The Bill Simmons Podcast - An All-Star Gimmick Worked? Plus: Slam Dunk Fixes, Houston Atrocities and an NBA Crystal Ball With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the joys of NBA All-Star Weekend, the new All-Star Game format, why it worked, the dunk contest, things to watch for after All-Star Weekend, NBA scuttlebutt, 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 is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Finding key players for your team can be challenging. Just ask Nick Nurse. What the hell was he doing at the end of that All-Star game? Cafe El Toro CEO Dylan Miskiewicz, he could relate to Nick Nurse. He needed to hire a director of coffee. He tried to hire Kemba Walker and Kemba went 0 for 6 in the last five minutes of the game. He posted his job on ZipRecruiter and found the best person for the role in just a few days.

Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. Right now, my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com, the world's greatest website. One of the world's last great websites, a great website, as well as The Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find the rewatchables. We are launching the Flawed Rewatchables, a special series on Tuesday night. Be ready for that. I'll give you a hint. Ice Cube is in the first movie that we're doing. So there you go. The Book of Basketball podcast comes back Monday night as well with game four of the 2009

NBA finals, Orlando versus the Lakers, the most underrated choke job of the century. We're going to be breaking that one down as well. Coming up, Ryan Rosillo is back with me all the way through the finals and into the first two weeks of a free HC every week on this podcast, usually on Sunday nights. This will be the first one. Lots to discuss first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this at 844 Pacific Time, Sunday night. Ryan Rossello is here for the first of many Sundays in a row as we head all the way through to the playoffs and the finals and even free agency. And something semi-magical happened tonight. I don't know what it means long-term. I don't want to overreact to it, but the Elam ending, named after a guy named Nick Elam,

who created this 157 rule that the game just ends when somebody gets to 157. It didn't totally work. It was sloppy. It was also riveting. And I don't know where this goes. What did you think, Rosillo? You know, what's funny is I think we're in this world of where everybody has all this time and you want to stand out as an opinion person. You want to offer up all these changes, hoping people will be like, Hey, wait a minute. That's a really good idea. And most of the time it's just somebody taking it from somebody else and then claiming it's their own like hey i fixed college football playoff expand to six with two buys you're like yeah dude everybody's already done this um then when i started reading about it more and i know that they have it in the

basketball tournament i go you know what like this is this is gonna work because you know this guy elam here he would watch all these college basketball games and it's true like especially when you watch a tournament you go cool we're, we're just going to foul, timeout, both full wowings add, foul, timeout. The end of basketball games, as much as we love it, it isn't that great. And one of the cool arguments that I read that kind of had me look at this and go, have an open mind about it, was if you started when you invented basketball. The quote was like, if Naismith started basketball and said, let's do it, this aggregate score, and then you have to get to a certain number so that the first three quarters of scoring counts, but then you have to get to this designated number at the end with no clock. And then you said a hundred years later, let's change it. So the game completely

shuts down where it becomes a free throw shooting contest and managing your fouls. People would go, well, this sucks. Like, I don't want to watch this version of it. So I, I an open mind about it and once i started reading more about it i go you know i think this is actually going to work out and i thought today it was great so i i don't think it's something that will take over the league and will be the way we do the playoffs in five years stuff like that but i do see them now i think they'll be trickling this out. I could see them doing it there in summer league. I could see them, obviously every all-star game going forward. And, you know, if they have these single elimination playoff games, if they ever, you know, really mess with the playoff system and didn't do whatever, maybe that, maybe that's where you would test it next for the playoffs. I think the thing that I liked the most about it was that the guys

got tense in a way that reminded me almost of like a game seven in the playoffs. I mean, we saw some guys, Kemba Walker completely fell apart down the stretch. James Harden, who was averaging 39 points a game at one point this season, not only was terrible, but passed up the game winning shot when he had a wide open lane to the basket. He hot potatoed it Chris Weber style just to get rid of it. LeBron took a shot nearly from midcourt and bead was doing these weird low post moves. Like he was like George Mike in the 1950s.

It really threw guys off in a fun way. Even at the end, Anthony Davis, I was watching with Kyle and I was saying like, I think he's going to miss this first free throw. I think this is the biggest free throw he's ever taken in his career. And the fact that they were able to simulate the playoff pressure with this weird, goofy format was a huge success. I was really excited about it. The Harden passing up the game winning layup was was comical especially for anybody you know who's anti-harden um but you know he's probably so conditioned now for years in this system of passing up on twos for threes that he's like oh corner three there it is this is the play

that we make oh good point yeah in the for the rockets you do not when it's not when it's like game point yeah um the the biggest thing on the on the Yana side of this, though, is that I thought like, here we go. First quarter. And I'm like, OK, here we go again. Like, I hadn't watched the All-Star game for 10 years and I watched it because I had to do the podcast with you last year. So I was like, I guess I watch it. Like, to me, it was absolutely unwatchable. And the funny thing is, the reason the NBA keeps making these changes, whether it's a drafting of the teams and then this ending now, was that the players made it unwatchable.

You know, players have this thing where it's like, well, it's not cool to try. And then Giannis, once they got smoked in the first quarter, he goes crazy in the second quarter. And then I thought it actually changed the tone of everything.

And then you have that fourth quarter where you're like, okay, so their lineup was Kemba, Lowry, flopping all over the place. Siakam, who then became the go-to guy despite only playing 18 minutes. So I don't know if Nick Nurse was doing that or Lowry was like,

let's go Siakam matchup the whole time. And then Embiid, the post moves. Giannis touched the ball, I think less than everybody else. The team was named after him. And I thought at one point he was a lock for the MVP. So, you know, I don't know what they'll see when they see the tape, but.

It was funny that the way we play basketball these days where everything's screen and roll and a lot of threes and all that, it basically went out the window with this, the format and the pressure of the game and maybe the lack of familiarity with the players. But the East, the, I'm calling it the East, the red team, Nick, Nick, I keep wanting to do the same thing. Let's just call them these. They were getting horrendous shots. Like they, this looked like a late nineties playoff game on, uh, on Harvard classics or something. You're

watching like Nick's heat 72, 70 with two minutes left in the fourth quarter. They didn't know what to do. And they had guys, you know, I would say Lowry and Giannis high screen or Kemba and Giannis high screen is about as safe of a basketball players as you could run. They weren't even really running it. Then they were like, oh, cool. Whoever James Harden is guarding, we'll try to post them up. I thought it was pretty fascinating. And then on the flip side, the West almost, the LeBron team almost had too many guys. And I just felt like Kyle and I were saying, just give it to Kawhi. He's going to score every time. He's Kawhi Leonard.

And they did it once and he scored. And then all of a sudden it kind of went sideways. But, you know, one of the things I love about the All-Star game and why I still defend it and why I still watch it, even though it's been incredibly disappointing up until the last couple of years, is there are these mano a mano, mano vi mano.

What is it? Mano a mano? Why can't I remember, mano, mano, mano, V mano. What is it? Mano, mano. Why can't I remember this? Mano, mano. There was a LeBron Giannis thing in that game. And you can't tell me there wasn't. There was like Giannis blocked him. I think early fourth quarter and then blocked Davis on the next position.

And then LeBron got him back later and did the LeBron quick walk away as his bench went nuts. And then Giannis did the goaltending. And I thought there was some, there was some alpha dog shit. Yeah. There was some alpha dog shit going on with them. Didn't you think?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, look, LeBron, it's very, uh, you can usually tell like exactly how LeBron feels about his place and,

and the place of somebody going up against him. Like when he had that block on Steph Curry, that was two years of, you guys actually think this dude's better than me. Right. Right. Right. You actually think he's better than me.

Like I know his stats are better, but Jesus. Yeah. And you know, he is, he is, this is what makes these guys special in a way. Like some guys are delusional,

but whenever LeBron has to hear about like four or five guys that are better than him and statistically they may be, and that, you know, Giannis is consistently called the best player in the world right now I know that you know look it doesn't take a genius to figure out that that's something he's going to resent even if it might be true because he's just these guys aren't going to concede anything and so what I loved is that it really and you know this because you and house played a lot of basketball

right we did but in those pickup games where it's game point and there's just a guy that no matter what is going to take a two, he doesn't care if it's the worst two ever, but there's no way he would take a good one

or set somebody up for a good one. He's just like, look, we got a win by two. It's 10-10. And it's just everybody in the pickup game is taking the worst twos ever and

that's a little bit of what we had tonight and then it was also funny like the unfamiliarity of actually playing with somebody where harden's like okay well let me go and i thought there was a call that he got that he shouldn't have then i also thought the lowry call was suspect i think all lowry calls are suspect first of all yeah but then they went to set a screen for harden and it's like wait a minute we don't really do this anymore like i don't the clint capella high screen thing like we don't do as much as like Westbrook doesn't set screens for me like what the hell are you doing like I beat my man get an angle and then either whip it out to somebody else so I think the too many guys thing was actually pretty spot on and then you know at one point I was kind of like you're not going to get Luka like Luka isn't one

of the 10 best players in the world right now of course he is I know you sit there coming off his injury but you just knew that if it's team LeBron, Chris Paul is going to be out there for him. Right. And so crunch time, it was Giannis and Bede, Siakam, Lowry, and Kemba. And then it was LeBron. Kemba was so bad. Kemba, he was good the first three quarters.

And then really looked terrified in the fourth quarter. I mean, he was doing that thing where he was 30 feet from the basket, totally cool with like, hey, guys, I don't need the ball. Why don't you guys take it? He dribbled it out of bounds in transition. Oh, my God. And it got to the point where you're like, man, maybe they're better off throwing in Trey Young.

At least he won't be scared. I didn't expect to hear that from you. LeBron, Davis, Kawhi, Harden, and CP3 were on the LeBron team. Simmons, Luka, and Tatum were all on the bench for the blue team, unfortunately. And I feel like all of those guys could have played on the honest team. Especially, like Simmons defensively, I think, would have gone to another level in crunch time. And it does make you think when you're watching all those dudes out there, it's like,

all right, LeBron is still LeBron. He's not maybe as polished as he used to be, but he's still going to carry himself like the alpha dog. He's still going to be the Uber athlete, all that stuff. Giannis has reached that level, at least athletically.

And then you see a guy like Lowry who didn't have as much talent as anybody else out there in crunch time, but carries himself like he does. This is a carryover from the playoffs last year. And this is why you and I are so bullish on how Toronto has been these last two months, because that team has, it has attitude and moxie and Latin Lowry was like the most indispensable guy for the red team. I felt like, uh, I, I just think a lot of stuff. If the all-star game plays out correctly, you find out a lot about the guys on the floor. And,

and, uh, one of the things we found out was Giannis is really bad at picking players. Cause it just seemed like all the good guys were on the blue team on their bed. They would show the bench. I was like,

oh man, it would be nice to see Luke in the game. Oh, I get Jason Tatum could have played out. Oh, Simmons could have, you know, it was one of those things,

but, um, I really enjoyed it. And are you, are you, have you swung back on the all-star game now? Are you back? Yeah.

I mean, if that's what we're going to get that kind of product in the fourth quarter, I'm all for it. I mean, you know, look, the field goal percentage dropped down 20 points. I think it was,

I think it was like 55%. The first three quarters went to 35%. I don't care if it's choppy. I mean, these guys are all there together. And, you know, as you're sitting there through the first three quarters, you're thinking about the stuff you're going to say. And at one point, I'm even writing down, I mean, I can't believe I took notes on this,

but I'm like, you know, maybe because it's Siakam, maybe because it's Kemba, maybe because it's Lowry, maybe it's because it's some of these other guys like Middleton who aren't the superstars, that they're steadier and they're going to play better because their combined score, they were up pretty big on Team LeBron there for a while. And it really, again, I think it was all propelled after Giannis saying, all right, enough of this first quarter stuff, like I'm actually going to try hard.

And nobody else knew what the hell was going on that second quarter. It was kind of funny because he just went off. But, you know, just think Team LeBron had Lillard too. So you're thinking like would they had gone with lillard like would he have been better than paul or harden i mean paul had really good numbers he had the best you know i'm not gonna get a plus minus here for the all-star game but i guess i just did uh they were they were loaded they were loaded and yeah i know a little plus minus on the all-star do you want to guess who had the worst plus minus i know i'm putting

you on the spot here who had the worst uh yeah who I know I'm putting you on the spot here. Who had the worst? Yeah. Who was it? Embiid and Kemba tied for negative 11. Oh, man. Well, out of all the interesting subplots, an underrated one was Chris Paul playing crunch time. Now, partly because he's LeBron's friend, but Westbrook was two for 10.

He wasn't great. And you think like, I just thought Chris Paul looked like one of the 10 best players in that game and probably belonged out there. Whether I don't, I think Luca was probably on a minute's restriction or else we might've seen him, but you think like they traded two first rounders with Chris Paul to get

Westbrook. That's a tough one. I'm looking at the East or I guess the Giannis box score, trying to figure out who should have been out there. And it's tough because like, I guess maybe Donovan Mitchell could have played instead of Kemba. I don't know. It just felt like once it became clear that it was the moment

or either he was worn out or whatever was going on, that he didn't have it. I thought they needed somebody who could at least get to the basket. I don't know. It was a weird one. The funniest thing about that game though, Ursula, Eric Lewis and Mark Davis.

These are guys when they're reffing your game on like a random Wednesday, you're bummed out. You're like, oh man, we're, we're, we're, this is a huge game against Toronto.

We have Mark Davis and Eric Lewis. Really? And now these guys are in the All-Star game probably feeling like, oh, yeah, it's the All-Star game. I'm not going to break a sweat.

And all of a sudden, it turns into like a game seven. And now we have the wrong refs in the game. And we had like five catastrophes. So my advice would be get better refs

if we're going to do this 157 thing, right? Yeah, I had a real regular season feel there at the end because like, okay, now guys are flop like okay now guys are flopping and now guys are losing their mind and complaining after it looked like there was

a siakam thing i was like all we need is like somebody to tweet out that they want to be traded to team lebron and join his friend for this to feel even more real i still think that there's a list of officials beyond those guys that would bum me out a little bit more yeah some of the newer guys they actually yeah i mean they but they actually had to work like the thing i'm almost looking at rest now being like who are the guys that that cut off the complaining the quickest and those are the guys that i think are better like i don't care if you miss a couple calls i like the calls the guys that are just like hey enough like i gotta yeah enough one last thing about the game no one move on that's it i have other stuff in the game okay i have one thing, and then you go through your stuff.

You know, Giannis, he's going to win the MVP again. He's gone to another level. The Bucs have a realistic chance of getting to 70 wins if they can stay healthy. This was the first time we've seen Giannis in that situation where, oh yeah, guess what? The points aren't going to come that easy. And guess what?

I know you're telling us you're really comfortable shooting three, but you know The points aren't going to come that easy. And guess what? I know you're telling us you're really comfortable shooting three, but you know what you're not going to do? In a game that's 152 to 152 where the winner has to get to 157, I didn't see you comfortably pulling up from 25. It's not happening. And they were walling him off on the inside

and he really couldn't get the ball where he wanted unless it was transition. And it made me think like, if I'm just Brad Stevens sitting home watching that game and you know, at some point you're going to expect to see the Bucs and it's like, oh, he's never really figured out that aspect of the game when it gets really, really frantic and the defense turns up 19 notches. What's his Kawhi move? Kawhi did that move where they took the lead when I think it was 154-152.

They set him to pick and he has that little kind of half speed at his own pace. 1998 Michael Jordan, little fallaway jumper that he can hit whenever he wants, basically. What's Giannis' version of that move? I still don't think he has it. Do you? Can I just answer that with a question? Are you, are you coming to a Giannis playoff take from the end of the all-star game? I am saying it rekindled my memory of what worried me about

them last year in the playoffs when it got, when the defense got really good and he didn't have that out pitch that I think he kind of need as like the alpha dog best guy in the team. What's his move? What's it going to be? What does he have? Even Embiid, that one time when he took LeBron down and did that little up and under fall away shot, at least that was like a move.

Like he created a shot. With the Giannis thing, like what is it going to be ultimately? And can you take him out of the last five minutes of a playoff game? From what I still haven't seen enough from him that makes me think he has gone to another level offensively

as that kind of guy, I guess is my point. You know what? I actually, I'm kind of kidding around a little bit because it just sounds funny. Because, you know, if you're a Bucs fan right now, you're like, you guys, I can't believe, like,

you're coming up with this conclusion after an All-Star game. But, you know, until, with all these teams, you know, new is hard. And they've had one little playoff run with him. And we know it's all, you know, new still. And he's relatively young. But I just, I do think better prepared teams, smarter teams kind of do that wall defensively,

where it's like, you're not just going to be able to run coast to coast every single time and dunk on everybody. And are you going to win 16 games that way? I wouldn't sit here and say I definitively know that they can't do that because then I can point out all the flaws of the other teams that are supposedly in their way. But it is worth, it's kind of our longstanding thing the last couple years is looking at regular season teams going,

is this going to look this way in the playoffs and spreading it out and having almost this point guard center that, that has the ball and kicks it out to everybody. Like if they shoot it well enough, it's not going to matter because you're going to, you're not going to be able to help off of those guys. I mean, it's almost like,

it's kind of like the hardened thing where hardens so amazing because you can hit that shot and drive and it's spread out. But Giannis is so physically dominating over those guys that it's just like, OK, well, how do we want to play it? Because there's going to be nights where we help off of him and we get burnt. There's going to be nights where we help off of him and we clog him up and some guys miss some shots and maybe win a playoff game. So I couldn't say definitively I know either way, but I do think it's a fair point. It's a fair point about a lot of these teams because you just haven't seen one version of this run all the way and win a title. And Philly's another one like that.

When the defense gets like what it got like in the last five minutes, what is our offense going to look like? The early reports are not great. Empty out your notebook. What else do you have? Okay, highlight. Funniest moment of the night was Reggie Miller saying,

you're trying to tell me that these teams don't want to win, beat, and then Marv Albert says to him, deadpan is someone telling you that they're not into it. That was sneaky for Marv. I wasn't expecting that from him tonight. I also liked when, when the, the producers were just telling, uh, Reggie Miller, like, look, every time Marv gets Tatum and Simmons confused, can you just step in and just kind of correct it without embarrassing them?

And then they would do that. And then the other funny part for me was when I informed you in-house two hours into the game by text that Grant Hill was one of the three announcers. Neither of you had any idea. I just was, you know, I was locked into my notes.

I was locked into my notes so what else did you have i kept coming up with bad tv producer who doesn't really understand sports segment ideas at the pre-show pitch tomorrow morning are you ready for these yeah okay number one i'm sitting around and they're my talent they're with the aps we got a key grip guy in there and i'm just a terrible producer somehow i have this job though and i'm like all right guys guys uh does this mean kemba's not a one okay what else all right uh i like this right the next one is, where does Harden rank in clutch gene? Clutch gene? Clutch gene rankings? Yeah, clutch gene ranking for Harden. Oh, here's a good one.

From what we saw from Tatum and Ben Simmons, does that mean that they should play together at some point? Oh, maybe they will. Yeah. That's not even that one. I'll close on a good one here. Okay. Do we think in the next CBA, because of how hard these guys played, we should revisit how hard they should have to play? It is funny.

If you're a Clipper fan and you've gone to like five home games this year that Kawhi at the last minute was like, I'm good, I'm not playing. And then you watch him go up like 30 plus minutes in the All-Star game today. Probably be a bummer. Do you, I don't think he, yeah, he was, he was 20 minutes. The guys, when you look at the minute numbers here, there's actually not like the numbers aren't nearly as high as you would think. But it was weird because now if we were just playing pickup, you know, you and I both play basketball.

Yeah. A lot of basketball. There's no TV timeouts. There's no stops. There's no free throws. And you're just kind of going for 25 minutes, 30 minutes, however long the game takes, right? In this game, they said it was a commercial free fourth quarter. And everybody put their crunch time guys in when it was like 140, 140, something like that. And the guys were out there a while, going back and forth playing pretty hard and i actually thought they that some subs were needed at some point you me and house were joking about nick nurse was trying to run and beat into the ground hoping for some wear and tear that can you know like he played 29 yeah brett like mb here's this guy who's on minutes

restrictions you know resting them whenever they can in his whole career. And he plays 29 minutes tonight. And it was a hard 29. And yeah, I think I was dying at the end. Nick Nurse was disappointed there wasn't overtime. He could have put five more minutes on Embiid. There's a decent chance Nick Nurse bet on LeBron's team. I don't want to accuse him. I'm just saying there's some shaky Nick Nurse today.

And I think he's the best coach in the league. But the Siakam Lowry playing two of your guys in crunch time is like some fucking 1980 shit that's like what Billy Cunningham used to do you know when he would like just load the team with Sixers with the Sixers and shit like that Bobby Jones

this is out there like he played 38 minutes tonight like what why why do you think we settled on 157 just out of curiosity? Did they explain that? Well, no, I just, I meant to clean that up for you. Remember, it was,

you go by quarter, but you keep a running total. So at the end of three quarters, it was 133, 124 Giannis. And then because of Kobe Bryant, they added 24 points. Oh, that's what it was. Okay.

So it wasn't automatically get to 157. It was 24 plus what it was. Okay. So it wasn't automatically get to 157. It was 24 plus the team that was winning. Got it. Well, when Marv tried to explain it at the beginning of the fourth quarter, it was rocky and I ended up having to go to Google. No offense to Marv. It's just I needed a little more elucidation.

I was confused. And TNT, they were never running scores for some reason at any point during, I mean, not scores, stats. We had no, like Kawhi could have had 65 points. I would have no idea. They never would have mentioned it. By the way, it's a really good point, though, on the TV timeout thing, because I timed it, just nerded out over here. Yeah. Where I wanted to see just how long in real time that fourth quarter took.

It took almost 42 minutes. Really? So that's 42 minutes. Really? So that's 42 minutes. Oh, my God. They brought LeBron in at, because like red team there, Team Giannis had most of their guys already in, and LeBron came in at 141-136, so they were down five. And then that's when he loaded it back up with everybody.

But that's a really long. Yeah, that's bad. I don't know that is there a real time like that's that's going to be the zag to this whole thing is that there's guys just typing away rest pieces all week now going i know everyone liked it but wouldn't have been more fun for people to not play right did we need more load management all right i think i think we hit everything on that. We're good. Let's take a break, and then we're going to talk about the dunk contest. Let's take a break to talk about The Ringer's newest podcast. It's called Music Exists.

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February 19th. Check it out. Back to the pod. Dunk contest. I have two questions in a row. How can we fix it? Question mark. And then do we even care? Question mark. Which one do you want to answer first? I'll answer the second one. Don't fix it. It's for kids. People seem to enjoy it. I was in the building last night in Chicago. I flew back this morning. They keep trying to fix it it's for kids people seem to enjoy i was in the building last night in chicago i flew back this morning um you know i just they keep trying to fix it a million different ways the one thing i did say with my buddies i was sitting there i go you know you should just give like a mystery voter and just change it every time and a chance that that person can have 11 and it's only one person that can use the 11 yeah i don't know that just means everybody would get 50 once i think there's a way to change the the voting thing because everything's just sort of a 50 and then

at the end they're kind of like all right well let's not give somebody a 50 because we keep giving out 50s right and you know as as nasty as jones is a dunker he just kept doing variations of in between the legs thing and i don't want to dump on him because he's sick and in the building it's actually a little bit cooler than you would think i mean i really don't care but i don't i don't want to ever complain about all-star weekend because i think it's about kids kind of having fun and the league celebrating itself and the players all getting to hang out i really think that's what it is so i'm not going to sit here and dump on it i think there's two very simple tweaks i've been advocating them for years nobody listens to me. We need to, um, we need to increase it to a hundred points, not 50. I think that solves every problem we have. Everybody great. You have the five judges

and everybody goes from, from one to 20 points. And if somebody misses a dunk, it just, you can't, you can't get a 20. You can only get a 19 and you do it that way. I just think that would make it a lot easier. I mean, yesterday was ridiculous. I don't know how Pat Connaughton didn't make the finals. His two dunks were really good. He did the white man can't jump. He made the first one immediately. There's just, there's not enough nuance with the 50.

It becomes too bizarre. That would be one thing. Here's the other thing I just thought of last night. You've seen that show Masked Singer, right? Yes, I tape it every week. Okay. So you have the five judges. I think they're all in disguises.

We don't know who they are. And then the anonymity would allow more, them to not be peer pressured into tens, or in this case, 20s. And then you'd have the judge yesterday who were like, oh man, I can't wait to find out who screwed over Aaron Gordon. And then they take off their mask

and it's like, oh my God, it's Karl Malone. I can't believe he did that. I think it would be exciting. I would be excited for the mask reveal each time You're not with me No I'm just trying to think of like judges You'd be like oh my god You know it's almost like the end of Scooby Doo

And you're like it's Mr. Belvedere He gave him a 40 It's Greg Popovich So I don't know I do think that the 50 thing is really dumb And they should just go to 100 It's fine I'm afraid if you do the 100 thing Maybe really dumb and they should just go to a hundred. It's fine.

It's okay to change it. A hundred thing maybe, but then they might just give everybody hundreds and then you feel like, okay, well if I gave somebody a 50 early on, cause you're excited and it's an early dunk and then the crowd playing up to it cause they're excited and the whole thing started. And then you feel like, well,

hell like I gave that guy a 50, but this one was maybe better. So I still have to give it a 50 again. Uh, I can't believe somebody didn't try like two-handed from the free throw line but i got in there late i mean that was another thing and i did think it was funny a couple black guys that i was sitting next to like they had said hello and they were cool as hell chicago guys and they go like like man pat conaton your boy was

robbed your boy and i said i go yeah well uh i don't know yeah i get where you're going with that conclusion but i go normally like the white guys like they kind of get boosted in this this this setting where there's almost this like sympathy vote for the white dunker yeah and the guys were like man he got robbed i was like all right appreciate that um i don't know where that where that ranked in the greatest white guy dunking performances we've had, but like Brent Berry won it one year and I felt like Connaughton was a little more impressive. I was really jacked up watching him.

The funny thing though is he brings out Giannis and he's going to dunk over, jump over Giannis. And if I'm a Bucks fan, I'm having a stroke. I'm like, you couldn't use one of the Lopez brothers? Like, really? We had to bring out Giannis. And if I'm a Bucks fan, I'm having a stroke. I'm like, you couldn't use one of the Lopez brothers. Like, wait, really? We have to bring out Giannis.

What if he like, we ends up giving Giannis whiplash and Giannis is out for 20. I don't want Giannis near anybody jumping. It'll start weekend. That would, that would be my one suggestion, but I would also, if I'm taco fall,

I'm like, yeah, yeah. Oh, what do you want to do? You want to drag your balls across my head? Yeah. What's fun about that?

Oh, cool. Ass sweat. Great. what do you want to do? You want to drag your balls across my head? Yeah, what's fun about that? Oh, cool. Ass sweat. Great. Like, I'm trying to go out. I want to go out later. Well, that was, you know, that was the third question I had for you. At what point is jumping over someone leading to the worst sports accident we've had since Clint Morlarczyk was cut by the skate?

Because I feel like we're getting closer and closer to an absolute catastrophe. And it's going to happen. Somebody is going to wipe out on one of these and it's going to be absolutely awful. And Taco Fall is seven foot five. At some point, how high are we going to go here? It makes me nervous. Absolutely right.

Now that we've got Taco Fall in the mix. That's it. Ban these dunks now. Yeah, no more. Right. No more. Absolutely right. Now that we've got Taco Fall in the mix. That's it. Ban these dunks now. Yeah, no more. Right. No more. Stop jumping. It's like a state that's like,

you don't have to wear a helmet anymore on a motorcycle. Like, you know, live free or die. Yeah. That kind of deal. Can I do my little rant though on what happened that night? Because this is bad. This is pretty bad. Oh, is this, oh, when you're trying to, go ahead.

Yeah, well, I think the timing of it's good. I'll be quick. So I was with two well, I think the timing of it's good. I'll be quick. So I was with two buddies and I was in charge of getting the tickets. So I paid for the tickets, you know, and let me just tell you that they weren't cheap. So I wasn't getting like the Cillocomp thing on anything. And I was running around all day,

had a couple of things I had to go to, Wojpod, had this media jam thing that I did a little bit later that was kind of fun. And then, you know, dinner. And then I knew once we went to the Drake Hotel, and I don't know if anybody understands the Drake hotel and the executive, it's almost like bottle service for each individual person. They just bring you out like a goblet. And I was like, okay, well I go, I'm going to, you know, take it easy. Cause I got an early flight tomorrow. And my buddies were like, we're not taking it easy. And I'm like,

yeah, no, no, I get it. I get it. And then I'm like, you know, at some point, like, I know I don't care about the skills comp, but let's get over there, like end of three point competition, whatever. And they're like, no problem, no problem. And you know, the nice dragon a little bit. So we finally get over there, but we're still like 30, 40 minutes out from the start of the dunk contest. And the way the United center set up, it's like all sorts of fencing around it. Maybe it was just for this weekend. I don't know. Um, I still think there's some construction stuff going on and you roll around to this corner and there's about 20 deep and there's some security guard going to say sorry beat it he's like we close will call was the nba's call that closed will call and guys are like what what do you mean you close will call it's like 8 20

you know like yeah okay we missed the skills thing and some of the three-pointer but like we all have tickets at will call this is ridiculous so that goes on for like 15 minutes. Finally, like everybody sort of just overpowers the security guard and just like, look, we're going to walk up to the window and the security guard's like, fine, I'm sick of arguing with all you guys go ahead. And then we go to that door and then some older guy answered the door. And I'm like trying to be syllable out and like, Hey, look like the NBA left me these tickets. You know, we are good to go. Like, this is kind of ridiculous that you can't, we can't just go to will call. He goes, we close will the nba said it was our call or the nba made the call which again i don't even believe i think the united center just did it and then a dude next to

me starts getting really mouthy with the security guard who's older and the kid who's getting mouthy is like i'm about to put my hands on you man and i was like okay well wait a minute now i'm thinking like i'm even though the security guard is leaving leaving us out in the freezing cold in Chicago, you're an asshole to the kid. And I was like, I'm actually going to defend him even though he's in my way of getting in there because you're just acting like a jerk. And then finally, some guy comes over from the United Center, super mad at everybody. He goes, we're going to open up will call, but it's your fault. And he's yelling and yelling, which made me realize it probably wasn't the nba's call because i don't think the nba if they were going to do something like that would then change their mind i think just i think people just were like hey

whatever it's late and we want to go home and it's freezing or they wanted to go watch dunk or they wanted to watch the dunk contest yeah with all of our tickets and so they after they said they were going to open it they they opened it up 15 minutes later. And by the time we even got in there, we missed most of the first round. But it actually worked out perfect. We saw like 45 minutes

of the dunk contest. I mean, other than standing outside for 45 minutes, but it's really come down to a mystery of, I'm not going to, well, I guess I did blame the United Center,

so I'll just leave it at that. Common, Common should have added that story into his half hour thing that he did beforehand, before the All-Star game today. I texted you because I was going to come up, but I got back to LA late.

And I go, wait, this thing isn't starting for another hour? And you're like, no, no, it's starting right now. And it started an hour later. Yeah. Aaron Gordon. So he lost twice. And because of just the way social media goes and recency bias and all that stuff,

people decide this is one of the great tragedies in the history of All-Star Weekend, all this stuff. I think here's where this leads. Five years from now, he enters the dunk contest again. He ends up winning with a good performance, not great, marrying Al Pacino and sending a woman. Like where it's like, it's the makeup call Oscar,

basically for Aaron Gordon. So he just, he can retire now, do the whole thing. I'm not going to join again. Come back in three years and you get the makeup contest win. I think that's how this plays out. The three point contest,

the Buddy Heald comeback was actually pretty exciting. I mean, he basically ran the rack, except for one that hit the two-pointer for the win at the end. And for some reason, Trey Young was the first person to congratulate him, which I didn't tell you. A lot of Trey Young this weekend.

He did a really good job of being in every place. But I thought that was a pretty good ending. I thought it was a pretty good Saturday night for the most part. I taped it and zoomed through it. And I actually, I still like the three point in the dunk. I know it's for kids,

but I'm always going to at least watch it. Whether I'm going to be totally happy with that, I don't know. Yeah, that's what I think the point is. Like some stuff, okay, so something isn't your favorite. Can you appreciate that other people like it? And that's kind of the way I've been with it. with it. Like, as I get older, it's not like

a to-do list. Like, Hey, I got to be home. You know, I don't know that, you know, really since Vince Carter, I mean, once one of the guys from the Utah jazz was in the G league on it, I was like, all right, you know, I don't know what to do here, but I don't, I think it's just kind of cool, man. I think it's really cool that all these guys in this league get together they get to hang out it's very it's a very you know the nba can be really cool when you focus on like how positive it is that these guys are close i know it can be nauseating with the way they recruit each other and that doesn't even bother me but i know it turns a lot of people off and that it's not this nastiness that we had growing up which yes i miss a little bit but the league deciding like hey we're just going to plant our flag in a really great city for three or four days and celebrate all these different guys and get as many people

that you know that's the other cool thing it's like hey it's not just 24 players like let's have 100 plus players here and everybody hanging out and you go into one hotel and then you run into three or four guys and it's kind of like a mini super bowl week but it's all about basketball and and people that love it where the super Bowl feels more like a media industry event. Like if you're in the media, you kind of have to be at it. This is about, you know, I'm not trying to be corny or cheesy, but I think there are times you just go, hey, maybe not everything's for you, but look at it as a positive because the league has this window of a few days of celebrating itself.

And again, it being in Chicago, I mean, we both know Chicago's awesome. And once Friday's weather, I mean, when it was 30 on Saturday, I was just loving life walking around on a t-shirt. They do a nice job. I'm with you. Obviously I agree.

And I think of all the leagues, they do by far the best job of not only incorporating as many of the current guys as possible, but the history of the game and all the legends that are in attendance, the way the league takes care of the former stars is, and you just see them, even whether you're watching the dunk contest or you're watching the all-star game tonight, and you just see like somebody's walking during a dead ball situation. It's like Scottie Pippen's face is over his right shoulder.

And then somebody goes the other way and it's like, there's the Kembe Mutombo. It's like the ghosts of NBA pass in a good way are all sprinkled all over this event. The finals is like this a little bit too, but not as dramatic as it is with All-Star. And you think like the same weekend where baseball, Jeff Passan wrote this column over the weekend, baseball is burning. And that was his lead sentence. And it was actually a good column. And it was about baseball is just in complete chaos right now. And the players have turned on each other and everybody's against the Astros. And then the Astros are refusing to admit that they've completely disgraced the game. They're fighting back. Rob Manford's taken no accountability

whatsoever. Um, he's barely disciplined these guys at all. It's, it's one of the most embarrassing commissioner performances of all time ever in the history of sports. And you think like this sport is such a train wreck and you have situations where like the Red Sox who make 500 plus million a year trading Mookie Betts to save money. They turned Mookie Betts and David Price

into Martin Perez, Kevin Pillar, and Alex Verdugo as a stretch fracture in his back and they did this after they raised ticket prices league is a fucking shit show and then you watch the nba this weekend that for all all its faults and we love to complain about it but still for the most part really has its shit together and really embraces the camaraderie of the league and the history of all that and it was just kind of striking that those two things were happening simultaneously. I felt like when I first started working at ESPN was 2006.

I completely agree with you completely agree. So that, that my, my pause was, was gathering my thoughts, not, not disagreeing at all. 2006,

my first year. And we used to just do the bond stuff every night. And I'm like, man, we haven't been this hot on baseball since the last scandal. Unfortunately, like that's all that seems to become like hey what's the national baseball topic that we can do we're like oh it's a shit show right now and you know not to go down the mookie bets thing but i mean there's a million jokes there in verdugo you're like well when verdugo comes back in 2021 will he take at bats away from all the free agents that they sign

right what is it is it zach is it Zach Cram who writes for you guys? Yeah. Yeah. Really good. And he did the, the Mookie breakdown, which is incredible. It's called the myths behind Boston's Mookie bets,

trade justification. That's on the ringer. Check it out. Even if you don't care about baseball, like what the Red Sox did and how they sold this to their fan base and what the actual real savings is, is so minimal minimal like it's absurd because you have all these other chances to reset the tax thing so when you think about

the baseball headlines and this is really why you know there was that period where we thought is the nfl in decline no and then we thought is the nba the best franchise to invest in and it felt like yes there for a little while because it trends younger it's more international it's all these different things and then the dip in the ratings this year you know have made people thinking like whatever comes the rating stuff bill i'm like let me see a few years of this i know you get worried about it but let me see a few years of evidence because we're doing this exact same conversation about how the nfl is too woke and the south was turning it off right and you're like oh nope everybody's back like whatever it was it wasn't it wasn't a developing thing. It was a blip. And when I think about how we were doing NBA topics,

they at least were always fun. So for years, I mean, the NFL was concussions. It was Kaepernick. It was all the social just observations. Bounty gates. Right. All of the stuff that it wasn't fun. I mean, the deflate gate thing was nauseating.

It went on forever, and at least with basketball. And I think that's a really great observation on just it being a fun weekend and celebrating the game and celebrating the history of the game. And you go, you know, the basketball topics are at least fun topics. I mean, you know, look, everybody's got their problems. But I mean, think how long it's been since the NBA's had like an awful situation with like a player getting into trouble. Right. Like, am I missing somebody recently? Unless like, I don't, you know, I don't think Dion Waiters taking edibles is on everybody's radar. Well, you know, the Kobe thing. I can't remember. Well, I didn't. No, no, no, no. I didn't mean it.

No, no, I don't. I'm going in a different direction. The Kobe thing and the fact that he was a basketball player and the way that impacted, you know, it was probably the biggest celebrity death in the way it's been received and mourned and processed and just continues to be thought about and, you know, dissected and still hitting people. It happened three weeks ago.

It really feels like Princess Diana type of thing. And it makes you think, is basketball America's pastime for now with the way it's crossed over culturally? You even see this weekend with the different music and Obama's there. And it's just this intersection of all of these different things and all of these personalities and celebrities. And even if the, you know, the ratings aren't as big as football. And I think football is, is by far bigger, like a Thursday night football game might have a bigger rate and then game four of the NBA finals. So I'm not arguing that. But from an impact standpoint,

it's pretty profound what's going on. You know, like Obama was not at the Super Bowl for two days, like doing panels and things like that. So something is different with how it resonates with people. And I think the Kobe thing played into that. It's, you realize like, if somebody becomes a truly famous beloved basketball player,

the impact of that surpasses any other sport. Now, I think even football, do you, would you agree or disagree with that? Uh, I mean, it's kind of a weird topic to debate.

Like if somebody were to, yeah, I'm not debating. It's just like, right. Like LeBron, Kobe, Michael Jordan. Those have been the three biggest basketball players of the last 35 years.

Right. Has there been a football player who has been as far reaching as any of those guys in the last 35 years? Like, would you say Brett Favre? No, it has to beady if we're even suggesting somebody right yeah but do you think brady has crossed over from a personality standpoint like those three guys did no i feel like brady we know less much less about him i mean i would i would put jordan right i mean we know lebron he's he's basically been an open book the entire time and Kobe was uh was a real one you know like Kobe was somebody like I don't I don't think there's another version of Kobe that you

would meet you're like wait a minute who the hell is this guy you know like and for all the heat LeBron takes I think for the most part he's you know pretty well liked like I don't think you know I'm sure he'd be tough as a teammate everything but you don't hear stories about him being this like raging jerk to people and even Kobe was tough on his teammates um but i'll tell you the kobe thing's weird man it's it's weird and that's not the greatest adjective but it's just weird in that i'll have these moments where i forget that he's gone and i'll see a clip of him and i'm like holy shit man he's like he's really gone i know weird i didn't think i was gonna have that feeling and i'll i'll have these like little moments where i see him again and i go oh yeah they're gonna bum me out for a little bit you

know not to say that other people aren't more bummed out it's just i'm surprised how often i'm catching myself sort of stopping what i'm doing because i'll see something from him and go oh man well but i think that's speaks to what's a little different about the nba is that these guys retire and then they live on in the second act as the legends where their games are on TV, they're on YouTube. They have these massive social followings. They show up at these different events and it's like Bird of Magic retired in 1992. Basically Magic came back after briefly, but those guys have been out of the league for 30 years and they still feel like

they're really, really a part of the league. Jordan came back because he bought the Hornets, but you know, Duncan's coaching for the Spurs. These guys kind of never go away. Whereas in football, Joe Montana retired. He was on TV for a couple of years and then he's just kind of gone. You know, unless these guys end up doing TV, there's really no scenario where they're back in their life. They just become these retired guys that we don't really think about again. In the NBA, they just kind of shack Barkley. Carl Malone is the rare example of somebody who retired and he's kind of, I don't know what happened to him. He's not really around. But for the most part, not only are they around, but they show up and they

show up and like Bill Russell's 86 and he presents the finals MVP. You know, I, there's just something about the connectivity of, of, uh, of the NBA and how they've embraced the past that I think is really unique. And, you know, I think baseball had it for a while. And you think about a movie like even Field of Dreams, where the guy builds a baseball field and then the legends come back. Yeah, yeah. Spoiler alert. But baseball for years and years was like, right, Mickey Mantle. Mickey Mantle would show up on Letterman's show 20, 30 years after he retired. Joe DiMaggio and those guys kind of lived on as legends. What baseball players live on as legends now, A-Rod, Bonds, Clemens,

like these guys don't live on that way. They just kind of go. I mean, in a lot of times kind of disgrace too. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, A-Rod, A-Rod's pivot from where he was at, you know, publicly to like, oh yeah, he's pretty good talking baseball. And I know I did that video on his comeback versus Matthew McConaughey's comeback, but I actually think it's incredibly impressive. But it's also a reminder of how quickly we move on and how quickly we forgive. But one of the things that I wanted to kind of revisit, though, you're right about the basketball thing and seeing these guys everywhere, whether there aren't staffs or at ESPN or, you know, doing all sorts of different stuff or, you know, there's guys walking around all weekend. You're like, oh, there's that guy or like, oh, that guy's on that staff. I remember him and all this stuff.

And then as far as the coverage of it, like the national coverage for baseball is diminished because the interest isn't there. The national coverage for basketball is only grown, but there's just so much more inventory for it. So I think that's part of the problem for the football guys is there's not really that much inventory other than 15 games through the week. And, you know, as far as the past time, you know, I, as much as I'd like to say, Hey, some of the benefits that we look at with these NFL ratings, is that how easy it is consumed the scarcity of the product and all of these different things. Like if you had 80 football games with the ratings be the same, like, of course not, but the ratings compared to every other thing on cable are so staggering that, you know,

it's still clear the interest level is far beyond. Like when you start looking at some of their regular season games against an NBA finals game, it's like a good reminder to be like, wait a minute, you know, like it may seem like everybody's all in on the NBA thing. And then I'll see one of those numbers. I go, oh my God, like I can't believe what a regular, what a Thursday night football game does compared to an NBA finals game. I thought Favre was going to live on in a, in a kind of a legendary way. And I remember I was, I was driving somewhere like a month ago and the NFL serious station

was on and Favre had a show in the serious station. Do you know that? It was, are you serious? Yeah. and Favre had a show on the serious station. Do you know that? Are you serious? Yeah. He had, I don't know whether it was weekly or what, but it was some guy with Brett Favre, and he was asking him questions about the weekend.

I was like, Brett Favre was on the radio? And then he does, what is he, Wrangler? If you had said 10 years ago, this was going to be Brett Favre the way he was in the public eye. I don't think I would have guessed that I would have assumed he was going to be on Monday night football or something. He kind of turned it into Nebraska gym. A little bit. Well, Brady will be an interesting test. What happens to him as a celebrity once his football career is over. And I broke the news to Kyle that it really does seem like there's a chance Brady might not be on the Patriots next year.

I'm starting to believe that this might not be bullshit. That he might actually leave. Would you agree that the Brady stuff, and you know, you're a pretty connected guy. Yeah. You know, every now and then I'll,

you know, some of my Boston friends will have a lead on something and then sometimes it's like, dude, you hear Brady got a split ranch in New Hampshire. He's not going nowhere. And you're like, what? Like where? Like kiddery dude. I'm like, I think that's in Maine. Like whatever. Um, I haven't really heard anything that's all that convincing. And I just keep repeating myself. That reminds me a little bit of like the Kawhi thing is that everybody has a rumor. I don't really believe any of them and that whatever happens it's going to be everyone's going to say

well of course he was leaving you know he negotiated this thing to have the free agent clause and he's sick of belichick and he wants to move on and if he stays it's going to be like of course he's going to stay you think brady was going to join some new team new system and not be comfortable so we're going to play the results like that one like nothing else but i uh i don't know i don't have a really educated guess i just yeah like every time i think like there's no way he's ever going to leave then i think well why would he why would he put himself in a situation where it's like i'll do this but you gotta let me be a free agent and they were like okay no problem like that's weird i think it'd be weird at this point

to leave it's like dave girl was on my podcast last week and he told the story about pod thank you and he said about the Foo Fighters and he's like, we're, we talked about how they almost broke up a long time ago. And he's like, now we'd never break up. It would be like, if your grandparents broke up, what the hell are you going to do? You're in your seventies. What are you going to start dating? And that was such a good line. It was unbelievable. Yeah. And I kind of feel that way about Brady. Like at this point, he doesn't, he have to finish his career with the Patriots? He's going to go to the Vegas Raiders for two years?

That's going to be how this ends? It just seems like such a weird way to end. You're the best quarterback of all time. You've won six titles, and it's like for a little more money, you're going to go play for John Gruden in Las Vegas? Or you're going to play in Tennessee? It just seems strange. Let's, uh, let's tell, can I give you one final thing on that?

Sorry. Go ahead. Trust me. When I do that, it'll be quick. Joe Montana, when he left San Francisco and went to Kansas city, he'll have been six years younger than Brady will have been if Brady leaves and goes somewhere else. Oh my God. Well, there you go.

Let's, uh, Let's take a break. I want to talk about All-Star Scuttlebutt. Chances are you've heard of Salesforce, but if you're like a lot of people, you don't know exactly what Salesforce does. Well, here's a simple answer. It brings companies and customers together. How does it work?

Well, different employees across your different departments at Salesforce, like Steve in sales, Mary in marketing, Katie in customer service, I and IT. They all get a single shared 306 degree view of each of your customers. That means two things. Whenever your customers talk with any of those people, Steve and Sales, whoever,

they'll feel like they're having a relationship with one united company, not a series of disconnected departments. Second, even more important, it means all those people feel like they have everything they need to make your customers happy. And not just a little happy, happy in a, wow, I love this company. They really get me kind of happy. When your customers are that happy, everyone, I repeat, everyone is happy. Salesforce, such a great company. They hired my buddy Fish, one of my oldest friends.

We've been friends since 1984. Yeah, he worked for them for a long, long time. That's how Salesforce brings companies and customers together. If it makes sense, well, learn more by visiting salesforce.com slash learn more. All right, you were in Chicago. You're talking to people. Did you hear anything that made you say, hmm? I'm going to say no. I heard 3,000 prostitutes flew in.

That was interesting. That was an interesting stat. Nothing to do with trade with trade rumors or free agency or anything i don't know how that affects the salary cap but that number seems high no seriously a bartender told me that last night i didn't hear a lot of stuff i was like oh pretty good there was a lot of people talking about the knicks and uh leon and west basically leon taking over the knicks and west is going basically, Leon taking over the Knicks and Wes is going to be involved in some way. And then Steve Stout did his whole thing last week

and just have fun. The Knicks just can't stay out. And all of them were there and, you know, running in the same circles, but how the Knicks, even when they have good news, can't seem to stay out of their way. But from all the different people I talked to, it really does seem like the Knicks

are just hell bent on repairing their relationships with players around the league and trying to make it seem like, hey, if I signed with the Knicks, it wouldn't be a complete shit show in every respect. So that seems like a noble turn for them to try to convince people we're not a complete shit show i don't know if it'll work but then right but like the first time you're doing that a guy went on first take apparently completely catching the organization off guard like i think he just told somebody at first take the new i was like yeah come on yeah and he compared himself to drake and it wasn't like drake traded for kawaii by the way right and you know he goes on there and makes it even worse and nick's guys are like you're gonna be kidding me and they issue a statement that he's like hey you know what

actually i'm not gonna be doing that um that was one of the all-time performances it actually deserves more credit for how absurd the whole thing is and i uh i almost respect it like imagine if it was me before I joined the ringer, going on Bloomberg, being like, you know, Bill and I get all sorts of plans. Now we're going to get a Tampa affiliate. We're going to start doing a lot of Tampa stuff. We think Tampa's the next big market.

We get some wedding podcast lineup. No, it would be like if you did that, but then, I mean, the secret part of this was he completely insulted the interim coach. And he did, you know, we get a new coach in there, and he did that whole thing. It would be like if you said, you know,

if you get somebody in there or push on fantasy, and you went down that road. It's just Ryan Guy. It's been a good run, but... That was the nuttiest part, where they had this coach who's trying to get the job. I don't think he's going to get it, but you're basically announcing in that first take thing that that guy's not going to be here next year. And not to mention all the players.

Classic. 20 straight years of incompetence for Knicks. I did not have a lot of scuttlebutt other than I do think the league is as ambitious as it's ever been right now in making moves. And I mean the NBA as a whole, like really, really blowing it up and getting creative and trying to take some chances, especially with the media rights deal coming down the road. Although I think there's no way they don't re-up with ESPN and TNT in some way. But I think there are some wacky things coming that will at least,

it'll be thrown out the same way they threw the stuff out in November. They won't just spring it on us. It'll get leaked to somebody. They'll gauge the public reaction and then decide what to do after that. Okay. I agree with that part of it. And, you know, I do, as we said off the top,

you know, whenever it's like, hey, here are my seven steps to fix this, or here are all these changes that I want to make, or how come we don't do this? Like signing day in college football is my all-time favorite one.

Because whenever they change it, then there's 10 other coaches that tell a college football writer why that date is stupid. And, you know, it's the whole thing of like, don't let perfect be the enemy of progress here. So I don't want to do this thing where like, oh, change, change, change.

Because think how many times you were like, oh, that's stupid. That's stupid. And then it plays out and you're like, oh, you know what? But I do think a lot of people are projecting or offering up stupid solutions or fixes to stuff that doesn't need to be fixed. If I were the NBA ahead of this next TV thing, I think I'd get everybody together and say, hey, we're starting December 25th or that week. Maybe December 25th can be the third game. And we're going to run

our season into late August. And then we'll do the draft. And then we do free agency. And we're just going to... That stretch from the beginning of July to the end of August is still like Tom Cruise and Far and Away, where they're all running at their flags. And that's why you have the big three. That's why you have the basketball. That's why you have all these things trying to figure out like, wait a minute, there's this six-week dead period.

If I were the NBA, who cares about when free agency and when the draft happens? I want to know what would be the argument against just starting the season two plus months later and laying claim to this dead six-week period. Or at the very least start on Thanksgiving.

And that's fine. Bring it all the way through to make the finals like the last week in June, condense the schedule or do whatever. I agree with you. I think they're not condensing. I think, I think you take it the finals until like mid to late July and then have free agency. August 1st,

everybody's talking about your league and you can have the draft right ahead of that. You can do it. You can flip it because that's the other favorite one. It's like the NFL has the draft, the free agency, the opposite order of the NBA, and then both always argue how theirs is wrong. Right. You're like, wait a minute, what? I would just, if I'm the NBA, I would say we need to figure out how to just make sure that that window in that calendar is ours. Who cares about we don't care it doesn't matter anymore it's more important to have a tv product that we can sell where there's zero competition nationally because baseball is a local product and that would be my number one thing if i were silver i've thought about it a bunch this last week and i don't

really know what the argument against it is yo you make two key points one is that baseball's diminishing returns year after year where there's now like an ample opportunity to just own July and that first part of August that they really wanted to. I don't know if they would ever go to August, but I think July, which they've kind of taken over anyway with free agency. But it's still not a product to sell. No, I know. But you know what I mean though? It's not inventory that you're selling. From an interest standpoint. Right. But anybody that would say to me, oh, no, no, they own those first two weeks of July. Yeah, they own it in talk show topics. Yeah.

But it's not. There's no inventory that's being sold. Social media. But all of that stuff, like a lot of that stuff's like fake. Those aren't real dollars. Nobody's really writing you a check for that, for awareness and impressions and all that stuff. You know, people are writing a check for games. And what would be more valuable than completely uncontested games that late?

I would think the finals would be worth even more later in the summer. Right, if it was July. Yeah. Well, the other thing is you get away from football. Exactly. The more you move that opening day down the line, down the year, and you push it toward Thanksgiving and maybe even past it, now you're missing the first three months of the football season, which, you know, I think they have

some moves though, because in this next deal, if they move some national games from ESPN to ABC, that will fix some of the rating stuff organically. So, all right, I'm calling this, we have a couple of segments left. I'm calling this one five biggest things to watch post all-star. So the NBA comes back on Thursday night, which is four days from now. And this is in no particular order of five things I wrote down. You can tell me if I'm missing something that there's one thing that you care about more. These are my five.

First one, who's getting the two seed between Boston or Toronto? Because not only do you avoid Milwaukee until round three, but you have home court in that round two potentially. And you play the seven seed in round one, who's probably going to suck. So that's one. Second one, will Philly be afraid to fire Brett Brown before April?

We're going to come back and talk about all this. Third one, will Cleveland buy out Tristan Thompson before the end of this month? And I think if they do, he becomes an incredibly important buyout guy for the Celtics, for the Clippers, for the Lakers, for a couple other teams. But that is somebody who could literally swing the finals if he gets bought out. Fourth one is, can Utah climb to number two? Because I think Utah or Denver in that two spot,

I don't think it's going to be the Clippers because I don't think their guys are going to play enough games. But if Utah or Denver can get that two spot, they avoid the Lakers for two rounds. They have pole position, home court. Those teams are really good at home. I think that's something to watch. And then the fifth one for me, most fun team to get the West eight seed, because it looks like the Lakers are going to be the one seed. Portland, Memphis, or New Orleans. I would say New Orleans has the highest ceiling out of those three, just because Zion is back and a force of nature. And it would be fun to have a frisky eight seed going into the Lakers. So let's go backwards and start with the first one, the who's getting the two seed Boston or Toronto.

Is it fair to say game seven in Toronto, this particular Celtics team, probably not winning a game seven in Toronto. And then you flip it around game seven in Boston. I think that is so incredibly important for both of those teams. I don't think either can win on the other's court in a game seven. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think it's fair.

You know, I don't like some of this Toronto stuff is impressive as it's been, but whenever it's the national broadcast rule, right? National broadcast rule is what? Most of the world makes an observation that's fairly accurate. National broadcaster comes on and says that it's not. And you're like, why are you saying that? And when, you know, somebody asked, I forget who the,

because it's happened multiple games for Toronto. We play about people. I'm like, well, Dave, did you ever think that Toronto would be able to do this 40 and 15 record after Kawhi? Yeah, absolutely. Heart of a champion. You're like,

shut the fuck up. They lost maybe the best player in the league. Nobody thought they were going to be this. Yeah. And they're still probably not newsflash here.

They're still probably not as good as last year's team because that dude Kawhi is on the Clippers. I probably know what I'm going to get from the Raptors right now more than I can Boston. I just wish I could see the four guys play together for Boston

because I think they're top four with Kemba, Tatum, Jalen, and Gordon. And Gordon's still kind of, I don't know, but Tatum's taking it to another level. That game against the Clippers last week was absolutely, it was an unbelievable great regular season game. I know both teams were missing guys, but to see Tatum to kind of take it to that level, kind of take it at Kawhi, defend him as well. Yeah. That I felt like it was, um, I said on a tweet, I feel like that's a, like a little line that you have to darken in a little bit on his career timeline. So, you know,

some part of me is like, wait a minute, would Tatum actually like this version of Tatum, would he be the best player in that series? Cause he the kind of guy at this age and especially where I was really worried about him a couple months ago would he be enough of a guy to win that game and on the road there um Toronto find finds ways like they're interchangeable parts and all the things like I still think I know what they are more even though they've missed a Baca they had to go small the other night because Saul's missed time Powell's been hurt but every freaking night it feels like there's this third guy from toronto you're like terence davis did what og and anobi had 25 yeah there's some nights where siakam isn't really the guy for them and his numbers have dipped off a little bit as the months have gone by but i still

probably feel like i know what toronto is a little bit more than boston and just pulling up their strength of schedule that's remaining uh they're both neck and neck right there 11th Toronto has 11th toughest and Boston has the 12th toughest so I have all 34 if you need them I think the difference between the two teams and I think they're really close and I think that will be an awesome round two if that ends up being what it ends up being the Celtics have one notch up to go because of the Tatum factor. What he showed in that Clippers game and in general, what's happened to him over the last five, six weeks, there's nobody on the Raptors that is a wild card like that. Because there's a chance, like you said, could Tatum be the best guy in a Raptors Celtics

playoff series? Six weeks ago, I would have said, no fucking way. That's insane. No way. It's Siakam. Right.

I mean, it feels stupid to even say, right? Right. And now as we head out of the all-star break, from what we've seen from Tatum

and the stuff he's doing night to night, and not just the encore performance, but the way that his teammates are starting to talk about him, and I really think that matters. I like to read all the stories and I like to, there's this invisible point players pass when the teammates really startba, even Jalen Brown, who has like a little rivalry with him to some degree because they're a year apart.

And all of them are like, this guy's the limit for this guy. This guy's amazing. This guy's so talented. This guy does stuff in practice that we can't believe. And he's starting to put it together in games. And I think for them, that's the ceiling. The big thing for them is just, can they keep the seven guys healthy heading into April?

But you could say that about any playoff team. I don't think anyone else in the East has an upside guy like him. And when you think about what happened with Siakam last year with Toronto versus where he is this year, and there's whatever changed with him changed. And I wonder if it can happen for Tatum this year or whether it's still something that happens next season. And the numbers on them are really close. And like, if you look at, I think it's Toronto's up 2-1 in the regular season, but the first game was forever ago. And then they had like two games and they took each other out.

But, you know, I'd have to go back and double check the box scores. Were you sure, you know, Toronto's missed guys. And again, like Boston, I'd love to see all four of those guys play together for a month straight and see what happens. I'd love to see Hayward play for a month straight and feel really good about himself because I'm still, you know, it's year three with him. And we still don't really know because it's just it hasn't been easy. He was hurt. And then he the whole Kyrie stuff last year and not working out. But, you know, I was pulling up the numbers again, offensive rating like Boston's fifth and you go Toronto's 12th. But, you know, really, we're talking about the difference of a point yeah 100 possessions and defensively they're two and three Toronto and Boston and

they're almost identical on that one so they're both really good teams and I can't believe like I'm saying this now 55 games in but I probably you know I know I goof on Lowry and all that stuff but I just I don't know is it weird for me to say I think I trust them a little bit more than Boston it has nothing to do with them last year either, I don't know. Is it weird for me to say I think I trust them a little bit more than Boston? It has nothing to do with them last year either. Like, I don't, like, it's a different team without Kawhi. I don't care. I don't care what their status is. I think they get a slight edge.

If you're betting your life on it, I think it would be dumb to bet on Boston when they haven't proven it with this nucleus yet. But I will say, whatever happens with the Seltzer share, they dodged a bullet with the Horford thing, which is going to bring us to Philly in a second. But, you know, I think they were ready to go like three years, 90 million for him. Yeah, they were going to go.

I mean, they were going to do it. It was going to do it. I think once it got over 100, once they heard it was over 100, my understanding is that they were like, look. And I think that's what makes Ainge a really good GM. Because most GMs are like, ah, screw it. We got to do it. Like, what are we going to do? Ainge has like, Ainge has a really,

you got to look at his history, not you, but his history on not losing his mind on a player with contracts. He's about as good as anybody in the league with that stuff. Right.

And they let him go. And I think there's real signs now that I'm not saying he's washed up, but I think the Horford from two years ago when Kyrie was out and they almost made the finals and he was such a key part of that team. I just don't think he's that guy anymore.

And whether he can move into a different phase of his career, but the way the league is played now, when you have a guy who's a five and he's not somebody who can roll to the rim and get rebounds and stuff like that. And he's basically just a stretch five. I think it would have hurt the Celtics team to have him as much as I like him and as crucial as I think he is. I just think they're better off with these big guys who have their hands up and are going toward the rim and getting offensive rebounds

and just a better fit. They have enough guys on the perimeter already. So I think that was a big break for them that they, they aren't saddled with that contract because I don't know if it's tradable. That brings us to Philly, which was my second question. Will they be afraid to fire Brett Brown before April if it becomes clear over the next three to four weeks that this team is just off for whatever reason? That's the only move left this season would be to change the coach. Do you think there's any chance they would do that? No, I don't.

I mean, everybody kind of in the basketball world was like, okay, well, Brett Brown's getting fired. Do we not remember 10 months ago? That was a big surprise outside of Philadelphia. And I think even like people that cover the team and root for the team were like oh wait they're keeping them and no i like that they gave brett brown a chance of like all of those awful teams hey you're gonna get your brains beat in all the time we're a laughingstock of the league we do have this plan but you know people

just don't have the patience they think it's easy to say hey are you gonna be cool with this yeah no problem and then two years go by and you're like like, you know what? Now that it's real, this sucks. And look, I'm glad that he got a chance. Everybody likes him and all that stuff. I feel like a loser sometimes being like, oh, everybody says he's a really great guy and all that stuff, because I don't really like talking about this guy must be fired. I don't do that very often. But if they have an ugly exit, which no one thought they were going to be flirting

with a five or six seed. And the funny thing about the Horford signing for them, Bill, is that's given every pro Philly aggro dude. Everything's Horford's fault now. And it's not. And I've looked through it, and I've had the numbers thrown at me, and I have the way I watch a game where I go, all right, well, let's see fourth quarter if Embiid and Simmons

are getting in each other's way. Because the numbers with Horford off the floor, the per 100 possessions when it's Horford off, Embiid, all right, well, let's see fourth quarter if Embiid and Simmons are getting in each other's way. Because the numbers with Horford off the floor, the per 100 possessions, when it's Horford off, Embiid, Simmons on, they're like a really, like a staggeringly good offensive number. But yet the offensive efficiency overall for the team is bad, and those are the two best players. But then I would be like, okay, well, how many minutes versus minutes that they've played with Horford out there all the time, like how many minutes are there minutes where it's Simmons and Embiid who Brett tries to split up more this year than he ever has in the past. Like, is that, are there enough minutes?

And somebody told me it was 400 minutes and beads played like 1200. I mean, I could do some harder digging on this stuff, but I also know that what my eyes tell me and that, yes, I know what the numbers say without Horford per 100 possessions this year. It tells me it's this great offense. Well, let's see it. Let's, you know, can we get to game 70 maybe where it looks like it's this good offense?

Because fourth quarter, you know, they were mad this week from Philly. So I respected watching them this week and going, okay, well, like they look pissed off about all of this controversy. So maybe that's it. But I don't know what to do with that team because I still think,

and they've got some nice bench pieces I like now. They benching horford cork moss has been really good i still love the names you know remember you and i talking to each other before the first game started we're like who's going to win the east i go you know when i go one through eight with philly like i can't believe i'd pick anybody else yeah here we are doing this shit again and it's almost it's almost march it reminds me of that last Scotty Brooks season. In Philly? Or in Oklahoma City? In Oklahoma City when... I was like, wait a minute.

Like, how far are we? Oh, yeah, never mind. When it was after 2014, disappointing playoff exit, and everyone thought they were going to get rid of him, and they didn't. And then they had that next season where Durant was hurt for most of the year

and Westbrook was hurt. They ended up, I think they won like 45 games, but they ended up not making the playoffs. And then they got rid of Scottie Brooks, but they should have gotten rid of him in 2014. I get why they didn't do it. And I'm a big loyalty guy, obviously, but it's just a team that doesn't look like it's on the same page. And it looks like a team, depending on where they fall in the playoffs. You know, I don't know if they were, you know, they had a choice to be the five seed or the six seed. There could be some jockeying, you know, like if they feel like, oh man, we could actually beat Toronto, but we don't want to play Miami or whatever.

You could see some maneuvering down the stretch. You could also see Embiid might get hurt for two, three weeks or whatever. I think, wouldn't you say they're more likely to be a six seed than like a three seed? Well, if Boston ends up in the three seed and I'm Philly, I'd rather play Boston than Miami based on the matchups there, because that's the part of the Boston front line where certain nights it looks good. But like when the the canter when they went small against Houston I couldn't even believe Brad Stevens played canter eight minutes you know it's Brad Stevens but you know you know what he's doing Brad's like all right let me throw a few minutes his way we'll

see what happened and I don't think we ever saw him in the second half and then in the Clippers game losing Tice like Tice is actually a great matchup in that one against the Clippers because of Montrez because he can stay active with him and look i'm not saying tice is as good as much as harrell but that was another game where it was like all right you gotta get canter out of here and i've seen the umbead celtics front line thing in person that was my four sideline seats underneath the basket where i sat by myself um where just a quick shout out to, uh, landing in Chicago hotel restaurant. They put me at the bar. I was wearing sweatpants,

eating pasta by myself, Valentine's 10 o'clock on a Friday night, packed house. A couple of people recognize me and they're like, this guy is by himself a lot, but look, that's just, that's just married to the game.

Um, but why I, if I'm Philly and I could lose to get to the 60 to play boston in the 6-3 i'd much rather do that um but then i guess i guess you could also argue like do you really think like i love the bam out of bio story i love watching that guy play but i mean is he gonna lock up and bead for for seven games so there's something yeah i mean there's who knows yeah i mean philly could finish six here and i might pick them to make it to the eastern conference finals still after all the garbage we keep talking about it

i don't remember the last time i think it was maybe the 99 knicks the last time a seed below the four seed made the uh finals well that was a shortened season with their seed right yeah yeah next question just let's do this quickly tristan thompson cleveland says they're not going to buy him out, but I don't know why they wouldn't. Like, why not save a couple million bucks? It's not like he's going to resign there next year anyway. And if he gets bought out,

he makes really no sense for the Lakers. Although I could see LeBron trying to grab him just to make sure the Clippers didn't get him. The team he makes the most sense for is the Celtics. I could also see LeBron trying to grab him just to make sure the Clippers didn't get him. The team he makes the most sense for is the Celtics. I could also see LeBron talking him out of going there and talking him out of going to the Clippers and sending him to some weird, you know, like the Rockets. Now, if he went to the Rockets, that would, you know, pretty much immediately change what we thought their playoff destiny was. Do you think he gets, why wouldn't he get bought out?

I guess is my question. Because Cleveland's an absolute mess. I don't know if you saw the report i did tonight with windhorse where beelines basically contemplating whether or not he's gonna come back after the all-star break i can tell you now that before the season even started that entire team was like nope to be line right um like before the season started i'd heard hey this is like the fastest ever but the entire locker room is out on this guy this season hasn't even started and then you know he's got the thugs comment in there which he tried to say look it was just a slip of the tongue maybe it was maybe it wasn't i don't i don't freaking know but like it was a locker room

that erie didn't like him and you know how people work like if you can come over with another reason an excuse to be motivated to dislike somebody you can talk yourself into believing that he wasn't you know that he meant to say it and that it was some freudian slip uh you got kevin love who signed for all the money who's been miserable the entire time and i'm not trying to be insensitive to everything else with kevin love but he you know it's not like he's some leader of men you know he's wanted out of there and they can't they keep trying to think of him as an asset. So in any other normal situation, I'd be like, why wouldn't you do? And that's doing the agent a favor, like the way business is done in the NBA. You'd be like, well, why would you buy out Tristan

Thompson? Well, because the agents go, Hey, buy our guy out, get them off the roster, get him eligible for March 1st. So he's ready to go for a playoff team and just enough of this. But I have a hard time believing with LeBron clutch thing that Boston would even be in a running. We'd probably go ahead and say, that's a no right now. And I like, and I like Tristan Thompson. Like I,

I like the way he's looked this year. Not that I've been locked into a lot of calves games, but I go look at that guy, man. He's still out there. He's competing and all that kind of stuff. And he's a different kind of matchup, but I also think those teams and I'll finish here,

but you almost feel like i'm trying to think of a good analogy here you know like when you go to bourbon street and you're young you're like do i get one of those massive fluorescent drinks that's full of sugar and a huge straw which is probably going to screw up my entire night yeah i'll get one of those because i have to i'm here that's kyle's thursday night what are talking about? That's what the teams that are like jockeying for, you know, a deep playoff run. Like you almost feel obligated to add somebody to the buyout market. Because if you don't, it's like, oh, what's wrong with your GM? The fan base is all pissed when most of these buyouts don't even do anything.

Yeah. Well, I think he's a big one. I think he would play crunch time in a playoff game for, you know, any of the best teams potentially. Clippers definitely could play crunch time for them. Lakers, you know, whether he could supplant Dwight, I don't know. I'd certainly know what they need. I think they need help elsewhere.

But at the very least, Dwight's been fine. We were wrong about it. Well, I'm still not giving up. I still don't trust it. I really don't. I still won't trust it i really believe you will i still he's been he has been far better and more productive and quiet and i really underestimated the lebron factor i did i didn't i just underestimated that like you know what dwight can't do is be dwight with lebron as his teammate and i didn't think of that enough and he's he's been a productive

member of the rotation which is more than he he's been for the last seven stops. It's not one of LeBron's top 10 accomplishments of all time, but it might be in the top 40. Like redeeming Dwight, the unredeemable teammate. What's lower? Making the 2018 finals. The fourth question, quick. Can Utah climb to number two?

I really think this is important because I think it's hard to play there. And with the kind of team they have. And Utah or Denver getting that two spot and getting a home court at least for a couple rounds. And both of those are teams that I'm not 100% on, but I not really a hundred percent on anyone in the West. And I don't know, I, I, I can't remember thinking the two seed mattered in other years. Like I feel like it matters this year in both conferences because the ability to avoid the top team and then have an easier first round opponent, all that stuff. I think it's going to really matter this year because the Lakers are locked into one. And whether Utah can get their shit together and what we saw from Connelly right before the All-Star break was pretty encouraging. So I would say from a talent standpoint, they're probably third behind the Lakers and Clippers. But again, neither of us have really liked what we've seen from this Clippers season at all. And I don't know when that on switch clicks on, but they're behaving like a team that's, you know, running on fumes after winning four straight titles. And they,

and they didn't, they just got together this year. I don't get it. I'm not as anti Clippers as you are are so i would like to get out of that very fair row me to the dock and i'll watch and maybe take some pictures okay why are you why like i think what you just said there is very fair and accurate about them almost acting like they're coasting like hey you know we're gonna we're not gonna play it's like golden state's defense last year in the regular season like hey guys like this is year five we're not going to play. It's like Golden State's defense last year in the regular season. Like, hey, guys, this is year five. We're not going to close out and scream switches intensely because we know what we're capable of.

That seems to bother you. Do you think that's bothering you too much to the point where you're being a little too dismissive of the Clippers? I think they have some holes. I don't think they have enough size. I don't think they have enough size. I don't know who their best five is, and I don't think they know either. What's your deal with Shamit?

Well, we're saving Shamit. Shamit's, Shamit's. Okay, sorry. Yeah, Shamit. I just need to see it. I really like teams heading into the playoffs who have never won a title before to rip off at least three weeks of excellence. I don't think I'm asking too much. Just show it to

me for three weeks. Show me the consistency of what it takes to be a really good team night after night after night and knock some teams off. If you go through the history of the NBA, nobody's, I don't think, ever won the title out of nowhere that was just erratic during the season that had never won the title before it's I know now Kawhi is a special case because he won the title last year so there's some variables with it but I just would like to see them kick some ass for a couple weeks I don't think I'm asking for too much win like eight games in a row can they do that can they win eight straight just look like even this week like i was looking at paul george i was looking at paul george in that philly game in the first

half i go okay like what is up man yeah you know i remember the beginning of last year where i watched like the first week of games i go what is going on with this guy oklahoma city and then i'm thinking like look at oladipo just saying you know like oladipo looked like a dog and i'm like this guy like i want to go to war with oladipo and like look at paul george again and then I'm thinking like look at Oladipo just saying you know like Oladipo looked like a dog and I'm like this guy like I want to go to war with Oladipo and like look at Paul George again and then Paul George went on to like an almost MVP type run there for a few months I go I go okay here we go again like as soon as I go hey do I need to change my mind on this guy and then the guy like turns into the best player ever but then it's like okay well what is the best player ever like hitting threes and rebounds and shooting it well but but disappearing and then

when he left the boston game with the hamstring thing i think is what it was i go okay well hopefully he actually is hurt because i've watched him really closely in the combination of these last two games and he's invisible you know as good as chris bosh is like my hall of fame rule is like i don't know if you turn invisible for long stretches and i forget you're out there like is that really who you are and i know people think that's too harsh, but I think that's kind of the way you got to look at some of these guys. And I'm imagining like the Clippers, you know, they're all on the same page

with all this stuff. And I don't, you know, I know when that piece came out about, well, some guys resented it. I mean, everybody resents everybody at work. You know, I'm sure you can always find somebody to say something. I don't know what that's like at all.

But I'm not as down on them because of Kawhi. Every time I watch Kawhi, I go, he might be the best. And I was going through the numbers, so he's not clearly number one statistically. But I think Kawhi might actually be the best isolation player. Like, give me the ball, I'm going to the hoop in the entire league. And I know there's guys ahead of him efficiency- but it's maybe the least spectacular iso guy who's also the best at one time in the league I feel the best about him when there's two minutes left and they need a basket

name the team I feel the best about his chances these days I know Harden is you know scoring whatever game but I just feel like I'm always surprised when Kawhi doesn't score in that situation. Even in the All-Star today when he had the ISO, I was like, not surprised that it went in. I would have been surprised if it didn't. The last thing really quick, then we get to take a break, is just the most fun team to get the West eight seed.

I don't think the Lakers are losing round one. I think a Lakers Pelicans round one with Zion just completely jacked up like somebody who had 17 Red Bulls and jumping over everybody on top of a Pelicans team that the more I watch them, the more I think like,

all right, if they sneak into the eight seed, they're really kind of like a six seed or a five seed with the amount of talent they have. Now, granted, you know, they have a lot of first timers and things like that, but I just think from a star power standpoint, usually the first round sucks, right? Like you'll have a good four or five, maybe you might luck out with one, three, six series. But if it's pelicans lakers round one zion on his way up lebron near the end all the symmetry there the i just feel like those are can't miss basketball games i'm trying to think of a scenario i wouldn't watch every minute of that series and the scenario does not exist

no i would be uh unreachable during those games because the Zion thing is as much fun as... Yeah, save that. Let's save that for next week. We don't need to... We have so much Zion time next two months. Okay.

But I'm saying right now, I put Zion on the other TV thinking I'm going to focus on the main... Like, it'll be... Okay, well, this is the game I actually really need to pay attention to

because these are the teams. Yeah. And then I go, hey, 20 minutes just went by and you didn't watch the main TV. You just watched Zion and it's that good. It's, it's actually as much fun as the first LeBron year where I couldn't, I just, you know, every night LeBron was on and I go, I went on, I don't care what's going on. Like, I want to see this kid play. And it was rewarded you. It rarely are we rewarded with these kinds of expectations and zion is making guys look like idiots out there and against the lakers like if memphis played

him i'd go you know what like job love watching him too but you know it's a young team they're 500 you'd imagine the lakers gonna slap around a little bit the zion part of it would just be so much fun that i'd probably want that series more than anything i was i, I stopped by and saw some of my NBA entertainment friends on Thursday when I was in Chicago, we were talking about Zion and I was saying like, imagine you're this guy, you're like a six 11 power forward your whole life. Every time there's been a ball in the air that bounced off the rim. And after a while, you're just like, oh, I'm in position a thousand times out of a thousand. I'm jumping up and this rebound is going to go into my hands.

And you go up to go get it like you always do. And then some fucking freak comes in sideways at a 45 degree angle at warp speed and just takes the rebound from you. Imagine what that would feel like. You'd be like, what pointed in my hand? What just happened? How did I not get that rebound?

Where did that human being come from? And he has those moments like five times a game where it's just like, it has no correlation to anything I've seen on a basketball court.

It's really crazy. But the thing is, it's not just like this athlete running around impacting the game. He seals you and then he'll set up in front, and then he puts that big ass on you

and seals you. Oh, I love it. Okay, I'm out of this play, and then you lob it, and he catches you over there. His feet are so quick. The only thing that I could come up with if forced to be like,

okay, what's something that he keeps screwing up? He'll start his dribble a little too out, thinking his momentum and one to two dribble, because there's guys that are one and two dribble guys, and there's'll start his dribble a little too out thinking like his momentum and one to two dribble because like there's guys that are one and two dribble guys and there's guys that can dribble and i'm not saying like he has to be out there like chris paul but he'll he'll drive into some situations where he's not going to get the ball through cleanly but i don't really blame him because literally everything else he does works and you can see there's certain times his second jump or the block that he

had right before the all-star break where the guy threw up the layup and was like, where the hell did he come from? Like, what was that? And it's going to be funny to watch teams play him a second time and see guys not even bother. Like they're going to drive to the rim and then bring it around like the

back of the net, like in hockey, go Steve Nash baseline and like reset it because they're like there's no point if he's there for me to even get the shot off yeah there's a lot of subtle shit going on with him see damn it i knew we're gonna end up talking about him the well that's okay no no the when you said how the seal off and that's such an underrated basketball skill these days where somebody's just like i'm posting posting up in this part of the second square in the block. You're not going to be able to get around me. I'm getting the pass. If they throw

me a half decent entry pass, I'm getting it. You have no chance. It's little things like that with him or the fact that when he passes out of like the double team and it's these hard frozen rope, perfect passes, like catching this shooter, like right at their chest. Oh my, like he's got like pinpoint control. I could talk about Zion all day. We're going to take a break. Then we have a couple more segments and we're done. Let's talk about Square. They make that little white reader that lets anyone take credit cards. Running and growing a business takes so much more than payments. That's why Square built so many more tools that can help like point of sale software, invoices you can send right from your phone,

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hairstylist like Fernando, our guy. Square's most popular guy, right? Who's a bigger Square guy than Fernando on the podcast world? I've never met him. Nobody. I've never heard a Square celebrity like Fernando. Square has tools that can help you

no matter what size or stage of business you're at. See all the ways they can take your business from square one to whatever's next at square.com slash go slash BS loan subject to credit approval and issued by Celtic Bank. Member FDIC. Okay, very quickly. I'm just ripping through this. We both like the Wiggins trade for Golden State when it happened. I now love the Wiggins trade for Golden State. I think it actually was

a potential game changer for them. It's become apparent immediately what he brings to the table for them and also what an interesting fit he's going to be with Curry and Clay when they're all playing together again. Not to mention they got this extra first round pick. Now they have their own first round pick. Minnesota's have their own first round pick. Minnesota's in a year. They have a tradable guy in Wiggins who's only 24. And I just think all around a phenomenal salvage for them. And I think a really good lesson yet again with the NBA,

where if you're trading for a distressed asset on a shitty team that has had not a lot of ups and a lot of downs. Those are the guys to get guys with high pedigree who have not been in a good situation. It's clear, pretty, and this ties into the Draymond thing, which I know you love to talk about. You're putting a guy who has never been with like any sort of a leader really ever. He's had crazy Jimmy Butler, who was a catastrophe in Minnesota from a leadership standpoint, Towns, the captain of the all miserable team. And now you're putting him with Draymond, who's been, Draymond, as you've pointed out over and over again, just a fucking pro this season. Like it would have been so easy for him to say, oh, I have my calf hurts. I'm going to sit out

two weeks or yeah, I'm not going to go hard tonight. And he's just not wired that way. He's playing with, you know, a G league team and he's been going hard and he's really carried himself like a champ. And now you put a guy like Wiggins with him and Wiggins just is not going to dog it with Draymond on his team. It's not happening. So I really liked that trade for them. I know you liked it too, but I wanted to mention that if you want to add anything, go ahead. Love the part of this because you know i've caught him a few more times i bet you there's certain nights he doesn't know he's on his team at least in the beginning um and i don't think there are many players and i know he's not you know look if you max dream on and you made him your number one or two offensive options you'd be making a huge mistake dream on is

unique but he's also a beneficiary of of what he was allowed to do and all the shooting around him like when you play with the two best shooters ever like you're just going to be a different kind of player you just are and you know as much as I always talk about these kind of high usage maybe fake big number guys as I'm trying to sift through like who's a real guy and what helps you win games and who doesn't um you know clay's so perfect because he's all those massive numbers with the lowest usage ever. Yes.

Actually, there's a way to argue that Klay's almost as valuable as anybody because so few people could ever impact a game the way he does having the ball as little as he does. I mean, that should be in his tombstone. Yeah. Not that I'm trying to be morbid here. But Draymond, if other guys are like hey five straight finals we've had this run my dogs you know my guys i don't know i said dogs

i'm trying to sound cool i wasn't even trying to sound cool it just sounded stupid you know i'm out i'm not going to do this i think a lot of stars with his resume and i mean like team accomplishment resume would go i'm out like i'm not really doing this and he's the absolute opposite and i know no one's watching but when you watch it he deserves a ton of credit for that i know you can say he's doing his job and all that stuff a lot of dudes wouldn't do that now as far as the trade i don't think it's if i push back a little though i don't like you saying hey now you have wiggins who's tradable let's see him play better first before we he goes from one of the least tradable contracts to now supposedly tradable because I don't think that's necessary. No, no, I don't mean tradable as in, Oh, what an asset we have now. I mean, you could take his contract, add

either your own first pick or that Minnesota pick or both of them together and get a, get a real top 20 asset is my point. Yeah. He can be the contract in that trade that isn't that much of a poison pill because he's looked okay you know you still want to pay 25 million a year 27 whatever it is but yeah that's uh that's that's the part of it where i go okay you know and the way it was explained to me was positionally fits better small forward russell didn't really fit and by the way the guys of you that are out there dogging steve kerr because he didn't shit on d'angelo russell immediately like who are you and some of these guys in the media that do this thing man where it's like oh the coach said he wasn't leaving then then he left like have you ever had a job

that was important well you know what you don't do you don't just announce your could be plans to everybody yeah so steve kerr wasn't going to trade for russell and go yeah you know what it actually was just a way to kind of salvage the asset post durant don't really like him don't like his game i think he's a little bit of a pig uh probably not a great fit with these three guards doesn't play defense but you know what hell we gave him four years fuck it like you know and then when kerr when they trade him and they're like hey he's not as good of a positional fit like steve kerr didn't portray you. He didn't, technically he lied to you, but honestly, like what kind of criteria are you asking these guys to follow?

Like they're not going to do the thing that you want them to do. It doesn't make any sense, especially with something that's this important. But every time I look at this trade, you just, it's back to what you said. It's a lesson for everybody else. It's very clear that you go,

you have to look at any of the trades in any of these pieces here going, there's a version of this where we had zero. And now we have a contract, as you said, that would add up to somebody else. And we added an extra first round pick. And a guy with some pedigree who's still 24 and,

and might have a chance to get up to go up a notch with the right teammates. And I think the Harrison Barnes thing is a really good example. Harrison Barnes. He is who he is. He's a good teammate. He's not an all-star. He's, you know, somebody that was, they were able to win the title with. I don't think he was. Harrison Barnes gets 20 in a playoff game. You're not shocked. Right. And I think that's what Wiggins can be. All right. Next topic. What's worse for professional sports, the Houston Rockets or the Houston Astros? Rockets.

Because they're fans? By the way, you're going really hard at the Rockets where I feel like you're kind of, you know, it's almost like you're taking my catchphrase here. Is Daryl, is Daryl suggested that you being around me as like, honestly, like you've corrupted me. Yeah. Honestly, anybody that knows the two of us knows that we don't need the other one to convince us. No, we don't show up to work going like, Hey, Bill convinced me into thinking something, but I got to imagine like, Daryl's like, wait a minute, you now too, like you're doing these Rockets.

First of all, you and I have been on the record with Westbrook for a while. Second of all, I've been on the record my entire life is I hate unwatchable basketball. But one of my passion points, I just don't like watching it. Now the Rocket fans can, can do the whole, yeah, we were the villains that we love to be the villains. Like, great. I'll see you in the playoffs. Cause I'm definitely not watching you again during the regular season. I just don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy free throws. I don't enjoy three pointers. I don't enjoy guys lurching into defenders, trying to get calls. I think it sucks. I'm sorry. It's not for me. If it's a better way for them to win basketball games, so be it.

But to me, this is like the freaking devils, that stupid trap they did in the mid nineties. It was like, well, great. You have a better chance to win. Yeah. It's the fucking,

they're the fucking devils. It's like, okay, this is kind of working, I guess, but it makes me want to gouge my eyes out. I can't believe we both knew about the trap from those mid-90s Devils teams. I've never cared about hockey as much since that happened.

That season. Let me zag here for a second, because I did this last week. Yes to everything, but as soon as they went small, we're like, this isn't going to work. It's actually working a little bit better than people thought. Yeah.

When they took a million threes, everybody's like, that's not going to work. It worked. When they put Chris Paul on the team, everybody's like, that's not going to work. I didn't think, I didn't have a problem with it because you know how much I love Chris Paul, but most people were like, well, that's not going to work. And they made it work. They won 65 games. They almost beat the Warriors very well.

Could have won a title so whenever Houston does something different that everybody's like that's not gonna work that's not gonna work it actually has worked a lot better than what everybody predicted are you can you go off of that and then have an open mind you're like wait a minute do I actually need to think that maybe instead of them being beat up physically the disadvantage is that you don't get to play your bigs and that this thing is wide open now because westbrook is after the first start of the season where three months in it was like the worst year of his career yeah he is completely unlike he's also taking i think 29 shots a game in february but it's it's tough it's going better than people thought it's

going better than when like when that tnt graphic went up at that Lakers game and you're like, what are you guys going to do? And like, you don't, you didn't sign anybody. Well, what it's shown is that at least if you're only playing them once, so you're going through your NBA schedule,

you're playing the Mavericks one night, then the Pelicans. Now here come the Rockets and they're playing this really crazy style that's unlike anything you've seen all season.

And I think teams kind of get caught up in the chaos. It definitely happened in the Celtics last Tuesday where they just completely fell apart. Yeah, they had no offense. Houston was great. It was. And I think you have to credit Houston for that because the way they were playing

made Boston completely lose their composure offensively. Same thing with the Lakers. Yeah. And the Lakers. When I say Boston was terrible, I don't mean it like they did it to themselves. Houston did that to them. Yeah.

No question. It throws you off. But here's, here's my big, but we've seen this in a playoff series when somebody is doing a gimmick and somebody can see it over and over again, over a two week span, they figure it out.

And I think it's a gimmick and I don't think it can work for four straight rounds. And the goal, especially when you've given away all your first round picks and you're paying the money that they're paying for this roster, the goal is to win the title. They almost won the title two years ago. They had a good chance to at least make the finals last year and they were a contender heading into this year. And now they're basically relying on a gimmick. And you know, whether I hate watching it or not, I still think, I just don't think it's a good idea. And I'm not really sure why they did it.

And I think the injury risk with Westbrook-Hardin, the defense that they now have to play when those guys were really coasting defensively for a long time, not to mention all the burden they put on P.J. Tucker. I just think it feels like a Hail Mary to me. And it might work for a couple weeks, but I just don't see it. So you think that works?

I know what I'm rooting for because if they win the title, I'm going to move to Canada. Well, so you think they're worse for professional sports than the Astros? At least the Astros were fun to watch Garrett Cole I gotta throw some smoke man alright new game we're gonna play we're gonna do this every week on the Sunday Night Pods in or out

I'm giving you five guys you just tell me if you're in or out Andre Iguodala in or out right now 2020 Andre Andre Godala. I believe he's been incredibly overrated in this whole pursuit of like what he brings, but I'm still in on him and what he, I think Miami needs a guy that's been around a little bit because they like a

lot of these guys are brand new for them. I am right now out, but willing to be talked back in. I think he's too old. I don't like the long layoff. I thought he broke down in the last two playoffs and I'm not sure he's actually going to help them in the way they think. So right now I'm out.

I really respect him. I think he's a future Hall of Famer and I hope I'm wrong and I'll get sucked back in the moment. It looks like he's Andre Goddard, but I just am not sure we're going to see that. Next guy, Al Horford, in or out? Out. I'm out too. No one's ever been more in on this guy, by the way.

I've been one of his number one dudes for a long time, but not only does he not fit with them, it doesn't work, and he looks worse, and I swear to God, I think they signed him to keep him away from guarding Embiid. Hmm. If he was on the Rockets, do you think he would be successful? Yeah, because he can play in and out.

You know, he's a great passer. He can shoot it enough for you to respect it. You know, they don't. That feels like his destiny. Yeah, I don't know what kind of screen stuff, but how they would change it. Because I thought I read something about how little Houston's screening now.

Or maybe in the high screen with the two guys. But maybe they would change it around with Horford. But I want to see Ben Simmons play center for the Houston Rockets. Oh, that would be amazing. Next one. The immediate three-year future of the Brooklyn Nets. Are you in or out?

If I were homeless and Kyrie said you could stay with me, I'd be like, no, I'm going to stay outside. Wow. Okay. I'm going to take that as a no. I think I'm out too. I don't see it. I don't see the roadmap. I don't see how those two, I really have to be talked into that one. The KD thing, him not playing for 18 months basically and coming back, trying to acclimate with Kyrie. It just feels like a lot of your turn, my turn. I don't see it. I don't like saying that about Durant.

I don't want to say that about Durant. I like some of the pieces around him, but I feel like I've been saying that about some of the guys. I actually think they should probably look to move Dinwiddie. You'd heard his name come up a lot before the deadline. And I like everything they're doing there. So part of this feels a little too anti Kyrie ish. Yeah.

Yes. If I, if I had to put, look at it, let me ask you this way. If you had to put money on harmony and success, not necessarily an NBA title, because that's a tough thing to say,

Oh, you have to win NBA title to be proven, but I'm talking like at the end of next year, they're one of the four or five teams you think could win a title harmony or hey you know what kind of sucks is playing with this guy after two years what would be the safer bet that second exactly i think durant will be able to get back to 95 of where he was the question for me i don't doubt that yeah the question for me is whether kairi can be a guy who can play for eight straight months anymore and and I just don't don't think he we've seen it um next guy enter at Aaron Gordon in when he's out of Orlando could he be I don't know could he be a Draymondi five

on the right team yeah yeah I I honestly, I would go for a Theo Ratliff four. Okay. I'm in, I'm in as well. I, I, he was somebody I was really hoping would get traded. Last one.

Landry Shamit. I'm out. I, I, I don't see it. I don't see it in a way where I think the Clippers are hoping he becomes, you know, that, that three point shooter too, that these contenders seem to have. And I don't see it. I, from when I watched him, I just have not been that impressed by him this

year. It seems like he's a half step behind where the game is going. And I don't think he's can be in the top seven of a championship team. So I'm out. I'm in when I've watched them the past two weeks with the Paul George problems. Again, that's the hamstring injury. You know, that's what we're going with here.

I thought he was like the second most ingrained Beverly hasn't played, but it's, you know, Montrez, but I thought he was what the second or, and granted, Beverly hasn't played, but it's Montrez. But I thought he was, what, the second or third most aggressive offensive guy out there. And I like that from somebody that's still this young. He's always been over 40% everywhere he's played from three.

He's about a 10-point guy, not a ton of rebounds, not a ton of assists. And I have a theory on Shamit that if he looked like Luther Vandross, he would have been a top-ten pick, and that he suffers from my theory of Shamit face. And just because his face looks the way it looks. And there's other players that suffer from sham it face. That's why he went 26 because he's still too good of a shooter.

And I actually, I think he finds his, his way. Like you're anti him. Maybe, you know, maybe I'm wrong here, but if sham it looked different, he would have gone higher. And I think I trust him more than you do. So you think if he looked like Omar Epps, we'd be talking about him totally differently? Omar from The Wire, top 15. But you're not saying he's ugly, though. You're saying there's something about his face that you don't,

it makes it when you're watching a basketball game, you don't trust him to come through. No, it's not that. I think when you scout him, what's going on there? You know, Derek White. If Derek White just cleaned it up a little bit, I think people would be like, you know who's a good player? It's Derek White. I think he would have

gone higher in the draft. I was at the Combine. I was watching Derek White at the Combine. I'm like, who's taking it? What's up with this guy? And then the Spurs take him. I go, oh, I guess he's going to be good. He did Turkoglu in the late 2000s he had the he had Shamit Shamit face and it was hard to take him seriously and all of a sudden he's shooting Cleveland out of the Eastern Finals and you're like what that guy yeah it's just you

know you don't really know what it is until you you know it and it's not even like turkle is a really good one um you like this you like this one kyle i've been a great time with shamit kyle's in on shamit face syndrome if uh if anyone has any uh anymore shamit face syndrome all-stars you can email us at the mailbag at the ringer.com we're gonna try to do a theory of the week every week. So the rest of the way, we have 25 weeks left. So one of us has to come up with a theory. So that was our first one. Land your shame at face syndrome.

He's having a, to be fair, he's shooting 41%. That's my point. I mean, from three, he's making two and a half threes a game. He's a 90% free throw, three-point shooter. I get all of it. I mean, from three, he's making two and a half threes a game. He's a 90% free three-point shooter. I get all of it. I get the whole package. I just think when we're actually in the playoffs, I think he's going to end up out there because he can shoot. And this goes back to my whole issue with the Clippers

about who's their best five. I think they're going to talk themselves into Shamit having to be one of the five guys that's out there in the last five minutes of a game. And I think they're going to talk themselves into Shamit having to be one of the five guys that's out there in the last five minutes of a game. And I think it's gonna be a mistake. That's my, can I, can I end on this?

Cause you could say Yoke, it's face, but let's just keep it at Shamit face. Cause I think Yoke, it's definitely fell victim of that. Like, wait a minute. This guy looks like chunk grown up.

Right. He's, I would say he's conquered Shamit face syndrome. He has. And he's's and he's really put it together because we didn't mention denver there which has now become i mean you guys thought milwaukee or houston were bad with me there's not a city that i love more that likes me less uh the variance between my love for the place and their dislike for me that's the greatest one now which is a real shame because i was looking at property there not long ago but i went through

every single number they have. Like literally every number they have is really good except their shooting numbers. But that early, what the hell's going on with Jokic? What's who is Jamal Murray? It is worth pointing out here now that Jokic, if you go back to November, he was 16, 10 and six, 45 from the floor, 24 from three. And in February, he's 27, 12, and 9, 60% overall from the floor, 35, very good for a guy that size from three.

And Jamal Murray is now like 29, 3, and 6. They put together a nice stretch before they had a loss. They had six in a row, that Lakers loss. I still don't love how predictable it is. I don't know because here are the minutes guys for him lately, like in the last few stretches of games. And, you know, the Millsap thing's been in and out, and Porter's been out with this ankle thing.

But here are their top minutes guys. And this is why I go, okay, all the Denver stats are good except the shooting. Jokic and Murray are on fire. The Jokic thing is not an issue anymore, even though he came in just looking absolutely gassed. But here are your top minutes guys for Denver. Jokic, Murray, Jeremy Grant, who hasn't been that good. Gary Harris, who's been awful.

Awful. Will Barton, who's a nice, like, maybe fourth or fifth score on a really good team, but he's kind of their third score all the time. Monte Morris and then Torrey Craig. There's like four names on there, and they're top eight minutes-wise. And Millsap will be back in that mix, but Millsap's a different matchup guy. The rebounding numbers have fallen off. And as much as you and I both like Porter Jr.

and wonder why they're so weird with the way they use him, especially when they're missing other guys at times. And again, he has the ankle thing right now. I know what every number tells me, and I know what those two guys have shown me, but I know when I look at some of their top eight, seven-minute guys, I go, I'm supposed to pick them to win three rounds in the West? Well, it's what I just said with the Clippers. Who's your five when it really matters?

Exactly. Game six on the road. You're down four with five minutes left. Who are your five guys? And Gary Harris can't be one of them. Who are the Lakers? Who are the Lakers five guys? Because you want to play that game with the Clippers.

I have your answer. I think it's LeBron. It's Davis. It's Danny Green. It's Avery Bradley. And then it's like whatever guard that Vogel thinks can hit a three in the corner.

So then Caruso. Whoever. Whoever's made a couple threes earlier. That's why it's amazing they didn't address this. And that's why when we talked about Tristan Thompson, what they really needed was, you know, the miraculous buyout guy who could be the guy who hits the big three in the corner. And I don't know who that guy is in their team.

The Lakers fans would say it's Kuzma, but I think we have a pretty big sample size now of the green with Kuzma, with Davis and Le lebron just kuzma can't seem like he can find his footing and i don't think you can play him with those guys kuzma's taking more threes you can do more things than caruso i trust caruso a little bit more um they're phasing caruso out there near the end of the all-star heading into the all-star bradley i mean bradley's been on fire yeah he's been so good that I almost go, well, what's sustainable about this thing?

Well, he's going to get hurt. He always gets hurt. We shouldn't have mentioned Kuzma earlier in that, but you didn't even put him in the five. I didn't because he's not playing that well. There's some weird numbers with them, like LeBron off the court. What a disaster they turn into.

I think they've hit this kind of weird stretch. I think everybody hits not just one, but multiple weird stretches. But it's weird that they're like this one seed and it feels like, do we really know who they are? But I don't, you know, with those two guys, like I'm not really worried about them. I'm not either. Yeah. Let me just say that. I'm not sitting here being anti-Lakers or worried about it because I'm just not.

But there's some rotational stuff that I still don't think they figured out like a lot of teams. It's funny. Those two guys are so good. They have as many rotation questions and who's, who's out there with five minutes left questions as anybody. And I just worry less about it because I just feel like those two guys are going to,

it's going to be like what we saw in the all-star game tonight. At some point, alpha dog force will athleticicism, all that shit. And LeBron will probably Jedi mind trick Avery Bradley into making threes that he's never made in a playoff game before. Before we go, I was watching the town. We did a rewatch of what was in the town already. So they robbed Fenway.

And then they leave Fenwayway Jem has the one bag Affleck doesn't even take a bag and they go Jem ends up getting gunned down leaves the bag so that bag's gone so all of the money they took from Fenway they didn't get any at all

Affleck goes to Fergie the Florist, kills the guy in the front, has the shootout with Fergie, kills him. Sick tat, by the way. Sick tat. Right. The mass tat.

I'm getting that. I'm going to get on my back, though. Takes the Fergie the Florist money. How much money do you think he took from Fergie the Florist? Because it was enough to fund an ice skating rink, also to get away and to now live in seclusion and see Estakia or wherever he went,

where he got that little ramshackle thing. How much money did he actually take from Fergie the florist? And then secondary question, how much money could Fergie the florist have even had there? Like 25,000, 40,000? Like what's a realistic number for this Charlestown florist who runs drugs? Or am I totally going under and he had like $2 million in there somewhere? Hey, Dougie McRae wasn't afraid to spend a little cash either.

True. You know, like you look at that truck. It was one of the things she figured out. Now as a writer, I think what they were trying to do yeah is instead of like taking all the money from fenway after they killed a bunch of people um you know that he doesn't bring the bag so now he's stealing from a guy who's worse than him yes the audience doesn't feel as guilty that's a little trick we do and uh after after they murdered 10 policemen but i still still rooting for affleck to get away yeah yeah rude for him to get out of there but first of all grand i mean like 200 grand is not enough to retire he's a young guy

how much does it cost to completely redo an ice skating rink? Because I always thought that was kind of expensive. Yeah, that's going to be close to six figures, right? I'm going to be honest with you. If I'm on the lam, I'm probably not donating a hundred grand to a hockey rink. So you're saying you wouldn't stop on your way out

to go dig a hole in your old girlfriend's garden to jam a whole bunch of cash there and then escape. That wouldn't have been on your agenda. Me? Definitely not. You're out. I mean, no, I would have been like, I'm going to meet somebody at Hooters in Sarasota.

I like that. Affleck had, he had the uniforms of every relevant Massachusetts, whatever. He had the MBTA. He had police. He had FBI. He had paramed Massachusetts, whatever. He had the MBTA, he had police, he had FBI, he had paramedics, whatever. He was like, had the greatest Halloween store ever. I don't know where he got all this stuff. He really did. I imagine people that work for public transit, cops, firemen, all the EMTs. I bet you back then people were living in southie yeah and what would be easier than just bribing the dry cleaner and they're going to just be able to get another uniform from the from the town anyway so you drive you bribe the dry cleaner he throws you

a couple uniforms although now you know people start asking questions hey you had any emt outfits go missing so i don't know if you want to keep your circle in a little bit tighter i think yeah i don't know are you saying a year later you found this fatal flaw in the script year later it was like 10 years later no i don't think he i don't think he kept a lot for himself because if you look at the place he was living at the tail end they had that wide shot and it's basically a shack i mean it looks like he's not living in South beach in some condo. Like he's in the keys somewhere in the cheapest possible shack, just staring out in the ocean, wondering why he didn't, what if that ice skating rink was worth it in Charlestown, maybe he should have just kept the money. I believe man has like, you know, this is a, this is a gender thing, but I believe man

always has this fascination of just packing a bag and leaving and starting over. Or maybe that's just me. Do you think you'd be good at it? It's like Neil and Heat, right? You don't have anything you can't leave in 30 seconds when the heat's around the corner. That was Doug McCracken. Your go bag, yeah. Yeah.

I got bored once. I put a go bag together. But it was like, you know, I hope it wasn't a week ago. No, no, no.

It was, it was, I don't know why I did it. Like I just started like, and then you go, hey, you know, you're like,

you work for Disney, right? Like, you know that, you know, you don't even, you don't even like weed. Yeah. I was like, I think you're good here. Kyle's going to just come into my office one day and say, Rosilla's gone.

What do you mean he's gone? He's gone. There's no trace of him. He just left a note. He said, he'll see me on the other side. I don't know what it meant. I'll leave you a note, Bill. I promise you that. Bill, I'll see you on the other side. I don't know what it meant. I'll leave you a note, Bill. I promise you that.

Bill, I'll see you on the other side. Ryan, it's been real. Best of luck. Well, we made this work. We weren't together this week, but we did it on the phone. In future weeks,

at least most of the time, we'll be together and we'll be able to see each other. But Ryan Russillo, your podcast is going to be Tuesday and Thursday this week. And we're also taping a Rewatchables that going to run this next week. So thanks as always. And we

will see you on your podcast on Tuesday. Thanks to ZipRecruiter and thanks to Square. They're more than a little white credit card reader. It's a whole system of tools built to run and grow any kind of business from point of sale and payroll to invoices and online stores. Go to square.com slash go slash BS to see all the ways you can take your business from square one to whatever's next. We're not going to be back here on the BS feed until Thursday, but we have a new book of basketball podcast coming tomorrow night,

and we have a new Rewatchables podcast coming Tuesday night. I'm on both of those. Check out the hottest take on Spotify as well if you want to hear me. We have one we did this week about whether kids should be allowed on airplanes anymore. Van Lathan had some theories. Check that out. That's going to be on the hottest take. See you later in the week. I don't have a few years with him on the wayside I'm a person

I never was I don't have a few years you