going to do the three years left? You know? Right. Like, oh, you know what? Or take the money and then six months into it, just be like. Steven Jackson it? Yeah. He did that well chris bosh i asked him about it so i know he's not gonna

beat me up if i see him no he he did he admitted it yeah he just blatantly was like i wasn't getting that contract chris bosh said on my podcast that it's now just aau and like all these guys who do this who are in the league now who are are the best guys, are all guys that grew up in the AAU system. They're just used to bouncing from team to team. And if they're not happy with this coach, they just move to the next team. And if a new point guard joins the team, they didn't like him that much, I'll just switch teams. I'll go to that team over there. And now that's just what the NBA is becoming. I don't think this is a good thing. There's always great value in finding another way to blame AAU.

I mean, AAU just takes it on the chin all the time. Maybe he's right, but you know what? This isn't... I got to go back. I feel stupid for even bringing it up, but I wanted to interview Kareem recently because I wanted... Can you share with us?

Do you know that story of him forcing his way out Milwaukee? Yeah. Because he just did another interview on it and then said why it was different and i didn't get to watch the whole thing because i was i was watching the all-star my recollection from doing my book was the team wasn't very good he was didn't want to live in milwaukee anymore and and you know he was pretty open for he changed his, how religious he was and like Milwaukee, he just didn't, wasn't the right place for him kind of spiritually and as a personality. Shocking. And I think he just wanted to go to a bigger city. So he wanted to go to the Lakers or the Knicks. Free agency was coming in a year and he told them like, look, when free agency comes in,

I'm leaving. So you can trade me me now he actually did right by them and the irony is you know they they missed the playoffs with him as last year in milwaukee i went back and looked it up were people hurt i meant to ask you this because i was digging through this the team cratered oscar got old immediately i think bobby dandridge might have left because they just won the title and then they sucked, right? Then they made the finals in 74 and then cratered. Okay, so title, finals, cratered. Oscar, yeah.

Okay. And then the Lakers traded so many. This is the fear of the Davis trade. The Lakers traded so much for him that he missed the playoffs his first year in LA. And he averaged like 27 and 17. He was like an MVP candidate.

Yeah, when you go, I was looking at those numbers. Yeah, he had like monster numbers. They're stupid. So I don't know. That seemed pretty defensible to me. And he had also delivered them a title. Anthony Davis has delivered nothing in New Orleans.

He's been there seven years. Quickly, all NBA. Did we handle that the right way? I'm not. I'm doing this. I mean, I don't even want to edit this out because I just... What part didn't we handle that the right way? I'm not. I'm doing this. I mean, I don't even want to edit this out because I just. What part didn't we handle? The guy's under contract and he's a max guy and doesn't seem like he just even wants to play basketball anymore.

Would we? Okay, here's because I'm always trying to like do this to myself. If there hadn't been a string of like four other guys that had done this in the last couple of years. Yeah. Would we be more sympathetic to Davis? Or are we piling on Davis because we're sick of the trend? Why do we have to be sympathetic to him? He's not that far at,

or, or before like they, uh, Meritage went out and they lost some games. It wasn't that far out of the playoff hunt. It wasn't unrealistic for a team that has one of the best five guys in the league to make a run and potentially sneak in as a seven seed or an eight seed. If you look at the standings, it wasn't inconceivable.

The Clippers are the eight seed. They're 30 and 27. So it's probably going to be like 45 wins to make the playoffs. There's also a theory out there on Davis is that as good as he is, that this is evidence that he's actually soft and not somebody that can lead your team. Which every GM would be like, all right, cool.

Thanks for your notes. I want Anthony Davis on my team. I mean, right now they're 26 and 33. And the Clippers are the eighth seed at 32 and 27. They're still only five and a half games back with all this drama. And you figure if he had been playing his ass off the last few weeks.

Right, and Miritich. Maybe there are two games. Yeah.itage trade was weird although they everyone seemed to be really fired up about all those second round picks i hate second i hate doing the i talked to people in the league thing but people were like wow they did get four second round picks i'm like great it was like 20 second round picks who cares it's It was great. I have seven semi-augiles. I could always tell which writers were hinky guys. And now they have four second round picks in this draft and four in 2020.

And you just go, oh my God. Hinky's been a fun revisionist history thing. Because even though he had a plan and he did some, made some, he's the master of trades. Master of trades? But just every trade he made, made some, he's the master of trades. Master of trades. But just every trade he made,

he won. He was, he was like six for six. Did he win the New Orleans and Michael Carter Williams for Drew? Well, he got two, two. He got two lottery. No,

they took Michael Carter Williams with their own pick. I think. Was it? Let me double check. I thought they'd got New Orleans and then the next year got another lottery pick. I think that, I think that was a good trade I'm double checking

I think both teams did well in that trade actually but the funny thing with Hinckley though by all accounts that organization was in shambles internally because he had no idea how to run a staff and do all that stuff I really like Hinckley but I think there were more issues beyond just the process.

Oh, yeah. It was the Alfred Payton pick the next year. Oh, yeah. And then they flipped that into Sarich. Quickly, all NBA. You're going to have to go because I didn't know I had a homework assignment. You didn't.

So we're at the two-thirds mark right now with the season. I have Jokic, Giannis, Paul George, Harden, and Curry. That's my five. The other choice would be Embiid for the center spot. Yeah, I go Embiid.

That was the only one. That was the first thing I thought of. I just think as great as Jokic is, he's not what Embiid is defensively and I have nights in all the channel surfing where you know Giannis is in that group right now where I watch and go what are you supposed to do with this like I don't so here's the counter and Embiid to me is is that guy more than Jokic is but Jokic also has a style that's not ever going to be as aggressive as Embiid. Philly's a five seed right now.

Denver's a two seed. Jokic is the only all-star in that team. If they end up being a two seed and going like 56 and 26, I'm just telling you I'm picking him first team all NBA. That matters to me. Team success. Yeah, because it isn't like there's another Murray has moments.

By the way, I like their team. I like Morris. I like Beasley. They have a lot of random dudes. Hernan Gomez. I never understood why Hernan Gomez didn't get more love. I mean, granted, when you start to go to

the Knicks, things can get der love. I mean, granted, when you start to go to the Knicks, things can get derailed. But do you really think Jokic is better than Embiid? Would you rather have Jokic than Embiid? I think Embiid still has a chance to grab my first team O-NBA vote. I'm just saying, if they stay a five seed with all the talent they have and Jokic gets Denver to a two seed, I'm going to vote Jokic. But Embiid, if Philly climbs like we think they probably will, Embiid probably takes that.

Because his two-way game is too good. Steph, Harden, George, Giannis, and then you have Jokic. The only one I would disagree with. So the interesting thing there is Giannis and George and Durant gets bumped to the second team, and he's having a typically great Durant season, at least statistically. But what are you supposed to do?

Maybe more Browns than usual. Second team, I have Embiid, Kawhi, Durant, Damian Lillard. Here's where it gets interesting. God, small forward's brutal. There's only three guaranteed guards for first team All-NBA, second team All-NBA. My second guard for second team on BA right now,

Russell Westbrook. Is that wrong? He's averaging a 21, 11, 11. Now his shooting percentages are awful, but he's can't shoot, but he can't shoot.

He plays his absolute ass off. And you could argue like how hard he plays has made Paul George has taken into another level, has brought guys like grant, all these random bench dudes. They have, ass off and you could argue like how hard he plays has made paul george has taken him to another level has brought guys like grant all these random bench dudes they have that the intensity that team plays with comes from him and i gotta give him credit that i think that's the second best team in the west and i actually think that is the biggest threat golden states had in a couple years in the west i agree because i think emotionally... The Houston series was... I know people are going to say, oh, Houston almost beat them.

I still feel like the 16 Thunder was more of a... even more scary, because that one was like, they're down 3-1, and Durant and Westbrook just didn't shoot well in the last three games, but the Thunder should have won that series. Yeah, they should have, but you're also talking about an all-time

great team that you're trying to eliminate, even though I know they're not allowed to be called all-time great because they lost to the Cavs. I don't have a problem with Westbrook there because I also think for somebody that, like my thing with guys that watched, I used to be like, oh, do you think Westbrook's good defensively?

Like, yeah, are you kidding me? He's long, athletic, you know, active, active. And he actually used to gamble all the time. And I kind of thought he sucked on defense. This this year i think he's been a lot better and yeah when i say he can't shoot it's not my first i shouldn't have opened with that to make it sound like i disagree here are the percentages 42 42 field goal 24 3 4 3 point i don't understand 66 free throw it's kind of like the marcus smart thing where people would argue like you need to let him take those five bad shots a game

and he's gotten better. He shot it better. He almost single-handedly lost the Sixers game and then got that dunk that sealed it. So like that was a perfect Marcus Smart situation.

But I would always argue with people and be like, why can't you just, why can't you find a way to be like, hey, when it's a terrible shot with a ton of time left on the shot clock,

don't take it. I don't understand and I don't think Westbrook's ever, I don't think that'll ever change with him. Like this is, he's on the All-Star game today I'm gonna make this three

No you're not It just would be like man you know those ones where you're pulling up in transition and nobody's back to rebound and there's four seconds off the shot clock and you're 30 feet out and you're not even set It's called the Rozier Yeah like let's take four less of those

You can't but Third team. Towns Yeah, like let's take four less of those. Yeah. You can't, but... Third team. Towns. What's your second team again? Embiid, Kawhi, Durant, Lillard, Westbrook. Pretty strong. Westbrook's the if you win.

You weren't going to put Kemba over Westbrook, right? No. Yeah. Do I have to reward Kemba for going 27 and 30 on the Hornets? Do you know who his second leading scorer is right now? In the league? No. On the Hornets. Off the top of my head?

Jeremy Lamb? I think it's still Lamb. And if you go third, like when you look at who his second and third leading scorers are on that team. That team's bad. It's a bad team. So I'm not going to knock Kemba for the record. Third team, Towns. LeBron.

Griffin. Blake or David? Kyrie. I don't feel good about the Kyrie. Lowry. I don't feel great about that one either. It's really tough to find six guards. Ben Simmons has a case. If you want to throw him in a guard.

I don't. Lowry benefits from the Oladipo injury. Yes. Because we left Lowry off when we did this last time. Yeah, Oladipo, there's no way now. No, no, I'm not saying that. Even for the two-third, he's missed like 15 games. No, no, I'm not trying to put Oladipo's, I mean, he's there's no way now. No, no, I'm not. I mean, even for the two-third, he's missed like 15 games. No, no, I'm not trying to put

Oladipo on your 13. No, I thought, I actually thought about putting him in for the two-thirds, even though he's done for the year. Just like if he played 42 of 55 games, he's probably the sixth best guard, but I think Lowry gets, you know, he is a big... What about

Luka? You don't have Luca? I thought about it. Did you have him number two in the trade value? He might be higher. He might be battle of the goddesses. I hate that I didn't go through this and think about it. You didn't have to. I was just checkpointing it. You can do it next week.

Next week, come back. My homework assignment is to go back. I'll look at your work. It's really not... It's really not... I'm trying to think of who I could be forgetting. It seems a little early for Shea, Gilgis, Alexander. And then the MVP checkpoint for the two-third mark.

Harden, Giannis, or Giannis Harden. It's 1A, 1B, depending on how you're feeling. George now is the consensus third, which I've been on that bandwagon for a while. I think he's going to get, if he keeps this up, he's going to get a lot of anti-Harden votes. So he'll be the 2017 Kawhi of 2019. There's so many legitimate MVP candidates.

And I mean this by the annoying, well, how come you don't even mention my guy? And you'll be like, what do you want me to tell you? He's coming in fifth? Great. great all right i just named your guy well i think the number four the number four who's number four for the mvp now is a fun argument because there's like all this davis stuff happened now the record was too bad yeah for him to be in it but his numbers were 29 and 13 every day look at his number like whatever you thought davis could be last year and you're like okay that's probably the best the way he played until all this crap happened,

you're like, my God, he's taking it to a whole other level. I have Curry as fourth, but you could also talk me into Embiid or Jokic. And I don't really think there's an answer. See, I think Embiid should be mentioned in the way that you're just kind of giving somebody a mention. The Harden thing is going to be really, really weird. You know what kills me with Embiid

is the games like that Tuesday night Celtic game. Where he gets doubled and he turns it over? Yeah, it's just like last three minutes. I feel like he's going to make the wrong decision. Well, what happens?

At least half the time. The Celtics do as good a job. Like the Horford numbers against him are terrific. Horford picks them up quicker, doesn't give him as much ground. But the Celtics are really good at sending that double.

And I think if you're a Sixers fan, you go, love mb i love mb but if he gets it in the post and dribbles for a long time you can see teams just jump on it and it it doesn't i don't care how great you are when you're that big you'll even see duran every now and then like try to go through some traffic and it's like yeah well you try to cross dudes over at seven feet and they're six two like it's just hard to do. And B gets caught in that stuff. I just think the Harden thing is going to be really interesting because if he keeps it up,

I think you end up having to vote for him. Actually, I got into a couple arguments during the two days I was in All-Star about it. And it's going to be a really fun MVP argument. Because... Because some people hate it. Hate it. I actually, I spent some time with Daryl and...

I thought he was at Daytona. No, Daryl was in Charlotte and... What's he doing with that beard? He claims... He claims he started growing it, went hard and went on the hot street. Oh, that's right. Yeah. The Unguardable Tour.

Yeah. Which is actually pretty clever. Yeah. For all the teams that do these hashtags, you're like, who came up with that one? So here's how I think it plays out. And I'm not allowed to bet on this

because I have a vote. I don't think this hearted thing is sustainable and I don't think even he thinks it. I think they're going to scale back a little with the scoring. It's not sustainable because it's absurd. It's not sustainable. 30 shots a game, 17 threes. Yeah, physically it's not sustainable because it's absurd. It's not sustainable. 30 shots a game,

17 threes. Physically, it's not sustainable. Although, here's the thing, though. It's kind of like that LeBron pacing yourself thing. When you look at Harden, you go, this isn't sustainable.

He doesn't move a lot. He's at the top. It's just too big of a burden every night. Okay, but... For this team to get better, for this team to go up a level they have to fix the chris paul part of this and if you watch if you've seen since he comes back

hasn't been good yeah and they'll do the thing where he'll be switched out of these bigs and he's he's not torching the bigs anymore and they have to figure that part out over everything pj tucker is also way too important to this team no you're right for them to be the best version of them they should stop doing this. But as much as it drives me crazy that I can't understand how no official has figured out that Harden flicks the defender away with his right elbow, but he's smart enough to keep it tucked in. So it's like they only make that call and the arm's extended.

They do this thing and it's like, oh my God, he shook him. You're like, no, he literally elbowed that dude off of him and you guys never call it and you can't contest and like look i'm bringing up all the things i don't like about it but yet still admitting they won way more games doing it this way than they would have not doing it so they did it by necessity 24 right and the fact that he he kept them above water with all of their injuries um i give him credit even if i'll admit some nights I'm like,

oh, the Rockets are on. So they're 33 and 24. They're fifth. Giannis, 43 and 14. And if you look at some of the stats they have, they're in some top 20 all-time point differential. I feel like you want to vote for Giannis. No, but if they go 63-19

and Houston's a five seed, probably lean toward Giannis. I think that the flip part of this is there's four really bad teams in the East and that's not counting Washington or Orlando. Orlando's great. What are you talking about? The East is just not as good.

A couple more things just for the two third mark. Milwaukee is 29 on the road, which I think just warrants mentioning that's like getting 30 road wins is I don't know. That's, that's a red flag or a green flag. Yeah. That's a white flag. Yeah a green flag. Yeah, that's a white flag.

Toronto, 19-11 on the road. I like looking at road records because I think it gives you a nice little sense of who might be for real. What's the Celtics record on the road? The Celts, 14-13. What's Dallas' home record? Dallas' home record is 20-9.

It's unbelievable. Yeah, 29-6 to 22 on the road. That team is 20-9. So here's one more road record for you. I think they were 18-4 at one point. Yeah. 29, 6-22 on the road. That team is 20-9. So here's one more road record for you. I think they were 18-4 at one point. Sorry. OKC. 17-13 on the road.

I think that's the team to watch these last six weeks. They're tough. I think their young guys are getting better and better. George has... It's weird. He's a number one guy, but still not the number one guy he's like kind of in the perfect spot he's ever been in his whole career where he's 1b but he's the best version of a 1b and i gotta give credit to zach for this because i heard

this on zach's podcast the other randolph uh zilla get low um he had this stat where he was but he or he said like george this year is basically replacing Durant's production from three years ago. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I looked it up. So George is 29-8-4 this year. Durant three years ago, 28-8-5. He's averaging three more threes a game. His PR is 25.2.

Durant's is 28.2. Durant was basically a 50-40-90 guy. I missed it by one percentage point. George is a 45-41-84 guy. But that's amazing. And I hadn't thought of it. It was like, they lost Durant. It's catastrophic.

Catastrophic. They almost make the finals where I think we all thought they were going to win. Falls apart. Durant leaves. They're MVP. There's no way this comes back. And now they have basically found somebody

who is a 6'8", better two-way player than Durant, who's matching his offensive numbers from his last year. That's fucking crazy. Yeah, it seems impossible to lose hard in the way they did. And it kind of goes back to our rights thing, the TV rights. Like, how do you own an NBA team and not have any inkling whatsoever? Maybe it just blew everyone away at the NBA, what the bidding ended up being.

But you wanted to save money. You were afraid of the tax. I still thought they up being. But you wanted to save money. You were afraid of the tax. I still thought they could have done the hardened trade a year later. And then they do it. They liked the trade. The dirty secret is they liked the trade. They thought they were making a great trade that made them better.

Right. And then it's like, how could you not figure out a way to make this work? Now, look, it's kind of a happy ending for everybody. And the fact that they have it happen to them again in a different way where you know they didn't think they were really going to lose them and then they do and they've replaced him with paul george in a bet that nobody thought was a good bet at the time i tell you if kawai signs a toronto which i'm still not sure i would believe then everybody's going to be trading for guys that are mad with one year left that's going to be the new thing does paul george get credit for this he basically created the

I'm unhappy with a year to go in my contract. You should trade me an out move. By the way, I left him out. I left him out of our top unhappy list. The unhappy list is everyone in the league but Curry. Clay. And Giannis. Clay. Clay might be unhappy. He just can't figure

out how to have the courage to tell anyone. Clay has slowly become my favorite personality. It's not even slowly for me. might be unhappy he just is can't figure out the how to have the courage to tell anyone clay is slowly become my favorite personality oh it's not even slowly for me curry well because i just loved curry's game and i love that everybody sort of hated him and that it was like why i see this almost dismissed superstar there's a lot of stuff going on there with curry that i don't like and it's still ridiculous and people seem to still like to clown on him. But Clay, if you could have, talking about drunk auctioning, if I could bid on just a Chinese EDM night with him, I'd call Amex and be like, how high can I go?

It is funny because when you talk to anybody at the Warriors, you're like, who's your favorite guy or who do you love? And they're always like, Clay. And they all have a clay story and they're all ready to go but it's if you you know it's the old adam crowe used to have this joke when people don't really like working with somebody and you ask them about them there's always the long pause and then they'll say their name so it's like so like someone's with nephew kyle like what's riscilla like and he's like ah you know rilla like? And he's like, ah, you know,

Ryan's Ryan. He'll, he'll just, uh, you know, he doesn't like something. He'll tell you. Are you talking to people at ESPN?

But I think Katie's like that. You'd be like, what's, what's Kevin like? Is that, you know, Kevin great player. Uh, you know kevin great player uh you know he's moody sometimes but then it's clay it's like i love clay oh he's clay's the best i love that

clay think how many guys like remember when he went and he he just murphed that dunk when he was in china and it was so awful and embarrassing. Yeah. Other guys would have gone like government agencies to get that stuff erased. And Clay, it works for Clay. Like he fell down, he laughed. We did a thing with Clay once where he was doing a chocolate milk sponsorship. Yeah.

And he had the chocolate milk polo on. He was set up in the gym. He was going to do like 20 hits and we got him for one of them. And we asked him every question that you'd ask him. And was great and then we're like hey do you have anything about you know he's like oh yeah uh and he forgot he was wearing the shirt he forgot what he was doing for chocolate milk and he's like yeah yeah yeah drink chocolate milk yeah and it was just it was every moment with clay feels like it's so genuine and i don't blame guys for being you know calculated worried about how we're going to interpret every little thing that

they say but some guys are too processed and all this stuff it's so refreshing when i feel like every time it's something from clay i'm like that's exactly how he feels next week we're gonna I'm gonna have some categories that we have to hit there's actually gonna be a blueprint where we jump to different things so structure there's gonna be more structure no we needed structure this week

I had some ideas for some for some structure like thing I'm gonna thing I would have been afraid to tweet this week we needed to do i had some ideas for some for some structure like um thing i think i'm gonna thing i would have been afraid to tweet but i feel okay saying it on a podcast yeah like categories like that uh yeah but but i thought we'd wrap up every podcast because we're doing this now every week um thing that will be taken out of context in this week's podcast and used against us in some way what do you think it is bill simmons says nicks go for five billion well but i was pretty adam about that um i think there's some somebody could try to tweak it where

bill simmons doesn't think gail benson can run the pelicans i feel like that could be a blog post Simmons slams Gail Benson I'm not slamming her I'm just pointing out that she married a 72 year old guy and then 10 years later shut out his whole family and took control of the team and I'm not sure she knows how to own an NBA team is that a bad thing to say

am I being a dick I know how you I already see the road map to somebody thinking that's not a good call. My mom is 71. So if she married Steve Ballmer right now. They'd get along. And then 10 years later, shut out Ballmer's kids and took over the Clippers. I would be like, oh my God, my mom owns the Clippers.

This is crazy. I hope she doesn't say anything. Like it would just be bonkers. It would be nuts. You don't have any Kyrie rumors from the weekend? No, that's all over the map. I'm still waiting to run into anybody who thinks KD is not going to the Knicks though. I haven't met the person yet who's like, no, no, no, don't rule out the Warriors.

That person has not come into my life. All right. Yeah, that's a good game. We should do just an old school, would you trade this guy for that guy? I think kids love that stuff on podcasts. The kids like that? Yeah, kids like it.

The kids love player empowerment, and would you trade this guy for that guy? I do think, though, i really do think there's a chance lebron never plays with another all-star during this laker contract well there you go why did you save that for the end that's a torture will lebron play over under all-stars lebron plays with during his four-year laker run next four years how many all-stars do you play with not counting former all-Stars like Carmelo. No, no, that's fine.

I can't wait to see what happens with this Lakers thing. I can't wait. All right, we've already done it. We don't need to do it all over again. Yeah, we'll do it all next week. I'm going to leave you with this, though. Jason Tatum's still untouchable to me. Because he won the skills competition?

I just love Jason Tatum. You know what? I want to root for the- He wants to be a pelican. Is it wrong that I just want to root for the same guy for 12 years? You're so outdated. You're so old. Am I old?

Am I an old man? What are you thinking? Can I watch Jason Tatum go from age 19 through his career like I did with Paul Pierce, where I felt like I spent 15 years of my life with Paul Pierce and it meant something. You get five good years and then you get one year of torment and then another year of trade speculation.

Here's what I want. That's how the contracts are structured now. I don't want them to trade him. I don't care if it costs us Anthony Davis. So you don't want to do Tatum for Davis now? I don't think so. I'm admitted think so. This is incredible.

Insane. This is incredible stuff. If it's straight up, yeah, of course. But if it's all the science that will cost... Is Heinze going to replace me next week? I wouldn't trade no Palacio. No, no, no. This isn't rational. I'm not saying this is I'm being rational at all.

I'm just saying I just really want to root for Jason Tatum for the next 15 years. Is that okay? I just want to have a guy. That's fine. That's totally fine. I like having a guy. But you know what I'd love to see from Jason Tatum? I want to just rent Anthony Davis for three years and then he's unhappy and then he leaves.

You know what I'd like to see from Tatum though? I'd like to see him have more Kuzma's gear in him. More Kuzma. Yeah. I want him to. And I don'tuzma's gear in him. More Kuzma. Yeah. I want him to, because there are more, and I don't know if it's because of Kyrie. I don't know if it's Brad.

I don't know if it's passiveness. I don't want to be at the end of year two going, I want to see a little bit more aggressive of this. There's been way more aggressiveness the last few weeks. The thing that worries me for him is the lack of assists. The black, the black hole-ishness. He can finish.

He can finish. He can hit it from anywhere, but I just feel like for what I think he's capable of... And, you know, that's the weird thing about the Celtics rosters. I feel like whenever

it's like, okay, all right, now there's some stability. Now we know what everybody's supposed to do. This better without Kyrie thing is so stupid. The record is one thing.

The net rating, it's not even close. They're a much better team with Kyrie, but is so stupid the record is one thing the net rating it's not even close they're a much better team with Kyrie but it feels like they're a different version of themselves now we're going to get out of rabbit hole yeah you know what we got to just we got to save this no they'll lose to somebody terrible in the next week and we can get mad about it then

I think they or you can get mad about it they played harder when he was out there it's undeniable right but I know all the efficiency ratings, but I also know, like, they actually seemed like a real team, those two games. I've been watching them all year,

and for whatever reason, he wasn't out there and abandoned them together. Did they look like a team when he was out there and they blew a 28-point lead to the Clippers? Right. People are very afraid this is going to be a Celtics two-hour podcast. We're not doing that.

We're not. I just really like Jason Tatum. I'll leave it on that. I just really like that guy. I want them to sign him to a max contract, and then two years into that contract, he just quits on us, and he has to be traded to play with Giannis.

New York. Yeah, Giannis. Him and Lonzo Ball have always wanted to play together. They got along really well at the rookie software game. Owned by the guy from Virgin Airways. Ryan Rosillo, a pleasure. I will talk to you next week. Thanks, man.

All right, thanks to Ryan Rosillo for driving out here to do the podcast live over a cell phone, because that would have sucked. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to SimpliSafe. Remember, studies show security systems deter

burglars. Our friends built a brilliant one at SimpliSafe. They believe fear has no place in a place like home. A ridiculously smart security system. 24-7 monitoring for just $14.99 a month. Go to the only home security I trust,

SimpliSafe. Go to SimpliSafeBS.com. That is SimpliSafe with two I's. We will be back with one more podcast later in the week, plus the rewatchables. Dave going up at some point Monday afternoon, and I'm going to pop on a couple other Ringer podcasts this week. So you will get plenty of us.

Enjoy President's Day. Say hi to all the presidents for us. I don't have a few years left in me on the wayside I'm a bruised son of a I don't have a few years