The Bill Simmons Podcast - Curry vs. Everybody, Boston’s Next Move, NBA Dynasty Tiers, and Draft Buzz With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Celtics’ Finals collapse, possible offseason moves, and Jayson Tatum’s workload this season (1:06), before talking about what this Warriors title does for Stephen Curry’s NBA legacy, what it means to have an NBA dynasty (21:44), the Warriors’ exorbitant salaries for next season, the NBA draft, and more (1:03:48). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, a special Father's Day edition of the Bill Simmons Podcast, where we're going to honor our fathers, all the fathers out there, by talking about basketball for almost 100 minutes. Happy Father's Day. It's all next. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sportsbook is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks,

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And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit RG-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend.

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Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. A new Rewatchables is coming at some point this week. Not sure when. It might be, it's either Monday night or Wednesday night, but we are going to be doing a movie that is pretty untouchable. That will be my hint. So there you go. Coming up on this podcast, Ursula and I are going to talk about all the belated subplots from the finals,

a lot of Curry stuff, some Dynasty stuff, and then some NBA draft stuff. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, happy Father's Day out there. I'm here with Ryan Musilla. We're taping this on a late Sunday morning Pacific time. I spent game six of the NBA finals with my dad,

who I didn't mention this on the Thursday Night Pod, was playing words with friends at halftime. He was basically convinced this is done. This is a wrap. He went into this dark place. It was pretty funny. Three days to kind of rehash what happened.

Talk yourself into whatever narrative makes you feel better about it. If you're a Celtics fan, if you're a Warriors fan, you're thinking another run here. You didn't do a podcast on Friday. What were your thoughts coming off of game six? Boston just became a little easy to defend. The offense reminded

me of the times we didn't like them offensively. I just think it's always weird when we talk about flaws. We talk about Belichick losing season, I still think it's a massive positive. It's a disappointing end because I don't know that Golden State, you didn't go to it being like they're so far superior. But some of the questions that you have, I think are all fair questions. But I think you have to look at the totality of what the season was. And I think one of the most remarkable turnarounds from an unproven group of younger players that just emotionally, I didn't know if they were built for this kind of thing. So like for me to point to all the flaws that I think they have offensively or some changes or all these things, like we get into that later on,

but ultimately I still think it's just such a huge positive for them because this is still something I didn't think they were capable of. So to say like, Oh, it's these guys and they suck and they're soft and it's this. And so it's just, well, if that had been true, then they would have lost to Milwaukee in the second round, you know, or maybe, maybe the first round against the Nets goes seven games.

So I still think it's a huge positive. I, you know, I picked Golden State, but I felt like it was sort of a coin toss and that's kind of where I'm at with it. I was stunned. The more I thought about the series, how the last three games, the Warriors just got better and better, which is kind of what you have to do in some of these series, right? What Wiggins was doing, what Klay was doing, how they were able to unleash the offense and the movement and stuff like that. And then most important, just their defense, how it went up a level.

And I think the Celtics fans, because that had been a recurring theme with the Celtics over and over again, when the offensive breakdowns slow down, the turnovers, all that stuff, probably not enough credit to how the Warriors just kind of solved them. I felt that at game five, I did a podcast that night trying to balance the sky's falling thing versus what I deep down knew was that it just felt like the Warriors knew they had figured it out and that's what it felt like supremely confident yeah it felt like they really figured it out you know and I think Draymond for having probably three terrible games in the finals I know Steve Kerr said that that wasn't the case I just thought what he did in game six you know he he understood kind of what game six was about trying to to eliminate somebody more so than anyone on Boston did.

So go ahead. I interrupted. I mean, did six always feel hopeful? Because even when a team is down big, I always think if the team's decent, and we even saw it in this series, you're like, oh, okay, this game's over. They're not really over. I mean, it still felt like Boston had a chance here in the fourth.

How did it feel in the building? They blew the 12-2 run, which happened in about two and a half minutes. And once people realized the bench wasn't going to show up again, and Tatum, who I talked about on Thursday night, just had a weird demeanor and look on his face. He just like, whether he was psyched out or just emotionally exhausted, physically exhausted, whatever it was, It just didn't seem like he had anything left. And you could see it not only in the games, but in the timeouts. He wasn't talking to anybody. And I was doing some minutes stuff. Some of the minutes stuff

was out there on social the last couple of days, but he really did play a shitload of minutes for a 24-year-old guy. There's not a lot of precedent for the 24. It's going to sound like I'm making excuses for Tatum. I'm not because I think there's real stuff that he has to work on if he wants to become a great player. I don't think he's a great player yet because part of being great is being consistent, and he's not. But you look like he played 27, 31 minutes in the regular season.

He played 983 in the playoffs. Just go look on basketball reference on that stat head thing. 24 and under guys, most minutes in the playoffs. He's second all time. Tayshaun Prince is first and Tatum is second. He had a bigger, way bigger responsibility than Tayshaun did in 2004. Just going backwards, just even the last 15, 16 years, LeBron in 2013, he was 28-77 in the regular season, 9-60 in the playoffs.

So right around where Tatum was, a little bit higher. Rondo, 29-63, 9-75. Rashard Lewis, he's in there. Paul Pierce and Dirk. Dirk in 2006, 30-89 in the regular season, 9-83 in the playoffs. I thought Tatum hit a wall. And that was part of it. Because the other part is the floaters, the finishing around the basket, and the pull-up. If you're just talking about if we were advising him, how do you get better?

What's the next step for you? Part of it has to be the floaters. And part of it has to be the finishing around the basket. I'm not even going to talk about the post-up stuff yet. That might be three years away. But his inability to master that mid-range that the Warriors, I felt like, were giving him, that really killed them in this series. I thought the shots were there. What'd you think? Yeah, he looked weak. He looked weak physically. If he was going to drive a line, I thought it was kind of easy to push him off of his line. The post stuff, I don't know how many good post players there are anymore,

but I used to always laugh about the LeBron post touches with Miami. He would catch it seven feet out, not have any post moves, and people were like, oh, he's really improved his post game. You're like, no, he's just catching it in a different area. There's actually some value in that. At first, I was kind of laughing going, he's not

really doing much. LeBron doesn't have this polished post game. And again, most guys don't. And I don't think most offenses want to run through it, but there needs to be some counters. And basketball is very predictable. You always kind of regress back to what you're most comfortable with. And he's most comfortable with the kind of step back jumpers. And defenders are going to be so happy when you take those all the time. I thought Klay's defense cranked up. Wiggins, I thought, was physically stronger against him. And this starts turning into, because I just, at no point, even when it was immediately over and while I was watching the series, at no point did I go, if I were on in Boston,

what would I do? I wouldn't just start shitting on a team that got to game six in the NBA finals that was completely unexpected in January. I don't think that's the accurate way to look at this thing. But clearly there's some offensive things where I go, okay, what exactly are their main problems? And I thought in this series and that fourth quarter stuff and the numbers would back it up that they started to regress

to what they're most comfortable with, which is what basketball players do. And the Jalen part of it, the fact that he can score this many points in these games and not be able to dribble a basketball and throw some of the worst passes you'll ever see from a high usage guy, and then you factor in the Tatum turnovers too, I'd imagine when you're playing against wings that has some flaws with the ball control, you actually get geared up for it. As soon as jalen had the basketball and had to put it on the floors of sharks in the water and i i met like my guess would be and i think it's a it's a valid guess as a defender you're like oh shit he's gonna try to dribble and then it's on because you've played him so many times in a row i'm

actually a little worried for jalen in that now that everybody saw it on this stage, will people be more hyper to swipe down at him in every regular season game? But then when you start looking at the total score numbers, Bill, I'm like, this isn't, it's still crazy to me that he scored this many points when he has this major, major flaw. This isn't as exposed as much in regular season games. Drew was the one who unlocked that in round two. He was the first one unlocked that in round two.

He was the first one that I really saw just try to anytime they put the ball on the ground, he would just pounce. And I think teams, Miami followed it. Golden State did too. Tatum had some of the same issues. The weird thing with Tatum was Golden State was so comfortable with him driving to the

basket. And I thought Draymond, who looked like they were going to have to have a real decision with him come in the basket. And I thought Draymond, who looked like they were going to have to have a real decision with him, come forward because athletically, he just didn't look the same. And then game five, game six, I thought he was awesome. And some of the stuff he was doing,

you could teach it in basketball camps of a two-on-one fast break, how comfortable he was with just whatever happens. I'm stopping this. You know, he's 6'6". They just used all the Celtics flaws against them. I thought it was an incredible coaching job. And you're right.

Like the Celtics, if we said in January, they're going to get to game six of the finals and lose, we would have taken that. I think they're really young. I don't think Tatum is going to be anywhere near the guy he's going to end up being. And if you're just thinking big picture, I wanted to play a little GM for a day later with the Celtics, but big picture, the question for me is,

can you win a title with that nucleus, with the ball handling and turnover stuff that I just don't think will go away with those four guys? Because Smart was always shoehorned in as a point guard. The defense made it worth it to play him there. But there were so many moments in these games when, you know, even game seven Miami, as that was falling apart and they were just either taking terrible shots or throwing the ball away. Do you need somebody who's a little more comfortable with the ball in those situations is going to be the big question for them this summer along with, can we find a wing so that in game five, as the series is slipping away, we don't have to play

Brown and Tatum the entire second half because we don't trust anyone else on our roster. Those would be the two things I'm thinking about if I'm the Celtics. Yeah, both valid points. I haven't always been the biggest Marcus Smart fan. That's not breaking news to everybody here, but I was really impressed with what he did the second half of the season, kind of figuring it out, accepting it all. But if your DNA, again, we don't really have traditional point cards anymore. It's almost bad if you're a traditional point card and you can't score. And his overall shooting numbers from three weren't bad, even though, I mean, look, most everybody that's taken 10 plus shots a night is going to have some dreadful shooting

performance, if not two of them in a six or seven game series. It's kind of the way it works out. I did wonder if Derek White, after what was kind of a six or seven game series. It's just kind of the way it works out. I did wonder, you know, Derek White, after what was kind of a fluky game one, where you go, is there enough playmaking with him that, that it works? Cause his minutes got kind of dreadful there at the end. He was the biggest disappointment.

Yeah. He fell off a cliff those last, really starting game three. Cause he got benched in the second half of game three. And you know, that was really what we're talking about. they thought he was going to be that guy that kind of that third guard insurance but somebody who could handle the ball and he just lost his confidence yeah uh so you know i don't know if it's an i don't know if it's an upgrade

of smart because i thought smart really figured some stuff out after i think you know but it's great to have confidence. I would look at Smart as somebody who maybe in the past had so much confidence that it kind of messed up the hierarchy of this team at times. And whatever he thought of himself or whatever he accepted, I think was another big part of their improvement. But it's nice when you have somebody who's dissecting a little bit more.

And that's not what they were doing offensively. They weren't going after better matchups. They had a couple of times where Smart got the switch from Tatum on to Steph, and then Smart went. And I'm like, wait, you just ran the action, you get the switch, you got the switch you wanted, and then you didn't do anything with it. That happened a few times. And there was some stuff I would say at the end of game six, I just thought overall, I don't know if they were mentally spent or not, but Draymond's a perfect example. Draymond's help defense instincts

are insane. He knows exactly who he has. There was even a play too where I think Poole was getting posted up on the left block. Draymond knew, okay, fine. You want to do that? I'm coming to bring help, but Gary Payton better be ready behind me to rotate. Maybe it was to Rob Williams or something.

And Rob got a dunk. Smart made a great pass. I think it was smart posting pool. Now that I'm thinking about it. Anyway, none of this is relevant, but Draymond knew. And then it looked like it was Draymond's mistake. But Draymond, as he was helping, was also pointing out the help rule behind him. And Payton fucked it up.

Whereas on the other end, when they ran the Steph into Horford switch, which I can't believe they let, not the switch, the switch will happen, but that nobody ever was like, hey, so then Grant Williams stays glued to Kevon Looney, to Kevon Looney, like on the baseline, Looney didn't even have a good angle and he was far enough away that you could have helped off of him. And then it's like, no, we're just going to let Horford get torched by Steph again here so it felt like the emotions the the mental fatigue the physical physical fatigue it felt like it was just adding up all there at the end which is just part of the learning process for a team that I still think with Boston when we compare them to other conference finals teams you're like wait like a perfect example Atlanta make the East Conference Finals like you already

sort of forget that you're like oh shit that's right Atlanta made the Easter Conference Finals is that really who they are? I think Portland's got one of those as well. I still think Boston's better positioned to feel like they have a group here that gives them a chance. But there's also times too when I think about Middleton where the Bucs might have back-to-back

titles if he didn't get hurt. That's why I've landed mentally. I think with Middleton, the Bucs were probably a little bit better. and it does feel like the Celtics were a year ahead of schedule, a little 96 paths ask with this. We're just like, Oh,

the year early. Okay. We made it. They have a 17.1. We'll just do this now. They did a 17.1 million exception for fournia. And that sounds a lot easier to use than you think. Because if you go through,

I have eight guys that would make sense. Because I think if you're them, you have to get another wing. You have to be able to play three wings. You need insurance for Tatum and Brown. You can't be in a situation where they're playing 40 plus minutes a game in a playoffs. So Duncan Robinson, 16.9, Norm Powell, 16.8, Marcus Morris, 16.4, Malik Beasley's 15.5, Kevin Herter, 14.5, Caldwell Pope's 14, McDermott's 13.7, and Kuzma's 13. And I think they're going to aggressively spend because one of the things with the Warriors is the Warriors are the most aggressive spenders of any really good multi-title champion that we've had. They don't give a shit. And they spent $300 million last year. It's going to cost more this year if they want to keep Peyton and Looney. And they don't care because they have the money and they make a

ton of money with the Chase Center and they're going to spend it. By the way, no one should care. All right. If you own one of these teams, none of you should care because you're about to what double your TV rights at worst and potentially triple them. So this is the best case scenario there. This is the opposite of like the Sarver experience, right? The worst, they're so competitive up and down through that organization. They're just like, we have a chance to win titles. We don't care what it costs. Like even last year, they, Uber probably cost what, $80 million? Just having them on the roster, they could have gotten rid of them. If you're the Celtics,

you could try to... Maybe the Clippers, if they have Paul George and Kawhi back, maybe they don't need Norm Powell and Marcus Morris. I don't know if the Celtics could bring Marcus Morris back. I don't know if he was the most popular. I don't know if the Jalen Brown Marcus Morris stuff was awesome. When you're talking about owners that don't care, I don't think if the Jalen Brown Marcus Morris stuff was awesome.

When you're talking about owners that don't care, I don't think Ballmer cares about Norman Powell. So that's why whenever I see his trade exceptions and we went through it and I asked Bobby Marks about it, I go, have you done anything? He sent me all of this work on historically going through two decades of trade exceptions. Very rarely it gets used.

It's like less than 25%. But where it could get used if the Celtics called the Hawks and they wanted to flip Grant Williams for Kevin Herter. Very rarely it gets used. It's like less than 25%. But where it could get used, if the Celtics called the Hawks and they wanted to flip Grant Williams for Kevin Herter, this is an example, right? Where you could trade Grant Williams to the Hawks and take back Herter, who makes $12 million more than Grant does, but you could fit Herter in the exception.

It's stuff like that, where the exception could come into play. And the Celtics could look at it as, you know, would it be easier to fill like a 20 to 25 minute a game off the bench person with size, maybe a little more size than Grant?

Because Grant was really badly exposed those last two rounds. You know? And I think the Miami series and Golden State was bad. I would pay money to see Grant Williams and Trey Young play together. Grant was tough in person. We've talked about it before, but especially in game six when he was terrible,

but was also trying to be the leader during the timeouts. It's like you got to play like, you got to be at least a C-plus to start yelling at Tatum and Brown about what they should be doing. Like maybe get one rebound, maybe make a three. I think when you see those times where Ema interacts with him differently than everybody else, I think that tells you a lot. Yeah. But Ema's like, dude, I don't want to hear it right now. And it's in the middle of the game. So the question for them is, is it, it's a two piece move, right? If you flip Grant and somebody that could fit in that exception, or you just try to get somebody with that exception and just hope a team's either trying to dump salary

or use that money for something different. Or you keep the team you have and you just go with the mid-level. I mean, there's a lot of free agents this year, ranging from the draggage types. TJ Warren's a free agent. Gary Payton's going to be out there. You have Ingles coming off an injury.

People like that. You have Kyle Anderson and Bruce Brown and Tyus Jones and people like that. There's a lot of mid-level guys and Boston's going to be an attractive destination. What would be your move? What would you do? Would you keep the nucleus or would you try to get

frisky? I definitely try to get frisky because, you know, I think you need to come back. I, you know, I mean, I know it sounds simple, just be, Hey, be better, be better next year. But I don't know what, I don't want to hear about expenses. I don't want to hear about costs. None of these franchises are worth less. These guys have all killed it as far as the appreciation and growth of the value of these franchises. And there's a big thing coming here too. And I don't know how that's going to play out, which I know we'll talk about probably with the Golden State stuff later on. But yeah, I'd look at this group going, we are still like, I don't think this is, and again,

when I say it this way, I'm not saying it. I always hate whenever I say we, because I don't mean it that way. I mean, if you're running the team but this is this is a really good group to keep building on and I would hope ownership and they have a really good track record like when they're close owners this ownership's not afraid so sometimes I'll listen to some of the local criticism of the owners going like are you guys not paying attention like they may not decide to pay the tax for an eight seed okay but when it's when it's close i don't really think these guys screw around so yeah i i'd love to see rob williams healthy for a full season i don't know if that exists i don't know what horford's going to look like next year because

i don't think you want to mess with that i think i'd rather just pay him and have the option because he was so good and he's so important and so many other things that he does. I just think they need some other kind of wing outlet that also defends. I think they thought they had that twice over and that didn't really work out. That's why they went in the direction of White because White

provided them a little bit more playmaking, but it didn't work out. Look, they lost to one of the best organizations we've seen in the history of this game. There you go. The Neesmith thing not working out really hurt them. And I'm not giving up on him yet, but he would have, that would have been a really big monkey wrench for them in that series if he could have played 15, 60 minutes a game. It's hard. Right.

It's hard to be any kind of shooter when you just don't play. Yeah, I agree. So there you go. John Wall buyout Bradley Beal super trade Mike Conley sitting there

Ricky Rubio coming off an injury as a free agent Brogdon seems to be available they have the mid-level at 6.3 there is Brogdon just doesn't

play enough we all like Brogdon he's really good he just doesn't play enough Joe Ingles Ty Tyus Jones, Pat Connaughton, Kyle Anderson, Nick Batum, TJ Warren. Those are just some names I wrote down. I don't know how they're

going to play it, but I think they're going to be aggressive. I think they feel like they have a chance to succeed for the next four or five years, but the key will be Tatum. What can he add? He will be better three years from now than he is now. What will he add?

What is that journey going to look like? And I can't wait to find out. All right, we're going to take a break and then it's time. Steph Curry. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey.

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which I thought, that's not nothing. And those were hard minutes for nine, 10 straight weeks. So if you're going to make the case like Tatum just hit a wall, there's some pretty good minutes. By the way, just one last thing on it, and I'll just tee it up and get out of the way. But when you pointed out the other 24-year-old seasons of the other guys we spent a lot of time talking about, and maybe there is some kind of –

I look at Tatum and go, okay, whatever. I thought he was capable of the game six against Milwaukee Bucks. This starts to change the direction you think it's – all right, we also realize there's still a fairly significant gap. But I thought your 24-year-old season comp thing was really important, but it also is because Tatum's got 18, he's got 20, and now he's got 22. And it's felt like he's been around for a while. But I also think it was kind of fair to look at who were the other premier or number one options at 24 that did this.

And he's not Luka. He's just not. Okay, cool. You win. I don't think any of us would ever say this guy's better than Luka. Yeah, Dwayne Wade is probably the best case scenario 24- old season in 2006 when he took miami to the title but other than that most of the people you look at who were great at age 24 weren't the player that they would eventually come become two to three years later all right steph curry bittersweet for me uh i know

you enjoyed you enjoyed the Steph victory lap. I'll just throw some questions at you and we'll just go in order because I said to House on Thursday night, the first thing to me is Kobe versus Curry for number nine all time for me is now in play. I still think Kobe has him

on the totality of all the stuff he did during his career. If you actually really look at some of the Kobe stuff, the all-NBA stuff and things like that is pretty crazy with him. Kobe, his finals MVP, obviously no nine. He was the first or second best player of five champs. He made two other finals. He was top five MVP vote 11 times. And he was first team all NBA 11 times.

Second team twice. Third team twice. Curry won the back-to-back MVPs. Best or second best player on four champs and two runners-up. Four times first-team all-in-bate,

three times second-team, one time third-team. So I still have Kobe at nine. I looked at it. I tried to factor in the whole piece about Curry, how he changed the way basketball was played, how he succeeded Tim Duncan as the greatest teammate

you could possibly have, all the great shooting stuff with him, the 25-0 winning streak, the 73 wins, the three years in a row when they were like 207-39 from 15-17. The peak of Steph's teams, I think, were better than really any Kobe-Lakers peak, other than maybe that stretch in the second half of the 2001 season. But I still have Kobe ahead of me. So, I'll start there. What do you have?

I have him ahead of Kobe. I have him behind Magic, which I think we should also touch on at some point, too, because Andre Iguodala going, okay, now he's the best point guard of all time. Magic's resume here is getting completely overlooked. Yeah, I'm not ready to go near that. So it's not even a debate yet for me on the Steph Magic one.

Steph Kobe, I think, is a real debate. Now, this is very clear bias. If you're a Kobe guy, you're just not hearing it, right? You're talking the defensive gap. It's different. It's all those things. I'm admitting my bias as being more pro-Steph because I think Steph, and it depends on really what you want to factor in with the top 10 evaluation of all-time players because it

starts to get like, you start having to make little arguments against the other guy who's also phenomenal, right? Which isn't always fun to do. So do you factor in what somebody means for a franchise? How much better he makes every other player? I don't know. I don't know if you do or not like if again if i'm a kobe stan i'm saying defense the gap i don't want to hear it if i'm a steph guy i'm saying never asked for a trade the easiest superstar to play with in his generation it may be beyond uh he or duncan i think you know obviously duncan is in the conversation there too. The stats, like Steph has better stats.

He just does. His playoff averages, granted he's played like almost 90 less games than Kobe had by the time he had retired, but the higher scoring average, more rebounds a game, more assists a game. They shot it close, but Steph still has the edge in the course from three. You look at some of the net rating stuff, even when Kevin Durant was his teammate,

Steph had the number one playoff net rating in 17 and 18. In 15, it was number two behind Draymond, which is also because of Steph. He was eighth this year in this playoff run. Going back to 15, 16, it obviously dipped. It wasn't as good. Toronto wasn't as good. But that's four times we're talking about him essentially being the number one guy that you would want out there. And there's something as simple as to say, hey, how come every time this guy's out there,

his team wins all these games? So if you want to take away what you are as the face of the franchise, meaning the buy-in part of it it then that's advantage kobe because steph doesn't have that summer of of anger where kobe was like i'm out i don't know that kobe made his teammates better and i think when shit got tough kobe is a pretty terrible teammate for a long time there there's a lot of documentation all yeah look all you have to do is read any book. Read any Phil Jackson book.

Read the Perlman book. There's a lot of stuff out there. The last Perlman book is almost every single teammate and coaching staff at some point being incredibly frustrated with Kobe here. I think the difference with the two of them, though, is that... And by the way, I'm with you. For the bias side of me, I would take Curry every time. I just think you have an bias side of me. I would take Curry every time. He's just,

I just think he, you have an easier chance to win with him. I think he fits in with more people, better ways. You don't have to tailor things around him. He's never going to shut down on you. No, by the way,

like Kobe's got some weird playoff stuff on his resume where you're like, what the hell happened there? Like I went through it. There's a handful of there. Now, if Steph keeps playing, you know, Steph keeps playing here and I don't even want to count all the Kobe loss at the end. There's a handful of them there. Now, if Steph keeps playing, Steph keeps playing here, and I don't even want to count all the Kobe

losses at the end. He missed a full season. The team stunk. He had a weird... Is it fair to say Kobe better career so far, but I think Steph's eight to nine years, I think, is better than any Kobe eight to nine years. Yeah, if you're going total numbers, first of all, you're right.

When I say, hey, the numbers are better, like I was surprised across the board, Steph was basically better in every average for playoff career stuff, but it probably will dip down as Steph ages. And so maybe Kobe ends up surpassing him when it's all said and done. But who would I want to be the face of my franchise? Who would

I be psyched about having other guys play with? It's Steph. But as of now, if you're telling me you still think Kobe's full resume is still ahead of Steph's, I'm not going to scream and yell about it. The Steph stuff, his career, I mean, he's at 20,000 points already. We did the book of basketball pod about him. And some of the numbers have already shifted in ways we predicted. He's got, he's the only guy over 3,000 threes regular season. For his career, he's 47, 43, 91. His win shares per 48 is 0.203, 62.4% true shooting. It seems like he's going to get at least 25K points in 4,000 threes if he's healthy. And then the playoff numbers are

fantastic. And he's played 134 games at this point, six finals. He's 27-5-6 in the playoffs. He's 45-40-89 percentage. He's made 4.23s a game. He's made 561 threes most ever. 152 threes in the finals most ever.

All the shooting stuff with him and the efficiency stuff, it's hard to imagine anybody topping it. And I think that's going to be one of the things. He just needs a couple more years. I think he's going to pass Kobe for me probably in the next

two years. And then the Magic thing will be the more interesting one because I just think Magic's Mount Rushmore, I think for the NBA has to have five guys and he's on it. He just is. My pantheon right now, MJ, LeBron, Russell, Kareem, Magic. If I had my Mount Rushmore starting five, Bird, Duncan, Chamberlain, Kobe, and Steph's 10. And then Durant, West, Robertson, Olajuwon, Shaq, and Moses.

And I probably have Durant too high. That's my 16. I think those are the 16 best players ever. Yeah, Steph has the highest true shooting percentage in a finals ever by a guard with 100 or more attempts, and that's against the supposed defensive player of the year and the number one defense in the regular season. He's number two in finals average,

which is another weird thing with Steph, because right up until this year, which is the part that I enjoyed for Steph, you're like, wait, so now he has the second highest scoring average behind Michael Jordan in finals history because Steph has held to this impossible standard. He has a bad night shooting, which he usually has like one game in a series. You're like, what the hell happened tonight? Game three, 2018. He was like three for 16. And this is kind of back to like LeBron, peak LeBron, Steph stuff. Because here's Steph like

doing stuff you've never seen before. He's winning back-to-back MVPs and you're going, wait, is he actually the single best player well he's having the best seasons but that's why i think lebron took it so personal and why 16 is always going to mean so much to him and there was the block in that series where it was kind of like hey fuck this like you actually think this guy's better than me like i get what he's doing and that's where the separation between lebron and steph like i'm just not having it like lebron needed to do something physically. He's just capable of stuff that Steph isn't capable of, especially even back then where I don't think Steph is nearly the driver then that he is now, despite, you know, the handle seeming just as tight.

So you've got all these new numbers. StatMuse on Twitter. I thought Aisha was running the site there for like a day because it was just every single thing. You're like, wait, Steph is what? And where does he rank in the finals? He's got the highest three-point percentage in a finals series ever with 50 or more three-point attempts.

That's with an 0 for 9 game five in there, and he still has the record. So it just was this barrage of stuff historically where I think any Steph fan, even if you're from the Northeast or Mass, you're going, all right. It was like watching Chris Long play for the Eagles against the Pats for me. I had a hard time with it.

But the Magic stuff is where I will stop listening to you. And I get Iwadala is doing it for his teammate. But Magic Johnson's resume doesn't get enough credit because of the Jordan part of it. Magic, for 12 straight years, before he retired for four years because of the HIV test, they came back and played at 36 and 32 games. Magic's Lakers team averaged 15.93 wins per season over

12 years. And in those 12 years, they made it to nine finals with a couple MVPs in there on top of everything else. This is where the Jordan 6-0 shit can get really annoying. If Magic were 6-3 in finals, would we say it's still worse than Jordan's? Like, granted, MJ's got 6, Magic's got the 5,

but for whatever reason, because the stats may be built, just don't back up the Magic decade. No, we do have stats. We have two stats. Okay, go for it. They made the finals at nine to 12 years. They won five. But his winning percentage,

it's the highest ever of anyone. His winning percentage, he finished at.728. He won 72.8% of his games. It feels like there's a reason, right? The next one was Bird at 71.5, Russell his games. It feels like there's a reason, right? The next one was Russell. I'm sorry, Bird at 71.5, Russell at 70.7,

and Duncan at 70.5. Those are the only guys ever who won 70% of their games. And this is why I value Duncan so much. If Duncan was on your team, you won 50 games. I think we can safely say if you have Steph with good teammates, you're probably going to win 50 games because of all the stuff he does. And I think we can safely stay. If you have Steph with good teammates,

you're probably going to win 50 games because all the stuff he does. And I think to me, the thing that was so important about the finals MVP for him, wasn't that he won the finals MVP and we put that stupid argument to bed. It was how fucking great he was in the finals. That game four he played was one of the best games anyone's played in the finals in the last 20 years. And it was so important because the Celtics

not only did they blow it, but he tilted the series and kind of broke them. It was the first time they were like, we don't have a guy as good as this guy. We're not going to win the series. All right. You're saying, but it's, I mean, do you think it's better than Giannis in the clinching game making every single one of his free throws? No, I think

Giannis, I think that Giannis game is there too. I think, what are there like eight, nine, 10 great finals games that we've had this century. And I think that's one of them. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. I haven't, I haven't done all the homework on that, but I, I would have to put that game in there. I love that. You love LeBron's game one and 18, right?

Oh my God. Well, I think cause I was there and I just, the physical force that, that he was doing it with, but, um, and go, I'm Oh my God. Well, I think because I was there and just the physical force that he was doing it with. I'm not saying you're wrong. Yeah. No, there's, listen.

What he did was, for the people that believed the whole time that he was just completely different and that some of this stuff was unfair, I just think the way his teammates played off him

and played for him, and that was a point Kerr really made that these guys wanted it for Steph so bad. There's only a couple of guys ever that have had that kind of connection with their team. And I, you know, the other piece, just him staying there the whole time, you and I care about that. I think there's something to it. You know, like I think that title for him and that team probably means more than just switching teams and winning a title somewhere else. The same thing with Giannis the year before. And it's the team that drafted you and you tried to build something and they tried to build around you and you had some ups and downs and you had some tough losses and then you win.

It just means more. I wonder if there's a lesson there with the Durant thing because the way Kobe gets discounted, like if you don't like Kobe, I don't do it to him because I don't think it's fair, but you go, well, Shaq was the guy in the first three and it's not Kobe. And it's like, man, nobody does this by themselves. That's why I would if we're doing any of the Jordan stuff, which I don't really want to argue against him at all.

Like his resume of help is just not what some of these other teams are. And that's why I think it's always kind of funny where if you're pro LeBron, you'll argue, well, Durant just went there and helped Steph. Because again, I didn't even think there was a Steph LeBron argument to actually be had after this, even with the fourth ring, because I just watched them both. And as much as I love Steph, he's a bronze-bearer basketball player. It's okay to say it out loud. But when you have KD come to you, even when it's your thing and you don't really need him, because the other thing

that people make a mistake with is that if they hadn't grabbed KD, guess what? They would still have Barnes who was the prequel to Wiggins. They would have figured out the center position with either flipping Bogut

or adding some other piece. But now when you have Draymond, Clay, and Steph making all that money with Durant, then it changes what you can do on the margin. So they would have done a good job. They would have figured it out. They still would have had a really good team despite blowing the 3-1 lead considering they're coming off a 73-1 season. They still win in 17, I think. Yeah, right. So I agree with you.

So they didn't really need Durant, but the Durant part of it diminishes it for Steph despite a lot of numbers showing you that even if Steph wasn't PKD, that Steph was still the engine that made this thing go and made KD's life easier. It's just what happens. You know what it did, though?

I still think that's the best team I've seen. I agree. And I think that's what the KD thing did and people like to shit on it now. But it's the best basketball team we're probably going to see in the modern shooting era. I mean, you can separate it by eras. And if you're going to go more post-up physical era, you probably go 86 Celts or 96 Bulls, whatever. I always thought the 0-1 Lakers were pretty magical.

The last half of that season, when Sha just like when Shaq and Kobe were aligned like that, it was pretty special. But do you think, let me ask you though, but do you think like the next, I don't know if we're going to have another team that wins 70 plus games and whatever has a Steph type. No, because there's too much talent now. Okay, but do you think there'll be somebody that goes,

actually, I don't want to share. Like, I don't want to share the spotlight. Because I think Steph, up until this series, it was, yeah, he's got his one, but KD was there. I mean, we don't want to share the spotlight. Because I think Steph, up until this series, it was, yeah, he's got his one, but Katie was there. I mean, we know how the arguments work for all of this stuff. I think part of the problem with Steph is he probably didn't care enough about this stuff. Which is also wise. Whoa, Kevin Durant wants to play with us?

Awesome. You know, even like, he was so amused those first two years with all the Durant stuff. I remember when we did one of the podcasts and Durant did the blog boy rant that became a thing on the internet and we made the t-shirts like for fun. Curry reached out and was like, can I have a blog boy t-shirt? And he wore it. Like he just like really enjoyed how kind of out there Durant was.

He's just who he is. You mentioned the LeBron thing. LeBron's better than Curry. There's an awesome argument though. This is just who he is. You mentioned the LeBron thing. LeBron's better than Curry. There's an awesome argument though. This is my next Curry question. Was Curry the best player of the last 10 years? Because I think people would say LeBron was, but we have a full decade now of Curry, 2013 through 2022. LeBron, those 10 years, three and four in the finals. Curry was four and two in the finals. LeBron made seven first teams, one second team, and two third teams, one of which he should not have made. Curry made four first teams, three second teams, one third team. LeBron won one MVP.

Curry won two. LeBron had seven top five finishes. Curry had four in MVP. Curry had the 73-win Warriors thing, which is its own mark that I think becomes first paragraph of whatever his legacy is. LeBron had the 27-game winning streak with Miami, which is still incredible and I actually think has become underrated.

LeBron made six straight finals during that stretch. Curry had the 207-39 record for three straight seasons. LeBron had the three to one finals come back. Curry had just all kinds of records for three point shooting. LeBron did three teams. Curry was the one team the whole time. LeBron started the player empowerment thing. Curry changed basketball the way it was played. LeBron was the goat durable guy Curry was the goat shooter

The points are pretty similar 18K for LeBron 16.9 for Curry Win shares LeBron slightly better Points more Playoffs 29.9 and 8 for LeBron in the playoffs Curry was 27.5 and 6

Best teammates LeBron had AD, Wade, Bosh, Kyrie, and Love. Curry had KD for three years, Clay, Iggy, Draymond, and Wiggins. Writing all down, Rosillo, it was way closer than I expected. I just would have assumed it was LeBron, but I think it's probably LeBron by a hair, but it's really close. I was surprised.

Yeah, this is making the simple thing complicated, which happens probably too much because it's just cooler. And you're right. The resumes, you go, whoa. And then if you really want to hammer the finals thing, but I don't think that's what this is. The simple question is who's been the better player the last 10 years? It's LeBron.

But Curry's in there. I didn't think it was going to be a landslide. I wouldn't have expected. Yeah. Best 21st century players. LeBron, Curry, Duncan,

Kobe. Would you have KD as your fifth? Best players of the 21st century. Our nominees are KD, Dirk, Wade, and you could take Giannis too,

even though it's like less than a decade to him. Or Chris Paul you could go with if you want. In the five? So wait,

are we doing starting five? Or the last 10 years? No, I'm going century. 21st century. So you could take nine years of Shaq, too, if you want. I think LeBron, Curry, Duncan, Kobe have to be the four.

But the fifth spot is pretty fun. I have no problem with Durant. I thought, because we got extensive homework assignments, so I just want to make sure I made Bill proud on this one. I thought we were doing starting five in the last 10 years, which you can do both, obviously. We can do it. Let's do both. Kobe's in there. Let's do both.

Kobe's in there. Duncan's in there. I would always lean Duncan over Steph and Kobe at this point. Me too. I don't know. What I wouldn't want to do with Duncan, the same way we don't with Magic, is compare it. He was an older school in the games. Okay, but for whatever it was for 15 years,

this guy was the guy you want. And the extension of Duncan's career, which was as surprising in the moment as probably any of these superstars. There were times there in the late aughts where you thought, okay, well, how many more? The 13 and 14 runs from this team were not expected after they were finishing up.

And 12. 12, they were up 2-0 in the finals, and it just completely fell apart. But that team was really good for three straight years. Yeah. And I don't know that any of us expected that, maybe even at the end of 07. So, Duncan might be my first pick out of all the guys. Just because... Well, no, I can't say that.

No, LeBron. Yeah, LeBron. Duncan's the second pick. Yeah. I think that's the five. If you went last 10 years, though, it's still Curry and LeBron. Okay, this will be interesting

because I think there's a pretty solid four. And then statistically, there's supposed to be a fifth and I didn't put him on there. Giannis? Do you have Giannis? No, I do have Giannis. I mean, granted, it took him a little bit longer to get going. It was year four

before he really stood out. Six straight All-Star games, two MVPs. Embiid, he's only played five full seasons. He's been in the league eight. Missed a year, missed a year, played 31 games. It's crazy to think. No, but

I wouldn't have him over Giannis. So I think it's Steph, it's LeBron, it's Durant, it's Giannis, and then I went Chris Paul over Harden. Harden is number one in win shares. He's number one in points. But the Rosillo shares model has him at 30%, 31% officiating boost production. Our models are different over here.

And Chris Paul had 32-17 in a playoff game once. I just, anytime we talk about history and Harden and whatever list, I just, it just starts where they quit on two teams. I just can't get past it. And I would penalize him for that.

So who's your starting five of the last 10? For me, Jokic would probably be on there. Over Giannis. No, I'd Giannis and Jokic. Over KD. Who are you taking out then? Didn't you have LeBron and Curry? LeBron, Curry, Durant, Giannis, Chris Paul.

I think I would have Jokic over Chris Paul. But I have to look at it. This is good. I'll look at this. I'll have a better answer for you next week. Let's take a quick break. Two more query questions for you. When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others

will do too. Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See, safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. This message is brought to you by Metrolinx. All right, two more Curry things. One is that there's some other list of greatest under 6'6 guys that he's now the best under 6'6 guy we've ever had, I think.

And it's a shorter list than you think because that list I did before the Pantheon. Were you trying to do that? Yeah, it was a little dad joke on Father's Day. All the great guys are six foot six and up. Even Magic. But then you go, it's like, once you get into the 10 and downrange, then you start getting Curry, Oscar, West, Bob Cousy, Isaiah, Wade. But I think Curry is the best, not just one of the best guards ever,

but I think he's the best under, I guess, I don't want to call him a little guy because he's taller than I am. He's 6'3". But if you're like sort of little guy, he's the best under, I guess you, I don't want to call him a little guy cause he's taller than I am. He's six, three. But if you're like sort of little guy, he's the best sort of little guy ever, I think is now his title. I think that's what, uh,

this last thing did. So I have that for you. And then I think I, I texted this to you as Minnesota passing on Curry twice in the same draft, which was a disaster when it happened. Is that now the biggest draft mistake of our lifetime? When you think they took a point guard two times in a row, Rubio was the right pick.

I think Rubio was probably a higher ceiling, higher upside pick at the time. And I thought my three favorite guys in the draft were Rubio and Curry. And I can't remember who the third guy was. But Rubio going ahead of Curry with the first one, I was totally fine with. I think it's still defensible. But then they took Johnny Flynn over Curry.

And I still think it's one of the craziest. It was in the moment one of the craziest picks in the history of the draft. And now I think it's the biggest mistake anyone's made unless you want to throw Bagley over Luka at me. Since we've known each other. So this century. Yeah. The Rubio thing,

you have to understand how much everyone liked Rubio. Okay? It was, shit, were people more excited about Rubio than Luka? Because it was still this unknown. We were reading about Rubio, I think, when he was in junior high. I was all in. I would have emptied my NBA stock account on Rubio.

Watching him go against those 08 guys when he was 17, I was like, this guy's going to be transcendent. And he went into the worst situation possible and he got hurt. And he still ended up having a decent... I mean, look, he was contributing this year. The shooting was never what you wanted it to be. But defensively, I actually thought he ended up being a decent... I mean, look, he was contributing this year. The shooting was never what you wanted it to be, but defensively, I actually thought he ended up being a better player in the beginning of his

career. We were like, wow, is this guy going to survive out there defensively? Also, the league changed. He made more sense in the 2000s than he did five years later when shooting became so much more important than it was in 2008 and 2009. Somebody like Rondo could dominate three straight shooting became so much more important than it was in 2008 and 2009. Somebody

like Rondo could dominate three straight playoff rounds without a jump shot. And so Rubio, all the stuff that he did just made more sense back then than I think it did in 2016. And it was fun as hell to watch. He would have this

stuff before the draft where he would drive and he knew where the trailer always was and it was just this blind behind the back thing or you know how luca now will drive and i still think he kicks it out at the rim too often but he knows exactly where the it's like the receiver quarterback thing we talked about in the past but he'll go up and he'll flip it behind his head just knowing if if I have enough on this, it's going to end up in the corner. And that's what a guy is supposed to be anyway, when I do these drives. Rubio was doing that shit as a teenager before I think anybody. So to look back at the Rubio decision, it made sense at the time.

Remember Steph, he came back and played that next year after the tournament run. It seemed like they were trying to force him to play point guard. But I remember Amin El-Hassan saying, you know, it seemed like they were trying to force him to play point guard. But I remember Amin El-Hassan saying, when they thought they were trading for him with Phoenix, he's like, his teammates were so bad at catching his passes, they had a term for it. And they called it Lovedales. You would watch him and then go,

actually, that was a great read. So it was weird because the Steph thing felt like, wait, did Davidson just spend this entire year changing who they were as a team just to showcase this guy to make him a lottery pick? Like, this is weird. Because we had seen so many college scorers that were great guards and great scorers,

and you were like, is Steph just going to be another one of these guys because he's so undersized? And what you didn't realize is that this guy's just built a little, he's wired differently. So the point... The knock was he was too skinny,

and even though he was a great shooter, it was tough to imagine him being a huge impact guy. I did not believe that knock. I thought he was special. The uniqueness of this question, though, is who else would have two opportunities to pass on this guy?

Also, Rubio and Curry together would have made so much sense even as it was happening. I was like, this should absolutely be what they do. Because you can't just say like, hey, man, Memphis took a sheen to beat that year. What a whiff. Okay, well, people make bad draft picks. You have to find something that's along the lines of uniqueness, of epically fucking it up.

And the one that I would come up with is portland trading out of number three where they could have taken darren williams or chris paul and they did it to move back to six and get another first later on that was joel freeland and then it was uh lenis lenis kleza who ended up being jared jack so like they ended up with martel Webster when they could have had Chris Paul. And they traded out of the decision to take Chris Paul and then wanted a point guard. But they'd also taken Telfair the year before.

They were all in. So that's not just getting it wrong. That's doing something to make sure you get it wrong. And that's why you don't see... All these rumors these next couple days, Bill. All these trades, all these trades, all these trades, all these trades. It's one thing to fuck up the pick it's one thing

to trade out and then end up screwing it up historically and that's why i usually there aren't as many trades as everybody thinks there's going to be before the draft dark over carmelo should be mentioned as well or bosh you know what i mean like yeah just was just during the era when somebody could just have a good workout and could just vault over these dudes. We had all this game tape on. That was good. I think the Curry thing

is an unbelievable mistake. And it's also a big what if for the Knicks fans because they were one pick away from them. You know, and you think... I think they won three more games than the Warriors, but you just think him and Knicks,

although they probably would have fucked it up. He probably would have left. And then Kerr, you mentioned the Phoenix thing because I was friends with Kerr back then. They thought they had the Curry trade. And then when the Warriors realized they were going to get him, they basically backed out. But I think it was like Amari and B.A. Drens.

They were flipping like seven for 14. So Kerr thought he was going to get him. Then he ends up literally getting him. And now Kerr is going to hitch his wagon to him for as long as he possibly can. And then the only other one was how high could Curry go?

I think there's a chance he could catch Magic if they keep making the finals and winning titles. But we'll see. we feel the same about magic like please do not throw magic's name around or bird's name around casually these were the two most important players for an entire generation had real success and their teams won all the time and you can't hold anything against them just because the careers were shorter back then that's the way it went yeah and there's there's some parallel there too for lebron and

steph like what happens if one of the other guys isn't around you know and i don't always love back then. That's the way it went. Yeah, and there's some parallel there too for LeBron and Steph. What happens if one of the other guys isn't around? I don't always love doing this. We do it with boxers all the time, but it's like, oh, if it weren't for Muhammad Ali, you're like, okay, if it wasn't for maybe the greatest fighter we've seen in the history of the sport, Joe Frazier, we'd be sitting here talking about him all the time. It's just not the way life works. Who knows

what goes on with breeding and whatnot. Well, one thing with the LeBron thing, though, is I do think he's probably at the end of the road for winning titles unless either he gets traded this year or he can find a team to jump onto a year from now. I just don't see a scenario where he's 20th year this year. I don't see another scenario where he's like a relevant title guy. I mean, maybe Tom Brady with the Bucs always have my guard down now

because you just never know. But if you're telling me he's going to jump on an awesome team and play for like 3 million bucks or something just to try to win a title, would he do that? Would he be okay with that? Yeah, but they'd have to figure out a way to frame it.

You know, that's always the deal where it would be like you know it's been my dream to play with chris paul like that kind of shit right yeah or well i don't know if chris paul would be the guy that i would pick at this point of like guys getting a little bit older but oh this is an important mentor thing this is important for me to do this it's like no you just want to figure out a way to add one more to this thing because you're chasing one guy in all of these arguments. And they would say, I think they would say, well, you know, Jordan came back because it was also part of him understanding the management role or whatever, but you know, he just didn't know what to do with his life. Yeah. And Jordan also picked the team that he was aligned with where you're like, okay,

well, this team isn't going to win any games. But you know, when you think about magic and bird and just going, imagine if one of those guys avoided the other, all right, how would we talk about bird? Would, would we always be talking about magic ahead of Michael Jordan? Cause I still think magic on the individual arguments, because the stats just look different than everybody else's.

He doesn't get enough respect. It feels like that's the way the conversation's gone around Magic. But back to your winning percentage point, all that kind of stuff. That's why I just... Look, I don't know that you're going to find two bigger Steph fans on a podcast. I fucking love the guy. You probably don't. Yeah.

Right? But not Warrior or Steph fans. We're probably in the top five. Right. But when I heard the Magic stuff and then it being brought up and then people were discussing it like it was a real thing, I just kind of like, no, no, we've gone too far. Remember that one game when we were doing the rewatches during the first couple months of the pandemic?

We watched that one Magic game and we were just like, oh my God, Magic was unbelievable. There's nobody like that, dude. I would defend it to death. Let's talk about NBA dynasties really quickly. This has been another argument that's come out of this. I feel like there's been three ever. And then after that, it depends on your definition of what counts as a dynasty.

But to me, it's Russell Celtics, 11 titles, 13 years. Russell won 70.7% of his games. That counts. Magic's Lakers, we mentioned them. Jordan's Bulls, six titles, six finals, eight years. And then after that, it starts to, it can get a little gamey, whatever your

definition is, right? Like, do you, Duncan Spurs, do you consider them a dynasty or just an awesome era? Yeah, I saw, you were really strict with it, and I'd rather you be strict than loose, you know, this Villanova dynasty. I might be too strict.

I'm willing to talk it out. I just, to me, it's like, it's a know it when you see it thing. And if we're arguing about it or wondering about it, then maybe you weren't a dynasty. People do it if you win two out of three now. That's my thing. It's like, I think go dynasty, all this stuff. To me, Dynasty is sustained dominance for a prolonged period of time.

Right? So how is that not Duncan? Duncan, to me, is. It's Duncan's 18 years, five titles, six finals, and then a couple daggers, right? 0-4, Fisher shot. 0-6, they're up three.

Manu fouls, they're a three-point play. They're losing overtime. 2012, they're up 2-0. I still don't totally understand what happened. Okay, series? Yeah, I still don't know what happened. I'm still 11 or 10 years later, I don't know what happened. I can't explain to you what happened.

2013, the Ray Allen shot. And it's very similar to the Pats, where it's like the Pats ended up with six. They could have won eight. They could have won three. And the Spurs, they ended up with five. They probably could have won seven pretty easily. I think the over-under, if you look back,

is probably six and a half. They were always good. But to me, it's five titles in 18 years. Is that a dynasty or an awesome run? It's almost like we need another word. So if you think Duncan Spurs are a dynasty, that makes this a lot easier. Yeah, but I understand your...

None of us... This seems to be a word all of us have a hard time identifying. It's personal preference. The Celtics thing's never happening again. So if that's your standard, then cool. Nothing's ever a dynasty. Yeah, so maybe modern dynasty. I don't know.

Kobe's Lakers. Dynasty 2. Kobe's Lakers, five titles, seven finals in 11 years. And it's kind of split up because you have the Shaq part where they win three in a row. They make the finals four out of five years. Then they crater. 05, 06, 07.

They win zero playoff series. They miss the playoffs one of five years. Then they crater 05, 06, 07. They win zero playoff series. They missed the playoffs one of those years. Then they have the second run 08, 09, and 10, three finals, two rings. And if you group them up, I guess you could call it a Kobe dynasty, but if part of dynasty is sustained dominance, how do you explain a three-year swoon where you weren't dominant at all? How's that a dynasty? Maybe we should just change it, though. The Ming dynasty is, I think, just under 300 years. Right, there's probably some ebbs and flows. Right.

There's probably a couple villages that are like, we're sick of this shit, and then there's some overlaps in the timeline. So maybe you should do this. Just have it be the individual's dynasty because it's not the Lakers dynasty when all the pieces change out and it's one person it's the same it's the Kobe dynasty

this is the Steph dynasty I think we had a LeBron dynasty I think the Duncan dynasty exists so the Celtics version of it like how different is the magic Lakers dynasty when it's when it's what it's 81 magic only yeah it's 80 to 80 to yeah you're right well I have

ironically the way I wrote it out each one was Russell Celtics Magic's Lakers Jordan's Bulls going down birds so here's where it gets so Curry's Warriors four titles six finals in eight years really should have won in 2019

half decade of like true dynasty dominance eight years. Really should have won in 2019. Half decade of true dynasty dominance, but they also missed the playoffs in year six and year seven. If you're just talking about sustained dominance, then all of a sudden it's hard to qualify when in 25% of the years

of the dynasty, you didn't make the playoffs. Bird Celtics... Was there one specific reason? Yes, the first year Steph didn't play the playoffs. Bird Celtics... Okay, but was there one specific reason? Yes, the first year Steph didn't play. Steph got hurt. Second year, you know, Steph did play. So did Draymond. Clay didn't play. But, you know, they weren't even one of the best

eight teams. Bird Celtics, eight-year run from 1980 to 88. Three titles, five finals. As we said before, Bird won 71.5% of his games. They made eight of nine conference finals from 80 to 88. I'm the biggest Bird

homer there is. I never considered that like a dynasty. So, I guess my point is, there's the three, and then I think there's another five if you're gonna get loose with the word dynasty because then we didn't talk about Mike and Lakers which pre

Russell barely any black guys in the league at that point and you know they won five titles I don't even know where to put that but I think those were the eight those are the eight runs and if we want to get a little loose with Dynasty, that's fine. Did you think that Jeter Yankees 96-01, would you consider that a Dynasty? Yeah, because they were horrifying and they were awesome.

So I agree with that. So that would be the case for the Warriors. I'm willing to admit I might have underthought this one. But to me, it's just like Russell Celtics, Magics, Lakers, Georgians, Bulls are just levitating above any other version of this. Yeah, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. But I think if you're holding it to the standard

of what the Celtics are and what the Bulls are, and the Bulls argument, I always hate when it's like, well, it'd be eight in a row. It wouldn't be eight in a row. Yeah, that would be the last one of them. All you have to do is watch all the footage of them in the last of the three peats.

So the sixth one, where they're just mentally washed. And I don't know how they would have been if they'd still had five in a row prior. You know what I mean? Also, they had no size in 95. We talked about this when we were doing our rewatches. They just didn't have rebounding and paint protection. I don't think that team would have beaten anybody even if jordan had

played and yet look we're still putting it in there so it doesn't even matter so there's no point even being critical of it i i don't i'm i think we're way too loose with it and that's why i always make that joke after like anybody winning you know or i'll be like hey is this maybe the first step in the dynasty because like dumb stuff right? Like a team wins two out of four, you know, like, why, why would we be in a rush to like,

could we talk about, could it have this kind of run? But almost nobody does. And when you also point out like the past could probably have a couple more, they could have a couple less Alabama. If they had better kickers could definitely have a couple more, but there's some weird shit that's happening there too, where they could probably have a couple less.

Everybody seems to kind of land on the number that makes sense for them whether it's magic having more or less than the nine finals appearance that he has in there and all that stuff steph you could take 15 away from him you could say without the dream on give him 16 back you could say without the durant thing you know it's five in a row like all of the so steph kind of lands on like four and two feels right for him i agree so maybe it's tier one and tier two dynasties it could be a tier one dynasty or tier two so leo dicaprio or matt damon and be a champ i i think i might be too hardcore with dynasties i'd rather you be no but it's kind of like the Hall of Fame thing. We knew this would happen, but when we started doing Hall of Fame predictions

for guys going into the NBA Finals and you brought up Wiggins and I lost my shit... Yeah, now Wiggins is going to make it. Put him in. Sickness for the Finals team. 20,000 points. I think he has a decent chance now.

Everyone gets in. Everybody gets in. You don't actually think that. Do you? I think he has a decent chance, though. Okay. Everyone gets in. Everybody gets in. You're right. Everybody gets in. I mean, shit. I was at game three, and Antoine Walker was courtside, and then I read an article about him pontificating on whether or not his jersey would be retired one day.

And I was like, I mean, come on. It's the Celtics. We love the Anton, but no. But give me a break. Let's take one more break, and I want to just talk about what the Warriors might do this year, and then we'll talk draft. The Warriors' numbers for next year, salary-wise, are really incredible.

They got Curry at 48, Clay at 40.6, Dre at 25.8, and Wiggs at 33.6. He's Wiggs now? Wiggs. That's what they call him. They all call him Wiggs in the Warriors. $148 million. I didn't know you were calling him that.

I'm just going Wiggs. Say that again. I interrupted. $148 million on the books next year for their topigs. Say that again. I interrupted. $148 million on the books next year for their top four. For four guys. Then they have Wiseman,

Kaminga, Poole, and Moody are on the books for 22.8. So I'm at over $170 million right now

with eight guys. I haven't even filled out any of the rest of the roster yet. I have Looney as a free yet. I have Looney as a free agent. I have Payton as a free agent. And I have Porter as a free agent. If we're ranking

who's most important, I'm starting with Payton. I thought Payton was absolutely changed the series. They were the best when he was out there. You can see now why they were so upset after he got hurt in that Memphis series and why they were like, if he doesn't come back, we can't win the title. The stuff that he does,

his ability to play with those guys, the defense that he brings, I just don't see how they lose him. I think he 100% stays. Maybe it's $8 million a year, $10 million a year, I don't know. Then Looney's a tough one.

Can you hope that Wiseman replaces the Looney minutes or do you feel like you have to bring him back? We see this over and over again with big guys coming into free agency, coming off title teams. They always make money. They always make more money than you think. It's like, I thought he was going to make 5 million. He's going to make 30 for three? Kevon Looney? That's the number, but that's what will happen. So let's say they try to keep both. I think that's between $18 million and $20 million a year combined for those two guys, which puts them over $190 million.

And I still haven't figured out the roster. Porter seems like the one they'll let go because Moody can play the Porter minutes. But what do you think happens? I'd argue Looney's more important than Peyton is because they don't have any other size and they're still waiting on Wiseman. Now, from what I've heard about the Wiseman part of this is that it's not about him.

Like, don't get confused that this is a young kid that doesn't really maybe have it. He's, he's wanted to play. He actually doesn't feel bad. It's been more about just not them wanting to put him in a position where they feel like they're rushing him back because for whatever reason, I guess the knee continued to swell. But it was not on him and him not wanting to play basketball. They were super careful basically preventing him because they were looking out for him.

It's funny, we were talking about the Celtics and some of the offseason stuff. I still thought it was a huge mistake by Golden State to, with the Wiseman uncertainty, not add some other big at some point. And it seemed like they didn't want to do it because they didn't want to give Kerr the option of then not playing Wiseman uncertainty, not add some other big at some point. And it seemed like they didn't want to do it because they didn't want to give Kerr the option of then not playing Wiseman once Wiseman got clear because they kept thinking he was going to be part of this and he was going to be fine. So I think it's a mistake and it's a mistake that was not fatal because he still won a title.

Looney, he played every single game this year, which is not what you would have thought about somebody who apparently had this growth spurt that messed up his hips. And that's why somebody that was pretty heralded when he was younger, coming into it, he played, what, 20 games two years ago? And even though I think their lack of bigs and the Wiseman uncertainty makes them really important, it's probably going to go to a number where I'd go, hey, centers, you just can't spend that much money on them, especially when they have their resources elsewhere on the wing. Let's allow ourselves some flexibility

somewhere else, maybe taking a step back and having more uncertainty, even though I think he's more important than Gary Payton is. He played 104 out of 104 games. Unbelievable. In 2019, he played 80. Yeah, he played the

whole season. He's had a couple injuries, but he has also shown that he could be durable. Great teammate. Knows how to play with those guys. And if you're the Warriors, you're thinking at this point, the biggest advantage you have is the continuity. He's only 26 too.

He looks old. So maybe he's through it all. Go ahead. If you don't care about money, you're bringing him back. But at some point, there has to be some number where you actually have to start caring about money

because this team might cost $400 million next year. I think if they bring him back, that tells me they don't believe in Wiseman at all. That they don't believe that it's going to happen with him. Because if you're going to pay Wiseman $9 million, $9.6 million, and $12.1 million the year after, and then you're going to pay Loeman $9 million, $9.6 million, and $12.1 million the year after, and then you're going to pay Looney that,

I just feel like Wiseman's not going to play. You still have Draymond. You're better off when you're younger with wings, but you also need a little size for certain matchups. Who knows? And then they have the mid-level too. The other piece with them is they are that destination where somebody would be like, yeah, fuck it.

I'll do the one year for 2 million deal and play 15 minutes a game and try to rehabilitate whatever I'm doing. Or could that be like a Joe Ingles team? Could that be, I don't know, Ricky Rubio? Like pick anybody who's at the advanced stage of their career, Dragic. So I'm sure there's one or two more people coming too.

They're going to be really, really good again. And the West is going to be better. But to me, the two things are, can they get eight more months out of Clay and eight more months out of Draymond at the level that they finished the finals in with the advanced stage and the miles on Clay and then Draymond, who knows?

Because Draymond looked like he was washed up after game three. You know? I think the likely thing here will be patience. You know, they still have Steph under contract for four years. They've got Clay, who I think will look better next year. And I also think that the positive, even though he missed a million shots, I thought he was so good defensively

or maybe it was Boston's wings are predictable, which we already touched on at the top of the podcast. By the way, congratulations. You won that one, that the positive, even though he missed a million shots, I thought he was so good defensively, or maybe it was Boston's wings are predictable, which we already touched on at the top of the podcast. Congratulations. You won that one, by the way, because we argued about that after game one or game two. And you were like, I just believe in Clay. I believe in the pedigree. You were right. And I thought Clay said something interesting after the game when he was talking about people don't realize we've been there.

We know what it takes. We get it. And it's like, yeah, exactly. Like even if it's a slightly diminished version of whoever, it's still somebody who understands the moment when to go for the kill. That was what I saw in game five and really in game six was those guys in that team knew, ooh, we have them. They're on the ropes now. We can kill them right now. That's

why Steph pointed to his finger for the ring. They knew in the third quarter that game was over. Anyway, I interrupted you. No, but I didn't really think, I didn't understand you in that argument at all. I thought you were crazy. Sorry. I just was like, I can't believe you think he's going to be... I just thought he was athletically diminished. Yeah, but out of the rotation, Clay

Thompson diminished? We didn't say that. I was saying I thought Kerr was going to have to make a decision to bench one of these guys in a key game. By the way, it turned out it was Draymond and not Clay. Draymond was the one that he sat in a really crucial part of the fourth quarter of game four. So I think what will happen, we could talk about Kamingo, Wiseman, Moody, another pick and all that kind of stuff, which is a lot of, you know, Myers even mentioned everybody wanted us to trade for this guy.

But if you're the Warriors, as much as you look at the Wiggins part of this as some success, because there is a Warriors effect. Your life is going to be easier with Steph Curry. Your life is going to be easier. Trayvon is going to make plays. Clay gets better as a shooter. I mean, it's two guys you feel like you're constantly fighting over screens with, so your life becomes easier, cuts, just be smart, be aware. And I don't know that Wiggins from day one was this.

And just as an aside on the Wiggins thing, you can't have a 600 credit score for a decade, and then when it gets to 770, start telling everybody to bow down. And I'm not saying that's what Wiggins has done at all, but there's been this Wiggins push of like, hey, maybe we got this wrong. No, we didn't. You're the number one pick. You were super underwhelming. And at the baseline, forget what I had to say, when I did the draft confidential for you at Grantland, all the people that I talked to in the front office were like, hey, at worst, you're getting 15 points a game in all first team defense because that's what kind of

tools he has. That's the kind of foundation he has. And he wasn't any of those things. I mean, hell, Doris Burke even let him have it during a game. And that's saying something because she's very positive. And it was like a weird deal where all of a sudden she was just laying into him, which meant the staff was probably tipping her off. This guy's incredibly disappointing. So I don't think that the Warriors should then call up Anthony Bennett and think it's just all going to work out all of a sudden.

You know what I mean? Like, I'm very, the Wiggins coverage to me is very odd and that all of the stuff that was on his resume prior to this was very real but your life becomes easier and credit to him he played great some of those step backs like you expected it to go in all the time and defensively he finally got to the level that you thought he should be able to reach with his physical talents but i don't know how it just washes away what's generally pretty disappointing seasons in there despite the raw numbers of a guy who felt like he never really got it. So that part has kind of driven me crazy. How long have we been doing podcasts together?

Like probably like four plus years at this point, Wiggins was always our go-to example for, Oh, I forgot you were in the game. We called it like the Wiggins. Oh, you're out there. I did. Have you been out there the whole time? Wiggins was our go-to and he transformed. And there's a pedigree piece to it, which we've talked about on this pod and other episodes that I think matters. I think there was a production piece with him. It wasn't like he was averaging six points a game on Minnesota. He was durable from a minute standpoint and he was always able to get numbers, but there was just something about him that left you really cold when you watched

him, especially in person. And he fixed it. He fixed it. Awesome. You know what I mean? Right. The playing games last year, remember he took like, what, six of the worst shots ever when Steph should have had the ball. And it was like, Wiggins was like, I got this, guys. He figured out like, I actually don't have this unless it's a perfect spot for me. That three you took against Memphis, you were like, okay, so now you're confident? Yeah.

Like, wait. So he deserves a ton of credit, but we've gotten into a habit of feeling like somebody improving erases all the other stuff. And I don't know that that's always applicable in this case. So if I'm going to stay- By the way, I wouldn't extend him. I would put him in a contract here, let him try to earn it.

And if somebody wants to come in over the top and offer more than $25 million a year to pull him out of the Warriors infrastructure and just hope this continues, I just don't think people are going to do that. I don't see it. He's worked more to the Warriors than he would be to another team. I agree. I agree. I think there's a real Steph part of this. Remember when it was with Brad Stevens? You don't want a guy after Brad Stevens leaves, or you don't want a guy after he leaves Brad Stevens, better said. But I think the Steph one's a little more real than the Brad Stevens one is. So then you've got the younger players. I'll use an example here. When Paul George was available, when he wanted out of Indiana, the Pacers knew they had to move him. They called everybody. They called everybody. And they were offering Paul George for, at times, what we'd all agree,

lesser players. But I talked to one team, not Golden State, that turned down a trade offer, and they were very clear to me. They were like, why would we trade our solution for your problem? Why would we do that? And we know Paul George is going to want to be here either. So when you think of who the best warriors would be, who's that next guy? People kept wanting to put Bradley Beal there. Bradley Beal, I think, wants his $250 million and then he'll ask for a trade in a year. That's probably what he's going to do.

When I think about like, Mello would probably be a terrible warrior and I actually like Mello, but he'd be a terrible warrior. If Paul George at his prime, as good as he is, were in that mix, would he figure it out or would he ball stop? And then it's like, wait, you can't really do it, which is what's so amazing about Durant as much as everybody hated it, which I get, he still could adapt his play style to be involved with what these guys were. But then he was also this cheat code when the possession went wrong. It's like, hey, just hit a jumper over the top of everybody, which opens up a lot of different things. So whoever the next mad star is, the Warriors may be positioned, if Kaminga

improves, if Wiseman gives you decent minutes, if Moody looks like he's anything, and I'm not saying I know one way or the other at this point, maybe the pool part, maybe the Wiggins contract before next deadline, going, hey, we're not resigning him anyway, we're giving pool his money. They could be positioned for it, but it has to be somebody like Wiggins

who defers and accepts, or a guy that wants to play this way. And I don't know that every guy does want to play that way. And I don't know that every guy does want to play that way. And I think they're smart enough to know who is really talented, but also who would actually fit. Because I think there've been times in the past where probably the Warriors could have made a move. They go, but this is probably counter to what we do as an offense. The two moves for them if they wanted to improve a level is the clay contract with some assets to go even get a bigger star which i just don't think they would mess with the clay thing i think

i think it's too emotional yeah i think the curry clay draymond kerr those foursome i just feel like we're building around these four people and that's how they go and then the other way would be can we get an awesome bigger guy, rebounder, rim protector, defense? Like, could we take Wiseman? Could we take all these other pieces and just go up a level with somebody? And then there's the Draymond piece. If Draymond starts getting loud this summer about, I want to be taken care of, I'm going

to, you know, this is my last year. I want to finish my career at the Warriors, but they're going to have to pay for it. You know, what's he worth when his stats went backwards this year? You know, and he's going to be 33 next season.

And if he wants like 30, 40 million a year, that would be the one where I think they're going to have to do some soul searching on. Because I thought the stuff he did

in the end of game four and then game five, game six was old school Draymond. I thought he was awesome in game six. Yeah, me too. Fucking hit every shot. He was pushing the pace.

How about the shot clock jumper? I mean, give me a break. That's when you're just like, all right, let's get the car. He foiled like four two-on-ones and three-on-ones. I thought he just knew he had just figured out the Celtics completely. Everything they were doing, he was in the right spots. And it was impressive. All right. NBA draft. So we're going to be talking in the right spots. It was impressive. Alright, NBA draft.

We're going to be talking about this all week. You have a couple podcasts. We're doing a draft night pod. You're going to have a pod on Friday. There's a lot of meat on this bone. We don't need to cover it all right now. Just two quick ones. First one is we were on a text thread yesterday about this. It seems like OKC,

like if we're just like, where do the guys fit perfectly? Chet going to OKC, Paolo going to Houston, and Jabari going to Orlando are the three. That actually makes sense. I'm just not sure that should be the order. I personally think Chet

has the most value because of the ceiling. But then the smarter draft people are all kind of starting to point at Paolo as like, I like that guy the most, including you, I think. So why can't Orlando just trade down, flip with OKC and then trade down again and land at number three and take Jabari anyway and try to pick up other assets? Because it seems like he would have the most value to them. But stuff like that never happens. So that's one piece.

Then the other side, if you're OKC, you have all these picks. You have 30 first rounders or whatever the fuck it is. If you like Chet, why not just trade up and get him? KOC, he said this on pods, feels like they care so much about the French guy next year that OKC is going to try to maneuver this. So they're taking, to end up with picks that won't necessarily help them this season so they can still be in that loop

for the French guy next year. I don't know what to believe. What have you heard? The French guy is that special. Victor. Yeah, Vic. Big Vic,

what guys like calling him. The YouTube things almost look like they're deep faked. Like somebody took Giannis' footage and just deep faked some different version of him

and just put him in French basketball stuff and it doesn't look real. I got to be honest. Like I've never seen anything like it. No, he... It's went by Yama,

which I kind of screw up half the time anyway. The way... When I watch him run around, it reminds me of creating a video game guy. Like if you had a 6'8 guy who was awesome and he was the best guy in the video game and then your little brother fucked with it and made him 7'3".

That's what my son did with J.J. McCutcheon in NBA 2K. He created this guy, J.J. McCutcheon, who's basically Victor Wambayata. I went back and watched the under-19 final U.S. France, right? Because it was a good Jaden Ivey game. It was a Chet thing. So anyone saying, hey, the Thunder are the team that want this guy next

year. So they're already getting ahead of it. I'm pretty sure everybody else who's bad would also like it. By the way, if you're a bad team and you have Chet or you have Paolo, how many games are you actually winning? Be like, oh shit, we took Paolo.

We won 27 this year. If we had taken Chet, we would have taken 23 because Chet's more you know more raw to this point it sounds though like the headline here is that you're now a chet guy is that what i'm hearing i'll flip again right now i i flipped and i have chet as the number one guy but i might flip again before thursday i i haven't done all my homework yet the celtics really screwed me up, but I've been watching a lot of stuff and really trying to think about what I just watched in the playoffs

and in the finals and who would fit in where. The Jabari two-point stats, which a lot of people have talked about, are disturbing. And I don't know how much of it... We don't need to rehash the guards and all that stuff,

but it does worry me that if it's layups or threes, then that's it. Should that be the number one pick in the draft? Chet, I call them weird body Horford. I at least know he can be weird body Horford. I know he can get to 16, 17 a game and 12, 13 rebounds and blocks. And he's fun to play with. I can't get past how weird his body is, but I'm, the more I watch him, I'm just getting used to it.

Is that fair? Yeah. I just haven't seen it. It's just so strange. And there's no one to compare him to. And this is a big Jonathan sharks point is like, just because there's nobody to compare him to doesn't mean that's a bad thing this race to always

comp somebody to somebody that's just different looking so if you had to sum up each guy with one sentence if and by the way it sounds like you are digging in because I've changed my mind going back to November I've changed my mind multiple times and that's,

what's so fun about this and why I like all three guys a lot. Cause I've had moments where I like all three of them better than the other two guys. Um, but yeah, I've kind of come back to Paolo cause I don't understand why, because he's better than everybody. He's the best player of the three right now.

That's not the job. That's not what you're drafting. Who's the best right now. You're drafting who you think the best in five years could be. And that's why Chet, you know, is in the conversation here. Maybe he should go number one. So let's put Paolo into that Celtics series. What we think Paolo

could be in the Tatum spot. Is he creating his own shot against that Warriors team? Is he finishing? Is he reliable? If the Warriors are shifting the defense around him, they're running pick and rolls with him. What does that look like? Could he be the best scorer on a title team? Well, if you're asking me tomorrow to go play in the NBA Finals... No, I'm saying ceiling

Palo. Palo seven years from now. Yeah, that's what I think of him. Because I think I've seen it. I can't get past the Texas Tech game where they needed somebody. And Roach ended up making all these impossible shots at the end because they couldn't get the ball to Paolo because I just thought Duke did a bad job of getting him free to get the

ball. But I don't know, prior to the last two or three minutes, there was a stretch where it was just Paolo, high pick and roll, which is what this game always defaults to. And he could do those things. And I think Paolo deserves a ton of credit where some people see it as a negative where it's like, okay, I need to go do mine. And I was talking with a scout the other day that I thought was making really good points.

It was like, he is a big that is enamored with the idea of being a smaller player, which can get you into trouble sometimes. But that Duke team had so many guys that wanted the basketball that were ball first offensive creators, whether it was AJ getting buried in the corner, I've been over this a million times, Akeels, Wendell Moore,

and Roach, who's a five-star kid as well, and then Paolo still kind of found a way to fit in with all of them. But then when I start talking about how you fit in with your teammates, Gonzaga gave Chet the fourth amount of plays. There's three other guys that got really more plays run for him all season long.

And if I had to sum up Chet with one sentence in the scouting report, I'd say he does everything right. He doesn't make mistakes. It's unbelievable how smart Chet is. And maybe that speaks to his age because Chet's actually a year older than Jabari and I think he's got six months on power. So Chet's actually the oldest of these dudes. He turned 20 last month. But

he did the right thing all the time because Mark Few wasn't just going to let Chet... Like if Chet played it... Just trying to think of a good example. If Chet played it like... Well, no. Baylor runs a ton of shit.

To kind of think of like USC OJ Mayo. Where it's like whatever man like you've actually picked us we couldn't believe it like that's how the oj mayo to sc story which is really weird yeah um we would have seen way more of chet so he was somewhat muted by his own system but in him being muted you also realize like this guy knows exactly what to do and how to play off the ball and was cool with it the entire time. When he did get the ball, he did the right thing all the time. If you're telling me you like Chet better than the other guys, end with the ceiling part of it.

This job is star hunting. It's star hunting. If you think Chet gives you the best chance of being a star of the three, then I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong. It's just that I think it's close enough, and I still really like Paoloolo and I think Paolo, the best version of him, is the guy that's initiating your offense in a playoff game. So I guess why I'm leaning towards Chet, I don't feel like any of these guys can be the franchise best player on a title team. I think Paolo could be the best scorer on a title team, but I don't think he'll necessarily be the best player. Jabari, same thing. So if I'm basically taking somebody who can be the second best player on a title team or an important piece of a title team, I just like how Chet fits in with every type of player and team, right? Like he would have played, I think,

25 to 30 minutes on either of the teams in the finals, which is notable, you know? Not him right now. I'm saying like two, three years from now. I'm going to do more homework. So that's one thing. Chet Palo, Jabari. One of the more fun draft things,

and I feel like we all have to go on the record at the end, not just me and you, but just everybody. Like, this is a good one. This is a good one for the resume. When we look back seven years ago, who got this right? Tatum, Lonzo, and Fultz was another one, right? This will just be a fun, all right, who did you have? Going back, I'm dining on the Luca thing for the next 20 years. We were just adamant. This is absolutely insane that he's not going to be the first pick. So Sacramento is the other piece I've become fascinated by with this where it really seems

like Ivy and who knows with the mocks but just in general, it just seems like Ivy has ascended to top guy after the top three and that would mean Sacramento basically, I mean he's a point guard, shooting guard hybrid I guess but basically they he's a point guard, shooting guard hybrid, I guess, but basically they'd be taking a point guard four years in a row,

which would just be iconic. This has been out there a little bit, but why wouldn't New Orleans try to move up from eight to four with all the stuff they have? Isn't Ivy kind of like the perfect on paper backcourt person to add to what they have and kind of like the perfect on paper backcourt person to add to what they have and kind of develop and evolve as it goes with the team that they have in place?

Or am I crazy? I mean, the only thing I think you would say to be like, Oh, is that too much? You know, how do you play Ingram Zion, CJ and all these guys,

and then add Ivy to it. Who's going to want the ball in his hands. I would, I would rather have that problem than have too few guys where in a playoff series, you're like, you know what? You got like two guys out there we'd never need to guard.

And that's where I think teams, it just stops for them. So it would be a lot. And I kind of hate the whole like, oh, there's only one ball. I don't feel that way. Like I'd rather have, that's why I always love that Toronto 19 team.

It's like, you know, when you really break this down, but it's also a group that kind of knew how they fit in with each other when they needed it. It wasn't like Van Fleet was going to go the whole time or Siakam was going to go the whole time. He still knew it kind of went through Kawhi. And that's why, like when I had David Griffin on two weeks ago and he was talking to Brandon Ingram and then he was saying like about Zion, he goes, he's an elite post guy. And then when we went point Zion, we then he was saying like about zion he goes he's an elite post guy and then when we went point zion we realized he was an elite creator and all that kind of stuff and i almost interrupted

it was like i don't think brandon ingram loved point zion but he was on a roll and it was very positive but would i like point zion no i don't think anybody is an ivy i think point is not like a traditional point card well i think point zion Ivy's not like a traditional point guard. I think point Zion was like, ah, we kind of suck. So just go ahead and do your thing and we'll figure it out. I don't think point Zion, it should be an option. It should be something you have. I don't think it should be the foundation of your offense. So is it possible that Ingram still being young, Zion figuring out who he is?

I think CJ understands the role because he played with one of those ball dominant guards going for his entire career with Dame and that's why you know CJ I like guys that are okay fitting in with other people it's actually what I like about Kyle Lowry it's what I loved about Van Vliet not every guard can do it I don't Jaden did play I don't want to do Purdue's offensive resume all over again like we did at the other pod, but you think Jaden, it wasn't like he was given the keys to Purdue like it was some high school kid. They had the big guys. Right. I get it. There were other people involved with that. I almost

wish they'd given them the keys a little bit more often. It's a fascinating idea because scoring-wise, those four guys, you'd be like, holy shit. I don't know if it's going to work. Yeah, the reason I mentioned it is I was trying to figure out Sacramento should clearly trade down. I think they should take Ivy. They should trade down to the 8 to 12.

You do. So then what do you do with Fox? I just. What do you do with, you don't care. I mean, we're talking about adding Ivy to Zion, Ingram, and CJ. And then we're so worried about De'Aaron Fox. And then, you know, when I had Vecini on, he was like, Davion Mitchell really closed the season strong. He may have.

Maybe it's going to be awesome. Davion was a lot of fun to watch in college. But you're saying that's not the reason to not take Jaden Ivey because Davion Mitchell looked good in the last 10 games of the year. By the way, whoever you're drafting is going to want the ball at some point. Whether it's Keegan. Like, you're not going to just say, hey, Keegan, go sit in the corner. No.

You know, and Dyson Daniels is somebody who, like some of the best stuff about him is his size and that he's he's a guy that can play on and off it's it's up to these players to figure out how to fit in with each other it's just harder when you're a lottery pick and you think you're going to be a 10-time all-star in a hall of famer you're like well no like i default to just get the fuck out of my way which is what dearon Fox is right now. Is there a Knicks-Kings trade that we could make up where the Kings take Ivy at four and then there's some other- What do you want from the Knicks besides RJ, who they're not trading?

With the Knicks, think about Fox and what's he worth and the 11th pick and some other stuff could be in play. And then if you're the Kings, you're like, all right, we got Ivy at four. We got wing, whoever at 11. And here we go. We're officially doing this the right way.

Uh, cause I think they were pretty enamored by the Fox Sabonis thing, which is why I think it won't happen. And then the Kings are always kind of delusional.

They always feel like they're one move away from being a five seed. Yeah, I would imagine. For the joy of the Kings. Yeah, right. That's why they haven't traded some of the other pieces over the years, which is the weirdest thing about the Halliburton deal,

of all of it. Halliburton could play with anybody. We'll figure that out with De'Aaron Fox. But I'm more and more anti-passing on Ivy. Okay. We'll have a whole week to talk about it. The last thing I just want to mention, I'm so fascinated by how many wings there are in this draft and just the

value of wings in general. It, so I'm in this AL keeper baseball league that we've been in since 2004. Take us through your entire draft. Well, we have a minor league draft. Oh my God. And it's like a 25-pick minor league draft.

And you can keep the guys in the system and bring them up. And for years and years, we would always just go through like Baseball America's top 100 and Keith Law's top 100. You'd take the best pitcher. You'd have the second pick in the draft. And then you would get Tommy John surgery and he would bounce around or take him five years. We had Carlos Redon. We had him for years. He never made it. And then we let him go because it's a four-year contract. He went to the White Sox and he's fucking awesome. Now he's awesome. And it was just late. So we eventually all realized

just take hitters. Hitters are safer. You can plug them in. We have guys like Andrew Vaughn on the White Sox. We took him second. Put him in. He'll at least hit like 250. He'll get at bats. It's a safer thing. And I wonder with the NBA with wings, if guys just look at the

teams just look at these wings and it's like, you know what? Like Williams, the Santa Clara kid who I think has climbed if guys just look at the, if teams just look at these wings and it's like, you know what? Like, like Williams, the Santa Clara kid who I think has climbed up and I think he's become a darling. And by the way,

I love him. I love the YouTube clips. I like the interviews. I'm all in. He's one of my guys. But he climbed into the first round and people seem to think he should be between 17 and 20,

I guess. It's like, should he? Why couldn't he go ninth? How hard is it to find a wing who can handle the ball? Like what we saw with Scottie Barnes last year. So I just look at all these wings and I'm like, you kind of have to nail the wings in the draft.

So if those guys can play for you, think about the Neesmith pick with the Celtics. They didn't nail the pick. If he could have played, if he was good, they'd probably win the title. And then you think of all the wings the Warriors had out there at the same time. They always had three. And it's like wings are 60% of these teams now. So I think this is going to be the year of the wings, where it's just going to be the same kind of mindset. We're just like, oh, who's the best wing? I'll take him. What do you think of that theory?

I like it. And I also like something else you touched on too, kind of just forcing yourself to ask questions. You'd be like, why wouldn't I take, um, no, like why is, why is Malachi from Ohio state behind so many guys?

I fucking love that guy. Okay. And yet, I've only seen him in so many spots. Right? Like the thing I'm always really good at, because I have to play catch up because I don't do it year round.

And I, all the respect in the world of guys that do it year round. All right? Because I just know I'm not going to know. I just don't, I'm not going to do, if it were my year round job,

I would put way more work into it than I do. But whenever I look at somebody, I'll be like, wait, this guy's too low. Like Usman Jang now, who was the, one of the first breakdowns that I do. But whenever I look at somebody, I'll be like, wait, this guy's too low. Like Usman Jang now, who was one of the first breakdowns that I did, I go, there's no way he's going

as late as everybody has him. There's no fucking way. That was like one of the first draft opinions you had. It might've been the first for this class. Yeah. And he has a promise. I don't think he's going to be there for where his promise is.

Unless, you know, agents really start figuring out a way to be like, don't take our guy. Which is, you know, clearly happened in the history of this. So anyway, back to the wing thing, part of it.

I like sitting at home sometimes going, wait, well, why is this guy 10 spots behind this guy? Like, why is that the case? Yeah. Like the Memphis big. Why is he ahead of Sohan

when I know Sohan could play in this series I just watched? Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a good one. Because... Like, I can always find bigs. Durin is who you're talking about, right?

Yeah, I can always find... I can always find bigs. I can always get somebody for 20 minutes. But I can't get athletic wings who are fucking competitive. So I look at Sohan, I look at Williams from Santa Clara.

I think Williams is a little slower than some of the guys, so it scares me a little bit, but he does seem to be the darling and everybody likes him. He's so smart, does a bunch of different things, all that kind of stuff.

I was watching the Gonzaga January game last night and if you're waiting for it to stand out, I think that's another thing that's almost like chat related. You go, wait, this guy's going to be the number one pick. Are you going to just absolutely take over here for five or 10 minutes? And the funny thing is like a lot of guys don't really do that. They're going to go really high.

Matherin does it. Keegan Murray has done it. I would say Paolo's done it more than the other two guys. I don't, you know, I don't think that that one's much of a debate. And Durin, who in games, I didn't like him as much as the clips. So then I went back and watched the games after the clips because the clips can totally screw you up too.

Yeah. Because sometimes the clips look, you're like, oh, wow, this guy's initiating a lot of stuff. And then you watch the games and you go, oh, okay. Like I saw his seven assist clips. It looked like he was really involved but he's actually not and this guy completely floats like kendall brown was a game guy for baylor who's a big time recruit he's a game guy who i couldn't stand clips i liked and then i went

back to games and said you know this guy's now too low like i remember at first being like kendall brown's way too high and now he's so low. I'm like, okay, I don't, I don't dislike him this much. And it just always gets back to something that's worth reminding. We are all conditioned by mock drafts,

whether we believe it or not. You can be a stubborn, you can be a single-minded, you can be as free thinkers you want to be, whether it's us or the people doing it for real, because the owners are looking at him too. The mock drafts, like I like your exercise,

your exercise that I make myself do sometimes where I'll go, okay, why isn't Wesley from Notre Dame ahead of all of these other dudes? Like make the argument for it. Now, I could do that right now if I wanted to, but I'm not going to bore everybody with it.

It's just that the mocks can really fuck you up because then you start thinking like, hey, you know, my favorite thing is like this guy will be 12 or 13 and then he goes nine and we're like, what the you know, my favorite thing is like, this guy will be 12 or 13. And then he goes nine.

And we're like, what the fuck is wrong with them? Right. Well, it was three or four spots. Clip culture is really, I'm glad you brought that up because I was thinking, imagine if we had this for NBA players

and it was like Peyton Pritchard playoffs and they just showed like game seven in the Milwaukee series and all these moments when Peyton Pritchard was awesome And they just showed like game seven in the Milwaukee series and all these moments when Peyton Pritchard was awesome. And you just watch that for six minutes. You're like, oh my God. Well, the clip show. Is this guy Steve Nash?

Synergy shows all the possessions. So you see the good with the bad. But the playmaking part of it. I'm talking about the YouTube stuff. When you just go like YouTube, like five minutes of just the best version of somebody. Hey, if it were YouTube, Strowmile Swift in the Hall of Fame.

Okay. Tyus Thomas? Tyus Thomas? Maybe they would waive the waiting period for those guys. But clips, like who would be the best? Like if there were just clips of Reggie Jackson doing good stuff now, I'd be like, well, how many rings does this guy have? Neesmith?

Like some of the D he was playing in Miami? I have my Palo Com for you, by the way. Okay. The player I always wanted Derek Williams to be. Wait, Arizona Derek Williams? Yeah. Yes. You like that one?

No. The player coming out of college that I thought Derek Williams was going to be, I thought he was going to be this awesome offensive player, this inside-outside guy who could just launch threes whenever he wants, beat people off the dribble. Didn't really know what position he was,

but it didn't matter. And I still don't know what happened. I have a lot of Derek Williams stocks, though. But I think Paolo is like the, we have a second chance to get this right now, how I thought about Derek Williams with Paolo. I'm going to double check this and I know it's true. But he was so fierce too, you know what I mean?

He kind of- He was awesome. Yeah, he had that shit to him where you were like, this is what I want a guy to look like. This is a modern four in where basketball is going. It is Derek Williams in Arizona. This is where the league is going, this type of forward. And then his career just sucked.

And maybe there's some personal shit going on. I don't know. Okay. So let me double check here. Yeah, it's true. Think about it about marinate on that we could talk about again thursday no but i want to share something with you because i remember doing you know back when i was at espn i was starting to to do those drafts and i was yeah this is this is like i don't know my fifth year espn at that point so i think they finally started letting me do some of the

stuff with it but when you looked at at Williams, he was 20-8, and his splits were 60% overall. He shot 57% from three. Yeah. Okay. And I remember going, well, that's not going to happen. He shot two a game. He made 57%.

But it's a great thing to look at it's something to build on he's 75 from the floor which you know again all the mbi guys do it for real will be like if you give me something over 70 from the free throw line i like my chances even if your raw shooting numbers suck and i'll never forget i don't know who it was with it was a former player or something and i was like well look he's not going to shoot 57% from three. And the guy was like, why won't he, though? You're like, you know what? I can't really argue. I can't tell you you're wrong, can I?

Why won't he, though, was the debate that I got thrown my way for a college kid that in one season, two attempts per game shot 57%. And it's a short sample size, too. It's like 35 games. It's probably 75 threes, whatever it is um all right we're gonna cover the draft a lot this week all culminating with the thursday night pod um what are we doing for it can i ask we got to figure it out i will do a multi-parter i think that one worked the best but we'll try to maybe do something i don't know we'll figure it out We'll figure out something good. Okay, real quick.

Have you watched The Offer yet on Paramount? I'm like five behind. Is Matthew Good's performance of Bob Evans... He's amazing. That was the only reason I kept watching. Is it... Give me an NBA comp. Oh, my God.

Is it Glenn Rice to the Lakers? Where you were like, I just remember being back then and be like, what did Glenn Rice do last night? Like, oh my God. Remember that Glenn Rice, you need to do a full chapter

when you do a new paperback edition, which I know you've already done, whatever your next one is. I don't know why Glenn Rice didn't go down as one of the best 70 guys of all time. There was a two-year stretch there

where it was like that was everything you wanted from a 6'7 guy with shooting range, right? It felt like Glenn Rice was just breaking his own records every single night. But you weren't expecting it, right? Because you were like, hey, he's a really good player. And then he's going to get kicked around. Then he had that stretch where it just felt like,

did he score 40 again last night? And you're like, I'm so enamored. I just want to see more Glenn Rice stuff. Give me more Glenn Rice. That's how I feel about this Bob Evans character.

It's Matthew Goode, right? Yeah, he's great. Because it's G-O-O-D-E. I just want to make sure. He was on that show I never watched with Felicity. Is it Cake? The Americans.

I think he was on From the Americans. He was also in The Imitation Game, right? Yep. We have to go because it's Father's Day and my wife's gonna get mad at me soon

I don't want to be I don't want to I don't want to take shit on Father's Day it's my day um Rusillo couple pods this week

I'll call him on any Thursday night good to see you podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton as always thanks to Dylan Berkey Steve Cerruti as well

and I look forward to the next time I see you. I've changed my mind on them both back again. Good to see you. Feel the air that's within On the wayside I'm a person I never was And I don't have to ever