The Bill Simmons Podcast - 'Creed 2,' Destination Kawhi, and Dwight Howard's Goofy Legacy With Shea Serrano and Joe House | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 380)

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons talks with Shea Serrano about the 'Creed 2' trailer, 'Death Wish,' and Shea's Spurs fan perspective on Kawhi Leonard (3:35). Then Bill calls up Joe House to congratulate him on his Washington Capitals winning the Stanley Cup, and to talk about whether teams should trade for Kawhi, Dwight Howard's sixth trade in seven years, HBO's 'Courtside at the NBA Finals,' LeBron's next move, and more (33:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Having a high sports IQ is very, very, very important as we're about to find out with this Kawhi Leonard sweepstakes thing. Who has the high sports IQ to make the right trade for Kawhi? Will the Spurs screw it up? Look, when it comes to hiring, you actually don't need a high hiring IQ. You just need ZipRecruiter. They're powerful technologies, scans thousands of resumes to find people

with the right experience for your job. 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day. And my listeners can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash BS. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. All right, if you missed Courtside at the NBA Finals on HBO, it premiered on Tuesday night.

People seem to like it. I was fired up. You can check it out on HBO Go, HBO Now, HBO On Demand, wherever you get your HBO. Hey, Cord Cutters, it's out there. You'll like it. It is the story of the NBA Finals, as we talked about on Monday's podcast. Kind of the big picture floating in afterwards show that I always thought should have existed

for the NBA Finals. Most importantly, Nephew Kyle as a cameo when Andy Samberg walks in the door. You can see Nephew Kyle for a brief second. I was always worried when we saw nephew Kyle on HBO, it would be, he would be the chauffeur in one of the soft core porn movies, but now, now it's actually, he has his clothes on and he has his clothes on. He's letting an Andy Sandberg. So big win for us. And, uh, and for my wife's family with a nephew Kyle. Anyway, so check that out. The rewatchables is coming back this week.

I think Thursday morning we're putting the next one up or maybe Wednesday night overnight. Forrest Gump, me and Sean Fantasy, we banged it out. It is, I got to say, a really good movie. Who knew? Who knew it's now underrated? We talk about that. We bang out a whole bunch of stuff.

There's a lot of Jenny Gump just breaking down what happened to her and how she died. If you like that movie or if you have conflicted thoughts about it, I would highly recommend checking out the rewatchables. And also check out the Ringer NBA show because we're doing a whole bunch of draft stuff. We're going to have a live party on Thursday night. Same thing on Twitter. We're going to be doing a Twitter show during the draft. So go to at Rer and you can check that

out. All of our people are in town and ready to roll. This feels like, I don't know, I have a weird feeling that there's going to be a lot of weird stuff going on in this draft. And I keep using the word weird, but there are weird teams in the top six that do weird things. And anytime the

weirdness quotient tips over a certain level, that's when, you know, weirdness is coming. And I feel like this is going to be a weird draft. Stay tuned for that. We're going to talk about to Shay Serrano about Cree too, and the Kawhi Leonard rumors.

Then we're going to talk to Joe house about, about the caps winning about what's the best move for a team trying to trade for Kawhi, should the Celtics do it, and also about Dwight Howard, which he got traded again. He's had a really, really fascinating career, so that's all coming up first, Pearl Jam. All right.

It is Wednesday. It is afternoon East Coast time. Shea Serrano on the line. We had to call him as soon as we saw the Creed II trailer. This is the most important thing that's happened in 2018 and maybe in my life. Shay, your reaction after you watched it the first 25 times, your reaction to the Creed II trailer. Oh, my God, Bill.

Bill, did you watch it? You watched it. We watched it. Of course. I felt like I was watching it with you when I watched it. It's incredible, Bill. I'm so excited. This is the loudest I've ever been in my life.

So it starts out Creed's in a hospital bed, and it's unclear if he's in there because he lost a fight or he got beat up. They left that part ambiguous, right? Mm-hmm. That's correct. I know what happens, though. I already know how the movie starts i figured it out let me tell you well let's go through it so then it's it goes it goes through a lot of the

same beats of rocky three about creed's got a baby now um exactly he's had real success now now he's got to dig deep now he's got to find that fire again rocky gives him the speech that basically mickey gave Rocky and Rocky three. So they're hitting a lot of the same beats. And then I'm watching. I'm like, I thought Drago was in this. Wait,

is that, was that urban legend? Drago's not in this. And then we get to the end and there's this big fight and this white muscle guy turns around and there's Drago on the rope. And I lost control of my bowels, on the rope. And I lost control of my bowels, Shay. I lost control of my bowels. I emptied my

bowels on my shorts. A big, evil, muscle white guy. Just drop him in there and let's fucking go. I love it. No, let me tell you, this is what happens in the movie because I feel like I've seen it already. As you mentioned, they do a lot of, they do like hat tip Rocky III a lot.

But yeah, definitely the movie starts, the first Creed ended with Adonis having like pushed pre-Ricky up to near defeat. So everybody sort of loves him. We understand how, yeah, we understand how beautiful he is, how great of a fighter he is. So Creed 2 is going to start with like a flash forward scene where we get to see him real quick, win a bunch of fights, win the championship. And get to the point where he's like sort of super doesn't care about fighting as much as he did. So you're saying the Rocky 3 opening with the Eye of the Tiger and the pinball machine and he beats a bunch of dudes, you're predicting the montage to start Creed II? Yes, for sure. We get the montage, and then the movie drops in with him in that championship fight that he has to lose against whoever it is he's fighting.

That's what we see. Like, the first thing we see is him on the canvas, and you hear the bell ring in the background and then they cut to the hospital i think he just got the brake speed off from there he had to go to the hospital you've got bianca leaning over him telling him and we're going to get through this and he's sort of ignoring her because he's so hurt and then yeah there we go and boom it shoots forward so the question is is drago the guy that put him in the hospital? No, no chance. I think he loses that. That's just a different fight where he got beat up real bad.

He wasn't prepared for it as he needed to be. He loses the championship. They're trying to figure out, like, what's the next move for Donnie? And then we find out, oh, here, you know, Ivan Drago's son is alive, and he's also a fighter. And Donnie decides, this is what I need more than championship. I want a championship.

I don't need that anymore. Because he's, the whole, like, way that Donnie is built, he's just sort of searching for purpose. You know, he wants to prove that he's worthy or worthwhile. That's the whole character arc for Donnie. It was through the first one, it's going to be through the second one.

Like, he experienced all the successes. He thought that was going to sort of suture that wound for him. And it didn't. And so he's just going to go, Oh, I need to beat this guy. That's how I do it. That's how I prove to,

to, to Apollo that I'm not a mistake. We're going to get that same thing. So there's a chance. They also pull from the Ali playbook where, Oh yeah. Where Ali loses where Ali loses to Frazier. Then Frazier loses the title to Foreman. And then Ali has to beat Foreman.

So maybe in this scenario, so Ali beats Foreman to win the title. Maybe in this scenario, uh, he loses the title and then Drago beats the person who got the lucky punch against Creed and has the title. Now he's got to fight him. Would be the way to have just one Drago fight. Yeah. I feel like this, it's not going to be a championship fight.

You know, Rocky four, when Rocky fought Drago, that wasn't a championship fight. It was, you know, when Rocky fought Drago, that wasn't a championship fight. It was, you know, outside of everything. I think they're going to do that same thing here. But I think that's a pretty smart play if you want to make that bet.

You want to lay that bet that Drago becomes a champion while Donnie is down? That might be smart. There were a lot of unrealistic parts with Rocky IV, which I've probably discussed before on various platforms, but him deciding not to put the title up for the fight, to fight on Christmas and to fight for no money, the three-way combo of that is probably the most unrealistic part of any Rocky movie. Because I'm pretty sure they would have made money on that fight.

They could have donated to charity. They would have made $100 million on that fight. Yeah. I donated to charity. They would have made a hundred million dollars on that fight. Yeah. I hope Creed doesn't do that. I'm hoping Donnie actually gets money for this and doesn't just to say it's not about money. No, you can get money too. You can say it's not about money, but you can still get the money. The most important thing for me with this Creed 2 trailer, I gotta be honest. I was a little worried.

I was worried that Coogler wasn't involved. No Coogler. I had heard the rumors of the Drago thing, which on the one hand sounded thrilling, but on the other hand sounded like that had the ability to go terrible fast. There was a story that Slash Stallone was going to direct for a couple months that really scared me because he's in his mid-70s. I mean, it's just to go from Coogler, who is the best director we've probably produced in the last 20 years, to Sly Stallone in his mid-70s made me super nervous. And there were just some red flags. There was one point where it didn't seem like MBJ was even necessarily going to do Creed II. And now it seems

like the ship has been righted i know they got a young director they really like and uh and now after seeing that trailer i'm just ready unfortunately shay we have to wait till thanksgiving that's terrible that's the only sucky part i am a tiny bit nervous i'm 10 nervous cooler was so good and so smart about the way he handled everything in the first Creed. It was a similar situation. They could have gone wrong 25 different ways in that movie and ruined it. And he did

every single thing right. To the tiniest detail. Like, for example, waiting the entire movie until the last round of the last fight before they played the Rocky song when he jumps up and they start playing it, was an incredible touch. Like, that's the kind of touch that a genius filmmaker does. So, yeah, if Coogler's not in, there's that little, there's that trepidation there.

But, again, the trailer is promising. It's very good. I'm excited to watch it. The first Creed came out around Thanksgiving as well, right? Yes. If I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Yeah, I remember I. If I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Yeah, I remember I was watching that in San Antonio.

It was probably one of my favorite movie theater experiences of my life was watching Creed at the movie theater. I was there with my wife, with two of my uncles, with one of my aunts, and one of my nieces. And we're watching it in the theater. The theater is packed. You know, at San Antonio, we were like fired up for this movie. It comes out, we're at the theater, we're watching it in the theater. The theater is packed. You know, at San Antonio, we were like fired up for this movie. It comes out, we're at the theater, we're watching it, we're getting to the final scene. They do the training montage,

she's running through the street, she's growling at Rocky. And I look down to my right, everybody's sitting to my right. And again, my wife, my two uncles, my aunt and my niece are all crying already. It was like the most fun I have had in a movie theater in, I don't know, 10 years or something like that.

I'm fired up for part two, Bill. I also had a fantastic movie experience in San Antonio. Tell me. Tell me. 2013 finals. Oh, never mind. I don't want to hear it. No, I'm sorry to bring that part up, but it was two, three, two format and found myself in San Antonio for,

I think eight days. And unfortunately I didn't know Shea Serrano yet. I think you were freelancing for Greatland at that point. I don't even know if you were freelancing for us yet. It was right around. When'd you show up at Greatland? I showed up. Yeah. A little bit after that. I was freelancing. A little bit after that. That's when I at the time. That's when I started. Yeah. Didn't really know a lot of people in San Antonio

other than Jalen, who I had 30 meals with. Didn't know that we had the option to go to Austin yet. Wasn't going to go out and get bombed in the whole Riverwalk scene and all that stuff. The best night I had in San Antonio, Friday night, Fast Six. Saw it in whatever that awesome San Antonio theater was where you have the big couches that you can –

or the big chairs that you can recline. It was like one of the first super comfy theaters and did like an 11 p.m. Fast Six showing. I got to say it was glorious. And my heart's always going to belong to San Antonio a little bit after that. Just after watching, uh, who's the guy who got Gail Godot?

Gail Godot dies at the end on the plane. And then her boyfriend, what's that dude's name in the movie? The Asian guy, Han Han Han. And they just killed off Han and Gail Godot, God Godot at the, uh, at the end of that movie.

I'm still recovering. I don't know why they did that. That was tough to watch. Anyway, I don't know why they did that either. I think she had, she already knew she was doing Wonder Woman. So she said,

I can't be in this anymore. Just get rid of me. So the point is we're very excited for Creed 2. Now Shay, I am going to arrange, I'm going to use all of the very limited powers that I have to see if we can pull off a screening way before Thanksgiving, because I do not want to wait. If I ever have any multimedia pull at all in my life, this is going

to be it, to get the Ringer crew in some sort of theater in September, October. I do not want to wait until November. I just can't. I can't do it. That's tough. When Drago turned around, I saw the Drago robe. I didn't know what to do with myself. I'm wearing a Drago robe to the theater. When we go now, I'm going like cosplay.

If Drago had turned around and it wasn't a white muscular guy, but it was Kawhi Leonard, would that have made you root for Creed more than Drago son or the same? Yeah, I would have definitely, it would have hurt. That would have been hard to see. I don't know how every conversation we have,

you bring up Kawhi. It don't matter what we're talking about. Well, it's topical now. He, it's, it's, he's going to leave, it sounds like.

Definitely leave him. Now he's persona non grata in San Antonio, no matter how this plays out. Even if they say, screw you and keep him, I don't think the fans would want him back for another year, right? No, we

don't. You know what we do want? We want to send him to like, we want to send them to Europe, trade them. You want to trade here? Here's your trade. Have fun playing in the Euro league for a year. That's what we want to do. Can you do that? Can you trade them to Real Madrid for Rudy Fernandez? I have no idea what the rules are for like intercontinental trade, but I feel like there's a loophole in there. We should be able to take advantage of. So we have covered this story intently on the Ringer, on my podcast and Ringer NBA show with our posts and things like that. Because we have learned over the years to look for the little signs.

And when Manu and Parker went at him a little bit publicly, and now it comes out this week that, uh, I think Woj was the one who wrote that once that happened, Kawhi was, he was really upset that he got called out. We felt that way in the moment. It was like,

wow, that's a really, really kind of strong statement for those guys to call him out publicly and question the injury. And it really does seem like now looking back, things were never the same after that. That was when he stopped hanging out with the team as much and all that stuff.

So can we agree that that was the tipping point? For sure. The tipping point was Manu doing it. Tony, you kind of expect it. Tony's got that little bit of snake in him. But Manu doing it, Manu coming out and saying it, is unheard of.'s it's like i don't know you did that's just not a thing that happens with manu that's never a tone that he has

ever taken in all of his time in the nba in san antonio so when he did that you go like oh well this is this is a wrap yeah and then he doesn't go to the playoff games and all that stuff. What do you want from a Kawhi trade? Do you want to still be able to compete right away or do you want future assets and just do the full rebuild? I don't think I want

to do a full rebuild just yet. I mean, LaMarcus is still pretty good. I'm on LaMarcus' back now. That's my guy. He did all the stuff we needed him to do. Wow, he's your guy now. This is so heartwarming. He's my guy now. He showed up. He showed up for war like he didn't do in the playoffs previously. He said, you know what, this is my team. I'm going to do everything I can. And he did everything he could. You can't ask for a player to do more than what they're able to do.

And he did all he was able to do. So I'm very pro-Lamarcus now. So let's send Kawhi. He wants to go to L.A. Let's see if we can't, you know, let's get Kuzma out of it. I mean, give me a couple of guys, you know. The tricky part here is everybody knows he's leaving. So you're not going to be able to get a lot for him in a city where he doesn't want to go because he's not going to

sign there again. You kind of also probably aren't going to get a lot from him in LA because they know he wants to go there anyway. We're sort of screwed in that sense. I don't know. I trust Pop. I'm sure he'll figure out something good here. If I was LA, I would not

trade for him. You'd wait? Yeah, because I don't think I'm winning the title next year even if like let's say they got LeBron and Kawhi and Paul George all together I still don't think that's a title team I think it would take a year to get everybody ready anyway I could get Kawhi in a year for nothing I could see how Ingram

and Kuzma kind of mesh with LeBron and then a year later Dang's an expiring contract. He's a little easier to trade. And if I'm the Spurs, I'm not positive Ingram's good enough to give away Kawhi and take on two years of that Dang contract because now I'm in salary capo with that and Gasol and Patty Mills,

all that stuff. I'm going to ask Joe House about this when he comes on a little bit. I'd be more focused on doing like the Bradley Beal and two first rounders for Kawhi type of trade and trying to stay competitive, you know? Yeah. I don't hate that idea. Give us, yeah, we'll take Bradley and we'll do like six games in the first round and that'll be a good year for us. Or the Gordon Hayward is like, if the Celtics put Gordon Hayward,

the King's pick and the Grizzlies pick on the table for Kawhi, that's actually a really good trade for the Spurs. That would be the coldest thing they've done in a year since they traded Isaiah Thomas with this hurt hip. But, uh, but yeah, I, I think there's a way for the Spurs to stay competitive and not take on a bad contract if they do this correctly. Also, you follow Pop his whole career. Does he seem like the kind of guy who's going to want to go out in San Antonio having set up the next Lakers dynasty? I don't see it.

It seems weird. Yeah. Yeah, that part for sure. He hates the Lakers. He's been openly dismissive or hateful toward them since the Pau Gasol trade. He's always talking about how bad it was.

I think that would be the one main thing that sort of pushes back against sending Kawhi to the Lakers. He just wouldn't want to have a hand in that. Who knows? I don't know. I like Brandon Ingram.

I can't get over, like, he looks like he should be really, really good. For some reason, he's not really, really good yet, but he always looks like he should be, and I can't get past that. So, fingers crossed there. My favorite Spurs-Kawhi trade, just because I could see this working out for them in a bunch of different ways, is Tobias Harris, the 12, the 13, and a 2020 unprotected number one from the Clippers. And the way that worked for the Spurs is Tobias replaces 72% of Kawhi's offense and none of the

defense, obviously. You have this 12 and 13 picks that you're able, like Trae Young falls to number 12 somehow. Some guy magically falls to 12. That becomes this year's Donovan Mitchell. They get somebody else good with the 13. And then Kawhi stays with the Clippers for a year and leaves. And then that 2020 pick becomes like the second pick in the draft. Like knowing how things work out for the Spurs.

I could see, I could see that playing out, right? That doesn't seem unrealistic. Yeah. You're saying a bunch of good things to me right now. And I'm trying to help. You're very important to the ringer.

I'm trying to, trying to rehabilitate you a little bit. So when Kawhi comes back, what happens? Kawhi's first game back in San Antonio, assuming he gets traded. Oh, that's going to be a madhouse. That's going to very much feel like when Durant went back to OKC.

At this point, that's the sort of vibe you're getting. And I'm sure that whoever he goes to, they're going to be automatically good because of how good he is. But I don't know. I feel like nothing else. He's going to get booed every time he touches the ball, which it'll be the first time in his career that's happened. So maybe he falls apart.

That's sort of what we're rooting for now is an, an emotional breakdown. That's where we are now. That's as far as we can go. Okay. See like Durant comes back and they were super mean. Listen, I've, I've been to games in both places. The San Antonio fans, let's just say they have a little extra edge.

I think. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think that would be like that OKC crowd after like five drinks, you know? Yeah. There would just be an extra fuck you in that crowd that I've seen. A bunch of angry Mexicans shouting at him for three and a half hours. The greatest, the greatest San Antonio crowd slash game. And one of the more underrated games was the game when the, when the AC shut off.

That was like the perfect San Antonio game. I was at that game. I must sweat at 10 pounds off, but it was just perfect. The crowd loved it. It was super hot in there. It was like super hot and crazy and emotional and passionate. LeBron got cramps. He was all on the sidelines rolling around,

and the crowd was just so into it. They were like, yes, now the elements are in our favor. It was really great. It was a really great game to watch. One of the great Spurs games in my lifetime for sure. The No AC game. The No AC game. That's how it goes. 30 years from now, it's the No AC game.

Before we go, I want to talk about Death Wish, which is available on On Demand. You and I do a gimmick where we talk about how much we would have paid for a movie, what it's worth, what's the real value. We feel like this is like a better version of Rotten Tomatoes. So Death Wish was available. I was in Cleveland.

I'm staying at the Hilton. It's one in the morning. My body's on West Coast time. It's probably 1230 at night. I needed a movie. I wasn't going to fall asleep till three anyway. Death Wish is on. It's 1999 hotel pay-per-view.

It, I think if it was two cents more, I probably would have declined, but 1999 was like the max I was going to go. So I got it. And, uh, and it's pretty solid. I'm glad I got it. I also feel pretty strongly that 1999 was the tipping point price for that movie. Do you agree or disagree? I would agree with you there. I would pay the 1999 just for the final shootout when the guy falls

down the stairs all over the... You don't see that part coming. I would pay just to see that part. Yeah, 1999 feels right. I think... If you put a two in front of that number, it's too far. Okay, what are the issues? Not sure about Bruce Willis anymore as a leading man.

Really? I'm going to start there. Yeah, it hurts to say. It hurts to say. Yeah. I think I disagree with you there. Okay, that's fine. I'm happy to have the talk. I'm happy disagree with you there. Okay. That's fine. I'm happy to, I'm happy to have the talk. I'm happy to have the argument. Just, he just felt old to me and not like,

I love the original death wish. I mean, it's certainly the, the opening assault scene on the wife and sister has not aged well and is a tough watch, but just in general, it seemed realistic to me that this Charles Bronson having trouble, this architect having trouble dealing with what happened is just starting to go out there to go shoot people basically as a vigilante. Bruce Willis, I was buying it a little bit less. But I also don't really know who I would have cast instead of him. And I'm going to throw this at you. Okay.

Was the move to go younger? I don't, you know what? I was going to say no, but I think maybe yes, only because we've gotten, you know, nine of this exact movie in the last seven or eight years. You know, I have to get revenge on these people who did a thing to my family. We've gotten that a bunch.

And we saw a similar version of it with Upgrade with a younger guy. And it was pretty fun to watch. So yeah, maybe younger might have been a good play here. But I liked Bruce Willis in this movie. I liked that for the first time. He seemed a little bit like maybe he couldn't pull it off.

You watch old Diehards and you're like, he's definitely capable of doing this. But in this one, you go like, I don't know. There's a chance he might not be able to do it. That's kind of fun for me to watch. I also liked how all of the sort of one-liners at this point, they feel very

dad-like. So of watch him doing, do them. It made sense when the, when he was like the ice cream man, they go, who are you? I'm your last customer. Bop,

bop, bop. Like that's the thing that dad would say for sure. You know, you can't do that with a young guy. Cause it's not cool. Like it was for Arnold to do it in the eighties. You know what I'm saying?

I see what you mean. If I was going older, let me just throw two names at you that I think would have worked better. First of all, Denzel. Denzel is the answer to every question with this. Sure. Yeah, Veer's a little close to the equalizer. Whatever. I'm fine with it. I think Denzel as a doctor hitting some breaking point and going out there and tapping into some dark side.

I just think he's, it's just such a massive upgrade for Bruce Willis. And if you're going for kind of the unexpected older guy, what about Tom Hanks? How about that? Tom Hanks, great life. He just breaks. It's like, Whoa, Tom Hanks is shooting people. I think my problem with the Bruce Willis thing was it seemed too easy. And there were a lot of problems with this movie. It was just kind of like, oh, of course Bruce Willis is going to be in this.

But I've seen Bruce Willis as a vigilante a million times already. So anyway, the other thing I was thinking was you go younger. And at that point, it's Vin Diesel or The Rock. Okay. Vin Diesel. Vin Diesel might be too cut for this and the same for The Rock. So you'd have to cover them

and bag your clothes, right? Yeah, they're a little too big. You need a smaller guy to do it. As soon as Vin walks on the set or The Rock, you go like, alright, he's destroying everybody. You need to get, I mean, as soon as Vin walks on or the set or The Rock, you go like, alright, he's destroying everybody. You need a guy who it seems

impractical that he would be doing the things he's doing in this movie. That's why Taken worked out so well. Yeah. And why each Liam Neeson movie after that has been a little bit less good. Because you just didn't expect to see that from Liam Neeson. You do need that.

I think Tom Hanks might be a little too far, a little too far down that road. Um, but yeah, I don't know. So I just watched taken again. I've watched it enough times that my wife now has Stockholm syndrome with it and knows the movie really well.

Now it's like, Oh, I like this. Yeah. So she, she somehow, uh, I've somehow willed her into like in the movie. well now. It's like, oh, I like this movie. So I've somehow willed her into liking the movie.

I think Taken is a brilliant piece of cinema. I stand by it. And my favorite part, I have a lot of favorite parts. My favorite part is when he goes to see Jean-Claude when he's at dinner and the wife has no idea. Oh, God, that's so bad. And it starts escalating and she's like what's going on hey do you would you guys like the carrots and they're locked into this whole thing that's

going in badly jean-claude pulls out the gun and liam neeson does uh yeah that's what happens when you're behind a desk you don't know the weight of a gun they keep they keep banging they keep banging home with jean-laude the desk thing. Like it's like just the worst thing in the world that he's behind a desk now. And then Liam Neeson out of nowhere shoots the wife at the shoulder. And Jean-Claude freaks out. And Liam Neeson goes, it's fine. It's a flesh wound.

It's a flesh wound. First of all, how do you know you just shot her? There's no way you would have known it's a flesh wound. You'd have to look at it first. And what if it shattered her shoulder blade or all these different things? It's an unbelievable 30 seconds. I love it so much. That is a really great part of the movie.

Still, for me, the best scene is the phone call. Yes. All the way until he builds it up to when he says, they're going to take you. Like, that part, every time I watch it, my stomach falls out of my butt. But him shooting Jean-Claude's wife in the shoulder and arm, wherever he

decided to shoot her, is just... You don't see that coming. It hurts so much to watch it happen. That's one of the ones where you literally grab your face, you cover your mouth. I mentioned Upgrade. The same thing happened to me. Have you seen Upgrade yet?

No, I have not seen it yet. It's on my list. Oh, okay, never mind. I'm not going to tell you that. I'm not going to tell you the part where, there's a part when you watch Upgrade where you will cover your mouth. Everybody in the theater just goes,

oh my God, like that part happens there. That's what that scene was. It's taken. It's so good. Taken is no doubt a first class Hall of Fame movie. Well,

we're going to be doing it as a Rewatchables this summer, so I don't want to spoil it too much. By the way, Forrest Gump Rewatchables coming this week. Me, Sean, Fantasy. Uh-oh.

Breaking it down. Guess what? Forrest Gump is now underrated. See, it's a good movie it really is yeah forrest gump takes too much shit we got to take in this summer because i have a lot of thoughts including um i we can assume they hooked his daughter on heroin in that 48 hour span right because they hooked up all the other girls All the other girls immediately had these drug problems. And then she's dancing in the little cage

in the auction, in the hooker auction. And she seems like she's drugged up on that. And then he saves her on the yacht. And then two weeks later, fine. No drug rehab for her. She's ready to roll. The Neeson family, they're resilient. They're a resilient bunch.

Yeah. I'd like to live my life that Taken 3 never happened. I would encourage you to do the same. That's a smart play. Yeah, Rocky V, Taken 3. There's some movies I just... Taken 3, the wife gets killed early. Liam Neeson gets framed for it.

I'm just not happy with it. But Taken 1 is a masterpiece. It's really great. Sure. Serrano, what are you writing about this week for The Ringer? I'm writing about Creed and Jurassic World, my two favorite things. Great. Look forward to it.

All right. Good luck with the Kauai trade. Thank you. Hey, before we get to house, wherever or however you're listening to this podcast right now, take a moment, check out Stitcher. Those of you listening on Stitcher already get why. Stitcher is amazing. For those of you who don't know,

it's a free podcast app for phone and Android. It's got 150,000 great podcasts like this one, Larry Wilmore's podcast, JJ Reddick, The Rewatchables, the rewatchables, the recapables, Michael Peters is on shuffle music podcast, which was really good this week, by the way, whatever you want, whatever you love, listen to, it's got all of them. Whether you've got a GM or a BMW or any of the 50 plus other models

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If you're on your phone, download it free right now in the App Store or visit getstitcher.com to learn more. That is getstitcher.com. It's really good. Podcast apps just in general are just getting better. And this has been, I think, the best one for a while. So there you go. Let's call Joe House.

All right, on the line right now, the people have been demanding him. They wonder, the people from the Washington DC area have wondered why we have ducked Joe House ever since the capitals have ended the DC sports curse of 1992, 26 years. People want to know why House wasn't allowed to celebrate on this podcast. He does have two other podcasts. He has the Shack he has house of carbs now he gets to take his victory lap joe house congratulations wow thank you bill simmons i have to confess i i have uh my own role to play in being unavailable for this podcast. Um, I planned a schedule around attending this year's U S open up at Shinnecock Hills that really had the effect of, um, you know, making me, I was gone. I was on the road because there was no scenario under which I imagined my beloved Washington Capitals playing, let

alone winning the Stanley Cup, but playing in it. So I was like, this is a safe enough gamble for me to go ahead and plan this trip and get the hell out of town. So since you won, the coach resigned and Alex Ovechkin now has severe liver disease from all the drinking he's done over the last two weeks. He'll never play hockey again. That's fine, though. He brought you a cup.

That's right. I have two words for you. Who cares? I could care less. Best of luck to Coach Trotz. I want nothing but great things for him. He was an incredible steward of the franchise for the years he was here. His ability to bring out the very best from Backstrom and Ovechkin.

And I think in many respects, a lot of why this season, this Stanley Cup run came together is because this was finally a season where there were such low expectations. This was supposed to be a transition season for the Caps. And lo and behold, that felt good to Ovi and Backstrom and my boy John Carlson and some of the older heads that have been around for a long time for whatever reason. You know what I mean?

How did it affect the psyche of the dc sports fans do you think anything's different oh is this optimism now are people optimistic about the gnats and the redskins and bryce harper staying has it like been a cloud lifted well wait a minute wait a minute i mean the the dead skins is a whole nother thing let's not let's not spoil this conversation with any reference of that fetid franchise i mean let's let's let that wait until the fall and we can um pump up the poop meter and get ready for that you know in in due course but sure the baseball team is good there's no reason they can't win the nl east they're gonna win the nl east we're back in the playoffs we'll see what happens with

bryce harper i didn't love him showing up physically at the Capital One Arena in a game and going into a box wearing the Knights jersey like I get that he's from Vegas that's all fine he can root for his team don't don't post in the jersey and then go off into a box my homie well and he had somebody in in his ear he had a little act of contrition afterwards and wanted to celebrate with all the caps the caps all went to a nats game um the day after they all got it got back and bryce was on point that was bullshit first of all it's acceptable if he grew up in vegas watching the golden knights for his entire life. I get it. They just added the team eight months ago. Get the fuck out of here, Bryce Harper. Also, he shaved his beard, and it's just a lot of neck right now.

You can kind of understand why he had the beard. The dude's got a massive neck and kind of a small head. I would grow the beard back, Bryce. Maybe. Well, I don't care. We're finally in a mode where anything to get him hitting 250 i'll i'll take anything you know shave shave his whole body donate the hair to science i don't care what i just would like him to get on base a little bit more all right well

congratulations i would talk more hockey but nobody really cares cats cats it was almost more amazing that you won a game seven against the Penguins than it was that you won a cup. I got to say. Well, that's what really cleared the way. Like all the monkeys off the back this season, it was finally that formula that a lot of people here have been starving for. Like, are guys going to lay down on the ice and block these shots?

And I think we led the league and block shots. You know, we never see that. And we finally got some bounces and we finally got the hot goaltender at exactly the right moment. The two Tampa Bay games were shutouts when, you know, the whole season was on the line. The one thing that I want to mention, I really do the outpouring of love for this Caps team. It really was a moment that I would call kind of a new D.C. moment in the sense that the demographics of the city have changed over the last 10 to 12 to 15 years. And the Caps have been a relentlessly competent franchise over that period of time. And so they're the franchise with sellouts virtually every regular season game.

And, you know, the great disappointment has been the playoffs. But as soon as that flipped, that script flipped a little bit huge outpouring the, the, the pictures of the fans, the film of the fans attending games and watching outside that,

that, that square, those square blocks down there were packed. That was like 15,000 to 20,000 people outside watching the games. And by the estimates I saw for the parade, it was like 200,000 fans. It was a very galvanizing moment for the city. Yeah, not a lot of wins, so it makes sense. Now maybe this will be... It happened in Boston when the Pats won the Super Bowl in 01. It felt like it kind of opened the gates

for more good things to happen. Couldn't fit. The whole city felt like we couldn't get over the hump and we were cursed. And then it flipped. I think Minnesota might be the number one cursed city now.

That's who I'm going with. They've never won with the Vikes won with the bikes tough to call them they won a playoff game on on an unbelievable miracle so it's tough to call them cursed but then they choked the next week in philly they completely choked well they got their ass handed to them was it the choke they got their ass well it started though with that interception when the guy went through the entire uh offense and scored And then from that moment on, they lost all the momentum. Yeah, Minnesota. Okay.

Nothing ever for the Vikes. Twins, last World Series was 91. The Timberwolves are just an abomination and have been for their entire existence. And I don't think they've won a title with the hockey team. So I might put them on. I have to think about it more. Kawhi Leonard, people are trying to figure out what he's doing. We've been talking about this on the podcast.

You and I have talked about this many times, about all the bad signs. Once Parker and Ginobili went after him, we became increasingly convinced that he didn't want to stay. Shay and I just talked about this before. What's your take on Kawhi? Would you even trade for him if it really seems like he's going to the Lakers in a year? Well, sure.

Yes, I would. I would trade for him. He's assuming he's healthy. I mean, you have to put him through a pretty rigorous physical. Would you do the one-year flyer for him, just kind of keeping your fingers crossed? So you would. Yes, of course. Yes.

You don't get a crack at top 10 talent very often. So when a top 10 talent is available, you grab them. Who knows what's going to happen, right? What if the team catches fire and there's incredible chemistry and you can't anticipate all of the unknowns, all of the variables. But the one thing that you can do when an unbelievably talented player comes available, you grab them. You absolutely try and make them a part of your team.

He's staying put. He ain't going nowhere this season. I'm torn on it because I do think that there could be a little FU with the Spurs. We're not going down this way. We're not ending the Popovich-Buford era with just giving our best player to the

Lakers so he can go to hell if he wants to sign there in a year. Great. On the other hand, they're an exceedingly rational team. I think they operate a lot like how Belichick operates. If it was on the table for Beal and three unprotected first

round picks in 2022 and 2024, which would be this decade's equivalent of what you paid for C-Web, would you do that trade? Let's say two first rounders instead of three. Now I might think about it.

I don't know. Beal is starting to feel like the one immovable piece. I feel like I'm cheating on John Wall by saying this, but I don't like the recurrence of the knee trouble for John Wall. And the alpha dog thing was really kind of soul sucking over the course of this most recent season. And there was kind of a battle for the alpha dog position. That's what everybody eats and all that kind of stuff. And Beal really wasn't up to it.

He really wasn't able to grab the con and run with it as the leader of the team. But if he's able to play the number of games that he played this most recent season, and at a level, it looks like his ceiling is still out there. We haven't seen the very best of him. He feels like the more important player for the for the almost bullets to hold on to. What do you think Zach Lowe wrote about and he has been today wrote about Kawhi Leonard and Jalen Brown. I thought it was interesting piece. Echo some of the things that we've been talking about in this podcast for a while, namely, what is the ceiling of Jalen Brown? And I was saying this during the playoffs. If you look at his first two years versus Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, he's actually ahead of them from a checkpoint standpoint, from the kind of offensive load he had, the minutes he had, the production

he had, the jump he made from season one to season two, you could argue he's actually on pace to become a rich man's Paul George. Now, the Kawhi part, I always thought Kawhi was just an out of control defender. And you saw it in the 2013 finals, which was his second year, he really went toe to toe with LeBron and really started to feel like he had a chance to be special. He didn't know any, he couldn't do anything offensively yet. He could make some open shots and, and get to the rim on fast breaks and things like that. He was not, he did not, was not nearly the polished guy that he would become four years later. Defensively, he's better than, you know, the ceiling of what he's doing is just way higher than Jalen Brown.

On the other hand, it's so hard to find these three and D athletes. And, and I think Jalen's one of the top 20 trade assets right now. And he's making like six, 7 million a year. And for what the Celtics are, where you have Brown has three years left on his rookie contract. Tatum has four years left on his rookie contract. They're paying Horford, Hayward, and Kyrie Maxes, but that's all staggered too. I love what the Celtics have. I wouldn't do anything. I really wouldn't. I know it's crazy to say, oh, I don't want Kawhi Leonard.

I really think it screws up this 12-year cycle that they have here where you have all these assets, and then you have the Kings pick coming, the Grizzlies pick coming. I would not cash in. I just like what they have. Am I crazy? Well, here's the really interesting thing. There's the conceit, like the basis for your view.

That means that you believe in the ability of the franchise to successfully navigate the slightly murky water of reintegrating Kyrie and reintegrating Hayward into a team on a chemistry basis where these rookies got crazy max minutes and crazy responsibility and they're going to be asked as next season arrives to play less minutes and to be as effective as they were this most recent season but with a reduced role a different role and what you're

saying is you you prefer to go ahead with that experiment as opposed to bringing in a trusted known vet um who's been through a couple of chemistry experiments uh and and your preference is to stick with the young guys and it's a perfectly valid view but i just my biggest concern with the celtics is how do those guys how do those young guys react to less minutes in a different role all right so here's my counter to that. I don't think there will be less minutes. I think the minutes get redistributed really easily. I think Marcus Smart's going to leave, unfortunately. Okay, okay.

Well, that's one answer. That makes sense. And they keep Rozier for next year, and he gets the lion's share of the Marcus Smart kind of third guard minutes. You're putting Kyrie in the room. You're going to be able to survive that. Yeah, it's fine.

They could also play Jalen at guard. They all Jalen, Hayward, Tatum, all these guys can play the two. The guy who's going to lose minutes is Marcus Morris. Marcus Morris was playing 35 minutes a game for this team in the playoffs and their 35 minutes.

I probably would all want all of them back. I'm going to say, yeah, right. Those are expendable minutes. So you just give Hayward those 35 minutes. I think Jalen and Tatum stay basically the same. Jalen was not a one-on-one clear out, he's going to go to the rim kind of score. He's a complimentary guy. I think Tatum is the guy who has a chance to do that.

And I look at adding Kawhi. This is crazy because Kawhi was one of the three best players in the league a year ago. But you add Kawhi to this team combined with Kyrie, who's 17 to 20 shots a game. Hayward's got to get his 15 to 18. You want Tatum to get more shots. Horford's got his 12. And in that other spot, I think you want a guy like Jalen over somebody like Kawhi,

who over the last couple of years on the Spurs became this guy that you go to as a go-to guy. And I do think, I do think you can tip a point with a basketball team where you just have too many guys who need the ball. And the Celtics are very close already with Kyrie, Hayward, and Tatum. And you look at the Warriors, it's like Curry and KD, and then Klay is the third option.

And then everybody else has to sacrifice. At some point, the team needs to make sense collectively you're out of your mind why am i out of my mind uh there's no scenario under which the basaltics are better staying put with jaylen uh brown over over kawaii in a vacuum you're right i'm saying i don't think it's a slam dunk if you add Kawhi to this team that other problems don't pop up, whether you're talking about the salary cap, whether you're talking about having Kawhi and Kyrie

as free agents in a year, whether you're talking about how do you fit all the, how is there one basketball for all these guys, guys who are used to being superstars in their own teams. I do think it's not one of those things where you just look at it and go, oh, that makes perfect sense. Let's do this. I'm past the one basketball thing.

I mean, we've just seen too many instances of teams figure it out on the fly and the players who want to win and make it work. I mean, that was one of the narrows. How can Harden and Chris Paul possibly coexist? Well, they coexisted just fine. They went out and kicked the whole league's ass. How about KD and Curry and play? And how's that going to work?

You're only talking about two guys in that scenario. Well, I just mentioned the Golden State Warriors have four guys that like to touch the ball. But they touch the ball in ways that complement each other. Right? Draymond is a facilitator. There's no reason. Klay is a spot-up shooter that doesn't need to shoot 25 times a game.

One of the things with the Celtics, you only are going to get 55 to 60 games at best out of Kyrie. And honestly, that's all you want. You need him still healthy for the playoffs.. And honestly, that's all you want. You only want it. You need him still healthy for the playoffs. The regular season, he's only given you, you know, 60%. So that's one way to solve it. And the other thing, you know, I understand kind of long range planning wise, but the

point is to win. If you get a guy that's a top 10 guy that could be on your team. And you kind of have to go for it, right? So normally in the past, I would have agreed with you because I am a big believer in the whole window thing. And when your window is your window, that's it. I thought that way about OKC in 11, 12, 13. You're good now. Try to win the title. And I think we've seen that over and over again, over the years. He here's the two caveats with the Celtics team. I think Tatum has a chance to be legit special and it might even start happening next year. I want that guy to get shots.

I want him to get touches. I do not want him to be the fourth option on this team. I just don't. I want him to have the ball and, and progress in a way that where I think he could be one of the top seven guys in the league in two years. So that's one thing. The second thing is the salaries. The way they kind of staggered everything was brilliant, where you have Horford one year, Hayward the next year.

You have Kyrie coming up this year. And you're just basically the three max contracts, but you're taking care of them at a certain rate. And then when Jalen and Tatum become bigger guys, you're going to have the money to be able to do that too. And you throw Kawhi into that. And now that salary cap thing is just totally skewed. But then the big thing for me, the Kawhi thing makes much more sense of Hayward's in the trade than Jalen Brown.

If you're telling me Hayward and the Kings pick for Jalen Brown. I'm sorry, Hayward and the Kings pick for Kawhi. You can even say Hayward, the Kings pick and the Grizzlies pick for Kawhi. And if I knew Kawhi was re-signing, I would do that. That makes much more sense to me. It's interesting that you picked Hayward over Kyrie. The player that I think is most expendable. I just think they need Kyrie.

Kyrie, people forget how unbelievable he was the first four months. And I also think his knee injury is a fluke. He was on my podcast Friday. He needs to play a whole season. He needs to play. I know, but he was on my podcast Friday. And he said he would have been back for the Eastern finals with that surgery he had, or he would have been back for round two. The problem was there was this weird infection. And I actually thought it

was going to be a bigger deal when we talked about it on the podcast. He basically said on the pod that he was taking this crazy antibiotic thing every you know, every eight hours he had to take all these things because the infection was so bad in his leg. That has, to me, that has nothing to do with a torn ACL or a torn, you know, like a herniated disc or stuff that could really compromise a guy long-term. It was just, that's just sounds like bad luck to me. So I think he's going to be, you know, I just think people forget how good he is and if you put him so if i if my team was kairi tatum kawaii horford jalen brown that team's fucking that that's the favorite to win uh win the east at least and i think they could go toe-to-toe with

the warriors uh but exchanging kawaii for jalen for Jalen, it just seems kind of like a strange move to me when you don't know where you're getting from Kawhi and you don't know if he's going to be here in a year and you don't know what the deal with his leg is and some of his behavior has been strange. It does not seem like a sure thing to me. Am I crazy? All fair.

No argument. But you personally... Those are the concerns with him you personally would trade you would do a jaylen marcus smart sign and trade with the king's pick you would go all in on kawaii if you were running the celtics absolutely positively without hesitation or reservation again assuming that he passes the rigorous physical. I think the mental part, here's the advantage Boston has, and it guts me to confess it. I'm not worried about Kyrie's sort of mental status,

his attitude, his chemistry fit. That's what Brad Stevens is for, and Brad Stevens has made a lot of bums look like heroes. I mean, if nothing else, the Brad Stevens era has taken guys like Jordan Crawford and made them, I mean, Jordan, which bum am I thinking about? Jordan Crawford, yeah. No, you're right. I did. And, I mean, there's a litany of guys, substandard guys,

that as soon as they left Boston reverted to form and turned back into the guys that they were. So I'm not worried about a super-duper talent like Kyrie fitting in chemistry-wise. If I'm the Spurs, you know, the Lakers thing, if Kawhi just says, I'm going to the Lakers, and I talked to a Jalen Rose on our podcast two weeks ago about the concept of pre-agency.

It's not a relatively new concept. We've just seen more of it. Like, I think this has been one of the stories of the week. Will Chamberlain in 1968 was like, I want to get traded to the Lakers. They had to figure out how to do it. It was one of the shittier trades we've seen. Kareem in 75 was like, I'm leaving milwaukee i'm leaving you in a year i'm going i'm going to la free agency is coming i'm signing in la that's what's happening you

might as well get something for me now and they trade him and this goes all the way through the your beloved boule we're able to pull this off with cweb you know he's like i don't want to play for Don Nelson. Trade me. They still had a chance to kind of lock him up with a contract, but he decided what he was doing without being a free agent. And that's gone all the way through. You're talking about TMAC.

You're talking about Vince Carter, Carmelo. You go all the way through. This is a recurring theme in NBA history. If Kawhi basically says to them, and he lets every team know this, I'm going to the Lakers in a year. That's how this is playing out. So trade me the Lakers now, get something, or keep me for one more year and I'm gone. What do you do if you're the Spurs? Sit tight. I think this is the thing. Guys change their minds.

We watched DeAndre Jordan sneak out of Mark Cuban's basement and get back to L.A. I mean, you sit tight. You let the market kind of evolve. There may be a trade deadline move for the Spurs, and maybe Kawhi, part of the thing for the Spurs, they have a lot of leverage here. Let Kawhi reset the market by going out and playing outstanding basketball over 45 games or so. Let him remind everybody what he's all about so that

the Spurs are certain to get fair value come trade deadline, I would just sit tight for the time being. Hey, we're going to take a quick break. The Ringer NBA show, a podcast that you've been on, House. I've been on the NBA show, Heat Check. What other shows are there? Yeah, all that stuff. So Ringer NBA show, tomorrow night after the draft and maybe

even during the draft they're going to be doing a live podcast that we will run thursday night right afterwards i might even be on that podcast who knows we we're not sure but if you're not subscribed to the ringer nba show and you love basketball talk i would highly recommend uh checking that out the ringer nba show and the Ringer Podcast Network. So here's my point with Kawhi. Like the bigger picture, like here's why I think people are barking up the wrong tree with the Kawhi trade.

I think the Celtics can trump everybody just with Hayward, the Kings pick, and the Grizzlies pick if they wanted to do that. That's a mother load. You're getting a guy who a year ago was one of the best 20 players in the league. You're getting a pick that is going to be somewhere between two and seven next year in the draft. And then you're getting this Grizzlies pick.

Who the fuck knows with them? That's top eight protected next year, top four the year after that and unprotected 2021 and you don't have to take on a bad contract that's the part with the lakers that people are kind of glossing over where you know it's like oh yeah brandon ingram they oh and luau dang two years of his contract if you're the spurs why the fuck would you want luau dang's contract why do i have to take that to get rid of kawaii leonard we're like fuck you i'm not taking that right so i agree with all that i think this so thanks here's my question to you you're setting your sights too low why are we talking about kawaii leonard the name that ought to be coming out of your mouth for that kind of a a bounty begins with an l and ends

with a brawn. See, I thought you were going to say a different name. This is my last piece with the Celtics and Kawhi. You're stockpiling assets because you really have your eye on Anthony Davis. That's the reason you don't do anything this year. So it's a twofold case right i would say the warriors are are pretty much a lock to win the 2019 title as well unless somebody gets injured i just think that team is an all-time team and uh going toe-to-toe with them next year beating them in a finals is still unrealistic it's not feels disrespectful to houston well whatever i. I think Houston had their chance,

and they're going to be thinking about that Chris Paul injury for the rest of their lives. That's my personal opinion. Well, and Mabamute. Mabamute. I just think they had bad luck, and I don't think that ever they get that back now. Well, I mean, and I think the Warriors are due for their bad luck.

They might be. But if they're due for their bad luck, the Celtics have the best team anyway to take advantage of it, I think, if Tatum progresses like he should. My question is, you're going to be really good anyway. You're contending for a title next year anyway. Davis is the prize. Kawhi, you already have Jalen Brown and Tatum.

He's a better version of Jalen Brown, obviously. Davis is unlike anyone in the league. If your endgame is Kyrie, Jalen Brown, Tatum, at least one year of Hayward, and then Davis, either if he becomes available on a trade or free agency in a couple years when he's due, and you have that Kings pick and the Grizzlies pick and these other picks as your trade bounty,

I would rather wait for that. I really would. I think Davis is really special. I'm right there with you. The problem is injury risk. You never know. I get it. I know.

I get it. I get it. That's a big investment. Now look, Kawhi just played nine games. I get it. Injury risk. I know. Yeah, I get it. I get it. That's a big investment. Now, look. Kawhi just played nine games. 75 games each of the past two seasons. Kawhi just played nine games last year, so I would say he is an equal injury risk. No, I'm with you.

I'm with you. And I'm knocking on wood because Davis, the last two seasons, 75 games each season. You can get behind that. You can build on that. That's fine. But that's a lot of assets. By the way, if this was 2017 Kawhi

and this was just like I'm just getting a guy who was either the first or second MVP choice. Westbrook probably in retrospect should have been three that year. I'm getting him coming off that playoffs. I'm thinking about this differently.

The difference is we just watched him play nine games, and I'm still not totally sure what was wrong with his leg. I'm still put off by that. It makes me a little nervous. Hey, I want to talk about Dwight Howard really quick. Okay. Dwight Howard got traded again. He has turned into the Yankee Christmas gift of

NBA superstar centers um great job farty pants so here's a guy who when I did my uh I wrote my book of basketball in 09 and did the paperback in 2010. And I had him, I think, 70, in the 70 range for the pyramid. And at that point, he was on a run where, whether you like it or not, he was the best center in the league. And that stayed the case through 2011. Now, historians are going to, this is part of the problem, which is relying on stats and why we need people like me and Joe House in our lives. Historians are going to look at his stats 25 years from now and be like, wow, you know who is unbelievable? Dwight Howard. You know who is underrated? Dwight Howard. Fortunately, we were there. We were there for the entire Dwight Howard experience. With that said,

oh, God, go ahead. Were you going to chime in on one thing? I was going to say, God willing, we're alive 25 years from now and we're able to have that dialogue with these young statisticians, these young analytics cohorts, and we're going to be able to point them right.

So Dwight Howard, from 08 to 2012, was first team All-NBA every year. Five straight, was first team All-NBA every year. Five straight years, first team All-NBA. He made the All-Stars game eight straight years. He made third team All-NBA in 07 and 13, and second team All-NBA in the Rockets in 2014. So he had eight straight years of being in the all NBA in 2014 beats the Clippers him and Harden take the, uh, rockets to the, to the conference finals, or maybe that was 2015.

Oh, it was 2015. It was the year the Clippers choked. Uh, so he didn't make the all NBA that year. He led a team in 2009 that beat the Cavaliers, that beat LeBron during one of the great runs he ever had in his life. And the Cavs were huge favorites in the Eastern Finals. And the Magic just haymakered them. Nobody saw it coming. Beat them in six. Ended up going to the Finals.

And they lost in the Lakers to five in a series. That was a lot closer than I think people realize. Yeah. A Courtney Alexander layup and Courtney Lee layup. And then, and then in game four, they left,

remember they, they were down, they're up three and they left Fisher wide open for some reason. Yes. All right. So from Oh seven. So from 07, so from the 08, 07, 08 season through 2014,

Dwight was 20 a game, 13 and a half rebounds a game, two and a half blocks a game, 59% from the field, just night after night. That's what he gave you. The problem was always when they tried to feed him.

He was a really good center. And I think now he has become this self-parody punchline thing in the last, how many, the last five years, I think he switched teams. He was on the Laker. He was on Orlando, 2012 Lakers, 13 Houston, 14, 15, 16, Atlanta, 17, Charlotte, 18, and now Brooklyn 19. So that is 1, 2, 3, 4 6 teams in 7 years how will you remember Dwight Howardhouse? as a farty pants

I respect his signature achievement is that 2009 Orlando team taking them to the finals that to me was like his last serious basketball moment. I can never forgive him for being at what should have been the height of his basketball powers and not figuring out a way to play alongside Kobe Bryant.

And Kobe Bryant, you and I are pretty much in lockstep in terms of Kobe and would you like to play with him and his personality, his basketball personality, not his human personality, but as a guy who can have kind of a chilling effect. But if you're Dwight Howard on that Lakers team at the height of your Dwight Howard powers and you can't figure out a way to make it work with Kobe. And Kobe holds you in such disregard and disdain because he doesn't see any dog in you.

He doesn't see that killer instinct in you. That, to me, is the thing that I'll remember the most about Dwight. Well, and also a recurring theme for him because in Orlando he wore wore his welcome out and they couldn't wait to get rid of him. In the Lakers, it took a year. They couldn't wait to get rid of him. In Houston, him and Harden, by the end of it, weren't even talking.

Then it goes to Atlanta. He spends a year there. They're so desperate to get rid of him that they make a terrible trade. They took the bad Plumlee brother and more money to get out of Dwight's contract. And now you basically have the same thing happen here in Charlotte. They traded Dwight's last year of his contract, which is like $23 million, and took back two years of Mozgov at like $16 million. It helped them with the luxury tax this year. But they still are paying Mozgov like $16 million in the season after this one just to get Dwight off the team.

And then as soon as he gets traded, the stuff starts leaking out about what a jackass he is. It's really incredible. He is the most disliked all-star we've had because I didn't even talk about in the 2008 Olympics how disliked he was with that whole thing. And they basically, in 2012, they were like, you're not going to be on the 2012 Olympics team. The good guys on the team banded together. And the story I always heard was that they basically were like, Dwight's not going to be on this team.

I'm talking about the best stars in the league saying like, hey, we'll play on the Olympic team, but Dwight's not going to be on this team. And that's how that played out. I'd love for there to find a Dwight fan, a Dwight apologist, somebody that's Dwight for life. I don't know if such a person exists, but I'd love to hear the other side of what his career is about.

I mean, you just did a very fair and balanced rundown of all the achievements and by all standards you know that run of all nba teams especially the first team run um ought to have him everybody who has that resume is a top 50 basketball player right they're top 50 easily in the history of the game. He ain't going to be in the top 50. Yeah, I in funny. It's funny with the pyramid. I actually don't know if he moves up when I when I did the ranking. I assumed he would jump as he kept stockpiling years. Now he had the back injury. It's hard to say how much that affected him. But, you know, he did have big seasons. Like in the 15 playoffs for the Rockets, 16 a game, 14 rebounds a game, 17 playoff games.

So pretty productive. His peak year was 09. He was 20 and 15 in 23 playoff games that year. So if you're looking at that and you're removing personality completely from this and fit and all that stuff and you're just like basically putting together a basketball team like it's a moneyball Billy Bean baseball model, you would want Dwight Howard as the center. He's going to protect the rim as well as anybody. And more importantly, he doesn't need a lot of shots. So you could distribute that shots elsewhere. Like the computer model of Dwight Howard as a center would be really great. Unfortunately, and this is the best thing about basketball, and this is why you and I love it. And we always think the eye test is going to win over anything else.

We watched him. For whatever reason, people didn't like playing basketball with him and they didn't like being on his team and you could see it you and i went 2012 super bowl you me and jacoby sat under the basket and watched him play indiana remember i do i i was thought my last courtside experience. Remember our takeaway? The team didn't like him. The team didn't like him, and we watched four quarters, and we're like, what the fuck's wrong with this guy?

He doesn't interact with his teammates. He just behaves weirdly. And all of us are like, what's going on with this guy? It was very strange. It was a very strange night. He was such an imposing physical talent, too. It felt like he had the ability to take the game over and just never really did it. And I'm not talking about offensively.

No, he's just a baby. And I think there's other guys like this. Vince Carter has done a very nice PR rehab job of the second half of his career. Unfortunately, we were all there for the first half of his career. And he is a big baby. And he quit on Toronto. It's unbelievable that they made a documentary about him in Toronto. And he just blatantly quit on them. And if that happened in the internet era, he would have taken, I mean, in the Twitter era, he would have taken way more shit for that.

But Vince is a guy. He's another one. Just incredibly talented. And was never really able to put it together. And I think some of it had to do with personality stuff. I think he's a more likable teammate probably at least second half of his career than Dwight was. Dwight just seems to have this ability of turning off wherever he goes. But the legacy of Dwight is after Shaq started to lose steam in 04 and after he made that last finals,

and then Shaq had a little bit of a rally in Miami, and I thought he was an MVP candidate in 05. Shaq wins the title in 06 and then passes the torch to Dwight Howard. And Dwight Howard is the best center in the league probably for the next five or six years. And I don't think has really been replaced either. I don't, I think from that moment on the center just morphed into something else.

I, who would you say is the best center now? And bead. Yeah. And bead. So who is the best center between Dwight and bead? Nobody. So he's kind of the end Dwight and Embiid? Nobody. So he's kind of the end of this era.

And by the way, Embiid might end up playing 100 more games in his career, for all we know. Who the fuck knows? Yeah, right. Well, I want to make one point. I'm glad that you linked Vince Carter with Dwight Howard. I want to link those two up with one more guy, Chris Weber. And the one missing ingredient, with all three of those talents, none of them wanted to be the guy. Not one of those dudes had that dog in them.

I keep calling it that way. And that's why Kobe sniffed that out right away with Dwight Howard. We saw it with Vince when it's nut crunching time. We saw it with C-Webb. Vlade was getting all the most important shots with three minutes left, or the ball was moving around to Bibby or somebody else. Weber couldn't wait to get the ball out of his hands on those Sacramento teams.

All those three guys, immense talents, and for all three of them, a missing ingredient. Yeah, and I think it's a good point, and I think I look at this generation of players now, and Kyrie and I talked about it on Friday. It's a really special generation of guys who get their business done and are really good with the media, really take their job seriously. They work out in offseason.

They compete against each other. They measure themselves against each other. The generation before that and the generation before that generation. So you were talking about the Kenny Anderson, uh, C web generation, and then even the Dwight generation to some degree really had a lot more misses in the hit or miss department for people that you just looked at and you mean, man, why weren't you better? What happened? What, what, what,

what was missing here? You know? And in some cases, like I think Kenny Anderson had a lot of personal problems. So did Derek Coleman, uh, C-Web just, if he comes along 10 years later, I think his career is totally different. Penny Hardaway got hurt. Uh, Dwight just was a jackass. I think is, is the legacy of him. But now we're in this generation where all a jackass I think is the legacy of him but now we're in this generation where all these dudes I think are pretty good bets you know you look around like even Simmons

and Embiid who I think maybe 15-20 years ago could have gone a little differently these guys I think are just going to keep getting better I don't really have a lot of red flags with them other than injury stuff Jason Tatumum, Brandon Ingram, Oladipo, all these dudes. Carl Towns, we pick apart. That guy at least seems like he wants to get better. He has deficiencies, but I just think he's going to keep improving would be my guess. But my point is, it's a good time to be a basketball fan. I think Dwight,

Dwight to me represents this era that it was disappointing a lot of the times where we looked at Stefan Marbury and Steve Francis and Dwight and Vince and TMAC to some degree and just were like, what the hell, man? Why aren't these guys consistently better? agree with this i do and i i want to use that as a segue uh to pat you on the back a little bit uh i love courtside i watched it last night of course did i watch it twice yes of course i did uh and i want to hear from your perspective kind of living through that that was it 10 days or was it just a week i mean i don't know how it was 11 days there we go um what was like the feeling on the ground because a couple things immediately rushed back you know watching uh the documentary watching the narrative um but i'm just curious like and

mainly i'm interested in game one because that that was the that set the entire trajectory for how the whole thing went down including lebron's broken hand uh you know which was a direct result of how that game ended what was the sentiment like you know when you're talking to folks you're doing your podcast how was that um i mean we could have gone further with some of the stuff we had you know it was definitely it was a show that we were trying to figure out. We kind of knew what the show was. The show that we ended up with was the show we wanted to do. But it was also a really complicated show to do because the NBA has never really outsourced that kind of access. And for lack of a better word, journalism or commentary like that.

So we, we didn't want to go too far with some of the stuff we could have gone further with the Jr thing. I mean, that was, we're talking about the legacy of that finals and it's going to be the Jr game, right? It's going to be. Yes, of course. And I think of the 95 finals, I think of Nick Anderson, right? It's going to be. Yes, of course. And I think of the 95 finals, I think of Nick Anderson, right? I think of the 93 title game between Carolina and Michigan, you think of C-Web. I just think that's how people are going to remember it. So the question was,

how do you hit that? How do you make it clear that LeBron was never the same after that game, but not, not beat the shit out of it to the point that JR's a punching bag. Does that make sense? Well, I do want to hit pause because one of the things that jumped out at me that I got furious all over again was the charging call. That really set the course for the outcome of that game. And I find everything about that transaction to be just so distasteful, nearly abhorrent. I mean, it outraged me all over again. I didn't know that I was going to get so mad again and i did yeah because the the the nba really did an enormous disservice to itself

by whatever change of rule they they introduced that gave the the ref the ability to go look at a video screen and change the call where they had on on the most difficult call in basketball it's the hardest call the only reason you can, it makes sense to go look at the videotape is the, is the foot in the circle or not. And that's it. You can't go second guessing that judgment call. Well, they had two refs disagree in the call and the cop out was to go review it. So that's a jump ball. The cop out was to go review it. But ultimately they fucked up. And by the way, also fucked up in the Rockets Warriors series in game five, which was the most pivotal play of that series,

the inadvertent whistle on the heart and travel that led to the Rockets got the ball back and then CP got hurt. But we saw it a couple of times. To me, it's a big, it's a big picture problem of just the referees that you have 12 referees for the finals and the NBA didn't have 12 good ones. And two of the guys that ref game one shouldn't have been in game one, Ed Malloy and Tony Brothers. And once I saw them before game one, I was concerned.

It's like, oh, no. Oh, those guys. But yeah, it definitely swung it. And LeBron was – we tried to capture a little in the show. LeBron was so angry that watching live and just seeing him pace around like just almost like like he was in a cage. He was so mad. I was not surprised at all to hear that he punched something after the game because I thought he was going to punch someone during the game. That all by itself was a perfectly justifiable grievance and a grievance that he could harbor.

The sequence of events that took place afterwards, I don't know how he could possibly stay in Cleveland even though I think there's a decent chance that he stays in Cleveland. That was the other part that jumped out. Him on the sideline saying to Lou,

did we have a timeout? Did you have a timeout? And Lou answering in the affirmative, Ty Lou answers, and the expression on LeBron's face when Lou acknowledged that there was a timeout that could have been called. I mean, the dream for this show is how can we get more and more access

with the Mike guys on the court? We found out some things like, you know, and this makes sense because this is how the playoffs works too. They only Mike guys in the second and third games. They make one guy in each team for those games. The coaches are Mike the whole time. Other than that, it's really hard to get audio on the court. Now, could we try to change that over the next couple of years? I hope so, but it's really hard. Why is that? What's the basis for that policy? I think it's just a collective bargaining thing. But the dream is this show five years from now, if we could get a little more of the encore access, you end up with those moments like Nick Foles and Doug Peterson in the Philly special. If there's a way to get a little more access

that helps you understand things about these games that you couldn't get from the broadcast, that would be the next level of this. I thought we paved the way for the first year. The big thing for us was like, how do we create a show like that show that you and I used to watch in the eighties, that end of the year show every year. And then also how do we create a show that captures the narratives and how they swing game to game? So that part, that was really fun to figure out. And I think that's why we had to cheat and do stuff with the podcast and things like that. But the cool thing for the

finals for me is like, when you're there, the narratives change every day. And it's always about you're on the court beforehand. What, oh, what are you hearing? You know, I think before game three, it's like, what do you think? Are these LeBron's last two games? Capturing that stuff was the most important part for year one. The finals are great.

I mean, they really are like, it's just like, if you love basketball and you're just there and you're in it it's really cool and uh unfortunately yeah it's it's its own living breathing really is it's and it's different than the super bowl let people in the super bowl is like you're there for the game it's like a prize fight it's like who do you think's gonna win you go and you and then you leave and the finals ebbs and flows in a totally different way, which is what we wanted. So organic. I know.

I loved it. I enjoyed it, obviously. Well, thank you. But, yeah, it was a good first effort. And hopefully as this keeps going, maybe we can get a little more each year and try to give a little insight. I will say the sneaky part of that finals was how good game one and game three were.

Just as a pure basketball fan, I think people think of it now as a sweep. Oh, yeah, go on state. They're not going to think about the finals. But game one was a magical game. I mean, that was really one of the most memorable nba finals games we've had you know lebron had 51 the the call that goes down forever george hill's miss free throw jr's brain fart like that game was fucking amazing one of the things i i loved about re-watching the George Hill free throws was staring at his eyes because I didn't know to do it in the moment because I was tense.

I was hyped. I was excited for the outcome. Staring at his eyes because knowing that he missed. I mean, here's the thing, and this is what I'm interested in, your takeaway. You were physically there. How can LeBron go back to Cleveland? It's... How can he ride with those guys?

Who does he trust? It's hard to imagine. I don't... It really depends on what he wants in life, you know? There's a scenario. From what I've heard, his family is going to LA

anyway. And I think the part that hasn't really been covered and I think is a legitimate number one, at least top three reason why they're going to LA is I think his son's a really good basketball player. And it makes more sense for his son to be in LA and playing on the West coast and doing stuff on that end than it would be for him to be like in Ohio. So I think that's part of it. And, uh, and I think there's a chance to family. I could see the family going and LeBron not going to the Lakers right away. And maybe he stays one more year. The problem is you can't ride with that team and he sees the Celtics coming. He knows the Celtics got really, really close last year anyway,

missing two guys. And I think next year would run them over. And they really almost lost the Indiana series too. So, you know, the problem is, and this is what we've talked about since February, there's no great move for him. There's no slam dunk. If he goes to Philly, I don't think that's a slam dunk.

I love Houston. Why don't you love Houston? I don't think it's a slam dunk. I really don't. Why? Because I don't know what I'm getting from Chris Paul at this point in his life. I don't think. Well, I would say less.

You want less from Chris Paul. You don't want as much. Let Chris Paul play 60 or 65 games and get healthy for the playoffs. I don't think there's a scenario where they can keep LeBron and Capella. I think it's unrealistic. So I wouldn't have a pick-and-roll center. That makes Houston not as enticing if they can't figure out how to keep Capella. It would make sense to me if Ryan Anderson was a free agent after this year and if they

had some sort of pick or asset to give the Cavs to make it worth it, but they just don't. So they don't have the opt-in sign-and-trade move with LeBron sitting there. There's really no way to pull it off. So I think they're out. And I think his best chance to win a title is if he can pull off a Kawhi thing for next year. Meaning he lures Kawhi to— You act like these guys haven't been texting since like February. I mean,

there are no tampering rules anymore. I think these guys, Kyrie said it in the podcast Friday. He said, this shit starts at all-star weekend. That's what everybody says. Well, it starts during the season.

Players are allowed to talk. They talk all the time. There's no rule against the players talking. I know for a fact that LeBron has reached out to certain players. And yeah, I do. I don't want to betray sources, but this shit goes on. This is, you know. You can name the players.

You don't have to betray the source. Who did he talk to? Come on. Don't dangle that. Maybe later in the summer. Send me a text. But yeah, like I can't imagine Lonzo stays on that team if this all plays out. And I can't imagine the Spurs would want Lonzo. Lonzo ball?

Yeah, but I'm saying if they can somehow get Kawhi for Ingram, Dang, and Kuzma and like a future number one, if the Spurs are just like, fuck it, this is the best we can do. Now they have Kawhi. Then they're able to bring in LeBron, sign Paul George, and still have the Lonzo card to trade him somewhere. Then they might have enough to compete with the Warriors, right? Then you get a couple of buyout guys and you kind of figure it out. The cast matters. I mean, I think that's one crucial takeaway that we just learned from that

finals. The cast, you can't just have three. This is the... What I'm saying, you're going to have four. The other thing that's changed, I haven't heard people mention this. There seems to be more buyout guys than ever in February. And I think part of the reason is contracts are shorter now. You think about last decade, guys had these seven, six, five-year contracts. Now the contracts are shorter. And every year there's Bellinelli and Iliasova and Gerald Green and all these dudes seem to be available.

So you could get like five or six and then try to figure out who those other two are as it gets closer. But I'm excited to see how it plays out. And the Cavs tried it. They just got a poo-poo platter. If you were LeBron, what would you do? Go to Houston. Really? So you would just go? I said stay put, but I can't figure out who's going to stay put.

Say again. So what if he did this? What if his family moves to LA and he just signs with Houston for one year for the mid-level exception? Just takes a pay cut for one year and just goes there and just be like, I'm a mercenary. I'm doing this for one year and just goes there and just be like, I'm a mercenary. I'm doing this for one year and then I move into LA. And the Lakers just kind of wait for him.

I could see him doing it. I just think it's a mistake. I think it's a mistake for him to chase a title when he doesn't know he has the best team. Yeah, I'm with you. I honestly, I don't know what the right answer is for him because i in my gut what i want for him is whatever the next step is to be a legacy move like something that enhances his legacy la and going to houston does doesn't really do that i don't like the la thing because it's it's just too far uh removed it's too tenuous. The real challenge

is I think Boston makes the most sense because him going to Boston and bringing back another title to that franchise in that storied franchise and him remaining in the East means that he has another year guaranteed

in the finals with Boston. Boston obviously has the assets to entice Cleveland into a deal. I mean, Cleveland hopefully will do a little bit better job on the deal this year than last year for Kyrie. But the three franchises are the Knicks, the Celtics, and the Lakers in terms of real legacy kind of moves. I think the Lakers is the best move for him from a legacy move because he goes there,

he does this whole thing. The move we've talked about, I want to be the first billion dollar businessman. I wanted to play for the biggest NBA franchise in the world. You can sell that so easily. And he would know if he went there, it's a two-year plan, not a one-year plan. You're basically throwing away the 19th season.

You compete, you contend, but you're not a favorite. But with the aim of the 19-20 season, we're winning the title. It's a two-year plan. Well, that's interesting. So that's a different take on it. That means that he'd have to have a patience. He'd be playing a long view thing, and he'd be willing to sacrifice the consecutive appearances in the finals. But that's my point.

I don't think he should. But I think he's screwed either way, unless he goes to the Celtics. Yeah. I'm going to leave you on this, Nothouse. I don't want him to come to the Celtics. Okay. Fair enough. You know what?

You've been at war with him for a decade. Yeah, that's the thing. I understand. If we were like, I don't know, if we were the Knicks, you'd be like, yeah, LeBron, we need to make the finals. Yeah, I'll do anything. I'll sell the blood of my kids to make this happen. He can have a half an ownership stake in MSG. Yeah, the Celtics won 10 years ago.

Boston's won a bunch of titles. And I want to beat LeBron. LeBron has beaten us in 2012, I think 2015, 17, and 18. He's beaten us the last four times we've gone against him. I want to beat the guy. We've built a team now that is in the driver's seat in the next LeBron playoff series. I want to beat him.

I don't want to. I almost feel like it's a it's like a fuck you to us like he's like you know what you can't beat me but now i'll make it easier i'll join you it's like fuck you i like that i like that i want him on the next i really i don't i know it's just probably not possible but i really really am dying to have him on the you're getting kd him bringing about kd in three years him who kd on the next. You're getting KD. How about KD in three years? KD on the next. What, to the next? KD's going to save the next. Who wants to wait around? F that.

I want this year coming up. I want the Knicks on the map. I want the Knicks relevant. I want MSG booming because they're going to make a deep playoff run. I miss that out of the Knicks. When Madison Square Garden is bumping because they're a good team, they're legit, they can beat teams in the playoffs,

there's nothing like it. It's the best. That's my play. I want LeBron James on the New York Knicks for the 2018-2019 NBA season. I have one last prediction for you. Go ahead. I don't think it's a slam dunk that DeAndre Ayton goes first in the draft

tomorrow. I just want to get that on the record. Taping this. Let's look at odds. It's one o'clock. Where are the odds? Donchich is plus $1,500 to go first. And Sal and I have been texting about it. Oh, $1,500. I mean, that's a nice

number. That's worth $100. Everybody's penciled in Ayton as the number one pick. I mean, that's a nice number. That's worth $100. Everybody's penciled in Aiton as the number one pick, and yet I haven't seen Phoenix say, we're taking Aiton with the number one pick. And they hired Donchish's old coach. Yes, coach is there. It seems like he might have the most value in the draft because now Atlanta said, we're taking him.

You have all these teams that were trying to trade up to take him. And I don't know. I just want to throw that out there. I'm not convinced. I think if the odds are – You're going to change it. You know when this goes up, the odds are going to change. No, no.

We're going to bet on it right after we hang up. But like Aiton is minus 2,500 to go first. I think that's insane. I think he can absolutely not go first. Anyway, Joe House, listen to you on House of Carbs and the Shook House. You won me $800 on DraftKings with the team you told me to take on the US Open, so thank you. I gave you a couple good ones. Tommy Fleetwood and Sam Burns.

Those were pretty good. The DJ, I'm still mad at at him but i'll get over it yeah he this is his one vulnerability he loses confidence sometimes on greens and if he loses confidence putting wise he's cooked he can't he can't get it back he just doesn't have a mechanism to restore that faith he still hit the ball beautiful and you know it felt like a failure he shot even par yeah on sunday and you know he only lost by by two strokes um but i that that's what what was the difference between you winning a lot more money in the draft king yeah brooks kepka is really good and it's just one of those dudes man he's grinding it out badass up and downs when he

needs it uh just hitting it straight he just doesn't he doesn't fuck up you know yeah also breaking news phil mickelson gave the apology almost word for word almost verbatim the apology that i said he ought to give on the show sunday night when when shack and i recorded i could i could do the apology off the top of my head. It came out today. Congrats, Phil, for getting it right after four days. I think my dude Tommy Fleetwood wins PGA. I'm going all in on him.

I think he's ready. He's ready to win a title. The problem is he can't put together the four quality rounds. He has the one shit round each time that he has to recover from and come back from. And it's usually early. I think he's ready. All he needs to do is shoot like a 70

in the first day and I think he could win. Joe House, pleasures. 25 to one. 25 to one right now. I'm jumping on that. Joe House, pleasures always. Always a good time.

Thank you, Billy Simmons. All right. Thanks so much to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to check them out at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Don't forget about the rewatchables. Forrest Gump coming tomorrow. Me and Sean Fantasy.

I promise you will like this podcast, even if you got tired of that movie a long time ago. Remember, life is like a box of chocolates. Don't forget about Ringer MBA show. Don't forget about our Twitter show during the draft. I might actually be on. I might pop. I might pop on that one. And last but not least, don't forget about the Ringer NBA show

because we are covering the draft all week, whatever trades happen. You name it. TheRinger.com, same thing. And that's it. I will be back either late Thursday night or Friday with a post-draft podcast and some other stuff as well. Until then. On the wayside On the first I never said I don't have

to ever say