The Bill Simmons Podcast - Cam to the Pats, 'The Decision,' and the 2010 Redraftables With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Patriots signing QB Cam Newton to a one-year deal (2:09) before revisiting a defining moment in 2010: LeBron James and ‘The Decision’ (50:56). Finally they look at the 2010 NBA draft and discuss some of its subplots, draft comedy, and NBA legends before redrafting the top 14 lottery picks (1:16:09). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Big guest. Subscribe now to the Bakari Sellers podcast. Very excited to have him aboard and I have high hopes for this one. So check that out. Coming up, Priscilla and I are going to get in a time machine and go back to the wonderful year of 2010, specifically the summer of 2010. When everything changed in the NBA, we're going to talk about the decision. We're going to talk about a crazy free agency year, and we are going to do a redraftables of what turned out to be really a jinx draft. That's all coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. We're taping this.

It's 5 p.m. Pacific time. Right before we went on, my son called me all excited. I didn't know what happened. It was because the Patriots had signed Kim Newton, a player he knows from video games. He was all fired up. But a really fun wrinkleinkle if there ends up being an nfl season cam newton as the starting quarterback of the new england patriots your

instant reaction racilla coming up next uh they had to bring in somebody else right like it still felt a little weird that although they've been known to do whatever they want um a lot of times we think we can figure stuff out but uh i couldn't believe that they were just they were that into stidham that they would just say okay you're good like it's your team no matter what and i think this changes you know even though i think cam is is somebody who that mvp year's a little fluky for him for who he was the rest of his career but it's not like he's washed up um So, you know, I think he has just as good a chance to start as Stidham does. I thought he was hurt the last two years. And he's young enough that if he's fixed and he's healthy, I like to gamble.

Because he's got a lot of football left, you know. And it's not like a situation where it was a Michael Vick type thing, where the legs were so much of what he did. I know he isn't the most accurate guy when, you know, I know he's a physical quarterback. Um,

I just think he's exciting. There's no way that the ceiling for Cam Newton at the age he's at is not higher than Stidham in his first season. Like nobody can tell me that he has a lower ceiling than Stidham. No, no. And I think that's, that's entirely the point. And I don't know, like, his first season like nobody can tell me that he has a lower ceiling than sito no no and i think that's that's entirely the point and i don't know like what do you even think of how how many teams

or how many games this team is going to win well so all right before i answer that i i was i kind of gave up on this happening because it was clear he had nowhere to go and i just think we had a weird situation with the league where everybody was kind of happy with their quarterback and it up on this happening because it was clear he had nowhere to go. And I just think we had a weird situation with the league where everybody was kind of happy with their quarterback. And it seemed like the Chargers would be the team that made sense for him. But the Chargers were pretty adamant. They're like, no, we're pretty happy with Tyrod Taylor. So I think Belichick really waited it out. He was like the guy in the fantasy draft who keeps like the 15 bucks at the tail end in case there's a major bargain and then it ends up happening but i think the ceiling's higher for them with him and it goes

back to a theory that i think i felt pretty strongly about i i never thought belichick wanted a tank i think he cares too much about the history and i think they feel like they have real advantages with the coaching and the infrastructure and the Patriots way that as long as they have enough talent, they're always going to be in the mix and they always have a chance to go 10 and 6, 11 and 5. This is an upside play and I like it. I think there's real upside here.

I was calling for months and people were making fun of me and I just think he's too young. I don't think he's washed it. Yeah, he had a really good stretch depending on the coordinator there where it looked like he had turned a corner and that's again outside of the mvp year where he was incredible and he had all those comebacks but when you really stack that with every other year you're like that's the outlier like that's not that's not really the ceiling i mean you could argue it's the ceiling

but really it's like this wow like how did that year happen where he was that much better? You know, talking to different guys that played against him back at ESPN, I always thought that Willie Colon had said something really interesting about him because, you know, he's, there's just things with him that he doesn't, he doesn't like, he doesn't check into stuff the way some other guys have been playing longer. And so it was just interesting to hear an offensive lineman talk about cam that way where, you know,

you don't, you're not quite sure what's holding them back. Was it the shoulder? Was it the shoulder? I think it definitely was. I, I 100,000% think that's what it was. Well,

and a couple other things too. I think he was banged up. I think he, well, the foot, he was out for the whole year too. So I just look at, so in 2017 and he had three three of the last five years before last year where they they were double figures and wins right they went one year they're 15 and one but

in 2017 they were 11 and 5 in a good division he threw for 33,300 yards 22 TDs here are his receivers that year Christian McCaffrey who's a running back that was his leading receiver 80 receptions Devin Funchess Kelvin Benjamin Ed Dixon Russell Shepard Greg Olson hurt the whole year Curtis Samuel hurt the whole year I mean when you talk about nobody, he had nobody. And I always felt like, you know, he's playing for a coach who's a defensive oriented coach. He never really had the great weapons until McCaffrey got there. He certainly, other than Steve Smith, never had a receiver that I would have been jealous of for the Patriots. And I don't know. I think that the Patriots situation,

because of the supporting cast they had, because it didn't click with Brady, there's still a lot of talent on the Patriots. For whatever reason, it didn't click last year. But it's multiple first-round picks. They traded a second-round pick for Sanu. They beefed up in the draft this year. I don't think it's a talent-bearing place.

And it's a great coaching staff. so I think it's a good situation. I can imagine Bill was like, hey, Cam, you're used to not having anybody to throw to, so you'll fit right in, because that's what we like to do to our quarterbacks, too. We had Tom here, and we were like, yeah, we're just not going to sign anyone, so you'll fit right in.

Cam, I'm just really excited, really excited to play with you, or to coach you, and I think you're going to sign anyone so you'll fit right in uh cam uh just really excited really excited to play with you or to coach you and uh i think you're going to great here i here's the thing with the pats just in general i mean if this season happens which it seems increasingly ludicrous that everybody thinks that we might have an nfl season meanwhile we're pessimistic bill back well we're back to where we were in mid-march with shutdowns and things closing and all that stuff whatever um this patriots team if you were like how would you how would you define this 2020 team it would be all about that that brady's not here anymore right and it's like what are they gonna do without brady but then if you're like all right who's actually on the team

who am i excited to watch for three hours really all they had was like hey this didn't thing will be interesting i guess uh the belichick without brady he'll have something to prove but now there is like the kind of star of the tv show basically where it's like all right now we have the guy for the poster at least and if he can turn his career around and it becomes a thing, you know, Belichick loves this. He loves the value. The Darrell Rivas getting him for one year was like the ultimate Belichick move. He loved that. I get this awesome guy at a cheap price and then he can leave after.

And if they resuscitate Cam for a year while giving Stidham some looks, then that's probably what they want to do. Yeah, Rivas at least was expensive though like that was one that was kind of surprising because you went oh wait they're actually going to spend this much money in one year for him and it's clear they probably didn't have to pay cam that unless it's all incentives kind of stuff um and rivas watching peak rivas for that whole year was it's another level like it was that special where yeah you go oh this is why this guy everybody talks about this dude this way because for a little little bit of stretch there it was just nuts um the tanking things never made any sense to me like the defense yes historically the numbers

were off the quarterbacks they had faced when we looked at where they were trending historically the first eight weeks of the season and it's like they're on pace to be the lowest scored against and all these different things and you're like okay look they're on pace to be the lowest scored against and all these different things. And you're like, OK, look, they're good, but I don't think that they felt that way defensively. But they're still going to be good defensively. And tanking doesn't make any sense, I don't think, in the NFL really. Because I think those guys, this can sound like a stupid answer, but it's a mindset thing. Like they would never look at the year and go, ah, like we're over it. You know, the Browns kind of did it, but most of these football guys with 16 games

and the way the coaching turnover happens, and especially a guy like Belichick who knows, the idea that he's tanking 2020 for Trevor Lawrence when it doesn't guarantee you that Trevor Lawrence is a flawless prospect, it doesn't guarantee you that you're going to end up with the number one pick because the turnover battle is so fluky.

You could be a seven-win team that should have been a two win team or you'd be a seven win team that ends up winning 11 you know what i'm saying so i've never really bought into oh well they only have stidham that means they're tanking because they want one of the two guys in next year's class i just don't think belichick does that kind of stuff i liked when people were talking about how they felt about stidham when nobody knows how the Patriots feel about anything. It was like the people trying to guess what Kawhi was going to do in free agency last year when he had an inner circle of like two people. It's like, I'm hearing Kawhi, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, you're not hearing anything.

Kawhi's not talking to anybody. Belichick's not talking to anybody. I think this made a lot of sense. I think Belichick cares about, um, his place in history. I think he cares about like most wins ever and most consecutive playoff appearances, all that shit. And I never felt like they were going to roll over. I'm still pessimistic that this season happens, but that's a story for another time. Um, Cam Newton, the most excited, the most excited my son has ever been to break sports

news for me. So there's that. I mean, can you play with him in the video game? That's what you're saying here. Yeah. He's a God in, uh, in Madden KO. There's like a Cam Newton, kind of like a vintage Cam Newton where it's just like people try to tackle him.

They bounce off. You know, I, I do like that. He is one of those guys and I'm higher on him than you are. He's one of those guys that goes into the opposing stadium and has that, that kind of swagger that you want from your best guy, whether he can back it up all the time. He really does think like he's the best guy. And I don't really know who else on the Patriots would carry themselves that way. Even defensively. It's not like they have like a mega stud on defense.

Like they have a lot of solid players, some former All-Pros, some really good guys. Gilmore is the best guy in the defense. It's not like a cornerback can really set the tone for your team. The swagger that he's going to bring, I'm going to enjoy. This is Danny DeVito on It's Always Sunny for You. A little bit. I'm just trying to get in your head here i just i'm just trying to figure out like where you're at you know i saw cam's first scc game we were down in uh we were down in tuscaloosa and we were there for penn state at alabama so that was gonna be a saturday game so i'd be doing my shows friday and saturday from tuscaloosa and i'd been to tuscaloosa

um a few times at that point. And we were like, wait, this Cam Newton guy, he's playing a Thursday night game against Mississippi State. Stanford Steve and I drove from Tuscaloosa to Starkville. And then we got there. We were on the sideline. And Cam, like Mississippi State almost won the game. But Cam had this play where a corner came up to hit him.

And the corner got crumpled so bad by cam's just his stature how strong and big and explosive i remember being on the sideline for the oregon national title game and he made a juke move to his left where he just left a safety just standing there it was nuts but cam crumpled this guy and he actually made a noise like the kid that he hit was like you you could hear it. And then I remember interviewing him fairly soon after that. We were talking about that stuff. And he just, you know, he's definitely, he's not shy about how imposing he is. And he's probably got a little FU in him right now, too.

Knowing that this thing feels like, okay, now it's just over. It's just over for me in Carolina. So we'll see. It's interesting. It's just over for me in Carolina. So we'll see. It's interesting. He's 31. Yeah, I know. He's younger than you think. He's like Daddy is young.

Our guy. It's funny that Super Bowl hangs on him the way it does when people think of him and they think, wow, he can't win with Cam. He got killed in that Superbowl. It's like a default memory that people have. Cause he sucked in that one game. That was bad.

Remember that he didn't jump on the ball. And then people were like, I can't believe you didn't jump on the ball. And I just remember specific football writers going at each other. And it was like, oh, you don't think this guy wouldn't go for the football. And then he admitted after he didn't go for it.

Right, right, right. But that Denver team, that was, you know, an awesome defense. I think Carolina had overachieved a little bit even making the Super Bowl and I think that's unfair to hang it on him. I always enjoyed him. You know, he's one of those guys

you kind of hated gambling on him and against him because you gamble on him and he would have that game where it's like, what the fuck is wrong with Cam? And then you gamble against him and it's like, oh my God, I'm laying nine points in a tease and Cam's on his way for like four touchdowns and he's just dismantling this team. So I don't know. He's exciting.

Certainly more excited than anyone. The Patriots said we have to bring in Kyle for a second. Kyle. Yo. How you feeling? I feel great dude Oh man, he's just so cool It's just the Patriots are cooler than they were yesterday And it's not Stidham

You never heard me talk any shit about how good Stidham was going to be Anything And I like to talk but no Kyle is this the highlight of your quarantine? Yeah, easily. Easily. I mean, what else is there? You know what one of the lowlights is? The fact that I wasn't recording from my end for the first seven minutes because I was so excited

for Cam. I forgot to press record. Yeah, so you have to use the Zoom audio for the beginning of this. All right. Congrats, Kyle. So, all right. We are going to go back in a time machine to 2010, the summer of 2010. We're going to do three things. We're going to talk about the decision because ESPN ran a thing, backstory, Don Van Atta,

that little documentary series he does about the decision 10 years later. We're going to talk about a really crazy free agency summer, and then we're going to do a 2010 redraft. And I'll start us off with this. I think there's a very distinct before and after with the NBA a bunch of different times over the course of the last 75 plus years, right? Russell comes into the league. There's a before and there's an after. After Russell. Russell leaves the league.

Kareem comes in. The ABA is starting off. That's a specific before and after point. The ABA-NBA merger, mid-70s, 76. That's another before-after. Michael, when he finally gets over the hump and wins the title, league feels differently. You have these moments along the way, right?

And I think summer 2010 is a before-after moment where it was the first time a bunch of things happened. That's really the official start of the player empowerment era. It's really the official start of the, it would be really smart if we saved our cap space two years from now for this summer. Only everyone's doing it and there weren't enough good players to go around.

It's the start of information being passed along that is like kind of reporting, but not totally. And I think Twitter ties into that too, where it's like, I'm hearing this might happen. And that just becomes a story and goes to the news cycle versus actually having to report it. And then, you know, I think the backlash that he got was really unique. And I don't think we're going to see that again, because I think people are much more player friendly than they used to be. So let's, let's start in order. The actual decision, the, the, the decision to do this, to decide who your next team is in a, in a special on ESPN. How did you feel about it in 2010? How do you feel about it now i was amazed at how much people hated it hated it people hated

this and you know it's only 10 years ago so it shouldn't be that far gone but i had friends they're like i'm never watching the nba again because they hated the heat celebration part of it i also think there's an anti-miami fan base thing that played in a little bit but it still was about the empowerment part because LeBron is a pioneer. I mean, he's somebody when he's all done playing, like you have to mention that whatever the player accolades are, that second paragraph is he decided to do it on his own terms because prior to that bill,

whatever kind of information you thought you were getting, and you just weren't. Like LeBron has done, I think, throughout his career career a really good job of kind of keeping things close to the vest i've had better leans on some stuff and then other times i've been like i'm not sure now this time but with this one it was kind of all over the place the miami thing didn't really happen rumor wise i think until like the day before day of because i was going back and reading articles i love doing that too reading he met with chicago they they they said it went great right rod thorne was awesome he's like we met with him when he's at brooklyn he's like i don't know rod's like i have no idea like

how he feels about any of this stuff like he didn't really say a lot and we asked him if he wanted to ask us questions and he said no so that he was doing something that doesn't seem that big of a deal like that's that's that's the other thing i've always felt like in the moment we can get really really worked up and in the moment because we're emotional we can be incredibly wrong and the people that were so pissed off at him you just were you were kind of wrong because he was ahead of his time so i I agree with all that. Here's, here's the one caveat. And I think it's really important. And I think it's gotten lost over the last 10 years because I've heard people make similar arguments to what you just made.

Breaking up with Cleveland on a TV special was a cruel thing to do. It just was. And look, player empowerment, all that. I get it. It was just harsh. It was really harsh. It was, it was probably our number one, most tortured sports city.

It is. And they had just gotten really close and Oh eight with him. The Celtics beat him in a game seven Oh nine. He's the favorite MVP year. It's seat. We're headed for Kobe versus LeBron in the finals. Orlando knocks him out 2010. He's the favorite again. It's going to happen. Second MVP year. It's the best player in the league. There's no doubt falls apart in the Boston series.

And then from that point on, um, a real fear that he was going to leave. And I think when you, you just look at the situation Cleveland was in as a city, um, you know, 46 years at that point of just getting kicked in the balls, going through a recession. And I don't know. I mean, I have a whole story about how this came about that they told in the, uh, in the documentary, but it was, so there's two versions of how this got to ESPN. The version I was involved with it died, but it was, it came from a mailbag. It was a late November is drew in Columbus. And he sent this whole thing about LeBron should do this. He should choose a team. I sent you this story about it. And in Dallas all-star weekend, me and John Skipper and Connor, we met with Maverick, Maverick Carter, LeBron's guy.

And we told him the whole idea and he liked it. He's like, yeah, let me think about it, blah, blah, blah. And then ironically in Boston, it was a Friday. I think that night, Cleveland beat Boston to go up 2-1 in the series. And I met with World Wide West and Leon Rose, LeBron's agent. And we talked about a whole bunch of stuff, but we talked about this thing and they were like, yeah, this seems really possible. I know what we're talking about. This might happen. But at that point, here's the crucial thing. Everyone thought he was going back to Cleveland, you know, whether they were all lying, whether the inner circle knew he was leaving all that stuff. I always thought he was going back to Cleveland, which is why, yeah,

of course we do this show. It'll be great. And then at the end of like, I'm staying in Cleveland. Oh, that was awesome. So dramatic. When the Boston series fell apart, that was it. I don't think I sent an email after that. And, and it just least from my end, died. And then it got revived in a different part of the ESPN company through WME, Keith Klinkscales, who was another guy running ESPN. And it was happening over here. And I was like, wait, they're still going to do this? Did they see how the Boston series ended? And I was pretty incredulous that after the way the Boston series ended, that they did it. You're saying you were telling them that they shouldn't do the show. I wasn't saying anything. I just assumed it was dead. I, the way, the way those last three Boston games ended and you know, it's been 10 years. I think there's been some distance, but the Rondo was awesome in game four, game five, LeBron just melted down. It was really crazy to watch

and really disappointing in a lot of ways for people who thought he was the future of the league. I remember writing a column about it after the Inside the NBA guys, Barkley and just Barkley being like really disappointed that LeBron didn't rise to the moment. And I think everybody collectively wondering, are we putting too much pressure on this guy?

And then game six went the way it did. And I just thought at that point, well, there's no way they would ever actually do this as a TV show. The, the going back to Cleveland thing though. Um, and I,

I probably should have said this in the, in the first ramble here, but that's just what everybody did you know they they took the extra even though the raises weren't the same like in the way back when you take the extra year and the raises really added up because it's like 12 and a half percent more each year when you stayed with your current team and they shaved that off that they ended up not making it that big of a deal so what they did do is I've mentioned a million times, but the NBA owners were presenting CBAs that actually would make you more motivated to say,

well, what's the point of me staying now? Cause the money isn't that different, but you still didn't have this. You didn't, I just, there's one GM in particular that I was like, what do you think?

What do you think? He goes, look, the history of the league is these guys stay. They just stay. They just stay. And well, especially the best players. And if you go through the best players ever, the history of the league is these guys stay. They just stay. They just stay. Well, especially the best players.

And if you go through the best players ever, the centers kind of move around, like Shaq, Kareem, Moses. But the signature guys, like Bird, Magic, Kobe, LeBron, Elgin Baylor, Oscars ended up getting traded after 10 years. But Dirk Nowitzki, Havlicek, most of the position guys, they usually end up sticking around. And I think, and Carl Malone,

um, Bart, your guy, Barkley was a guy who got traded around, but it was usually because the situation is soured. And I think that in this case, I, when it really became clear those last couple of days that he was leaving,

I was, I gotta, I gotta say, I was really stunned by it because it seemed like if he was gonna leave, it would have to be the Knicks or the Bulls because the Bulls at that point, they had Rose, they had Joakim Noah,

they had cap space, they had the ability to basically get him and Bosh if they wanted. And that seemed like the place if you're gonna win titles. But to go to Miami where it was basically just the three of them and Mike Miller and nobody else,

it actually seemed risky too. I never thought in the moment that it guaranteed them eight titles. Did you? Because there was nobody else in the team. No, but we were also doing

dumb stuff with that one and being like, well, where's their point guard? And it's like, well, you don't need a point guard when you have Wade and LeBron. You don't. And we also didn't realize the league would be going smaller soon true um that was the biggest

thing yeah so when bosh is your center what seemed to be a problem was like this is amazing you get to play bosh at center and he's so good defensively with all the rotations all these things um but i i i wonder if he'll ever admit it because you know when you're the source when you're the thing everybody wants to know everything about like people becoming you i know you're going to understand what i'm saying here but when you're talked about every single day um you become almost obsessively protective about that information so if everybody wants to know something about you you can see lebron and those guys like oh that's everybody's just talking about us you know what i mean like you guys are all just trying to figure this out i think that boston loss

in 2010 was so bad not because boston wasn't a great team they very well could have been the title team but it was just so dead at the end you know you went whoa and i think it's very similar to his last year with miami because the last year in miami there was still more thought that he'd probably come back for a fifth year and then then he would leave and then it was like no because they really shouldn't have won the san antonio well i don't want to say that, but obviously the third, they got killed. They got killed in the last three games. They got killed, killed. Right.

And I was on, I was on countdown talking about this might be LeBron's last home game tonight. People are killing me. Why is that guy saying that? I was like, yeah, the, the real reason he went to Cleveland was because that Miami team, he knew Wade was hitting a different point The real reason he went to Cleveland was because that Miami team, he knew Wade was hitting a different point of his career. He absolutely was. The three salaries together, it was not

a sustainable contender. They got killed in that series, so he left. I think in 2010 and 2014 and 2018, there were two reasons he left in each situation, and they were always the same reason. He wanted to go to a place where he had a better chance to win a title. And he knew the place he was in was diminishing returns year after year.

Like even if you look at 2010 in Cleveland, they were losing Shaquille O'Neal's salary, some other stuff. Like they would have had some salary cap room. There was a lot of rumors about him trying to convince Bosch to come there potentially or Mari Stoudemire. I still don't know if that would have been enough because like, do you think it would have been Mo Williams and I, you know, a couple, maybe a couple other veteran dudes, but I don't know if that team after watching them fall short two years or a row in the playoffs, I just don't think there was a scenario where that team would have

had enough. No, I don't think so. I mean, even considering they lost with the three of those guys against Dallas, which still seems impossible. Yeah. But it was something I was thinking about when I was watching it because I go, just think, he could have... Like, you could argue the

first Spurs title couldn't have happened and then he and Kyrie, what they did against golden state and the numbers, those guys put up, it's just, that's your count is like a ring and a half because you're down three, one to that team and you actually come back. But there's a weird path where you could go.

Imagine if he had one ring. Yeah, seriously. I mean, I think the over or under for rings in Miami at the very least had to be three

I don't think any of us so you think it's a disappointment then cause I don't four years finals I mean I think only winning two titles

is mildly disappointing I do I when you consider going going into what they were going into where they had two of the best three players in the league

they were seemingly all in their primes plus Bosh plus Pat Riley plus they were in a conference that they get a lot of breaks with the Derrick Rose stuff when he gets hurt the over-under just for those four years has to be two and a half, right?

They were favored in every series they were in Two and a half I'll take, but I don't like when... I'm saying for the decade. I'm saying going into that, we thought those guys were there for I don't know, six, seven years. We didn't think it was going to be done in four years.

Because he said it. Yeah. We thought he was there for good. Forget the TV show too. I'll never forget how pissed off Van Pelt was about the counting of the titles. Not four, not five. He was like pissed off at dudes about it. And it would make me laugh a little.

And I'm not trying to tell you like, ooh, I was so on it in the beginning. Like I was a little turned off too. I was like, wait. But then I'm like, so we do this college recruiting deal where kids just put the hats out there and pick it. So why can't he do that?

He's also given it to charity. I think the Jim Gray thing's hilarious because it was such a bad show. That was terrible. It was really one of the worst shows. I forgot how bad it was. Oh my God. He's just sitting there and he's like, Hey, you still bite your nails. Still bite your nails. I wrote that. I actually wrote down in my notes. I forgot how bad it was Oh my god He's just sitting there and he's like hey

You still bite your nails? I actually wrote down in my notes This line about Jim And it's not really anybody's fault Because you can't do five minutes if you're trying to pull some sort of number So you Well you know let me rephrase that They could have done a better job than that show

It was terrible but I don't really even know What Jim Gray was supposed to do there It I got, it should have been, it should have been Stephen A in red. If I had to, I think, but Stephen A at least would have, you know, engaged him, pushed him a little bit. I think Jim Gray was a pretty intentional choice. Cause he, you know, he, he had pitched a show, the second version of the show. So do you show it already been pitched? Let's let's talk about that. Do you feel like your show idea was stolen? Well, it wasn't my idea.

I know. Right. But, you know, the fan email. I mean, we definitely gave it to them. Yeah. You know, and then and then it died. Never thought of it again, assumed it was dead. And then all of a sudden it was. But it was it again. Assumed it was dead. And then all of a sudden...

But ESPN was so big at that point, it was totally conceivable, this different part of the company. The weird part, though, is we did pitch it to Maverick. I mean, it was me, Skip, or Connor. Like, that happened. That was at the Four Seasons in Dallas. What would you have done?

What would you have done differently? I know there's a few things you would have done, but if you're in the room pitching this show to make it not as bad as that, but it's still the same show, what would you do? Ugh. Well, what's crazy is it got the biggest rating of any studio show in the history of ESPN.

So maybe they did all the right things. I don't know. I probably would have had more people on stage than just him. I wouldn't have made it a one-on-one thing. It's kind of unsalvageable. It should have been a half hour. The fact that it was an hour

and then as soon as he announces it, all hell breaks loose and nobody's even listening to the show anymore. I don't think any of it was salvageable. Plus, Kanye West was there. It's almost like a Christopher Guest movie, the way it plays out. All of it is completely inconceivable. And you learn in the backstory documentary that on the plane,

they were so kind of shell-shocked by the backlash to it that people were starting to wonder, was there a chance he might change his mind? And then the Dan Gilbert letter happened and that was it. And the Dan Gilbert letter, I think, is one of the most fascinating things about this because it tapped into a lot of different stuff. It allowed people to take it in a whole bunch of different directions. And the crazy thing to me was, I think that's the most butthurt an owner has ever been, ever, right?

Even like George Steinbrenner firing Billy Martin in the middle of the night. I don't think he was as angry as Dan Gilbert was in that moment when he sent the letter. But I've never heard people talk about what made him so angry. Was it stuff beyond just LeBron picking a new team? Because I had always heard the scuttlebutt was always, he did a lot for LeBron and the crew behind the scenes. And, you know, there was a lot of like, here, take my jet, stuff like that,

and just felt completely betrayed. Now I'm not excusing the letter. I don't think he should have done that. I thought it was really inappropriate. It was really dumb. But I think he was personally hurt beyond the whole, this guy left. I think he felt like he had done a lot of nice things for those guys. Yeah. And I want to say, if you're a Cleveland fan and you're showing that footage in a bar and there's that blonde girl crying, she's like, I hate him. I fucking hate him. And you've got his Jersey on. And most of the Jersey burning stuff now is stupid. Like you guys do it to get your video out there. It's like, all right, cool. We burned a Jersey. And it's just, it's, it's fucking stupid um but that's the part that i think you always have to remind yourself of is even though it's like this inanimate object right because it's like you're this person that plays and you you you represent my city but i actually don't have any connection with you other than my emotional connection to you you don't even know i exist and my happiness

is tied to you without you even knowing me. You know, the whole thing is very weird. And for then it to be over immediately, it's like, well, wait a minute. I didn't really ever know this person to begin with. So now I just destroy them and say there are all these horrible things. I'm not really saying anything to anyone that's actually in my circle. It was all kind of just make believe, which I think is always kind of the fascinating gymnastics that you have to see, but I'm never

being on the side of it. Right. Look, if I, if I were in my twenties in Boston and you know, somebody were on the Celtics and they left. Clements. Right. Clements did it. I was the maddest I've ever been about anything in sports. Listen, this is how sports has changed the most over the last 10 years. The reaction to LeBron leaving would not happen in 2020 the same way. And even, even what happened at Duran in 2016. Um, I think,

I think the connection to the players and the way fans kind of are on the side of the players more than ever and their ability to move around and control their own destiny. That's the biggest thing that's changed in the last 10 years, other than the information and the 24-7 NBA cycle, stuff like that. You saw it with Kawhi when he left Toronto and Toronto was like,

hey, thanks, Kawhi. Thanks for the title, man. Good luck. Good luck with you. I don't think that would have been the reaction 10 years ago. I think it's a combination of players are so much more accessible. They're in our lives. Um, they can go back at fans potentially on Twitter. You have Instagram plus Twitter, plus the fact that league pass all that stuff. The guys are

just in our lives day in, day out. And there's a different connection than there was 2010, 2010. We still talked about players. You still booed them from the stands. You didn't think of them for lack of a better phrase as human beings. They were just these guys in this sport that you loved. You either loved them or you hated them. And now it's, it feels much more human in 2020, don't you think? Absolutely. And part of that, I think, is in that story too,

where it's not just LeBron and the basketball decisions, it's the branding of him. And then everybody following up. Like for a while there, I was just kind of laughing. I'd get some note and be like, hey, did you hear so-and-so started a production company? I'd be like, for what? Like what?

Like how many points a game do you have to be over to be allowed? Like if you're nine points a game for your career, can what? Like, what? Like, how many points a game do you have to be over to be allowed? Like, if you're nine points a game for your career, can you start a production company? To pitch a narrative podcast. Right, right. And I'm just being a jerk about the whole thing. But that part is absolutely, because the whole time I'm watching the reaction to 2010, I'm thinking that just wouldn't happen today. It just wouldn't happen.

Maybe it's executed a little bit differently, but think of the stars and think of Kawhi going, you know, the guy we thought was, was the, the antithesis of this. It's like, wait, Kawhi's not happy. I remember when I first got that text from somebody like, Hey, heads up, but Kawhi wants out. I'm like, Kawhi wants out of San Antonio. Kawhi? Kawhi? I thought he was the guy that didn't do this. And now we just expect that it's going to happen, that you can sign a contract and then ask for a trade. You can do shorter deals. Nobody ever did that. Kevin Durant doing one-on-ones, Paul George and Kawhi, both coming off of major injuries at this stage of their career, still doing shorter deals it's the

bet on yourself era yeah that's that's nuts with some of these guys like even a paul you know great paul got paid but you'd think at some point he'd go you know i want to just make sure i can take the long but it doesn't matter like none of these guys care so lebron changed all of that over these 10 years and as all the shit all the shit he took in 2010, like he really was the guy. Now the rest of the generation gets to draft behind because we've just accepted it. And that's, that's something I was trying to remind myself when everybody's upset,

everybody's emotional, all this stuff's going on. I'll be like, all right, but like, how, how will you feel about the story in six months? And usually it's not the same.

Here's the thing though. And this is why we know that the decision was a bad idea. There was no way if he had a do over, he would do that again. Even though it had all these outcomes, there's no way. And you saw how he handled it in 2014. It was a bizarro version of it, right? Exactly. Yeah. He kept it quiet. He did a Sports Illustrated thing. He was super pro favorable about going home to Cleveland. That article has not aged well if you actually read it. Like my destiny is to go back to Cleveland,

win a title, finish my career there. It's well, he left after four years. But I think if he had to do that over again, it brought him unnecessary stress, hatred. It turned him into a villain. And I think that was a really sad outcome of the 2011 season in a lot of ways. And I remember writing about that in the moment. It was this guy who had so many people against him. He kind of became a wrestling heel and even it changed the way he played and there was a real anger to it. And I don't think it was authentic

to who he is as a person. I thought he hated it. I thought you could tell he actually hated it. Oh, he definitely did. I think he was trying to embrace it just because he had no other option. Yeah. And I remember watching him on League Pass and he would like be sneering at the crowd. I'm like, that's not you.

You were like the happiest guy in the league. This isn't you. You're not a sneer at the crowd guy. And I think when it got to that Dallas series and the heat turned up, no pun intended. And it was like his brain broke. Those games are amazing to watch. NBA TV has shown a bunch of them. Those that series is amazing to watch.

You're talking about, I think probably the most gifted basketball player we've ever had. His brain freezes. He cannot figure out what to do. It's like watching somebody like in the MTV challenge show when they're trying to solve the puzzle and they can't figure it out. And they're just kind of, their eyes are glazing over. Like he literally didn't know what to do. And I don't know. I think it's too bad because athletically he's at his peak and you lose this awesome year that he should have, you know, easily been the best guy in the league. He's still so impressive physically

that it's nice to go back and watch old LeBron games too to just remember like, oh, that's right. There was this whole other level to this guy that we just, you're right, we've never. Well, there's less weight because he just didn't have the muscle that he would have by 2015.

So some of the stuff athletically that he's doing is like, is out of control. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's way above the rim and he's just doing stuff that I think he became more powerful. Wouldn't you say by like 2014, 15? His body type is different. It's a lot more like when you do it side by side, you're like, wow, he really does look like two different people. Yeah. And he's just bigger. It's not just the muscle.

It's just he's massive now. Yes. And it doesn't really look like it slowed him down. I mean, it slowed him down just in the sense that we're talking thousands and thousands of minutes later. But the Miami-Dallas series, that's when he said the thing about you guys can go back to your horrible lives or whatever. Yeah, I think he was pretty broken at that point. I mean, he had taken shit for a year. I see. That didn't bother me that much, though.

Because I do think that guys that are that special after they take all of this crap, like every now and then, I think they should be able to run and just to fuck off. Right. I don't, I didn't really have a, but you're so right in how uncomfortable he was with it. And that it didn't feel like he really had it. It's like, okay, so now if everybody hates me, I'm just going to go ahead and do this now. And that was real hatred. That was a different kind of hatred for somebody that I don't, I don't know that I've ever experienced. The Clemens one's a good thing, but Clemens wasn't national. That's a regional thing. I think Durant got some of it too in 2016, 17.

Yeah, because of who he went to. That'll be the last time that probably happens. Just quickly, the information era, this is ground zero for it. And you could feel it in the reporting. Even like Stephen A the week before says he's hearing that those three guys are all going to Miami. Doesn't totally report it, but says he's hearing it's done. And it's this subtle shift of how reporting changed. And he turned out to be right. But he also didn't say, I am reporting this is happening. He said, I'm hearing this is going to happen.

And it's a subtle shift. So he's protected in case something changes over the next eight days. But he also had this incredible information. And when he reported that, we all had a heart attack. I was like, Miami? I thought he was going to the Knicks. And I think from everyone I've talked to in the know since then, it's clear that the Knicks

were the first choice. And I'm sorry, Knicks fans, earmuffs, but it was basically the Knicks to lose. And they just couldn't stay out of their own way. And the stories are legendary. All of them are out at this point,

but well, give me, give me one, give me your best one. Well, they had the legendary meeting and Donnie Walsh was in the wheelchair and Dolan was Dolan. And it was just a complete,

they didn't have anything prepared and it just couldn't have gone worse by all accounts. It was a disaster. And I think at that point, combined with the decade the Knicks had just had, I think those guys were like, fuck it. And Wade, whether Wade the whole time wanted to end up in Miami, we'll never know.

But Wade was the big winner in this whole thing. He engineered this perfectly. He got to stay where he was. He got to have these two awesome teammates. Ends up winning two more titles. So he played it perfectly. So did Riley. And he was in, was it the 10th?

The decision day was the 10th, I think. And then if you go through and look at all of it, like July 1st, Wade was in Chicago. And they're like, oh, here we go. And, you know, the Brooklyn one didn't make a ton of sense. I just remember Chicago. Chicago was the one that guys who wanted to kind of sound like, Hey, I'm here. And it could actually sneaky be Chicago. And then Wade has said since then it almost was, but then I never really know like what is almost was like that day it was, Hey, maybe we go to Chicago. And then the

next day they're never in the mix again. So what qualifies as being an actual real, um, destination. And then I remember just being in Miami after that fairly soon after that going, why did I think he wasn't going to come down here after he was up in Cleveland for a decade? Right. And there's a discreet way to be famous there. That's pretty underrated in Miami. Like you, it's almost like being in another country. And I think that was probably appealing to those guys too. You know, um, I remember I wrote a piece probably the day before trying to guess what happened, but I was pretty sure what, trying to guess what would happen. Pretty sure he was going to Miami at that point. But one other thing that started that year was this was the first summer of the players being their own content

producers, right? So this was when Wade and Bosh had their documentary crews following them around. Wade requested the second meeting with the Bulls, which I wrote about in the piece that I wrote about how this was a reality trick, right? It's like, should I go to Chicago? And I had a joke in there about the producer saying, hey, let's film a shot of you walking along Lake Michigan looking like you're deep in thought. We're going to need it for the doc after you go back to Miami. And it was just, everything was so orchestrated.

They're trying to film with teams and asking the teams to sign releases for the documentary and half of them are like, fuck that. You're not recording our free agent pitch to you. But this was the dawn of players trying to actually produce content. Cause at the same time, Steve Nash is making a 30 for 30 for us. I don't remember in the two thousands, even athletes trying to make content. But then by the end of last decade, everyone was trying to make content. I forgot. I wanted to follow through.

I can't believe ESPN couldn't say to Jim gray, like, that's a non-starter. Like, we're going to give you the hour. It's going to be on ESPN. And Jim Gray doesn't work for us. And they really stared each other down where I guess Skipper would be the one that blinks and goes, that's fine. You can have Jim gray. You know, he still defends it. I, when I had him on my podcast two years ago, he's like, Hey, we took shit for that. It got the biggest rating we ever got. I would do it again.

I don't care if we, we took shit for it. People watched it. So I can't believe that they would have said, well, if it's not Jim gray, then we're not doing it. That's where I would have thought Skipper would go.

Hey, you guys like you're going to get everything you want. It's going to work out. We're going to get this big number. We're going to let you do it. However you want to do it. That's where I would have thought Skipper would go. Hey, you guys, like you're going to get everything you want. It's going to work out. We're going to get this big number. We're going to let you do it however you want to do it. Jim Gray doesn't work here. We can't do that. Well, you know, the other thing was Stern and it's in the backstory a little bit, but Stern lost his mind. I mean, he was so mad about all this. This was everything he didn't want. You know, he was a control freak anyway with the players. But this was the beginning of the end for him with the league. Stern being that mad in this piece is weird. Like, it doesn't age well.

Because you just go, why are you so mad about this? And he was, obviously, you probably know far better than most because he was calling Skipper to complain all the time. Well, he was an agent commissioner at that point who was losing control of the league a little bit in a few different ways. And I think this kind of cemented

it. But it's funny. This created the player empowerment era, but it didn't create player empowerment because Will Chamberlain pushed his way out of two teams in the 60s. Kareem pushed his way out of two teams in the sixties. Kareem pushed his way out of Milwaukee and 75 car.

Moses Malone pushed his way out of Houston, went to Philly in 82 shack, left Orlando, went to the Lakers. You know, this was a thing that happened with, with famous superstars. They would switch teams.

I think the difference this time around was that, um, the, the, when you think about it, so throw away his first three Cleveland years, right? Like he's just a young guy at that point. And then he's got basically these four year presidential terms in different places, right? Four years in Cleveland, four years in Miami, four years in Cleveland, probably going to do four years in the Lakers. And he's just looking at it. Like he just kind of moves almost like an actor moving from TV series to see TV series. That's new. I mean, I do feel like he's created that to some degree. Yeah. And maybe the Knicks will get them when he's, they'll get them right when he's about to fall, uh, fall apart. Let's take a quick break. And then I want to talk about the summer of 2010 free HCS.

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the reset button like in a video game. Because you had Miami, they just add Bosh, LeBron, and Mike Miller to Wade. New York has all this cap space. They've spent two years, two years tanking for the cap space so they can get LeBron and Wade.

Their fans actually buy into this to get rid of Isaiah Thomas. Knicks fans are like, we're good. Great plan. We approve. They end up not getting anybody and they have to spend $100 billion

on Amari Stoudemire, who's good for seven, eight weeks and then his knees start to go on him i remember reading an article where new york was like is bosh actually good enough like they were afraid if they had to spend it on bosh would bosh be and then it's like you know it's really funny whenever people start to worry it's almost like the nicks of everything they just went through. It's like, will Zion and Kevin Durant be able to share the basketball? We're like, all right,

let's worry. Settle down. If that happens, then we'll worry about it. So then the Knicks, the other thing they did, they trade, they signed Raymond Felton,

but then they traded David Lee to golden state for my guy, Anthony Randolph, who I still have given up on. And, and a couple other things, Anthony Randolph, who I still haven't given up on and a couple other things. Um, Chicago who cleared out all this cap space and was kind of the sneaky contender team. If they played their cards, right. Cause they had Rose and joking Noah, then up with Carlos Boozer who for a couple of years actually was good for them. That I don't feel like that

was a complete disaster. Boston keeps Paul Pierce. Atlanta's like, we can't lose Joe Johnson. We're not losing him. They gave him $119 million and within a couple of years had to deal that to Brooklyn. Portland pulled off the rarely seen

offer sheet trick with Wesley Matthews and actually got him from Utah. And then Cleveland tried to do the same thing with, do you remember who it was? No, I don't. Kyle Lowry. Kyle Lowry. Houston matches because Cleveland doesn't make

the offersheet good enough. And then he becomes the centerpiece of the James Harden trade. So that happened. Utah ends up with Al Jefferson, who Minnesota decides not to keep, although they also don't take DeMarcus Cousins, which we'll cover in the redraft

that's coming up. Dallas is like, well, fuck it. We lost out on everybody. I guess we'll roll the dice with Tyson Chandler. He ends up being the anchor of the title team. The Nets miss out on everybody. They do the Petro Farmer Outlaw Moro Quadrio Quartet. Quadrio?

They're not good enough to be a quartet. I was going to get called the Quadrio. I don't remember any team ever saying, we need to do the, is that Johan Petro? Yeah, it is. Yeahohan petro yeah it is yeah the petro farmer and then milwaukee lost their minds do you remember the three guys milwaukee overpaid uh no i'm gonna give them to you drew gooden cory mcgetty and john salmons oh my god salmons always liked him uh that. That's a lot of, like you basically just sign guys being like,

hey, the rule is these guys all get traded in a year anyway though, right? And I would make fun of some of these teams being like, you know, eventually these teams learned if you can't get your guy, you don't necessarily have to squander your cap space on somebody who's not as good, but nobody's learned that. They do it every year.

They just, they feel like they have to spend it. It's like, oh, well, but nobody's learned that they do it every year. They just, they feel like they have to spend it and say, Oh, well, here's the three-year deal for this guy. And they don't just kind of roll it over, but all the things that can't, I mean,

which, you know, but I think teams have gotten smarter that they've done shorter deals. I meant roll over like short one-year deals where you get flexed. Jabari Parker. Right. So you think about all the stuff that happens, Miami ends up building four straight

final teams and really an unforgettable four years that they had. The Knicks get in this situation where they have Amari and then a year later they're in really good shape because they pull off the Carmelo trade and they end up screwing up the amnesty and Amari kills them.

Chicago, the Boozer thing, you know, who knows? If Rose hadn't gotten hurt, they might have ended up winning the title. Atlanta, the Joe Johnson thing's a disaster. They managed to get out of it. And then Houston keeping Lowry leads to the Harden trade. Golden State getting David Lee leads to some fun Curry years pre-Draymond, all that stuff. And Tyson Chandler to Dallas.

It was this crazy summer that really set up the rest of the decade, or at least the first part of it. Who was your favorite out of Petro, Farmer, Outlaw, or Morrow? Just top of your head. What was your favorite of those four for the Nets? That was Prokhorov, by the way, too.

I liked Farmer's game in college. How's that? There you go. So we're going to do the 2010 redraftables. You know, we talk about the bad drafts. The 2000, you know, we did the 2006 one was really bad. 2010 doesn't get enough credit for being a horrific draft. It did end up, uh, four really talented guys, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Gordon Hayward,

Paul George. And yet what are those four guys have in common? They all had devastating injuries. All four of them. Paul George breaks his leg in the team USA game. He basically misses a year and a half. Hay George breaks his leg in the team USA game. He basically misses a year and a half. Hayward breaks his ankle. First Celtics game basically done for two years. Um, cousins finally finds a good basketball situation. New Orleans playing with Anthony Davis blows out his

ACL. And then John wall, right? When it seemed like he had a chance to put together a really fun career as a meaningful guard, his knees start going on him and now he's probably the worst contract in the league. That's my takeaway when I look at this draft. It's kind of weird. It's like an injury what-if draft. What do you think? It's bad. It's way worse.

I hadn't looked at it in a while. And you're going through it and you go, this is going to get ugly here at the end. You're just going to be taking guys. Some of the metrics on this. Bialy is a top 15 in some of the advanced stats for this class. It's ridiculous what you're looking at here at the end. Gravis Vasquez ends up having one of the better careers. He was seven years in the league.

I wasn't even sure if he was going to go in the first round and he went at the end of the first round. So there's that part. And then, you know, it's, it's a real big miss with favors who I thought had star potential. Um, Evan Turner is really interesting because I liked him so much until everybody else liked him like he was somebody to go hey evan turner needs to be higher and you're like wait two okay maybe maybe that's so you go from like liking someone because no one's on him to then not liking him as much because everyone feels like they're on them but wall is you know i'm not trying to give away the lead here, but as bad as the contract is, as bad as the injury is,

I don't know that he can fall below two in a redraft for this class. I don't think he can, and I'd like to still point out that when Wall was right, Wall had that one year where he was a top ten player in his league. Now, he may not have been that just because I think sometimes we're doing those things

top five, top ten, there's a bit more of a stature to it it's more than just that season but in that one season he was an awesome basketball player so the injury derails who he is now but i'm not gonna like write off the fact that he's actually had really good versions of himself too it's one of those drafts where you just look at it and you go, I wish everybody had taken a different guy after the John Wall pick, right? Evan Turner goes second, but he goes to Philly. And at that point, they already have drew holiday. Lou Williams is there. Doug Collins is there. It's just the wrong team. It's, you know, I think he's one of those rare guys. You almost wish you'd gone to a bad team. So you look at like jerseys at three, they take favors. Even if Philly takes favors at two and Jersey takes Evan Turner at three,

I'm probably, I think both of their careers are better, you know, and then maybe Evan Turner gets thrown the Darren Williams trade, et cetera, et cetera. Um, cousins goes to Sacramento where you don't want to go. Gets to play with Tyreek Evans on probably the worst run team of the last 15 years. Even if Minnesota had taken them at four, they take Wesley Johnson instead. At least then you get the cousins, Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio. Like, I don't know. It's, it's kind of fun. Um, and then you go down to Hayward and George go nine and 10.

Utah takes Hayward at nine. George takes Indiana at 10. You, the Clippers could have just taken either of those guys at eight and they already had Blake Griffin. They already had Deandre. They're a year away from a Chris Paul trade. They have Eric Gordon and it was like,

they actually needed a swing guy. It's just they took the wrong one. They took Al-Fariq Aminu over Hayward and George. And Hayward was, at the very least, if you watched him in college, you're like, all right, that guy's at least 15 a game in college and can shoot a little bit. So I just look at this and I'm like, man, this is a fun one where you just move the names around and everybody's happy.

It's crazy. Like the Paul George going this late wasn't that crazy because he floated and all of his tape, if you watch it, it wasn't all great. You know, I do give a ton of credit to John Hollinger. I think Hollinger was like the first guy ever that was like, this guy's going to be an all-star. And I was just like, wait, really? And he had been in the league at that point so that wasn't before the

draft but even hayward hayward had this weird thing where his two years like his last year butler didn't shoot the ball that well but he shot it pretty well the year before that and that's one of those things would you get a little too caught up in the fact that like hey how come this guy supposed to be this outside shooter and his three-point shooting numbers were pretty bad but it was just kind of a fluky like hey he can shoot he had a bad number or bad year number wise so don't worry about it but him going that late um and you know i'm pretty gonna dump on him now because everything that's happened last couple years but that seems kind of impossible for a guy that just looked like he had all of these skills and the size to go along with it and it won at a high level in college for a guy that just looked like he had all of these skills and the size to go along

with it and it won at a high level in college for a team like butler i took a big loss in this draft in the draft diary i i was outraged that indiana took paul george over to xavier henry oh it's one of my eight or nine worst ones because i'm'm just like, I'm like, wow. Door number a Xavier Henry, who was like the best high school recruit a year ago and was pretty good in college versus this Paul George guy who's floating around in Fresno state. And it's like, really not taking Henry. So couldn't have missed that one more.

I did love, I love the cousins as the upside pick though. I wrote in the draft diary, sorry to spend so much time on Cousins, but he's the most important 2010 rookie. If he makes it a big if, if he makes it, that's the home run pick. You can count the impact under 30 bigs like Cousins.

On one hand, I mean, Andrew Bogut made an all NBA team last season and he fell to five and it was all because people were worried about his personality. It was the rare, it wasn't like a Sean Williams thing or some of those other guys where it's like, Oh, that guy's had some real issues. It was completely 100% teams worried about his personality.

And now you look back and you think like he definitely should have been one of the top three picks, but at the same time, you the concerns were valid because he had a lot of issues in Sacramento. And I don't know. How do you feel about that part? Cousins. I would have a no cousins rule if I were a GM. And you're out. You're blind.

Blind. Yeah, I just I wouldn't draft him in the draftables. I watched enough of those Sacramento games that, you know, the weird thing is his whole career has been put on hold here for like two years. So you don't really know what to make of him or where he's going to be the rest of the way. You know, you hope whatever version of this is, when he comes back, he'll be able to turn it around. But I've just, I don't know.

Like to me, there's two versions of basketball people. Those that look at Cousins' stats and say he's awesome, was in a bad situation, and he's really, really great. And then there's people that know what they're talking about. They see his stats, but they watch the things he does in a game. And this is all the Sacramento stuff. And a little bit with New Orleans, too, where throughout the game, he makes losing plays.

He can put up 20 and 10. His passing is incredible. He can stretch the floor for a big guy. But there's all of these little things that he does in there where he lets himself get taken out of a game emotionally quicker than any basketball player I've ever seen. So I don't care what his numbers are. I've done this rant before. So it's not new for some of you, but I just, I would have a hard time having a guy like that be the focal point of my team. Maybe now as a role guy, as he's older and coming off these injuries and it's, it's not as big of a deal, but when he, when he was younger and he is putting up all these numbers, but there's no accountability and he's run through a million coaches.

You know, it just, it was not something I was a fan of. I'm going to save my thoughts on him for when he comes up in the draft. Now you can take him 13th or 14th. I'll just dash him for later. We also, this is a draft that had Larry Sanders, Jeremy Lin, and Hassan Whiteside.

Hassan Whiteside said he was the best player in a draft. Well, he was wrong. This is a draft I wrote in the draft diary. Our first four GMs on the clock, Ernie Grunfeld, Ed Stefanski, Rod Thorne, David Kahn, or as they're better known, Mount Dunsmore. It's really like an incredible quartet to start an NBA draft. All four of those guys, I'm not sure they worked again after this. This also had Khan taking Wes Johnson, who was 23, 23 years old at the draft over Cousins.

He had averaged 16 points a game As a 22 year old junior And the irony of it is Whether that was the right pick or not Going smaller versus taking Cousins He ends up taking Wes Johnson over two guys Coming after who are both going to go In the top four of our

Redrafts so that happened John Thompson Did this draft He defended Cousins As a top five pick by saying quote you can calm down a fool before you could resurrect a corpse i'm gonna read that to you again yeah you can calm down a fool before you can resurrect a corpse this was his defense of demarcus cousin going in the top five he was defending him so that was i think the only time the word fool has ever been used to defend somebody as a top five pick and then uh the espn graphics guy gave cousins quote must improve

maturity i would say we still might be there with that. John Wall is the number one pick. I wrote at the time, on the coming into the league can't miss point guard scale, I have Wall ranked behind 94 Jason Kidd and 08 Derrick Rose, but ahead of 05 Darren Williams, who's really good. I got to say that was a pretty accurate analysis, right? He, I think he was never going to be Jason kid or anybody on that level, but he had a chance to be a very good point guard, which is what he became before he got hurt. Does that include Chris Paul?

Like, are you saying he's better than good? You just didn't name him. And you didn't name Chris Paul. I would, to me, Chris Paul, Jason kid, or like on that high level coming, when they were coming to the league, I was like, I bet my life. Those guys are going to be good. I would say me Chris Paul Jason kid are like on that high level coming when they're coming to the league I was like I bet my life those guys are gonna be good I would say that's the highest level yeah we were talking about Westbrook in his athleticism and and realizing that that's kind of where this game is going with the rose thing I think the wall line is like that's the exact same

thing with him or yeah we know we like him to shoot it a little bit better a lot better actually but his athleticism really gets the hoop and he started developing that kind of you know drive hard drive elbow jumper and i you know i'm i feel like i don't i don't feel like i'm this huge john wall fan but i i feel like it's worth pointing out like that people people talk about this guy like sucks now and it's just not fair is that does that am i am i right in that because this guy like he sucks now, and it's just not fair. Am I right in that? Because I feel like he gets trashed regularly.

And I guess it's probably because of the contract, but the dude can play. It's not probably. It's definitely because of his contract. Yeah. Two things on John Wall. In person, incredible. Just his speed. One of the fastest guys I've ever seen. We were talking about in a previous redraft, the athleticism of Westbrook and Rose and how stupendous it was to watch. is among the fastest players I've ever seen in person. I don't know who's number one, but he has to be in the conversation

of four or five fastest guys I've seen. So fast that it almost seemed like it was too fast. Like he would have moments where he literally couldn't control his speed. He was going faster than you should go on a court. And I think the 2017 Wizards, that game, that great series against the Celtics, the game seven, all that stuff. And he fell a little bit short. Bradley Beal ended up kind of

being the guy in that. If you were really watching that series closely, it was clear Beal was kind of the guy. And Wall was really good. But the fact that he couldn't shoot threes in a playoff series, in a round two, you could defend him. As long as you cut him off before he got the head of steam and you actually put him in a half-court offense. I don't feel like he ever solved that piece fully as a basketball player. Yeah, and that's a bad loss.

It's not the magnitude of that playoff series isn't something that most people are just walking around like, hey, remember that Wizards series? But that's a bad series loss. They were a better team. They should have beat that Celtics team. Was that, was that 18 or 17?

Uh, I think it's going to be 17. Yeah. Isaiah Thomas. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's a bad.

And that, that wizard's team started to bug me a little bit because they were always doing, um, like these tough guy press conferences and they dress for a funeral and they do all this stuff and you'd be like, all right, cool.

You've won one playoff series. Are you guys ever going to get to the third round or what? Yeah, settle down. I enjoyed that team though and those games were really fun and Wall was really fun to watch. It was a great series. It's a sneaky great series. I do think he had a hole in his game though. I think that the,

the way the Celtics defended him and especially in that game seven, and it got to the point where you, you're kind of rooting for him to take the 24 footer. They were just giving it to him. They were playing way off him. They were like, dude, shoot away.

We're giving it to you. And he didn't want to shoot it. Um, even if you look at his career stats, like, you know, he's, he's like a 32% career three point shooter. So I think when he comes back and, and figures out whatever this next incarnation of his career is going to be, I think he's going to have to shoot better, uh, quickly. Everyone blew it on Paul George.

That was another subject in there. And as you said, it was totally defensible. I think this is the problem with the redraftables is if he had gone eighth, I think that would have seemed weird. You know, if like the Clippers had taken him and be like, whoa, taking Paul George eighth? Ooh. But in retrospect, they should have. OKC made a big...

So OKC is in here. And they almost beat Dallas in the playoffs. And this is a draft where they have some assets. They had Mo Peterson's expiring contract. They had 21 and they had 26. And they trade up to New Orleans for Cole Aldridge. they had Mo Peterson's expiring contract. They had 21 and they had 26. And they trade up to New Orleans for Cole Aldridge. Everything is good on paper with that deal.

You always want to trade up. You package two worst picks for a better pay. Everything's great except the Cole Aldridge part. And then they took Eric Budso later and traded the rights to him to the Clippers. So this was Sam Presti's first fuck-up draft. I can't believe it. Yeah, Bledsoe, that surprised me that he was around that long. Oh, yeah.

He was too athletic. And that was, I think Olshay was still with the Clippers then. Yep. When they did that. And they were pumped. They were so pumped when they got him there. Because, you know, Kevin Serafin, who I had some hope for. Luke Babbitt, my guy.

I even did a full... You know, I did a full feature for ESPN.com on Luke Babbitt. Was it about how bad he was defensively? No, it was going to be if he played... I had a scout who was really big on him. He said if he at unc it'd be like a top five pick oof yeah didn't quite work out uh epi udo who was like 37 at baylor and that was one of those those are the guys they're like look history tells us you're this old you can't shoot and you're like a little undersized for your position um it doesn't really work out and it and it didn't work out for him almost immediately i think yeah i feel like that was one of the last years where guys like that went in the

top 10 after 30 years of missing on guys like that i think the league finally realized like oh maybe don't take that guy's sixth no it's true because i yeah you know like that's where the numbers guys were losing their minds with people to be like it's you know for all the things that we can debate right the thing that doesn't ever seem to be debatable is that when you're extra old coming in and there's already some problems like you don't just become this guy who's like awesome at 24 and you have no offensive game like develop a low post game at age 28 two other trades chicago traded the 17th pick to washington with kirk heinrich in return for cap space because they thought they had a chance to get lebron and bosh

so that was a bummer. And then there was a crazy Ryan Gomes-Luke Babbitt for Martel-Webster trade between Minnesota and Portland. I feel like everybody lost that one. From a comedy standpoint, the highlight of the draft was Mark Jones interviewing Wesley Johnson,

asking him what his former Syracuse teammate, Johnny Flynn, Mark Jones says, what did Johnny tell you about Minnesota? And Wesley Johnson's answer was, I mean, he loved it. Minnesota won 17 games the year before and ran the triangle.

And by all accounts, it was the unhappiest team ever. And it was in fucking Minnesota. Wesley Johnson's like, I mean, he loved it. I don't think he loved it, Wesley. I don't think that was his reaction. Quick break to talk about a couple of new offerings on the Ringer Podcast Network. We

mentioned the Bakari Sellers Podcast, which launches on Monday. It's going to be twice a week. It's going to be covering politics, America in 2020, celebrity guests, people in the know. You're going to like it. Check it out. Subscribe if you haven't already. Also, we revamped Ringer FC. Moosa and Ryan from Stadio, they joined. They did three pods last week.

They even did an emergency Liverpool pod. So they're fitting right in with us. But we really like the Stadio guys. They're also writing a little bit for the website as well. But check that out. And then higher learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay continues to be a fantastic podcast. So those are the, uh, the three most recent ones we've had a couple more announcements

coming up later in the, uh, in the, in the next week or so. Uh, and also wanted to mention winging it with Vince Carter. He retired. He announced his retirement on that podcast last week and we've loved having him and Annie and I think that podcast

has been really good. Anyway, Vince, thanks for the last couple years. If you keep going, we'd love to have you but thanks for everything you did for us and if you missed that podcast,

check it out. It's called Winging It with Vince Carter and Annie Finberg. All right, back to this podcast. What pick do you want? One or two? I'll take one.

All right. I'm going to start us off. The 2010 NBA Redraftables. Ryan Rosillo is on the clock with our first pick. Let's Paul George. And there's no debate, right? Any follow-up thoughts on Paul George?

You wanted me to add a little more depth to this? Yeah, give him a little sugar. No, that's fair. That's totally fair. First year in the league, eight points a game. You know, they didn't play him a lot. He No, that's fair. That's totally fair. First year in the league, eight points a game. They didn't play him a lot. He missed some games as well. We had talked about this team too, because I think that was still a Granger year, right?

Granger was really good, yeah. Yeah, Granger was really good. It was kind of this weird deal where you weren't quite sure what you had. And so for him, his improvement it's a little kawaii-esque in that you don't really have guys that do this like oh okay maybe he's going to be a nice little role player oh okay wow he's going to get 20 a game okay he might be and at the peak of paul george he was in the argument as like the second best player in the league and that may have been off um it's easy to sound like all this stuff is you know oh that's ridiculous he was never that good he's taken some

dings too because you feel like you know if it's a final possession in a big playoff spot do you expect that shot to go down for paul george right now like i feel like there's been more instances of like him maybe not entirely getting it and then then the fact that he doesn't go to LA, he goes to Oklahoma City, tells everybody he loves Oklahoma City, and then he forces his way out of there a year later and he ends up with the Clippers. And who knows, he still may win a title

throughout all of this. But that arc does not happen a lot. And it was the case for the Celtics not trading Jalen Brown. Because if you thought Jalen had a chance to be as good as Paul George he matched up statistically every checkpoint Paul George hit those first couple years I'm going back to when he was a rookie though when he was eight points a game I remember going to a Clipper

game I think it was his rookie year it was one of his first two years it was whatever the first time I saw him in person. And he's one of those guys where on TV, people look one way, but in person, you go, oh, man, I didn't know. I mean, he seems like he's a legit 6'9". He's got long arms. He's upright and just seems like a, like a specimen. Like if you just landed from another country and you were just picking out who, who are the best players in this game, you would have picked him. And he was like 20 at that point, but you could see it. And then I remember the 2012 playoffs when they really threw him in the fire

against that Miami team during Miami's first title year, athletically he could hang with Wade and LeBron And he had no idea what he was doing yet. And so at some point in those first two years, it became clear everybody had made a massive mistake. But you look at his career, he made a first team All-NBA in 2019 during a season that had LeBron, Kawhi in Toronto, and Kevin Durant in Golden State, who was really good that year. So really impressive. And then he also made four third-team All-NBAs. So last five years, 24-7-4.

And I think the big thing we have to mention is just the what if with the broken leg. Because he basically loses a whole year, and he's not quite the same the year that he comes back and just what his stats would look like and things like that. I mean, he could argue. Bill, he came in that first year like he doesn't rebound. Again, it's only 21 minutes a game. He's not really even shooting.

He's just under 30% from three. The next year he comes back. They're still not even playing him 30 minutes a game in his second year in the shortened season. He's at 385 from three, and then he starts rebounding like crazy and right um you know then he look he i don't think he's your one i don't think he could ever be your one like physically he has the game of the one he has the skills of the one all of those things i think there's something that's a little short there as far as you being the guy that's going to really be an alpha in a big moment i don't know that he has that and he's shown more times than i don't think he's a good enough playmaker i i think he's an incredible athlete and an

incredible all-around player i think if you're gonna say what's this guy missing there's that one last time i'm talking like super duper stars there's that one last piece right would you run the offense through him in a game seven i don't think so no you could i don't know if you'd win no and it's not this is just as you said i'm glad you said it that way because you know when you start talking about who are the four or five best in the world like the the things we're going to start grading you a little harder on are going to seem like pretty hard but he has a little bosh in him where in a big playoff moment i could i could forget you know like oh that's paul george like he's gone six seven possessions here and nothing's really happened on the other hand he's at the

point of his career where he could have completely changed your mind on that in these playoffs and still might. And when we go to the Orlando bubble, like who knows, he might have his moment. I still think he's young enough to change that awesome defensive player. Um, I don't feel like he's quite at the Kawhi, Scottie Pippen, Iguodala level, but I think he's a notch below. I think he's right underneath those guys. For guys, I've seen perimeter guys defensively. He's a worthy number

one pick. I do like that you were like, any follow-up? You're just like, Paul George, I'm out. Meanwhile, David Stern is sitting there waiting for the handshake. All right. I'm on the clock, number two. Obviously, I'm taking DeMar... Nohake. All right. I'm on the clock. Number two, obviously I'm taking the mark. No,

I'm kidding. You know, I, I think John Wall has to be the second pick. I was all prepared to get crazy and take Gordon Hayward, but I think the fact that John Wall hit a point where he was a meaningful point guard on a team that almost made the conference finals.

I don't think it's his fault that he walks into that Washington situation. It's post Arenas, Crittenden, Andre Blatch. Just a complete mess. JaVale McGee, Jordan Crawford. All those dudes. And then as House pointed out

when we were talking about Washington a couple podcasts ago, it was a team that always thought they were one move away from winning the title and was giving away number one picks for guys that didn't really matter. And it was always a speed rush microwave kind of

game plan for how to put together a team. They really lucked out with the Bradley Beal pick in 2012. And you just think like, all out with the Bradley Beal pick in 2012. And you just think like, all right, freeze the roster right there. 2012. We have John Wall.

We have Bradley Beal. This is easy. Just don't fuck this up. Like don't, don't try to make this all. And that's what they did for the next five, six years. And I can't blame him for that. I can't blame him for his knee injury,

whether that would have happened or not. Who knows? But, you know, he's career, 19-9, four rebounds a game. The percentages aren't awesome, but they won a couple of playoff series with him. And I do think, eye test-wise, going to see him in person, I thought he was really good. I would just rather have him than

hayward is what it came down for uh for me yeah i've done all my wall stuff um and i i actually still hold out hope that he's going to be able to have some second part of his career here where he's still young enough after this kind of injury and he's not too big, you know, that he'll be able to figure out something here. I mean, what are we talking? He's 29. He'll be 30 in September. So,

uh, the injury though. I mean, it definitely was, I thought it was the Achilles. No, I'm sorry. I kill it.

Yeah. But he also had a knee injury too. He had, didn't he have a fracture scourge? Both. I don't know. I knew there was another significant knee injury. I don't, I don't have my fracture scourge both uh i don't know i knew there was another significant knee injury i don't my micro fracture update i don't have my my catalogs up to date on that in the playoffs i think this says it all 22 and 10 in the playoffs

and he's played you know six playoff series at this point percentages, 82. It's a 27% three-point shooter in the playoffs, and you can feel it in big games. And I just hate when one of my two best players has a weakness that the other team can craft a whole defense around. And that was the case with John Wall. If you could slow the Wizards down when they were going really well and make him a half-court point guard, he couldn't totally figure it out sometimes. He did make a 13-mile NBA.

So I think he certainly wasn't a bust. I think he's had some good moments. And I'm like you. I'm not ready to give up on him. Who are you taking third? I'm going to go with Hayward then. He was so good towards the end there in Utah. His career has been completely derailed here.

And he did look like he was finally figuring out certain times this year. And then I thought it actually got worse again at times. Me too. All over the place. But as we're doing these redraftables with these classes, again, it can seem crazy that it's 10 years ago. But I'm not ready to give up on Gordon Hayward being a productive basketball player in the league either.

And once he showed that playmaking, where they were running the offense through him in Utah, I'm not ready to give up on Gordon Hayward being a productive basketball player in the league either. Once he showed that playmaking where they were running the offense through him in Utah where he was making decisions, he was putting up good assist numbers, and he could shoot it. The thing that sucks too is he played all the time. He just missed his handful of games. He had one year where he was

16-5 and he's shooting well, that he's shooting. Well, that year was weird. He's had like 40% years from three, and then he'll have like a couple bad years. It's actually a little bit like we were talking about with him in college. Well, his last three Utah years, he was 25 and 4, 45, 37, 83 percentages. So that's good.

I mean, you take that. I always thought he was a really smart defender. I don't think he was like an amazing defender, but we even watched him on the Celtics. He's one of those guys who knows where to go, John Wagen hurt, Cousins when he got hurt, then that Hayward injury is just the timing of it's unbelievable. There's a whole bunch of repercussions from it, including does that change the arc of what happens with Kyrie in Boston? Is that Celtics team awesome

that season? And is Kyrie happy? Or was Kyrie destined to do whatever he was going to do anyway? Yeah, I think he was going to do whatever he was going to do anyway but yeah I think he was going to do whatever he was going to do well maybe but to lose Hayward after what was it an hour not even no it's kind of unbelievable when when has that ever happened before they lose him in an hour he's a max contract yeah like I I think there's just always these these anti-age people that are out there but you just go everybody would have signed gordon hayward okay everybody would have signed gordon

hayward he's 22 a game he could shoot get your boards get your assists and he was 26 years old like i don't want to hear about it and so i would rather have his stability than say you know some of the other guys that we're going to pick from here. DeMarcus Cousins is a more talented player, but I'll take Hayward and not being somebody who can maybe sabotage my entire team. Well, DeMarcus hasn't fallen further than four, just for the integrity of this draft. I'm taking him fourth. You told me not to mention the numbers.

I'm going to mention the numbers. From 2014 to 2017, four-year stretch. He averaged 25 and 12. He made two second-team All-NBAs. And I do think him and Davis in 2018, that was really happening. That was a really fun team to watch. I loved watching them together. And I really felt like Cousins was starting to figure it out as, as nutty as he's been over the course of his career,

him and Davis together, we're figuring it out in a real way with Drew Holiday that like that team was something. And, uh, so that makes me think, all right, this violates a lot of my rules for the redraftables, but at least i saw for four months there that this guy could be a productive player and a good team so i'm taking him yeah and maybe um maybe if he's not the guy that he was in sacramento earlier on then he can have a nice little second half you worry with the achilles somebody this big and then he hurts himself again after the achilles because that's what happens. But the guy that got 25 and 10 or whatever in Sacramento,

but then if he didn't get a call, spent the next five possessions distracted within the game, not paying attention to anything that was going on, then he'd elbow somebody. Not running back. He wouldn't get back on defense or he wouldn't, if he didn't get the ball off a screen, he would pout for five possessions. And then as soon as he got the ball back again,

he'd just take a bad shot to take the shot. like that doesn't show up as much in the box score but that's why like i'm not telling you that sacramento team was loaded and he necessarily uh you know we get that that was not a good basketball team but i really i will argue with anyone anyone that wants to listen because i think there are people that have have never really, that have been pro DeMarcus Cousins that just haven't really been honest with themselves about some of the stuff that he does that screws up your team. Well, it's a good one because as the years pass

and your basketball reference page becomes your legacy for people who weren't there when you played, because we're seeing that happen with guys from my generation and your generation too, where you can make a case now that Karl Malone was one of the 10 best players of all time. Wow, look at his basketball reference page. And as everybody gets older who can't be like, hold on a second, I was there.

This is how it actually happened. And with Cousins, there's somebody 30 years from now like hey you know who's one of the best three centers of the 2010s the marcus cousins and they'll lay out a statistical case for it and uh and it won't be a good one just say that one i mean when you're a center and you're only shooting 46 but you're allegedly this awesome post-up player, go look at the post-up stats of everyone from the 80s and 90s. Even something like Ewing,

for him to shoot 46% in a year would have been a complete disaster for him. I think, though, I wanted to play this game with you because I do think he went to one of the worst possible teams for him. Best team DeMarcus could have gone to not counting Washington.

Cause they were taking John Wall either way. So let's say Philly takes him at number two. You're putting him with Drew holiday, Lou Williams, Iguodala, Elton brand, little Spencer Haas, plus Doug Collins coming in.

Does Doug Collins and DeMarcus, they fight to the death. To the death, To the death. To the death. You know Doug. Somebody dies. Yeah. Okay.

That's the most fun situation. Number three was the Nets. So New Jersey before they got to Brooklyn. They had nobody. I think that would have been just as bad as Sacramento. Minnesota, him and Kevin Love together. There's so many ways that could have gone wrong. There's so many ways that could have gone wrong. There's a couple ways it could have gone right.

Golden State, he could end up with Curry and Clay a year later, potentially. And then after that, it gets silly. Like Detroit, the Clippers, stuff like that. Thinking of DeMarcus in Philly is delightful to me. I wish that had happened. I really wouldn't like that. I think the fans either would have embraced him or turned on him in a way that was almost unprecedented.

See, I think they would have liked him. I think they would have liked him because, well, I don't know. It's a smart basketball town. I mean, Sacramento defended him to, like, you know, and him losing his coach. I mean, I've read that piece so many times like wow you know he was never told about coach moore not being there like oh okay so that's so then he

for seven years right yeah he just hey i was i was giving a heads up so i'm i'm more pro boogie than you are but i think he got away with a lot of stuff too. I just think you put a guy like that who could go either way and you put them on the worst organization in the league, um, on bad teams with guys like Tyreek Evans and whoever else. And it's like, it's just, it's not going to work.

There's no way. And maybe with the Garnett, you're right. Maybe, maybe that would have been amazing to have somebody like that. Like I would have paid Garnett 5 million a year if I were Sacramento at the end of his career, just to be like,

can you come in here and yell yell at cousins all right now we're at number five and a little bit of a drop off from this point on and then there's another drop off that's honestly like the the floor caves and you just go crashing into the basement but this is the first drop off who do you have at five it really was blood so or favors and i think i'm gonna go blood so and that's where i had them too the high end scoring like you can look at favors and go hey you know that's not that bad like look at it all it's not that bad i just wanted it to be better so maybe that's getting in the way of all of this but really between the two late possession type of thing favors probably wouldn't

even be in the play and bledsoe has a chance of getting you the bucket even though you know look i'm not putting bledsoe in the top 10 of point guards in the league but um it's just a it was i kind of went back and forth on it but i felt like you know what bledsoe just gives me more scoring in the draft in the moment the celtics had the 19th pick and heading into the 18th pick, Bledsoe and Avery Bradley were on the board. And I remember being excited because all these teams fucked up in front of that spot, right?

Like, we went, like Serafin was the 17th pick to Chicago. Bledsoe, you just knew at the worst case scenario is going to be a really good athlete who could be your third guard. Andledsoe, you just knew at the worst case scenario, he was going to be a really good athlete who could be your third guard. And then Bradley was, Bradley the year earlier was the number one high school recruit. And he'd gone to Texas, and he

hadn't had a great year. And people just, it was the classic people just fell off him. And I think that's been one of Ainge's secret scouting tricks. He likes the pedigree of those McDonald All-American guys sometimes, and I think that's been one of Ainge's secret scouting tricks. He likes the pedigree of those McDonald All-American guys sometimes and sometimes too much.

But I got to watch Bledsoe those first couple years with the Clippers and it was clear that he was something. You know, and athletically, he was a little bit too heat-checky and like overconfident in his own offensive abilities to run a team. And I think that's manifested itself in some bad ways with Milwaukee last season.

But, um, but the talent was there. It was undeniable. Like he was really athletically gifted and seemed like he gave a shit and played hard and was in a frustrating spot. Like backing up Chris Paul, like who,

who's the worst person to back up than Chris Paul? You're only going to play 12 minutes a game. Yeah, maybe. You're playing 12 minutes a game. If you're playing with him, he's yelling at you. Not ideal. And I think it hit a point where he had to find his own team. And then finally, they traded him to Phoenix.

And his career took off. I was not surprised. I think that's the right pick. Okay. Number six. I had Bledsoe at five, so he took him. I had Favors at six just because I know what he is. And by all accounts, great teammate.

I think if you do his career over again, he's an 11-7 for his career. I think if you do it over again, it probably turns out differently. He just, you know, he ends up, gets taken by the Nets. That's terrible.

Gets traded to Utah. He's in the Darren Williams trade. He's playing without Jefferson. They're kind of remaking what that team is. And it was like, they never totally figured him out. But he was one of those guys that

I always kept waiting. Didn't you always keep waiting for it to happen with him oh my god dude are you kidding like i if i have a biography written about me it'll be like he always hoped for more from derrick favors like i i loved him so much george tech because it just i thought he was going to be this physically imposing like high twitch big guy you know i'm not saying he's going to be lebron but i thought the way he was end to end and then he just kind of turned didn't you think like antonio mcdice like that maybe not like peak athlete but yeah more along those something like that this guy could really take over a game and i judge him i judge him based on thinking that he was always

supposed to be a little bit more than finally with him i had to be like all right dude it's not happening you know baseline jumpers gonna get you some boards and that's about it so in 15 and 16 those two years he averaged 16 and 8 52, you know, the league moved against him a little bit. Yeah. I think he's a guy that made a lot more sense 20 years ago than maybe, uh, he looks like an eighties power forward. Doesn't he? Yeah. And then in 17 and 18, they make the second round both years. He's placed 20.5 minutes game the first year, 26 26 the second year. But one of those guys, I think we all liked him, and he had a great name.

Derek Favors just sounds like he should be awesome. There was a high school pedigree with him. And I haven't given up on him yet. Like, if he averages 25 and 12. Oh, give up? It's over? It's over. If he averages 25-12 next year, I'm like, I fucking told you, Derek Favors.

Now, I'm with you I think he is what he is now he is like the the smart forward off the bench who can guard two positions and play 20 minutes a game for you I wanted more you're on the clock at seven

there's analytics guys here that will tell you some of my next picks are coming up that are going to be wrong, but I don't care. I don't care what the analytics and some of these, because I'm just going with a guy as far as having in my rotation. Now at pick seven,

I'm going to take Avery Bradley. Hmm. I also had him at number seven. Are you serious? Yeah, this is funny. Yeah. Well,

here's the thing. Incredible defensive player for, you know? Yeah. This is funny. Yeah. Here's the thing. Incredible defensive player for, you know, five, six years there. I thought he was a destructive player that, you know, he I always thought he was a guy that he's a shooting guard on

offense, but on defense, you want to guard the other team's point guard. So if you could find, you know, a point forward or a two guard who's really a playmaker on the offensive end and have Bradley kind of play off that guy, he could be really valuable. What he wasn't was a point guard. He could barely dribble. That's what people don't seem to remember, or they just haven't watched enough of them. Do you remember that Nick series where he was trying to bring the ball up? Like the Celtics are trying to have him play point guard. and it was it was like whoa this guy kind of can't dribble like there's different kinds

of dribbling you can dribble on your way to getting a bucket okay fine but like can you actually in the face of pressure like navigate through everybody and some guys get exposed a little bit with that and it's also a little scary that the beginning it's like okay this guy this isn't some amazing draft pick by ange in that this this is somebody who shouldn't have fallen this far because it took a little while but he has moments um and and yeah the the fact that you can probably play him in different positions defensively and you know whatever i i don't he wasn't great in boston i think you'd be the first to admit that i think people in boston held out hope for him quite a. He's had some moments with the Lakers here

this year. Can I shout out his 2017 season really fast? Please. 16 and 6. 6 rebounds. 39% from 3. 5 threes a game. Really good defense. And played really nicely with Isaiah Thomas, where he

basically had to guard the best guard on the other team, every game. And Isaiah, they would try to hide him on whoever, but I liked that backcourt together. I don't think it was sustainable. It wasn't a championship backcourt, but every Bradley was good.

He, he played in some playoff games over the years and I liked having him out there. I was never one of those guys where you're like, Oh man, every Bradley's out there. I was never one of those guys where you're like, Oh man, Avery Bradley's out there. Like I actually kind of believed them. And I think,

you know, he decided not to play in the bubble. I think he really could have helped the, uh, the Lakers. Yeah. That's a loss in certain situations, right?

Not like every series, but there, there were moments in over four rounds where you needed them in 2017, 18 playoff games. And he was 17, a game playing 36 minutes a game for a team that, you know, made the conference finals. So, uh, you could argue he should have gone six. All right. I'm on the clock at eight. The wheels have come off again. The wheels have come off to the point that I'm taking Greg Monroe. Whoa. And you hate Greg Monroe.

Yeah. I don't even really like him. Yeah. Great. In the eighties would have been great. Yeah. And I always, I always thought he was a good passer.

He is. I liked his offensive game and, and I liked when they would put them at the top of the key and, and run people off picks and stuff. Here's the thing with him from 2012 to 16, he averaged 16 and 10. So I would rather have that than anybody we're about to pick. I do think there was a time and a place for him. I think as the league got smaller and smaller and he did not have the ability to just punish people anymore and things like that, he became unplayable, but at least for those five years, he was something. So that's better for me than anyone else in this draft. Who are you taking at nine? I'm going to take Ed Davis. Oh, wow. We really fell off. What's your case for Ed Davis?

Just out of curiosity. I don't know that I have one. It's not scoring. His rebounding numbers have always been pretty good. It feels like everywhere he goes, everyone's excited that they have him, but then they kind of forget that no one ever wants to keep him. I mean, he's never on a team. Well, he had a couple years there in Portland. Oh, he was a classic Portland guy

where the fans were all making it seem like he was better than he was. They've done that to about 20 players over the last 25 years. Yeah, I wanted role player. I want role player that I know can fit in. I mean, I'm at the stage of my scouting here where I'm trying to find out somebody like an only child

or where they buy their jeans. But, you know, I'm just making sure that we have everybody on the same page. Strong pick. I am going completely off the grid with the 10th pick. Taking a guy who was not drafted. Pop C?

Oh, wait, he was drafted. He was drafted. A guy who caused a riot in 2012 for about four weeks. A guy by the name of Jeremy Lin. Good pick. Good pick. Thank you.

Thanks. Yeah, I like this a lot. That's good. Thank you. I, I, he was good enough to get signed to a $25 million deal by Houston. They in the playoff series, you know, everybody thinks Jeremy Lin, it, it began and end with Lynn sanity and then he gets hurt and it's over. He actually had a really good first year with Houston where they made the play. They lost that series to Portland to, uh, Dame Lillard. Remember Dame Lillard, the three when Parsons didn't follow him over in time, but Lynn's playing in crunch time in that game. It was on recently and I was watching and they ran, you know, Harden was doing his usual terrible shots down the stretch, but Lynn had a big play at one point and he was out there. So, um, I don't know. I, I think he got hurt a couple of times. He had some bad luck, but, uh, as a scoring point guard off the bench,

um, I can't resist him. Plus he means a lot to a few of my friends. So there you go. Who do you have at number 11? Uh, where, where I should tell the audience we're officially in Hassan Whiteside range. I'm not saying he's going, but I'm not taking him. It's we're at the point where people in the draft room are kind of passing his stats around. They are because there's analytics that, that like him and some of his total numbers are good. I just, if people are benching you at the end of close games,

that tells me something. That's just, that's me. You know, I'm, I'm difficult that way. When, when your coach doesn't want you out there at the end of close games,

Evan Turner has, he has some terrible analytics. Like he's, he's the 20s for some of these and i actually think you have to take evan just on talent alone at this point i probably should have taken him ahead of ed davis um if you've watched enough evan turner you know exactly who he is but he's still too talented and still had moments of production where he can't go undrafted in a redraftable here. He has to be drafted. So therefore I take him at number what's it? 11. One of the great college basketball stat seasons. He was awesome that Ohio state year. So it's funny

that the advanced metrics decided not to let him eventually. I thought Stevens unlocked him in Boston. My hero, Brad Stevens. The way he used him as like a point forward, whatever the fuck he was, and had guards running off. I thought he was effective. I think you're totally right. Could he be in a rotation on a really good team?

Abso-fucking-lutely, yes. And that was the right pick for that spot. So, do you know what team he's on right now? Fucking Lutely. Yes. And that was the right pick for that spot. So. Do you know what team he's on right now? He got traded and then traded again. Is he on Sacramento? Close. He's on the Sacramento of the East Atlanta.

Oh, there you go. So Whiteside probably should be the next pick, but I know I can get him with the 14th pick because I know you're not going to take him. So I'm going to take a guy I've always enjoyed who seems to keep getting paid and who mailed in the last two years about as egregiously as anyone I can remember. Patrick Patterson.

He has to go. He's in my top 14. This is right around the range we had him here over at HQ. So good pick. 37% career three-point shooter, just for the record. Could he be... The model for him was always big shot Rob, right? It's like, oh yeah, he could be the Bob Horry of this team.

And except for the talent, everything else was in place. And a stretch forward could make some threes and potentially guard people on the other end that's that's what you got with uh patrick patterson so there you go he has to go draft he like there's no way you can do these 14 without him being drafted so i i agree with you um you're up at 13 okay by the way this might be the grisliest it's gotten in any redraftables for like the last six guys. If we stopped at 12, I wasn't going to get mad.

If we could have stopped at eight. I was expecting you to go. Hey, do you want to just stop? Do you want to watch any shows? Shout out to a high town on stars. Oh yeah. You like high town. I'm into it.

P town. Yeah. P town. It is funny though. Any mass based show. The ruling on who says says what like who's allowed to try to speak with the accent and it's it's just it's one of my favorite things with any mass show it's like who thinks they're killing it who's actually good at it who just said i'm not even gonna bother right but um it's it's always funny but yeah p-town we used to play p-town in high school yeah that was that was a long road trip for the vineyard for the yeah seriously that's like an

hour hour it's longer than that because woods hole is all the way at the bottom in oh yeah yeah like two hours so you it's going all the way up and around all right i'll watch first game yeah yeah check it out i heard it wasn't a feel-good show so i stayed away but i'll check it out it isn't but it's it's a lot of the same beats you know for any kind of drama with crime but they i'm i'm really into how they've done it so far like they've they've added newer elements to it enough along with the storylines that make me go all right cool like i think we have something different on here all right uh 13th pick you're on the clock i'll go al farouk amino just based on the alone why because i was gonna take him and just not take white side

so old al farouk he uh a lot of size he was another big time high school guy and that's when wake ended up with all those dudes over that that very short amount of time it was like remember when wake forest landed everybody there in a very short amount of time uh he didn't do much scoring but then when he got to portland he still was young too he was 20 when he came into the league and then you're worried that he's he's on his 15 by 25 but you know uh he started started on the clippers yeah and he was an immediate write-off. He was one of those guys you watch twice and you're like, oh, he's a bust.

He'll never be good. And I was really surprised when he kind of remodeled his game in Portland and became a 3 and D guy. You know, not the best version of a 3 and D guy. Certainly not an awesome three-point shooter, but at least. He made enough threes, though. Yeah. He was perfect for kind of what they were doing because they had all those different guys so he actually made sense there and those

three years are probably the only reason why because um he didn't do anything with orlando this year he didn't play and he played like 18 games because the clippers also took that guy i can't remember what year the russian guy done leave. He loved 2008, 2007 core, core, sev, core, whatever that guy's name was. He was another one where you watched him for five minutes.

You're like, Oh, he sucks. He'll never be good. Like you knew immediately. And I felt that way about, uh, uh,

El Faruqa media. I thought there was no chance, but it turned out there was a chance. All right. I have the last pick. Pick 14. Here's who's on my board. Hassan Whiteside,

Jordan Crawford, King of the heat check. Boban get some Boban out of this. Um, Quincy Pondexter, who I I've never really totally given up on. Grievous Vasquez and the Larry Sanders show.

Larry Sanders. Take Larry Sanders. You get like one and a half incredible years where it's like, wow, look at this guy. He's leading the league in blocks. He's so, he's so great. I love Larry Sanders.

What is it? Hold on. I'm going to, I'm going to, I might end up taking Larry Sanders for all we know. Larry Sanders. What about Magnum Roll? What team was he on? He was from Louisiana Tech.

Larry Sanders, 2.8 blocks a game in 2013. I'm going to take Whiteside. I don't feel good about it, but he's 14-12. Could I play him, throw him in a game for 15 minutes and have him bump into dudes. It's either him or Boban for me. Boban is just the fact that he couldn't get off the bench for the Sixers last year when everybody made a big stand. Oh,

don't count up Boban. You might, you might see him. And then it was the actual playoff game started. They were like, yeah, you're going to be over there. You're not playing.

White side at least can rebound and potentially block a shot and he'll block shots he's not playing any defense when i know that sometimes it's a hard sentence for people to process but he only cares about blocking shots he doesn't care about what he's supposed to that's why i said he might block a shot for me his guy also might go by him seven times in a row for layups but he might block a couple shots for me. It's the least inspired I've ever been to take a pick in a redraftables, but I'm taking him. Hassan Whiteside, 14th pick.

This draft was bad. This draft actually made me feel bad about doing the redraftables again. I'm soured. Honestly, in the show note, I was shocked we were doing it. Well, it fit in the summer 2010 theme. And what the fuck else are we going to talk about?

Oh, no, I'm not. I'm not criticizing any of us in the content game right now. Trying to figure these things out. But I was like, oh, we're going to do 10? All right. That's cool. We'll do it. It's rough.

Certainly not a lot of, well at least the cam thing happened yeah the cam thing is big news you guys are excited ben simmons gonna get a new jersey got a lot of texts yeah there you go uh all right rossillo you got at least one podcast this week coming yeah we're gonna do uh some nfl stuff um i don't want to say what we're doing yet but um dan heron was great though yeah i want to check out dan're doing yet, but Dan Heron was great, though. Yeah. I want to check out Dan Heron, who works with the Arizona Diamondbacks now, pitched in the bigs like 13 years.

He was good. And he's funny, too, talking about drilling guys. I like that guy. All right, cool. Have a good week. See you next time. All right, thanks to ZipRecruiter. Thanks to Rosillo.

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We're trying to save our legs for this incredible NBA playoffs run that's about to happen. And man, it's like four and a half weeks. Holy mackerel. That's all coming. Don't forget to subscribe to the Bacari Sowers podcast. Please check it out.

And we'll see you a little bit later this week. On the wayside, never once said I don't have feelings within. On the wayside, never once said I don't have feelings within.