The Bill Simmons Podcast - Coach K’s Last Stand, the Tyreek Trade + the Jimmy-Spo Zapruder Film With J. Kyle Mann, Benjamin Solak, and Tyler Parker

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by J. Kyle Mann to discuss Thursday’s Sweet 16 games, how Gonzaga’s elimination affects Chet Holmgren’s draft stock, Paolo Banchero and Duke’s win over Texas Tech, and more (2:24). Then Bill talks with Benjamin Solak about yet another blockbuster NFL trade, Tyreek Hill to the Dolphins, and what it means for the Dolphins and the new iteration of the Chiefs (38:24). Finally Bill is joined by Tyler Parker to discuss Jimmy Butler’s emotional outburst with Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, the best draft prospect for the Thunder, and Tyler’s NBA Characters of the Year (1:23:17). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: J. Kyle Mann, Benjamin Solak, and Tyler Parker Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, I have college basketball. I have a huge football trade. I have an NBA incident. I have the characters of the year. I have a lot going on on this pod. Looking forward to it. Here we go. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day. All the gang's here.

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I'm kind of getting focused on it. Might have to start gambling on this. I haven't been able to pick my favorite race team yet. So I got to come up with a solution. I can't just watch F1 unless I'm either gambling on or I have a favorite team. I'll figure it out. We're going to talk to Kyle Mann

about Thursday night's tournament games and how it affects the lottery at the top. We are going to talk to Ben Solak from The Ringer about the Tyreek Hill trade, which is one of the most fascinating kind of big picture trades we've had in a while. We're going to talk about why in a second. And Tyler Parker from The Ringer,

he's got his characters of the year for the basketball. And not mentioned in the characters of the year was the Jimmy Butler incident, which we are going to break down in detail. Our favorite comedy parts of the Jimmy Butler incident with Eric Spolstra and Udonis Haslam. It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Channel. all right we're taping this first part of the podcast it is 9 24 pacific time just watch four college basketball games and a USA Mexico game and a Denver

Phoenix game. It was an awesome sports night. Save this part of the pod just in case anything really fun happened. A couple of fun things happened. The first one for me, Jay Kyle, man, who's joining us. You can hear him on the ringer on Bay show. You can see his videos on the ringer.com

even though he'll occasionally write something. Most shocking thing for me, and I don't know what's going on, and I might have to see a therapist. I know a lot of people have been going to therapists during the pandemic. I find myself rooting for Duke. Oh, yeah.

And not rooting for them like they're a Boston team or anything, but in these close games, first of all, I like watching them as a basketball team. There's so much bad basketball in March Madness. They're actually a basketball team that makes sense and plays well together. And you know, they'll have defensive lapses on one end, but there'll be plays that kind of feel NBA ish. But the coach K thing, when it gets tight in the last five, six minutes, like you really feel it. You're like, is this it? Could this be done? Could this be the last run? And then they pull it out for him. They seem like they're playing hard for him.

And I think I need a therapist. I need to talk about this. I never wanted to root for Coach K in my life, but he's like the old guy. You kind of just can't resist rooting for him. Where do you stand on this? You're a Kentucky guy. It's tough, man, because I was thinking about this earlier you know as you you know this as like a blue blood NBA fan like the other blue blood programs I just don't want them to do well I'm like yeah if Kentucky doesn't win I'm like hey let's let somebody new win you know why why do we got to have another blue blood? Our fan base gets really riled up whenever... We're pretty spoiled, as people know. We're pretty spoiled.

We get riled up whenever it's a head-to-head with Blue Blood type thing. The only time I've ever really liked... I secretly rooted for Duke was when I was a kid and I hadn't really moved into my full-fledged hating them phase. I loved that 99 Elton brand trajan langdon chris carroll i loved that team and i i remember being at like a nike outlet and i i saw some duke shorts on the rack and i was like dad can i have these and my dad legitimately told me no he said no he told me i couldn't have them so i mean that mean, that's how far it runs deep. But you're right.

I mean, they're like, they're so poised. I mean, I know it's fun to watch if you watch a lot of NBA. There's just, this team has the size of an NBA team. They have a true seven-footer at the five. They have a 6'10 guy who can handle and pass it, which I'm sure we'll talk about at the four. And just the physicality. For freshmen, this is like one of the strongest weight room freshman classes

I've ever seen on a college team. Palo, who I was on the fence as a top two guy before this game, I really liked how he played in this game. And I'm not going to do the thing where overreacting in one March Madness game, but he did answer a couple of questions for me, right? They needed him to score. They needed him to create.

I think there was a stat. Duke made every shot they took in the last eight and a half minutes of the game. And he had a couple of beauties. He had one of the things I didn't love about watching him was sometimes it seemed like he couldn't talk himself into the three and then he would wait a second and take it. Whereas like somebody like Jabari, it's just like, it's, you know, he's a machine. He's like pop a shot. But tonight I thought he was really decisive.

The spin stuff, the more I watch him, I just think that shit works in the pros when you get to the next level. Like you're just constantly, he can spin both ways too. And I think that's going to be effective for him. And he does have that little thing on the right block where he can kind of go down and immediately stop and get like somewhere between like a seven to 10 footer pretty consistently. Um, but I was impressed by him tonight. I thought he was good. And just in general, that team, you know, not surprising because they get the best prospects or some of the best prospects

every year. They get the best ones. I mean, mean lately they have yeah well they kind of took your guys thunder this used to be you this was you once upon a time you used to get the best guys now you got guys named ty ty we didn't get to talk about this on sunday i mean yeah that's been like the big shift for k and i think the big reason he's getting to paulo in a second but i mean that's one of the big reasons he's remained relevant. I kind of had in my notebook like a few talking points, like if Kay goes down, because that's sort of a that's a pretty big shift in terms of like what we're going to talk about. But obviously he didn't. But I mean, that's one of the reasons he's been able to maintain his longevity is he's found ways to stay appealing to top talent. And some of the top coaches don't always do that that you'll see him kind of move into these seasons of even roy williams and then in the 2000s they just just got so much talent uh kentucky had it for a little while cal came in with the juice and he he had his like worldwide west like i'm a big believer in that like the agency shoe company stuff is absolutely a huge factor and i think around like 2015, 2014, when like LeBron, Leon Rose,

World Wide West thing happened, it shifted. All of a sudden you were seeing Duke, you were seeing Duke in like Nike commercials where, you know, it'd be like, oh, the kid comes through college. Duke just happens to be the college in the commercial. Oh, you know, LeBron,

his son might be going to Duke. They just are kind of the school. But on Paolo. Wait, hold on. Before we go to Paolo, quick on that. Yeah. And he loses Wes. And he loses.

How long was Kenny Payne there? Cal still has a thing with Wes. I think the thing is just the. But Wes has a full job now, you know, that like he did have like a brain trust that I think definitely helped them. And those guys had a lot of tentacles in the high school ranks. They're preaching the gospel of Coach Calipari. And you lose that, and you look at the team he had this year. I was stunned by, athletically, kind of how unimpressive Kentucky was

compared to that Duke team I just watched. Usually they were at least neck and neck with athletes. I know they had their biggest recruit that ended up not playing for the whole year, but still. Yeah, the Kentucky team, it was a machine that worked in sort of all the pieces had to be there. They just didn't have, they had to run their stuff really religiously and really meticulously. And they just didn't have guys that could create their shots and create their own shot like at an elite level like duke does

like if you watch and the thing that's really click for duke is jeremy roach you know we on upside high we talk about a little plug there we talk about uh college teams and we talked about duke earlier in the year and the thing that you would watch them is they would just kind of stagnate they had a lot of finishers and like talent at the on the perimeter like aj griffin it's like he's posted one of the best like prospect shooting seasons ever uh the kid does not miss i swear to god and then you know you got mark williams is like a an elite lob threat at the college level on and on and on but they just lacked like a creator to break down the defense and you saw what happened the night their point guard jimmy roach who was like a top 25 recruit that's kind of the luxury you have.

You're like, well, if this guy turns it on, oh, he's also a top 25 recruit. They just look unguardable at times, like whenever he's got it going. Yeah. Kentucky just didn't. They had one guy like that, the guy, Ty Ty,

and he got hurt and he just was never the same after he got hurt. He was babying it the rest of the season. So I'm watching Paolo tonight, and I've been trying to figure out every time I watch Duke, who does he remind me of? And I've landed on this.

People are going to think this is insulting, and it's not, because this guy was really good. Juwan Howard during the mid-90s, the bullets era of Juwan Howard, he reminds me of a 2.0 version of him with more range, because because Juan didn't have a three point shot, but a lot of the same stuff, like the early Juan people remember like the

two thousands Juan, when he started bouncing around, he was on Dallas, but like that early bullets coming out of Michigan pedigree, Juan, the guy that Miami offered like 120 million for, he was just 20 and nine every night and he was just getting it and he was getting those numbers. And I think to me, Paolo has, has a little of that in him. It's just, he's really comfortable from that 18 to 19 feet. Um, I think he's a little more athletic than Juwan was, but Juwan was athletic back then, but Juwan was a good facilitator passer too. They, there was one season where the boats were playing him at the three cause they had Wallace and Weber with them and he could do it. So, you know, I think the thing with Paolo is I think about him, um, at the next level is I'm sure, you know, the teams will be

pushing him as a four, but there is going to be the ability, I think, to go a little bit big. Sometimes if you have the right roster with him, I don't think he can be a stretch five, but you know, you, you have a little flexibility with him, but I, I love the way he played tonight and you know, we'll talk about Chet in a second, but I thought Palo that he kind of needed that. I was out on him as a top two guy.

Now I'm like kind of reconsidering it. I'm kind of, I've kind of gone the other way. I think he solidified him as like he solidified himself tonight. I'm at, I hate doing that. I'm not going to do that, but I mean,

he, I had already been working that direction. I had already kind of moved him ahead of Jabari at Jabari three. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think. Oh, man. The big thing that I've always talked about, like the differentiator, whenever you're talking about like players that size, what the growth played on their game whenever you're trying to measure like where they

can go the like bridge to go uh and this is the literal metaphor i used in my jabari piece i wrote about him back in december which nothing if you want to go find that my opinion hasn't changed it's the same but like the bridge to like a life as like a facilitator like a superstar like a durant paul at that size like a paul george uh the guys that can Paul, at that size, like a Paul George, the guys that can do it at that size, you're talking about guys that can really handle the ball. And Jabari and Paolo, there's just no comparison. And for me, the thing that's really started to swing is you were talking about his hesitancy. One of the things I always talk about with prospects is like that balance, like that bubble in the middle of the level. Like we talked about Jokic, his is dead center in the middle of the level like we talked about yokich his is dead center in the middle that's why he's unstoppable uh paulo's balance and discernment there is like a lot better than

i think he's getting credit for and if you watch down the stretch of this game he made some just unbelievable drop-off passes and if he's going to be able to make those types of reads off the dribble and he's going to be able to draw two like draw doubles draw help uh because off the bounce he's just on another planet compared to jabari like you jabari just settles and settles i love jabari but he's just a different type of player i'm starting to feel like paulo you're gonna start to hear like a correction back where he's gonna be starting to get talked about at one in my opinion like uh and some of the comps for him early in the year, if we were like, if he's going to be this inefficient, like, insistent primary guy, he's proven he's not that guy.

I've kind of come all the way back to, he was my favorite player before the year. I've been just wildly impressed with him during March. I think that with the Jabari thing, given how bad his guards were, I think it's impossible to almost glean anything from that season. You know, I just to me, he's like Richard Lewis 4.0. Yeah.

You put him with good guards and he's going to score. And I was listening to Tate and Titus with they were on the KOC on the void. And both of them were like, he's 25,000 points. And I was thinking, man, that's a lot of points. It is. With the three-point shot, you figure that's 3,000 of the points or just like extra points on three. If you make 3,000 threes, so it's 22,000 points, but 3,000 are threes. I do agree that. I think he's going to be a pretty automatic the way Richard was,

and that's in his Seattle-Orlando apex of just like, he's going to make the three to four threes a game. He's going to do some other stuff. And if he's on the right team, I'm with everybody who said, put him with Cade. That would just be incredibly fun.

You know, so it'll depend a little on who he's playing with, but let's agree that the Auburn situation was a catastrophe. That was not what we wanted from him. The point that, that I can't remember if it was Titus or Tay that they made about, um, him that you could, it depends on the lens you look at his like, quote unquote, settling. Uh, if you consider the guards he plays with, they were talking about how, when he catches the ball, he's like, I have

to shoot this. Cause I'm not going to see it again. It's like the pickup game where it's like, I'm never getting it back unless I shoot it now. Right. So, yeah. So, I think it's really hard to judge dudes when they're in horrible college situations.

And I just look like it's so easy for him to score and he's so tall. Who's going to be guarding him in the pros? Like, it's going to be guys 6'5", 6'6", 6'7". There's not going to be

other him out there. Anyway, with the Paolo thing, and I guess this is going to lead to Chet in a second. Let's put a bow on Duke because Chet I'm really starting to waver. It's not his fault that he fouled out, but there's some Chet stuff

I want to discuss in a second. The Duke piece of this, they got Arkansas next round. I've somehow watched two full Arkansas games in this madness because they beat Vermont. Have you done that since like 1994? No, probably not.

Probably since the Todd Day era. They're good, man. They're really well coached and they're resilient. And I don't think that's going to be an easy one for Duke. I think people now are starting to think the Duke and we got North Carolina, UCLA tomorrow night. And now suddenly there's the Duke, North Carolina, just possibilities are now lingering over this tournament in a really interesting way. You got Cousin Sal who had Arkansas at 65 to one. They're down to like 13 to one now, but it does seem like it's lined up for Duke, right? Most important, Gonzaga is out, you know. And we've lost some big-ass teams already. And I think it seems like it's shifting in Duke's favor.

Yeah, I mean, the field is just shaping up for them perfectly. And I kind of had a feeling, like I was telling you, once Roach started to play well, I was like, this field is theirs to take. Because it just changed everything for them. Arkansas is going to be this region that they're in between Texas Tech and Arkansas and Gonzaga. If Duke is going to play like this, I would pick them against any of these teams. I just think that they're so physically imposing in a way that Gonzagaaga has some size, their guards. I, we're going to talk about this in a minute. I mean, I thought they really shit the bed tonight and just got outplayed and every facet.

Um, but I, yeah, I mean, it's, it's shaping up to be like a wooden's last season type thing where it's like, K is going to go off as much as it,

you know, nauseates me. It does seem like, uh, it's, it does seem like it's just going to unfold like this. I don't know. It's so funny when they when the coach is getting a ton of camera time and it's like

what other sport does a 72 year old guy just get an incredible amount of camera time. It's like there he is again. He's old. He's wearing a pullover sweater. And he's really leaning into the I mean like the last game when like griffin sprained

sprained his ankle i was joking with tate about this actually that like he was really cashing in on the like comforting mentor thing like he went out there and crouched down on one knee and like put his hand on his chest and was just like it's gonna be all right i was just like okay man i mean of course i every everything he does i see it through the lens of this fucking guy. I do too, but I'm realizing it as this goes. I'm going to kind of miss it. It's like when you have that canker sore in your lower lip that you like to play with with your tongue. It's like, oh, it's not there anymore. I don't get my canker sore. It's better for the sport. I've joked with you about I've come around and I love Rick Pitino now. He made basketball in this state infinitely better just by being him, even though I rooted against him incessantly. it's like that you need the you know batman needs the joker it's just like it's you need that balancing it's more fun for there to be like a an empire you know evil emperor he's not these things

but it's like everybody roots against him and i think it's like the bell check bell checks like that too right so it's almost a credit to your success when you get to that point that everybody's rooting against you and looking for ways to discredit you. I saw, I was watching Blue Chips last night. Oh, hell yeah. And Patino, I forgot how much he gets lines. He's coaching George Lynch. Oh yeah, there you go. You had the Blue Chips hat.

Just out of curiosity before we go to break. Who do you think is the favorite right now to win the NCAA tournament on Fandle? If you had to guess. Arizona's out. Let's see. Is it a surprising answer? It is.

I was surprised. Is it North Carolina? It's Houston. Wow. That is surprising. Really? Houston is plus 350. Kansas is four-1.

Do you forget Kansas isn't even in it? I know. Well, they haven't added a memorable thing yet. Duke's plus 450. And then the team that I would probably bet on, just from everything I've seen so far, is Villanova at 6-1. Just because it's like,

I just like those teams with good smart guards, well-coached, they don't beat themselves, and they just are a machine. And Villanova's the closest to like, I just like those teams with good smart guards, well-coached. They don't beat themselves. And they just are a machine. And that's Villanova's the closest to like, it's not that fun to say, oh, that team's really good with them. But they just take care of business. They're just methodical. They know who they are. It's kind of the players are interchangeable.

You could take clips from this year's team and it could easily just be like the 2016 team. There's no way to really tell much of a difference. Anyway, we're going to take a break and then I want to talk about shit. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring,

he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you can still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember.

All right, Chet Holmgren. I think I definitely will. I definitely, he's out for me at one. And I would have Jabari there right now. He's either two or three. Paolo, who I had ruled out for two, started to creep toward. And listen, this could change a hundred times with the YouTube clips, things like that. And it's not about him fouling out in the game today, because this is what happens in the

tournament. These centers, they're always unkind to the centers in these tournaments, with very few exceptions, where we had like Ewing the one year and things like that. But for the most part, it's so easy for them to get into foul trouble. It's so easy for things to go wrong and them to get the ball, whatever. I worry about, there's an athletic piece with him with the way guys were going at him the last couple games.

Kind of unafraid of his size combined with the fact that, I don't know, how tall is he exactly? Is he 7'1"? I think he's 7'1", with his 7'6 wingspan, I believe. Right, so he's got the wingspan, but Russell and I talked about this the other day, he's got that hunched over thing.

So there are times, he doesn't carry himself like a 7'1 guy a lot of the time. And here's, I house had the best take on this. I actually think he should stay in college a second year and fill out a little bit and kick some ass and do the whole thing. I think it could be potentially worrisome for him to come in right away because I don't think he's ready for an 82 game season against some of the dudes he's going to be going against. He felt really raw. I look, the skinny thing has been

beaten to death. I hate when people compare him to Durant. It's fucking stupid. Durant was a unicorn in Texas. He was put up 27 and 10 and people are like, well, Durant was skinny. It's like, stop, don't compare anyone to Durant. Stop. No, nobody's allowed to do this. Durant was one of the most can't miss college guys I've ever seen. Please don't compare anyone to Durant. Stop. Nobody's allowed to do this. Durant was one of the most can't miss college guys I've ever seen. Please don't compare anyone to him. Chet is not, can't miss. I would bet on him making it over missing, but he's not can't miss. And I don't know. I just would feel better if he stayed another year, filled out a little, really kicks a mask, had his own team without a teammate there and did it. I know he won't

do that. You got to come out if you're going to be a top three pick. You have to. I get it. But I do wish he stayed. Yeah, that'd be the question. To do that, you'd move from where to where. You move from what, three to potentially one. I mean, another year goes by and maybe it goes the opposite way. Maybe people nitpick even more so and also the thing that always gets me too is just like these guys don't stop developing when they get in the nba i mean they did they just start getting paid to develop i know they're getting paid with the nil thing in college now but i the thing with chet i guess is the question of if is is he going to be enough of like a rim protector of like a defensive anchor like high impact defensive guy

to offset the fact that there are like concerns about him being like a high production offensive weapon and you got to kind of ask yourself where is that going to come from i was like looking at his shot chart earlier i mean he's he's playing with a big let's say next year he he gets picked by the rockets and he's playing with like Shingun at the four he has to play with somebody big and physical that can cut so he doesn't have to guard like true fives all the time I could see so that he can kind of be like a free safety and just be really disruptive um but if you look at his shot chart I mean it literally looks like a like a skeeball game I mean he has like at the rim in the paint and then above the break three so those are the only three shots that he's taken he's capable of a lot more and he he did not shoot the ball well in like pick and pop

situations this year so we're speculating about him as a shooter did you think that three was going in when they were down six and he had the wide open three and it was like wait i think it was under three minutes left and it was the biggest shot of the game and he started to take it and i don't know why but i was like that's not going in he made one is that the one he made or he made no he missed this one i think it was like 62 56 something like that but it was when he missed it it was like oh my god they're gonna lose but i didn't think it was going in and i don't know what that means that was just my gut instinct i was like he's not making this making this. He's not quite there yet as a shooter. But I mean, around the rim, he's a pretty high efficiency finisher.

He's a good passer, too. That's the other thing. He's a really good passer. Yeah. Do you want to know my dad's take? What's that? I was talking to my dad, and he was like, I don't know. He reminds me of, who's that guy in OKC?

He reminds me of that guy. He's talking about Poku. I was like, Oh God, you're horrified. Poku. Uh, yeah,

but he's, my dad is just like an eye test. I don't, I haven't seen that guy's physique slash body in the NBA before. So prove to me this will work kind of thing. Yeah. So I don't know. I, as I said, I like Chet. I don't think he's going to be a bust. I don't think this is like a, you know, this is not like a the beat thing. Like the beat thing was nuts. I never understood the beat thing. I thought it was insane the whole time. You just watch him run

and you're like, wait a second. That's something's off here. Chet will be fine. But the problem, and this has happened in the league sometimes, these guys come in too early and you become the pinata and everybody's trying to dunk on you and push you around. And you can lose like a little confidence and a little swagger. And if you're on the wrong team, all of a sudden that can go sideways. Like I think Marvin Bagley is a good example of this, even though they're totally different players

of like bad situation, couldn't get his feet under him. And then all of a sudden now he's like on freaking Detroit trying to rebuild his career. I don't think Marvin Bagley is a bad NBA player, you know? But sometimes that's how it plays out. Yeah, I would say my thing about that is that like that is Chet's whole life as a player. I mean, I think people have looked he's been hyped and all through people have been trying him like his whole career going out there trying.

There's this, you know, there's this big, skinny, scrawny white boy who everybody says is great. I'm going to go try to dunk on this dude. That has been his life as a basketball player. And he's used to it. And he's a tough guy. And I think i think that can kind of get underrated sometimes like you know arkansas was like those weren't fouls like the last three the the last three fouls got called on him tonight were just utterly ridiculous

and and i and i know people are going to want to overreact to the night's game he never got into a rhythm uh and if you kind of i don't think that you can take it at face value at all um but i mean the question you just got to ask yourself is is he going to be as high impact enough at the things that he's good at is he going to be better at those things than like paulo or jabari are going to be at what they're good at and that's kind of what you have to weigh out i mean i'm probably closer to moving paulo ahead of him than Jabari. That's the most likely thing to shift for me. But Chet, I have people that, I have people who tell me, NBA people,

who think he's the smartest player in the draft by far. I can see that. I like his passing. We talked about on Sunday night, he's always kind of moving. He's up to stuff. He's not a stand-in-place guy. I guess if I'm in the top three,

I'd be so scared to take somebody when I wasn't positive that they were going to be good. And with him, with all the stuff he brings to the table, I'm still a little scared because I've never seen anybody with his exact frame succeed in a real way in the NBA. That doesn't mean it can't happen. Like you would have said that about Jokic, right?

Even if you looked at Jokic's body now, you'd be like, that guy? So it's not like it's inconceivable. I just, Jabari to me is a sure thing. He's a sure thing to at least be really good. And Paolo, you know, he's starting to win us over too. I still have a little questions about, you know, is he the second best player in a title team? If I have a top three pick,

you have to be at least the second best player on a championship team for you to make sense in the top three for me. And that's why I love Moby last year. I was like, that guy could be the second best guy on a championship team and potentially the first best guy on a championship team. And I first best guy on a championship team.

And I think you have to hold it to that standard. The thing we didn't talk about today, I mean, check out the foul trouble was ludicrous. You mentioned this with our guy Charks on Tuesday. Shout out to him, by the way. This was probably Gonzaga's best chance. You both said this during the pod, that it's never been lined up better for them to win.

And of course, they don't even make it to the final eight. And, you know, I just don't know when they're getting a top three NBA draft prospect like that falling into their laps when they already have another first round pick. And their guards, as you said, I thought really let them down in that game. I thought their guards were pretty good. I was actually surprised, but that's the thing about

the tournament, like Matherin sucked tonight, you know, and he was somebody everybody was going nuts about all weekend. And then tonight he just couldn't stay out of his own way because these are 19 and 20 year old kids. But, um, yeah, the Gonzaga, let's talk about the Gonzaga thing really quick about this might've been it. Yeah. I, the question for Gonzaga is let's talk about the Gonzaga thing really quick about this might've been it. Yeah. The question for Gonzaga is you keep going through these like waves of their talent keeps getting just a little bit better. Their style of play is alluring. It looked like last season,

you know, you gotta get those, you kind of have to kick the door down with like, we signed this top prospect. He's got to play here. Like he's got to play well here and look good in our system. And then we have to succeed. And you would have thought last year with Jalen Suggs, like, okay, we kicked the door down.

Like, we're for real now. We're not just, like, recruiting guys in the area. We're, like, pulling people, which, you know, to be fair, Chet and Suggs are both sort of relatively from the area. Same high school, actually, Chet and Suggs. Right. Which is crazy to think about if you want to go watch that really fun high school team but you know this team like you said i i had kind of been up on their guards i'd kind of defended their guards all year uh they just looked shocked by the physicality of arkansas i think like arkansas got to like every single 50 50

ball they just looked like they looked like they were on their heels all night and surprised by Arkansas' defensive pressure. Arkansas just looked fearless. That's a program to look out for. But Gonzaga in general, this does kind of feel like a momentum hit. If you're looking at who they've signed for next year, the splash just isn't quite there yet. College basketball is all about brands

and kind of brand momentum and things like that. It doesn't feel like they, you know, they needed to win this year to your point. They needed to win. You got to get over the hump. Or last year, one of the two years, they needed something amazing to happen. It's funny.

We're entering this weird no man's land with college basketball. Because if Calipari has been defanged in Kentucky, sorry, if coach K is leaving Duke, if Gonzaga like missed their window and you go on down the line, it's like, all right,

who are the superpowers going to be going forward? You know, I guess it would be, you'd have to say Duke until they stopped getting these guys. You'd have to figure that they're always going to be in the mix. But it does feel like there's a weird transition thing. Speaking of Carolina, tomorrow they're playing UCLA. That was the game you were the most excited about tomorrow night.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think the style of play, I think that that game could be pretty up and down. UCLA has multiple shot creators that are pretty high variance. They could go either way. I mean, like Jules Bernard, Johnny Juzang, Jaime Jaquez, who's a guy that I really like, like a really physical. He seems like a guy that's going to show up on an NBA roster just

because he's like, I'm going to pick one small thing and just be really good at it. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens next year, like kind of an Alex Caruso effect kind of thing. I just think that Carolina's playing really well. Their guards are playing really well. They've got a legit post-presence in Armando Baycott. Carolina, I could see winning that one. I'm kind of leaning towards picking them. But UCLA always has that.

They always have that shot creation to make it interesting, which was the case last year. And if you have that in the tournament, you never out of it juzang was definitely a should have come out last year guy yeah he should have read that talking about like with this is why chet has to come out this year what's interesting with chet maybe we can end on this he could say he's coming out see how the lottery goes and couldn't he withdraw and go back to college if he didn't like how it shook out? Like if he's the number three pick, let's say everything shakes out and it's like, this is going to be Jabari one, Paolo two, and then Chet three. Chet, it's looking like Houston

for you. Could he look at that and go, I don't think it is actually looking like Houston for me. I'm either going to go back in the draft or maybe, you know, we haven't seen that happen. I forget what the exact date is when you can pull out, but I know it's after the lottery now, isn't it? Because you could sign with the agent, but you don't necessarily have to stay in if you're not happy with it. I don't know the exact date. I guess another question is going to be, you know, what's his dad think? I don't know if you've gotten a look at Chet's dad, who seems like a pretty involved crowd. Dad has like the camcorder and like the custom t-shirt. That would be me.

If Chet was my son, that would be me in the crowd. They'd be showing me up there. Yeah, my iPhone holding up, trying to get shots of Chet. Look at that. We've got to review this when we get home. I don't really know what extra footage he's getting if he's like focusing on different angles. I don't know what's going on there, but I mean, Chet fits with a lot of the teams. That's the kind of the thing. He has like role malleability. getting if he's like focusing on different angles i don't know what's going on there but uh i mean

chet fits with a lot of the teams that's the kind of the thing he has like role malleability if he goes to a team where there's not like huge pressure on him to be like a star star like i said i like the houston fit i really like the idea of him with like okay see because you'd be with playmaking you'd be with like some guys who have scoring mentality me too small market they'd be very happy to have them i don't think there'd be a ton of pressure there yeah i think indiana would be fun for him too oh definitely definitely yeah i like the indiana fit with what they've got going on yeah the less pressure but i don't think that he's gonna succumb to pressure to be like okay i've got to be a star he's just not that that type of player. He's really smart and kind of reserved

about how he goes about his business. And then obviously the Cade combo is really interesting because Cade needs a legit lob threat. It gives him another guy to be his defensive anchor. It'd be a huge upgrade for him. I like the Cade pairing a lot if it could happen. Well, to be fair, just to reiterate my Chet takes, I'm not out on Chet.

I just think when we're talking about top one, top two, top three, there's a level of certainty that I need. The thing that would scare me is if he's the second pick with the history of the second pick over the years. You could say it's really a cursed pick in a lot of ways for the team that, and maybe Mobley finally broke that with Cleveland. But for the most part, the legacy of that number two pick and Darko,

you know, Sam Bowie going down the line. Thabit, I think he was second. I remember doing something about this in my column once. But yeah, number two makes me nervous. Who's your MVP, by the way, before we go? Of the NBA? Yeah. I'd say Jokic.

I mean, it's a year. We're pretty blessed, Bill, I would say, in terms of the talent at the top of the league to have this fiery conversation. Where are you on Jokic? Who's your MVP? I think if they lost again tonight, and I think if they're in the playing game,

I'm going to start gravitating toward Giannis unless Philly can pass them in the standings. Because at that point, and I'm like the number one, I can't believe what an awesome season Jokic has had guy. But if they're a seven seed, that would really break some rules for me to be like, wow, you're the most valuable player.

Your team had the seventh best record in the West. I don't know. I'd really have to talk myself into that. I voted Kobe and I didn't have a vote in 2006, but I voted Kobe for MVP in 2006 when he had that, they were 45 and 37, but he was just unbelievably completely carried them. So I've done it before. I can talk myself into it, But I just feel like Giannis, I don't really understand why Giannis has been kicked to the curb

with this MVP thing. It doesn't make sense to me. We're never totally fair with Giannis. I mean, we talked about this in our Top 25 thing. He's played literally like the same MVP level season

like four years in a row. And we'll just go back and forth and be like, we love him, we hate him, we love him, we hate him. It's like, does Jokic get no break, though, for the fact that he's had,

I mean, two star teammates not be there there and he's still elevated the team it's worse than that he's playing with you know did Jeff Green these guys that and Jeff Green's been okay but like these guys that have either bounced around the league or they're destined to be like seventh man on a really good team and those are his guys Austin Rivers yeah and that's the definition of like a legit floor-raising player is that you can just plug low-value pieces and he elevates their value. And that's just, that's the Jokic experience.

I mean, and Giannis and Embiid have had more intact, you know, supporting casts next to them. And I think if you, you always got to kind of consider, okay, what if we put Jokic with the Sixers? What if we put Jokic with the Bucks cast? if we put Jokic with the Bucs cast? And I mean, he's just, I don't know.

I have the utmost appreciation for what he does just because I think he impacts the game. And he's playing better defense this year. He's a legitimately improved defensive player, which he's gotten derided for that. And I think you got to give him credit. That's a great case for him against Embiid if you just flip them.

What happens to Denver? What happens to Philly? I just don't think Denver has as good of a record if you flip Embiid and Jokic. It used to be one of my criteria. All right, Kyle, man, we can hear you on Upside High with our guy, Jonathan Charks, and we can see your ringer videos

and look forward to hearing you throughout this madness, which looks like it's going to be pretty good. Good to see you. Good toak is here. We have a new rule. Anytime slash business platinum. Okay, Ben Solak is here. We have a new rule. Anytime a superstar receiver gets traded, we have to bring him on. He also wrote about this trade for theringer.com today. Tyreek Hill, off the Chiefs. He went to the Miami Dolphins.

I'll give you my quick take and then you go. The Chiefs are dead. And yet, I actually agreed with this trade. I think you can have both opinions about the same trade. I think that four-year run they had had come to kind of an end of what that iteration was.

And they had to move to a new phase, which they recognized. They made this trade. And yet, I'm way less scared of the Chiefs. So they made a trade I agreed with. Right. And I think they're worse. Okay.

So their Super Bowl odds went from plus 900 to plus 900. So books wise, nothing changed. So it's interesting, right? Because I very much had that experience when I went to go write about, all right, these are the consequences of the Tyreek Hill trade. And you kind of end up at this place where it's like, all right. But also, you know, they got Andy and they got Mahomes and Kelsey's still good.

They got cap space now and they're going to be able to attract some, you know, free agents or whatever. They just signed Marcus Valdez-Scantling. Like I did have that, that internal sense that I think books did as well, where it's like, all right, the chief's inevitability thing still feels real though. And so, right. I, I there's so many different ways to look at this that you can end up defending like any given date right and kind of it what what this all hinges on is how healthy and effective is tyreek hill stay for the next four years and if he's you know still this quick and this explosive when he's 32 the dolphins are right

and if he isn't then the chiefs are right it's kind of we won't be to tell, I think, until we get all the way down that mountain a little bit. Because I get why it makes sense for the Chiefs. It absolutely makes sense for the Dolphins. And I think you're right. The Chiefs are kind of moving into phase two of the Mahomes era. That's going to be really fun to see. And that was what you wrote about. You had a stat in there about 16.1% of Hill's targets in 2021

were more than 20 yards downfield, which is significant because three seasons earlier, it was 31.8. And then it dropped to 25.2. Or that was two years early, actually. And down to 16.1. Now, you thought, and you and Warren Sharpe would talk about this on the Gambling Show, you thought at least a small piece of that was that defenses had kind of figured out not a way to play the Chiefs, but a strategy to try to limit what Hill did.

So how do we know if he lost that versus the defenses? That's a very good question. And a lot of, there's a lot of data about like how fast does Tyreek Hill get off the ball and how quickly does he get upfield in these vertical routes, like next-gen stats charting him through the 2020 season. So before 2021, Pat Hill is like the fastest guy off the ball on goes and on posts and on crosses. Like all these field-stretching routes,

Hill was running them faster, more explosively, more dangerous than everybody else. And then it feels like we lost that a little bit last year. Are the Chiefs telling us that that's because they think Hill has lost a step? Like you can read that between the lines here, but in general, that field stretching nature of Hills play up until 2020 fell away a little bit in 2021. And some of that has to do with defensively. What,

what you're getting, right? When you're getting these two deep safeties and when they know number 10 is on the field and they know what he means, they're getting so much attention from guys already lined up 15 yards, 18 yards down the field that it becomes more difficult to access Hill on those vertical routes, on those deep routes. It doesn't mean that Hill can't open up space in the intermediate. You still run that guy down the field.

Safety's still got to go with him. And now it's a little bit easier to throw your 13-yard slant to Byron Pringle or your 15-yard curl route to Travis Kelsey, whatever you want. So he still opens up that space. It's just, do you want to be paying $25 million for a player to be opening that space? If you believe internally that one, you can pay $12 million to Marquez Valdez-Scantling

and he'll still open up space for you. And two, the defenses are always going to prioritize taking away your deep ball. As long as 15 is a quarterback, as long as Mahomes can chuck it 65 yards down the field, four seconds into the snap, teams are going to prioritize taking away our deep space. Then we can't really prioritize in terms of our money, in terms of our cap, paying the most preeminent deep threat in the league.

That's what Hill was for them. That's what he was for four years. The best deep threat there is. There is a disconnect there. And I think the other thing that matters in that disconnect schematically is that, well, the chiefs decided to start throwing the ball short and start running the football more to try and get teams out of these two high looks. Just not really Hill's game. Hilton like Hill's not a very like contact loving player. He doesn't want to go hit a guy or block a guy.

It's just not, not him. And so when you're throwing it short and you're asking him to like break a tackle on a bubble screen, or when you're running the football, and you're asking him to break a tackle on a bubble screen, or when you're running the football and you're asking him to get a ball as a run blocker, it's just not where he was maximized. I'm not saying that's why they got rid of him. That'd be really dumb. But they do, I think, see internally a need to get a little bit

bigger and a little bit more physical all across the offense. They prioritize speed and tackle angle-breaking agility a little bit too much. And now you're seeing them backswing a little bit. You saw them change out of the offensive line. Now you have Mark Isvaldo scaling Juju Smith-Schuster. Those are big physical receivers.

The Chiefs want to get bigger. They want to get a little bit more physical and Tyreek doesn't really fit that philosophy. I think you nailed it. To me, it is a realization that what worked for them for four years was not working in the same way. And they were less malleable, which is a word I always like to use for basketball. Like one of the reasons I like

the Celtics right now is they're malleable. They can, they can try all kinds of different lineups in a playoff series, depending on who they're playing. The chiefs kind of who were, who they were and team saw week after week after week, they accumulated the tape on it. And I look at all the stuff they've done and it really does feel like a strategy shift. You mentioned they signed Valdez Scantling today and Juju. We'll see if Juju could stay in the field. But I look at that as like they want to run the ball more. They want receivers who can block. They want to use the deep threat in a way like it comes out of this weird new offense that they have where now you take advantage of Mahomes when teams aren't expecting it versus teams already planning that he's going to do it.

At the same time, I wonder like, all right, let's go back to that Bengals game. They're up 20. What was it? 21-3. Yep. They had a chance to go up 28 to 10 at halftime. They blew it. They have the ball start in the second half. You look at this half hour of real time. And if it just goes a little

differently, I wonder if they make the trade. I wonder if they win the Super Bowl. I wonder if we're talking about, is this the new dynasty? And because they mishandled that half hour, and then the OT, all of a sudden now we're here and they're trading Tyreek Hill. I very much agree that if they had won that Super Bowl, we'd be thinking about them right now a lot differently. I'm not sure we would have ended up elsewhere with Tyreek

because the Chiefs were willing to pay Tyreek Devontae Adams-esque money and that's basically what he got from the Dolphins. It's a very small increase. It's like, alright, you're nominally better, but it's not like you blew up the market really that much or anything like that.

So it's still like DeAndre Hopkins, Devontae Adams, they kind of set the market. Christian Kirk obviously threw everybody for a loop. But in general, they were going to make Tyreek right. Tyreek wanted more. The Chiefs said, we'll get you down here, win another Super Bowl, keep the band together. And he said, no, I'm going to Miami. I'm making that change. I'm cool.

No state tax, new team. I'm the star of this team now. I'm not in somebody's shadow. And I think if the Chiefs had won two Super Bowls, it's not like they would have gone from zero to one. As opposed to if they're going from one to two, I don't think that makes rings matter anymore to Tyreek Hill. I think that Tyreek's

telling us in making this move, I got my ring. I don't think that makes rings matter anymore to Tyreek Hill. I think that Tyreek's telling us in making this move, I got my ring. I don't need multiple rings. I don't need the whole resume. But it might have changed how the Chiefs thought of it, though. They might have thought, oh, what does he want? All right, we got it. I mean, we have a potential dynasty here.

We can't lose this guy. Yeah. And that precipice is important because the Chiefs have like 24 total dues under contract for 2023 right now. Like, did they built so heavily for this, this first window with Mahomes, right? They gave him that, that contract extension in which he was so cheap in those early years. I've got to remember we're, we're in Mahomes second contract right now, but it's very, very cheap relative to what a second contract usually looks like. And what Mahomes second contract eventually will look like as we get into 2023 and beyond. So they were on that precipice of,

okay, do we really put ourselves in cap hell to try to win a second ring or a third ring within the next three or four years? Or do we say, all right, we got to move off some big contracts, right? Tyreek Hill, I think they tried to move off of Frank Clark and try to restructure. That was kind of a whole drama earlier this month. And we

bring in now, they've got eight draft picks in the first four rounds. And we say, let's go get ourselves some young talent. Let's go get ourselves some cheap talent and start to build for that second window. So they were a little bit on that precipice. And you make a good point. They won that second Super Bowl. They'd probably be on the other side of the mountain right now, as opposed to where they ended up. Yeah. A championship really messes you up because it starts talking to you into situations that you might not want to be in. I just look at what they did. Removing everything. And I'll talk about the big three impact in a second, but they take the Hill money and they turn it into two receivers, both of whom aren't

nearly as good as Hill, but offer them a little more flexibility, Valdez, Scantling, and Juju. And you get all these picks. And as you know, I live my life by the phrase, what would Bill Belichick do? I think if Belichick is presented with this conundrum and it's like door A is Tyreek Hill, just pay him. Door B is these two other receivers and all of these picks and a little more cap space. Belichick's taking door B every time.

So I think the fact that they lost in the conference championship, the way they did made it a little easier to do that with that said, this was, wasn't just an era. This was this big three that they had. Um, I'm in my fifth decade now watching football. It's right up there. It's up there with anybody. I mean, we've had, you had the Montana and rice, obviously in Brady and Gronk and you have have the two-man duos over the years. But in terms of like three incredible weapons all together where you're watching it, it almost feels like basketball

with the spacing and just how different it was. How different it was than any other team we watched. And you would just watch the geometry of it and go, how the fuck do you stop this? If Tyreek's going deep and Kelsey's going over the middle and you give Mahomes a little time, what do you do? How do you stop this?

To me, it's like way, way up there. How is it for you? Like what do you think historically? Different is the absolute correct word because all three are a little bit like defining within their particular positions, right? A little bit like prototypes in terms of a changing NFL. And then all three of them coalesce together to kind of bring that idea to a head. You have Mahomes in terms of the scramble ability, the second reaction ability.

We want our quarterbacks to just be freakazoid arm, freakazoid athleticism, break all the rules in the pocket. We don't care anymore. Just don't make a play. You have Travis Kelsey where, okay, tight end blocking, over pocket. We don't care anymore. Just don't make a play. You have Travis Kelsey where, okay, tight end blocking, overrated. We don't care. We're going to split you out wide over 50% of your snaps, just not attached to the line of scrimmage.

We're going to let you, and he's such like a vibes route runner, Kelsey, right? Like he doesn't really run precise routes. We ain't running, you know, West Coast stuff anymore though. Remember we got Mahomes now. We're all vibes. And so vibes tight end works for me.

And then you have all this space generated. You're lining guys up out wide. What do you want? Except the guy like a Tyree kill who at this point, we don't need receivers to be tall anymore. We don't need to stick our short receivers in the slot anymore. As long as you got speed, we're going to put you on the field. We're going to find a way to get the football. And then you're going to do the rest for us after,

after the balls in your hands. And so all three of those guys kind of are, are hallmarks. They're watershed moments for where each position changed. Then you give them to Andy Reid, you put them on the field and all of a sudden you have this chiefs offense in late 2010s, which was we really just don't care about running the football or lining up and pretending we're going to run the football.

We're going to spread and shred and we can actually do that in the NFL. Yeah, I know it was a college idea 10 years ago. It's an NFL idea now. We're going to spread you out and shred you. And so they're indicative of those changes. And that's why the next era of Chiefs offense is really interesting.

Because with Juju, with Kelsey, who's clearly to them like a receiver right now, like he's their ex-receiver, there's a little bit of a pendulum swing back because this thing always goes, right? You get swings back and forth of saying, oh, we need a guy who can block.

And that's not Kelsey. That's Juju for them. That's Marquez Bonascanding, who blocking was critical to that Green Bay offense that he was previously in. There's a little bit of that swing back. We saw the benefits of spread and shred, but now also defenses have an answer. So let's continue to evolve.

And if that means we have to lose one of our big three, we're confident we can find another one and fill in the gaps with our cap states and our draft picks. I just love the way the three of the, and I hated it as a Pats fan, but I just love the way the three of those guys compliment each other. Because you'd see it in basketball sometimes, right?

You'd see big threes would get shoehorned together. Or sometimes they made perfect sense. Like in a weird way, LeBron and Dwyane Wade and Bosh all together, it shouldn't have made as much sense as it did. And then when Bosh learned how to space the floor a little bit, there was that year and a half run where it was like, holy shit, these guys are amazing together. And, you know, when I was growing up, Bird and McHale and Parrish and Kareem and Worthy and Magic and these guys that just, they made sense as a threesome. I think it's a really hard place to get to. I was trying to think in football.

You know, we had Manning and Harrison and Edger and James that had a couple years there. Yeah, I was thinking Manning, Harrison and Wayne. I was thinking about it as well, but it's a little bit like Harrison and Wayne weren't redundant.

It was just, that was Manning's offense. And both those guys had the skill sets to make it make sense in terms of the route running and the detail and stuff. Yeah, you're right. That's a better version of that. We had Jim Kelly with Thurman Thomas and Andre Reid. The Warner Rams, when they had Warner and Falk and Torrey Holt, and it was basically, I don't know, I think it was a three-year run for them.

But it was the same thing. I felt like everybody, the geometry of a comp... I don't remember the geometry working as well as they did with these four guys. The Pats certainly... Yeah, I was going to say, Brady, Gronk, and Hernandez

deserves a mention there as well. I was going to go Brady, Moss, Welker. Because Moss going deep and Welker underneath, I thought worked too. Honestly, both of them work and the reason they work is because Brady is involved in the trio a little bit.

It just kind of tells you how much the offense can change. But in terms of Hernandez and Gronk, nobody was putting two tight ends on the field like that. And that was because nobody realized that tight ends could have as varied of skill sets as Gronk and Hernandez did. They were like completely different players. Yeah. But they both played tight end, right? Kind of in quotation marks. And like that getting on the field with Brady

as a quarterback who could parse defenses, matching 12 personnel incorrectly like that, that's, that's a, I don't know, like a watershed sort of a trio. We, we don't talk about Hernandez on this pod, Ben. You didn't get the memo. That's my bad. On me, on me. No, you're right. I mean, he was basically Kelsey S. Kelsey's a better version of him, but he wasn't really that much of a blocker,

but he was a fantastic receiver. And Gronk was more of the traditional. I think the thing with these three guys, Tyreek, I don't know if he's the greatest deep threat I've ever seen in my lifetime, but he's in whatever the short list is. I think Moss is up there, and I go back to Cliff he's the greatest deep threat I've ever seen in my lifetime, but he's in the short, whatever the short list is. If you know, I think Moss is up there and I can,

I go back to like cliff branch and the Raiders way, way back when, but he's certainly one of the most, one of the most frightening people I've ever seen on a football field when you're playing him or when you're betting against him. And then Kelsey is one of the four best tight ends of all time. And then you mentioned my homes who I think has the most tools of any quarterback we've had.

It's been a little erratic the last couple of years with it. Just when you think it's like, oh my God, this guy is the... Here he goes. We're having a Hall of Fame run here. And then he has the second half of the Bengals game. But together, it was a really special thing.

And I really do feel like this is another era now. And I, it seems like you do too, but I think we both maybe like the upside more now. Yeah. It's a different, it's a different era. And I don't think it will ever be so big three dependent.

I think it will be more valuable. Bring back that word that you used previous, right? I think that the chiefs saw this year that they invested so hard into the offense built around Mahomes, Kelsey, and Hill, and how that had to work that they felt the cost of it was a little bit too great. And they said, listen, we're going to have Mahomes for 10 plus years.

Let's build with long-term flexibility in mind. Let's build with both malleability in the cap and who we have in here and how we pay our money and also malleability in our offense. So that when we do get teams that are just lining up too high for for the entire game the chiefs who are the excuse me the bangles we're just dropping eight into coverage right only rushing three all game right we can actually run the football we can actually punish them the way that like football has historically punished defenses like this we don't have to reinvent the wheel and like push everybody into the spread era you know like just bang our head against that wall constantly, we can build with some malleability.

And so I think I believe that the Chiefs offense has a good chance over the next two or three years to be as good as the Hill-Kelsey-Mahomes offense was. But I don't think it'll be because of the stars. I think it'll be because of the sector guys and because of the flexibility, right? Because of the coaching and kind of that process. So I don't think it'll ever be as big three as it was. And that's why I think we'll look back at this era with, with fondness for a long time. So it was, it was fun football on the field, man. Well, it also struck it, you know, the rookie QB contract, which is the number one

thing you can have. Yeah. I look at what happened with this and with Devante Adams can't be on the same team with Rogers. Cause it's just too much money combined. And it almost like with the way I look at what happened with this and with Devontae Adams can't be on the same team with Rogers. Cause it's just too much money combined. And it almost like with the way the cap works with the way the receiver money has gone up, it almost seems impossible to have the really expensive QB, the really expensive receiver,

and also the ability to have five guys who can block for the really expensive QB. It's like something has to give at one point. So you go to Vegas, they can pay Adams because they have Carr on this awesome contract. You have the Dolphins, they can pay Tyrico because they have a rookie contract QB. Who, by the way, that's the funniest piece of this is they have this incredible deep threat. And QB, who literally can't complete long passes to anybody. I really want to see any of that. It's going to be very bad. We can talk about the Miami piece. Actually, let's take a break and we'll talk about the Miami piece quick.

The Miami piece of this. I'm not against it because we talked about when you have the rookie contract QB, if you think too, is the guy, why not splurge on one big offensive player? You have Waddle on a rookie contract. You have Tua on a rookie contract. Like why not? Um, I just don't think Tua is a successful starting quarterback. I don't see it. I think you have to use gimmicks just to get him to succeed. I think the fact that their offense, it was so hard for them to go down the field and they really needed, you know, all kinds of gimmicks and all kinds of weird shit just to get a first down on

a third and nine. Yeah. I, in a weird way, I already feel bad for Tyreek. He's going from my homes, one of the most gifted quarterbacks of all time, to Tua, who I think this could be his last year as a starting quarterback.

Honestly, if you gave me FanDuel odds, will Tua start again after this year for anyone? Minus 200? Minus 150? I don't know. I really think that this could be it. So what was your take on the Miami piece of this? So I like it for Miami

because I think that it gives you incontrovertible proof by the end of the 2022 season if Tua is or isn't the guy, right? And that's the thing is, you just got Teron Armstead in the building. You got Tyreek Hill in the building. You kept Mike Kosicki, Chase Edmonds, Raheem Mostar, whatever.

They have the bodies that should make this offense work. And Mike McDaniel will know, having seen it for the last five years, if this is a Jimmy situation or not. Is this a, all right, it's working because the quarterback's not killing us, but it's not like it's working because he's doing anything else. It's just because he's getting out of the way. He'll be able to recognize what that looks like. And I think that Tua ran a very RPO-heavy offense,

very quick game-heavy offense at Alabama. He was so successful. He had four first-round receivers. He had three first-round linemen. And it's like, all right, he was a point guard there. He's been a point guard in the league. And it's really, really hard to win a lot of games and playoff games with a point guard.

So you sit there with Miami. And remember, they got two first-round picks in 2023. They have their pick and the Niners pick. So they already have extra ammo for next year's draft. Not this upcoming, next year's. You get one year or two of it with Teddy Bridgewater sitting right there waiting in the rings. Ever so good at winning four games, Teddy Bridgewater.

The epitome of the point guard quarterback. You say, okay, you got 16 games to us, 17 games. Show us you have something more than that and we'll keep you around. If not, Miami is so well positioned to look at the entire 2023 quarterback landscape, whether it's draft or free agency

and trades, because quarterbacks are moving like crazy nowadays. And say, alright, whoever the best one is, we're going to show him this offense, these weapons. Jalen Waddell, Tua, Jerron Smith, Tyreek, whoever you want. Come on out of Miami. Very nice weather.

Lovely tax situation. Come win yourself a championship. So I think they get to look at Tua and also build the bed for the next guy in the event that Tua isn't there. The funniest thing about this trade, if the Dolphins had taken Herbert over Tua, Oh, brother.

is there a chance in hell the Chiefs trade Tyreek Hill to the Dolphins with Herbert? I would say there's a 0% chance. Yeah, because the Dolphins have like the third best odds for the Super Bowl in the AFC. You know what I mean? It's unreal.

The thing about that that's crazy, though, is if Herbert is in Miami, is Brian Flores fired? Because Flores got fired for a lot so a lot besides on field success that that Flores got fired for but if Miami has Herbert they probably made the playoffs in each of the last two seasons as opposed to barely missing out and in that case it's a lot harder as an owner to fire head coach even if you hate him and whatever happened with Ross Flores so it a little bit cuts both ways. But man, that's the thing is, if the Chargers were not in the Chiefs division,

the Chargers would have traded anything the Chiefs wanted to get Tyreek to LA because the biggest missing piece right now for the Chargers is a field stretcher. And the best one was on the market. He just happened to be in their division. Well, it's funny that the AFC West has somehow become even more confusing. I was confused already. And you would have thought the Chiefs pedigree can't go against it. Who knows now?

It could be one of those things where there are a lot of moving pieces. Some of them might work out, some of them not. That people are talking about, oh, they'll definitely take a receiver in the first or second round. That's always hit or miss. Andy's getting old.

I still feel like we need to have at least a little bit of a reckoning of how bad that Bengals loss was. I mean, it was honestly one of the worst playoff football losses of the last 10 years. And like, why did that happen? What happened to Mahomes?

What happened to Andy Reid? Like, should we be worried long-term about him? That failed first half scoring attempt, where they came in with no points. I think just like, that is a, you know, butterflies wings halfway around the world, right? Where it just, they came

out after that, and they just seemed so bad on offense, right? Like, it was just going into the locker room with that, whatever it was. The Bengals coming back out and just saying we're never going to blitz this guy for the rest of the game. Mahomes was pushing. He looked like he didn't week five. It was discombobulation. It's the best word for that offense.

What about at the end of the fourth quarter when deranged Romo was talking about should the Bengals let them score? And it's like, what are you talking about? The Chiefs have had 100 plays inside the 10. And then they start, what are you talking about? The Chiefs have had a hundred plays inside the 10. And then they start going backwards.

Jim, they're going backwards. Jim. And they start going backwards to the point that Bucker has to actually attempt a semi-hard field goal kick. Like there is some

actual pressure on it. But they started out on like the five-yard line. I don't know what to make of the Chiefs. I was looking at the four. You know, I think like teams, and I've talked about this before, in the NFL because of the cap,

you're going to have a four-year run or a five-year run. That's about the best you can do. And then you've got a retool, rehaul. The Pats have been the best example of they would have these kind of eras and move into the next era, right? They would have the 01 to 05, and they kind of shifted to the next one, the Moss era.

Then they were able to shift again from 14 to 18. They had the best version of this. 2014, 18, three Super Bowl wins, one Super Bowl loss, one conference finals. But you look, the rest of the list is like 2012, 15, Denver, the four remaining years. 2012 to 15, Seattle, one Super Bowl, one Super Bowl loss, always in the hunt, 11 to 14 Ravens, one Superbowl, two conference finals, 0104 Eagles, sorry, four straight conference, 0104 Pats, three Superbowls. And then this KC team, which was four years. So if you're just looking at the, the law of the salary cap era NFL, it's like four years. Maybe you can stretch it to five, but now you got to really reconfigure who you are

and who you're building around. The most successful thing you can do is build around an awesome QB. That works. We know that works. We also know that it doesn't work when you're spending so much money on all the pieces for them that suddenly you can't block for them. Suddenly your defense can't stop anybody. So it's that calibration of how to make it work. And it feels like they recognize that, right? Yeah. You saying that made me feel like it's

not like better about the trade, but more impressed that the Chiefs made it and were willing to make that Tyreek Hill sacrifice, assuming those long-term gains to be made. I think it's really hard for any other team with any other quarterback right now to sit down and say, let's plan to be contending for the next 10 to 15 years. Like let's plan to have like the quarterback who could do that. But the chiefs can, the chiefs can say, all right, our floor is so high because 15 is playing quarterback and we can really

make some short-term sacrifices. Like there's no doubt that trading Tyree kill makes your team worse right now. He's a good player. You just lost him. He was great. He's not there anymore, but long-term it ushers in a second era. That may be right. You hit on a couple of these picks, you hit on some, you know, the rookie contract guys, you're starting left tackle for four years because they haven't extended Orlando Brown. So they probably still want to improve that position.

You go and get an edge rusher. So you can finally actually get after the quarterback. You can move off of Frank Clark. And all of a sudden those guys are cheap. You got some guys on rookie deals dominating and boom, it's another four year window. And you know what? There's going to be another one afterward because you expect 15 to be as

good as he was. And that's the right. I think that lesson to be learned from the Brady Belichick era of dominance, that you can dominate, you can be the, the Brady-Belichick era of dominance. That you can dominate. You can be the dynasty for 10, 15 years. So long as you're willing to take one step back and take two steps forward every so often,

that lesson is huge for the Chiefs. And if this is a sign that they've learned it, it's really good news, I think, for long-term Chiefs defining this era of football. Well, I mentioned Belichick earlier in the pod. There was a moment after the 05, so they win the three Super Bowls, they lose in the playoffs the next year to Jake Plummer,

which all the Patriots fans have agreed never to talk about again. And the next year they have the Dion Branch. They have to pay him. He's Brady's best receiver. You got to do it. And Belichick was like, eh, and ends up trading him for a first round pick to Seattle. We all go nuts. We almost win the Superbowl or make the Superbowl that year with Rashay Caldwell and Jabbar Gaffney.

The other one that he did, he traded Richard Seymour when it was time a little bit later in the decade, when it was time to pay Richard Seymour, who's a hall of famer now and traded him in the peak of his, of his, of his prime for a first round pick from the Raiders, which turned out to be Mayo. But over and over again, I think Belichick was very conscious of we've, we've got to constantly recalibrate this, even if we're kind of weakening our chances this year, it's still a four-year, five-year run still has to be the move all the time. When you have the quarterback, you can get out

a year or two before a guy's prime actually expires and be okay. As opposed to, if you were building around Stafford right now with the Rams, you'd be willing to super overpay Cooper Cup, five-year extension, assuming you only get three years of his prime. Because you just have three years of Stafford. Stafford's back's not you'd be willing to like super overpay Cooper cup five year extension. Assuming you only get like three years of his prime because you just have three years of Stafford,

right? Like Stafford's back. It's not great. He's in his thirties. We just got to do it right now, right now, right now, right now.

That's why there's that four or five year cutoff on that, that contending window, right. To actually go win a couple of super bowls with my homes. You say, all right, mom's going to be good. Two years,

four years, six years, nine years from now. So Tyreek's 28. And if we think his prime is going to hit good. Two years from now, four years from now, six years from now, eight years from now. So Tyreek's 28. And if we think his prime's going to end, then he's 30. The cliff's going to come for him. He's had some hamstring issues. He's a quick twitch player.

So once your hamstrings go, you're really in trouble. We'd give you a three-year deal. And Hill's like, nope, I want the big extension. I want the big money. All right, let's trade him. And if we were about right and we traded him, he's got two years of his prime left. Yeah, those two years are going to suck.

But we're sure not going to remember him when Mahomes is still really good six years from now. And we had money, we had cap space to rebuild this team. And so when you know you have the quarterback and you have him not just for three years, but for eight plus years,

that's the Chiefs are dealing with like 10 plus years of Mahomes. You can get out early on a guy's prime and protect your cap and protect your long-term outlook because you know you have the guy. There's a piece to this that I did not do research on. Maybe it'll be a Ben Solak story for the ringer at some point. Hey, hey.

When receivers switch teams, it's not like the NBA. I remember this going badly as much as it goes well. Like there's been good ones, right? Moss comes to the Patriots. That was awesome. Well, right before that, Moss went to the Raiders. Not as awesome. We had Terrell Owens goes to Philly.

That was awesome. We've also had a bunch of guys switch teams and it's just not as awesome. And I think it's harder than you think for a receiver to just switch teams, quarterbacks, offenses, the whole thing. I think we have in our heads, cause we think like it's fantasy football at all times. And it's like, oh, this guy's going to go here. It'll go great. I think the same thing with, you know, I think Devante Adams is probably, I think a safer bet to succeed just because of how he's used.

He'll, you know, part of what makes him great is how he's used and can his quarterback get on the ball when he's open. We've never seen him play with a quarterback who wasn't fucking awesome. So I just feel like this is more volatile. I remember like way, way back when the Cowboys traded for Alvin Harper, everyone's like, Oh my God, they're going to have Alvin Harper, Michael Irvin, oh my Jesus. And it was, he was okay, but he wasn't like, I think as incredible as everybody expected. And even Amari Cooper recently, he was good on the Cowboys, but I think people thought they were getting like this top five receiver and by what year three, they wanted him out. So what do you think about receivers switching teams?

No, that's exactly correct. I was thinking about Cooper when you were talking about you can't play the quarterback and the line and the receiver earlier because Cooper is another one of these star top eight receivers who you have to see in this offseason. It is extremely difficult for a receiver who we view as a top five guy. And I'm going to say top five specifically to change view as like a top five guy and i'm going to say top five specifically to change teams and stay a top five guy and that's because five to twenty is

still so good receiver is not a top heavy position right uh who's the best we talked about this devante adams who's the best receiver in the league devante probably cooper cup just like triple crowns cooper was the offensive player of the year. We're still like, it's probably Devontae. It's so easy to get like a one-year spike of production. Get like a 10-game crazy stretch of production, right? And because it's that easy, because the ball gets thrown so much

and there's so many different body types that work at receiver, so many different play styles and different styles of passing offenses, that when you peak, it's really rare to not fall off. It's very hard to plateau and stay up there just because there are so many other good receivers in so many other good passing offenses. Like one of the most productive receivers in the league is Justin Jefferson,

who was outside of the top 20 picks. A rookie is quarterback is Kirk cousins, man. Like that's not the environment to be like this crazy good receiver, but he is because it's just easy. It's just easy to have these really big spikes of productive, highly efficient, highly explosive receiver play. And so when you're trading for a guy, because he's top five, you got to understand his talent can stay exactly the same,

but it's really hard to be one of the only, the five only dudes in the top five because five to 20 is also loaded at the receiver position. So because it's not top heavy, absolutely. When you're trading for a top guy, you're probably still going to get that level of talent. That level of production is a different matter entirely. Well, it's the Larry Fitzgerald corollary, right? Larry Fitzgerald, when he's playing with Carson Palmer

near the tail end of Carson Palmer's prime, looks awesome. When he's with Kurt Warner, same thing. But put him with, remember some of the dudes that they were trotting out there for a couple of years? Drew Stanton. Kevin Cobb. Kevin Cobb, ex-Eagle Gray. Just year after year.

And then it kind of became hashtag save Larry Fitzgerald. It just got grim. And guess who wasn't a top five receiver anymore? Larry Fitzgerald, because nobody could get him the ball. And I do wonder, I mean, I think this is so much fun. John Jastrzemski, huge Dolphins fan, who somehow hosts our New York, New York Pop, but he's a huge Dolphins fan.

He was also on the Ringer Gambling Show. And he's all fired up, but I don't blame him because it's like I have Tyreek Hill on my team. Plus the way they used Waddle with all these little bubble screens and quick ones and little quick outs. And you know, you could, you could build an offense. That's just weird enough that it would be a real bitch to play. And if you catch them on the right week, it's like, my God, the Dolphins scored 52 points and they had 220 yards after the catch. And yeah, I see that world, but I still,

I still feel like quarterbacks. This is my controversial take quarterbacks matter. Yeah. Quarterbacks matter. Bad quarterbacks matter. Kind of crappy quarterbacks matter. And I just, I do not believe into a,

I do not. No, I don't either. And I think that the dolphins have, I think the best thing to say is that the dolphins have positioned themselves to be the most attractive landing spot for a very good quarterback in either. And I think that the Dolphins have... I think the best thing to say is that the Dolphins have positioned themselves to be the most attractive landing spot for a very good quarterback in 2023.

And if that quarterback ends up being like Tua's second contract, they were great in 2022, sick, all the more power to you. I just, I don't think it'll be that guy. Any draft QBs that you fell in love with before we go? For this year? Yeah.

Oh, heck. No, it's not a good quarterback class. It's somewhere between 2013 when E.J. Manuel went 16 overall. Oh, God. And we have to remember, and Steven Ruiz has been bothering me about this, the 2017 class when

we called it bad, like Mitchell Trubisky, Patrick Walms, and Deshaun Watson was a bad quarterback class pre-draft. Then three of them went top 15 and teams were risking it for these toolsy guys. You have a really toolsy guy, Malik Willis, out of Liberty. He could be a tremendously impressive player. It's just going to take time. You have another

like you have more, again, toolsy dudes, but they're a little bit more polished. Desmond Reddard, Cincinnati, Matt Crowell at Ole Miss could be something. Maybe take him first round. But right now, Book set the line for first-round quarterbacks. Most of them have 3.5 with heavy juice on the under. I have seen it at 2.5 recently.

So we're looking at maybe three quarterbacks going first round, which we're used to over the last five years. Three dudes going to the top 15. That's not happening this year. So not a great class. You're going to get a Derek Carr or a Ryan Tannehill, and you'd feel good about that out of some of these guys.

Jesus. I forget. I think Danny Kelly was selling me on Desmond Ritter. Somebody was, and I did the research after maybe it was Heifetz. He does check a lot of my boxes. I wouldn't be surprised if he went first round. He seems like one of those,

when he meets the coaches, they're super impressed after. He is an a-hole, Des Rutter is, in the best possible way. Great charisma. He's the son of a gun. I'm kind of in on him, so I'm monitoring him. Right now we have the Chiefs, as you said, stayed at plus 950. I don't see a lot of value yet.

The Colts at 24-1, they dropped with Matt Ryan, but watching Matt Ryan the last couple of years, I just don't think you're winning the Superbowl with him. You won't, you won't catch me believing in the Colts. I refuse. Dolphins 36 to one, your Eagles are 40 to one.

I mean, I do feel like the draft is going to impact some of this, but the one that was surprising to me was the Steelers at 70 to one. Because I do feel like if they got a quarterback, if they just were able to get lucky, they have a chance to win that division. Like, why not? It's a tough division.

They'd have to get Malik and you'd have to be good in year one, which I'm not sold about. They love Malik Willis. Mike Tomlin is not even trying at this point. Mike's just walking around. Everybody in their mama knows Mike Tomlin loves Malik Willis. It's been a good time. So if they're trading up and getting into the early teens to go get him, sure. But right now, you see Malik Willis is minus 250 to be the first quarterback off the board. They'd have to make a big, big, big trade up in the first round to go

get him. And they really don't do that. They did it for Devin Bush two years ago, three years ago, which was super weird and did not work for them. Other than that, the Steelers typically don't make those big trade-ups, but also they haven't needed a quarterback in 18 years. So we don't actually know what they

really do. The last two, they needed a quarterback. They haven't gone to draft a quarterback in the last 18 years, right? So they're there. I still think the Chargers are valued at $1, yeah. The last two, they needed a quarterback. They haven't gone to draft a quarterback in the last 18 years, right? So they're there. I still think the Chargers are valued at $1,500. I'm ready to be dumb with the Chargers again. I think the Niners are valued at $1,500. I'm not doing it.

I'm not going near Brandon Staley. I'm sorry. He's learning. He's learning. On the job. We're going to be all right. Malik Willis, minus $200 on Fando right now. And as you said, the

over-under, the over is three and a half, which is plus 146. That seems a little risky. I find it hard to believe four quarterbacks are going to go in on the first round. I don't think so. I know that it opened

with a little bit of juice. I think I should get minus 125 for under three and a half quarterbacks. I'm sure it's with like a little bit of juice. Like I think I should get it like minus one 25 for under three and a half quarterbacks. I'm sure it's more now. Um, it also, it is pro day, pro day circuit time, right? We did like literally back to back. I'm gonna think wills pro day, the background, bro. And it doesn't read a pro day. So all of a sudden you're seeing corral around one mock draft. So he hasn't been there in like six months. It's because of protein thing.

So there is a window to hit under on the quarterbacks. It'd be right now, because this is when they're when they're getting the most, you know, kind of hype, couple tweets, you know, throwing the ball real far, all the good stuff. Great firm handshake. Yeah, I love it. Where does Baker Mayfield end up? Is he a starter next year?

He went from a bunch of progressive insurance commercials to he can't. I think we've actually swung too far the other way because he was the most hurt quarterback I watched last year. It's not, this guy came, you know, they, they were in the ballpark and beating the chiefs of the AFC title game two years ago. And then he was completely hurt last year. I'm not a huge fan, but this seems silly. I'm in the exact same boat where it's us. And I know I've lost three with Baker Mayfield, but the best Baker we've seen over the course of his career, college and pro, is pissed off Baker. And this is pissed off Baker. This guy hates doubters. And for the last two years, he hasn't actually had any. He's had to make them up in the

Cleveland media, even though generally, they've just been honest with him. Now, the mistreatment with all the Browns, whatever, and sending the letter early and yada yada, all that nonsense. He seems really pissed and this Baker has been good Baker. I think, Oh brother, I think he ends up in Seattle. I would guess right now. I don't mind it. I don't. And by the way, if I'm Seattle, I want to pick. Yeah. I'll take Baker,

but you also give me a third round and we'll give you a fifth round or something like that because I'm doing you a favor getting him off Cleveland made the Watson trade and they're stuck with the Mayfield contract so why was anybody doing them a favor and taking the contract it's so funny because at first I forgot the Browns still have to trade Mayfield

it's like Mayfield is working out with like Danny Amendola this week like he's working out with free agent receivers across the country, which is what you do when you don't have a team. He's on a team right now. And so it is weird. But I think that, yeah,

if you can put Cleveland, put the screws to them and get them to give you something to take Baker, why not? It's another swing at the plate of maybe a quarterback working for you. And it kind of depends on how the draft goes. You have Carolina at six,

the Falcons at eight, and goes. You have Carolina at six, the Falcons at eight, and the Seahawks at nine, if memory serves correctly. And whoever doesn't get the guy they wanted out of that group, and obviously you've got the Steelers as a wildcard

trading up, Washington as a wildcard trading up, that team would be well served to just bring in Baker and kind of see what it looks like for a year. There's no risk,

no harm, no foul. And if he hits for you and he's a functional starter, it's just a little bit of flexibility over your two, three or team horizon. I mean, is he better than Davis Mills? Probably. I kind of like Davis Mills,

but think of some of the guys who are going to be started next year. Is he better than Daniel Jones? Is he better than Drew Locke? Come on. Daniel Jones is a tricky one. The fumbler? Yes. But when he's not fumbling,

he's pretty good. Kyle. Yeah. Kyle, don't turn the camera on. Please don't turn the camera on. Leave the camera off. I do. There's a 1% chance that worries me

about the Pats trading for Mayfield. Whoa. Why? I have no inside information at all. Because that draft, Belichick tried to trade up to get Baker Mayfield.

I forgot about this. I forgot about this rumor. He fucking loved Baker Mayfield. Like, loved him. Oh, man. So, I'm just wondering if it gets to the point where he's just sitting there

and we know Belichick, Kyle, don't turn the camera. Keep the fucking camera off. If he looks at this and goes, my God, this guy I loved four years ago who went to the AFC title game and then last year was hurt the whole year. Keep the camera off. Had a broken shoulder, basically.

And now is this distressed asset. And we could just swoop in and get them. I'm doing that. I am worried. I don't want them to do this. For content sake, I would love that. That'd be incredible. Especially with Baker and Mack being so... Not only so different how they play, but such different

people in general. The comparisons would be absurd. You know who else loves Baker Mayfield, though? It's John Dorsey. And he's in the Detroit Lions front office right now. And that kind of makes sense for Detroit. You know, bring me your bad, failed West Coast play action offense quarterbacks, and I will make them right

and also not have to spend any money on quarterback while I'm rebuilding this roster. Detroit makes sense, too. He should go to Seattle. Yeah. I think that makes the most sense for him and them. We both have a lot of Seattle people in our life and it would be hilarious.

Yes. I repeat, hilarious to watch themselves talk themselves into Baker Mayfield. I keep on... Over the course of a couple days. Anytime we mention Baker on the draft pod, I'm always like, Danny, future Seahawks quarterback.

All right. Baker Mayfield for the Seahawks. Baker, Drew Locke, camp battle. It's like Matt Flynn versus Russell Wilson. It's the exact same thing. Do you think Danny has gone on Pro Football Reference

and studied the 2020 Baker Mayfield game log and looked at some of the wins and tried to talk himself into it a little bit? I bet he has. He's been busy. Calvin's in the terrible twos right now.

He seems pretty tired. So I don't think so. But I think he will with the swiftness. I think it's a very easy argument to make for yourself once your team does trade for Baker Mayfield. All right, Ben Solak, you can read his take on the Tyreek Hill trade

on the ringer and you can hear him on the ringer draft show. And you're coming back here. I know you and Sharp are going to do some draft bets, but I want you guys to come on here and we're just going to go all out like a week before and really like go all in once and for all and do like a five-hour draft show with like 130 bets.

Let's tell the books to get some freaking over-unders on the market. I know. Thank you. It's been a light year. Listen, I know we hammered them last year, but I don't think we got them so badly, which we're going to post them this year. This is very disappointing.

The books do not want us to bet the Oscars or the NFL draft or the NBA draft. They just want to steer us away from the most fun bets, but we'll work on them. All right, Ben, good to see you. Thanks, Bill. All right, you know I'm from TheRinger.com.

You know I'm from This Is Bus. Tay Conner, Tyler Parker is here. We are going to talk about OKC and Jimmy Butler and then the Tyler Awards for the 2022 NBA season. I want to start with Jimmy Butler because it's fresh. Priscilla led his podcast with it today. Did a whole thing about how Butler has burned his bridge in every city he's been in.

I was so fascinated. It's been a while with the NBA. I mean, the Artest Melee is obviously the peak. That's the granddaddy. That's the 10 out of 10 of just re-watching the same thing over and over again, noticing new things each time. I watched the multiple angles, thank God for Twitter, of the Jimmy Butler thing blowing up.

And each time I would become fascinated by something else. One time I was watching just Karan Butler, who's just not moving for 40 seconds, who's just so unimpressed by any sort of animosity. It's amazing how just undisturbed he sort of is at that point.

It's almost like he's looking at, that he saw like, did someone, like someone knocked on his door and he came outside to look and it's like oh there's no one there he's like he's like he lied at the jack of the box waiting waiting for his order just as the whole team is busting around him then you had duncan robinson who i felt like looked like the almost famous drummer during the plane crash scene where he he's like, oh man, can't we just get, can we just get some food and all get along? And just has this kind of panicked look on his face.

He wants no part of it. Spoh's faces. Oh my God, Spoh. Who knew? Who knew he had it in him? Spoh, like he was doing the thing, especially once he got up. Like at first, you know, you could tell he's like, he couldn't even believe it was happening to him yeah he had the are you fucking kidding me look

it was like a it was like is so is this actually what's about to happen is what's happening the thing that is this going to continue to happen to me what's happening right now is this gonna is this actually happening i'm gonna fight my player he had that spot to him and then once he got up he because he got up to go to go you, talk to him some more after it. And that's when he came with the unbelievable, unbelievably graceful, very accurate, perfect touch with the clipboard going down. Really nice. Made a sound even on the, on the audio. And didn't have to, and didn't have to get aggressive with it. Really? Like there was obviously aggression behind it, but he could have, he could have been reckless with it and broke the clipboard.

And that clipboard is fine today. That clipboard, use that again today. It's probable for today. It's game. Absolutely. The scatters, the papers scattered in multiple directions,

which is, I think what you want in that scenario, if you're Spoh, you want, you know, a little bit of an explosion there, but you don't have, you know, we had the PJ Tucker

kind of triple take look away like, oh my god, is my teammate and coach about to have a fight in the huddle? It took me a little bit to see it on, and I forget which it might be, I think it's the behind the bench angle. It was like the first

angle that came out. not the Warriors broadcast angle, but the behind the one with the laughing emojis or whatever it's, you can see at a certain point when Haslam is like fully, fully in it, you know, you can see, I think it's Caleb Martin is the Martin brother that's on the heat. You can see, I think it's Caleb Martin is the Martin brother that's on the heat. You can see him. He does like the get back coach in college football move where he grabs him by the waist. And you can tell he's like, I, he feels he has to do it.

He can't not do it like because of what's about to happen, but he does not want to be grabbing Aslam's. No, he does not. You know? Yeah. And I think Haslam is, can go from zero to 10, it seems like, faster than maybe anybody.

And he, this is one of the reasons you have Haslam on the bench. There was a clear violation. The player crossed some sort of line and Haslam's immediately. I love the pointing to the,

the pointing to the runway is one of my favorites too. That's, it's great. Like, I don't feel like if you and I are in an altercation, we're not pointing to, runway is one of my favorites too. It's great. I don't feel like if you and I are in an altercation, we're not pointing to, let's go underneath where we could just settle this

and only one of us is going to come out of the runway. Hasm just went there immediately. We'll go over there. It's a great nonverbal shorthand. You know what it means? And it's good for NBA fights because a lot of times they're getting pulled away from each other or whatever and so you don't have to be able to speak loud enough to where the guy can hear you you just body language it right he body language

it and the other one who body language it was spo i'm trying to remember so this is like a random altercation that all told me nothing other than the heat fans are going to get super upset because everyone's been making heat culture jokes for the last 18 hours. The, the spoke, everything about it was so impressive. It was pretty unbelievable. It's,

he was already one of my favorite coaches. I got, when I was doing the finals for two years, we got, we would interview him before the games. He was just cool, you know, because the announcers get to go so we can do our whole thing where we go.

Well, when we talked to Spoh after the game, we did that with him once or twice. Um, but then hung out with him at the ESPYs one year. And it's just like the greatest guy. He's like beloved at NBA circles. All the other coaches love him.

He went through a whole bunch of shit with those LeBron teams where LeBron, LeBron was ready to fire him or get him fired after the second year. Yeah, they bumped into him, right? Yeah, there was some stuff, but he handled it perfectly. And then this one, like, checked every box. Like, when he stands up, Butler stands up, and Spoh stands up, and it's like he's kind of getting in between him and Haslam, but he's also kind of like, I'm fucking right here, dude.

If you, you know, there was a physicality to it that I enjoyed. There's a, there's a, when he, when he does, you know, they've gone, the players have gone away from the bench and he has come back around and there he's thrown the,

he's thrown the clipboard and he's still so fired up, but there's still that thing in his head that's like, I'm in public and a lot of people are watching this. I can't, I can't go ballistic. And so it looks like he's trying to like, you know,

like hold in like he's like, he's constipated or something like he's so upset. There's so much rage there, but he doesn't want to step over into like, he can't, he doesn't want to go into Haslam territory. Right. And then Butler who reigned himself in,

it seemed like a little bit, because if he had escalated at all, it would have been a situation. I was at the game when Durant and Draymond went each other. And I actually have a cell phone video of it. Cause I started taping it at one point. Were you right behind the bench? I was behind the bench closer to the Clipper side, but I was watching it because I saw them

get mad at each other as they were walking up the court. So I kind of followed them and everybody else that was about to go to overtime. But I was like, Oh, like I could just see it. And then by all of a sudden people are standing and boogie cousins is involved. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm filming it with my phone. These things are great. Ultimately, we love to do the thing after the fact where people are like, it means nothing. This is what happens on the court. I'm a proponent of that 97% of the time, but sometimes it does mean something. It meant something that night with Durant and Draymond and everybody was like, it's fine. It was like, it did not seem fine. It seemed like it had crossed the line. And I wonder with the heat, like, did this cross the

line or not? I guess we're going to find out. Yeah, I don't know. And it might, I mean, you know, like a Butler seems to be pretty, uh, you know, comfortable with conflict, like whatever it, it, it, I, I, I'm just generally with you that usually it is just like heat of the moment. Like, okay, like we can, we're all professionals. We can move on from this. It's no big. It was funny to watch.

My favorite things in those sorts of situations are when they involve people or when, you know, when, when the people that aren't involved get asked about it. And so Kyle Lowry has to go get asked about it and so kyle lowry has to go get asked about all of this right last night and he doesn't even want to look up while he's talking because why would he this is a miserable experience for him to try to yeah talk his you know sort of act like this is no big deal and he said he was like it's nothing and you know just want to be like well it's not nothing it's probably like it probably won't ultimately like you know, just when I was like, well, it's not nothing. It's probably like, it probably won't ultimately like, you know, they'll be how successful they're going to be,

you know, regardless whether that fight happens or not, maybe who knows, but it's not nothing. Well, I look at it like when you're at a basketball game, it's like being in a giant restaurant. And if I'm at a restaurant and three tables down, people start screaming at each other and stand up and somebody's pointing to beat them outside and they throw the menu down. We'd all be in the restaurant like, oh my God, what's going to happen? Is there going to be a fight? Yeah. Well, and if you go home, if you like weren't with it, like if I wasn't with my wife and I went home and that had happened at the restaurant and she was like, Hey, how was dinner? What happened? And I said nothing. That would not be my answer. So then the other outcome, once people are digesting us on Twitter and trying to find

out more, it was one of the rare fun Twitter days. I think Twitter is the seventh circle of hell, but in this case, it was kind of fun. It was kind of trying to find out if there were more video angles, all that stuff. And then, then there was this narrative after, mostly driven by the Miami fans who were like,

oh, at least we finally got people talking about us. They do that thing. It's like, we've been talking about it the whole year. The Riggers written multiple stories. KFC's done videos about Tyler Hero.

We've talked about Bam on this. I mean, weFC's done videos about Tyler Hero. We've talked about Bam on this. I mean, we've talked about the Heat a bunch. Everybody who knows anything about basketball is like, yeah, don't want to play those guys in a playoff series. Just wonder if they're going to be healthy. Basketball people for a while were saying that they were the best team in the

East. We're talking about them. The one thing that's happened this year is that there's been too much LeBron talk, but because it's LeBron, but it just seems like every Laker game is covered like it's this massive event and they're 10 games under 500.

It's like LeBron scored 38 against the OKC Thunder. We gotta talk about the OKC Thunder quick and then we'll do the awards. Okay. So you're a diehard OKC fan You're Poku's Last Believer That's your new book actually It's called Poku's Last Believer

It's coming out in June You have a really nice backcourt The Giddy thing worked out You must love Giddy I love Giddy Don't get me wrong, would I rather have Evan Mobley? Yeah, but I love Giddy. I'm stoked. I mean, don't get me wrong. Would I rather have Evan Mobley? Yeah, but I love Giddy. Like Giddy's, there's, when we drafted him,

I was terrified because the shooting was so bad and it's proven to not be great. It's not, it's not good yet. He's changing his form after the summer. They've already talked about that, which is good. I think because it looks so weird when he shoots it now, that he's 77%, I think,

on his free throws, which is a good, you know, that's encouraging. I, yeah, I'm choosing to kind of, you know, just- Free throw stat at me. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm going to-

Wow, 77% of his free throws. Break out all sorts of stuff. What I like about it is he teams nicely with SGA. As a combo, they make sense to me together. And now you start thinking about who would be the perfect guy from this draft class. Russell and I talked about it. You put Jabari on this team.

It would be great. But there's this Chet Holmgren wildcard piece. I know you have a Chet opinion. He's become the most polarizing draft prospect in a while. Where do you stand? I like vacillate wildly. There's a part of me that thinks that if we took him, it would be an absolute disaster. And then there is another part of me that's like, no, this guy's a footer that can, you know, bring the ball up the floor and, you know, take threes above the break and all sorts of stuff. And, you know, protect the rim, blah, blah, blah, that sort of thing. Like, I don't I see what people are excited about. I was like, I was a Paolo guy for a long, long time.

And then everybody got going on Javari at the beginning of this year. And I honestly don't know what I haven't, I haven't like, you know, I'll go down my, you know, hopeful deep dive, you know, here soon. But the, I want Shea and Giddy to have a lob threat that can do something with the ball in his hands i want to i want a five that is a threat when he's got it kind of wherever he is and um somebody that can go catch the lobs i I mean, if you give Giddy and Shea a guy like that, I mean, Shea's numbers,

you look at Shea's numbers when he's playing with somebody like Mascala, who just like, he's just a good shooter. He's played so much freer, so much more room to work with. Like, I mean, you know, Giddy's stuff would, but Giddy's, you know, shooting issues would, you know, Giddy's stuff would, but Giddy's, you know, shooting issues would, you know, it wouldn't be as big of a thing if we just got a big that could, you know, do a little bit offensively. Well, it is a good passer. Yeah. So you'd have a couple of guys who could move the ball.

You would have a white guy who's even more awkward than Poco. I think that that takes a lot of pressure on Poco as the token awkward white guy. I mean, that's one of the, I think that's one of the few compliments I've ever heard you give Poco. I think that takes a lot of pressure on Poco as the token awkward white guy. I think that's one of the few compliments I've ever heard you give Poco. He's not quite as awkward as one of the strangest looking prospects in the... How does an awkward

looking kind of unicorny white guy fit in with the OKC kind of fan base, what they're looking for? Could this be a natural fit? I mean, a thousand percent. I would say that we as a fan base,

if you show up and you want to be there and you play hard, like, hey, we will we will we will love you very very much but the chet stuff yeah the chet stuff i have i i because all this all the smart draft people are like this guy's you know this this guy's a could be a monster all that stuff i just yeah i would rather take them at three than one my my my hot take that i that i don't actually believe but like you know maybe in like five years i'll believe it yeah is that i would never draft a white american ever okay we gotta work on that on the hottest day just cross them off the draft boards there's there hasn't been a first team all nba american white dude since i think like the one year mark price was it or something

and i think that's true yeah you're right kevin love was only second team and i think before that i mean i think before that it's bird pretty. There might have been one year where Stockton might have got first team one year, maybe. But that's it. That's ridiculous. When I used to do my MVP column when I was a writer, back when my fingers were... Oh, yeah. I used to hand out... Maybe it was for that or the trade value.

I used to hand out the McKeskey Award, the Paul McKeskey Award for the best white guy each year. I have a Paul McKeskey card. Kevin Love won it four straight years. He was just like cruising, taking it down. Speaking of awards, it's time. The Tyler Awards for the 2022 season.

The only instructions you had for this were the weird and the wacky. The things that you just gravitated to is somebody who loves the underbelly of the NBA, who loves the weird stuff, who enjoys things like Kyle Lowry watching Jimmy Butler and Eric Spolster about to get into an argument.

And he just says, fuck this. And he's out and he walks onto the court. Not even gonna try and intervene. That's the stuff that you love as a basketball fan. Yes. Yeah, your text said, it was NBA characters of the year, your personal MVP ballot

from a character slash comedy slash social media ruckus standpoint. Great. All right. Let's hear it. What do we do when we work in five to one, one to five? Let's go five to one. Let's build some drama. All right. Let's do it. Let's get it. You know, I think that for five, we're going to kick it off with Joel Embiid.

Okay, let's hear it. A lot of these are just specifically for kind of one thing, maybe. Some of them, they've built up a lot of, they've got a picture of the funeral, the guy who goes to the funeral for his number one hater. And he's dressed in all black or whatever. Have you seen that? Yeah. He tweeted that after they traded Simmons. and then when someone asked him about it he said I saw the picture on the internet and thought he was well dressed that was his answer

there was no underlying message in the tweet at all I just like his clothes I thought he looked good that day I would add to that award which I think is the right spot for him. Unbelievable job of reining himself in

about the Ben Simmons thing. He did. As the season went along. You think like every day, the most annoying person in your life, which for him was probably Ben Simmons. Yeah. And reporters are just like,

hey, what's up with this Ben Simmons thing? Yeah. Think about it. Did you see what Ben, and he just never took the bait. I was always impressed. It really is impressive that it wasn't more, because it could have been, I mean, it was open season in a way, I guess, but it it was that it wasn't more because it could have been i mean it was open season in a way i guess but it could have it

could have there could have been a lot yeah it could have been all right number four number four uh are uh i i i i cheated here a little bit and i put the curries i have stephan i used to hear it for um the married couple i like it and and you, specifically just because of the beat the Currys game during the about last night promo that happened in between the three point contest and the dunk contest. They got food. If you know, if I don't, I don't know why that doesn't happen every year. That should probably replace the dunk contest at this point is just that they should bring they should bring two chains and she laughs back every year bring stephanie ready back every year um i've never yeah i i so you'd rather have that than three ball i i mean based off of

this year i'd rather have that than the dunk contest at this point but i I don't... No, I mean, Steph should be in the actual MVP discussion way more just based on the strength of that segment alone, I think. It was just... It's fair. It should get factored in. Three-point shooting and the win-loss record when he's not playing and stuff like that. And that. Whoever the stylist

was there was sort of like the Utah chic vibe there that steph and aisha had i was a big fan of that all right number three number three let's go with uh and it was it's just i mean i've been happy with this with the renaissance just period like i know a lot of people have but when uh boogie and james harden got into it the other night. And Boogie's response to Harden getting in his face was just to start laughing at him. And then until that, you know, until just it ended, that was sometimes you see NBA guys do that. And you can tell they're doing that because they think like, oh, this will be a cool thing to do.

Like they're like processing the situation and how they look in their head and everything. And Boogie is just, he's just like, I can't believe that you're trying to act like you're, I mean, there's that, there's that picture that was going around on Twitter at the beginning of last year before Harden finally, you know, ate his way out of Houston with Boogie during warmups, like whenever Harden had been away from the team or whatever, during one of the first, you know, I don't know if it was a preseason game or whatever, Boogie's pointing at him, and you can see in the picture that Boogie's telling him something that he's displeased,

and Harden is not into it. It's not a great relationship matchup. Not a lot of overlap on the Venn diagram of those two personalities. No, no. I think that the Gottman method probably wouldn't work for them very well with... I'm with you, though. There's two versions of the I'm laughing at you

and the one is the I've actually made a cocky decision to do the I'm laughing at you. And the other one is the I'm genuinely laughing at you. Right. And that's what he managed to pull off there which was really special some of it's the whole I'm not

I'm not mad I'm just I'm actually laughing this is actually funny to me at this point when it's actually like no dude it's not everyone in the world is making fun of you right now it's not funny to you at this point you're hating this that was sort of the I love seeing boogie just being boogie again you know like that's yeah it's fun to see it's fun to

see him with the swagger which is just not earned at all at this point of his career but it's fine all right number two on your list um number two on my list is harden yeah i mean wow what a what a performance for him on the list. He makes it two out of the five times. Great job. Three different appearances. And I wasn't sure if it was necessary, but he did a presser in Philly. And I wrote this because I wanted to get it right.

He did a presser in Philly where basically he said that last year he didn't have the option to pick his landing spot. And he said, I wish it worked like that. An organization has to do what's best for their team. It didn't work like that. I had to go to Brooklyn. And there's... It's honestly an insane quote. It's insane. It's like there are source quotes from him saying, get me to Brooklyn and stuff like it. I just love the, you know, like at one point I remember Mello saying that he didn't actually ask out of Denver. Like, I want to move into it. It seems like and it seems like we're getting there.

We're just like, you know, truth is is pretty much just relative. And it's just sort of like everybody just gets to say what actually happened. I think that that's a really exciting time. You know who's the master of this is LeBron. Well, he's not a scorer. Nobody says he's not a scorer. Go back to 2014 when he goes to Cleveland and it's all about it's time for me to come back home

and finish my career and all this stuff. He's there four years. He's out. He went to LA. But he has a lot of stuff that you can contradict because he's been around for 20 years and he's given 10 million press conferences and he's probably like me. He can't remember what he said half the time.

Sure, sure. He's like, oh shit, did I? Oh yeah, you're right. I did say I don't want to be judged as the scorer. Forget that. And he got to go back. The Harden thing is outrageous though, because he pushed his way to Brooklyn with Durant. They lobbied them hard. It was, he was going to end up in Philly. He wanted to go there.

And then when he got there, he was like, this is where I want to be. I'm so excited. This is great. I'm so happy to play with my friend, Kevin Durant. And then a year later, it's like, I never wanted to be there. Now, what's he going to do when it doesn't work out in Philly, which it seems like we're headed that way. I don't know what is his move then. I just need to be the guy. I mean, his, when he, there's just, there's something, there's some obliviousness there because after,

whenever they played the Nets and the Nets torched him and he didn't show up with his first game back against the net yeah and then either a day later or two days later or something he like tweeted out that video that was just kind of like a vlog of so you know like of that that game like that so yeah it was just sort of like i mean maybe it's maybe it's an unbelievable troll move or it's performance or something, in which case, you know, hats off. But that made me so happy when I saw him tweet that video. It was just so funny. The way he handles basketball is very similar to the way one of the aspects of my

relationship with my wife where somebody's got to feed, we have four dogs, which is just insane. That's a lot of dogs. But we got to feed the dogs in the morning and I'll go down in the morning. I'll make coffee and I'll feed the dogs like three out of four times. Then the fourth time I just was like, fuck it. I'm not feeding the dogs. And then if she's like, I thought you were going to feed the dogs. It's like, I fed the dogs three of the last four days. That's kind of Harden's attitude about basketball.

It's like, it's like what happened attitude about basketball. Yeah. It's like, it's like, what happened against that Philly game? It's like, it's fine. Two days ago, I had 42 against Sacramento

and it's like, yeah, but this was on TNT and this was against your old team. You do get a sense that he's like keeping like a mental note

or whatever. And he's like, dude, I played hard on Monday, man. I don't need to play hard today. I looked at my stats. They're really good.

I don't, why are you giving me shit? Yeah, he doesn't see it. All right. Now I don't need to play hard today. I looked at my stats. They're really good. How are you giving me shit? Yeah, he doesn't see it. Alright, now I can't wait. The number one character of the year for you. 2022 season. I'm on the edge of my seat. I cheated again. I went with the Jokic Bros.

You know, they were the odds on favorite on FanDuel to get this. I'm not shocked. I was pissed that I couldn't bet on it, but I, you know, not trying to. I was going to make a joke about that football guy. Who's the guy? Calvin Ridley.

You're going to Calvin Ridley it? Inside and not Jim. So this is like with a big caveat of, there's that Jokic brothers Twitter account that got created the night that Marquise Morris gave the little elbow

to Jokic and then Jokic ran Marquise Morris over and knocked him out for half the season he didn't play again until like a week ago that was in the beginning of November and he didn't play again until March Like a week ago. That was in the beginning of November, and he didn't play again until March 12th. And we learned a valuable lesson about bullying.

Don't mess with... Don't mess with the Okaches. Yeah. The Morris brother tweets, waited till bro turned his back, shaking my head, noted. And then he did the writing emoji, which is one that I think that a lot of people

forget about, and I like it. What's the writing emoji? It's like a hand with a pen. And he says noted. I think that's a nice combo. He's literally noting it with the emoji. Yes. I appreciate the visual.

Yeah. They responded to that with, the emoji yes yeah he's he's you know i i appreciate the visual yeah the uh they responded to that with you should leave this alone instead of publicly threatening our brother yeah your brother made a dirty play first if you want to make a step further be sure we will be waiting for you oh yeah and like and there is a world where this is some just that it's not real but that's it is they not um it wasn't even a month later like the video started going around in like late november right before december something like that the the yokich yok the yokich and his brothers were in some club in Miami. Yeah.

And like playing the Serbian national anthem. And there was like a big sign that said like NBA MVP, you know, and it was just one of those things. It's like, oh yeah, these guys are just, they don't, they don't care about it, you know, and look at them. Why would they, you know, you got tattoos on the back of your neck. You know, I, you know, I don't, I don't have anything. I don't have anything to say, you know, and look at them. Why would they, you know, you got tattoos on the back of your neck. You know, I, you know, I don't, I don't have anything to say. I don't have anything to say, you know, sure. It's amazing that we found an NBA player who has two brothers that are

somehow not intimidated by the Morris brothers. Just the fact that we got there, but I, you could do a podcast on the history of NBA stars and their brothers or family members. Because I remember when we were doing the Bill and Jalen stuff one year, we did a whole thing about Tony Parker's nightclub that he opened in San Antonio that was run by his brother that immediately went to the ground. And we had pictures of it and the name.

And it was like, Tony Parker's brother was going to open a successful nightclub in San Antonio. Like what, 20-1? It's pretty wild. It was the Suns game last year when the brothers

tried to come out of the stands. Oh, yeah. They got mad. It was Booker, right? Yeah. They didn't like it. They didn't like something. The Jokic brothers, man. You know, I feel like the NBA is both over-covered and under-covered. LeBron is the most over-covered guy we've had really since the heyday of Kobe. And on the flip side, the Jokic brothers, like, why wouldn't they?

What's that NBA show that Malik Andrews hosts where it's like coming out of the gate? It's like, is this team for real? And let's go to Woj. Woj. Yeah. No, it's coming out of the gate. It's like, is this team for real? And then, oh, the job was, yeah, no, it's not called the jump anymore. It's whatever. It's like,

let's go to Woj. Woj has some information on a contract extension. To me, I would just start with the Oakage brothers. Like, here's what's new with the Oakage brothers today. If LeVar and you know, LeVar has been vindicated in a lot of ways.

If LeVar ball can go on first take, I don't see why the Yokic brothers can't go on there and debate Stephen A. That's a great point. Maybe they should come on here. Jokic brothers. I'm extending an invitation. It's called NBA Today, by the way.

If the Jokic brothers come on, would you like to join as the fourth? Oh, I'd love to have a four-man pod that. I'd love to get in on that. All right. Writing emoji to you. Great job with the list. Congratulations to the Jokic brothers

for winning Tyler's Character of the Year. We can read you. What's your next piece on the ringer next one on the ringer I'm not sure what it is yet I don't know all right well I look forward to reading

it good to see you as always you too thanks for having me Bill all right that's it for the podcast thanks to Kyle Mann thanks to Ben Solak thanks to Tyler Parker thanks to producer Kyle

Creighton as always thanks to Dylan Berkey and Steve Cerruti I will see you on Sunday night with Ryan Russillo. But if you don't want to wait that long, I'm going to be on the Ringer Gambling Show with House and

JJ on Friday morning. So I will see you there or I'll see you on this feed on Sunday. Have a good week. I don't have feelings within on the wayside on the wayside I don't have

feelings