The Bill Simmons Podcast - Best NBA Summer Arguments With Zach Lowe

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Zach Lowe fresh off Summer League to discuss the hottest NBA news, including rumors of a new international basketball league, the Pelicans, and the Kings (3:17). They also react to the Clippers making some significant offseason moves and L.A. being a possible landing spot for Giannis in the future (30:13). Finally, they talk about the Heat in the upcoming season, LeBron James, and more (55:04). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zach Lowe Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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He's been on fire all summer. You can watch that on the Ringer movies YouTube channel. Really, really funny podcast. Um, fantasy football season. We're in range now. Uh, week one of the NFL season kicks off really six Thursdays from now. So we're in range. We have the Ringer fantasy football show, which I think is the best fantasy football podcast, Craig Korolbek, Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz. And, uh, you can watch that as a podcast, as a video podcast.

You can watch them on YouTube because we have a fantasy football YouTube channel. And you can check out the Ringer fantasy football guide that we did, which we keep adding to and adding different things. So we will have you ready for fantasy football. Those guys will be coming out at some point here. You can see in the background,

so I have a new set that we have not decorated yet. I put some stuff up in the background that's not even on the wall. It's like leaning against up, but you can see, do my finger, there's 1972 NBA tops uncut. There's my book poster with the Hall of Fame thing. You can see Bird of Magic's feet up there. The Fenway sign, my guy croc in the tubs, Michael Myers kind of watching us from the background. This set's gonna be awesome.

And it's something that we've spent some time on and over the course of the summer on this podcast and the rewatchable is like, I'm gonna start having guests again. Like I just, I never wanted to have guests in the same way that I was doing in the end of 2010s on Zoom. I don't really like the experience

of interviewing somebody on a Zoom. So we're going to have Studio Hair. We're building some other stuff in Hollywood that we're excited about. And just in general, like, you know, this has been almost a 14 year odyssey with video stuff for us dating back to Grantland and me and Dave Jacoby doing all the audio video stuff we did. We built a studio and electrical closet. All of a sudden we're having a big guests in there. We're doing the Bill and Jaylen, uh, NBA play, uh, season series. And, um, you know, we've always been in the mix with video stuff. COVID really knocked us back.

And, um, you know, all of a sudden video podcasts, the, uh, the bar started getting raised. They started looking better. I had a terrible camera on my think pad. Sorry. Um, but I think, I think all of our stuff's going to continue to look better as we go, uh, through the rest of 2025, including this podcast. And I'm excited to explore the studio space, literally, uh, coming up, Zach Lowe, we're talking NBA because we just had a lot of stuff to talk about, even though it's like the doldrums of July, a lot of topics, really fun podcasts, and, uh, we're gonna take a break, bring in Pro Jam and then

Zach Lowe. All right, Zach Lowes here. We're taping this on a Wednesday morning. Good to see you, Zach. Good to see you too. This is, you're about to disappear. This is when you're like a couple weeks away from, we just don't see you for like a month and you decompose from the NBA season and then you regenerate and you grow again when we get to mid September.

I don't really have as many excuses to have to decompress this year considering I was not employed for two thirds of it, but I'm going to decompress nonetheless. I will say I'm going to be podcast ready in Europe because you just, you don't, you don't know anymore with the NBA. There's always been a, there's been more and more every year there's a big story that hovers or that comes out of nowhere. So I'm ready just in case something comes out of nowhere. I like that I accidentally said decompose instead of decompress.

I've already had, we're one minute in and I'm already screwing up words. You were in Vegas, your summer league plan, I love you just, you go and you don't actually go to any summer league games. You just, you're just there to gossip and have coffees and cocktails and occasionally a meat dinner and you're just gathering information. This is something, what was the first year we talked about this? The 2012 All-Star break or whatever when we sent you and I was like, don't go to anything, just talk to as many people as you can. Now you've embraced that, it's become a life philosophy and you're just gathering things and you don't know when they're gonna pop up. Are they gonna pop up in a podcast? They

might not. But you're just gathering info. What was the number one thing people were talking about that you felt like was not being talked about in the mainstream? Oh not talked about in the mainstream. Okay so I had a made the number one topic is very mainstream. What's that? Well it's LeBron. That was like the number one topic of conversation by far. But let's go not mainstream. Underground. Underground.

Let's go early 90s indie rock. I would say, I mean, this has been talked about, but I would say expansion, Europe, what's happening, why do they seem to be slow playing it all of a sudden? Is this like, what is the timetable now? I guess that was like the nerdy NBA topic of discussion. Yeah, and it trickled out a little bit. It's really funny how it's changed, right?

Where it just seemed like a lock. It was going to happen for the last few years. And I think Silver wanted it to happen. I think there was a consortium of owners that wanted it to happen. And this media deal was so big, I just think there's owners that don't want to give up money anymore. And it makes sense, because however they rig it,

you're still giving up, it goes from 1.30th to 1.32, or 1.32nd, for the media thing. So you're giving up equity, you're giving up value. So then the question will be, well, what am I getting to give up that value? And before, when the franchise values were lower, it's like, well, then each of you will get this extra thing, we'll buy out that equity upfront.

But now if you're paying six, seven, eight million dollars, or billion dollars, whatever it is for an expansion team, why would I then also wanna sweeten the pot for every owner with to buy their media rights too or not get media rights for myself? I think it's a real problem. And I think there's a bunch. I talked about this two months ago.

James Dolan was the biggest one against it. He's just against everything that Adam Silver wants to do. What would James Dolan be for? Like how can we get a yes vote from the Knicks in a board of governors meeting? What, what ha, do you have any intel on what happened that made him such an adversary to Adam Silver over the last five years? Like why, how did this develop? I think it started with displeasure over revenue sharing,

being one of the big market teams that has to pay so much into it. And then it dovetailed into like, he just got this B in his bonnet that the NBA league office is like way too big. It wastes money. Why are all these, who are all these people that are coming to my games at Madison square garden with their VIP passes, who are like, what, why, why does

it, why is it so bloated? He became one of those like almost like a fiscal conservative about the league office, but to your point about expansion, like that was the topic of like people were trying to figure out the sides, like who is the anti-crowd in the board of governors? And I still don't really have a lot of great answers to that other than Dolan is part of the anti-crowd. But I don't know if it's an anti-crowd as much as it is,

people are trying to do their version of the same math problem in terms of like, what's the expansion fee that I get versus the national TV revenue that I lose versus the valuation of my team versus my timetable of potentially selling my team. Does it net out a big plus, a big minus? I think everyone, it's not like that complex of a math problem. I was talking to one owner about this while I was out there. He's like, it's not that complicated.

You just have to do your projections your way and figure out what works for you. This was a pro expansion owner who's kind of like, can we get a move on with this? But it was a strange board of governors press conference in that sense. Well, and there's some situations where there's some franchises that maybe could move

to a different city and be more successful. And that's the other piece of this. Specifically New Orleans And I don't mean to start panic on New Orleans basketball I'm also not sure there's enough of a fan base in place to even care that much but That lease at the smoothie king lease expires. I think in 2029 this is an experiment that has not worked for 50 plus years in New Orleans with professional

basketball. And if, like if, if you and I owned a team and they asked us what we thought and I was like, well, we definitely have enough players to go to 32 teams. That doesn't mean we should. We're making so much money from the media rights. I'm not even sure what you could give me back that would make it worth it. There's a couple of cities that could potentially, a team I think could thrive.

I think Seattle, you know, we've been saying that since before you and I worked together. Vegas is definitely interesting. And Mexico City is the other one they're all excited about, right? So you have those three. You also have Nashville, which I think some of the other leagues jumped into

and grabbed that market before the NBA did. But I look at a situation like New Orleans. I don't know what that team is worth in its current state. I don't know what it's worth with that. Like playing in the smoothie King, playing in a market that clearly has not responded to basketball in the same way of these other markets. And it's like, if somebody bought them and just moved them to Seattle and paid everybody relocation fees, and then you didn't have to split your meteorites.

That seems like where this is headed, and I think there's, I'm just gonna say it, I think there's some buzz starting that way, that this New Orleans thing maybe is the situation. Is there any other franchise that you would think could potentially be a relocation threat, or is that the only one? I have not heard anything about any other relocation threat, but there's a couple of

subtopics that based on what you're saying. Let's put a pin in the New Orleans thing because I want to come back to that. I just felt, I was at the board of governor's press conference and I just felt it was notable to me how often and it was like three or four, Adam Silver went out of his way to say, so our whole NBA Europe thing is separate from expansion, but kind of also connected to expansion. He said some version of that like three or four times. Like it's not an either or,

but they are connected in some way. And it just like, it made me think, is this thing like even further along than we realize? Is it a little bit of an either or is it like we want it, we're now prioritizing this other thing abroad, like accumulating these teams in these cities and trying to make this thing profitable, make it real. Is that now on the front burner versus expansion?

I just found that notable how often he sort of preempted, like no one asked him about it. He just preemptively brought it up several times. Well, and that's important because he is one of the more purposeful press conference people that we have. And if he's, if he's putting little buttons out there, you just have to trust, all right, there's real intent behind this. I think Europe is a huge opportunity for them. And I think they know it. When you're talking about the player pool, which man, when you go back to the,

we've talked about this before with the mid 2000s, how rough it was from a talent standpoint. Some of the people that made All-Star games, some like you go back to read some of my old trade value columns, some of the people who were like number 31, you're like, Whoa, that guy. Um, and now the league is just so much deeper. And I wonder like part of the reason you don't do expansion here is because you're thinking, well, maybe.

If we have some sort of Europe thing, um, maybe we need a little more talent that way combined the Europe talent combined with some Americans, some people that in their early 30s, like you see like the Austin Rivers types of players just seem to lead the league like a year too early now, you know, because there's just, teams would just rather take a chance on a second rounder. I think Europe's a big opportunity for them.

And the seasons are a little different. The time of the day is different. It's just more basketball. It's more things to offer. My question with that is, could they just, could they just try to buy a league? I don't even know how this works. Like, could you just, could you just try to buy the Euro league or, or, you know, buy like the connecting properties?

I know the teams make up it, but I don't know how you get in without directly challenging the league that already exists. Oh, I think you're directly challenging the league that already exists. So you're going after it. I don't know the mechanics of acquiring a league. We're getting a little out of my depth on this issue. But I do know that they know the cities.

They've identified some cities. Like if we're going to do this, we're going to be in that city. And that city already has a landmark basketball team, right? What is the arrangement between the NBA and Real Madrid? If Real Madrid becomes part of this, whatever new league, semi-existing league, whatever it is. Well, Real Madrid is part of a larger sports club that has basketball, that has soccer and all this other stuff.

So what does the partnership look like? What does the finances look like? I think that's, that's, but existing teams like that, I think, are part of the conversation too. I don't know the economics of it. He just brought it up a lot of times. And I do think they just look at it as a very simple, like, we don't think these teams as they're currently existing are making nearly enough money.

We think we can come in, we're better at it, and we'll just make a lot of money. Well, so maybe it's a situation where they come in, they almost merge with the league, and they buy smaller stakes of each team, and the teams sell off like, you know, one third. So I don't know. We don't, we don't have enough intel on that, but the important thing is both of us feel like something is, something is amiss that that expansion seems to have cooled off and that the Europe thing seems like it's, it's kind of raising importance.

So what's your New Orleans piece to this? So a couple of, this is topic one that I wanted to put a pin in. This is right up your alley because it just goes into, you've been having a field day with the return of the dumb teams, right? Yeah. So you're much meaner about it than I am. But the- I love it and I'm really,

it's been one of the highlights of my summer. I'm so glad the dumb teams are back. It's great. There's just the highlights of my summer. I'm so glad the dumb teams are back. It's great. Um, there's just the, the amount of buzz that's still like every dinner I had, every coffee I had, every cocktail I had, there was some version of like, you know, everyone goes over the off season moves, what'd you like, what you didn't like, every single one had a version of like, man, that Pelicans hawk straight. Like what happened there?

Like how, how crazy was that? And then it dovetailed into it. Got like the NBA news cycle can be just, there's so much going on, particularly if, if the playoffs are also going on at the same time as some news events, you just sort of fast forward through stuff. There was a lot of like, so let's just hold on for a second. New Orleans and Sacramento just hired new GMs, Joe, Joe Dumars and Scott Perry. Just like, no, did a search happen?

They just wanted those specific guys. How did they land on those specific guys? If I'm a fan, like there was no interview process was there's like what? Like they just got these jobs out of nowhere. There was a lot of that talk to. Yeah. And people that have been retreads, I think Dumar's made it seem like he had multiple teams coming after him, which just goes,

Dumar's a nice guy, but the way that the last couple of years of the Pistons thing ended, you almost can't do worse. I mean, you know, Ishby is like, cold my beer. You can't actually do worse. You can do much worse. But the moves he made, he built that 2004 title team and had a really nice mid 2000s. And then there was like a seven year run where it's like, what are you doing?

He also turned a lot over to Troy Weaver, who I just think was terrible in Detroit. Like, you go back to the, all the Detroit stuff and you're getting points for drafting Kate Cunningham first. It's like, cool. Pretty sure, pretty sure my son could have done that. But for the most part, the Durant trade, I guess was okay. That was on his watch.

But most of the young, most of the young core belongs to Troy Weaver. Now Isaiah Stewart, I saw Thompson, I believe was a Troy Weaver pick. Was Monty Williams a Troy Weaver pick? That didn't go great. It was all the other stuff around the young core that was, if you talk to people who had sort of trade talks with Detroit during that time, it was all the other stuff that was kind of a mess. Just like the amount of voices, Arne Tellem, Troy Weaver, the owner, Tom Gores, like who's actually in charge here.

And then the players they put around the young core, the lack of shooting did not put them in a position to succeed. But I think it is worth noting that like the young core, you're right. You don't get points for getting a number one pick. Right. Like that's just kind of what you should do. And Kate Cunningham is awesome, but it is worth noting that he, that that is a Troy Weaver core for the most part.

Trajan Langdon has done awesome to supplement it and to continue to grow it. But yeah, there was just a lot of talk of like- Until this summer. Yeah. Well, I, we're going to disagree on that, but I thought- I thought the tray went backwards. I disagree with you completely. I don't understand what-

Let's hear it. Well, like, so, so on a a on a basic level Shruder out to to the Kings on just a wild contract Shruder out Beasley out and maybe like out for a while if not like for longer than a while He's he Beasley literally out out. Yeah hard away out in Jade and Ivy who I think people forget is like coming back to take but they have him anyway, though But he was a hurt all last year So that's why you got Schroeder last year is that they had this void on the team because this other guy was hurt He's back Lavert in

Robinson in I think they're just better and I think they're better because their young guys are gonna continue to get better and I specifically look at like Asar Thompson give him a full season, something is gonna pop there, like I think he's got a chance to level like two levels up in one season, like I think their supporting cast is better, I just think they're better. But that's all stuff that could happen anyway.

I'm not a Laverte guy, I've never been a Laverte guy. I don't wanna get aggregated like you did with Cam Thomas last week, I can't wait to talk about that. I'm just like Cleveland Cleveland's like Trying to win a title. They're winning games of them and they're like, we're good. I think he's a little ball-stoppy I don't like the fit with Detroit and I think listen, it's not their fault what happened with Beasley But Beasley was really important to what they did last year. I thought he was their second best player

It made you know at worst case scenario their second best player. It made, you know, at worst case scenario, their third best player behind Duran. But I just thought he really mattered for them, especially at the end of games. And now you're replacing that with Karis Levert and you're keeping your fingers crossed with Ivy. And Duncan Robinson is good. And you know, look, in the playoffs.

Is he though? Like, my name is Seam, but here's the thing. And you know, I enjoy playoffs. Is he though? Yes. But here's the thing. And you know I enjoy those shooter ball movement guys. And I think there's certain teams who would have been really good for it. Miami seemed like they were in or out on him 13 different times over the course of the last five years. I couldn't keep track. They paid him a lot of money. So Malik Beasley had a great year last year high on our six man of the year ballots for both of us.

I voted for him. You voted for him. Yeah, I did. I thought he deserved it. 14 points a game in the playoffs, 37% from the field, 34% on threes, never gets through the line, complete defensive liability. Like, but does he know that the scandals coming is one of my questions with that? Well, I don't think that thing just came out of nowhere right after the, like I feel like that was brewing for a couple months.

Yeah, at some point it's hanging over his head. I'm just saying like, is Duncan Robinson, whose contract is like partially guaranteed after the first year, like I think he can do a different version of what Malik Beasley did for their team. And I think if anything, the playoffs showed in the regular season, I think they were over reliant on Malik Beasley and the playoffs, the game changes.

The offense gets better. It gets more predatory against it. Now, Thunken Robinson is going to get hunted just like Malik. I think I'm on like Detroit's better next year. I, how many games did they win? I don't know. But they were in the mid mid forties and I think 48. I think, I don't know what the win total will be.

I think they're gonna be a better team next year. I like the identity they had in the second half of the season in the playoffs with those tough veterans. Right, built around Cade and rebounding in a real attitude. And I don't know, we'll see I guess. Did they lose any of that? What toughness and rebounding and defense did they lose? I thought Beasley was kind of a badass for them.

I really did. I thought he had a real swagger and attitude and he was the guy they went to over and over again late. And I thought Cade, Cade, it's obviously gonna come from Cade over and over. The big thing for them last year is that they rejuvenated Cade as an A-list asset, which I just was, were you ever like wavering on him?

I was never off-key on him. I just couldn't believe. Neither was Rossello. I was, I was a little nervous. I could not believe, and I said this often, how quickly people went on the, well, you know, he's doesn't get to the line. He doesn't get to the rim. He doesn't finish well at the rim.

Like he's going to be, it reminded me of the dialogue, which turned out to be kind of right on like, I remember Andrew Wiggins rookie year, I think it was 538 ran a piece about like statistically he's one of the worst number one picks of all time as a rookie and like this doesn't project well for him. And I was like, wow, it seems like kind of premature. And it turned out like he is not a great number one pick. It felt like decayed dialogue was starting to trend that way. And I was like, I just, I like, I watched this guy play and he's got something.

He's got the sort of in between game and the vision and the strength that you need and like put some real guys around them. But we're getting off topic with Detroit and Troy Weaver. I never gave up on him. I got worried, but I always look at those situations where you think, and this happens in football too, it's the situation, if the situation is awful, as I've gotten older, I've learned, you have to trust that that's the most important factor if somebody's not looking good. You almost have to value the situation over the talent

if the talent is there. Anyway, we got off topic. New Orleans. New Orleans, and then just the amount of like collective league wide almost sorrow about what has happened to the Kings in two years. Like how they went from the feel good story of the NBA to like nobody even really wants to talk about them.

They're like mediocre and boring and directionless in a way that other teams even are like, man, it's just kind of depressing over there. You know? It's funny. They just became the Kings again. Yeah. They weren't the Kings anymore. And it felt like, oh my God, the Kings aren't the Kings anymore. They're actually like a real basketball team. And then that died within 18 months. And just like the word Vivek was said over many dinners and drinks, like that it just, it's still kind of a mess internally. And it just that, you know, phrases like he can't get out of his own way, he can't help himself.

You know, that's that kind of phraseology came up a lot. Like, because what's been the constant between the Beam team and now and all the crappy teams before the Beam team, post Maloof? It's the ownership group. When that Halbert and Schade happened, I can't remember. Were you apoplectic or you're like, I can kind of see it?

Where did you land when it happened? I was surprised. I wouldn't have done it. I remember being on TV with JJ Reddick when he called it, it was like franchise mismanagement or something even more stringent than that. And I was like, that feels a little harsh given that Sabonis has a real track record of helping teams win and is a very good player. So I was surprised. I remember even saying like a year later, it was like, oh, what? This was a win-win trade for both teams.

This is a win-win trade. It's like, it's not. Like, Indiana won the trade. Like, the Kings just didn't lose it as badly as some people thought they were gonna lose it. And now it's like, what happened here? Like, how did we get here? I know.

I hated it. It was one of the few times I went all in. I'm like, I'm putting this in pen. I hate this. I would not trade Hal Burton. I always thought Fox was the one, if you're going to make a move, that would have been the one I did. The Spurs thing, you know, we talked about it a little before the, uh, before summer league, but you know, they probably have a year here with Fox where you can bring Dylan Harper off the bench. I watched, I watched one of his summer league games. I mean, he can't shoot, but he's just such a crazy athlete and. He's just clearly going to be a guy. I don't know if it's going to be year three, year four, like how long it's going

to take, but there's going to be a point where it's his team and you can just see like he's one of those guys who's had the ball his whole life. He's he's not going to be, Oh, like Halliburton had that rare ability to just be able to play off people and not have the ball at the time. I don't think Dylan Harper's gonna be like that. So they probably have a year here with Fox where they can bring Harper off the bench

and be like, we're gonna ease you in. Maybe there'll be a game where Fox has hurt for a week, you become the guy for a week. But the weird part of it though is Fox doesn't have the massive extension yet. Right? August 2nd, he becomes eligible to sign it, I believe. And I do expect something will be done shortly after.

Because they did the wink-wink, right? When they did the trade, it was kind of understood that they would take care of him. Well, I mean, he went out of his way to say there was only one, there was no list. San Antonio was the list. I wanted to be in San Antonio. That was the team on my trade demand list. And whether it was wink, wink or not, I mean, you don't do trades like that without some understanding of what it's going to be when you, when you hit extension time.

Well, your guy, Rich Paul talked about that recently. He talked about, he was bragging about the Brandon Ingram extension. And he was like, we felt like the free agency money wasn't going to be there. We had to get him traded so he could make the money. And by the way, he was right because completely zero chance of making 40 million a year. If he was a free agent, Brandon Ingram. So yeah, with the Fox piece, I'm sure they have the wink wake extension. I'm sure it's going to happen. But I asked, so do you think he's going to be on that team in two years?

Cause I don't know two and a half years, like three years, I, there's going to be a moment where they just give the car case to, to Harper. And that's going to be that. Cause I think he has a chance to be that special. I'm not in a rush to make these kinds of decisions. Fox and Wemby played five games together last year. I think I want to see it. Well, not only that, like I'm, I'm like higher on the 20, 25, 26 sp I want to see it. Well, not only that like I'm I'm like higher on the

2025-26 spurs than most people are I think there's a chance for a big big leap from them I know they have some shooting is can I can I join you on that island? It's not an island like anyone's welcome, but like I I don't know what their odds are over under or any of that I haven't looked at it. So Yeah, it's maybe an archipelago. Yeah. Yeah, there you go Yeah, it's maybe an archipelago. Yeah. Yeah, there you go I think there's a chance for a much better for the very simple reason of those guys barely played together one of them has the potential to be the best player in the NBA at some point in his career and I like some of them

I like a lot of the moves they made and you know, we'll see how much the rookies can actually help but I something is cooking there and I'm not in a hurry to like I much the rookies can actually help, but I, something is cooking there and I'm not in a hurry to like, I understand the theory of we can win now with Fox and then when the young guys are ready, we can flip Fox for stuff that fits when Benyama's timeline more like it's not like Fox is old. Like I'm not in a hurry to make any of these choices. Well, I think it was Eddie Johnson who said this on my podcast about how Sabonus and Fox

with the lob stuff where they're both lefties was just weird. And he's like, watch what happens when Fox is with Wemby because he's gonna go left and he's throwing to a guy who's right-handed, it's gonna be different on those high screens. I was like, all right, that sounds mildly interesting. I'm with you on the Spurs. I've already looked at their over-under. Do you wanna guess what it is? I'm with you on the Spurs.

I've already looked at their over under. Do you want to guess what it is? Cause I looked at it after Wemby said, I'm clear, I'm fine. I'm healthy. I'll be ready for the season. What do you think their win total is? 41 and a half. 43 and a half. I'm over.

There's a lot of people on the archipelago. I'm not even thinking about it. I'm going over 43 and a half. I know it's the way, know they're way they're young It's the West everybody's good except Utah blah blah. I'm going over 43 and a half me as well and I think that uh That's probably this year's Orlando if you're gonna make a Or this year's Detroit like the team that just kind of jumps into the high 40s because they have a bunch of young guys

And they always can throw dudes out. They are so... I kind of like Kelly Olynyk if he's your 10th man. If you have this weird Kelly Olynyk, Luke Cornett you're relying on, I'd rather have that than Zach Collins. Oh, there's... Cornett's good. I mean, just flat out good.

Olynyk has been one of these,, every team that gets him from Utah to Toronto to now San Antonio, I have the same reaction, which is like, I love having a shooting, passing big guy around young guards and young wings. I just feel like it helps everybody. And then he just never plays. So it's just this sort of like theoretically helpful ingredient. I like the idea with him and Wemby. I do too, I like the idea of Kelly Olynyk.

It's just an idea until it becomes not a reality. One of the things I love about them, Incredible Trade Machine team. They have all different types of tradable contracts. You compare them together, they have a bunch of cool picks. That's one of those, when we get to December, January, know, that's one of those when we get to December, January, February, that's one of those teams. If they're good, they start out like 20 and 12 and Wemby looks like he's an MVP candidate,

that's a team that could shift pretty quickly. Let's take a break and then we have some other stuff to hit. No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. All right, so we have more tales from summer league stuff.

The biggest thing that I think became a basketball argument was everything the Quippers did. And it's, let's do that and then we can hit some summer league stuff later. I was less excited about it than others while also admitting that everything they did was just cost effective, low risk. You have moves everywhere.

You're just adding contracts that you could easily swap out or trade or package together if anything weird happens. Everybody's made jokes about how old this team is, how they put together the 2017 All-Star game. There's a million ways this could go. I'll start here. They were post-All-Star, they were fourth in that rating. I think they should have beaten Denver in five or six and they didn't because of what

happened in game one and what happened in game four especially but I think they were I don't know if they were better than Denver but they easily could have taken that series and it didn't go their way in a couple plays happened but they were right there with the team that then went seven against OKC you could make a case they were one of the four best teams in the league last year that's the most clippery thing ever is to give them but is to give them a trophy for almost beating the team that almost beat Oklahoma that's going up. We almost beat the team that almost beat. Okay, see they're putting that away Game one. Yeah, they blew it game for Aaron Gordon. You were there like all cool

Denver Denver won another game and then they had they were the champ were the champs. Then they had, but then they had a game to win the whole series in Denver and they shit the bed so badly that it's just like, it's a black mark on the entire season. I'm sorry. And that's my, my bigger picture point. We could talk about, oh yeah, they're better. They're deeper. There's still a team that's built around James Harden. And I don't know if you're a Quipper fan, if you work for the Quippers, if you coach

the Quippers, if you're the GM of the Quippers, if you own the Quippers. I don't know how you fall asleep at night feeling great about that after what happened in game seven and what's happened over the course of his entire career. I actually went back and watched because I was like, I feel like that was so bad. I need to, maybe enough time has passed that I'm misremembering something and maybe it wasn't that bad. It was that bad. He was so bad. He was doing the thing where he doesn't look at the rim at all.

You knew immediately. By the way, this segment could be recorded in five different seasons. I know, it could be every five different seasons. I'm dead though. Just CGI it. Um, he was so bad that I don't know how, like you're reading these stories about, oh yeah, he was recruiting Bradley Beale for a half hour. It's like, what was the recruiting pitch?

Don't, Hey, we had a really good thing last year. Could you do me a favor and not watch game seven? Can you watch like game five? Uh, Hey, and Brad and Bradley Beals like, Hey, what happened in game seven? It's like, I don't know. Denver just caught like, this is a team built around James Harden and fundamentally you cannot win four playoff rounds with James Harden. How old is he now?

36. And he's shown us who he is year after year for his entire career, and I just, I can't get excited about it, I'm sorry. Well, it's also built around Kawhi Leonard, and four playoff rounds is a lot for a player who has battled injuries for his entire Clippers tenure, and he had a great last, second half,

whatever, 50 games of last season. When you say battled injuries, do you mean he played 266 games in six years and 37 last year? Is that is that bad? Is that battling or is that drowning? He's it's it's a toe to toe battle between kawaii and the injuries. It's it's it's it's neck and neck. Look, I'll just let me just make a couple of cases for the Clippers. Okay. Number one, I don't think anyone with the Clippers has any like illusions about what they are right now. Like I think they, I think they probably think we are really, really good team that slots in fourth in the West at best.

And if you're, if you're talking about everyone's healthy, let's go. It's Oklahoma City, Denver, Houston, and then maybe the Clippers, probably the Clippers, whatever word you want to use. But I think for a regular season, I think you can make a case they could slot in in the top three because of the depth and the fact that even if these guys aren't going to play reliably, they still have so many guys, they might have the depth to be good. And I'm talking to, like you were the president of the Clippers are the second best team in the West Island for the last 40 games of last year that was

your that was your call. Yeah and you know what happened? I know what happened. We had a hurricane. Hurricane hardened hit the island and I had no electricity for a month and a half. Out go here Here that here are the rotation players that they even semi rotation players that are gone. They're definitely better Okay, no, go ahead can I just do it I'm with you Not even signed yet What was your favorite moment of Ben Simmons Clippers tenure what the one day where everybody talked themselves into thinking that maybe this is the time, look he like went to the rim one time. My favorite was I was at the game with Mike Tolan and we were joking about how when he crossed the big circle logo at mid court, it became like an electric fence for him where

he had to get rid of the ball before he got to the three point line. And I was, I nicknamed him the new logo because the logo like triggered. It didn't matter who it was or whether the person was open. He had to pass it. He wanted, he did not want to have the ball within 25 feet of the basket. And I think it might be one of the reasons

he's not signed yet. Yeah, out goes Ben Simmons, Norm Powell, Amir Koff, Yajur Yubanks, Jordan Miller. In comes Brooke Lopez, Bradley Beal, John Collins, Chris Paul. They're undeniably better than the team that was last year. They have 11 guys who can really play. They're gonna need all 11 to get through the regular season.

And I think the idea of the team is like, look, we know the issues with our top two guys. Harden's playing big games, Kauai's availability, et cetera. We know how good those other three teams are. All we can do with the resources that we have and the money we've committed to these two older veterans at the center of our team is put ourselves in the best position possible to pounce.

If the matchups break right, if a team takes an injury that's in the top three, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then maybe we're in the conference finals again, and once they're there, that's all they can do. I don't think they're going into the season like, oh yeah, we hit it out of the park, we, blah, blah. And then maybe we're in the conference finals again. And once they're there, that's all they can do. I don't think they're going into the season like, oh yeah, we hit it out of the park. We're a championship favorite. I think they know exactly what they are.

Over, under, on, Fandel is 49 and a half. That seems about right, honestly. I'm not against any of the moves on paper except one, which we'll get to in a second. The Collins one, I just think they had, they weren't gonna give Norm Powell an extension. And I think he was going to get really sour. And I think they were worried about chemistry and happiness with that.

Right? So you flip them into Collins who hasn't been on a good team since 1995. Oh, stop. No, I'm just saying like he's like, he's in a contract year and he's on his first good team since that one Hawks team that made a run. I there's it's, it's funny. He's become a weirdly polarizing player because there's some really good nerd arguments for him. You and I, you and I very much disagree on John Collins. Well, so the highlight is, not out.

I'm just the highlight of his career was that Philly series. He was good in that Philly series. I thought he felt like he was becoming a real playoff guy. And then if my memory serves me correct, they then played Miami and he was abysmal. And I just think with what they have with Zubats and Kawhi, I think Kawhi is a four at this point in his career.

You can play him at the three, but I just think he's a four. And you're putting Collins with Zubats and Kawhi. That doesn't make sense to me in the way basketball is played in 2025. But I do think for the versus Powell, who I think they had a lot of guards, they worried about him being unhappy. The trade makes sense. It's an expiring. They can flip it.

Like I'm down with the trade. I'm not down with the trade. I'm not down with John Collins being a huge part of a team that wins Forbes straight playoff France. Where I get off the buses with Beale. I still am waiting. I've been waiting all summer. I'm waiting for somebody to explain what actually happened with him in Phoenix.

Cause even my friend, Eddie Johnson, I tweeted something, we went back and forth on Twitter, and every time we do that, then somebody will aggregate it, like we're mad at each other, like Eddie's my friend. But Eddie's like, no, no, he was good here. Everybody liked him here, and he was a good son, it just didn't work out. It's like, what does that mean? Because I saw the sons in person,

and the entire team looked miserable, including Bradley Beal. Nobody was happy with how he played the entire time he was there. Part of the issue seemed to be that he didn't like being a role player who didn't have the ball all the time. Now he's going to be a role player in the Clippers. And I just don't understand why people think this is going to

be an awesome situation with him in the Clippers. I don't get it. So explain it to me. Why is he gonna be happier on the Clippers than he was with Phoenix? Well, they got him for cheap, right? So it's a difference between $50 million and $5 million. That's kind of a big deal.

And he did average like 17 a game and shot it well and can be a secondary ball handler. And I think if you're asking him to do that on a team where he's whatever in the hierarchy average like 17 a game and shot it well and can be a secondary ball handler and I think if you're asking him to do that on a team where he's whatever in the hierarchy and not part of a big three and he maybe he comes off the bench or they're talking like he's gonna start I'm not convinced that that's... They're talking like they're gonna rely on him and he's gonna have the ball a lot. I would not rely on him to have the ball too I mean I would rely on him to have

the ball in this sense Harden, Zubotz, pick and roll, bend the defense, kick to Bradley Beal, attack a closeout or take a second screen from Zubot's and when the, when the defense is already moving and that's, that's cool. Like I don't know that there's any idea that we're like, all right, give the ball to Brad Beal and get out of the way. I don't think that's going to be part of the, part of the offense for the Clippers unless people are injured or there's just a whole bench mob in the game. I was like, what, what's the like what's the opportunity cost for them?

They got him for essentially nothing in NBA terms. He's still a 17 point a game scorer, still shot 40% on threes, still can handle the ball. And look, I think you're right about Phoenix. There was just a malaise over the whole team. I think his effort level wasn't good enough, not nearly good enough, and it's gonna have to be better obviously on a team. Why wasn't't good enough, not nearly good enough. And it's going to have to be better. Obviously on a team. Why wasn't it good enough? Nobody's been able to explain that part.

They changed the coach every year. He knew he was going to play with Durant and Booker and he knew he wasn't. When, when he gets traded, he waves his no trade clause to go to Phoenix, a team that already had Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. What did he think was going to happen with the shots and the usage rate? Did he think it was gonna be awesome for him? Those guys averaged like 60 points a game in the playoffs. What did he think was gonna happen?

I would hope that he understood he'd be the third option, but I will say this, you just got through saying about Cade, like you always gotta remember that the circumstances really matter. Like they do change the coach every year in Phoenix. They've kind of become a punchline for their spending, which focused on Bradley Beal, the sort of ridicule that he took.

And like you're the body language doctor. How was Kevin Durant's body language from like, you know, game 10 on last season? Like the whole team just seemed like checked out. Checked out. But why did that happen? This is my point though. I still don't understand what happened in Phoenix and why that team was so

unhappy for two years, right? And why, and why they fell as short as they did. And then, you know, it's like, no, no, it was good with Durant. It's it was great. We're sending him off. Wasn't his fault. It wasn't Devin Booker's fault. Here's 75 million a year, even though we won 35 games of you last year and it wasn't Bradley Beals fault either

He was a great son Well whose fault was it because that was the unhappiest team all of us watched last year And I don't know if you're carving up the blame pie who has the biggest slice in the blame pie I still can't figure it out The rest of the roster there was more stuff going on behind the scenes than we're finding out about. And I'm still waiting for the now they tell us story and nobody wrote it.

No, I mean, there's gotta be something somebody wrote that was interesting. Clearly, the closest thing was the whole very weird bud telling Devin Booker, hey man, you gotta talk less in huddles like that that was that was a weird one. But I'm not sure that can break a team like that. Maybe they just never recovered from just getting absolutely humiliated by Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs two

seasons ago in a sweep in which that ended with Bradley Beal just like falling over and losing the ball three times in the last six minutes. Bradley Beal was so bad in that end of that playoff series. And it's one of those things that we just, time passes and you just kind of forget. We've never really seen Bradley Beal except for the, what was that, the 2017 Wizards, which I thought, even though he didn't,

I think he had some up and down shooting stuff, I felt like he really competed. I don't see a guy that competes in the same way anymore. And to just expect him to turn that on because he's in a contract here, that's the other piece of this. So Bradley Bale is somehow going to make more money out of this. And Dame Lillard, same thing for different reasons, and I feel bad for Dame, but Dame somehow tore his Achilles and somehow made more money out of it. The league is in this weird situation where they have the second apron that penalizes everybody and penalizes all these smart teams.

And if you draft well and you sign well, but then it has this other mechanism where you can kind of either get hurt or tank your situation or just not play well. And it can somehow work out we will make more money because the part of the narrative was well Bradley Beal does well in the Clippers he'll be the biggest free agent a year from now so he was already making 53 million a year that wasn't enough incentive for him and that's somebody I'd want to bet on I mean am I being a dick like I feel like I'm in the minority on this who were the Clippers getting with a five and a half million dollar salary slot that's

better than Bradley Beal? Nobody. He was 17 points a game, 39% threes. But I would be really worried about... So that's it. I have this chemistry thing where I already have the whatever the heart and just never knowing whether I can trust him in a game. I have Beal where I have no idea

He wasn't happy as a relegated role player in Phoenix, but now he's gonna be happy with that I don't know whether I can trust Kawhi. It's a team that now has a clear two-year window Right and that I can't wait to talk about that piece of it. You're bringing CP and basically ceremonial He'll play 40 games during the regular season He might have a playoff moment, but I would just have real concerns about what happened to Beal and Phoenix and whether, um, what that meant because he wasn't happy that last year in Washington either. We haven't seen the guy be happy in the 2020s. And meanwhile, he's been making crazy money. I just, I don't get it. I, so I needed explained to me. And on top of it, like

I don't get it. So I needed to explain to me. And on top of it, like his agent and the son's president or whatever, their father and son. I'm aware. And the best you could do is, oh, Bradley cut the exact amount of money he's going to get from the Quippers. And it's going to save Matt Ishby all this money. It's like, why didn't he have to give up more money to leave a situation he hated? And if you're Phoenix, why didn't you wait until February to do this? If you're going to buy him out, you're not going to get any relief out of it.

And you, the luxury tax does all that shit doesn't kick into February. Why not wait and try to have a staring contest with them? Can I, can I just unleash a mild take right now? Speaking of Phoenix? I'm so ready for it. This reminded me, there are a lot of things we have to ban in NBA discourse, like nobody's talking about that guy. We need to ban that.

That guy's a problem. Here's what we need to ban. I sat down yesterday and for some goddamn reason I decided I'm going to watch the entire 11 and a half minute video that the Phoenix Suns just posted inside our draft room day one of the draft. No more! No ban them! They should be 45. I kept waiting. Minute eight. Maybe there'll be something interesting that happens in the video. And it's just a bunch of dudes wearing the same ugly-ass Suns polo high-fiving about how the guy they wanted might fall to them. And then

it's just phone calls where Brian Gregory's like hey man let's come here in Phoenix to work hard you want to work hard and my watch being like yep I'm gonna work hard all right let me give you over to Jordan not Jordan not it's gonna say something to you enjoy this night with your family enjoy this night with your family then come here to Phoenix to work hard yes sir I'm gonna come here to Phoenix enough and then there's a whiteboard that's blurred out. Just no more videos of everyone being like,

yeah, all right, woo, woo, look at our polos. No more. Has anybody ever not been excited when they drafted somebody in the top 15? Where's the draft room footage of the people like, ugh, man. Yeah, where's the draft room footage of the Kings calling in the papayanas pick?

You know and and they have to call that's what I want to see because the Suns I believe had to make that pick For the Kings I want to see Ryan McDonough on the phone being like yeah, they want they want papayanas man I don't I don't know what to tell you. That's who they're telling me to play papayanas. They don't the guy from Greece That's the guy we want 11 minutes of crap, man. I'm sorry. Just nothing interesting happened in the whole video. Don't watch it. Great rant. Couldn't agree more. So old guy champions, if you think James Harden at age 36 is going to miraculously change who he is in playoff games, old guy champions, the two doppelgangers would be the 98 bulls in the 2011 Mavericks, 2011 Mavericks. Dirk was 32 Marion 33 kid 38, Terry 33 Chandler 28 Pasia forgot he played 18 minutes a game on that team. I don't remember any of the

minutes and then he was 33 and Berra was the youngest guy at 26. The difference is, well, the difference is the league is much better now and you're going against this OKC team where basically all the guys in the team are born after Michael Jordan's last Bulls game, except for like Caruso. I think that that team though is and remains a team that gets brought up. The gold standard. But for this reason of like, just give yourself the puncher's chance as many times as you can as a good and maybe not great team,

and maybe one year it all comes into place. And I think that's just, that's the game the Clippers are playing, is like, that's the team. Well, here's the game the Clippers are actually playing, because if you gave them truth serum. Oh, let's go. Yeah, let's go. Let's do it.

If you gave them truth serum, and you said, do you think you could actually win the title? Like, come on. You'd be like, all right, we have like a haymaker puncher's chance. But OKC is going to be really hard. But that's what I've been saying this whole podcast. I think that's what they think. But what they've really done here is cleared the books for the summer of 2027. And the Norm Powell piece was a big part of this. He was going to be unhappy if they didn't give him an extension.

They didn't want to give him an extension. Well, why? He was almost an All-Star last year. Didn't play well in the playoffs. That's not enough of a reason. Ballmer is a guy that has always spent and added and paid money and he's never been afraid of the future. And now this is a team that's clearly we are on short term here. We're in two years. Well, why it's because Janice is a free agent in the summer of 2027.

And I don't, this is like the, you know, there's some, maybe some TV networks that dabble and specialize in this, just throwing out names and teams. I think there's, this is a real thing. I think the bucks are terrified of it. Um, I think it's a big reason why the miles Turner thing happened because the bucks knew they were on a two year window with, with Yannis and that is a player option and they're trying to do as much as they can to make it so that if anyone's winking at him,

that they'll at least have enough of a foundation and try to keep him. The one thing with Yannis is he's already won the title. When you've already won, it's a different level of mentality because now you're weighing, I've already won. I could start and finish my career in Milwaukee by all accounts loves Milwaukee. But I think if you're the Quippers and short term, you can compete with a puncher's chance for a title. But longterm you have 20 million on your books in the summer of 27, you just have Zubats. That's it. You

can basically build a new team and they're in the best position. Ballmer doesn't care about money. You bet. Have you been in the practice facility? And that their, their thing is like a fucking palace. Like you go there and you're like, this is a team that spends every every possible asset dollar or whatever to impress the people that play for it. And I think, I think that's their end game is that summer of 2027 short term, let's try to win longterm Yannis. And that's their end game is that summer 2027 short term. Let's try to win long term Yanis and that's how they're thinking

so a couple of things Lawrence Frank does not does not wink subtly He winks like Costanza's got the grapefruit pulp in his eye in Seinfeld remember the kawaii recruitment when he was just like at Toronto games just that and now it might be different with the honest as a player option, but like there ain't nothing subtle about how the Clippers operate. Number two, they're also in position if need be to get max cap space a year from now because Harden's contract is partially guaranteed. It's a weird thing where he got the player option and they got, I think it's only 13

million out of 40, whatever million guaranteed. And then they have team options on like a million guys Bo Donavich team option Lopez team option, but tomb team option like they could clear out 50 million dollars of space from their books without even trying so they're they're flexible on a couple of different levels But sure, I mean everybody knows the timetable of Yannis's contract. Everybody sees how desperate the Bucks are. And I haven't closed the books. I don't think anybody has closed the books. I'm like, do we know that Yannis is like,

okay, I'm done thinking about anything else now? I don't know that. Yeah, but he, by all accounts, he's fine in Milwaukee. And the team's gonna be pretty good. I mean, they actually had a really good off season when you consider like what, that the second best player in the team who made 50 plus million dollars

was gonna miss the entire season. And you would have said, this team has no chance to look competitive. The Cole Anthony thing was a big deal. Like they got him to be able to get somebody like that for nothing, he's a rotation guy. They kept Trent for nothing. He's a big deal. But they got him to be able to get somebody like that for nothing. He's a rotation guy. They kept Trent for nothing. He's a rotation guy. You know, they've added together a team that in a week conference with the best player in the conference, at least is now in the game. And I

think with more of a puncher's chance than maybe the Quippers have. I actually don't disagree with you. I went through all the East rosters the other day and I'm like, the Bucks are actually a little better than I think they are. They have a little more depth and a little more day to day. And I do think they can patch together some lineups that I like. I don't mind a couple of their young guys. They have some shooting already. And I agree with you.

He's shown us over and over again again he would prefer to stay in Milwaukee it actually reminds me of ironically Dame in Portland who would just like walked up and walked back walked up and walked back and like now that he's back he's publicly saying like I kind of maybe I shouldn't have ever left and Yanis kind of reminds me of that yeah you did a good job with Mahoney talking about the, on the pod you did with Mahoney this week about, uh, the culture that Dame put in Portland and how he was all in and all in and all in. And I think what changed that was the scoot Henderson pick and just getting

it, getting a top three pick and taking a future point guard. And I just think that changed how they thought about it, which is why I brought up San Antonio earlier. Sometimes you can get lucky in the draft and it can just completely change what you thought your plans were for a roster. Um, and in that case, I think, you know, I, I would have been really interested if he hadn't gotten hurt to see how they would have handled Dame this summer and whether they would have, would have, uh, tried to peddle him.

Cause he ended up the second half of the season before he got hurt. I thought he was pretty good. Um, all right. So we're just, we, we planted our flag on keep an eye on this Yannis Clippers thing, not saying we invented it, but, um, I wanted to quickly mention. Oh, let's take one more break. And then I have a, another thing to throw you here. So what other thing happened since the last time you and I talked basketball? And let's take one more break. And then I have a, another thing to throw you here.

So what other thing happens since the last time you and I talked basketball and it's the Miami heat, the zombie heat. I'm not saying they're in the cornfield starting to eat human beings again, but there were a couple of small things they did over the course of the summer where it's like, I just thought that team was done and maybe should think about trading BAM and just blowing it up and starting over. Um, there's, there's just kind of a, uh, a roster flexibility slash identity forming. And I didn't know if you were intrigued by it. So are you intrigued by it?

You, you have intrigued by it. So are you intrigued by it? You have this... I don't know if you have some telepathy abilities. Like I remember a couple months ago you said, you know, what teams do you have your eye on is like potentially frisky teams in the offseason. I mentioned one, you were like, that's the one I want to talk about. So tomorrow I'm having, we're doing a pod,

the Zach Lowe show, we're going to put the Eastern conference teams at the tiers of teams, which is I like to do just for fun. And I'm looking at the fan dual odds. One, two, three, four Miami is 10th to win the, to win the East. I'm not saying Miami is going to win the East. That's not a conversation. I'm just saying the odds are what they are. Indiana's plus 2300, they're ninth. Then there's a jump all the way to plus 4,100 that's Miami and then plus 4,600 is the Raptors and I keep looking at the teams above Miami, Indiana, Milwaukee, Boston, Philadelphia, that group.

And I'm like, I don't think Miami's worse than those teams. Like I understand that Miami, that all of those teams save Indiana with Halliburton Hurt and maybe even Indiana with Siakam have a player who's much better than anyone on Miami. I don't say Siakam is much better than Bami. He's probably a little better all around, but Boston's still got Jalen Brown. Philly's got whoever is healthy. Milwaukee has an MVP candidate.

I kind of think the Heat are in that group. And I was talking to a couple of front office guys earlier this morning before we hopped on this podcast, almost trying to get them to talk me out of my Heat optimism. And one of them tried to, one of them kind of shared, I don't, I'm not saying this is like a great team, but if you told me the Heat went 45 and 37 and snuck into the sixth seed or whatever, I wouldn't be surprised. I think it's a better team than Vegas has given them credit for.

I bet they're over under is like 38 and a half or something like that. Yeah, 38 and a half. It's too low. And I actually think, I know it's insane. I actually think like 48 wins could be in play with the, with how bad that, with how bad the East is going to be from a star power standpoint, you're just not going against stars night after night, you're going in and said,

like you might play Philly. There's no, and B you're going to play Boston. There's no Tatum. You go on down the line. The game, the East games are just not going to be as hard as they were last year. So literally 20 minutes before we hopped on this podcast, I was talking to an executive on another Eastern Conference team saying, like am I crazy to think Miami could win, could be like 46 and 36 and be the fifth or sixth seed?

Like, am I missing something about the composition of the East? Like, what am I missing? Because I seem to be wildly off on Miami. And he kind of was like, yeah, 46 seems a little much. But I literally just said this stuff to somebody 30 minutes ago. I said 46, you said 48. 48 seems a little high to me.

46? It's 10 games over 500. Like that's a good team. I don't know if that's a little over my skis, but I'm with you. I don't know what we see. Powell in a contract here. We already know he's gonna, he's a 19 point game, point of game scorer.

They have Wiggins for a full year. They have Hiro. They have Adabayo. They got Fantequio, who I just like, I'm sorry. I'm always gonna think on the right team that guy can succeed. There's just certain guys, like, on the wrong team, I get it, but on a team where guys know what they're doing, I'm just in on him.

Jovic everybody else likes. I don't like him as much. Like, Rossello likes him. I like Jovic. I haven't really seen it yet, but I know you're, of course you like him. He's got the itch. I gotta, I gotta be welcomed. You got an itch for the itches. Yeah. I got it. Believe me, all the, all the people in Croatia that we visit with when we're there,

they know my awards ballot. And if I've shunned the wrong Balkan, I hear about it. Hakez, if he ever learns how to shoot. Jakasjonas, I still feel like is gonna, I'm still in. And then they have Highsmith who I've always liked. I don't know, I just don't mind their team. There's a Rozier piece. There's two Rozier piece. There's two ways it could go good and one way it can go awful. The two ways it can go good is he's in a contract here. Maybe he comes back, he gets cleared and he's actually good again.

This was a guy who was like a 24 point a game score or two years ago. They give up a first round pick for the second way. It could go good for them. Would it be good for Roger. What if it turns out he gets suspended for the year? Like, does he come off the cap? How does that work? We haven't had that happen before.

Does he disappear from the cap? It feels like if anyone would ever look out from something like this, I was talking to my friend, Mike Scherrer hates the heat the most. And I was like, you realize if Roger're just here, it gets suspended for a year. The league will somehow figure out a way that that just magically comes off Miami's cap and he's like, you ruined my day. I like that you guys are still are still the Miami scars. I just want them to die.

Yeah, I just want that. I want heat culture to just be dead and it never dies. But. But the third way it would go, I think, uh, I think the bad version of this is that's just a giant 26.6 thing, 26.6 million. He's not playing, but you also can't trade them because he gets suspended. And it's just like this cap albatross for a year is the one bad way this would play out. So who knows?

I'm penciling him in is out of the rotation. When I'm- I think that's fair. No, no, no, I just, just in terms of my projection of the heat, because I want to make sure my opti- I want to make sure my optimism is not based on the whatever small percent chance

that the Terry Rozier thing totally turns around. I'm not expecting that to happen. Like it's been, it's unbelievable how much of a zero he's been from Miami. Like it's, it's one of the most under the radar shocking, like from, from semi productive slash productive to like, like can't even get on the floor in the playoffs for a team that's losing by 50. The off court stuff I think murdered his season last year.

There's no way you can come back from that, especially if you think potentially really bad things are happening. But he was really good on Charlotte. Crunch time score. Yeah. He was, he was becoming a guy that you had to start talking about as you kind of like what happened with Norm Powell last year where he wasn't an all star, but you actually had to throw his name into the, into the conversation for it. Um, anyway, they're one of the things I like about what they did.

And I liked the Mitchell signing too. The, I've always never gave up on that dude feeling good about my condo on that island. Um, but they have a flexible roster for trades, right? Like pal still in expiring. Fonteco is an expiring high Smith's and expiring. Uh, Wiggins has a player option for next year at 30. It's not bad. They, it's, it's, it's a situation that looks a little Lebron.

I'm just going to say it. If we were going to go, all right. Somebody came from a time machine and said, in January, February, Lebron James will be traded and you had to pick a team. I think Miami would be one of the teams I would think about. Okay. Two things. Okay.

Two things. Okay, two things. Number one, they're only in the whole one first round pick and I believe they could trade up to three if they do it right. Number two- Their 27 pick goes to Charlotte for the aforementioned Terry Roger disaster trade. Number two, I know no one has time to listen to every episode of the Zach Lowe show, let alone, let alone someone as busy as you last week in Vegas. I S I said, I did a segment on LeBron cause everyone's talking about LeBron. And I said, look, I've already done all the, all the, like, I've already gone through all the teams everybody's gone through the Cleveland's, the Dallas, the warriors, the Knicks and on and on.

I said, the one team I forgot to bring up when I was doing it is like, there's actually kind of a, a heat reunion trade that isn't crazy on paper for either team, if it ever came to that. What I neglected to mention on that podcast and should have blamed the Vegas Hays that I was in, is it ended very badly. Like there were hard feelings in Miami when he left and the banner in which he left. And Riley doesn't strike me as someone who gets over hard feelings particularly easily.

Now winning and a superstar papers over a lot. But I don't disagree with you. Like I don't, Lebron's on the Lakers. I've heard there's, it's kind of gotten quiet now after it was the talk of summer league. There doesn't seem to be like a clean solution either way. Everyone's saying we should expect to be on the Lakers. That's my expectation, but I agree with you.

Like on paper, there's a heat trade that is not crazy for either team. Wiggins and Powell for unhappy LeBron in January and maybe some sort of pick swap and maybe that's all it is. Well, as crazy as that sounds, I think for the Lakers where has got to be in it. Like just because I've gone out of my way to say I've got to get a rim runner that compare with Luca, blah, blah, blah. And I'm trading arguably the greatest player of all time. I got it.

I got to hit the trade well. And I think he'd be the piece that they'd have to get. Well, the only thing if they would be real urgency to trade him, you know, he would have to start acting passive aggressively. And, um, we've just never seen him do that over the course of his career. I'm just going to let, let that hang, hang in the air there. There's just been no evidence over the course of his career that he could use the regular season as a tool to try to make a transaction happen that he would be in favor of. Do you think he wants to do that at the end of his career?

I can't think of any examples. But do you think he'd want to taint the last X years of his career with his son on the team by doing that? Trying to think. Yeah, I can't really come up with any seasons where that happened. Listen, they waived Clutch client Jordan Goodwin. Who's good, buddy. To sign Marcus Smart after he was recruited by Luka Doncic.

And I was like, they're now antagonizing the LeBron side. Like this is flat out antagonizing. They can say what they want, but think about, think about the hold that Clutch and LeBron had over the Lakers for those first seven years, to the point that they drafted his son, who had played 10 minutes a game in college.

And now it's gone full circle where it's all Luca, Luca, Luca, Luca, Luca recruited. I mean, you and Mahoney did, I thought you did the perfect breakdown of the Marcus Smart thing. To expect him to guard anyone with speed who's a guard at this point of his career, good luck. He also can't really shoot threes

and is the kind of guy that's just a bad fit with a LeBron Luca team. I didn't like the move at all. I would have rather have Jordan Goodwin. Like for real. I don't think Marcus Smart with Luca and LeBron, Luca team. I didn't like the move at all. I would have rather have Jordan Goodwin. Like for real. I don't think Marcus Smart with Luca and LeBron and Austin Reeves makes sense to me at all because I need somebody who can actually guard all of the awesome guards that are in the NBA. And guess what? I still don't have the person after I did this Marcus Smart move. I have the person who can guard bigger dudes who could be like, let's throw them against Giannis.

By the way, which matters. It matters because LeBron doesn't wanna do that kind of bang and Luca only wants to do it against a guy who's a non-threat. They, Rui can do it, but they need someone else. And look, Marcus Smart is not a- It's not gonna be Marcus Smart. He's not a great three-point shooter,

but he's a good enough catch and shoot three-point shooter on open looks, which I think he's betting, you're betting on the up, like, we know what Jordan Goodwin is. I like Jordan Goodwin. I said there's a universe enough catch and shoot three point shooter on open looks, which I think he's better. You're betting on the up. Like we know what Jordan Goodwin is. I like Jordan Goodwin. I said, there's a universe where he's better than Marcus smart next year. I think if you're the Lakers, you have to bet on, you just have to make a big bet that we're a long shot to win the West to, to even make it plausible.

We've got to hit home runs on some things that on the fringes. Like this is a chance at that. You're never going to hit a Jordan Goodwin home run. He just, his body seems like it broke down to me. I love Marcus Smart. He was a great Celtic. There's an interesting, would they retire his number case that I think if the season, if you have a season three years from now, that's going terribly, you could see it happen. Um, he never won a title with them, but was one of the most beloved, um, role player, self fix ever in my lifetime. Um, I don't think his body can handle a nine month season anymore.

Did you see that? He said he expects to get booed in Boston. No, never. I mean, I, I saw, look, I. I mean, I saw it on Twitter. I suspect everything is fake. It didn't look fake to me. It didn't look like an AI generated quote, but my reaction was like, dude,

it's gonna be a standing ovation. It doesn't matter if you're on the Lakers. People are gonna go crazy for him when he comes back. I have penciled in August 20th. I put in my Apple calendar. You use the Apple calendar? I have a Apple calendar. You use an Apple calendar? I have a Google calendar. I use an Apple calendar.

I penciled August 20th in for the day that I'm gonna try to talk myself into Deandre Aitin on the Lakers. I already did it. I'm done. I did it. I got through it in early July. Like you're officially, like you've talked yourself

into the scenarios? I would say my thesis statement for Deandre Aitin working is just this. I think it's going to go better than expected. That's as far, I think it's going to work as well as the Lakers could reasonably hope it works. But I think he's going to have a decent offensive season and a decent defensive season. I think if you're expecting him to be amazing, it's not going to work. I think he's going to roll more. I think he's going to roll more.

I think he's going to play a little more force. He's an elite mid-range dumb shooter. And I think any big man worth his salt who's embarrassed by being bought out by the freaking blazers and you could spin it like, Oh no, that's what I wanted. I wanted to play on a winning team, whatever the blazers were super excited to clear the way for their young centers. And I want to talk about that before we get off. Um, I think he's good.

Luca and LeBron are going to make him look good. He's going to be a productive offensive player the way he was in Phoenix. And I think, I think he's going to be, if your expectations are mocking him as dominating and I'm a max contract guy and I've done my share of mocking and mocking him for getting to the foul line once every two weeks That's one of my go-to eight in lines. I think he's gonna be better than that I think he's gonna be a serviceable starting center for the Los Angeles Lakers to help their team Did you ever see the clip from the movie scanners when the guy's head blew up I don't even know what that movie is

It's a horror movie that came out in the early eighties and it was by David Cronenberg and it had this famous scene where this guy's head exploded and it's one of the best special effects scenes of the seventies, eighties, nineties. The guy is like, and his head like explodes. I think it's in play for JJ Reddick this year with Aiden. With the combo of Aiden and passive aggressive LeBron

and Marcus Smart trying to guard point guards, this feels like it could, and Luca trying to play defense. Like there, there are pieces of this where you could talk yourself into the Laker season going really good. And there's a case for them to be a three seed. I also think there's cases for JJ. They were just a three seed. I know. And that could totally happen again.

I think there's also a case that JJ Reddick's head could explode in the sideline could it because of eight and when You've watched him play basketball. I Have I say it both ways. I do think though This is the type of team that could honestly kill jim. I'll just put it. I'm going Deandre and 16 and 8 solid bounce back season that's's the scenario. 16 and eight. He does get rebounds. You know, it's like, it's like Barclays whole thing about,

you can't get three rebounds a quarter when he gets mad that like Jaren Jackson has five rebounds a game. He does get rebounds. He'll grab them. Lucas seems like he's in better shape, but who knows? We'll find out. And in the LeBron situation, it's just going to be really, really weird.

They have a lot of expirings and a lot of ways to make the roster better. It seems like Luca's gonna sign next month, which I think nobody's gonna be surprised by. I believe that's August 2nd as well. All right, so February 15th, what team is LeBron on? Safebed is still the Lakers, right? I mean, like I haven't heard enough, I haven't heard enough actionable, realistic stuff to go anything but Lakers. If you're telling me Lakers versus field,

I think that's, I'd still probably go Lakers a little bit, but until I hear something, because why would they ever buy him out? I don't think he has it in him to act out the way Jimmy Butler did to get out of his situations. Passive aggressive maybe, but I think you can live with that. And I don't know that he wants to do that at the end of his career with his son on the team.

Even that level, like 2018 Cavs level, eye rolling, passive aggressive slum show. We've never been in a situation where the player is great as him before, where the focal point of the franchise is on Shipped it to another guy. I mean, I'm really interested to see where like I'm talking like the best part is about time So what's your answer to the question then what teams he on February 15th Dallas? No, because I don't think there's any scenario where the Lakers buy him out he would have to really to your point

He would have to really push the envelope in a way that I just think it would be crazy for him to do. Like he's a role model. People love LeBron. He's going to be a dick to try to get traded. He'll do the passive aggressive stuff, but he's not going to do the outward. He's not going to tank during games. He's never going to do any of that stuff. I honestly would say Miami. I don't know why. I'm so glad we're on the same Miami. It's just like a weird gut feeling. It's just, and I don't think the Riley stuff, yeah, it ended awful with them in Miami. I don't think the stuff matters.

He went back to Cleveland after the Comic Sans letter and all the shit that went on. If it's the right move for both sides and if Miami can look at it and go, holy shit, like we could actually win the East if we turn wickets and whatever else in the LeBron. And I don't know. I encourage people go back, listen to Zach Lo's show from last week. I talked about it. I was like, hero bam LeBron something.

Like it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be like a terrible Eastern Conference team. I got to, I know you may have other things to get to, but there are a couple other summer league things I wanted that are in your wheelhouse, much more than mine. A summer league topic that came up quite a bit, given Yong Hansen's play, is why is there like no buzz about who's going to buy the Portland Trail Blazers? So I ask you, you have a lot of ownership sources, you're always good on this stuff like why is there there's there's like even people within the blazers that I talked to or like I don't know like we haven't heard anything like what's going on This team is like allegedly in the beginning processes of being for sale. It's an NBA team What's happening? I?

Heard there's a guy and I heard it's going to go over four or the only two things I've heard. Who's not going over three and a half or four at this point. Well, but I think the consensus is it's going to be in the mid threes, but I think it goes over four. Let me ask you this then. There's just not a lot of teams available. This is it's Portland.

It's maybe make a power play for New Orleans, overpay for New Orleans, and then move them to Seattle, Vegas. And then other than that, unless the Ryan store shock everybody and just sell the team for seven million, what other team is there? Let me ask you this.

I know you can't say who the guy is if you even know who the guy is, but is it someone who already knows I'm not getting Vegas and I'm not getting Seattle if and when those things happen? Is it somebody in that pool potentially? I don't think it is. Okay. That wasn't the name I heard that I'm not going to say. Okay. That's the name I heard that I'm not going to say. The Vegas one was really fun because there were so many groups for it.

I was ready for the Game of Thrones between all the groups and each group had a famous person in it. I was just very excited to see how that was going to play out. But now if we're not going to have expansion, if somebody hired me as a conciliary for all this stuff, I would just be like, just go after New Orleans. That's the move. I know you've talked about it before, but now we've seen them play Summer League,

some time has passed since the draft. What does Conspiracy Bill think of the Yang-Han Sen pick and the conspiracy theories that it was all a ploy, partly a ploy, let's say, to increase the valuation of the franchise? So that was a Summer League combo, right? That the combo of Dame, cause the Dame thing was nuts.

Like they're paying 14 million this year not to play. And I know it's great to have them back, but it's just, I thought the combo of those two things I thought was notable. And the fact that you took Yang Hansen at 16 when you probably could have gotten him in the mid late twenties, but you were so desperate to get him. You didn't want to fuck around conspiracy bill was activated.

There's no question. Yeah. Well, I think there's a lot of Chinese money in play, you know, like that. We've just seen it with some of the players we've had in the league. So yeah, I, I, I marked it. Okay. What was your other thing? I, I marked it. Okay. What was your other thing? No, that's it.

I think, I think that is between that and Strahinja Jokic just lighting up summer league all over, all over the place, the big scary Jokic brother appearing everywhere and scaring everybody. Uh, I think, oh, the other one, uh, the other one, there was a lot of like, um, late in my summer league visit, a lot of like, wait, what, the other one, the other one, there was a lot of like, late in my summer league visit, a lot of like, wait, what? When did Paul George get injured again? When did the surgery happen with Paul George?

I thought I just saw him walking around a casino somewhere. Why did they announce it now? What's happening with the Paul George injury? What's, and just a lot of like, Sixers, what are you gonna do? Did the Embiid piece come out that was on as pin.com when you're in Vegas? It came out the last day I was there. I left that, I left that afternoon.

I have no comment on the embed piece. Um, what does that mean? I just have no comment on it. You, uh, you did no comment. When a representative for Simmons was reached and said, no comment. You had a rant before. You did your little thing. I have my little stupid rant. I'm going to give to you for 40 seconds. I don't understand. So Washington trades for Marcus smart.

And they get, they trade expirings and they traded 20, 25 second rounder for Marcus Smart, who's making like 20 million and then 20 million the next year. So they got a first round pick too, right? And they get Memphis's 2025 first, which at the time seemed like it was going to be in the twenties and then Memphis fell apart and it ended up being the 18th pick. Solid. Then they traded 18 for 21 and two seconds and they took Will Riley.

And then they bought out Marcus smart for $6.8 million. So basically, and we've seen teams do this a bunch, I guess that's the market for a non lottery first round pick. You're, you're paying whatever is left for the guy in the previous year, I guess that's the market for a non-lottery first round pick. You're paying whatever is left for the guy in the previous year, but you have the expiring so that it offsets. But then the next year you're paying. So they basically paid $7 million and their second rounder to get the 18th pick in the

draft. Does that sound like the right price? Because this happens all the time. We're like, oh yeah, but they got that pick. It's like, is that the right price for a non-lottery first rounder? And conversely, should they make a rule that teams can just pay whatever they want for somebody else's first rounder? Like just no cap at all.

Like if the, if the Lakers wanted to pay $35 million for, for Memphis's 18th pick, they could just do it. Why do we have a cap on it? Would teams actually pay? What are the values of picks? It got my brain percolating. I don't know if you have any thoughts. So people have studied trades over X amount of years and what is the average financial valuation of a

first-round pick like how much did the Nets just pay for the Nuggets 2032 first-round pick right right more than seven million dollars and a second round pick for sure and I think those studies would probably conclude again you're hitting me with this off the top of my head that that's actually kind of a cheap price to pay for the 18th pick. That that's probably a good deal cash wise for the Wizards. Because the guy's making like three and a half, four million a year and it's locked in. Has the chance to have upside of to be a real guy. So it's like the four plus the seven that you paid.

So it's almost like getting a mid-level free agent. I think it, just the, like, on average, what do teams pay for a first round pick and salary dumps, right? How much dead salary does it take for me to get a lottery protected first round pick? I'm guessing that's a pretty cheap price overall for Washington to get that pick. Your second idea broke my brain a little bit.

Obviously there is a cap on the amount of cash and trades that you could use in a calendar and be a year. You're saying should that cap just not apply to draft pick only trade? Should we just, and then you just come into a thing like, what is the price for your humiliation as a team? Like how much do you have to pay me to be able to go to my fans with and take the heat of like, yeah, sorry, we just sold the, I know you guys were like super excited about all the mock drafts and who we were going to take at 17 and

like, we actually need a player. The Lakers just paid us $75 million. How can we say what's the price for your humiliation as a franchise owner? Cause it's humiliating. It's humiliating to just, it would be humiliating to go to your fans and be like, yeah, you know, but look, I mean, I'm richer, we're richer. Like the practice facility might be nicer.

Yeah, but in soccer, or as they call it in the European areas, football, they have these transfer fees, right? You develop some awesome player. You have like Khan Knipple, and he's the rookie of the year in year one. It's like, wow, this guy's the next Klay Thompson. And then the Lakers just buy him a year later

for a $150 million transfer fee. And people are used to that in soccer. I think the CBA to me, the older I get, the more I stare at how they think about it is all about just checks and balances with the owners against themselves in two ways. One to make sure that you don't end up becoming like Ishbia. Like without the second apron, Ishbia, you're almost saving Ishbia from, from yourself. It would be like, if I, if I fed my dogs at four o'clock today from yourself. It would be like if I fed my dogs at four o'clock today and I just put all the dog food on the floor,

my idiot dog Murph would eat all the dog food, right? If I put 20 pounds of dog food on the floor, he would eat all 20 pounds and then he would have diarrhea for like a week and a half. That's kind of what the second apron is for Matt Ishbia. What's the diarrhea in this metaphor? Is it the stretch? Is it the wave? Yeah, it's the Bradley Beal seven pick swaps at 19 second round picks. But so it's checks and balances on the one end. And then the other end is that humiliation thing

you mentioned where they don't want to give the smaller market owners either the chance to be humiliated because like, okay, see Jalen Williams, they build him up and then he just leaves because they can't afford what the Lakers or Miami paid. But then you also to put owners in the position where they would just sell off shit, like they were selling off things in their attic or, you know, their car. Honestly, I didn't hear anything you said after diarrhea. I just, I just, I just lost.

I just like lost. Check's about, well, this is the same thing like- Hold on, I have a news flash. The Clippers have just traded for 20 pounds of Murph's diarrhea. It's gonna be fine though. It's solidified. It's a hard- This is like like I remember they shortened contracts

right and like that was the whole argument is like well we got to save these owners from themselves otherwise it'll be like another seven-year 120 million dollar David Lee contract like it like that saving the owners from the the Steppian rule is about saving owners from themselves. It's always checks and balances, and it gets more and more complicated with every, like good luck reading some of the fucking pick swaps on Real GM, like I don't know,

can someone just tell me who gets what pick? I don't understand. This pick and the second and fourth favorite. Do you want my document? I have a document. I created a document that I rely on, because it's so confusing. I actually had to write all of it down

with all the Mac and, I'm gonna send it to you. It's my little summer gift. Are you upset that when we brought you to The Ringer that we didn't do a recruiting trip, we didn't have people calling you like Luka Doncic called Marcus Smart? Should I have done that? Yeah, I think you should have all come to my house

and you know, like seven of you should have appeared at my front door with food and wine. Like on a website, they could have read, apparently Joe House called Zach Lowe today and they were on the phone for a half hour talking about how great the ringer is. Drunk House or Sober House? Drunk House. Or like drunk in an ambulance house? Being carried out of a Chinese food restaurant house. Here's my last thing and then we'll go.

The Bleach Report did that top hundred, whatever the point, Kobe was 11th and everyone went crazy. Yeah, I haven't looked at it. That's the only thing I know about the whole list, by the way, is what you just said. Kobe's 11th. It's basically for the ninth spot, nine, 10, 11, and 12, I guess it's Curry, Kobe, Jerry West and Jokic. And people, I'm not going to make the case today. I'm not going to put you in the spot.

You've done no research, but, um, it's basically a Curry versus Kobe versus West argument. And I thought it's interesting because people are just so stupid when they talk about the history of the NBA and it drives me crazy. I don't even know why it bothers me, but, um, people are like, Kobe 11. That's nuts. That's like, okay, we'll make your list. Um, but it's the Curry versus Kobe versus West is so fascinating to me because it's these three different generations of guards.

And I think you could honestly make a case for any of them. I think Curry's case, I thought Curry was going to pass Kobe and actually had him proactively in my pyramid ahead of Kobe. But now I'm looking at the end of Curry's career. And I think, I just think that's going to be an awesome historical argument as we get further and further away from it. Because Curry's whole thing about how he's only made four first team, all MBAs that's like a, like Kobe was first team,

all MBA like for freaking a decade and a half. It felt like, um, but Kobe only won one MVP. They, Curry has the four titles, Kobe has five. Curry never got to play with anyone like Shaq, but he did get to play with Durant. So he had the two Durant years, but Kobe had the three Shaq years. And it's just a good battle.

And I think it's a more interesting argument than social media gave it credit for. Because it's one of them for that ninth spot, I feel like. I'd have to go down and do it. But having done it before, like 11th doesn't feel wrong on its face. And if he started to list the 10 guys above him, I bet it would be pretty like at the very least. I mean, there's like seven that are just, they have to be.

I'll give you the list just so people know like MJ, LeBron, Russell, Kareem, Magic, Bird, Duncan and Wilt. So eight guys that it's not negotiable. Those eight guys have to be the eight in some order. And by the way, I am glad we've reached a point, not like you talked about Curry, Kobe being a fun historical argument. For a while, the go-to one was Duncan, Kobe. And I would always be like, I love Kobe.

Like it's not, like Duncan is a top whatever, like Duncan's above Kobe and has to be. Yeah, and you know, the older we get, we're gonna have to defend that one more and more, but we were both there and it's just, he has to be. I mean, Duncan, you just won 50 plus games if he was on your team. There was no Fsens or or butts. He made everyone better.

And I just, I, he's now become the most underrated him and Hakeem, I think are the two most underrated historical guys ever. And there's some other guys. Where's Shaq on the list? I have, I think Shaq might've been higher than 11. I can't remember, but Shaq's one that as the years have passed, I think he's actually, his stuff has kind of gained steam. Yeah.

I think Shaq has been largely underrated until the last few years, historically. Like there was just nothing you could do with Shaq. It was just like you had no defense for him other than Fallon. Well, now Jokic is in that conversation too. And there's just a really fun Jok Edge, Shaq, Hakim, Moses. There's this whole tier of centers.

That would be fun to argue about it too. But we should, I was thinking we should do a special podcast at one point where we just go Curry versus Kobe versus West and try to figure out what's up for all. Cause West is the most, out of all those guys from the first 25 years or first 30 years, I really think West is the one you could put in a time machine. You could have just put him into basketball now and he would have been completely fine. Even somebody like Russell, who is the greatest winner in the history of the league, they're still like, all right, he was six, nine, 210 pounds.

Like, like I at least want to see, couldn't really shoot. I at least would have wanted to see how dominant he could have been compared to how dominant he was when he played. West is like just fucking plug and play for 80 years of the league. There's nobody like him, you know? So anyway, we should do that at some point. He's one of my favorite, he's one of my, one of my favorite players of all time. I've been, I've read every book about Jerry West. I've talked to him on the phone and meet him, which is obviously an honor. I think he's just like, I've said before, when people do who's the greatest Laker of all time, it's like, well, Magic, Kobe, Kareem should get

some love. I'm like, I don't know. Jerry West gets no love in this argument. The guy's like a lifetime Laker, all-time great player, great at every part of basketball, and made the finals a million times, and got the nickname Mr. Clutch, despite losing in the finals every goddamn year to the Celtics, he was still so good. Imagine now you lose in the finals,

everyone just makes fun of you, oh, you got no rings, no rings. That dude was so good that he got the nickname Mr. Clutch, losing in the NBA finals every year. Right, he won the 69 finals MVP. He had Havlicek inconsolable after he won the 69 title, being like, I feel so bad for Jerry West, because he literally did everything.

The one thing that he didn't have was that he never won an MVP, but I did this in my book. He should have won the 1970 MVP. It's actually kind of crazy that he didn't have was that he never won an MVP, but I did this in my book. He should have won the 1970 MVP. It's like actually kind of crazy that he didn't. So I feel like that's an honorary MVP. Can I ask you one just, it's an unfair follow-up to this, but it's another summer league conversation I had with one guy. What's the ceiling on Jokic's all-time ranking? What's the ceiling on Jokic's all time ranking? How many more years can he be at the level he's been at for the last five? In your opinion? I mean, I don't see why it's not at least five more.

So if he does five more, I think he has to be on that magic bird level for connection to the teammates, success every year probably needs, you know, I, I, I, it's funny. It's the ring culture thing has become stupid. Cause it's like, guess what? You know what matters? Winning the title. So I was the best guy when you played in a season, it's the best way we can figure out who the best guy was. I'm sorry, that still matters.

So I was listening long overdue listening to the Steve Nash, LeBron, Mind the Game podcast about when the rings culture thing came up because I wanted to hear exactly what they said full context. They didn't want to hear the sound bite. They didn't want to see the aggregation headline. I want to hear what they said about ring culture and what LeBron said specifically. And I texted Steve afterwards and I was like, man, I wish, I wish I had been in the room because I had like a lot of takes that I could have pushed back onto this.

But like the other thing I said was if Jokic wins one title and that's it, he's going to be the ultimate sort of barometer for this because the statistics are going to say he's a top whatever single digit player of all time. And how do we talk about him with only one ring? Is it going to be like a Jerry West situation where we just sort of like, well, he's just that great. But if he just gets stuck at one and he's, let's say he wins another MVP, he's a four time MVP with one championship and these statistics don't even make any sense.

How are we going to talk about him? It's too early for that, but it's just, he's going to be an interesting test case. And Denver's got a shot to win it all this year for sure. Probably the next year after that. I think the big thing to remember when you talk about this stuff is what era was the guy in and how good was the league, how competitive it was, right? Because when you talk about like the bird magic, magic, magic was in the West that just, they didn't have a lot of competition because of what happened to the Mavericks, what happened to the Rockets. Any

sort of big rival that was coming kind of got vanquished and they were just in the finals year after year. I sound like a Celtic fan talking about the Lakers, but the Celtics were in that conference against Philly and then Milwaukee and then Detroit. And we probably had five really good teams. They kind of split all the rings up right between four teams. I think now when I look at the Yocach thing, I just think it's, I think it would be harder to do that. I think winning a guy winning three rings now in the 2020s with the, especially

the second apron stuff, I think it would be even in a weird way, more impressive because everybody's better at putting together a team and we also have more high end talent, right? Yanis has only won one title too. they're a team and we also have more high end talent, right? Yannis is only one, one title too. LeBron's one, he won in 16 and he won in 20. So he's won two in the last 10 years. Curry's won, uh, he's won four, but that, I mean, that team was a

historical fluke with what happened with the Durant ad, right? Upgrading from Barnes to Durant. We'll never, we'll never say anything like that in our lifetime. And I just wonder like, is it just everybody's going to win one or two now going forward unless okay. See, can figure out how to be dominant. Right. That may be their historical fluke.

I don't know, but don't you just feel like we have too many good players for somebody and the sports too hard to play these injury variables, variables, but like, that's another piece, like just to stay healthy, um, almost feels like you need more luck than ever. You agree? Yeah. I mean, you look at just who's won all the multiple rings in the last, look at who's won all the multiple rings in like the last 15 years, whatever. It's like whatever teams Lebrron on and the Warriors with their,

their four in a short span of time, two of which are with the rant and an all time one time only caps. Like, and then you have the Spurs who won, you know, five over an enormous period of time, which is in its own, you know, there's only one guy that was on. And that's a perfect example. They won five and really could have won seven. But you go back and look at some of those teams and those teams just wouldn't have won titles in the league that we have now. You couldn't have won a team. You couldn't win a title in 2003 with Duncan and his prime. But then Robinson in a back brace, super duper young Tony Parker in rumors that they're trying to get Jason Cade instead of him. Manu is not even close to Manu yet. You go through, it's like,

how did that team even win the title? It was just the league was way, way, way weaker. And it just was, you know, like people from that era probably pushed back on it, but it just was like, go look at some of the teams we've had this decade. The teams are, you know, I think way deeper, even a team like Indiana, which was unconventional, they had real depth. Like think about that 2012 Celtics team that was playing Michael Pietrus and Brandon Bass.

I could say Brandon Bass, mid-range jumpers. Or the 2010 Celtics that was relying on Rashid Wallace for 36 minutes in game seven of the finals. Like nobody had depth like we have now. So I just think it's going to be way harder. Brandon Bass was guarding LeBron in game seven of the 2012 conference finals, like on purpose. I kind of like Brandon Bass. I thought like he's one of those guys that just, where the league went, he was one of the casualties that kind of six foot six

out, 15 foot kind of post-up game. Didn't have three. Yeah. He's one of those. Anyway, I could talk about this all day. Sacklow, you got a podcast tomorrow. You're breaking down the East. Um, I didn't look, what is the Celtics over under by the way?

I'm nervous. Ooh, 43 and a half. Seems high. That's not out there. Yeah, we're gonna break down the east and we're gonna have another, JJ's coming out for Met's Corner. Met's Corner's taking off,

everyone's favorite baseball segment. You didn't go to David Wright Day, did you? No, I was planning to, and then we had to change our plans. I was gonna be at the Sunday game. So it was David Wright weekend. It was going to be the end of David Wright weekend, but I did not end up going. We have tickets.

We're going to old timers day in mid September for sure when they're bringing back. They're doing team Shea versus team Citi Field in mid September. So hopefully the team is still in contention at that point. I'm not sure. All right. Thanks to Zach Lowe. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back on Sunday with another podcast and then we have a very fun rewatchables on Monday. There's rumors you might be on a rewatchables in August before you disappear. I sent you a list of candidates. That's for sure.

All right. Good to see you, Zach Low. Have fun, guys. Must be 21 plus in President-elect states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President DC. Gambling problem? Call 100Gambling or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here.

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