The Bill Simmons Podcast - An Immortal Giannis Game and Milwaukee’s Title with Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Bucks winning the NBA Finals! They discuss Giannis’s historic 50 points, legacy implications, winners and losers, Suns and Bucks offseason moves, and a look ahead to the NBA draft, before discussing the HBO Max series ‘The White Lotus.’ Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com as well as The Ringer Podcast Network. We have our new documentary coming on HBO, the first one from our Music Box series that we're going to be doing this year. This is about Woodstock 99. It premieres on Friday on HBO and on HBO Max. In celebration, we did a rewatchables about another momentous thing that happened in 1999. This was a little more positive.

Fight Club. Me and Chris Ryan broke that one down, invited Rossella to be on, but he decided to do Chad Ford's podcast instead. That's fine. We taped it earlier

in the week, though. That's fine. I filed it away. We also have, what is it? This is the end week on The Ringer. A bunch of good stuff

coming on on that as well. Yeah, well, it's like is the end week on the ringer. A bunch of good stuff coming on on that as well. Yeah, well, it's like things that kind of came to an end. All kinds of pieces. It's good. Like the doors. Yeah. Coming up, Rosillo's in surprisingly good spirits. Chris Paul's finals run ended.

Milwaukee is super happy. Giannis is a superhero. We're going to talk about all of it next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're still here. We're doing this the first time we've been in person together since, man, what? Maybe March 2020, pre-pandemic. Yeah, because it used to come up.

I mean, I like the routine. So, yeah, I mean, honestly, not that we want to start this with a non-sixers Ben Simmons after the Bucs just won. But, yeah, you've got a big family now. Yeah. My son has grown eight inches since the last time you saw him. Literally, he's unrecognizable. He's like Giannis from his draft. Yeah, that's true.

They showed that Giannis graphic where he grew three inches and gained 60 pounds. Yeah, it seems like more than three. So tonight, it seemed like the Bucs were going to win and it seemed like Giannis was going to have a great game. Then everyone on NBA Countdown, they picked the Bucs. Jalen turned around and yelled to 65,000 people, I had my Bucs in six bet. And I'm like, I'm screwed. Hammered, by the way.

Good for you. I'm screwed. I stayed away. I didn't hedge. But this became the Giannis game. This was a Giannis superhero event. He was the story of these finals. He was the story of the last four weeks.

He is at a completely different place historically. And I got to say, Rossello, one of the best finals games I've ever seen anyone play. I was not alive for Bob Pettit. We can go through some of the other ones from the past. But that was as good as any LeBron game I've ever seen. That was as good as any Larry Bird game I've ever seen. That was a phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal performance on a night where his teammates, nobody was really great

other than him. Just Bobby Portis, I guess it was good, but just an incredible performance by a guy who deserved to win the title. Yeah. You know what? I think when it's, when you're watching it all, like it just has felt so genuine with him forever. And let's face it, I mean, Milwaukee's an awesome basketball city. You know, Phoenix is actually a great basketball city too. So you felt bad. Like when you look at the ratings, you're like, okay, this, but as far as the passion of both of these cities and the fan bases that are like, these are really good basketball fan bases. So to see Giannis, you know, like everybody's probably wondering like, Hey, how are you doing with the Chris Paul thing? We'll get to that later. Yeah. Cause it's just, you can't do that before

what you saw from like, it reminded me a bit of like the Dwayne Wade finals for his first title where it was like, you know what? Dallas just can't do anything with this guy right now. And a lot of it was free throws. And that's the other thing. I mean, I'm not even I'm not talking about the calls. The fact that Giannis, who becomes this guy that you're like, you know what? How many times can you go to him late in a playoff game because he can't make his free throws? And then he makes them all.

I mean, if he's back to normal, Giannis, we're to phoenix for game seven and he goes 17 and 19 and he's just had these stretches throughout this finals where i think it was fair to worry about him in the net series which i want to get to kind of his timeline of this year and then further it out in his career but there's just this genuine part of him that i'm look let's's be honest. There's certain dudes, if they were running around tonight, celebrating a championship deep down, you're like, uh, and with Giannis, I would think he probably has one of the highest approval ratings of any stars in the league, both by other players and also by just, you know, neutral fans in general. So I'm happy for him. We did, we both discussed this on our podcast over the last couple of days, how this was the best outcome for the NBA in a lot of ways, because it's basically like, if you think

of the NBA, like NBC in the mid 1990s, where they have friends in the ER, and then they're always trying to get that second spot behind friends, Boston common, suddenly Susan and all those, they're just trying and trying the NBA. We kind of thought we knew who the stars were, right? And we thought we had Giannis pigeonholed as the certain guy who won the two MVPs and everyone was like, all right, we're good. He's not winning a third one. He was the all-star captain against LeBron, but hadn't even sniffed the finals yet. And it just felt like, all right, he's kind of maybe just a snitch below, right. And then he completely changes everything. He's

the number one guy in the league. He's now the best player in the league. He's the number one asset in the league. I would say he's probably the most liked player in the league right now. You're just talking about, you said approval rating. Yeah. Like the Q rating. I brought that up in my pod this week. Like they used to do studies on all of us and be like how likable you were and what your you were and what your positives were and what your negatives were. And look more so like you and I probably could already figure that out, but yeah, you know, GMA, you know, the today show, they research this stuff.

That's why you'll see like certain, like really chipper meteorologists have decades long careers because their Q ratings are high because there's just so much more positive about it than there is negative. And for someone like Giannis, it's, it that I just don't think there were a lot of people watching him tonight rooting against him. I don't think there are all sorts of Bulls fans, even if we're talking about geographically close, that were mad. I don't think there's a bunch of Miami Heat fans that were mad. There are so many other players that you would just go, okay, there's so many guys rooting against a handful of other names we can come up with.

Hell, even LeBron, that I'd imagine a lot of guys that were just watching it love the nba were happy for him at the end of this thing and that's kind of how i feel i mean dude 50 points i mean this is will chamberlain stuff except he won you'd think like the fuck this guy theory right when somebody's successful and then the backlash comes and there's the fuck this guy almost comes in if you're at like a bar in manh Manhattan Beach in two weeks and there's a group of people and they're talking about the finals and somebody in the group is like, you know who I fucking hate is Giannis.

Fuck that guy. You'd be like, what? Why? You'd almost be stunned. It's pretty hard for an NBA player to get to that point. I think Steph got there in the mid-2010s. I think LeBron got there early in his career, like somewhere in the 2008 range.

The Detroit series, which by the way, as you mentioned, this is better than any LeBron playoff game. I don't know. I might push back a little just because of how special that Detroit game was. I just think it was bigger stakes. Yeah, right. Finals compared to Eastern Conference. You got it. You win. But I mean, that was just

LeBron going. I, and the other thing. I still think that LeBron game where he wore 25 straight points and beating a Pistons team with that. It was amazing. I think that was one of the best playoff performances. But I'm just talking finals. It's not a clinching game six. You're right.

Right. There's a different energy in the building for these games. And you could feel it. Like we were watching the first couple of minutes. That was one of the worst stretches of basketball I've watched all season. Four minutes. It was like, can somebody call a timeout? Neither coach knew if they should be the one that called the timeout.

Everybody was so tight. Nobody could hang on to the basketball. You're like, what is this? You guys playing a 21? Right. So once it settled down and it was clear like, oh, we're headed for this terrible Drew Holiday game. He was one for 11 at one point. It's like, I talked about this in my pod two days ago.

This is the scenario for the Suns to win. One of the things that needed to happen was for Drew to suck. He sucked offensively. He was good defensively. And they have the 29-18 lead and they blow it.

Phoenix comes roaring back and nobody in Milwaukee is playing well except Giannis. And Giannis just, he just figured out how to play the Suns team. He figured out Aiton completely.

He just solved them. It was like watching a receiver torch the same cornerback over and over again. Right? Go left on him. Go right. He could jump hook him. He could just draw fouls. They're putting anyone else on him.

He could just get around the rim. And he just figured out over the course of, I think, two rounds, I have more size and strength than anyone in the league. And I cannot be stopped. And I'm just going to, over and over again, hit people over the head. The Aiton stuff is really frustrating, though, because I think him getting into foul trouble in this game

changes everything because they have no depth. They had to go to Frank Kaminsky for real minutes and be like, hey, can you help us keep this thing alive and bring us to a game seven, which is asking a lot of Frank Kaminsky, especially when you're talking about defensively. What I don't like about the way it's called, if they ram into each other like two young mountain goats,

that should just be... There's a lot of physical stuff they're letting go in this series. But these are the calls LeBron started to get, like what, six years into his career, where he's like, I'm going in the basket, and if you bounce off me, I'm going free-throwing. That's kind of the part of it where you're like all right well we don't have like then there's nothing we can do and then there's no depth behind him so when ayton's out of the game whether you go back

to game three where i think he only played 24 minutes but the other part of it too is ayton was terrible offensively and this is the part of the ayton storyline where even at its peaks it was really great and now you have something you feel really good about as a building block moving forward if you're a Suns fan. But I think anybody that's really locked into DeAndre at times, like he was, you know, look, I mean, this is his first time ever. He's in a clinchy game trying to keep this thing going. But he was bad offensively.

I do have sympathy for, though, his defensive stuff because you're basically just ramming into Giannis and meeting him at some sort of collision, which is sort of initiated kind of by both players. So some people could say it's a foul every time. And Milwaukee's home, too. The refs are always going to... The fouls thing was...

Hey, look, 17 fouls called in Milwaukee, 21 on Phoenix, 10-plus free throws. It was relatively the same. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think the Giannis free throw thing, I mean, that's really what this was. Again, if he's normal Giannis from the free throw line, what he did tonight,

and then when he got into a rhythm, I actually think you shoot him quicker too. You know, it didn't feel... Well, here's why you could... I'm going to go through the list for you of the greatest kind of closeout games. I think the thing... So he's 50 points, 14 rebounds.

He only misses two free throws. 16 for 25, 42 minutes, five blocks. Five blocks too. And like nasty full effort. And that's the other thing with him. Full effort. Like that play, it looked like he got hurt. Right. The Booker play where Booker actually finished. And I think that's when you talk about him versus some of the other guys I'm about to give you. It was the two-way stuff. And then on top of it, you don't want to go back to Phoenix. You don't really have anyone else helping you.

So at some point he realizes, if I don't do this, we're not winning tonight. So there's that factor. And then the free throws and the fact that over again in game three. But the big ones. So Pettit in 1958, 50 points. Game six, the only one of two finals,

Russell loses. Russell has a sprained ankle, misses basically the whole series, plays on one leg in game six. The only one of two finals Russell loses. Russell is a sprained ankle, misses basically the whole series, plays on one leg in game six, and Pettit destroys him. And it's why Pettit has to be in any top 25 ever. He's not only one of the best scoring forwards of the last 60 years,

but destroys Russell. He is somebody, historically, when you go back and look it up, he's never brought up enough. No, and he's like the Barkley Malone kind of of that era, but actually won the finals. So he's in there. You have 1980 Magic, famously, no Kareem.

Does the triple-double jump center. Awesome game. Jamal Wilkes is great in that game too. You have the MJ Utah game, 1998, which I still think is the greatest game anyone's ever played because he's got Pippen with the bad back. He's got, we talked about this when we did the whole, all the MJ content. Rodman's basically an alcoholic at that point.

He wins the finals by himself. 2003, Duncan almost had a quadruple double in the closeout game and just demolished the Nets. I think it's because it wasn't a great Nets team. I think people haven't given that the respect that it was due. He's just go back and watch that game on YouTube. Then you had the big game, James, in 1988, where he had, I think, 37, 39, something like that, just over and over again, delivering.

And then there's a 77 Walton game where he's 20, 23 rebounds, like five blocks. And it's just like two way. His passing. He's controlling everything. Yeah. it's just like two way, his passing, all the stuff he did. Yeah, he's just controlling the game. You could make a case that this was the best one, at least since the Magic game. I mean, I'm sorry, at least since the Jordan game.

And it's in that conversation. And that's why this is such a significant night. Wherever you rank it, and it doesn't really matter. And a lot of us weren't even there for some of those games. It's a short list. And Giannis is now on that list. And he's on a matter. And a lot of us weren't even there for some of those games. It's a short list. And Giannis is now on that list.

And he's on a list with Pettit and Walton and Duncan and Jordan and Magic. And then James Worthy, if you just want to throw in the randos. Sam Jones had some good ones too. But that's why it's such a significant night. It's more than a title. At some point, you're talking about legacy and history. And we're going to have the 75th anniversary coming up. He was not on that list.

He was not one of the best 25 players ever. He wasn't going to be mentioned with Shaq and Akeem and Moses. And now he's there, and that's it. That's how it plays out. Yeah, those are the rules. And this is how fragile it all is, too. And if you look at it now, Giannis, 26, 27, I think at the end of the year, right? Yep.

Third player in league history to have an MVP, defensive player of the year, finals MVP in a season. And that's with Hakeem and Jordan. All right. So when you start, I made this joke about the Lou Dort awards because I think offensively we've seen an explosion that wasn't always corrected at certain points throughout the playoffs. This was a grinded out type of deal.

So this isn't 50 with like all the bullshit. This is 50. Again, 50 is 50. Hard 50. Like dunks under the basket, reverse dunks, alley-oops. This is 50, again, 50. Hard 50, like dunks under the basket, reverse dunks, alley-oops. This is 25 on 25 shots. And it's all of the effort around it.

And so this is, this is something I do think it's important to bring up. We know as a draft pick and you look at it, you're like, all right, I don't know what to do with this guy.

You know, physically he's gifted. He was playing against really, really lower competition. So it was kind of absurd whenever you watch any of it. And I did. I compared it to Paul George at the the draft that's what we thought it was we thought it was a six foot nine forward right if paul george was like forced to watch his brother at a junior

high game and also played in it yeah right okay exactly and i think even george who was raw had had a little bit even more polish which you know is saying something because george was raw all right so then you know the beginning of his playoff career isn't that great although you know it was almost like retroactively more dismissive because they blew the 2-0 lead to toronto which again was a really good toronto team in like uber kawaii they had overtime in game three exactly so that could have been an nba finals at a really young age here we're talking 24 for yannis all right so he wins the mvps in back-to-back years, and then last year they get blasted by the Heat. So then you start rethinking all of this. And this

is kind of how the ebbs and flows of it all, right? With all of these guys before they actually get to this category. Well, now you have that ring and you have it in your back pocket, and you're going to have it in your back pocket for the rest of your career. So it's kind of a tiebreaker. It's the settler. So then he wins the mvp and then they've made adjustments they're a three seed he's still putting up insane numbers but we're over it now right like the same way we're over it with curry and back-to-back mvp years where it felt like after they blew the three one lead there's all this animosity now and like the warriors aren't cool so now i don't know that curry can ever win another mvp even though again he got back into the conversation this year so

then when you look at all of the concerns that we had about the Bucs offensively, which we thought were totally legitimate, like not attacking Harden, Bud might have been fired if Durant's foot wasn't behind the line. We both think Carlisle would be the Bucs coach if Durant's foot. I don't know if it would have done it to him, but go ahead. Well, I think that's what would have happened. I think Bud would have gotten fired,. I think Bud would have gotten fired. And I think they would have hired Rick Harlow.

And so think of the other conversations that we're having. As you're watching the Durant-Yannis series play out, you're like, look, Yannis is awesome. He's MVP. But we can't ever put him in that category with Durant. Durant went toe-to-toe with him and he was slightly better. And a carryover from last year, like peak Anthony Davis, which isn't cool right now because he's hurt all the time which makes us forget how insane it is and I think he's behind Jordan LeBron all time in playoff PER yeah third all time in NBA history I don't know what it is now maybe it's down because the injury but it was like look who would you rather have have to give you a bucket and you're

like well Anthony Davis because there's so much more to him so that's how fragile right but that I mean that's kind of my point though is that that's how fragile this stuff. Right. But that's kind of my point, though, is that that's how fragile this stuff was, that I think all of those concerns and the critiques and the ranking of being like, look, when a couple of weeks ago when I'm saying like, yeah, we can't really, let's remind ourselves to never put Giannis in that group with KD.

Now, after this game is closed out and the series is over, that seems like an absurd thing. You just called it his league, and it's hard to argue against it, even though, again, that point of two weeks ago I thought, two and a half weeks ago. Four weeks ago. Yeah, right. Well, think the KD thing, though. The reason we thought, heading

out of that series, the Bucs won, but KD is the best player in the league because it was like nobody else could do what KD just did in those last couple games when he basically had an ice cold Joe Harris, hardened on one leg, Blake Griffin, and it was like... If you get a D-plus version of Joe Harris, it's at any point

in that series. So it's like, well, the difference between KD and Giannis, as great as Giannis was in those last couple games, is like, well, he couldn't if you flip teams, the Bucs still win and the Nets don't do as well with Giannis. I think what was amazing about him and this, really since he came back from the

knee, was I thought he reached that Durant Nets level where there was stuff going on with him offensively. It was really like watching somebody figure it out. The only experience I can compare it to is like if you have kids and you have a kid that in fourth grade is something, and then in fifth grade, you're like, oh shit, I didn't realize they could do that now. Or like fifth grade to seventh grade, whatever. I, it's pretty rare to see somebody in their mid twenties actually add shit. Like he did like LeBron added a low post game as he got older, but he was like, he peaked in 2013, right? He just got kind of better at everything. Yeah. I don't know. He caught the ball in the post. I never felt like he was just working people.

I'm saying by 2018, he tapped into the power, like that famous Warriors game he had, where he realized how to overpower people, which he didn't know really how to do the first half of his career. But all of it made sense, the progression. The progression that Giannis had in the last four weeks, I think is, is pretty surreal because he was somebody that in the last four minutes,

I just didn't trust. So now you're comfortable then saying that he is Durant and closing a game because I'm not comfortable with that. I am comfortable in saying that his decision-making in the last four minutes, his choices, his made. How about the passing in game five of Phoenix? His passing in game five, the screens he was setting for Middleton, and then knowing when to roll to the rim hard and Al Upes went to just use his strength when there was no other option.

I was really impressed. I mean, obviously impressed, but I just didn't think he had it in him. And I know you didn't either because we've talked about him a bunch of times. I didn't think that he was somebody I still would want Ty he had it in him. And I know you didn't either, because we've talked about him a bunch of times. I didn't think that, you know, he was somebody I still would want, you know, Ty's score 40 seconds left

because, you know, I wasn't sure, especially when you factored in this guy, all of a sudden was a massive regression at the free throw line. But I mean, if this is what you're going to give me, then it kind of changes everything. And the fact that like, here's the thing that I always came back to,

because I think all the criticisms were fair, but one thing you can always build on is like who's comfortable and who isn't. And I think, I think we saw some people throughout this series that were comfortable and not so comfortable all the time. And with him, there was never a doubt. And it's the thing that I love about him. I loved it.

Like back when Philly and the Bucks were kind of first going at it with all their guys in some of these regular season games. And I brought this up before, but watch the way Giannis would go to Embiid and almost be excited to be like, let's see if he can block this shit. Yeah. He's like, I'm going to just go right at you.

So when you have a guy that has that kind of heart, that kind of fight, and then afterwards, he was so sincere and just seemed like how much he cared about this. That's an incredible personality trait emotion to build on. And so there's more skilled guys. I mean, let's not freak out too much here. But there is never, ever wavering.

That's six straight finals games. I don't know. Are there that many skilled guys? Like the 360 spin moves he was doing and the stuff he does in the air. I think Duran at seven feet tall, like pulling up dribble is like as smooth as hell. Here's one guy who made a jump.

And it was a subtle jump, but it was a jump. Like Hakeem in the 94 and 95 seasons where he was already an MVP candidate. He was already one of the best players in the league. But in those two postseasons, 94 and 95, he went to another level. He figured out some...

The game slowed down for him in a way that I felt like the game slowed down a little bit for Giannis because it always felt like he was pressing. It felt like there were ways you could stop him. It was like watching a quarterback. It was like Peyton Manning in the 2000s where you're just like, alright, in the playoffs, Belichick's going to come up with some defense to slow him down. Giannis finishes. Actually, let's take a break because I got more stuff to cover.

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The smart approach is to look at the facts. Like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare you for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. So Giannis finishes the finals. House and I went through all these stats on Sunday. Giannis had 210 points in six games, which puts it, which puts him at,

uh, at 35, a game for the finals. He was basically 35, 13 and six, which you go through history and it's as good as anything. It's as good as any Shaq season, except for 2000 Shaq,

38, 17. It's as good as the Hakeem seasons. It's, it's up there with anything. It's as good as any Shaq season except for 2000 Shaq 3817. It's as good as the Hakeem seasons. It's, it's up there with anything, the two way stuff. But I think tonight, you know, is his opus. I'm really glad I was saying to you as we were watching it with my degenerate son, I really wanted him to get to 50. It felt 50 just felt like he deserved it compared to 49. Now we could say Giannis is 50. I love the Bob Pettit parallel of Pettit having the 50 famously in 1958, although not famous for anybody under 40. Or 60. Or 60.

On YouTube, by the way, there's some Pettit footage. When I first saw it, I was like, whoa. And then I called my dad, Bob Pettit. He goes, oh, yeah. Well, Bob, if you go and watch him on YouTube, there's some running skyhooks. I don't know where I stumbled on him doing some interviews. He was just in a room in a chair.

He's just alpha. Big Southern guy. Total alpha. So he was the seventh 50-point guy ever. That's nuts. Seven guys. I was trying to think, was that better than any LeBron game I've ever seen? I don't want to turn this into a

Skip Bayless reason to denigrate LeBron. The greatest LeBron game I ever saw in person was the Celtics game six. Oh, not game one against the Warriors? Well, I'm saying that they ended up winning. Oh, okay. Game one in 2018 was the best I'd ever seen him play, but they lost.

You know, this was before we were tight, but you texted me being like, hey, was that the greatest game? Because I sat here and you were like, I think it's the greatest single game I think I've seen somebody play. It was the greatest game I've seen someone play in person. Yeah, okay. That's what it was. And it was basically, it became him against the Warriors, and he almost beat this incredible Warriors team.

This game's in the conversation because of the two-way stuff. Plus he won. Because there was a couple moments where we were like, wow, they're going to lose this? He's going to do this

and they're going to lose? Because nobody else, remember it was 192. Portis had that wide open three in the corner, missed it. That's right. And within a blink,

all of a sudden it was 196. And then Middleton made the most important shot of his career. Yeah. Middleton's jumper for, you know, his, you asked me weeks ago, like, Hey, do you think of Middleton any differently? I was like, well, no, it's kind of exactly what it is. Like the times it's super impressive. I will leave this series being more impressive. Middleton just that there's a, there is a ceiling there. And then he hit the shot. He kind of hit the deciding shot to put this one away because Phoenix at 102-96 ran a great play to get Booker free, who was awful tonight. He is bad. And his seventh miss from three, 0-7. But that would have

been 102-99. And then, you know, Middleton shuts the door. Good Coach Bud strategy tonight. He basically was like, let's let Chris Paul beat us. We're going to put Holiday and Booker as much as we can. We're going to really worry about Booker. We do not want Booker to get going. And if Chris wants to shoot 27 times today, God bless him. Look, I saw it in the regular season

because these two teams played some great games there. And you could see at times when Booker locked in or Drew locked in on Booker, you were like, wait, this is that defensive Drew Holiday thing that you're like, oh, wow, this is really good. And Booker has problems with him. And what Booker never figured out is that when you stop and you don't really know what you want to do, then you're dead. And Drew got him a couple times. I mean, look, the strip at the end of game five was Booker not knowing what he wanted to do, right? It was, the shot clock was still in play.

So he was kind of like, do I go now? Do I not go now? Oh, wait, I should have run more clock. And now I'm like in between decisions. And now Drew Holiday's all over your ass. And in that spot, he was helping. He had a couple plays tonight. Look, Booker just wasn't good tonight he just wasn't good he missed a million shots chris paul look that game four is gonna hang on him forever he was terrible in it

i'm not let's not have that yet yeah hold the chris paul well i didn't know what else we were doing so i'm well i think the booker thing and we saw with holiday too and you have these finals and the recency bias of like that guy is who he is just because of the way he played the last game. And Booker was up and down. He looks like a superstar. He had two awesome games in a row. But I think it's a lot to ask really any two guard to have three straight 40-point games.

He played 46 minutes tonight too. But that's not why he didn't shoot it well. He was bad the whole night. Three free throws. He wasn't really creating shots. They basically shut out all the side stuff, the corner three stuff, the slashing kick. The corner three numbers

for this series. I don't know what the total's going to be for tonight. What do you think they were on threes? They were in the 20s, right? 20%, 24%? Six or 25. Yeah. 24%. Remember when Mikael Bridges and Cam Johnson used to take corner threes?

Remember when that happened? They had taken 30 corner threes total through five games, and 17 of them were in game two. And then when you think in your head of all the snapshot images of the Phoenix offense, you're like, oh, that's right. They didn't take those anymore. They just, they, I don't know, man. We know what else they were really good with,

Jay Crowder open threes. They just made the decision, knock yourself out. And I thought Chris Paul and Phoenix figured some stuff out here because they figured out a pretty good action with Aiton, and then you could see it in the second quarter. And then they were setting a screen where anytime Chris Paul got Giannis, he didn't want to attack him. I mean, there's a couple times it it happened it was actually a great shot in game

five he got him once in game six but they would re-screen it they would set another screen it was kind of screwing milwaukee up and you could feel like phoenix was getting in a rhythm because as we were watching the game i'm going like yannis is going nuclear here and you know phoenix was up 47 42 where's the hell it was42, a bucket into the third quarter. And I'm like, what if Phoenix actually steals this thing? Yeah, 49-45, Bridges missed that dunk. It was 49-42 in the first possession of the third. I had 49-45, Bridges misses the two-hand dunk,

which you never see. No. And it did feel like a momentum switch a little bit. Brooke Lopez had a nice little stretch. Yeah, he made a couple Bob Pettit-like moves. Yeah, there was one thing I wrote down because they came out of a graphic. It was 58-55.

Giannis had 29 points at that point. And they had a thing where the Bucs were without Giannis. Everyone else was two for 19 since the second quarter. So to say that he carried them, there's a quarter and a half where nobody else on the team is making a shot. They made two shots in a quarter and a half. They had at one point in the second quarter, the non-Yannis shots were one of 15. Holiday was one for 11.

What did Holiday finish? He was terrible. Yeah, he was four for 19. But defensively, he He was... No, he was terrible. Yeah, he was four for 19. But defensively, he's the one that took Booker out. So... Yeah. Yeah, it was weird. That's kind of the Drew Holiday they traded for.

He's not a consistent offensive player. He can have good nights. And he was a Hall of Famer in Game 5. Like, think about some of the... And a Hall of Famer in that Game 6 Atlanta. That was one of the best games any guard played the entire playoffs. Think about the Nets game where he hit the side of the back

Board and you're like can you give us Two minutes you never like Some of the stuff gets so ridiculous you're like we're not gonna Sit anybody you know you're not gonna run Bryn Forbes as the point guard But I mean he looked Mentally shattered in that Nets game And then he scored like eight points to close

It out so we had A it was 98-90. Booker missed. Looked like Middleton got the rebound, but then Crowder pulls his jersey, mauls him, somehow gets the ball, no call. Eight and layup. It's 98-90.

Buck stop. Jay Crowder, wide open three. Could have been 98-95, misses. Then 192, Port, wide open three. Could have been 98-95 misses. Then 192. Portis misses the three. Booker layup, Middleton turnover. Crowder, two free throws. Leading to the Middleton clutch two. Timeout, 102-96.

And then they call a great timeout or a great play coming out of the timeout. Booker, wide open three. Missed it. And that's the game. That was it. Booker just didn't have it tonight. And, you know, we'll see. We'll see if he ever, I was thinking about him tonight. Like, will he get this close again in Phoenix?

A lot of things came together for that team this year. And they caught a really good Chris season. Who knows how many of those are left. They caught some Lakers injury breaks and some Denver injury breaks. Kawhi goes down before the Clipper series. And you just think like, this is, this might be it. This is the best shot. This is the best shot.

Like how I felt about the Celtics last year. It's not being unfair. They got incredibly lucky throughout it. But I still, you know, you want to be respectful. Because it's like, hey, sorry, we didn't lose more guys. You know, like what are you supposed to do? Apologize if you're Phoenix. But you're up 2-0 in this thing.

And can I just, well, we'll get to it a little bit later. No, let's do Chris now. Well, the Chris Paul, now the four-blown 2-0 lead thing that's making the rounds, it's such bullshit. And I guess everybody's just going to say

I'm like protecting them. One of them is against the Spurs in a seven-game series in 2008. 08 Spurs, right? Yeah, 08 Spurs. The next time is against Memphis where Blake Griffin played like 19 and 12 minutes in games five and six and was hurt, shot.

One of those games he has four points. The Portland series where they blow a 2-0 lead. Guess who got, Chris Paul got hurt. This one's far more egregious because they looked like they were manipulating everything. You know, it looked like between the switches and the drop coverage and then the blitzing that Chris Paul had figured all the things out that they were going to do.

But as the series developed, the size became a real issue because Aiton was the only one with size. He was the only one. I mean, they were playing Torrey Craig and Cam Johnson at points. Coming into game six. They might have made a mistake now playing Kaminsky from what we saw tonight. Defensively, I don't think he was going to hold up in this series.

I don't know. Frank kept him in it. Frank's like, look. Frank's like player of the game on the Suns broadcast. Credit the mentality of Frank Kaminsky. Frank Kaminsky. He stayed ready. He did not pout.

Former lottery pick. Look, Milwaukee coming in through the first five games, 31 more field goal attempts, plus 25 in free throws, plus 32 in offensive rebounds, 14 less turnovers through five games in Phoenix. They had

extra possessions. They were killing Phoenix in transition, a transition defense that was the second best all season long for Phoenix. And then they got work there. Phoenix's half-court defense actually had done a pretty good job. And then last night, the shot attempts was favoring Phoenix by a couple because, again, Giannis lived at the free throw line. But all of these things that you thought like, oh, and then it just felt like between Giannis and then the Hall of Fame handoff game five where all of those guys were insane at one point between Drew Middleton and Giannis,

this was not an easy team to knock out. You know what I mean? Like when you add it all together, you can get to the same result with different paths and all these different numbers. But what Milwaukee ended up doing to this team that they were down 2-0 against is pretty insane considering. Yeah, and then I looked it up for Sunday's pod.

It's, I think, only the fifth time this has happened with the 0-2 team, right? Yeah, down 2-0 to win the title. 16 Cavs, 0-6 Heat, 77 Portland, 69 Celtics. That's it. So they're the fifth team ever. They out-rebounded them. I mean, this is a recurring theme of the series,

but Phoenix has 37 rebounds tonight, six offensive. Milwaukee has 53 rebounds tonight, 11 offensive. And I just thought they were bigger. They really never had an answer for Giannis, no matter what happened, other than to cross their fingers and hope Dayton stayed in the game. And he was bad tonight.

That wasn't helping them either. What was he? Won first six at halftime? He was missing stuff. He just looked kind of like it was the first time all playoffs where it looked like the stage was too big for him. And it's kind of surprising we didn't have more Dayton games like that. So he gave them nothing. Paul was their best player today. Yeah. So gave them nothing. Okay, so let's...

Paul was their best part of that. Yeah. So get back to the Paul thing. Like, what's fair? What's fair about how you'll now feel about him to the six games? Well, I'm stealing a Rosillo thing here because you always get mad when people are like, if somebody didn't play well, then they were tired. But if they played well, then we don't talk about how anyone was tired.

Like, we kind of pick and choose whatever narrative we want. And after game four and game five, it's either like he's injured or he's starting to wear down from these playoffs or there might be a little bit, throat's getting a little tight moment, but something's going on because the way he played in four and five,

it just wasn't good enough, especially considering you got to step on the other team's throat and all the stuff he was doing in the other rounds. And I kind of talked myself into him being injured. He couldn't dribble. Something was wrong with his hand, shoulder. All these injuries are adding up. But he was really good tonight.

So how does that explain game four and game five? I don't feel like he miraculously recovered over the span of three days. I thought in game five, we noticed the same thing. He was basically picking his spots, and he had like one and a half good quarters in him. of us recovered over the span of three days. I thought in game five, we noticed the same thing. He was basically picking his spots and he had like one and a half good quarters in him. He'd give you a half a good quarter and then maybe a good fourth quarter, but he wasn't good enough. And I think this was an unbelievable age 37 season for him. He did some stuff at that position that we'd never seen anybody do before at his age.

And I'm not going to ding him on it historically because in the last three games he wore down. But I just think unless we find out he had like a torn rotator cuff or something after the finals, like he could have played better the last three games. And it's one of the reasons they lost. Yeah, because when I look back at it and I know like I went on in Phoenix and I think one of the guys may not like Chris Paul or not. He was like, you know, the moment's too big, the moment's too big. And I just feel like we, and maybe it was for him, you know, because I can't, I'll get to game four here in a second. But when I look at 41 points and zero turnovers game six against the Clippers to eliminate them, I'm like, well, how could you be that guy and then have the moment be too big for you? And the way he looked in four, it wasn't just that he couldn't dribble and it was throughout the game. But when he started deferringpical for him. He's usually at least bouncing off people and stuff like that.

He was, you know, he was good tonight. I don't think he was great. I think it's a hard team for him to play too, because not only do you have the holiday thing, but you, you got a lot of size and you have Giannis and Chris loves having that big

get switched on him. Right. And in this series, it's Giannis getting switched on him. That is great for him. No, but game four is all-time disappointing. And guys can have bad games, but just to see him defer. But the stats on game five are better.

But you watch that whole game. I really didn't think he figured it out until the fourth quarter. Seemed a little detached. I thought he was really, really good tonight. I thought he was steady. I really didn't think he figured it out until the fourth quarter. Seemed a little detached. I thought he was really, really good tonight. I thought he was steady. I thought he had some really good moments. You know, he didn't make everything. He only had three turnovers as opposed to some of the other turnover-prone games.

You know, it's interesting. Look, in my head, though, there's some like that Game 4 thing I'll never get over. I texted Bob Ryan about it. Jackie and I texted Bob. I was just like, I'm curious, do you have Chris over Isaiah yet? I trust his list over anybody other than mine. I trust him the most because he saw, he was actually there for more hoops than I was. And I think he's the greatest basketball writer of all time. Um, he said he he still had Isaiah a smidge higher because of Isaiah's ceiling in big games. Like there was some sort of thing that Isaiah had, like a sense of the moment thing. That was what made him special.

And that's what made those Pistons teams. It wasn't just the two titles. They were in there for four years against some awesome teams. And the biggest thing was like, you know, there were just nights when he could get to a level for him, like what we saw from Giannis tonight, whereas Chris was always steady, steady, steady.

And I think even in the last three, four minutes today, I just feel like this set, God, this sounds like an FS1 talk debate. I just feel like Isaiah would have been like, Booker doesn't have it. I've got, it's gotta be me right now. And he's just never been that kind of guy. He's never been like, Booker doesn't have it. It's got to be me right now. And he's just never been that kind of guy. He's never been an, it's got to be me.

I'll take this over guy. It's just not in him. That's why that game six against the Clippers, like, all right, so if you don't like Chris Paul, you're going, all right, he's a choker, he's a choker. Look, you're playing 140 playoff games, you're going to have games that aren't very good. You just are. But what I had said in my podcast, like the Drew,

it wasn't really the Drew, the crossover where he falls down against Giannis. Like if they lose this series, that will become his Steph out of bounds pass. Yeah, yeah. Whereas LeBron, remember the turnovers that he had in the Ray Allen game in that last minute? Like he missed two threes, he made a three, but he had one horrible turnover. He had a terrible three. He bricked it. He missed it by 10 feet. minute like he missed two threes he made it three but he had he had one horrible turnover and it was like terrible three he bricked it he missed it by 10 he was really bad in that last minute and then

right now ray allen bails him out they win a title so no one ever remembers and pop bailed it out right so pop not subbing right on the defensive rebound but like for chris paul i was like we were now at the crossroads of his game four will either be something everybody forgets in 18 months if they turn around and win this series. Because, I mean, look, Phoenix still could have gotten game four. But, yeah, game four is going to bother me maybe more than him, which is a little weird. Well, even beyond that, like, in terms of tough finals losses, if you're a Suns fan, you're a 2-0.

Giannis is back from the knee, but doesn't seem like he's 100%. And it seems like this whole path is leading toward this Chris Paul victory parade in Phoenix. Like, it's just two more wins. We'll lose game three. We'll win game four. It's over in five. Or game seven's at home. And there's no scenario where we've just won our last finals game after two.

They had seven, what'd they have, 17? 23 is in game two? 20. 23 is in game two. And I don't think they hit 20 the next four games. But then they lose game five, and they're the only team to whatever, lose a playoff game shooting 55 and 60%.

So the first team in NBA history to lose a playoff game, not a finals game, a playoff game shooting 55 and 60 percent so the first team in nba history to lose a playoff game not a finals game a playoff game shooting 55 from the field overall and 60 from three so they're probably like i was wondering does monty show them that be like hey look at this yeah this shouldn't have lost like we're the only team that's ever lost and done this but you know when i was thinking about paul in the game six against the clippers and even in this game one of the finals i mean the guy was unbelievable he had had 32 points, 23 in game two. And you're like, all right, he's good. But was it because he had six days off,

five days off at the close of the Clippers series? Was that the difference? Because what I don't like about the tired thing, and I'm glad you pointed it out, because I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, he was tired, he was tired, he was tired. Don't be tired. You don't have the right to be tired right now,

especially when you had three days off in between all those playoff games. So yeah, a little bit of a ding there. I think for most people that don't like him, right to be tired right now especially when you had three days off in between all those playoff games so yeah a little bit of a ding there I think for most people that don't like them they would hammer on game four we all know how this plays out obviously you know I also don't think this Suns team to me it's I feel much better

just as a basketball fan I had no dog in this race I feel much better about the result that Giannis wins the title. This is the right result. Yeah, that they were a better team. That's Suns team, man. Even tonight,

their bench is Kaminsky, Cam Johnson, and Kampain. And Kaminsky and Kampain actually played well, but they were like seven guys for an entire finals. Yeah, Payne saved them.

I didn't really trust a couple of them. Yeah, Payne was actually big tonight, but it just would be hard to believe that this was a team that had this many flaws, that had no backup center after Sarge goes down. But to me, the Sarge and DiVincenzo, that evens out, right? But they just

didn't have the depth. I just can't believe they didn't have the depth. They blew that lottery pick. Yeah. I mean, you had a lottery pick who was a big, who you couldn't even play in the regular season. Right. So, I'm... But, you know i i gotta be honest like i think we should call ourselves out here a little bit this is not how we're talking about this is not how we were talking about the suns after being up 2-0 so now to say like hey like i'm gonna disagree with you on that one i'm not gonna say like looking at it now

the suns team never should want a title but it's just not the way it felt after game two it was like hey they have too many options they They have three top 20 players. Their three are better than Milwaukee's three. But it was the threes. The threes thinking like they've just figured this out. They're going to make 12 to 23s every game. They have two scores. And then the Bucs solved

it and they took away the threes. And then as the series went along, it's like where are they getting scoring from? Booker had two straight 40-point games and they lost both of them. And once the threes went away, they kind of turned into a pumpkin. But yeah, I might have a redo on the eight and top 20 player thing after tonight. I'm going to drop that down. Despite the amazing game five surrounded by some not amazing games.

Also not a top 20 guy. The effort, you know, when you have a guy like Giannis, who's your guy, his effort is at peak. You know,

it's at 11 every single possession. It feels like, I think that carries over a little bit. And I think, you know, when you're down 2-0,

that's kind of what I was wondering. Like Phoenix, are they going to come back and be like, hey, we're the ones you have to knock out.

And the whole game, it felt like they were going to lose. Even when they were up, it felt like they were going to lose. Even when they were up, it felt like they were going to lose. Just think of Booker just pulls up at the end of game five and actually makes that shot. What are we talking about?

You know, it really does feel like it came down to that play as a sliding doors moment. Now great defense, the whole thing, they made all the plays and they needed to, but yeah, it,

this just feels like the right result just because Giannis was the best part in the series and it wasn't close. It ended up not being close. No, just that him being the best part of the series wasn't close. I think the series is still close. Series was close, yeah.

But the Giannis piece is not close. If Phoenix had got it back to game seven and one, say, I don't know that you'd be going, oh my God, I can't. Let's take a break and we have some more stuff to cover. Alright, winners. Winners tonight.

Bud. Coach Bud, I had written down. So, goes from in the span of four weeks, I'm about to get fired to I am now the conquering hero in Mile Waka. I will never have to pay for a drink ever again. I'm the coach for the next as long as I want. I'm Carlisle.

Carlisle didn't win another playoff series after 2011. Got his job for 10 more years. Bud's there forever. And I don't even know if he would have had a job had they had Durant's foot not been on the line. Do we know this, by the way? Do we have intel on this? Or are we just going with social media wanting him canned forever?

Coach Bud. I'm reasonably convinced that that would have been it for Coach Bud. Okay, that's all I'm asking. Now he's got another 10 years. The Carlisle. The 10-year Carlisle bump. Win the title, he gets to stay for 10 years. the Carlisle, the 10 year Carlisle bump. Win the title.

He gets to stay for 10 years. I know. It's kind of like the, uh, the Kirk Ferentz at Iowa thing. Like just when you think you're going to change some things up here, I'll win 11 games. Uh, another winner Giannis, because this is officially the Giannis game. We had some other candidates for the Giannis game and there's like the Giannis block game, the, the Giannis alley-nis game. We had some other candidates for the Giannis game and there's like the Giannis block game, the Giannis alley-oop game. But this is now

officially the Giannis 50-point game. We'll remember this one forever. It's like the magic triple-double in 80. It's the MJ last shot game. This is it. He's got a game.

There's no... His moment is the block, but then he trumped out with 50 in the clincher. Yeah. There's no, his moment is the block, but then he trumped out with 50 in the clincher. 30 years from now, we're hanging out at Martha's vineyard and you're like, yeah, there's this girl I've been talking to and we'll see how it goes. Um,

and I'm like, what do you think the honest game was? You'd be like game six. You need to grow up. Uh, another winner drew holiday who listen, it's like the quarterback, right? It's the quarterback we're a little frustrated by, but ultimately you won the Super Bowl with him, so all the warts are forgiven.

It's better than that because that guy still everybody wants to replace. I guess you're right. Well, I guess when you're the third, so maybe you're like the middle linebacker who, I don't even know what the analogy is, but. Pat Connaughton, Max guy. You have that on the list?

I have, well, let's do the Drew Holiday thing quickly because. The Drew thing's totally fair. Like they just won a title an hour ago, right?

An hour and a half ago. So you're not allowed to say like, hey, it'll probably be really disappointing at some time still again. No,

it's over. You win. He was that guy's NBA champ. Yeah. But the bigger thing is the holiday trade. All those picks they gave up and it seemed a little reactionary

to not getting Bogdanovich. And I liked it. I think you did too because if they're going to keep Giannis, I don't really care about the picks anyway. I always liked him but then I was like, man, what the hell's going on with this guy at times? And then you're like, wait, do you have to give up all your firsts for Drew? Is that the new landscape?

I think it was more like they're thinking it also keeps Giannis here. By the way, wasn't that before the Bogdanovich transaction? I thought it was. I don't remember. No, it just doesn't matter. I can't remember anymore.

PJ Tucker wins the title. I actually felt good for him. I like him more than you. He finished it off with another classic PJ Tucker performance. 36 minutes, zero points. How many shots did he take? Three?

He was 0 for 1. 0 for 1. I've never seen a team just be like, we're going to go 4 on 5 offensively. And we have this guy in the corner that you kind of have to worry about, but he might actually never shoot. And if he ever has to do anything athletic, he's going to throw the ball off the basket.

The problem is you're putting CP on him to save him for all the other stuff you're asking Chris Paul to do and Drew's just too big for Chris. Yeah. I think with this situation, okay, what are you going to do? Have Chris Paul chase the offense? You know, chase it. It's worked out

great for Chris Paul. He barely had to move on defense. But PJ Tucker. Yeah, but the rebounding part sucked for Chris Paul. That's the thing. That's where I think PJ made his money because he was crashing and he was like, shit, I got to box out PJ Tucker the rebounding part sucked for Chris Paul that's the thing that's where I think PJ made his money because he was crashing and he was like shit like I gotta box out

PJ Tucker it was a performance that Ben Simmons would aspire to 0 for 1 some good box outs some good defense that's basically

a couple Instagram posts after the reason I bring up PJ Tucker as a winner not just because he won the title he's in this horrible Houston situation.

This is November. And he wanted out the whole time. He didn't go public with it. Please trade for me anybody. He's watching Harden loaf around, 20 pounds overweight. He's watching Wall and Cousins try to... He's watching, by the way, Wall and Cousins call out Harden for being a bad teammate.

He's like, how did I get here? He's like, and then we got all these G leaguers that come in and take 20 again. Christian Wood's like, where's mine? I need a taste. So anyway, he gets out of there to the best possible team, partly because fucking Houston trades

for DJ Augustine's contract just to get rid of PJ Tucker. It was still one of the most illogical trades I've ever seen. At one point, I looked at it, the 450 plus players that qualified, he had the single worst plus minus of any player in the NBA.

I'm not saying it was exactly at the time of the transaction, but it was leading up to it. If there were 457, he was 457. There's an illusion of good with him. There's no question. Another winner, obviously, Chris Middleton. I had this with House. The old school sidekick guy.

We saw this with Kyle Lowry in Kauai. I'm never going to be a superstar. You've doubted me a little bit over the years, but now I'm in the right situation. I'm just an awesome sidekick and I might actually come through a couple of times late. Hard road to fill. We saw Kyrie was the best version of that in 16.

Jason Terry in 2011, the most unexpected. Pau Gasol in 2010, probably the most expected. Pau was a monster. He should have won finals MVP that year. Sorry, Kobe fans. That sounds like... 2008 Ray Allen. Yep.

2005 Manu. And then going back, you got Andrew Toney, Sam Jones, all those kind of guys. Middleton's up there. He's 24 a game in the finals. Mark McGuire? No, he was never offensively as important. I mean, Middleton was 24 a game and game four, game five, game six.

Different game. Different era. Game four, five, six. Big shots. Big shots when they needed him. Huge, huge. And they didn't really have other options. Think about that.

That's different, though. You're the sidekick and whatever. And know anybody trying to say like he's actually the guy and yeah i mean give me a break stop um but that you can have i mean middleton hit the biggest shot tonight despite what yannis did and so when you can trust the side guy to do that and do it multiple times that's beyond what the numbers are. Whatever his average is, fine. But now, I expect it to go in, especially when it's that side play where all your momentum... You were pointing

it out earlier. I don't know if people appreciate how hard that shot is just from the physics part of it. Well, Ryan, we both play basketball. Coming off the pick, full speed, stop, just get your momentum. Me at full speed was half speed. Off of horns. But your momentum carrying you one way

and the ability to square up in the air, it's just like, I think it's one of those. No, you appreciate it a lot. I do. I wish I had that skill. Brooke Lopez, who was in this weird KG, Paul Pierce, Joe Johnson, Darren Williams. He was in that whole world as like the young star

in a team overspending to try to win a title. It doesn't happen. Then ends up in hell on a team with no draft picks. Bounces around, goes to the Lakers. LeBron, for whatever reason, decides this guy, I don't need him, let's get him out of here. Goes to Milwaukee, minimum contract. For no money.

No money. Wins them back, gets a good deal, but becomes kind of... I don't want to say he's playing... Not playing out of position, but playing out of style. I like him so much more around the rim. But on this team,

they kind of needed him to spread the floor more. Picked his spots. And now he has a ring. And to me, I would compare it to the Kevin Love 2016 ring. You go back and look at those Kevin Love stats. They're not pretty in the 16 playoffs, but he did a lot of nitty-gritty stuff. He knew his role.

Came through a couple times. A little different, though. Lopez came through tonight with those Bob Pettit shots. He had a two-minute stretch there. He had a floater at one point. Lopez is a weird one because in today's modern playoff version of it, too, it's like okay

because you know bud would just abandon him at certain times because it felt like that was the right move especially defensively even if he was spacing things out but you still would want that option right and that's the thing about somebody now it depends on how expensive that's going to get when it's like oh how much can we pay for somebody who's only an option and not certainty um but for at least lopez you know when things are right, like I also think, you know, when you look at the plus possessions and the offensive rebounds and all that kind of stuff,

Milwaukee just out big them for a while too. It felt like they were bigger at a bunch of different spots. A little like the Lakers last year. Remember with Miami? When they would have the Davis and LeBron and then all of a sudden Dwight Howard's out there. The guys are asking for Myers Leonard.

Yeah, they're just outsized them. But I think Lopez, the box score will show he was 10-8 tonight. But I thought he had a couple shots at a weird point of the game when it felt like things were slipping away for them a little bit, and he came through and made some plays. So I'm making him aware. He also had some really good off-ball cuts. I think he had two where there was one where it was just an offensive rebound.

I think there was another one where it was a pass. And guys just lost him because you don't expect him as a spacer at seven feet to put the effort in to crash right to the rim. So I think he had like two of those. And those are important, especially when you're catching somebody else falling asleep, which is pretty much inexcusable in a finals

game. Another winner, Jeff Teague. Historic performance tonight. Did you have him as the first wake guy? Two minutes, minus five. Minus five and two minutes. But it was a gritty minus five. He was basically unplayable. And they decided, like, we're not going to play a playoff.

But, as you mentioned, becomes the first wake guy to win a title over Chris Paul. First wake point guard. So he's got that going for him. I don't know who cashed that ticket, but congrats. Massalls, I think, were a winner tonight. Connaughton.

Counts as a... Yeah, no, he's straight up. Massall? Straight up. Yeah. Is he conquered? Well, we don't need to talk about where he's actually from. No, he's a Massachusetts guy. Good story.

You know, good high school career. And Van Gunney mentioned his offensive rebounding 30 times in the series. And there were times when he got matched up against Chris. Sometimes it was a disaster.

Arlington. Yeah, it's a little gritty over there. St. John's Prep, though. Danvers. What's up, kid? Congrats, Sam. Another winner tonight, Julius Hodge.

You mentioned. Shout out to the Robertsons. Because he Sam. Another winner tonight, Julius Hodge. You mentioned. Shout out to the Robertsons. Yeah, Julius Hodge, big winner. Mallory Edens. I don't know what her Instagram's capable of tonight, but she's a nice person. I'm excited to see some of her party photos. The Edens-Lasry thing

was weird. They had that thing where it's like the chairman of the board thing got passed back and forth after five years. Every five years, the other guy. Well,

the whole thing was weird. Like Zanuck was going to be the GM and then he wasn't and then Horst was and then, you know, look, I don't know.

I mean, look, it worked. It worked. Those two guys are financial guys going back to the earlier part of the last decade. They have a chance to buy

the bucks. The previous owner is like, you cannot move them. We have to put some stuff in writing. We got to build the arena. We got to do it here. Everyone's a little skeptical. They're going to actually buy into the Milwaukee thing. They kept the team there that they have great fans, as you saw tonight. And it was a cool thing. That was not the team. There's other teams that should move to Seattle because Seattle should have a team. It shouldn't have been Milwaukee. So they kept the team. It all worked out.

And they lucked out with one of the great draft picks of all time. City-Milwaukee, obviously. Kevin Durant's foot on the line as a winner just as a great NBA historic moment. Literally a footnote. But I think that's going to go down in history as like this fork in the road of a playoffs, you know? Do you think you're glowing a little bit

because it's not Harden and Kyrie running around tonight? Well, I was going to say you and I are both winners because the Harden and Kyrie, we had to sweat this out for six whole months. And they would have won it and our brooklyn fans who wanted this for so long since they got the team nine years ago um yeah that would have been kind of insufferable tonight i think there would have been a lot of people rooting against that so i think you're glowing a little bit i think you have a little yannis glow

because it's a non-nets glow greece Big winner. Big winner. Took a hit with Haral Bob and he got thrown into some of that Dallas stuff. That was a tough basketball time for Greece. He'll be back. Yeah, they didn't pay their taxes. Right. The whole country. That was tough.

And it was just understood. It was like a cultural thing. And now Giannis. There was like a train thing. This is all in the book Boomerang. You should check it out. Don't get on me. This is not a tax segment.

Malika Andrews gets all of a sudden doing a trophy presentation. Huge winner. Wow. She was great. She's a star. The ESPN carnage. All of a sudden, that's cool. I'll take the trophy presentation. Thanks, everybody. I appreciate one of her co-workers turning her into that

star, giving her those opportunities. She should have thanked her. Some losers. We mentioned Bogdanovanovich although i guess he's a winner too yeah yeah i mean he could have won a title imagine if they had had bogdanovich too they would have been kind of amazing i mean honestly you give him let's give him conatons minutes no let's give him... Connaughton's minutes? No, let's give him 15 P.J. Tucker minutes. Well, no, you're playing him like 20 to 30 minutes. Yeah, and 10 Connaughton minutes? Give him 30 minutes? God.

And he's such a perfect complimentary guy because he can handle enough to get himself out of a bad possession, but then he can shoot it. He can bring it up. You could spare Drew a little bit. Steve Vincenzo's a loser in that, even though he won the title. Because then it sucks. Because it's like, I got hurt. It's going to hurt my team. And then they

win the title anyway. But now he can talk himself into the, well, we'll be better next year because I'm back. I want to take a graduate course at Villanova and finds out what happens to white guys there. Because I'm fascinated with every white Hooper from Villanova. Yeah. They look like they're in a Showtime video about an aspiring rapper. Uh, Thanasis. Thanasis is a loser.

Cause I don't know what he would have been capable of tonight in a 50 point Giannis title clinching game from a bench cardiac arrest bench from a bench guy standpoint. I think it would have been the new standard. You think like you go back to the days of Mark Madsen and Jack Haley and some of the things we've seen in the past, I think Thanasis would have...

I can't even imagine. I can't imagine what he would have been like. They might have had to throw water at him a couple of times just to calm him down. Because if he had not been in a uniform, they would been like whoa dude he's settled down they would have turned the overhead overhead casino light on him um ayton uh-huh he's not in my top 20 anymore oh yeah i've downgraded him to the low 20s yeah who did he fall behind fall behind? And he just off the top of your head who he's now behind?

I'm just putting somebody ahead of him. Booker-Kobe comparisons? I feel like it took a huge hit. Yeah. I don't know if the B-Legendary story is going to carry the same weight

anymore for Mark Jackson. I had problems with the B-Legendary story prior to this series, but to saying he's next Kobe, saying Booker's top 10. Booker finally had to say, stop comparing me to Kobe. I'm not Kobe. Please stop.

Yeah. That's tough. You know the comparisons have gone sideways when the guy in the comparison's like, please stop. Please. I beg you. Last loser, my dad, who texted me when Giannis had like 47 points. We took a linic.

That was his quote. That was his text to me. My dad, getting retroactively upset about the 2013 draft. Not one person was upset that the Celtics didn't take Giannis in 2013. No, not one. But now my dad brings it up all the time. That retroactive selfishness. I don't like the myopic, woe is me stuff.

I love your dad, but that's a very... That's just... Whenever you go through old droughts, you're like, oh, we could have had Tony Parker. You're like, all right, got it. So could have everybody else. Here's the case for why they should have taken you on this thing. Who, the Celtics? Yeah, they knew they were rebuilding. This is the longest it took us to get

to the Celtics topic. Well, no, this is... They knew they were rebuilding. They were about to gut the team for the Pierce-KG send those guys to Brooklyn trade, they knew they were building. They're about to gut the team for the Pierce KG, send those guys to Brooklyn trade. Right. And they know they're starting over and that might've been the case. Could you play him with Gerald Wallace

though at the same time? Maybe that's why they backed off. It was like, yeah, those guys are retarded. Yeah, that was funny. I forgot to mention as a winner, Bobby Portis. Great crazy guy performance by him.

Yeah, I loved his couldn't get a technical, losing your mind and Middleton being like, hey, we're trying to win the finals right now. Yeah, can you stop? Can you not do this right? Can you not be crazy? Do this in February. But give me all the Bobby Portis chips because I would love to have that guy

on my team going off the bench, especially because he can shoot. This isn't just some energy big guy, get you some rebounds and whatever like and his confidence you know it's not too damaging but there's some there's some real confidence in there that is maybe just below the point of like screwing you up right so not a perfect player but if he's coming off your bench i think we saw it throughout the playoffs especially because he was bud was was done with him. On a scale of one. He remained engaged. On a scale of one to

2003 Steven Jackson on the productive crazy guy scale. I think it was like a five and a half from what I was expecting. Yeah, right. I hope you weren't going to have that be too high. No, it was like five and a half. But he was huge tonight. What did he finish with tonight?

He got my dog excited just now? Yeah, he was six for 10, 16 points, and actually played good defense a couple times one-on-one against guards that seemed like they thought they were going to beat him. Which looked like an absolute recipe for disaster in the beginning. So, you know, I think one of the biggest things, too,

is just the adjustment of like picking up Chris Paul and then it was like, okay, so now you don't want to have Chris Paul bring it up every time so you can have Booker do it. So now we're going to do it with Drew Holiday here. And that really was, you know, they were just letting Phoenix set up their offense and taking their pick of three different ways they were going to torch him. Yeah.

And once they've kind of figured that out with effort and, you know, remember we said it after the first game or two, like drew may have to turn into like Delavadova here in 15, or it's like, Hey man, you're going to have to like die out there from exhaustion. Now drew can exactly go to that level and have to get an IV.

He's also a better player, much better player than Delavadova. But that's, I mean, look, there's a million different things we can say, Hey, this is important. This was important, this is important.

But Milwaukee figuring that thing out. We're like, hey, we're not going to just let you do whatever you want and set up offensively, which you would think you wouldn't have happen for that long. It took them a couple games to figure it out. And then Giannis with the clincher. We're going to take one more break and then come back and talk about next year.

Okay. So let's fast forward to the 2021-22 season, which will be relatively normal, I think. Giannis will have the crown. He will be the best guy in the league when we start the season next year. He has to be considered that. It will be Giannis' league,

and then we'll have a backlash to people saying it's Giannis' league. We'll see him do it when everybody's there. When everybody's healthy. Yeah, we'll see him beat Brooklyn with the other guys there. We'll see him beat the Lakers now that they've called Lowry and all of those things.

But we'll head into next year with it being Giannis' league. I assume they'll bring back PJ Tucker. I don't know what the money will be. Defense Central will come back. They'll have, they're going to have to get two more guys, I think,

because they're not going to be able to win next year's title with this year's team. They'll have to get, I think, a little bit better because Brooklyn will be better. Philly will probably trade Ben Simmons for Dame Lillard,

I'm guessing, and a bunch of stuff at some point. I'm guessing it'll be Dame Lillard and Joel Embiid on Philly. You think you're that confident to say that right now? I don't know that I'm there with you on the Portland part of it.

If Dame gets traded, I think it's Philly. You have Atlanta, which we know will be better. We'll see what happens with John Collins. Celtics. More Pritchard minutes, so they're going to be better. Celtics, Pritchard. The Pritchard stance is already happening.

I saw some really good Instagram videos in. There's some talk TJ McConnell, just 48 minutes of Pritchard the Pritchard science is already happening I saw some really good Instagram videos in there's some talk TJ McConnell just 48 minutes of Pritchard McConnell it's going hard I don't know if that'll go over well in Boston

um Knicks Knicks we'll see but the Bucks will be number two favorites in the East I still think Brooklyn

will be ahead of them Brooklyn will definitely be ahead of them yeah well the definitely be ahead of them. Yeah. Well, the thing with Brooklyn is we don't know who else is on the team other than the three guys in Harris. Well,

it, it doesn't matter. I'm serious. I don't think it'll matter, but again, it'll be on paper, but on paper, the Nets group,

we already played this game. Kyrie hasn't had a normal start-to-finish season since 2016. Yeah. Or 2017? So on paper, they will be. You're right. I mean, there's still a little doubt there. But anybody, that's not like a hater thing to do to go,

all right, well, let's see what happens when we don't have an unprecedented back-to-back set of circumstances here in the season. But here's what I think is really important about Milwaukee, is that if this is 2019 bucks in the finals, and granted Giannis is more capable now despite what the numbers are, being down 0-2 and this team not doubting themselves because they had the disappointment against Toronto, they had the series against Miami, they got to exercise those demons against Miami where there were people wondering like, hey, maybe Miami sneaky, kind of a tough out. And there was literally nothing on paper that told you Miami was going to give them any problems whatsoever. And they smashed them. So they exercise that and it's, they move

on from it. But I think that's, that's kind of part of this coming. So like the fact that the group has this continuity and now they've gone through some wars together. It'll be great for Middleton. Like, I think Lowry was at a different point of his career after 2019. Even you saw it in that Celtics series

a year later. Well, now you actually worried about him where for many years you were like, oh, is Lowry... Will he show up tonight? Yeah, will he show up? I mean, really early playoff Lowry? He'd get so frustrated that you were like,

okay, well, he's done. Now you don't have to worry about him. It's a really important point that when you win a title, it can really transform a guy's identity. Like a really good guy, not a great guy. Something can shift. I think it's going to happen with

Middleton. There's a confidence thing that happens when you know that you've been able to do it on a stage like the one we had tonight, where at some point it's like, we don't want to go back to Phoenix. There's 10 million people watching this game you kind of find out what's inside you and I feel like they found

that out so from a Phoenix standpoint they got to resign Chris and he's still going to get paid he's still going to get paid a ton I don't know how they're going to play it with the opt out and then I swear if I'm Sarver how they're going to play it with the opt-out. And then...

I swear, if I'm Sarver, and you're asking me to fork over 120 for three years to run this back with a guy who's already made history... I don't know if it's going to be that much. ...by the production, 100 for three? I would think it would have been like... I always think of what a number that makes sense is

and then just add like 10 to 20%. Right. Cause that's the basketball. Basically what happens. So if it's three, but it all depends on like, what do you want to do with the opt out? Does he keep the big number and then add the two years?

But I think with the over 38 rule, he's actually limited. I have to go back and look it up, but I still think he's going to get paid. And look with the Aiton and Bridges bill due and all this stuff with Paul, you can't be Sarver and have been cheap, but yet you still have to pay 90%

of the cap, right? So you've got to pay somebody anyway, so you might as well just pay all the guys. So when I've heard stuff like, hey, Sarver's not going to do that and pay all these different guys, the four guys, I would think you just... Listen, he didn't do it when they had a chance to win a title for four straight years in the two thousands.

Like that's just a fact. So you think he will, you think he'll let, like you think you'll get cheap with Chris or not? I'm not making predictions. I'm just saying he has not proved to us that he's willing to spend real money. And the new TV deal is going to kick in what in four years,

which supposedly is going to be triple. And you still have to pay 90 i look if he goes cheap on this to like have just cheaper pieces add up to something that's below the tax i don't know man i don't know either you're right though i mean their best chance is done their best chance and yeah because you have we know the warriors are going to be there next year we know the Lakers will be back. We know Murray will be back at some point. I still think they would beat Denver with Murray. I do.

Maybe. But we also know Denver is probably going to get better in a couple of different ways. Porter might be better, yeah. They might take that Millsap money and put that somewhere toward a guy who can actually really help them. Well, Aaron Gordon, they have to make a decision on. I'm assuming he comes back, right? Well, I think it's is it one year left on it? Right. But they

kind of have to shit or get out the pot because if you don't think you're bringing him back, it's kind of like where the Celtics are with Smart. If you're bringing him back, if you're going to give him an extension, you got to do it now. If you don't want to give them the extension, you should trade them now.

Yeah. So it's one or the other. Unless you don't like any of the trades and you go, okay, well, our best chance is to just go ahead and do this. And then Utah. Yeah, one more. And I think Utah is a complete wild card.

No, they're going to win 50 plus games. And Mitchell, if he's healthy, they're going to be really good. I'm talking like an off-season wild card. You mean this off-season or next off-season? I think they're an off-season wildcard. You mean this off-season or next off-season? I think they're an off-season wildcard this off-season. I don't think they can bring

back the same team. Okay, but I mean, there's two choices, really. I mean, Bogdanovich doesn't really move the needle. Ingles is a nice player. Clarkson, whatever. I mean, they got him for second rounders, so it's not like the market for him.

Rudy? I don't know what him for second rounders, so it's not like the market for him. Rudy? I don't know what the Rudy market would be, man. I mean, whenever I'm asked about it, I just assume that they're going to bring everybody back, win their 50 plus games,

be really interesting all regular season long, and then... I don't know if I would pay Conley more than... That's the big thing. 10 million, 12 million a year or something like that. You're going to have to. I don't know if I have to.

I think there's a lot of point guards in the league. Their bill is huge, I think. I don't think that... I don't see them spending on Conley. But, yeah, I think Phoenix had their window. And that's it, unfortunately. Alright, so before we set the sun on a basketball

season, we head toward the draft, which we'll be doing the draft together next week. Are we? Well, yeah, we're doing something that Thursday. Okay. Yeah. You want to give me a heads up? Yeah, I think we did.

I don't think we did. Yeah, I think we did. You, me, and KOC right afterwards. Right after or during? That's what we said. Yeah. I think we should do during. Because remember last year, everybody complained

about the coverage and we were like, why don't we just do our own thing and be live from first? Like, that's way more interesting to have us on at the beginning of the draft during it

than wrapping it up after 60 picks. Let the listeners. Let the listeners tell us. Yeah, let them decide. Go into Rossello's Twitter replies. Before we put a bow

in the season though draft stuff Chris Paul what I thought we just did Chris Paul no just do you want to say goodbye

this was quite a run for you and him and yeah you know just any last last thoughts closing

parting shots I'm conflicted because I feel great about the run he was good tonight that helped the legacy that helped that helped me a little bit. But yeah, I don't know.

I mean... Do you want to know where I have him historically now? I've remade my list. How often do you do this list? Well, now the finals is over. Is this family really yours? Are they a stunt family? This guy just like...

I just moved a couple people around. I got Chris Paul 31. Did you move him down? I missed the last level three guy. I have him ahead of Stockton. But I can't put him level four because he didn't win the finals. You have him. I have him as the last guy on level three.

31. So where's the all-time on point guards for you? Should you be updating these lists every day? I still have Isaiah ahead of him. I still have Koozie ahead of him. Even though, as Bob Ryan said, like the Koozie thing, it's like another world. But, you know, he's one of the three most important players in the first 25 years of the league.

Has to be acknowledged. And then Oscar and Steph. Steph, Oscar. Isaiah? I said Isaiah. I have Isaiah as, I've been 27. And then I have Giannis. Man, I had him 22.

That's where I left today. Who's 21 and who's 23? So I have Barkley 25, Malone 24, Garnett 23. Do you have Malone ahead of Barkley? Yeah, longer career. Listen, I had a whole chapter in my book about it. It fucking killed me. But I just, Malone...

You thought Malone was better than Pete Barkley. He wasn't. Because he wasn't. Malone's... You thought Malone was better than Pete Barkley? He wasn't. But he was... Because he wasn't. Malone played almost 20 years. Yeah. Barkley was out of shape for, you know, the last third of his career.

Moving up. I love Barkley. Listen, he killed me. I put him, I put Malone over Barkley, and I put Kareem over... Bird? Kareem and Magic over Bird. It fucking killed me.

Oh, you gotta to do that. But yeah, Giannis, 22, right behind Bob Pettit and Doc and Elgin Baylor. But Giannis is going to... By the time this is... You could argue he might be in the Pantheon now after this. I mean, he's young. He's only had a few years. But what he did today, he's got to be in the Shaq, Hakeem, Moses conversation.

It's just... My thing is, if his career did today, he's got to be in the Shaq, Hakeem, Moses conversation. It's just, you know, if it's, my thing is if his career ended today, would that be enough for him to be like one of the 15 best players ever? Probably not. 15? I mean,

he's 26. That's what I mean. So I'm going to keep him at 22. We're really bad when it, as soon as some stuff happens. Well, I have him at 22. Yeah.

Okay. And some room to move up. I remember when I did my book in 09, I had LeBron at 20 and it was like, it was too high, but I was like, I know LeBron's going to end up in the top 10. How's the other book going? Which one? That's it. You haven't written a book in 12 years. Yeah. My fingers don't work anymore. I'm done. You have a better chance of writing, but I want to read your book. I don't think many, well, I think people would want to read it. Tales from the two o'Clock Hot Dog Stance.

That's horrible. Hartford, the early 2000s. No, I would just be like, all right, from Trenton to Hartford, a dream journey. Things are looking up. Yeah, so there you go. All right, White Lotus.

Hey, no, no, no. Five minutes on the draft. Oh, go. All right, White Lotus. Hey, no, no, no. Five minutes on the draft. Oh, go. Five minutes on the draft. Let's do 10 minutes on the draft. Book Night's the hottest name in the draft. Hot, red hot. It's unbelievable.

He's in a nightclub getting asked out by 20 people. And seriously, they're not charging him a cover. They're asking him to leave with cash. Yep. The top four's been the top four. The top five was the top five for a while, but think kaminga's you know in danger of not being picked fifth i don't know if it's gonna be that bad but um the the kaminga stuff as we said it was polarizing guy but book night went from like oh you know late teens oh we could sneak in the lottery

and every time i talked to a team about it would it would just be like, you know who I love is Book Knight. You know who's nasty is Book Knight. And I get it. I mean, he, I hate the cliche of like, oh, he's a bucket. He can do all these different things. Could he have played tonight? Yeah, oh yeah.

Yeah, he would have played like 30 minutes. Honestly, he would have had an easier time in an NBA game because of the space and the fact that UConn team wasn't very good. Yeah. Like he missed eight games. They were 15 and five, I think, but they went four and four without him. I think the Warriors are going to take him seven.

Look, I thought they're going to take him 14. Now they're just going to have to take him seven. That's the point is that like he's, is the, is each week has gone along. Booknight has become somebody where like, I even had one team that was like, he might go five. I'm like, all right. But this happens every year. Remember Westbrook that year when Westbrook was like 13, 15. But Westbrook was still like a hard guy to figure out. But there was no scenario where he was going to go four. And then all of a sudden he was four. Look, Booknight is into his off the ball stuff is like really, like the way he sets up cuts or the way he'll just try to get free

where he's working guys. And that UConn team wasn't really that good. I'd like to just see it go in a little bit more. It just didn't. Every time you'd watch him and everything he put together. And I wouldn't call him one of these guys that's like, hey, I'm going to take a three now because I'm just going to take one. And the shooting percentages went down from distance.

But there is a toolbox of offensive moves from this kid yeah and he measured out just below like in the old nba measurements and the high six four is almost six five jesus so who do you compare him to the clarkson stuff isn't crazy yeah you know because he's not going to pass a ton he's a combo, but he is somebody that with space and better players, he's just, you can't stay in front of this guy. Yeah. The fakes,

the shoulder faints, all the stuff he does with the ball. And he goes left with the strength and confidence as if it was his dominant hand. And then he'll get in there floater. And, and the shot and the release and everything actually looks pretty good. It just,

it just didn't go in enough this year. So it depends on what you want to talk yourself into. And then Trey Murphy, the kid from Virginia who went to Rice, he was a three-star coming out. Prototypical draft guy. North Carolina, no love, goes to Rice. Family was big on the academics, obviously.

And then he blows up to 6'9". Now with Murphy, it's okay. He shot the hell out of the ball from three and he's 6'9". But do you think out of UVA's system, where they're not going to ask him to do a ton of creating on his own because it's not what they do there, do you believe there's UVA system where they're not going to ask him to do a ton of creating on his own? Cause it's not what they do there. Um, do you believe there's way more to his game?

And so like I've heard book nights, workouts have been terrific. I've heard Murphy, the same thing. Um, and I think there's just teams out there that feel like the kid from UVA and Murphy is, well,

he's the guy you immediately know what he is. Yeah. But I, I think the hope is, Hey, is there a little bit more here? And then Duarte from Oregon, who just turned 24, he's the real... Seems like he has a promise.

They invited him to the draft. Yeah. And he's not working out for anybody under like 17. I have... I don't know that I saw a kid, and I did, you know, normally I do like 70 reports. I did 40 this year because we're probably only doing the first round on TV. But I don't know that I

watched a kid of all the stuff I looked at that was as engaged every single possession as much as Duarte was. Every fucking possession that kid competed. So there you go. Those are the three names that like... So if Golden State ended up with Booknight and Duarte at 7-14, are

they better next year? Yeah, because I think both guys can play. Yeah. And I wonder, like, Kispert's another one that could get a 14. I don't know why I'm so invested in the Golden State. I just love Steph. But I was thinking, like... I like that you're worried about Steph more than anything else.

Well, because there's no 16th pick for you now. Yeah, I want Steph to be good again. I like looking at the ESPN 100 to see where some of these guys are. Wasn't Lonzo like in the 20s once? Yeah, but sometimes it's interesting because so their 2020 had Jalen Green one, Cade Cunningham two,

Oh, oh, recruiting stuff. I thought you were talking about something else. No, they're recruiting. Yeah, yeah. So this is heading into college. Green one, Cunningham two, Mobley three, Kaminga four, Barnes five, Jalen Suggs six.

That's as accurate from a high school to an actual draft guide, you know, parallel that I've seen. Because like, just look at the year before. 2019. Wiseman's one. Cole Anthony two.

Isaiah Stewart three yeah big stew I read about his new Anthony Edwards RJ Hampton he has a new stew that I read about on Hoops Hype

I saw a link to it yeah you love you love the terrible Hoops Hype links um Vernon Carey Jr. was sixth yeah dude kid

shit like that but one of the the reason I bring this up was there was a year where Scottyis is pretty high man was nine i like look don't you don't you fucking say anything bad about nico man i'm not i like nico man i'm just like i didn't realize he was that good of a high school oh no did you ever

watch him in high school no he was no idea i mean there was a steal for the warriors they got like 48 he's small and i don't know if he's gonna to shoot enough. He's like 48. Yeah, yeah. No doubt. But Nico was the kind of kid who was so much better IQ-wise than high school kids he was playing against. So when you even watch him in some of the showcase stuff, you're like, well, that guy has a completely different approach to the game that you love compared to everybody else. I mean, Tyler Uless is like the all-time favorite approach to game guy that didn't pan out. But Tyler Uless was also like maybe 5'8 on a good day. Well, this is why I bring this up. I was looking at 2018 because I was fascinated by this Kelton Johnson thing. I'm like, Team USA, Spurs love him. I'm like, what was this guy's background? I realized I couldn't remember it. He was the seventh guy in 2018. He went to Oak Hill, Kentucky. He really did have the pedigree. And I was watching that

Team USA and I was so impressed because I know you know I love international basketball more than you. He was the one guy moving without the ball. Everyone else is just like your turn, your turn, my turn. Kelvin Johnson's back cuts and glue guy shit. I'm like, I really

like how this guy's playing. Can you realize the run of Kentucky players that you were like, wait, you had all these guys like what happened these are down recruiting years but like think about it okay so you had you had bam who you liked and then you're like wait a minute now i love this guy everybody would want bam on their team tyler hero who obviously took a step back after like dominating bubble playoff hoops quickly um and then quickly in maxi when you were at kentucky you're like i mean look i'm telling you isaiah jackson is probably a lottery pick yeah and what he may be uh the best projection of him may be that beyond the block shots where he he led the sec but you

know there's some some fundamental stuff that he probably needs to do a better job like understanding all the rotation who cares i mean the kids are really young kid there's actually fundamental stuff that he probably needs to do a better job, like understanding all the rotation. Who cares? I mean, the kid's a really young kid. There's actually a shot in there that there's something to build on. He's super active. As soon as he gets to basketball, he's really, really quick. But he knows exactly who he is. So, like, if you're a team that goes, hey, look, our projection for him is higher,

but we don't need him to be, like, 10 times better than what he is. We just need him to be an NBA version of the player that he's already at Kentucky. This is a really weird stretch of, like, three years with Kentucky players, three plus years of like, wait, none of these guys really did much there. And now they all seem to be really good pros. I mean, the fact that Maxie and quick,

they're both dudes everybody would want now. It's kind of funny. Coach Cal, are we sure he's good? I'm not going to go there. 2018. So Calvin Johnson, seven. There are top sevens. Epic.

RJ Barrett, Zion, Cam Reddish, Bull Bull, Romeo Lankford, Nasir Little, Kelton Johnson. That was our top seven. But then Moses Brown was 15. I got fired up. It's like, yeah. Two of the top 15

in the 2018 thing. That was the Avery Bradley deal. Yeah. Because he was a monster, you top 15 in the 2018 thing. That was the Avery Bradley deal. Yeah. Because he was a monster, you know, in the recruiting stuff. Oh, yeah. He was second. Yeah. So with this one, the guys who were in this recruiting top 100 versus how it played out, one that jumped out was Zaire Williams,

who was eighth, who you're not a fan of. Not a fan of the Stanford stuff. I like this high school stuff a lot better. But at Stanford, it wasn't that great. But teams do like him. And they probably put more time into the high school stuff than I did. And then Keon Johnson was 28th,

which is pretty far down. And Isaiah Jackson was 34th. And those guys have now climbed up and are in the mix. But I agree with you. I think the Kentucky guys, whatever, the way they get them ready to be NBA players, I think teams are now really starting to value that.

It's the quickly thing. I think they always were. I would say they didn't because Maxine and Quickly both fell out of the top 15 last year. Yeah, but they didn't do as much. And Quickly, people made fun of. He was 25th.

People were like, oh my God, terrible pick. Maybe the Kentucky guys are having a comeback, I guess would be my point. Yeah, but I mean, for stretch there, they were dominating the first round. So it wasn't like people were taking it. Yeah, because they had better guys. Maybe we're saying the same thing.

The Towns guys. Any other draft stuff? I told you, if I was... Somebody had a fake trade. It was either Hollinger or Chad Ford about Darius Garland and the three for Cade Cunningham I would not do that if I was Cleveland

I'd rather have Darius Garland and Mobley than Cade Cunningham would you rather have Jalen Green and Garland what do you mean on the Cavs like I'm just trying to like if Mobley were to go doesn't seem like Mobley's going second. It seems like the Rockets are taking a guard.

That's all the intel we have. The intel is that Mobley's going to be there at three, which I think is an unbelievable turn of events for Cleveland. I mean, they're going to have to survive two more years and 10 more Players' Tribune pieces from Kevin Love until they buy him out. going to have to survive two more years and 10 more Players Tribune pieces from Kevin Love until they buy him out. But the Mobley, Larry Nance,

some guards, and Kevin Love is like a strained calf for nine months. Sometimes these dudes that, I'll tell you, like I was thinking, because he's not that old, but you think like these dudes that have been in the circuit playing really since they were

10, 11 years old and playing these AU games. Like I have a couple of friends who do the AU. You think they're playing seven games in a weekend. You know, the miles that you put on and you get into the league and by the time you're 32, you've been playing, you know, 20 plus hardcore miles. How do you explain the other guys though that have extended their careers beyond? It wasn't like eight, you know, LeBron wasn't playing in a million games. I mean.

Well, the LeBron's an athletic freak. Are you saying should Kevin Love have stayed thick? Is that what you're saying? Maybe he should have. Maybe he lost too much weight. But yeah, Mobley. All right. White Lotus and then we'll go.

Okay. Go. You go. Because you sent me the text and you said, hey, White Lotus, two episodes. Well, I know you like weird shows. I do. I personally, I love shows where I get to go somewhere. So White Lotus, there's been two of them on HBO.

But I like the Sandler movies where he goes to Hawaii. I like that weird couples retreat movie where they went to like Bora Bora. Yeah, Vince Vaughn. I like, yeah, I like going places in movies, especially during the pandemic when we couldn't go anywhere. I've never thought of it that way and it's actually not. It's great. Is that why you like Hot Dog the Movie,

that series so much? Hot Dog the Movie is great. I like being on a ski mountain. Yeah, I like going places in my movies. I like movies set in Greece. The Shining. I watched a movie called Monday with my wife recently

where it was, this couple has like a two-week relationship from hell and it's set in Greece and there's just a lot of Greece shots. It's like, cool, I feel like I'm going to Greece. So White Lotus, I get to go on vacation, which I really like at this nice resort. And I get to see all the weird people.

What's the name of the resort? It's the Maui, but it's called something else. Because I don't know if they're shooting it differently in the lobby and then the beach because the oddity is like whatever that Four Seasons is you would think like this must be the most amazing beach ever and when you look

at the beach scenes it's the beach that I was at because it's actually like pretty underwhelming the resort is insane it's awesome there's no complaints but of all the different beach options that you have in sections of Maui that beach is actually I mean this is like a real first word problem here but that's the whole point of the show right right but they don't when you look at the beach shots of the show you're like wait is that is that a little mix and match is that a little underwhelming and it is because

again the resort was amazing and i'd recommend to anybody so that was kind of cool for me because i was like oh wait i've i've been like i know like, I know that lobby. I know that desk. I know not that room. I didn't have the, uh, I didn't have the pineapple suite, but I love the, go ahead and keep going. Keep going. The way privilege stuff is hilarious. The guy just being so furious. He didn't get the honeymoon suite that he paid for it. Steve's on and Connie Britton's family, how she, Connie Britton's this super successful, whatever, uh, business CEO. And Steve Zahn is like one of those, my family, it's so great. His daughter hates him.

His son's like in the kitchen, just a complete fuck up. It's just this classic, like everything seems great on the surface, but it's so not. I love movies or TV shows that tap into that. Uh, I've always had Alexandria, the Dario stock going way back. I won't sell it. I'll never sell it. I love her.

It's like Mookie Betts. It's like Mookie Betts. Think about this. I think I follow one female actress on Twitter and I think I've followed her for like six years. And a lot of it, I'm just rooting for her. I've seen every movie she's been in. The tweets are generally a couple of observations here or there they're a dog thing her mom getting on her case like i kind

of feel like i know her which is i'm gonna stop talking now at some point but she's probably the only one i've ever followed and i already feel bad for two episodes in i remember i'm only two in so and i'm like mad about the guy she's married to because he's like straight out of central casting dickhead yeah just northeast I mean he's kind of like a more educated version yeah he's awesome at it like he immediately the casting director for this she did a great job too by the way um so shout out for the casting director but some of these casting directors are just so good well they my girl Connie Britton who I've been with through hell and high water. Did you see Dirty John? Of course I saw Dirty John.

I felt so bad for Dirty John. Listen, I support her. I just want her to be happy. If you ever had a ticket to pay out Connie Britton and Stifler's mom being in the same TV show, that was an impossibility. Because I was like, wait, what's going on? Connie Britton looks fantastic. I even gave Nashville a season just because I like Connie Britton. I read the pitch doc for Nashville.

That was pretty fascinating. Anyway, she's really good in this. Jennifer Coolidge, good to see her again. And then it's another thing that these limited series do where it's like something happens. We know there's a dead body coming back from this hotel.

Who is it? Yeah. So now we're solved as we're watching it. We're looking for clues, which is really smart. I just think it's a really good show. I like it. The music makes,

it's like a talking heads jam session. Yeah. While you're watching these scenes that add this tension and it's not even close to the same thing, but like the first time you watch there will be blood it's it's an investment of like okay this is going to be a different movie experience because you've got daniel day lewis at the top of his game and then you have this just weird drawn out story but then you have this music that's intentional but it's not supposedly matching everything and

sometimes it is and it's the guitarist i believe from radiohead and i think they won an academy for that it was like a really big deal but the music wasn't there to make you comfortable and like build this it was always to like kind of throw you off chaotic yeah and that's what the music does here so that part of it and then is it mike white the creator mike white from chuck and buck chuck and buck who i went and started going back and weirdest movies ever so i started Mike White from Chuck and Buck. Chuck and Buck, who I went and started going back. All time weirdest movies ever. So I started watching scenes from Chuck and Buck where he's obsessed with his friend.

It's an unbelievable movie. And people are like, this guy that acted in Chuck and Buck who then creates the show 20 years later, like you can sort of see like, all right, if you're that good creatively as an artist, then you know. He did Enlightened too,

which a lot of people liked. I never loved it. So I have a question for you though. I love this show. There's two other things. And I'll go with this one first. Cause I come over to your house. I haven't seen your family in a long time. And you know, I had a gift for Ben and I like, I really like your family and you know, Ben's, he doesn't give a shit. He just doesn't care. And it was like, yeah, guys beat it and close the door on us. And I go, hey, it's just like White Lotus. Which is, I was like, that's why you love the show.

Because the Connie Britton family part of it with the daughter and her friend and then the creepy younger brother. They're a lot more than the White Lotus family. Yeah, but it was the instincts of the way it's written and the way the family plays out all these scenes where like the father wants to connect because he feels great about himself. All of a sudden, they're like, hey, dad, glad you don't have cancer.

Now, fuck off. And speaking of the scene. And he's on the playing the video game. The son's playing the video game in the pool. The dad's trying to have the serious conversation with him. He's like, dad, hold on a second. I've got to pause my game. I have another question I need to ask you.

I just feel like in general, more dicks in shows and movies now. And I don't know if that was part of a movement where it was like, hey, this has just been an unfair ratio. And even though no one's actually wanted to see it, we're just like, we know no one wants it, but we're going to throw it all at you more often than not because the last few decades, the ratios, the pie chart of male-female nudity has just been off. So we're going to try to even that out a little bit. I think I just, I recognize it. You weren't ready for Steve Zahn's balls? I mean, an inspection, it wasn't just a flashing scene. I mean, we were in it.

That was like a steady cam. I love the girl from Euphoria who's a great bitch in this. The friend? I can't remember her last name. Ponson? Sydney Stevens, something like that. She's in Euphoria and she's really good in that show, but she's one of the two girls who they're doing the drugs and all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah. She's just got a great bitch face and just like a good kind of sizing somebody up and picking them apart without saying anything kind of move that I enjoy. I like when a bag of drugs gets found on the beach and nobody knows where it came from. Good drug scene on the ketamine. Solid drugs.

Because they gave us their perspective of somebody who doesn't know you're on ketamine coming over to talk to you yeah and they shot it in a really cool way where it was like this is the worst so you you like this show you're glad i made you watch i just think it's so well done yeah and uh you know alex there her she sells like every mood I can't believe she doesn't do way more stuff. Like peak. Because am I nuts or is she awesome? Listen, this has happened a couple times.

Kelly Preston in the 80s, nobody figured it out. She was just on a series of 27 win teams and just people couldn't figure it out. Carla Gugino, forever. People just, they never, she never found the right role. Sometimes it happens. People don't find the right finals team.

But she was in True Detective, and she was awesome. And should have been like a major star after True Detective. And then she was in that movie with The Rock, where it was like an earthquake, and she was fine. Oh, San Andreas.

She's with Carla Gugino. That was when the torch gets passed. Yeah, but that doesn't sound like it's the right torch. No, but it's just the, now you are the Carl Anthony Towns of actresses. Yeah, it's like one of those things. Sometimes you just need the right role.

She's terrific in this because the husband's such a clown and she plays off of it perfectly. We did Illegally Blonde Rewatchables two weeks ago. I missed that one. Reese got caught at this point post-election where it's like you're the grown-up child actress. Election was this really defining character.

But now I have to start doing adult roles. And she has to audition over and over again to get this Illegally Blonde role because they think it's done. You have these four, but she ends up getting it. And then the next phase of her career kicks off. My point is, um, it hasn't happened for our girl Alex yet. Maybe this'll be it. Could be this podcast. Maybe, maybe it's a pod. I guarantee there's people out there listening. Like, yep. Thank God. Somebody's finally saying it. You should have her on for rewatchables. That'd be great. Just, just not even do a movie out there listening like, yep, thank God. Somebody's finally saying it. You should have her on for rewatchables.

That'd be great. Just not even do a movie. Just be like, what's going on? Why are you getting better parts? All right. Allison calls you up. She's like, hey, she wants to come on and promo the inner white lotus. Hey, so what's your deal?

How's your mom doing? Who's your agent? Can you get another one? What's your script reading process? Is CAA not calling you back too uh anyway four only four episodes left of these i love this whole world we've entered where these six to eight episode limited series you just throw yourself into a world it's more impactful than a movie you get to talk about it and then it's gone you move on to the next thing yeah and you also i mean you don't have to worry about like what's the season two three and four

are what are the seasons where you're delaying the end that you came up with when you really were only thinking about not five seasons all the extra ones i just read uh breakfast of champions by kurt vonnegut and i know i was a huge vonnegut guy when i was younger so now removed from it. So I was like, let me go back and dip my toes in this and reading breakfast of champions again. It was, it was even better, which I was a little surprised because I think when you're younger, you're so impressionable by art for the first time. Cause you're like, Oh my God, what are all these crazy? Like, and Vonnegut has this awesome line. And he's like, I think we're obsessed with death because it's a great way to end a TV show. He's like, I think people shoot each other so much in the country. Cause we see it a lot on because it's a great way to end a TV show. Either that or somebody has a baby.

He's like, I think people shoot each other so much in the country because we see it a lot on TV, which is really the best way to end a show. It was like such a, like it wasn't, it had nothing to do with the storyline really, other than it was just a random observation

I'm going to throw in there. And that's why I think these limited series, you just go, hey, here's the world that we're going to live in. Here's the end. And now you don't have to force me to come up with like 16 to 20 extra episodes that i didn't really think about when i thought of the idea in the first place yeah maybe mary easttown comes back as season two

she's just coaching i asked english about it because i was like how do you and i got to censor him he was just like he's done he's moving on because he knows there's almost no winning it for me they tried to do a big little last season too and it sucked did it yeah I love this yeah they're like is there anything else here and there really was I also watched over the weekend raising can on dr. death on peacock eight episodes good what is it

it's this this real story I think it's a podcast sorry raising canine I'm not sure but is it? It's this real story. I think it's Raising Canaan, by the way. Sorry, Raising Canaan. I'm not sure. Go ahead. It started as a podcast. It was about this doctor in Dallas who might have been a murderer. Oh, so doc. Either incompetent surgeon or a murderer. No, it's a TV show. Joshua

Jackson as the doctor. Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater as two other doctors trying to bring him down. Eight episodes. Kelsey Grammer comes in for a couple. Alec Baldwin's almost an automatic for me. Alec Baldwin and Slater together,

I'm like, you guys get me. Although Alexander Daddario, not in this show, unfortunately. She could have played like the DA or somebody. But Dr. Death, I think you would like that one. I like evil doctor shows. I don't think there's been enough evil doctor, evil lawyer shows. Somebody taking the law or the medicine in the wrong hands. They were supposed to make Devil in the White City in a movie, right?

Did you ever read that one? Eric Larson book? Uh-uh. So it's a true story about this guy who's like a serial killer, but he was also like burning people in these like different chambers that he had right around the Chicago World's Fair. I thought DiCaprio was supposed to play the guy at some point. You know what I watched?

Big Timber. What's that one? Reality show, Netflix. I loved it. Logging. I could see myself doing that one day. Just clearing a bunch of fur, cedar, hemlock. It's a lot to get in on the equipment, though. Well, you went to Vermont and you were doing log cabin for, like what two and a half weeks no i built i helped build a

a little where we live in them i was driving down from burlington right so it wasn't like you weren't robin williams and insomnia in alaska like 20 minutes away no it's not it's not that cool but yeah i could swing a hammer, put on a little Allman Brothers. You know, take it in, deep breaths, clean air, good living. That's a good promo for next week. So we'll decide whether we do a live during the draft show. I think we should. Or right after the first round show, or both.

I say we do the first round and then we do a wrap-up 30-minute pod while the second round is going. That could be fun. All right. I'll see you next week. Giannis, Bucks fans, Drew Holiday, Chris Middleton, everybody. Congratulations.

Coach Bud. Good finals. We were so worried about this being like maybe the finals with the non-superstar finals, the, uh, the finals with the suit with the non superstar finals, basically. And it turned out we got one of the great superstar performances of all time. So there you go. Ryan, I'm so good to see you. Thanks. Uh, Kyle Creighton produced this podcast. I will be back with one more podcast on this feed on Thursday. You'll have at least you'll have one more this week, right? One more this week. Dan Patrick, an hour of conversation with DP.

Oh, cool. Yeah. All right. So there you go. We will see you next time. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye.

Bye. I don't have feelings within On the wayside I'm a person never lost And I don't have feelings