The Bill Simmons Podcast - An NBA Title Mystery, a ‘Historic Scoring” Dilemma, Atlanta’s Woes and March Madness with Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo and they start by talking about how wide open the race for the NBA title is and who some of their favorites are. Then they put into context some of the historic numbers we've seen the best guys in the league put up this season (24:21). They also discuss the Atlanta Hawks continued struggles after blowing a 24-point lead to the San Antonio Spurs (1:38:25) before talking about some of their March Madness observations and takeaways. Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producers: Isaiah Blakely, Kyle Crichton, and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's our last weekend before succession starts. So I don't know. What are we going to do this week? Talk basketball. Okay, let's do that. That's next. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer.

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90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lights today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey. And it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday Night Hockey deliver unreal plays, the biggest goals, can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best.

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Sunday nights with Ryan Rosillo. We're going to be talking a lot of basketball. Maybe a little redraftables. We have another fun draft idea for you. And God damn it. Do we have to talk about the MVP again? Fine. We'll do that too.

First, Pearl Chip. All right, we're taping this. It is almost 7.30 Pacific time. Ryan Rossell is here, as always, every Sunday. We were just talking before we hopped on about how we don't really have a clue who's going to win the 2023 NBA championship. If I had to bet my life on anyone, it would be the Bucs. I wouldn't even blink twice, but even we wanted to start after we watched this Bucs-Raptors game today. The Raptors are at an interesting point. They're a 500 team basically, but I like what I'm seeing from them the last

couple of weeks. So I thought that would be a nice test for the Bucs and the Bucs had some issues with them. I still think they have the most talented team. They have arguably the best player, at least for that you'd want for the playoffs, but yet they seem vulnerable for a favorite. And then you go to the West and I don't think I like anybody. You'd have trouble talking me into any team in the West. So I don't remember this kind of, except for the bubble championship, Priscilla, I don't remember in recent years this much flux. Do you? No, I don't.

You know, normally when you do this, you know, for years, right, it felt like three teams, maybe four, and then like four or five teams was a stretch. I feel like the early 2000s, it was like, once you get to the fourth team, you were kind of lying to yourself, right? I'm like, who could actually win the whole thing? And this is the most parody we've ever seen. Like whenever you look at the West, you know, if you don't look for two days in the standings, you're like, wait,

who's the fourth seed? Like, wait, Oklahoma city's the eighth seed. They are right now with a win, which is another bad loss for Phoenix. So there's all these teams that I think I like, and there's all this evidence that I shouldn't like them. And you're right. There's no other pick. If you were to draft the potential winners of an NBA title,

there's no other pick than Milwaukee. And that would be even if Denver wasn't going through their weird stretch. So, yeah, I think it's cool, but it's very different. You think it's like hockey? Is basketball turning into hockey? That's coming up next. It does feel like there's flux. Is the NBA modeling after the NFC North?

We'll tell you why. It does feel like there's the same kind of hockey flux. I don't know if being a one seed matters this year, other than you get some home court games. But it certainly feels like anybody can stroll into anybody else's gym and beat them. We have so many good players now, just in general, it's the hardest thing to figure out. When we're doing the All-NBAs in a couple of weeks, it's going to be impossible to figure

out some of these teams. And then the West, we did a whole thing about Sacramento a week ago that I thought was pretty good timing on that one. But there's three back from Denver in the last call. I'm probably not going to catch them. But it's not like I don't think Sacramento could be beaten in any round by anybody. The Warriors are the big disappointment for me just because in terms of a title defense, considering they had some injuries, but not like crazy injuries, not like they had the year after the Raptors finals. But 36 and 36, seven and 29,

you know, in road games, it's just such a weird stat, but back to Milwaukee. It's funny. They're definitely the favorite. And I love the Philly matchup for Philly in that series. And I really took away a lot from that last game when Philly played them. I don't think they're going to be scared of them. And I think Embiid's going to be a real problem for them. Don't you feel like if it can somehow be Philly-Milwaukee in the East Finals? I can't believe I'm saying this, but to me, that's like a dead even matchup. But that's probably the toughest matchup in the league for Milwaukee this year. I wouldn't say it's dead even, only because we've seen Giannis do it already.

And Philly is incredible. I think the thing that's always been kind of annoying about Philly is that when you looked at everything on paper before the season would start, I think we agree on this. You're like, man, look how good this team is. Look at all the talent on this team if they're healthy. And there are certain players that I'm always going to have some playoff questions about

i'd say at this point hardens due to actually have like some good closeout games and for somebody like paul george who had a pretty nasty resume in some big spots like the thing that's kind of lost in that clippers thing is that it felt like he really you know granted they weren't the highest stakes games but you know you're going to dump on paul george all the time and then he has some great series where it looks like he's kind of turned this mental corner, then I think it's possible for even Harden too. So Philly-Milwaukee at this point with the Embiid-Yannis matchup alone,

nothing to be on each other the whole time, but then the adjustments off of it, which Bud isn't going to make a ton, which is kind of what he does, I think that's what every NBA fan would want right now in the East. I agree. The thing with Philly, if you're just talking narratives in either conference, Philly has the most fun narratives, I think, for a team to win the title, right? Because you'd have the hardened narrative of hardened a top 35 guy all time. But as Zach Lowe said, when we did the book of basketball

pod that time, you know, threatening to be like the Carl Malone of, of guards, basically that's, that's how he'll be remembered as this amazing regular season guy. And then you wouldn't want him in the playoffs. You have the Embiid really, really, really wants to be the alpha dog of the league. Um, and I think is the most competitive and most honest about it of any guy that we have. I think he really gives a shit about it. And then the Doc Rivers piece, the Daryl Morey piece, the fact that Philly as a city has only won two titles in the last 40 years. I think that's why the MVP thing has shifted the last couple of weeks because it just seems like Embiid cares the most

about all of this. And he really seems like he's trying to score 40 points a game now. And he not only is trying to grab the MVP thing by the balls, but he really seems like he wants to prove he's the best guy in the league, which is why this Denver, um, what does he have? He has at Milwaukee and at Denver or Milwaukee, Denver on a Saturday and a Monday next weekend. And I think he's going to be ready for those. The best case for him for MVP is I think he's going to show up

as much as somebody can show up in those games. So from a narrative standpoint, the most fun. Best record in the league basically since November. So it's not like this is a small hot streak. Like they've been really good now for four months. And they're starting to win me over a little bit. And yet all the things we've talked about in the past, Doc Rivers, Harden in the playoffs.

I don't know if I trust some of their role guys. They're not going to have home court in that Milwaukee thing. So that's going to be a battle. And what's interesting, we didn't even talk about the Celtics yet because I don't think they're in the conversation the same way. They aren't for me. Things are going to change real quick. And, you know, when I look at Denver and I think,

okay, maybe they're going through their bad stretch and they got the win today against Brooklyn. They, you know, there was a couple challenges there from Brooklyn, but they were in control of that game. So it was nice to see. And yet they had such a cushion. But the east at the top is better. I mean, I know we'll get to Boston a little bit later,

but, you know, there was always kind of this lingering thing of like, well, I'm probably really not going to worry about Philadelphia if you're Boston. And now it's like, I don't – I mean, it doesn't even have anything to do with Philadelphia. It's just a lack of trust with the Celtics. But if you look at Philly here, they had an incredible run in December. They had another huge run in January. They're on this unbelievable run here in March. And you look at these numbers too.

They're kicking everybody's ass. But it was funny because at the very beginning of the month, you know, they had that, they, well, at the end of February, they lose on the Tatum shot. They lose against Miami without Embiid. Then they beat Miami or excuse me, they lose with Embiid. They lose without them or they win without them. I just screwed that up, but I think everybody understands. And that Dallas game, that was a Thursday where we're all watching watching and it was like the epitome of all the shit you don't like about the Sixers. And the Mavs. Yeah.

Yeah, that's well said. And they haven't lost a game since then. They beat Milwaukee. You know, I even look at that Portland win where they got down big and then came back. I think wins like that are actually really important as opposed to being like, how come you're screwing around with this terrible defensive team? That's the only team the Celtics have looked decent again in two weeks, which you could tell you where the Trailblazers are at. And Philly winning that game, I think tells you more about their toughness now, which is always a question. And if you look at March, they're kicking everybody's ass. I mean, their net rating is six points better than the

second best team. They're the number one offense. They don't even have to be great defensively. They shoot the ball so well. They're not not turning it over they're shooting it better than everybody else they're great rebounding team and there's a lot of kind of mix and match options with this roster now you know let me know what it looks like with harden in game seven of the first or second round and then i'll tell you how i really feel but at to this point uh with the way the east is shaken out like everybody should be excited about them. I was ready to start taking them seriously. They had that game. They had that stretch where they beat the Lakers on a Friday night in mid-January. Oh, no, I'm going backwards. They

beat the Jazz and the Lakers back-to-back on a Saturday, Sunday, mid-January. Then they beat the Clippers. And this was all on the road, Portland. And they beat Sacramento by two. It's like, okay, what's going on here? That's a pretty impressive road trip. They beat the Nets, but then they had that Nuggets game the last Saturday in January. And that was the game when Embiid went to a whole other level. And that was, I think the day the MVP argument started to change a little bit and all that stuff. And you think like, okay, they're here. And then they lost the next game to Orlando, right?

And you're like, oh, got to get my guard up with the Sixers again. And that's kind of how it went for them really until that stretch you mentioned. And now they seem to me like a team that they're going to win by 20 against anybody unless it's a really good team. Like they are in that zone since the trade deadline. And I test wise, they just, they seem like they like playing, playing with each other. They seem like they can get stops when they need it. And as you point out, like their resiliency with some of these comebacks, I think that matters. I don't think those are small things. That's why I'm really looking forward. I think those Saturday, Monday games next week for Embiid,

I think that those are going to be two of the most compelling games of the regular season. Because I really think he cares about this stuff. Yeah, he does. And that's cool. You should care. I want guys to care about this stuff. I'd rather that than pretend it doesn't matter

or you don't even know what it is. You know, like, I hate that shit. What is it? What do you vote on? What have I won? So, because everybody actually does care more than they lead on and you know the only thing with mb that i don't like and i think it's more of the people around him that get in his head about how everybody's against him and it's like

actually honestly dude for somebody that doesn't have much playoff success i think he he actually escapes a lot of the criticism that we would have for a player that is his level. Normally, this guy's getting shit on at this stage of his career, and I don't really think that happens to him, at least from a national kind of neutral standpoint. And yeah, I think there's some things offensively and even with Embiid where, all right, is it, although the way they call the free throws now for some of, and I'm talking about like every primary high usage guy. And I'm,

we'll talk about a little bit later on the production stuff, but there's going to be part of me. That's like, what if there's a whistle they're not getting with the crew that night, you know, and I'm beads initiating the contact. Cause I've seen it. We've seen it happen in the playoffs or all of a sudden be like,

Oh, they, they got them again and they saw what happened in game three. So game four, there's, there's some kind of correction, you know, running your offense through a big and today's game in the playoffs um you know having your team ready for their help rules

because you're playing the same team so many days in a row that part of it like how how how different will they look with their offensive attack as opposed to that kind of right side, harden off the screen, shot, pocket pass to Embiid, Embiid pop. Because I mean, I can tell you right now all the variations of what they'd want to run. And I don't know if it's diverse enough to win 16 playoff games, but it's still the best I've felt about this group

in a really long time. There's a durability thing with him that's happening too. You know, one of the reasons it took so late for him to, for me to take him seriously as a candidate was started out the season and he missed eight of the first, I don't know, 20, right? So he was catching up for that for a while. But if you look, if you look at the rest of the way after that, he's basically played 45 of the next 50, right? He's been, this is about as durable as we've seen from him. And I was thinking like, oh, I wonder what his stats are like the last 15 games. His stats are basically been the same all year. Like he's shooting it a little bit better,

but for the most part, he's been 34 and 10 for five straight months. It's just the durability piece. And then he's had a couple end of the game things. I think that Portland game was fun. Um, but you know, the Philly fans and the, and that whole, the Daryl Moore universe,

we're getting so aggro about the MVP thing a few weeks ago. And Jokic was in the lead until I would say, I don't know, three weeks ago, because all those games and bead was playing started to add up. And then, and when Denver tailed off a little bit, if like a bead was off,

they look like shit. Well, but his stats didn't tail off as much as the team looked like shit. His didn't. But I mean, yeah, the team, the team kind of fell off.

Right. But it's funny. A lot of that stuff, a lot of the hullabaloo about, yeah, fuck you. You don't understand a bead. Like that stuff's really counterproductive. You know, it makes me like, I just want to vote for whoever the best player about, fuck you, you don't understand a beat. That stuff's really counterproductive.

I just want to vote for whoever the best player in the season was. You're not going to bully people into getting their vote. But I think he's clearly the favorite now. Fando, I think he's over minus 200. Two weeks ago, he might have been like plus 350. What's the Giannis number on

that? Because you sent it to me earlier today. The odds on Fando? It's low.'s uh plus 440 plus no five to one now and the imbeed is minus 250. um but if you look at if you look at three of them against each other that's about as close and as crazy um just three really high-end seasons competing against each other. It's a better version of the 2017 thing. Jokic is going to be in this situation where he's going to average 25, 12, and 10. Every advanced metric thinks he's insane. And the usage rate is 27, whereas for Embiid, it's 37. For Giannis, it's almost 39. So he's putting up comparable stats, but doesn't have the ball as much.

But for the most part, there's no wrong choice. The net rating with Jokic is great. Plus 12.7, which is just way better. Embiid's 8.8 and Giannis is 7.0. But I think the consistency that Embiid's had and the fact that Philly really has been the best team over the course of the season. If you throw out October,

they sucked in October. And then after that, they were fine. So remember when we were talking about, Oh my God, how long is doc going to last? Is he going to make it to December? I really thought like if,

if they didn't start out well in the first 20, I thought they were going to dump them. But, but they've been, I don't know. Safest thing. One thing I was thinking about with him real quick though, on the net rating thing that really favors Jokic, which I get whenever you watch.

But it almost feels unfair to penalize Embiid on the net rating when Denver has such a massive drop-off with bench points. It might have been 29th or something when you look at Denver's bench stuff. And again, I was looking at it. I think maybe we were doing all the MVP stuff there. You know, Philly's able to attack a little bit better and the way it'll stagger the minutes where there's times when you watch Denver's second unit

and you're like, who's going to score? Or who's going to get them into something is probably the better way to say it. That's why the on-off thing we've always talked about, it makes me a little nervous, but I do think it can be one of the 12 factors you look at for me it should be because again for yokich it's staggering but it's also there's it's a reflection of some really crappy guys on your bench if we know anything at this point like if

i had to do uh if i were in high school on the debate team and i had to argue for any of the three guys i'd feel really good about my chances of making a compelling argument argue for any of the three guys, I'd feel really good about my chances of making a compelling argument. For any of the three. Right, but Embiid should be the favorite now. But again, I don't even really like saying that because I still don't know what's going to happen here. But the other part of it too is just Denver

looking like they were so far ahead and better than everybody else and steady and they were getting everybody back. Maybe it's just their bad stretch. I mean, when they don't look good, you're kind of like, wait, do I overrate a bunch of these dudes or are they actually all just better because they have Jokic and he gets them so many good looks. And then when things are bad, again, you know, it's, it's maybe just they're really bad stretch, but then Philly surge in the East plays into this too, because you thought you were comparing,

even though I wouldn't always go letter of the law standings, which we saw last year as well. You can make a case. Brooke Lopez, Andrew Holiday are better than anyone, the Nuggets. And I just did because I think both of them are. Lopez has been outstanding. I have a fun Lopez game for you later. Lopez has been outstanding this season. He's awesome. Do you remember when he was free? Year 15 for him. Yeah. Remember when the Lakers were like, ah, do we keep this guy? And they just decided not to. And they barely paid him for that year. Right.

But I think Lopez and Holiday are better than any Nugget. Harden is definitely better than any Nugget. And you could argue Maxie would be in the running for second best Nugget if he played like 37 minutes a game for them. I don't know. Because Murray's pretty up and down. Like he was good today.

Then you watch other games where he's five for 19. And as good of a two-way player as Aaron Gordon's been, that's a really good role player. I wouldn't say he's a star. No, he's been terrific for them, but it's product Jokic, and he's just going to be limited in what he can get you offensively. I think, I'm not going to be limited in what he can get you offensively. I do. I think I'm not going to say you're wrong, but it feels like the wrong time to start like downgrading Murray.

Cause if he was out of the game the other night with the knee injury. Yeah. I mean, it's an injury related thing, but I think when he's rolling now, granted there's other guards that I still put ahead of Murray that I think I've seen some other people try to argue that he's in that tier. I'm not sure about that. He's not. That tier, he's not yet because the durability hasn't been there. And the Drew thing is weird because if you just looked at scoring, but Drew's not going to attack the same way offensively that Jamal is. So Drew's not going to have those kinds of games where when you look at Drew and when he decides to do what he wants to do,

like watching him get switched on a Siakam in the post, and Siakam couldn't shake him. And then they brought help, which I don't even think he needed. Toronto's best play at the close of this game was somebody ignoring Purtle or a couple of absurd Van Vliet shots. And then Drew, I don't know how much of the Phoenix game you saw, but late- I watched the fourth quarter.

Booker couldn't get off of him. That's insane. And when I start thinking about Defensive Player of the Year and all the different him that's insane you know when i start thinking about defensive player of the year and all the different stuff that's out there and you're like i don't know should i emphasize like hey when this guy has to disrupt your point of attack and then also play off the ball on a bigger wing or you know granted it's getting switched into the post is kind of stupid emphasize too much because it doesn't happen all that much but you know there's sometimes i look at drew and go, sure, there's other guys that

maybe have some better metrics. And we still always like the big guys for defensive player of the year other than last year. But damn, some nights with Drew, the way he just goes, no, I'm actually not going to switch. I'm going to fight through this screen and I'm still going to be on you. And now what? And it's awesome. He definitely reclaimed the best defensive guard in the league title back

after Marcus Smart carried the belt for a year. And then, I don't know what happened to Marcus Smart. I mailed you defensive player of the year odds that were on FanDuel

and I was like, does anything jump out to you? And you noticed one of the two things. First of all, they had nine guys. Lopez is the favorite, minus 160.

Triple J is plus 150. Bam, Giannis, Evan Mobley, Anthony Davis, Jared Allen, Nick Claxton, Joe Embiid. No Drew Holiday and no OG Ananobi, who just watching basketball eye test week to week, Drew and OG are the four or five best defensive players in the league by any calculation. Giannis is in there. I think Lopez has been in there this year and Triple J. And I think Bam, maybe right on the fringe. But I think that those five, I think, are the best defensive guys I've watched this year.

OG and Drew don't even have odds. I couldn't believe that. To me, Drew is like when Curry had that Saturday night game against them, when he was in check for three and a half quarters. And then finally the fact that he was scoring on Drew almost made it greater. It was like, Oh my God,

he's look at that. Look at what he's doing to Drew. This doesn't normally happen. Same for OG. I've never seen, um, have you ever seen anybody block more threes in the corner than OG? He's got to be the leader in that.

I think Dival, well, I guess for this year i don't know what off the top of my head i just remember thibault used to get all sorts of blocks i remember one so impressive when that happens right yeah dival one time got like beat on the up fake and then came back and blocked it from behind recovered i was like who's this guy um because it seems like lopez is going to win defensive player of the year and the advanced metric stuff with him is nuts like the challenging two-point shots there's all these crazy stats where he's just way better than any other center

and yet i test wise i don't know if i like to me og and an ob and drew holiday are the two best defensive players in the league because i think what they have to do is harder but i get it it always goes to a big man triple j is up there too brooke has kind of an impossible thing certain nights where you know when he's in that drop which is what they're going to do, it can almost make him look worse than he is because it's by design. Like you saw it with Phoenix where Chris Paul finally was like, okay, well, if he's going to keep dropping this whole time and Book can't get free from Drew Holiday, then I'm going to have to start in some of these mid-ranges. And then it did. And then he kind of got caught in between. I remember when Zion was still healthy. It was like i don't know seven years ago

um there was a game where valenciunas had like 20 in the first half because brooke was like their whole design was we're staying close to zion so zion's curling you're cutting that drive off and we'll leave valenciunas open the whole time and it looked awful and brooke even turns to uh bud and it's like you want me you seriously want me to just keep letting this guy shoot the whole time and i'll never forget antonio daniel's on the call he was great and he just goes look i played for bud he's not going to change anything and he's going to think it's going to even out and it worked out ended up totally working out and it was it was just one of those things so i I think Lopez, if you eye test it, you make a really good point

because some nights you're like, is he really having that kind of impact? And then when you look at the contested shots, you go, this isn't even, he's not even close. Yeah, I have certainly have not decided what to do for that award. It's crazy that the Celtics don't have a single candidate. They might not have a guy get on any of the all defense teams.

Derek White's probably their best chance this year, and I don't think he's going to get it. He doesn't have the rep. He's not going to have the rep to do it. Last year, you had Robert Williams and you had Marcus Smart, and both of those guys were in the Defensive Player of the Year conversations, not this year. Well, speaking of this award stuff,

we're going to do something after the break, trying to put this year's stats in perspective, if that is even possible. Well, speaking of this award stuff, we're going to do something after the break, trying to put this year's stats in perspective, if that is even possible. So that's next. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer.

Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers,

host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care.

To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. So I told you I want to do something about the numbers this year, because the numbers are being used from a historical standpoint to bolster whoever's MVP case. And I've talked about this a little bit in the past, but I haven't done the research like I did this time around. You know, it did feel like one of those seasons that we're at the end of some era and moving into the start of some different era with the numbers. There's too many examples of crazy numbers that have no historical correlation that if you just look at like the Embiid 30, he's 34 and 10. It's like, oh my God, that's, this is one of the great, but then you put that in the context of seven other things that have happened this season. And it's becomes a situation of what do I believe? How impressive is this? Even though it's definitely impressive. It's not like I was like the, the one I would always bring up for

this is Pedro in 1999 and 2000 when his stats were historically impressive, but also then when you compared him to the people in his era, then it became completely insane. In this case, like for instance, Embiid's averaging 33 and a half and 10.2 rebounds. The only guys ever to do this, Will Chamberlain did it like six times. Kareem, Bob McAdoo, Walt Bellamy did it once,

Giannis, Moses, Karl Malone, Bob McAdoo again, and Kareem again. It's basically like nine guys have ever done this, right? So you're like, wow, then that should be enough to win the MVP. Then you go to the Jokic stuff. All right, who's averaged 20, 10, and seven in a season? It's just Will Chamberlain.

That's it. It's like, whoa, that's pretty impressive. There was a Jokic number today real quick that it was like somebody over, like this many assists and then this field goal percentage. And Will had averaged like under eight assists and shot over 60%.

And Jokic is at 63% and had like 10 assists a game. So you're right. Like every single time you're watching a broadcast of one of these special players, you'd be like, nobody's doing this since then. And I'm like, what? You know, like this is all happening.

Like that NBA stat today, about the 35 a game for nine games in a row, only the Brown has done that. It was shooting 60%, whatever it was. Doncic, who's not even in the MVP race anymore. And, you know, if he has a losing record this year, I think he's got first team all NBA locked in, but I'm still going to think about it for a split second if they never win a record.

32-8-8 for a season. That's only been done by Oscar, MJ, and that one Russell Westbrook season, right? So he's making history on that front. Dame Lourdes averaging 32.4 points a game. How many guards have done that? Luka, Steph, Harden, Kobe, Iverson, McGrady, MJ, and Girvin. That's it. So he's having, for him, the best season he's had.

Jason Tatum's averaging 30 a game. Well, how many forwards have done that? Giannis, KD, LeBron, Karl Malone, Dominic Wilkins, Bernard King, Dantley, Barry, Elgin Baylor, Bob Pettit. It's like, that's a historic list. And I don't even feel like, like since the All-Star break, I'm not even sure how well Jason Tatum's playing. Shea Gilgis-Alexander averaging 31 a game. Oh, how many guards have done that? Or I'm sorry, how many guys 24 and under have done that? Luka, Tatum, Durant, LeBron, McGrady, Kobe, Jordan, McAdoo, Archibald, Abdul-Jabbar,

Rick Barry, Oscar Robertson, Wes Chamberlain, Robertson again. These are like, these are historic lists. Like Shane, Shane Gilchrist is, you know, like the ninth most impressive historic thing that's happening. James Harden is averaging 20 and 10, 21 and 10. Only guy ever to do that 33 and over is LeBron James. So he's having historic season. My point, Rosillo, if all of these people are having historic seasons,

do we have to take a step back and go, Hmm, is, is the sport just changing? And this is the sign of where the future is going. Yes, that's exactly what it is. This is not an opinion.

This is a rising tide thing. Okay. Because for three straight years, you were like, Hey, do you realize that Dallas Mavericks have the best offense in the history of the NBA? And you were like,

okay, per 100. And then you're like, do you realize, you know, this year? So for like the last couple of years, the best offense we've gone, Oh, that's the best statistical the NBA and you're like okay per 100 and then you're like do you realize you know this year so for like the last couple years the best offense we've gone oh that's the best statistical offense do you would you take any of those offenses the last few years over

what the Warriors had with Durant of course you wouldn't so you know I've I've actually spent time on this but if you go over the full 77 NBA seasons even start with the ABA stuff which again that's like Maple Leaf um I think one year, the average field goal percentage in some of those early 40 seasons was like 27% from the floor combined. It's a rack fight. And they took a million shots though, which is the weirdest part.

But we've had the top offensive ratings in the last seven seasons. So the best seven have been in the last seven seasons. If you seven have been in the last seven seasons. If you look at the individual usage part, which is something that I'm on, if you go through the top 20 single usage seasons by an NBA player in the history of the league since we started tracking it, which doesn't go all the way back, 13 of the top 20 are in the last five years. That's with Kobe only having one. Think about this. Michael Jordan only has two

ever. He only has two ever. He only has two seasons of his career that are in the top 20. Iverson's in there, and Jermaine O'Neal's got one. Oh, Jermaine. There's 45 20-point scores right now in the NBA. 45 are averaging 20 a game. 10 years ago, that was 11. All right?

Well, how about the 30-point scores? What do we or six it's seven with lebron okay because he's not on some list because he hasn't played enough games yet but if you include lebron because it's legit it's seven if you go over the previous 76 seasons there was 89 total so we averaged 1.17 30 point per game scores the previous 76 seasons this year we have six of them so this is exactly and we've had the 70 point games too how many have we had at least three right mitchell had one dame had one oh two but a bunch of 60 pointers too um yeah right no no seven with lebron i meant on the 30 thing because I said it. Yeah, I'm just saying like single gamers. So this is exactly like quarterback. You know, the only guy in the top 10 that's not a modern quarterback for passing yards for his career is Dan Marino.

When you look at the college stuff that's happened over the last few years, like every single offense is running a different offense. They're passing it more. There was some clock stuff that also was changed years ago. And the players, I want to be able to prove both things or emphasize both things. The players have never been better. There's more depth. The shot-making ability is absurd. It's the evolution of man. The players are better and better and better. But we are in this window now where everybody's offensive numbers are being propped up.

And like, I mean, here's another thing, too. If you looked at field goal attempts, OK, there are 15 players this season taking 20 shots or more. Again, Jesus. All right. Ten years ago, only two players took 20 shots per game for an entire season. So the best players are shooting more than ever. Their usage rates are up higher than ever. And the weird thing, too, is that even though free throws

across the league are not as high as they've been in other eras, sometimes not even close. The top scorers are getting to the free throw line more. And you could nitpick that one a little bit. So I think it's the threes, it's the usage, it's the shot attempts, it's the rest, it's all sorts of things. Oh, I'm glad you mentioned the rest. That's a really important piece of this too.

So as I give it back to you here, this is special, but it's also happening at the same time because this is what the game is. So I'm not taking away from the dudes, but a lot of times when something this amazing has happened, you're like, wait, are we actually just in this amazing historical stretch? Yes, but there's also a very specific reason to this era. You left out pace because the 14 second shot clock on the offensive rebound, the, this year where they have the, the,

they changed the clear path foul stuff. Um, and the thing where you just fouled people on a break and it just feels like the pace of these games are better. And I think it really helps these guys. And I talked about it a couple of weeks ago on the pod about they're used to how to play this Curry style now. Right. 2013, as the as the leagues and the sports shifted.

You had this kind of awkward four year run there where the personnel didn't match up with the style. And now the personnel matches up with the style. And even like, you know, with the centers and how that's changed, I did, did a whole thing about that on Tuesday. The centers now are just different. They're used differently. They all know how to play this style. And Brooke Lopez is like the litmus test of this completely changed his style to fit in. And this is the best version of him. So, you know, I look at it a little bit, like when they talk about movies and they talk about the group, they had to do the adjusted gross. So it'd be like the Godfather sold like a hundred million tickets or

some crazy number. But if you do like the biggest grossing movies ever, it's not in there because it's all the latest movies because tickets are more expensive. And we figured out a way to adjust for that. I don't know if we're going to get that way with basketball, but I do feel like averaging 30 a game, you mentioned the quarterbacks. It feels a little like 4,000 yards seemed like so much for a quarterback when we were growing up. And then there hit this moment where all of a sudden it kind of didn't matter as much

anymore. Like I went back, there was, I think it was the 95 season. There was 10 guys who threw for 3,000 yards. Warren Moon led the league with 46, 89. Jim Everett was second with 39, 89, right? And then you fast forward to 2004 and all of a sudden that's 16 guys who've thrown for 3,000 yards, right? to 2004 and all of a sudden that's 16 guys who've thrown up to 3000 yards. Right.

And then we go into the, the 2012 season. Now we have 24 guys through for 3000 yards, 11 guys through for 4000 yards, Drew Brees through for 5,100 yards. Right. And all those stats just kill the other stats. I do wonder if that's going to happen with basketball a little bit. Well, it should, because it's not an opinion. It's what's happening. But they might make some rules to edge this off a tiny bit, because the rules have always shifted

against when things have become too easy or too prolific. They might add some stuff. I don't know. But you might be right that this just might be what we're looking at now. Like with the NFL, when all of a sudden we're throwing the offensive player i hate charges but thank god they fucking exist because if there weren't charges even though i hate them although i do think the league's much better with the flopping than it was there was a stretch there for a couple years where i would just be in my basement screaming at no one yeah um i think that's getting better although now the lurching The lurch play is in his... They still haven't figured that one out where you were talking about 30 seconds ago.

The landing area... The thing Giannis does where he just kind of dives into somebody as he's getting a layup, and I just don't know how you're supposed to officiate it. No, I mean, that game against Phoenix was ridiculous. I love Giannis, but 24 free throws and Monte Williams just being beside himself.

I don't know what you're supposed to do. I don't know what you're supposed to do with any of that stuff. I'd love if the league, I don't know if they're going to do it, though. I don't know if they can go back to that because I think there's so many younger officials that I think some of them are really impressionable. Certain nights I'll watch, I'll look at the crew and I'll go, I bet you I know who called that.

I'm amazed now at this point of somebody newer going, why did you fall for that? wow, I know who called that. And I'm amazed now at this point of somebody newer going like, why did you fall for that? So if you're a high usage dude who's taken 20 plus shots and you're getting every fucking call when you're initiating everything all the time too, I don't, like, what the hell are you supposed to do on defense? I mean, you know, they're somehow trying to, like, make up for it with these weird screen fouls they keep calling. Like Like if you run that dribble handoff, the hammer thing to the side where you give it to and it's like a handoff on the side. If I'm the defensive player, I might coach it or if I coach, I would be like, just fall down as soon as you do that because it's not at the top and it's on the side. They seem to call it on the side all the time. They call the illegal screen like a different way at the top and even though i hate those plays i'm like imagine if you took out all that stuff or any of the kind of late charges in

the landing area you know what i really think is one of the worst thing that's happened was zaza put going under kawaii leonard has has made contesting shooting like that's another thing too is you can harden invented a travel that was legal, like this side step back. I'm not even knocking Harden for it because they let him do it. And it was like, no, no, you can gather and then hop backwards twice. And if you do a straight contest on somebody at three, you can't do that anymore. You have to kind of do this drive-by contest. So there's all these things happening on top of the rest, which isn't necessarily the player's fault, even though I think there's a lot of players that actually like the load management thing.

The longer calendar by a few days, historically, they get spring break for All-Star weekend. The back to back numbers, 2014 2015, Bill, it was 19 per team. Last year, it was 13 and a half per team. On top of that,

the two game series in the same arenas, the lack of one-game road trips, that's down significantly too. So, you know, Silver and everybody that's in charge of all the scheduling stuff, they've made life easier for the NBA player too. So I could bitch about certain officiating things and high usage and all that stuff, but the life of an NBA player has never been easier as far as all the secondary stuff. It would be interesting if you put some of the great players into this season. Now, some of it would be tough because MJ wasn't going to shoot 11 threes a game and Bird probably took two a game and et cetera, et cetera. But even the Kobe 2006 season, where he averages 35 a game, and the sports being played way differently, there's less possessions, there's less sophistication about the spacing.

I do wonder if you put 2006 Kobe into this season, he probably gets to 40 a game. I think he could have done it. If he wants to get 40 a game, no question. Now, I think at some point there's a you know diminishing returns on like how many points do you want to get like whenever people look at mj and go oh he would have gotten 50 i think the defenses are far more intricate now than they were i mean i'll i'll tell a little maybe i shouldn't tell you this but let's just say i'm on a text thread with somebody that played and we spend way too much of our time

sending each other clips and YouTube games of the supposed lockdown defense of the nineties. And when you go back and watch it, it's all on fucking YouTube folks. Is it Michael Jordan? I've, I know you, Jordan's busy right now, so he's not texting me back, but you know, I know you've seen the Pistons heart heart fouls clips the defense is so much worse than people talk about it so yeah jordan if you want to get 50 now you get 50 because there's more space and all that kind of stuff but uh you know i don't know like whenever i see those games i always would look at those going if lebron had wanted to do this in his prime he could have done the exact same thing don't you but he's actually just not wired to ever want to

do that, I don't think. Do you agree with that? Yeah. The 2006 Lakers averaged 99.4 points a game. The Kings are averaging like 121, right? So Kobe averaged 35 a game for a team that scored 99 points a game. He scored 35% of their points. So if you just say, let's give them 115 points a game, he at least gets to 38. And then you think it's way easier to have the 60, 70 point games now than it's ever been. So you have a couple of those that completely skews your points per game. I think he could have gotten a 40. Jordan, too hard to say because he didn't shoot

the threes the same way if he wanted look he got 37 a game one year so he'd get 40 plus now and then if you did the whole concept of like i just don't know what the ceiling is could he've gotten a 43 42 i don't know i just think there there becomes this thing like as if jordan were playing today he would just get 50 because he's the best ever and it's insane and i'm like okay he's a lot 50s a lot of fucking points yeah 50s a lot of not i'm not ready to go there and i and i again i i think you would get to a point where it's like okay what exactly are we doing here like is this like what's are we trying to win any of these games uh but yeah we're i'm glad you brought this up because every game you watch, there's some new graphic. If the team has a really good player, there's some new graphic that a player on that team is doing something we haven't seen or we've only seen twice in 30 years.

And you're like, it feels a lot like quarterback play or steroid era baseball. Or the best example. And you did a good podcast once with Derek Thompson about the records, but like you go back and you look at the Bobby or stats from the seventies and what the Bruins are doing compared to everyone else in the league, or you go, or more specifically, you go to the Gretzky stuff, the Gretzky stuff that one year he had 220 points where he had his assists would have just won the points to title two. He was so far ahead of what everyone else was doing. That's when stuff like that is happening.

That's where you got to go. Oh my God, what is happening in this case? It's, it's the rising tide thing. As you mentioned, like we had in 1990 before the receiver boom, Jerry Rice led the,

led the league with 1500,500 yards and 100 catches. And the next guy was Henry Ellard at 76 and 1,294. So he beat the next guy by 200. There was only 10 1,000-yard receivers that year. So then you go, just five years later, Jerry Rice has 122 catches for 1,848 yards. And Isaac Bruce is right behind him at 1,781. And Herman Moore is 1,686.

Michael Irvin is 1,603. And there's 23 1,000-yard guys, right? And then the receiving stats were never the same after that. They just went up a level. And those guys had a huge advantage over people like my guy Stanley, the steamer Morgan, who's putting up huge stats in this era when nobody, the steam and the steam was putting up big games, but it's just, it changed.

And I do wonder if that's going to happen with our beloved national basketball association. Golden state with the rant that first year was one 14 per one, a hundred possessions. They wouldn't be in the top 10 right now. Okay. Right. And that's the best offensive team we've ever seen.

Yeah. And if you go back over, like right now, Sacramento for the season is at one 18. That's the highest all time last year. It was Utah at one 16. Okay. Sacramento.

Um, that was second all time to Brooklyn and Portland the year before that. I mean, the 2021 Portland Trailblazers would have, I think, the third best offense of all time. And then the year before that, it was Dallas at 115.9, which at that point, that was the best offense ever. So the point is, I know what the numbers say, but I'm glad we did this because I think more people will listen to you because I've been hitting on some of this you should stuff and I've been hitting on some of this point scoring thing going. It's awesome, but it may be a little less special than we think it is. All right, we're taking a break.

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Not at all. Trains move quietly so you won't hear them coming.. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See? Safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up.

Give what up? Really? Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. I have some hodgepodge stuff for you. Okay. I realized today that Brooke Lopez

is now the best player from the 2008 draft. I'm not saying he's had the best career. I'm saying right now, if you could pick any player from the 2008 draft to play in your team for the next three months, you'd pick Brooke Lopez over all the guys in that draft, which is crazy because at no point over the previous 14 years would you have ever said, you know who's going to end up in 2023 being the most reliable player from the 08 draft? It's

going to be Brook Lopez. You can go through it. I know you're making a face, but I'm just telling you, he's the best player left from that draft. He is. As good as he's been right now. I can't believe I'm about to do this. I don't think you can say that about that over Russell Westbrook. Come on. That's crazy. What are you talking about? It goes against the religion. He's a borderline all-NBA guy. He's been semi-dominant defensively. He's a good three-point shooter. He's a winning player. I'd have to have him over Westbrook. And then the other candidates for the people listening at home,

Kevin Love, Eric Gordon, Galanari, Derrick Rose. Yeah, when are you going to say Derrick Rose? OJ Mayo, Nick Batum. He's like the last guy standing. So I went through, I went through every draft and did a best guys right now from every draft list. 2022 Palo, 2021 Evan Mobley. These are just who I'd want right now. I'm not saying career, anything just right now. So is that what you meant by the Lopez Westbrook thing? Who you want right now? Yeah, right now. Like'm not saying career, anything, just right now. So is that what you meant by the Lopez-Westbrook thing? Yeah, Lopez right now.

Yeah, right now. Next three months. That's different instead of Utah saying we're good with you, Russell Westbrook. Yeah, you know what I mean. Okay. Right now, this moment. Sorry, I didn't explain it properly. Good. I'm glad we clarified that. Okay, I get it. I get

what you're saying. Yeah, I'd rather have Brooke Lopez than Derrick Rose right now. Everyone from the draft. I'd still rather have prime Derrick Rose years. That's not the argument. The argument is right now. This moment, I can have anyone in basketball team. I'm going to shut up. This is new to me. 2020. 2020 Halliburton.

2019. Interesting question. Would you want Ja or Garland right now? I think I'd rather... I mean, this Ja thing, I don't know what to make of it. It looks like it'll probably work itself out. Okay.

I have Ja too. I just wanted to have the discussion. I really like Garland too, but I don't know that I'm quite ready to do that. 2018, Luka. 17, Tatum. 16, Sabonis. 2015, Booker.

2014, we have Embiid and Jokic, and I'm not arguing about those guys. 2013, Giannis. 2012, Dame. Now it starts to get fun. 2011, Kawhi. 2010, Paul George is our winner from the 2010 draft. And it's not even close.

I was like, wait, he can't. No, he definitely is. 2009, Curry. 2008, Lopez. Now it's getting really fun. 2007, Durant. 2006, by default, Kyle Lowry. Because there's nobody else playing.

Well, this is a pop quiz, so I didn't know that I was supposed to rapidly... I'm just reading you the list. These aren't arguments. 2005 is CP3. 2004, Iguodala. And 2003, LeBron. Those are everybody from the last 20 years playing in the NBA. But the Lopez

thing was the one that shocked me when I went through. I was like, yeah. Oh, wait. He is the best guy right now from that draft. Even though he isn't the best guy from that draft. Of the ones I paid attention to. Which one jumped out? Paul George? I'm going to push back on Halliburton over

Anthony Edwards. Okay. And Halliburton over Anthony Edwards. Okay. And Halliburton's awesome. Halliburton's awesome. Right now. I'm not saying career. Even right now. Say right now.

Even right now. What, are you going to use the ankle sprain against me? Well, I didn't see Halliburton spraining his ankle. All right, next topic. James Wiseman. So when we have these high lottery pick people, and then somebody trades for them because it didn't work out the team that drafted them. There are the times like there's the Hashim the beat type of guy where you're like, I can't believe anybody traded for him. There's no way that guy will ever be good.

There's the Darko type where you go, eh, bad situation, but I also think he might not be good, but I can see change of scenery. Who knows? And then there's the Wiseman one where you go, definitely the wrong team. He just needs to play. I have no idea if he's good or not. And the last four games for Detroit, I think he's averaging like 17 and 10. He was really good today. The thing I watched the whole second half of Detroit, Miami, I was kind of shocked how well he was guarding Bam 30 feet from the basket. Cause they do that thing with Bam where he's far away from the basket facing up. Point Bam.

And if it's a red kind of big, he could just go by him. And he kind of wasn't going by Wiseman. Wiseman was holding his own. He was crashing the boards. And I like Sadiq Bae, but, man, you get that guy. He's, I think, 21 or 22. And I think there's really genuinely something there. Do you agree?

Oh, yes. of course I agree. Because in the limited three games we saw against Memphis, not the greatest competition. I'm telling you, if you watched it, you went, not only did it not make a lot of people like this on earth that move the way he does, there was a ceiling for him with his touch and some of the decisions that he made that you're

like whoa there was also this floor where you could see as soon as he had to think about what he was doing he was lost he is not a loafer he's not some big that's just kind of locked in i agree he tries so hard the problem is you have to think more when you're playing a golden state system um you would have thought his life was going to be easier with just rim runs all the time with all the space that would be there everybody chasing around the shooters but kerr wasn't playing him kerr wasn't playing him and look haralob who was on a very short list of people that if he says something to me about something you know not like we're texting all the time i'll be like oh you know i wonder if I got this wrong

or if I'm missing something, I'm not seeing it right. And he tweeted out, would he even be on an NBA roster if he wasn't such a high pick? And I couldn't believe he said it. Because I'm like, first of all, he's going to be, if it didn't work out in Detroit, a third team would pick him up, okay? So I'm not telling you it's going to work out.

The start has not been great. The guy has not played enough. But the funny thing is you thought at Golden State, he'd be asked to do so little. There'd be so little pressure on him that he'd be fine. But actually, he was held to this standard that most guys in this situation are not held to. They're winning a championship. They're trying to do it again. So every time he'd screw up a rotation or not know where he was, and that was kind of the issue, and Kerr just didn't trust him anymore, they couldn't play him. He couldn't play through the mistakes.

I'm telling you, if that kid were on Houston, and granted, health has something to do with it. If you were on Houston right now, people would have been thinking, this guy's, oh, wow, 17 and 11 again. Because he tries his ass off, and that's way different than some big who just doesn't even want to be out there, was tall his whole life. And I think he, I like the way he moves. I think he's pretty fluid. You know, I think there's a hundred percent, definitely something there. And I'm surprised that the Warriors gave up on him. Kurt wasn't playing. Well, but when it turned out, Peyton was hurt and you have no idea when Peyton's coming back and they could have easily avoided the trade and just brought Wiseman back, I think they might have made a mistake. I think I just would have rather brought him back and figured it out in the offseason because I think he would add value.

Instead, they traded for somebody who's hurt, who now they're going to be in the plan and he's going to be working his way back into the lineup. You make a trade like that because you're trying to push your team up a level, which brings me to my next topic. I think this is an appalling title defense by the Warriors. We've had some bad ones like that 2007 heat. That was pretty bad. The 99 bowls is the staple, but everybody was gone. Jordan, Pippen, Bill Jackson. The heat one's atrocious. Heat one's kind of pretty indefensible. There's been some bad ones.

This one is, I just think, I just don't see a world where there should be a 500 team. Even if you factor in, you're not going to have Curry for 20 games. You're not going to have Wiggins for 11. It's not like they've been decimated by injuries like they were after the Toronto. Well, it hasn't been great. And the road record is embarrassing. No, it hasn't been great. But then there's a lot of other teams to be like, hey, you want can we trade?

Can we trade our health situation for that one? The Wiggins thing which you know I know we're not going to get into the rumors of all of this but you know he was arguably their second best player in the playoffs last year and that's turned out to be a massive loss like whenever you think you're going to get all of your guys back I also think there's a bit of a you know we can turn it on thing which is usually the death sentence for a lot of what happened to them but the road stuff is so bad and then it's like wait you're going to lose to memphis again and they don't even have jaw although i thought jaron jackson just had a really nice week i

thought he was terrific last night um you know kaminga is a showing flashes guy where when it's good it looks really good and then you also look at moody a lottery pick where lamb and ty jer Jerome are playing ahead of him. And then there's the pool situation. He's a fucking mess. And we bought a lot of stock with him. Well, why wouldn't you? The last two years.

Because I remember you and I doing a pod where you're like, have you been watching what this guy's doing? No one can stay in front of him. But now it's, hey, you need to take on more of the burden and so he's shooting more and he's making less of them and i'm telling you when he makes a mistake it's like they break the huddle and he goes hey what do we need the least right now and they go this and he'd be like yeah i got you i got you he's a minus two and a half points on the plus minus playing with curry granted the minutes are staggered

somewhat but the lack of people they're they're still playing like i don't want to hear about how pool's never playing with curry curry's a plus eight in box score and and somehow pool is you know he's getting his points like you can look at some of the traditional stuff and go like oh he's took it it's a fucking mess he makes some plays you're like what are you doing and then i think the thing to be fair to Clay, who's been on a really nice offensive run, he had the huge night the other night, he was playing himself into offensive shape here too.

So I don't know how it's going to end, but you'd like a nice two weeks, and it's just impossible. 37 games for Wiggins. Curry's missed, I think, 22, something like that. So they've had injuries, but I think a lot of teams have. The Celtics have certainly, you know, they've, how many, Rob Williams, has he played 20 games this year? Smart sprained his ankle, he's never been the same. Every team has injuries. I just, I don't know how you go from winning the title to just being a 500 team,

unless your best player goes out for, know 60 games um you look at the playoff picture right now and the east is a little bit easier to figure out than the west it looks like we're headed toward milwaukee against the number eight which is probably going to be atlanta toronto or chicago philly against brooklyn two seven b Boston, Miami. God damn, it's going to happen. You're still afraid of Miami, huh? You're still afraid of Miami. They look terrible, and I'm still afraid of them because I think they're tougher than the Boston.

Butler is tougher than anyone. Butler and Bam are tougher than anyone on this Boston team this season. That's why I'm scared of them. There's no toughness with this Celtics team at all. And it turns out the coach, Hudoka, who we knew gave them a lot of toughness last year, but might've given them even more toughness than we realized.

Do you want to take the floor here? Because this team is soft. How's causing the Charmin Celtics? We did a worst contracts draft on Thursday and he's making Charmin Celtics jokes. And it's like, I don't have anything to add. The team's soft and they're poorly coached. Do you want to talk about the fourth quarter last night? Do yourett. Well, I was texting with Brian Barrett after that terrible

Utah game. Marty's kid? Marty's kid. No, the host of Off the Pike. And he was like, there's no chance Brad would just say, I got to save this and do the Pat Riley, Stan Van Gundy. That's how bad Joe Maz has been. And I don't say something like that lightly, but when he's, when we, so we started texting about it and I was like, I was actually going to bring this up to Rosilla tonight. Is it inconceivable that Brad will start coaching this team soon? Because that's how bad this has been. Felger and Maz, did they have a new Monday then?

They have a Monday open. Oh, Brad Stevens? Is this, you think this is a Felger and maz did they have a new monday then they have a monday open oh brad stevens is this you think this is a felger and maz topic are you kidding it was they might go an extra hour uh i i'm really rough i watched the fourth quarter again this morning because you know i was sort of in a basketball overdose by the end of the night last night. And then you're checking in on Alabama. And I watched the Grant Williams play, the shot attempt. I think I watched it seven times. And then I actually went and listened to what he said. And then I was trying to figure out what happened.

For those that missed it, they run this play where Tatum lines up behind the half court. It's their only play. They have one play at the end of the game they and they run it every time and i'm pretty sure will hardy knew it was coming and every catch on that normally is a little different and jaylen was inbounding and you didn't have a lot of time left what was it like five seconds yeah it's like six seconds and i think i knew what grant thought he saw where he thought oh they're gonna think i'm the handoff and then sometimes you fake that handoff and you get a cut except you were cutting against the biggest front line in the nba kessler marketing who's like seriously seven feet and then a linux in the mix too and it wasn't it wasn't even close it was like a newborn throwing a

wiffle ball across the living room like it just it wasn't gonna happen and grant said he's like no i thought we saw this and it was an amazing answer it was an amazing answer but i don't know wiffle ball across the living room. It wasn't going to happen. Grant said, he's like, no, I saw this. It was an amazing answer. It was an amazing answer, but I don't know what that was. I think the bigger thing that you were upset about was the Derek White deal that he didn't play in the fourth quarter. Well, he doesn't play in fourth quarters. He's the third best guy on the team. They also blow over and over again. They blow leads of between seven and 12 points in the fourth quarter. Yesterday, they're up by seven multiple times. I think the latest was four minutes left. They're up four with two minutes left. They just don't execute well and they don't get stops. I think the defense has been the most shocking thing to me. They're just

really mediocre defensively now. And they don't get stops. And the fact that Marcus isn't the same guy anymore combined with no Rob Williams. The other thing, like I did a whole thing about centers in my pod on Tuesday and not having Rob in there means that they don't have their version of the Rob guy, you know, and every team has that guy. Now you go on down the line and like even Detroit has like three of them and they're the one team that it's basically Al Horford or it's undersized grain or undersized Blake. And I think that's hurt them too, but they just seem poorly coached to me. And I've been feeling this for two months. Um, I don't like the shots. I get out of timeouts. I don't like the fact that they don't call timeout sometimes. I don't think they have

defensive intensity. The Rockets loss was so awful. It was so bad. Because the Rockets didn't even play well. Jalen Green was like eight for 30 and they somehow won anyway. The Rockets weren't even good in the game and they won. So when you see stuff like that, it doesn't, like Denver had that little slide

and I'm watching it going, you know what? They clinched the one seed already and they let up a little bit. Murray's not playing that well. Like I understand what's happening there. slide and I'm watching it going, you know what? They clinched the one seat already. And they're, they let up a little bit. Murray's not playing that well. Like I understand what's happening there. They'll turn it back on a little bit. I think they will. I just felt like the slide, there was, there was some games with Denver where I'm like, what is going on? I'm not just going to like, Oh, everything's good. They wanted Brooklyn today, but they still have the foundation of Jokic in how spectacular he is. And they've been in games.

The Celtics team, the other thing is Tatum, since the All-Star break, has just not even been an All-NBA guy. I actually think his first team All-NBA is kind of in danger now. Here's what's funny about Tatum, because this is a classic eye test counting stat thing, where if you look at his March numbers,

he's 29 10 and 5 44 percent from the floor the three-point numbers have dipped to 31 right and he's getting to the free throw line a ton but if you look at the iso stuff which is what happens like it's kind of getting back to the used to hate the first half of the season last year where it felt like Jalen Brown and Tatum taking turns and throughout all this J this, Jalen's been incredible. He's been super aggressive. I think he's exactly what you'd want. But with Tatum, which I think is a blip, I don't know if it speaks to who he is.

And I think it's why I always kind of wondered, like, am I really going to say this dude is like absolutely top five? And this is a pretty tough stretch for him despite those counting numbers. And when you look at some of the advanced stuff, this isn't even advanced stuff. I don't think it's that advanced. But if you go isolation and points per possession of the top 17 ISO guys in the NBA, he's the worst in points per possession. And the eye test would back that up.

His isolation stats are terrible. at them. So there's going to be nights where when you're a player like Tatum, you know, Will Hardy's a good coach and the smart coaches are going to do stuff to get you off your game a little bit. But for you to wait around with the ball, you know, that point of the break and you're like, oh, you're just waiting around, you're waiting around. And then your teammates get kind of sick because they don't really know what's going on. But their stretch feels way worse than Denver's stretch. I would agree with you. Couldn't agree more. Brian Barrett, who's done a good job breaking some of this down on his podcast, sent me some stats about their 15th in defense since the break,

which feels like what we're watching. That actually, some of the numbers actually shake out better than you would think. Yeah. Their 15th in offense since they lost that Warriors game, the 21, when they started 20 and five, they lost that Warriors game. 17th in 20-5, they lost that Warriors game. 17th in three-point shooting.

We expected that to regress. He said Tatum is the second-worst high-volume pull-up shooter in the league statistically. He's shooting south of 30% on threes since the break. And in the fourth quarter, Jalen's shooting 54% and Tatum's 44%. And that's been one of the weird things about this season is there's games where it just seems like either Jalen has it or Jalen's a better option in the last couple minutes.

And they just, now Tatum has this legacy. Well, it's Tatum's team, it's Tatum's town, it's got to go to Tatum. And sometimes that isn't the matchup. And then there's the other thing of, could this be Jalen's last season with the team is also kind of lingering over this. Very strange New York Times interview a couple of days ago. And just in general,

I don't know if I would bet on him being a Celtic next year. I wouldn't bet against it, but I don't know if I'd bet on it either. And if he makes third team All-NBA forward, because apparently cleaning the glass has stats for where you played forward, guard, center, all that stuff. And Jalen's played more minutes at forward

than he has at guard. This is what Brian Barrett said. So I think he's going to make 13 All-NBA forward if he's eligible forward, because he is one of the best six forwards if he's eligible there. And that would change his contract, right? Because if you make All-NBA, then there's all this extension stuff that comes with that. So will they pay him? Will that make them want to trade him more?

Will he want to go somewhere else to get somebody else's max All-NBA extension? I think these are storylines we're going to be hearing about yeah i'm never going to be as anti the coach as you are uh and it doesn't mean that i'm right about it but i was trying to figure out the no derrick white thing as well but i think it got too like they were down 17-4 in offensive rebounds to utah at one point late in the fourth quarter and i just think with no Horford no Rob and they're like all right they're playing Cornette they're playing Blake Griffin you know Grant had a really nice game from three that I'm imagining despite going like you wouldn't want Derek White out there at some point that I think it was a size I think it was a yeah I just think it was a size thing

where they're like we're getting killed on the glass. But I think after a while, a guy like Cornette, you realize why he's a third center because defensively, if there are drives, you're like, why aren't you playing the drive more? And you're still – I mean, that's a really tough thing to always ask the center to do is protect against the lob but also help on the drive. But if it's Walker Kessler on the backside of a lob and not Giannis or Embbeed then then the priority should

probably be to play to the driver um with help a little bit more but look i mean we don't need to go any further anybody that's watched it um like i said when i was going through some of the numbers with it i'm like this actually looks even better than what i've seen because they look they look lifeless and you figure it will turn around at some point considering there's a team that made the finals run last year, but it doesn't feel like it right now. So that 3-6, Miami is not any great shakes either, but I think it's a team that will at least think that they can beat the Celtics. And Butler, there's a chance he could be the best player in that series. Cleveland and the Knicks would be the 4-5 in the East. All of those matchups are fun.

Even Philly-Brooklyn's fun, you know, because Philly stuck Brooklyn with Ben Simmons. They have all these weird wings. They could swarm Embiid. They could do some fun stuff defensively against them. Simmons' revenge factor? Simmons comes back. Maybe his inflammation slash soreness slash whatever,

any itis that he has. In the West, Denver's playing the eight and Sacramento's playing the seven. And it's too hard to guess the matchups. But right now it'd be Memphis versus Dallas. And Phoenix versus the Clippers seems to be the one that you might be able to lock in. And, you know, I watched Phoenix today against OKC. I don't know if you saw that game because madness is going on and stuff. But OKC really outplayed them in the second half and especially the fourth quarter. And they had wings and they were getting, you know, Shea was hitting, was getting by people. Isaiah Joe was hitting shots. Defensively, they were switching and doing stuff. You realize how many kind of average to below average guys Phoenix has in their rotation. I

know they're missing Durant, but it was the first game where I feel like I noticed the no Mikael Bridges thing. They just don't have wing defense in the same way, right? And OKC was doing this thing where they were trapping Chris Paul or Booker when they were bringing the ball up and they were just trying to cause a little chaos and knock them out of their thing. And it worked in a lot of ways, but, um, I now I'm more down on Phoenix than I was a week ago, because it just feels like young teams that are athletic might be able to give them a real problem with or without Durant. When Durant comes back, they're just going to expect him to walk in from yet another injury this season with guys he's played three games for. Now he's in a playoff

series. I know he's Durant. I know he's a freak. I know he can fit in with any team and he's the most unusual superstar we've probably ever had. I think that's a lot to ask for a brand new team to, that has some real deficiencies to just all of a sudden win four straight rounds. If it, if it happens, I wouldn't be shocked, but I would be very suppressed.

I'm really not. I don't have much to say until I see what to ran is or isn't, but yeah. Add Phoenix to the list of teams that you go. I mean, you catch them on the right night or the wrong night. I just feel like there's been a lot of wrong nights here in March. They've lost four or five.

I mean, the beginning of the month got off to a good start, so some of their numbers aren't that bad. But CP can't make any threes again this month where he's had some weird months, and then it looked like he was turning it around. I also think, you know, with no Durant, especially in that Milwaukee game, like I just thought he was turning it around. I also think with no Durant, especially in that Milwaukee game, I just thought he was late to be engaged. And that's not something you're used to seeing from

him throughout his career, where it's like he always understood what was needed as well as anybody out there. And I thought he was kind of late to realize with the way they were playing it with Brooke Lopez off that high screen with Aiton, that he needed to step up offensively. And at that point, it felt a little too late. Well, as we're taping this, there's six minutes left in a Lakers magic 93-91 game. The Magic's slim playoff hopes are hanging on. But we have that weird playing situation in the West where Golden State's 36-36 as a seventh seed,

but New Orleans is 34-37 as a 12th seed. The one that seems like it's officially bat out is Portland. They lost again today. I assume they'll come up with a fake injury for Dame soon, and they should, because I was looking at the lottery odds. They have a chance to get the sixth spot in the lottery,

which would be 10.5% of the ping pong balls. So maybe even a chance to get to the fifth spot, which would be 12.5%. They're not going to make the play and they're too far back and they're going to shut Dame down. That's going to affect his all NBA stuff. But for the most part, I think we have a late contender for the Wembley sweepstakes,

Ursula. I think Portland took their hat and just kind of tossed it into the fire this weekend. Well, they took a blowtorch to their hat collection last year. That was an entirely different level of, like, who's playing for the Trailblazers tonight? Yeah. If anything, the only win in this season is that

it was a reminder for Dame Lillard. It was just like, you guys forgot about me you know they just don't defend man it's the same same story it's the same story over and over the nurkish part stuff yeah and yeah the nurkish part is a real big problem with it even though you go wait a minute grant simons dame like shouldn't you be able to hang enough offensively with some teams? I mean, granted, they had heart in the rotation. They didn't want to pay him. They wanted to add somebody that was a better financial part of that.

But Sharp, who has some awesome dunks, they clearly don't trust him enough rotation wise. I mean, hell, there's, I mean, talk about, forget about the playoffs. I think there was a thing today saying they weren't going to fire Chauncey Billups, which I felt like, oh, wait. They lost a lot of dumb games the last couple months. Apologies to Chicago. You won't be getting Portland's top 14 protected pick this year. That ain't happening.

There's some weird protection stuff. Dallas has a top 10 protected pick going to the Knicks that there's a, there's a world like Dallas is 36 and 35, but they're not that far away from being the 10th worst team. It would be just be like Luca missing like five more games, something like that. Who would you want to play the most out of that? Out of that? OKC, Minnesota, Utah, Lakers? I'll throw in the Pelicans too, but I don't think I'd want to play OKC in a playoff series.

Is that crazy? Am I overrating OKC? I'm really fearful of their athleticism and Shea's ability at the end of these games. Wait, are you including Golden State? And I think they have a good home court. Are you including Golden State in this? I'm saying who would I want to play the most.

No, I'm not saying I'd rather play OKC to Golden State. I'm saying who would I want to play? Who would be the easiest road? I was going to say Minnesota because I think I'd rather

play Minnesota than Utah. Well, the Anthony Edwards ankle injury, you know, I don't know what that's going to be. He's young, so maybe he comes back. Maybe injury, I don't know what that's going to be. He's young, so maybe he comes back. I don't know. I feel like Minnesota, after the Gobert trade, is going to want to be in the playing game.

So they're probably going to try to finish this as strong as they can. But hell, they're only half a game ahead of the Lakers here. So who falls out? If the Lakers make it, Utah, Minnesota, Oklahoma city, or golden state has to get bounced in Utah. Every time I think they're going to not give a shit anymore, they win a game like last night. And it does seem like they want to be in the playoffs. So I don't know who falls out and we'll see what happens in this Lakers Orlando game today. We should touch on the Lakers thing with Darvin Ham because that made the news.

Like if you were watching NBA TV today, they kept running that sound of Darvin Ham saying LeBron's going to be back. I felt like the way he was asked, the way he answered it was just a, yeah, he'll be back. Yeah, I didn't feel like it was newsworthy either. What's he going to say? It wasn't. And that's what days after Windhorst saying that it's worse.

And this is how you think there's a lot of confusion. And when they say, OK, we're going to check and look in one to two weeks and then two weeks go by. And then people are like, what happened? It's like, no, we said we were going to take a look in one to two weeks. We didn't say he was back in one to two weeks. And with LeBron, I think it was pretty clear that it was what, two to three weeks to be reevaluated, which means nothing. So the Ham thing making the news cycle today felt like an overreaction based on actually watching the video of him kind of just being positive and going, yeah, well, you know, he's going to be back.

It's been a tough LeBron year other than breaking the record. You might miss the playoffs again. I miss them. I'm serious. I miss them. I don't want it to go. It's way more fun if he's in this. Sierra Canyon had a rough ending.

They lost eight of their last 14. I feel like you might bring that up. Bronny was second team all league. He didn't make first team all league in high school here. Did you know that? I did know it because I saw it all over Twitter, and I don't care. Let's take a break. I want to get your March Madness thoughts. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Elevate your morning coffee ritual from the

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Nine seed's advancing. Is there any rhyme or reason to this anymore? The 1-16 thing, though, when it happened with Virginia, like when you have twos lose to fifteens, it was ridiculous that we hadn't had the 16 beat a one yet so for it to happen again but then to happen purdue the way it's happened to purdue for three straight years um and that's a you know that's a well-coached team and all that kind of stuff but i don't i love the effort i don't always love the basketball and i'm not trying to be like the pro guy like i hate when the n NFL guy acts like Saturdays and college football are

terrible. And that's not what I'm doing. Cause there's, you know, if it's your last potential game ever and you see how hard the kids are playing, it's awesome. Like there's not much like this tournament,

but it isn't the same for me because it used to be the four days I cared about the most all year long. And instead I'm watching Nuggets Nets. Do you feel like the staggered time thing is a pro or a con for you? I like this better. Because in the old days they would clump the games together and they would all go nuts at once. And now it just seems like there's games for 12 straight hours.

I like this better. I think they've ruined the emotion of the ends of games between reviews and all the extra ads and the reviews aren't going anywhere because it's extra ad space, but the spontaneity of somebody hits a huge shot, they're out of timeouts. I got to inbound it and they got to go the other way. Like not saying it doesn't happen ever.

I mean, we had the awful Virginia ending and for Virginia fan, Maryland, West Virginia was weird at the end, but they reviewed that and they still got it wrong. So, you know, if you were, if you were doing something that was really fun, but then it was like, okay, hold on, we're not done yet, but you just get to sit there by yourself for five minutes on the couch and then now be engaged again. It's not a great watch. It's not the watch that it was that we grew up with.

There's way too many commercials. I feel it every year. These games are two and a half hours. They're 40-minute games. The NBA games are 48 minutes, and they're less than two and a half most of the time. So something's a little broken. I felt like the announcers were worse than ever this year.

I wasn't as locked into that. We're in kind of an announcer slump. Really? Stock down? Yeah. Stock down? Just B-minuses everywhere. I miss the days of whatever happened to Marv Albert. He listed a league pass. Dude, Ian Eagle, Jim Nance.

I don't want to throw people under the bus, but there's some people on league pass who are like, wow. there's only 30 of these jobs wow you and i've talked about what are we doing we've talked about ranking all the league pass announcing teams but that would be oh my god that would go over i couldn't do that i know we're not we're not doing it we just did it as a joke you and i were talking about potentially doing it because it would be, everybody would listen to it, but it would be too mean. You can't do that. You know what's really funny?

I was talking to somebody about these fast baseball games, how hard it's going to be for the baseball announcers to, you know, it's hard to fire off your really boring 92nd story about how the third base coach's dad was just an incredible guy in the Tigers in 1972, because the pitches are just flying. It's like the guy gets the ball back, he throws it again. And none of these guys have time to cook with their terrible stories. So I don't know how it's going to play out. You you're worried about room for a name banter. I'm'm i'm worried about i don't know if these guys are going to be able to audible on the fly and just react to the game and be like up

two two two uh franchi cordero uh you might remember his uncle will cordero once time played and then it's just 90 seconds as somebody's scratching their balls and they're ripping off their story about will cordero i would have a hard time because when i did it for one season 20 years ago you want to talk about not letting the game breathe your boy right here because i've i've never if i'm unsure about the job i have to do then i prep like crazy for it and i talked because i did i did a couple games solo and i think i did one game where it was pre and post it was four and a half hours of me talking and i used and again when you're younger you're like i wrote it down on a card so i have to use it i prepped for that thing like the lATs when I had the solo game. And I don't, I don't know

that you ever heard anything other than me talking for four and a half hours. It was terrible. We have my son's high school, which is basically like a college and they have their own like TV station. I know I'm jealous. Well, they, they have like an actual TV station and the play-by-play people. Well, they have like an actual TV station and the play-by-play guy, who's like, his name's Jake, but he's legitimately good. And I was, we, you know, my parents would watch this and be like, the play-by-play guy's pretty good.

He's like an 11th grader. But he's like legitimately good. The LA Times wrote a story about him and a couple of these other high schools because some of these schools are building these TV radio departments. So we're gonna have this whole wave coming of these prodigy play by play people who made all their mistakes when they were like in a junior in high

school. And by the time they get to college, by the time they're 22, like even like I and Eagle son, you know, he was announcing games when he was like 22, 23. But I wonder like,

is there a wave of prodigy people coming? Cause we're losing Jim Nance this year we are uh no more final four we're losing Greg Gumbel from football you know Dick Emberg's long gone Marv Albert's gone like this whole Al Michaels will be gone soon there's this whole generation of people that are just getting nudged out he looks good no I mean I'm sure he's got what two three years left I'm just kidding what's he gonna be 85 doing dude he's fucking title game i know but at some point it's not realistic anymore i don't know there's something about play-by-play guys that seem to be able to go a lot later than everybody else like if you want to live a long time be a play-by-play guy

here's what i don't understand and we both have older parents. Your parents hit 75 and up and they just become fucking wild cards day in, day out. All time wild cards. Just wild cards. It's weird that that doesn't happen with play-by-play announcers in the same way that it does just with our family members. No, when I'd look at how old a coach can be or a GM, and I'll go imagine if my dad was doing post-game press conferences. Now, granted, he would have had a life in basketball in front of a camera, but I've sat and watched five straight Celtics games with my dad the last two weeks, and I've wanted to blow my fucking brains out. Okay? And the thing is, is he seems to hate this team. Yeah.

And it was when I first sat down with him when this thing really started going south. Because there was a couple games like, all right, then what was it? The Knicks game. I went to the Nets game, and it was the worst loss of the season. They blow the 28-point lead. Right? It was awful. You look at the Celtics clutch clutch record it was really good and tatum you know the most the highest field goal percentage on shots under 24 seconds left a tire go ahead of 150 attempts he

had like the best field goal percentage their overall numbers still really looked really really good and the second i sat down with him you know somebody missed a shot and he was like, I hate this team, it sucks. And I was like, all right, relax. And so I'm going through a litany of all these things. And ever since I started trying to explain to him that actually like they're probably just going through their bad stretch and you're totally overreacting,

they've gotten worse every game. And your dad was right. And he was right. And he's looking at me like, I don't know what I'm talking about, about anything. And it's, so there's a pride thing. But just after like the fifth game i went why do you watch this you're you've never heard you this miserable about anything and that's because he actually doesn't hate him he loves him but he's so bummed out and then i was like imagine if he was

like a public the gm a figure with this, like a platform. My dad, who really wanted me to say this on the podcast, he thinks Missoula is like the clapper, like Jason Garrett. And he's been on this for, because he sits behind in that section, right behind the bench. And he's just like, he just sits there and claps and the other team's on a 17 to nothing run.

And then it's like, it drives me, he's been out since December when the record was better and the team was playing better. He's like, I don't know if this guy's really coaching. I don't know what's going on here. And he really liked Ime because Ime had this, you know, Ime was like the third grade teacher who every once in a while would just hit the kids

with the eraser from the chalkboard and snap them back into shape. And they really did respect him. And this team, part of the problem is it seems like a bunch of these guys all feel like they're smarter than everybody else in the franchise. Right. So you have the I'm smarter than everyone syndrome. So you have the I'm smarter than everyone syndrome. So you have that. And then on top of it, replacing Imei, who just by nature was this tough disciplinarian that the guys like really loved and respected. And then the end of the game stuff where he just has made mistakes.

You know, I don't know. It's not great. The Lakers are going to win, by the way, it looks like. I think Cerruti's Orlando playoff hopes are now done. It's a wrap. Can Cerruti hop into thisoff hopes are now done. It's a wrap. Can Cerruti hop into this? We're using this Riverside program. I guess he can.

Look, he's right there. Austin Reeves, 31 points. Not great. Not great. Yeah. All right, so you're out. This is white towel time. Now you got to go.

You'll be 29 to 43, which is the fourth most amount of losses in the league. Yeah. No, fifth. Sorry. So this is White Towel time. I've been White Towel

for a couple of weeks. I just didn't think they were going to jump like what the three or four teams ahead of them. But they're pretty much, I mean, although you just made a good case for Portland,

maybe Portland's going to, you know, kind of get in there for the fifth spot. But they've been locked into the fifth worst record for a while now. But I don't know. There's just some dumb things that this team does that, that annoys me.

A young team is not going to defense and makes mistakes. Yeah. You got some, you got some excitement. You have, you're playing some relevant basketball for the first time in a few years with some guys that you're actually excited about. Like it's,

you know, I think I, I'm getting, I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but I don't know. At least Markel Fultz looks like he's the real deal. You know what I like about the Magic? They've gone toe-to-toe.

Even when they lose, they're like good losses. I think this is a great tank season. Rosillo, Sarita and I were talking the other day. I'm dying for somebody in the NBA to do the Eli Manning, and it might be Wemby. Like, what happens if Wemby gets drafted by Charlotte? And he's just like, nah, I don't think so. You're going to have to trade me or I'm just going to stay in France.

What happens? We haven't seen it in the NBA, I think since- Steve Francis. Steve Francis, Danny Ferry, 1989 when the- Who drafted him? He ended up getting traded to the Cavaliers. Oh, well, yeah, I don't remember. Was it the Clippers? Oh, the Clippers drafted him.

Yeah, Clippers drafted him. So we haven't seen in a long time and I really wonder first of all, A, why it hasn't happened because it happens in football way more and then B, could it happen with Wemby? Serenity, what if Wemby's like, I want to go to Orlando? That's, I want to live in Florida. I like what they're building.

That would be maybe a first. Maybe a first. I don't know how many clients his agent has. Although, listen, there was once upon a time was Grant Hill. It was Tim Duncan. It was, you know, T-Mac. People have wanted to go to Orlando once before. Maybe he'll want to do it again.

Maybe want to play with making a big three. Bring back the big threes. As Russo just said, big threes are dead a couple weeks ago on his pod. I don't know. I feel like San Antonio just makes a ton of sense. I don't know. If I'm him, I would not want to go to Houston. I definitely don't want to go to Charlotte. Detroit's a little bit weird.

I just feel like San Antonio is the one that makes the most sense. Orlando would be the most fun, though. Orlando's the most fun. You're right. Let's say Charlotte gets it and Orlando's like third and Wemby's like,

not going to Charlotte. You're going to have to trade the pick or I'm just going to stay in France. Orlando's like, all right. I guess we'll have to trade up. We have our pick. We have the Chicago pick. We'll give you Wendell Carter. What else do you want?

It would make June more fun for all of us, I feel like. But we'll see. As far as his agent, I got to look this up here. But the Wynn horse thing, right? The Wynn horse thing was really good. Yeah, it was and if you're looking at some tea leaves in there like could he pull this move right let's just call it the eli manning because there's some situations at the top where you go okay you know if it were charlotte to win it you know you could well it's jordan selentine ownerships and flux like whatever you would come up with whatever you

would try to come up with and try to argue your case a little bit here one the track record is the foreign players don't do this okay whether it's asking for trades it's the american players it's not it hasn't historically been the foreign players not to say that there's not going to be a foreign player that demands out that's a really good player because that's what the league is but to this point it's been more of the american guys i don't know if there's something going to be a foreign player that demands out that's a really good player because that's what the league is. But to this point, it's been more of the American guys. I don't know if there's something going on there. He said all the right things in the Windhorse piece. I thought there was a lot of stuff in that that I really enjoyed.

But when you start figuring out how much juice you have, you usually have to have more NBA clients than his agent has at this point. And that's kind of the gray area stuff that a lot of us don't get about the league where you're like, why the fuck did that happen? And then you find out months later where you're like, well, this agent said, why don't you do this? And if you don't do this, I got to get my guy out of there. He's got to do a second contract. And there is a way of doing business, doesn't happen all the time, where agents can get their way, especially if some of the stuff you would hear about after the fact. You know what I mean? And this is clearly, when you're a powerful agency, you pitch to your clients that you can start to do some of this stuff. And again, there's nothing wrong with it.

It's just how much the team is willing to call your bluff or be afraid about damaging the relationship with other clients. So it may mean nothing or it could mean something, but it's worth bringing up. This would be the first time it would be more fun if somebody signed with Clutch and Clutch was like, I don't know. I don't know if Charlotte's a home for him. All right. We'll see how that goes. Last but not least, we're going to do the retradables. Thanks, Rudy. I didn't tell you which one we were doing, Rosillo, but I'm springing this on you because I know you're prepared for it.

And the reason I want to do this one is because- Oh, he's got Rupert too. My bad. Go ahead. 2002, the Celtics are pretty good they have some young assets and the East is wide open

because the East for whatever reason is terrible in 2002 they have Joe Johnson and Kedrick Brown who they drafted 10th and 11th in the previous draft two lottery picks, swing men neither of them playing that great for the Celtics both of them seem like they have potential they decide they need bench help and they trade Joe Johnson for Tony Delk and Rodney Rogers and throw in their number one pick for good measure,

which was explained to me after by Chris Wallace because they had salary cap issues or luxury tax possibilities or something. The real story was they were going to sell the team. They wanted to get into the luxury tax. This was the classic future for the present trade that I think 20 years later, it's the kind of trade, like if you're the Warriors, this is kind of what people thought, you know, if you're instead of doing the blending the two errors thing, just go all in and try to help staff, which I talked about on my pod on

Thursday. Um, I think one of the reasons teams are so afraid to make those trades is because of what happened with this trade, right? So Boston gets the outcome they want. Rogers and Delk helped them get to the Eastern finals. They're up to-1 in the series. And then Jason Kidd takes over and they lose in six. Rodgers leaves. Delk stays for a couple more years. Joe Johnson becomes Joe Johnson. The number one pick ends up becoming Casey Jacobson. And the trade's really terrible.

Like really a nine out of 10 on the terrible scale. But it did get them to the Eastern finals. And do you think teams are afraid to now make trades like this? Cause I do think now that we have the history of them combined with Twitter and social media and teams being afraid to lose trades, I just don't think we'll see trades like that anymore. Nobody's giving up on Joe Johnson after 50 games again. Well, cause nobody should. It was a terrible trade.

At any point, did you think it was a good trade? Like when they were up 2-1 in the East? No, no. I fucking hated it because it's like, wait, Rodney Rogers? And it was like, oh, in Jim O'Brien's system, he's going to be amazing as this pick-and-pop guy, and it's going to be perfect. And I know he had some scoring seasons there,

but at that point, you're getting him, going to be perfect. And, you know, I know he had some scoring seasons there, but it just, you know, at that point, you're getting him, what, 29, 30 years old for Joe Johnson, who, you know, I've heard so many different versions of the story. I don't know what to believe, but I'd heard like Pierce and Antoine were kind of tough on him. They were down on him. Yeah, but then it's like, okay, no shit. Like Antoine Walker also wanted them to take Nazir Muhammad

instead of Paul Pierce. And then when Pierce got drafted, he said he'd be good off the bench. So, I mean, current active players are the worst fucking GMs going. So I don't buy into that. I also heard that there was a choice between Kedrick Brown or Joe Johnson. They could have thrown in either one. And because Kedrick Brown was kind of Chris Wallace's pet project, that they thought they figured it out.

That's true, I think. I don't know if it is or not. I've heard it. You would know better than I would because I think you were way more locked into it than I was. Certainly, I wasn't even wearing it. I was fucking bartending, so it was like nobody was going to talk to me. It just was – even if guys aren't getting along you're trading for

what's kind of like a journeyman at 30 who you knew you weren't going to pay because gaston wasn't going to go over the luxury tax so whether or not it was you know a future sale the way i'd heard the team was run is that gaston's like what's the tax okay there's your budget a dollar under that i'm not paying it i don't know if he ever paid it uh i don't know that i don't think he did yeah but that was kind of the rule that it was very straightforward like here you go and he was kind of hands off with the whole thing and then remember jim o'brien got super pissed like i feel like it was still kind of a leftover patino thing patino trades billups immediately because he got impatient the first fucking season and traits are kenny anderson and zon tabak who didn't quite work out i still have his jersey right and then it was oh i can i can add somebody that's older more like no people

don't make those traits anymore because you never should be doing that for a lottery pick who's a six seven shot creator like joe johnson even if it was off to a slow start it was an awful trade i hate it it's a pretty good it's a pretty good what if for the Celtics because Joe Johnson within two years became really good. And then he became another what if for Phoenix because they traded him after the 2005 season because they didn't want to pay him. They ended up getting Boris back and some picks. And then Joe Johnson ends up in that third trade. He goes to Brooklyn, which we talked about last week. So Joe Johnson has been a couple of these, but I do think there was a stretch there where teams just made trades like

this. And it was a combination of really incompetent front offices. And then a lack of history of that. You just shouldn't make trades like this. Now I feel like what would be the equivalent of this trade now? Like if I'm trying to think. Tyrese Halliburton? No.

If Golden State had traded Kaminga for a 10th and 11th man? I don't think Rodney was in a 10th or 11th man. No, but I'm saying from a dumb scale. You know what it sounds like? It would be like...

Because Rodney played crunch time for the Celtics during that run. Yeah, right. That's why I'm saying it wasn't like that. It was like a six man. So you'd have to get a starter and a six man that you're renting the starter for three months and then maybe a sixth or seventh man but giving up Kaminga for the rest of his career basically yeah it would feel like trading I'm trying to think of like a good comp here because I don't want to make the argument because it you know it weights differently because of who Joe Johnson became but even if you didn't think that's what he was going to become then that's why did you take him you liked him enough to take the guy so six months later you don't like him right so

i think o'brien you needed way more of a resume for jim o'brien to win that argument first of all like if steve kerr is going to win that argument on a young player with the front office okay it's steve kerr he's got four rings jim o'brien's best attribute was not being rick patino right so would he that was his second season and it was an incredible run but it was also one of those weird fluky eastern conference runs or conference finals runs that i bring up all the time about teams being like i hope you don't think that's the standard i mean you could pretend it's atlanta recently right right atlanta portland you know dallas obviously turned around defensively so it felt a little bit more real and they knocked off a really good Phoenix team at least a good regular

season team uh did you see what happened with that Atlanta game today by the way I watched the whole thing yeah Trey had nine points well I've been tracking it um since Quinn took over there was this weird four game stretch with Trey where he took only like 15 shots a game. And after that four game stretch, he's like, fuck this. And he started,

he started shooting a ton again. I'm trying to think of a good comp here. I think would it be, well, Johnny Davis may not work out, but I'm just trying to think on that range. Cause like Keegan's too high of a pick. Jaden Ivy is in that range, but it would be, Oh, that's good Because Keegan's too high of a pick. Jaden Ivey is in that range.

Oh, that's good. Keegan. Keegan's a good one. If they gave up Keegan Murray for... For Jay Crowder. There you go. For Jay Crowder and... That's what the trade is.

And some heat check guy who would be their ninth guy. That's a good one. I like that. Trey Young today, nine points, four for 15, six assists, five turnovers, minus 14. And this is against the San Antonio Spurs, who started Branham and Devin Vassell. I like Branham. And brought Romeo Langford off the bench.

Those were the three guards. Oh, and Tyus Jones. Langford wasn't in the closing group today. Atlanta, I mean, you want to just talk about going down your leg. It was just a mess. So it wasn't even all on Trey at all. This whole thing was a mess. Quinn, what he wants to do,

I don't know how he's going to be able to do it midseason. Did you see the numbers on the contract? It's a massive contract for Quinn. It's long. The average annual salary puts him near the top. What would you have done if he called you and said, hey, man, thinking about taking this Hawks job job it's for a lot of money what are your thoughts i'd be like i don't know i just don't think coaching trey young's worth 1.5 million more a

year yeah can you hold out what what other jobs what other jobs do you think you can get you think that celtics job can open up do you think i can get? You think that Celtics job can open up? Do you think, I don't know, what contender might end up parting ways from their coach? What about Portland? I don't like the job. Part of the reason is DeAndre Hunter and Collins, I think as assets, I just think less of them as basketball assets these days.

Right? You were as big of a Hunter fan as anybody. You can't be pleased with what you've seen from this year. Waz drafted him in our worst contracts draft, and I thought it was legitimate. I think you're overstating. Same for Collins. I think you're overstating. Collins got drafted too.

I like your retract that Hunter statement. I liked what he possibly could be. Don't turn him into Darius Garland on me here. It was four for 90. That was a lot. It was a lot. I think I'd love to see him play somewhere else. Oh, you'd try to trade for him if you're a champ?

Well, I don't know. I'd be in a hurry. Because sometimes it's like, what do you expect? How different do you expect it to be uh but and then they just re-signed bogdanovich for this long extension which i didn't really understand either i i don't understand anything that team does no because you thought the bay trade was the bogdanovich insurance but i think bogdanovich with his it's weird too when you look at the uh the rotation stuff they've got the three guys they've got hunter collins and trey and then it's like six other guys that they're sort of

mixing matching like mcdonough played the least amount of minutes per game this month and he has all season long because that's part of the bay thing uh i like a kong woo i've always liked this roster i really do but the hunter part of it you know it's very much like some other guys where you go, is he out there? And I don't like that. If there's a player I kind of like and I have to double check, I have to hit pause to go,

oh, he is out there? That's not a great sign. Who was our guy for that? Who was our example for that? Tobias Harris. Tobias Harris. I think I tweet once a year, Harris is on the Sixers?

Who do you think is going to win the March Madness before we go? Oh, I don't know. Who'd you like the best? I really liked Houston, especially considering they had to go to two backups for as long as they did. Yeah. But Brandon Miller still how funny. Can you imagine being a guy who doesn't watch any of this and you're like, all right, let's see what this Brandon Miller is all about. And he has zero points in the first game. Who do you think is going to win? I think it's a crap shoot. I don't know. I've been intermittently watching. I'm like you. I've probably watched more NBA than March Madness

the last four days. But it is funny. Tom Izzo makes it. You you know, Tom Izzo makes it like Tom Izzo. He's done it again. It's just gonna be like, he'll be like 110 and still like getting somehow getting into the sweet 16. Uh, that's not even the best Izzo topic. You may not even, I doubt you'll remember this when Michigan state was trying to figure out what they're going to do with the football team. Like could Izzo coach it?

It was like a real topic for a little while. Like a sports radio topic or a real topic? I'm going to send you, it was more than just mid-July, we're going to fix baseball in the A's and then could Izzo coach the football team in the B's. We've lost the fixed baseball in the A's because I think they might have actually fixed baseball. We got rid of the shift and we have 15 second at bats and we have radio natsers who don't get to tell stories anymore.

So we have in the West, the Lakers are now the 10th seed. Utah has dropped to 11, just to put a bow on that one. Javier Bardez was named after the character for No Country for Old Men, a novel by cormac mccarthy i'll tell you the road is my favorite that guy's mine what the fuck is going on in cormac mccarthy's head it's a ball outside they would love that they would always love the third and the first base coach if there was any dead time first base coach man what a player he was didn't matter who it was he's out it'd be like marty barrett's like marty barrett what a

player he was he's out of derby vermont little town right south of bb plane quebec it's the best. Speaks French. Grew up playing hockey. We are going to wrap it up. I'll see you next Sunday where maybe we'll do an All-NBA checkpoint thing. I'm really curious who the other guard on the first team All-NBA is.

I think is now an official subplot if Dame gets shut down. SGA has a chance to have like a 500 record or a possible winning record and he's in there. I still don't know why you were so anti-Mitchell even being on it. I'm going to end up overreacting

to De'Aaron Fox on a variety of these award things. Like I even have him in the MVP conversation under that top three now. Those four or five spots are pretty open. People have Luka penciled in for number four for a while. And if they finish 500, how is he going to be number four for MVP?

Like how? How does anybody do that and feel good about it? I think Fox. What about him missing? How about him missing that and feel good about it? I think Fox. What about him missing? How about him missing the games and then losing them? I mean, doesn't that help his argument? I guess,

but Fox has been pretty much the most clutch guy in the league this year. He's got, I think he's going to, it's either him or Jimmy Butler are going to win that clutch award. The team's going to be a two seed. Him and Sabonis are the engine for everything. And I think he has a real chance at four or five for MVP. And Tatum's case is starting to crater a little bit.

You know, he was the other one who was, it was going to be Tatum and Luka in that four or five spot. And now I have no idea. Anyway. All right. Rosillo, good to see you as always. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rosillo.

Thanks to Isaiah Blakely and Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti. I will see you on the Rewatchables feed on Monday night. And I will see you on this feed on Tuesday. And I think we're going to have two very special guests for this one. So there you go. See you Tuesday. On the wayside On the first side of the river I'm saying I don't have to ever