The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 107: Friday Rollin' NBA Draft Wrap-up With Joe House, and Kevin Clark on Orlando

Episode Date: June 24, 2016

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons welcomes Joe House to break down the 2016 NBA draft, OKC's Oladipo theft (8:00), Thon Maker to the Bucks (19:00), the Celtics and Jaylen Brown (24:00), the Knicks' uncanny knack (34:00), and the NBA Finals and LeBron passing Larry Bird (45:00). Then, Orlando native and Ringer staff writer Kevin Clark joins (52:00) to discuss the Magic's bizarre move. They conclude by discussing Orlando’s response to its tragic mass shooting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the BS podcast is brought to you by SeatGeek our presenting sponsor and the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music other sites have the nasty habit of showing you lower prices charging a huge fees at checkout at SeatGeek the price you see is always the price you pay download the free SeatGeek app or go to SeatGeek.com it's baseball season by the way they have a lot of good baseball deals on SeatGeek app or go to SeatGeek.com. It's baseball season, by the way. They have a lot of good baseball deals on SeatGeek. Check that out. Today's episode is also brought to you by 5-4 Club. They have you covered with styling advice and hand-picked clothes delivered to your door every month or so. There's even free shipping. It's only $60 a month. Go to 5-4 Club.com. Use

promo code BS and sign up. Get 50% off your first package. F-I-V-E-F-O-U-R club.com. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com, which is presented this month by Miller Lite. We have had an awesome first month. I am so proud of Sean Fantasy and the crew for the work we've delivered. Sports, pop culture, tech, so many good pieces. I can't even keep up. I got swallowed up by this TV show I'm doing after this weekend. I got to go back and read like 35 pieces that I got to catch up on. Uh, but check

out the ringer.com. Don't forget to check out our podcast network. And finally I had my first show. It happened any given Wednesday. We did it on Wednesday night. Um, we actually taped it in the morning and, uh, we had Ben Affleck and Charles Barkley and Ben Affleck went full mass hole and it was awesome. It's funny. Like people are like, where did this come from? Why was he so angry? It's like, that's how everybody in new England feels about the flake gate.

We are all angry about it. And I think he channeled the, uh, the spirit of everybody and just went to town and I loved it. And I was kind of telepathically egging him on to do this show and work on it and try to create it and figure out what it is.

And I think we have the bones of something I really like. We'll know by episode 10 what the show, what the format is for good. But right now, we're going to try some things and it's been a blast to work on.

I was really proud of the first show. I have a great group of people that I'm some things and it's been a blast to work on i was really proud of the first show and a great group of people that i'm working with and it's just so much fun it was such a rush to actually have it go on there and i hope you checked it out we're gonna be putting a bunch of extra clips on hbo now this weekend we taped with each guest for i think over 30 minutes and one of the things we did was a speed round where I just fired questions at them. And so we're going to have that coming up this weekend. And it's very entertaining.

I highly recommend it. And it'll be on HBO Now or HBO Go. It'll be on HBO On Demand. So if you have cable, you go to the On Demand thing and see the Any Given Wednesday. And that'll pop up there. We also have a Twitter account, which is Any Given W-E-D-S, and I think there's a Facebook page too, but that has all the extra clips.

So if you want to see all this extra stuff, just follow those accounts or follow my account on Twitter. And last thing with HBO, we have the last episode of After the Thrones, which is the post-game show that we did for Game of Thrones with Andy Greenwald, Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, Jason Concepcion on this last one. And that, I think, goes up right after the end of the West Coast airing of Game of Thrones on HBO Now. Check that out. We had a really good season.

I'm really proud of those guys. And it's been an especially confusing Game of Thrones season for morons like me. So I like the fact that I have people in my life who can explain what the hell is going on. Alright, Joe House and Kevin Clark coming up. Let's go. House, we're Friday rolling.

It's Friday, we're rolling. Old school. We haven't even had this podcast. Yeah, we haven't even had It's Friday, we're rolling. Old school. We haven't even had this podcast. We gotta roll. Yeah, we haven't even had the podcast network for a year, and it's still old school for us. One of our favorite nights of the year last night, the NBA draft.

Your team didn't have a pick because you traded it for one of the Morris brothers and still didn't make the playoffs. So congratulations on that. I don't... What'd you have, the 13th pick? That actually might have been a nice pick. Sorry.

13th pick ended up going, it was the Greek center, Georgios Papadijanis, who ended up going to Sacramento. I don't know who Ernie would have taken. But you know what? I'll stick with the Morris that we got. So, yeah, there's a bunch of storylines to hit really quick. I love the fact that the Kings made a trade that nobody makes anymore, where they had the eighth pick in an eight-player draft

and traded backwards for 13-22 in Bogdanovich, the old-school, classic three-quarters-for-a-dollar trade. Congratulations to them. They did it again. Yet again, the Kings. They're nothing if not consistent. You gotta give it up to the Kings. Well, the good news is that now they have a center. Oh, wait.

They have Boogie Cousins and Costa Cofas. I forgot. Yeah, so great. Good job all the way around, Kings. And then that was one storyline. Boogie got mad. Boogie got mad on Twitter. Oh, I didn't even see it. Yeah, he got mad.

He did a tweet. Then he protected his account. He's not following me anymore. I don't know what I did. I don't know why he's not following me anymore. He blocked Zach Lowe. He blocked Zach Lowe. He's very mad.

Boogie's lashing out. He's had enough. It's a social media meltdown. Well, wait until they explain to him they're going to play a three-center lineup. I know the league is going small. Everybody's shooting threes It's a social media meltdown. Well, wait until they explain to him they're going to play a three-center lineup. I know the league is going small. Everybody's shooting threes. Kings are going the other direction. Three centers.

Maybe they were worried that maybe they actually felt some compassion for once. And they were like, you know, Marquis Chris, he can go either way. We can't bring him to Sacramento. We're going to ruin his career. We can't. We're going to let that little bird fly away. When are they going to get a point guard? That's a great question.

Maybe in free agency. There were some point guards I liked in this draft. There's so many good point guards now and so many talented point guards and so many point guards who have a chance to maybe be either a starter or a third guard off the bench that they've now become the undervalued position. Like the Spurs got somebody at 29 who should have been in the top 15. And, you know, I think that he wasn't working out for anybody, which was a red flag.

I think he has Rich Paul as an agent. You know, he's had a rough life, I think, and maybe that scared people off. I don't know. But he fell to 29, which was insane. And the Spurs, I'm just watching. It's like, God, how do the Spurs just keep doing this? How do they keep getting it?

Every single year, the first entry, it's a block, copy, replace. The Spurs got to steal the draft. Just paste that right in next to the Spurs when you're doing the draft analysis for them. They really have their Tony Parker replacement now. Yeah, they just... The great inefficiency in these drafts now is the point guard spot because it's just there's too many of them.

The Celtics got one, Demetrius Jackson, the kid from Notre Dame, they got him at pick 45. He was supposed to go like 20 spots earlier than that. And he's not going to be an all-star, but that's what makes the Terry Rozier pick hurt last year so much for me. Still hurts. You're not over it yet. Yeah, it's just so easy to get point guards,

take a chance with somebody. So I thought the Spurs did a great job. What was the kid's name, Tate? I'm blanking. Which one? The Spurs took the point guard. DeJounte Murray. Teammates with Chris at Washington. He's

like 19 and athletic and talented and has a nice hand and all that stuff. The Celtics. Actually, let. So, the Celtics. Actually, let's wait on the Celtics. Oklahoma City committed a robbery last night. Oh, that's interesting. Remember part five of the OJ documentary when he broke into the hotel room to take his stuff back?

Well, it was just demanding his stuff. It wasn't a robbery. He didn't intend a robbery. Right. I think that's how I... It just turned into a robbery when they showed their guns. That's how I feel

about Sam Presti last night. He didn't intend for it to be a robbery. He just wanted to make a trade with Rob Hannigan who used to work with him in Oklahoma City. And it turned out

to be a robbery. I think he's going to go to jail. So that's funny. I feel like that's very disrespectful to Serge. Why? Because Serge can play. It's not Serge's fault that the circumstances at Oklahoma City and their

approach over the last two seasons effectively marginalized him. I'm very skeptical of the downward trend of the advanced analytics as they apply to Ibaka. There is a direct correlation between him drifting out to the perimeter, which I believe was a team design, a team request, him working on a game that's a face-up game, and his decreased efficiency both offensively and defensively. I think we're going to see a resurgent Serge in Orlando.

I agree with everything you just said. I thought Serge was used incorrectly in Oklahoma City. I thought his game atrophied. I thought he lost a little of his basketball will to live. And it came back in round two against the Spurs, but I think he was kind of on autopilot last year because he was so marginalized, and it was basically like, go stand in the corner on one end, and then on defense you have to try. And I think it's really hard to ask any basketball player to give all they have defensive rebounding when you just ignore them on offense.

And they really emphasized Steve Adams. They decided Steve Adams was going to be their guy down low. It affected his game. Which is okay. Not a bad decision. I agree with all that, and he'll be better off in Orlando. I like the thought of him with Vukovic. Me too.

Vucevic. Vucevic. Vucevic. Vucevic. Vucevic. Vucevic. Vucevic. Vucevic. The names. We should try and read the names in the draft. We should try and read all 30 of these names.

Here's the big but. He's a free agent. He's a free agent in a year. So you're basically, you're going all in for one year of Serge Ibaka you're not trying you're not going to win the title with him you're hoping that he's going to resign you have 2017 which everybody has is going to have so much cap space that they're not going to know what to do with it he can basically go to any team he wants for 30 million dollars a year you're giving away

the number 11 pick Sabonis who you and I both really like. I thought he was, after the top eight, I thought he was the next gem in the draft. I wanted the Celtics to trade up for him. I like that guy. I think he's going to be a 20 to 25 minute a game, knows where to go, knows what to do, smart, tough, somebody who could have played in game seven in the finals. You have that guy at a fixed cost for like $3 million a year, something like that, at the 11th pick, 3.5. I forget what the exact number is. Versus paying Serge, 15. And then on top of it, you get Oladipo, who was woefully miscast on that Orlando team. I love Oladipo. I'm buying Oladipo stock. I think he's going to be great on that team.

First year in Orlando, used as a point guard. He's not a point guard. Then last year, they had that weird... It's him and Alfred Payton together. Neither of them are great shooters. He's more of a creator, off the ball, great defense guy. He's competitive

as hell. I love the thought of him in Oklahoma City. So to get him and Sabonis and you're paying less money. Abaka was like $15 million a year. Now you're paying those guys combined like $9 or $10. And you get a little more money to spend on a shooter. I thought that was a home run slam dunk for OKC. What did you think?

So I'm not as high on Oladipo as you. How dare you? And it hurts me to say this. He is a homie. He's a local born in Silver Spring, Maryland, like House from DC, born in Silver Spring, Maryland, went to school in the same Catholic league that I went to high school in. He went to DeMatha, I went to Gonzaga. Oladipo is a local hero, and we loved him in college too, but I don't think he was miscast in Orlando. I don't think he had the chops to really assert himself. The only thing that he's demonstrated a true pro-level skill is on defense. And the thing that I'm concerned with is, how is he better than Deion Waiters? If you look at his shooting, Waiters

had a better shooting year than Oladipo. And Oladipo needs to score. He needs to be able to knock down a face-up three and also blend in a little bit of slashing. I think Deion Waiters is better at both of those skills than Oladipo. I understand defensively that OKC was not thrilled until the playoffs with Deion's effort, and that's the perpetual Deion knock, but how much different is Oladipo from Dion Waiters? Well, first of all, I have bad news. You're wrong. You're just dead wrong.

Listen, it happens. Oladipo's good. We had this conversation a couple weeks ago about the Cleveland Cavaliers and these finals, so I'll accept your... You've told me I'm wrong. I've been wrong before. We're going to talk about that. Second year in the league,

second year in the league, averaged 18 a game on a bad team. But not efficient. He shot 35% from three last year. Now, I look at it this way. If you're on a team like Orlando, I know, but if you're on a team like Orlando, I know, but if you're on a team like Orlando, every

three you take is basically going to be contested. You don't have a good offense. You don't have somebody who's a creator. You have a bunch of guys that, it was like, that team was like a fantasy team. That wasn't like a real team. It's true. There are a lot of guys that you like in theory. Right. So if he's

making 35 out of 100 threes, now you put him on OKC, and he's wide open from three, probably 33% to 40% more because they have Westbrook and Durant. You're putting him in a position to excel at all the things he's good at, which is defense, athleticism, competitiveness, and making open threes. I think he's a much better version of Deion Waiters. And I think he's super competitive. And I also really like him and Westbrook together. I think they're going to feed off each other. Listen, I rarely do this. I think Oladipo is going to be, you know, we make proclamations.

We make guesses. We talk out of our ass 90% of the time on this podcast. Yes, we do. That's what we do. We talk out of our ass 90% of the time on this podcast. Yes, we do. That's what we do. We talk out of our asses. I think Oladipo, I will go on the record. I will bet on this.

I wish there was a way to bet on this. I think he's going to be fantastic for Oklahoma City. And I really like Sabonis too. And I think that team is, to me, the heavy favorite to win the title now if they get Durant back. Heavy. Wow. Heavy favorite. I thought they should have won last year.

Well, we know this because you're still smarting after that game six. You went so heavy on them for that game six against the Dubs. And Klay Thompson essentially, you know, a singular game for the ages kind of performance from Klay Thompson put an arrow through your heart. But I still don't disagree with i mean i think okc was better than than the than uh than the dubs in that series and i uh i'm not as bullish and now on um uh my boy uh oh. Serge? You're just babbling. No, I like Serge. The center that they just traded. Oh, Sabonis.

Sabonis. I'm not as high on him now. I didn't love his performance in the NCAAs. I like Sabonis. I don't know how he's going to steal minutes from Adams and Cantor. That's all. He's not. This is a trade to create room for Steve and Adams

and to have Cantor play a little bit more. And basically, play Doreen a little bit more at the four. Play Adams 35, 36 minutes a game. I think he might be one of the three best centers in the league right now. And then, you know, you fill in the blanks with Cantor. It's a bonus. Maybe you bring them in together. I like. And then, you know, you fill in the blanks with Kanter, it's a bonus. Maybe you bring them in together. I like it.

Hey, by the way, the Heat are plus 1,200 to get Durant. Who? The Miami Heat. Why would they get him? That's what Pat Riley does. He gets people. It is what Pat Riley does. Does Wade have one more chapter in him?

They Jedi mind trick people. That's what they do. They really do. Speaking of Jedi mind trick, the one thing that I do want to give Presti credit for in this trade, and the thing that I think really does make it, on balance, extremely beneficial to OKC, he put a pin in and popped the leverage that those three guys together possess over the franchise by moving Abaka. So if there's a possibility that Abaka, Westbrook, and KD go crazy this coming year and all of them hit next summer as unrestricted free agents, he's helped manage the franchise away from all of that crazy leverage that the three of them would have.

And doesn't have to overpay waiters. Now you let waiters leave. You move Oladipo into that. Waiters can go now, honestly. Yeah. You move Oladipo into the waiter spot. You don't have to overpay him. And now you're paying Sabonis $11 million less than you were paying Ibaka.

I thought it was a brilliant trade. I actually, I would have tried to veto it if it was a fantasy league and I was one of the other teams. I would have had a bunch of angry emails and I would have called Rob Hannigan a puss and the whole thing. I would have been like, you gotta get out.

First to Orlando is fair. It's really not. That's not a good trade. It's fair, sure. That's not a good trade. He's going to have a chance. I bet he's going to have a great season this year. The one thing that's funny about this trade is that OKC chose Serge Overharden. I'll just leave it at that.

Yeah, they did. They found out, well, you know, for them, Steven Adams turned out to be the dude. Steve ended up being the jewel of that trade. I want to have a Google alert that tells me when I'm allowed to bet on the 2017 title. Because I'm betting on Oklahoma City. Because they have the best team. They should have won in 2016, and they should win this year.

Hey, let's talk about 5-4 Club really quickly. 5-4 Club has you covered. They'll provide styling advice and recommendations. They'll make you a styling profile. They'll deliver clothes to your door every month or so. Four style profiles, classic, casual, forward, and mix. They have shorts and button-ups when you need them. They have jackets and jeans when it gets colder.

It's really cool. It's a great place, especially if you're lazy like me and you don't like to go shopping. They will ship the stuff for free. Direct delivery to your doorstep. Clothes come every month or so, and it's only $60 per month. Go to 5FourClub.com.

Use promo code BS at sign up. Get 50% off your first package. 5FourClub. Spell it out. F-I-V-E-F-O-U-R-C-L-U-V.com. Can we talk about the Celtics? Go ahead. Oh, man.

How's your Gershon Yabusele feeling? Listen, I feel like I'm in the top 95% of people who follow the draft. There's another 5% I never got to. I didn't have a big board or any of that stuff. When they took that guy, I didn't know who he was. I thought it was a prank we're officially at that point in our lives I thought ESPN was

actually fucking with me I thought like they even though there 5 million people watching the draft I thought they were specifically trolling me with some fake French guy

and I was like oh no this is a real guy and then I started talking myself into it when they were showing the highlights I was like oh French Draymond Green

okay French Draymond French Draymond I like it French Draymond Green. Okay. French Draymond. French Draymond. I like it. Imagine Draymond Green as a French guy. I mean, what an a-hole he's going to be on the basketball court. I love it.

When is he coming over? Oh, not soon enough. Probably, I knew they were stashing dudes because they have too many people on their roster. So I figured they were going to stash at 16 and 23 and I actually thought they were going to take the guy they took 23rd at 16 so whatever

16, 23 you stash I wish they had traded up packaged all their later picks to move up to like the 10 spot with Milwaukee and take Sabonis Thon Maker at 10 pretty sure he would have been available at 16 Tate am I crazy? a bonus. Thon Maker at 10. Pretty sure he would have been available at 16.

Tate, am I crazy? Is anyone else taking Thon Maker? He wasn't even invited to the Green Room. Green Room House. Just trade up. Milwaukee, trade down six spots. So anyway, Jalen Brown. This was a two-player draft, and then players three through eight. this was a two player draft

and then players three through eight I don't think anybody would bet their life and say out of those six guys this guy is definitely going to be the best guy we just don't know I would say all of it are in play three, four, five, six, seven, eight

who knows, Buddy, Jamal Murray Chris Bender my personal favorite for your team? Buddy, Jamal Murray, Chris, Bender. My personal favorite for your team would have been Jamal Murray. That's who I would have picked if I had the third pick, if it was me. He would be our 19th card.

Jalen Brown, I get it. Your second that can score. You still don't have a guy who can score inside of four minutes other than the player that's not six feet tall. So here's the thinking. They're thinking one of the best commodities in the league right now is somebody who can defend at an elite level on the perimeter and guard multiple guys. Somebody with size.

Somebody who can guard everyone from Stephen Curry to Kevin Durant. You mean like Marcus Smart? No, I'm talking about Jalen Brown. I'm saying this is somebody that Marcus Smart can't go Kevin Durant. I think you just doubled down on Marcus Smart, but keep going. Yeah, I'm going to present

both sides to you. So now you have somebody that one of the Celtics problems last year, other than not having a franchise player, was if Jay Crowder got in foul trouble or if he got hurt or he tweaked his ankle or whatever, they had they they had nobody else on the roster who could come in and play defense on the Paul George, Durant, Clay Tom. Like whoever. They didn't have that second guy who can come in. This is a guy who will immediately be able to come in and play defense at the highest of high levels, and the hope is he'll get better offensively.

Now here's the caveat. I watched him play at Cal. I wanted him to be somebody that would be a potential top three pick and make the draft deeper, all that stuff. He's basically Jeff Green offensively. Oh, offensively. That's a relief. Well, but he's the guy.

I texted Tate last night. He's the guy that defensive rebound, he soars over everyone else, grabs the rebound, breathtaking rebound, gets it, goes down the court, warp speed. He looks like Usain Bolt with the ball. He's going in. He's driving. Goes up in the air.

He goes through two guys, and then he misses the layup. I swear to God, are you sure you're not talking about Marcus Smart? No, Marcus makes the layup. Not always. Jalen Brown, I've never, he just has no touch. Now, the question is, can you teach somebody how to have touch? Because I was on a Boston radio station, and I was saying, like, Al Jefferson, when we got him out of high school,

he just put the ball in the basket. And we've played with guys like that. We've played with guys like that at college, like our whole lives. Like, guys that just, the ball just went in. Could fill it up. Yeah, certain guys, the ball just goes in. Paul Rieger. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You were like, I got to be honest, not to blow you, but you were like that from 12 to 15 feet. The ball just went in. You just made the shot. And then other guys, it's like the ball just won't go in. It's like, oh, everything looked good, except, yeah, the ball didn't go in. And I worry that he's one of those guys. And that's my fear.

So that's one thing. And then the other thing is, why take him at third? Why not move backwards? That's right. That's what I like to hear. What's the justification for not moving backwards? Well, my guess is that they didn't have the right trade. I think everybody underneath them just looked at it and said,

we're not trading up. You guys don't want one of those guards. There's not enough value there. Yeah. We don't think you're going to take one of those guards. We're not trading up with you. And they were right. So if you're the Celtics, you take somebody who's the 7th or 8th best player in the draft,

or best prospect, I should say. You take him third, but he was the guy you probably needed, and you couldn't trade down, so I don't know. I mean, I don't think Jimmy Butler was ever realistic. Chicago wanted next year's Brooklyn pick. You can't trade that pick. Next year's draft has next year's Brooklyn pick. You can't trade that pick. Next year's draft has three franchise players in it. You can't trade 2017.

So what do you do? I mean, Philly's talking to them. They're offering New Orleans. I don't want any part of New Orleans. I'm not even sure New Orleans is good. It just wasn't a trade. You go to New Orleans like, hey, you want to flip picks? Three for six? And New Orleans is like, no, you want to flip picks? Three for six?

And New Orleans is like, no, we're good. We're going to get somebody good at number six. No thanks. So I don't know. What do you think they should have done? I'm not going to criticize them. If the right offer doesn't come in, then you don't make a trade just for the sake of making a trade. Because we're entering this offseason.

We're now like two chapters in on a ten-chapter book that nobody really knows the ending of. The first chapter was the trade deadline this February where really nothing happened. And I think teams like the Knicks and the Celtics could have made moves, should have made moves that would have helped the franchises. I mean, the Knicks with Derrick Rose is the most glorious, the most Knicks-y. You tweeted this. I know. Wait, hold on. We've got to talk about that.

We need to devote five minutes to that. So glorious. And then Phil Jackson publicly saying, or at least, you know, they're reporting, Woj is reporting it and Stein is reporting it, that Phil Jackson is telling D. Rosemello that he thinks that he can get KD to come to New York. I mean, it's so absurd. It's a crazy talk.

Poor Knicks fans. Yeah, at the same time, I like the trade for them. Because it's all in? No, they dumped Calderon. Who wants him? He was making like $10 million a year. I mean, they had, if you talk to any of the next men. They paid a hefty price.

Robin Lopez is serviceable. He can play. It's $15 million a year for a center that, if you watch the finals, the centers weren't even playing. You know? The centers mattered. Do you know who would have liked to have had Robin Lopez at the end of the finals?

Golden State. Because Bogut going out hurt them. Yeah, it's fine. My point is, you were able to basically dump $22 million, and getting rid of Lopez allows you to play Porzingis at the five, which is what the Knicks should be. Porzingis is the five. That's where he should go.

Lopez was in the way. Get rid of him. I was fine with it. I don't know if I want... I like Porzingis out at the three-point line. House. I'm confused by Porzingis. House. I'm on record as being confused by Porzingis.

Porzingis was dropped from the basketball gods onto this earth to be a stretch five. That's true. Literally, stretch five. He was created to be a stretch five. That's true. Literally, stretch five. He was created to be a stretch five. He can shoot threes on one side, and he can protect the rim on the other side.

Why do I need Robin Lopez? To bang. To be in there. I want Robin Lopez. You need a mucker. I want Carmelo at the four, and I want Porzingis at the five, and I want Derrick Rose five years ago setting everyone up. Unfortunately, I have Derrick Rose now.

Yes, unfortunately. But if you ask any Knicks fan, their point guards were so horrible last year. And it was such an affront to everyone in New York. New York, the city of point guards and point guard play and signature point guards and point guards with personality and Tiny Archibald and Kenny Anderson and Stefan and all these dudes. And they have Jose Calderon and Sasha Vujicic. I mean, it was a disaster. It was an affront.

At least Rose presents the illusion of, we're not going to be awful at point guard anymore. And if he sucks, he's an expiring contract. They have more money for next year. But I really hope that they don't sign Dwight Howard because that will make me think Phil Jackson is a senile old man. I couldn't be rooting for anything more in my whole life than Dwight Howard going to the New York Knicks.

Can you imagine the personalities of Derek? You're building a team with Derek Rose, Dwight Howard going to the New York Knicks. Can you imagine the personalities of, you're building a team with Derrick Rose, Dwight Howard, and Carmelo? What kind of a personality that team has? That's the Knicksiest thing ever. There would be no more New, I mean, the earth would stop on its axis if they pulled in D. Howard 12.

I think the amazing thing about the Knicks is that, and this goes back to the 1960s, they have an uncanny knack for getting guys four years after you'd want them. And you could go through Spencer Haywood, you could go through Bob McAdoo, you could go through bob mcadoo you go through larry johnson um you go uh the uh antonio mcdice penny hardaway stefan marbury steve francis that's an incredible record my good friend jaylen rose sorry jaylen they caught you at the tail end

yeah you know i love you buddy but it but that's that that was it they caught you at the tail end. Yeah, you know I love you, buddy, but that was it. They caught you at the tail end. But you go all the way through, and it's like 17 or 18 guys. Oh, Amaris Dautermeyer? Do you think they got him four years too late? You just go through, and it's just over and over again they managed to get these dudes. It's like the legacy of the Knicks. They even tried to get Will Chamberlain in 1975. It would have been 10 years too late. But that's just what they do. They have to get Will Chamberlain in 1975. It would have been 10 years too late. But that's just what they do.

They have to get Howard. Yeah. So I think they should get Derrick Rose. I think they should get Dwight Howard. And I think they bring back Kobe Bryant as the final piece. He would love to play with those guys. Talk him out of retirement. It would be great.

Kobe Bryant comes back. But it's hard not to root for Rose, right? I'm still, I think it'd be fun if he was good. Oh, sure, sure. With rejuvenation. And you know what? It's a little unfair to him to not recall that the first two months of the season, he played with blurred vision.

I mean, his eyes were messed up. Yeah. He was pretty efficient once he got healthy, once his eyesight was restored. Are you talking about Phil Jackson or Derrick Rose? Phil's eyes still don't work. Hey, House, our friends at Squarespace make it

easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat, regardless of skill level. No coding needed. Not only does Squarespace provide easy-to-use tools, Squarespace's state-of-the-art technology ensures security and stability. Millions of people and some of the most respected brands in the world trust

Squarespace, so you should too. Get 24-7 online support and a beautiful website for only $8 a month. You can get a free domain if you buy Squarespace for the year. Why wait? You can even design a best-in-class online store where Squarespace is award-winning templates, customizable

settings, and with Squarespace Commerce, you get all the tools you need to track inventory, process orders, send custom emails in one intuitive interface. Start a trial. No credit card required. Squarespace.com. Use the offer code BS to get 10% off your first purchase. House, let's talk final. You know I love Squarespace.com. Use the offer code BS to get 10% off your first purchase.

House, let's talk finals. You know I love Squarespace. I know. You use Squarespace. Housefromdc.com. I'm going to put up, I get this on Twitter all the time. Hey, house, I'm coming to D.C. Give me three restaurants.

I'm going to put up my top 20 D.C. restaurants, and I'll do some different classes. You want a delicious hamburger? I'll send you to this joint. You're looking you want this delicious hamburger, I'll send you to this joint. You're looking for a wonderful Indian meal, I'll send you to this joint. You want some high end, you know, some fancy cocktails and a wonderful swordfish steak, I have just the place for you. I'll put that on housefromdc.com. All right. Well, actually do it. Don't talk about it. Actually update the site for once. For once, I'm going to do it. This talk about it actually update the site for once for once i'm gonna do it god this summer i promise to do that um all right so quickly the finals i uh i talked about lebron on my new hbo show any given wednesday which premiered on wednesday did uh did a whole

thing about lebron and you, you know, the block, I thought it was cool that LeBron finally has a signature play that we can point to. The block goes down in history. I totally agree. It was great. It's not just the thrill of the legacy play. It was like we have his legacy series.

We have validation of his entire career. And the block is a singular moment that expresses that achievement. It was breathtaking. It was unbelievable. I loved it. I loved how he played those last three games. I love the fact that the two best basketball kind of stretches of his life happened after his manhood

was challenged basically because in 2012 game five celtics kg pierce rondo uh rayon all those guys they just went at him they bullied him in game five gave him all kinds of shit and made him mad and he responded with one of the best stretches of basketball of his career. And then Draymond did basically the same thing. And game five, game six, game seven, he just destroyed the Warriors. I mean, he didn't even shoot that well in game seven, but he imposed his will in the game. And I love that he just didn't come out.

I don't think people realize how incredible it is for somebody to play that many minutes in a basketball game and do what he did on both ends. We've just never seen it. You made this point on the show and it really is truly remarkable. It's truly unprecedented. His career, the number of games he's played, the number of minutes he's played,

he's never missed a playoff game due to injury. Yeah, ever. He's never had an injury. It's an incredible run. Yeah, he's played 13 straight years, he's never had an injury. I think I added up, it was almost 47,000 minutes, and I went on Basketball Reference, and I did the thing where you can compare everybody in the first 13 seasons of their career. The only guy who's played more minutes than him,

playoffs and regular season combined, is Wilt Chamberlain. And Wilt was playing like 48 minutes a game. Like he famously didn't want to come out. He would intentionally try not to foul out. And it was a different era. He didn't have to run that hard. He was going against, from a lot of his career, going against just people who just weren't as big and athletic as him.

Right, right, exactly. He got nowhere near the banging. But nobody in the last 50 years has carried the workload of his career going against just people who just weren't as big and athletic as him right right exactly he got nowhere near the banging but nobody in the last 50 years has carried the workload that lebron carried these first 13 seasons and been more consistent um listen it kills me to say it but he passed bird he did they played the same number of seasons and his career was better there's just no way to no way to look at it any other way. Bird had nine great seasons. LeBron's had 13. And the resume is pretty much the same now.

Three finals MVPs. Bird only had two. LeBron's prime has been eight years. Bird's prime was five. Four league MVPs also, right, for LeBron? Yeah, four to five. And six straight finals, which is an incredible number.

You know, I don't care. And, you know, knock on wood, seven is on the horizon. And I'll tell you, the thing I didn't get to say in that show, and I'm sure you have some thoughts in the finals too, but I thought the most important thing that happened to that team and to LeBron

and the real reason that I think he's not...I thought there was a chance he might come to LA. What happened to Kyrie in that series I thought was transformative for him as a player. I think it's transformative for the next phase of LeBron's career. I think Kyrie gets it now. I don't feel like Kyrie got it until that finals. And he actually worked hard on defense. And, you know, he's a little bit flawed. He's a little me first.

He's a little too one-on-one-y. But the competitiveness and his ability to come through, they ran the biggest play of that game for him with a minute left. They came out of him game for him with a minute left. They came at him. They were like, we're going to switch Steph Curry onto you and you're going to shoot a three over him and win the game for us.

And he did. And now if I'm LeBron, I'm like, I'm not leaving that. Here's the thing. You and I talked about Kyrie the morning of game five, and both expressed disappointment that he had up to that moment through the first four games of the series not really been up to the task.

He really did not show either the will or the skill to make a mark on the finals, and I was expressing great disappointment because I thought that the series should have been, up to that moment, a lot more competitive than it had been. And through the last three games, it was the Kyrie we were both kind of asking for. Yeah. And not just from a talent standpoint, but there's a little extra something-something. And some guys have it and some guys don't. And the stage, he rose to the occasion.

He found it. And 30 million people are watching that game. The title's on the line. You're playing one of the best players of all time. The guy wants it so badly that, you know, sometimes teammates, they can let down, they can get nervous, they get skittish. And Kyrie just rose to the occasion. I thought it was really important for the future of basketball because he gets it now. And, you know, you look at LeBron next season, they can just have Kyrie run the team during the season. You know, LeBron can take a step back.

He plays 62 games and he can just kind of run up and down and let Kyrie dominate the offense. Great. Carry us. I'll step in occasionally on some national TV games and I'm going to save myself for the playoffs. And I don't know, that was one thing. And then the other thing is love at least increased his value.

So whether they keep him or they trade him, you know, my dad and I were talking after like game five, game six, could the Celtics get love for the 16th pick if Cleveland just want to dump his contract? Like that's not happening now. No. They'll be able to trade him for something or keep him. And I think for him, game seven was huge. He came up big.

He made some big plays and maybe he gets a little bit too he expected the outcome of the game which is not something you could say about a lot of the games in that finals against the Warriors he was good in the playoffs for Cleveland he made a lot of shots he was so good

that you and I made a foolish down payment on a sweep of Toronto that we'll never get back. And then he was bad against Toronto. Yeah, he was. But he was pretty good through that series. He really was part of the Cleveland shine as they tore through the East.

Now, just two things, and then I know you have to go. Both about the finals. I still think I think Golden State wins in five if Draymond doesn't get suspended they just do I think they

it's gonna be an all time what if-er it's an all time what if I think LeBron getting Draymond thrown out

or not thrown out but getting Draymond in trouble at the end of game four after they had already lost we had talked on this podcast I talked with

two of my Any Given Wednesday writers about if they are losing the game, they should go Draymond on a technical. And they actually did, and it worked. And it flipped the series. And it was LeBron who did it. It was really smart. I think it goes in his legacy as one of the smarter gamesmanship plays that we've seen.

I think Golden State wins that series in five if that doesn't happen. I really do. And I think Oklahoma City should have won the finals. It's hard to say. I'm not prepared to say it because you know who deserves a little bit of criticism? Steve Kerr? After the season that he had, Curry was not strong. Curry was not strong in these finals. On balance. Is that he had, Curry was not strong. Curry was not strong these finals.

On balance. Is that your opinion, Doc? He'd won good games in seven. I'm trying to be gentle with it. He was so overwhelmingly incandescent through the regular season and even into the playoffs. But at some point, the mileage started to show up on him. Yeah. And it happened like halfway through these finals.

And that's a real issue for them because you've got to play 100 games to win the finals. And teams beat the hell out of him, and he wore down. He had one good game out of seven. And I thought he was – Well, that was the price for winning 73 games. I mean, it was a heads-up decision they made. Yeah, but he's...

They put the mileage on him. Look, after the 84 finals, everyone spent the whole summer calling Magic Johnson Tragic Johnson and talked about how much he sucked, and he choked in Game 7, and he choked in Game 4, and everyone just annihilated him.

Steph Curry was way worse way worse in game six and game seven than uh than magic was 94 finals he steph curry was horrible in game seven like really horrible i that was the worst game i've seen him play in two or three years um so that was one thing And then the second thing is, I don't think enough attention got paid to just what a choke job that was by Golden State in the last five minutes. I hate using the word choke,

but if you watch the last five minutes of that game, it wasn't like Cleveland was locking them down defensively. Every shot they took was wide open. Like literally, go back and watch the last five minutes. It was Steph had two wide open shots. Iggy had was wide open like literally go watch go back and watch the last five minutes it was Steph had two wide open shots Iggy had a wide open shot Barnes had a wide open shot Curry had two wide open shots there was it wasn't like this was like the greatest defense ever played they just they just didn't make shots listen to this I'm about to have a Wilbon get off my lawn moment Wilbon slash get off my lawn every-lawn. Every old guy, every old head, every old basketball,

conventional basketball thinker, eye-test kind of guy, goes back to this idea, which is a jump-shooting team can't win when the pressure's on. You have to have some kind of answer that's down low in the paint, a little bit of grit and grind, somebody who can take the ball with their back to the basket and get you two points from the foul line or by doing something dirty down low. Golden State didn't have it.

Hold on. I'm going to tweak that theory a little bit. I think you at least need somebody who can get near the rim. Okay. And it's either a post-up guy. Or somebody who can get near the rim. Okay. And it's like either a post-up guy. Or somebody who can get to the rim. Yeah, or somebody who can just put his head down and get to the basket, which is what Cleveland did.

Because that's D. Wade. Yeah. That's D. Wade. Or LeBron. Just get to the rim. Or LeBron. If the shots aren't falling, if your legs are tired, whatever, just get to the rim.

Make some plays. Get some fouls. Do that. And Cleveland had two guys who could get to the rim. Golden State had, at the end, it was just guys pulling up and shooting jump shots. And even like... Well, that was my biggest frustration with Curry. He had the lanes to go inside.

He just didn't do it. I know. They got in his head. If you look at a couple of those shots he took, he had wide open access to the middle of the paint. And, you know, I think LeBron was in his head a little bit with the blocks. But, you know, when he had love on him at the end, just take him to all season. I watched an incredible amount of Warriors this season. All year he would just take that big guy and go in and get a layup.

And they completely broke down. He's going one-on-one. Everyone's standing there. And I'll never – I think Steve Kerr is a top three coach. I'll never understand what he was doing in game seven. I just don't get it. I don't understand how Azealy plays. Azealy sucked in the first five minutes.

Get him the F out of there. I didn't want to see him again. It was just unforgivable. I don't understand how Barnes is playing. Where was Barbosa? I would have given Spates a chance in the second half. Barbosa, if you're a Cavs fan, you were scared when Barbosa was in. Barbosa was making plays.

He was playing like he was completely fearless. And what about Sean Livingston? I thought he was the second best player in Game 7. Where was he? I would have played Livingston, Curry, Barbosa, Clay Thompson, and Draymond. Go down with your five guys who aren't scared. Why is Barnes out there? Barnes was terrified.

I don't blame Barnes. I don't blame him for sucking in Game 7. He shouldn't have been out there. RIP to his contract. Well, no. Charlotte's going to give him $90 million. Anyway, I'm really happy for everybody in Cleveland. I know we gave them a lot of crap for that team.

Well, I didn't like the team. I thought it was a mismatched roster, and they figured it out. And LeBron's amazing, and I love the fact that Kyrie stepped up. You know, the other thing we've got to give him credit for is the Blatt for Lou ended up being an upgrade in this one important sense, chemistry. Yeah. Your secret, the book of basketball secret. It really made a big difference to them believing that they could pull it off down three to one.

I honestly think that. Well, you know what else made a big difference? It was Draymond punching LeBron in the nuts. And here's the thing. Hey, on that note. No, and here's the thing. Hey, on that note. No, and here's the thing. Last point, and then I know you got to go play golf. You really are a bull bomb, by the way.

I'm at the Hidden Jewel at Fairfax County, Hidden Creek. Here's the thing with the Warriors, and this is why you can't blame the Draymond suspension. You can't whine about it, and you can't say it was a conspiracy and all that stuff, which all stuff I would do if it happened to a Boston team, so I get it. This is what you deal with when you have Draymond Green on your team. It's a microcosm of the most dangerous issue

of having somebody who plays with that much passion and fire and heart on his sleeve, and he's jawing at everybody and getting it, and just that's what he does. And the outcome of that occasionally is he's going to kick somebody and he's going to punch somebody in the nuts and he's going to shove somebody and he's going to swear at a ref and he's going to get technicals. And it backfired at the worst possible time for them.

And he just has to get – he has to figure out how to channel that somehow. And I'm not positive it out how to channel that somehow. And I'm not positive it's channel-able-able. You said this on the pod before game five. You're not sure that you want it channeled. I don't. You don't want him. We don't want a Draymond that's playing looking over his shoulder. No.

I think it's better. I prefer him to not be looking over his shoulder. He will mature. He will stop kicking his legs out every single time he falls down on the floor. But I don't think we want... Yeah, I was going to say, I don't look at it as like he cost him the title because that's who he is. That's who he is. It's not like he can stop himself from doing stuff like that.

And that's the energy that they feed off. And it works almost all the time energy in game seven right yeah and he was they he was the one guy they had on that entire team who completely wasn't scared other than livingston and barbosa uh yeah i clay thompson either the calves figured out how to defend him or i don't i don't know what happened anyway uh i don't know if i don't know what happened. Anyway, I don't know if the right team won the finals. I still think Oklahoma City had the best team. I don't think that way. The right team won the finals because they won.

I don't believe in anything other than that. That's fair. The same way that Golden State won the finals last year, beating up on teams that were injured. The right team won the finals because they won. That's it. And LeBron is still our captain if the aliens come. Never a doubt. The best basketball player on the planet. LBJ.

Joe House, pleasure as always. Always. Friday rolling! Don't forget to listen to House on the Shaq House podcast presented by Callaway. You guys did a good job previewing the US Open and then wrapping it up this week, so thank you for that. That's nice. You guys did a good job previewing the U.S. Open and then wrapping it up this week, so thank you for that.

That's nice. Yeah, we got one coming up this coming Monday. I can't wait to tell everybody about my experience with the Apex Blacks. I'm about to take them out here at Hidden Creek and get them dirty. And then you're walking the course at Congressional with Mark Hubbard this week, right? This weekend? I didn't want to say it because he has to make the cut. He had a great round yesterday, but I hope you did not just put a big fat Bill Simmons jinx

on Mark Hubbard's performance today. If he makes the cut, I'm walking the course with him tomorrow. So root for Mark Hubbard. Everybody root for Mark Hubbard. Yeah, because then you can watch the tournament this week and you see Mark Hubbard and then you see House eating a corned beef sandwich behind him as security wonders who he is.

Oh, that sounds delicious. Bye, boys all right we're gonna bring in kevin clark from the ringer because he's the only orlando magic fan that i know but before we do that uh if you love books but you find that you never have time to read them audible.com has the perfect solution get audiobooks listen to those books you've been meaning to read while on the go. Listen to them at the gym, during your commute, at the beach, wherever you want to do it. Audible.com provides over 250,000 titles from the leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazines, and newspaper publishers. Even they have business information providers. Their app is free.

It works on iPhones, iPad, Android, Windows phone. You can download and listen on Kindle Fire and over 500 MP3 players. You own the books. You can access them anytime, anywhere. They also have the great listen guarantee if you decide you don't like the book you chose. No worries.

Exchange any book you aren't happy with for another title anytime. No questions asked, my wife listens to this in the car when she drives our kids. I just want to point that out, uh, for the listeners audible.com offering a free 30 day trial membership, go to audible.com slash BS today. Start your free trial. Again, audible.com slash BS. All right. All right. Kevin Clark from the ringer. One of our great football guys. We're going to have unbelievable NFL coverage this year. More importantly than the NFL, you're the only Orlando Magic fan I know. And your team yesterday traded Victor Oladipo, who was the number two pick three years ago, and Sabonis' son, who was number 11,

who everybody likes, who make a combined, I'm going to say, $10 million to get, I think, $16 million, $15 or $16 million of one year of Serge Ibaka before he becomes a free agent. Can you explain this? In a vacuum, there's reasons to move Oladipo. He can't play with Peyton.

He can't shoot the three. I think the Magic played their best basketball in December when he was coming off the bench, which indicates that he wasn't maybe a great fit with the core. Yeah. I think overall he was going to become very expensive next summer, and they saw this coming. Look, Hennigan's problem is that he takes overvalued assets

and he trades them for exactly what they're worth. The reason you become a good GM is you rip teams off. You find the sucker. And he took an overrated player and traded him for what actually turns out to be an okay deal if it was Oladipo for Ibaka. But then you add in Sabonis you add in ilia sova's um rights i i don't know it's an ilia sova was a trade chip because you could waive his contract i think for four hundred thousand dollars in a month so you could actually get a big contract

back for him that was somewhere near nine million bucks and then cut him after if you wanted right yeah so it was three trade trips for one year of a Baca, basically. Right. You seem traumatized. I do. This is like, it's like when you like an up and coming rock band and this is like their fourth album and it's not very good. And now like their basis is going back to college, you know, and it's you're like, oh,

this is just never going to happen for these guys. I feel invested in it. Again, they could have made this move a million different ways and it would have turned out better um they needed a rim protector this is just they just overpaid and they had oladipo is probably the one player they could have found a team to fall in love with i'm in love with oladipo i think think he was on the wrong team. I was just saying to House, he's competitive. He shot 35% from threes last year, but he was on a team where nobody could create shots for anybody else.

If you put him with Durant and Westbrook, he's going to get wide open threes. Good athlete. I think he's feisty. I watch games where he loved guarding the best guy on the other team. He took it personally. He was just a bad fit. He was on a team none of the pieces made sense and now he makes sense on oklahoma city if you told me they traded abaca just for oladipo yesterday i would have been like

oh okay that's yeah that's a pretty fair trade like abaca makes 50 million abaca oladipo makes like five and a. I get it. Yeah, that was my thought, too. Didn't it just throw in some bonus? That's the part I didn't get. Yeah, it's bizarre to me. And the worst part is it's going to get so much worse next spring when Oladipo is amazing for Oklahoma City.

He's going to be great. Because he is the perfect fit. The energy. I think he's like a top five, around like a maniac and and in the second quarter in the third quarter change the tone of the game tire guys out i think he is that is his role and if he's able to do that in game five of the western conference finals i think people are going to realize how good he is at that role magic fans are gonna have to watch this we'll have made the eighth seed and we'll have been swept and right and like a month later we'll see oladipo playing this role to perfection in prime time and then a month after

that sergio bacco will sign somewhere else for 35 million dollars a year yeah the thing you know if i if i was ever a basketball gm i would always try to be targeting people on bad teams who you could tell are competitive and might rise to the occasion in big games and big crowds and big situations. Oladipo, it's like, I would think one of the best things about him is that if he was in a playoff game, he would kind of go up a notch. But in Orlando, you don't see that because you never played in a big game. Yeah, and it's really interesting to me. The games he took over, especially in his first two years, he would go to places.

He had one of his biggest games in Brooklyn. I think the first time maybe he played in Brooklyn and there was a good New York crowd there, he fed off of it, he took over the game. He's a guy at Indiana, he wanted to play in these big games. He just didn't have, you couldn't get the juices flowing in Orlando. It doesn't happen.

We play Dwight Howard every year and that's always a big game, and I think he did pretty well this year. But overall, you're just never going to get those sort of reps. And now he's going to, you know, Billy Donovan, Preston doesn't know if he's going to start or be a sixth man or whatever, but at least he's going to get some reps in front of a juiced crowd, you know, in primetime nationally televised games

where Donovan's going to get to figure out what his ceiling is when he's really revved up. Can Ibaka and Aaron Gordon and Vucevic, they can't all play together. That's ridiculous. Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel said that magic officials believe that they can't that that Ibaka will be the rim protector Vooch can can stretch the floor and be sort of near him and

then good luck yeah that sounds like a great plan and then Gordon uh he can play both forward positions so you'd put him at three I don't know how that's going to work out look we we now have an NBA coach in Frank Vogel um Yeah, you have an actual coach. Congrats on that. It's been years. How many years since you had a good coach? Well, Van Gundy was fired in 2012. Okay, good.

You have a coach again. Four years. It's amazing to see. It's a presidential term. It's amazing to see what rotations will look like. Yeah. Moves that make sense.

A game plan. Yeah, defensive matchups that have any semblance of reality. Is Jacques Vaughn's chalk outline still on the court, or did they get rid of it finally? He's actually been on the court for the last two years. No one's noticed. He's mummified?

They just left him there. He was staring into space for the two years he was coaching. He was a mannequin. Yeah, and then they were like, well, we have to fire the guy, and he didn't move, and we let him stay. So with Vogel, I mean, I trust him to figure it out. He's taken a lot of talent before and been able to mold it into a decent rotation and decent lineup. So I think he'll be able to work something out.

I think those three players are really good, and I think if we're going to be a top five East team, that Aaron Gordon has to become an absolute star. It's in play. It's in play. It's definitely in play. He's definitely something. I don't know what he is, but he's something. It depends what they pay Fournier this summer.

Everyone has cap space, and that's very concerning. You need Hazonia. Obviously, yeah. So Hazonia then would be the sixth man in this scenario. Basically, one of the reasons to get rid of oladipo is hazonia right get him 35 minutes game start both of us like hazonia start fournier and then have hazonia eased into the rotation i hate admitting when i'm wrong but i i don't think alfred payton i don't think it's gonna happen for him no but it's interesting to me they took him over oladipo because well he had no trade value he had no trade who wants out for pay right right but just in the

sense that we could have just kept oladipo on the team and been a better team um and going forward for the next three or four years but um we didn't necessarily have to trade oladipo but you know payton he's athletic i i still believe in him as maybe a great backup point guard. He could be the best backup point guard in the league, which is not what you want from a lottery pick, by the way. Right. There's a history of guys like him eventually settling into a role as somebody off the bench who's great defense, good whatever.

He's going to win a ring in 2022. What a weird franchise Orlando is. Yeah, you don't have to tell me. I mean, there's like six or seven really strange NBA franchises that just nobody talks about or knows the history about. But like, I love the fact that you genuinely think you should have won the 2009 finals. It's hilarious. Well, also the 95 finals, we got swept and everyone thinks we should have won too.

So, I mean. No, I know. Yeah. That's a little bit of a stretch but no no you were heavily favored going into the final so because i bet the rockets all right it was like they were like plus 400 it was great beyond that i mean it's pretty rare for a franchise to get to two finals within you know yeah 15 years you know there's certain franchise you know charlotte hasn't done anything how many years of basketball they played true um and you've had some good players yeah absolute superstars um

so it's it's a weird i would say it's a more pleasant rooting experience than most people think because we've gotten to see a lot of good basketball um and it's warm and there's no state income tax um so but generally it's it's a very disjointed, a weird franchise that will not win a title within 20 years, but there will be at least enough interesting wrinkles to keep fans engaged. Keep me from quitting the sport.

You're from Orlando. Downtown. Born in Orlando? Downtown Orlando, yeah. So walk us through the last two weeks it's unbelievable to see and I it's it's a hard thing to to put into words because this tragedy wasn't about me right you know I wasn't there I was in New York at the time but it's surreal to see so many things that you've grown up around become synonymous with tragedy.

You see helicopters. My father was woken up by helicopters. You see all of the businesses he went to, all of a sudden Anderson Cooper's in front of it talking about one of the worst tragedies in history. And it's incredibly surreal and um what you know the the the club pulse was two blocks from my high school so this hit me hard i think that there's two waves of sadness that you have the first wave is obviously initial shock but then the second thing is that you realize what the bar is for you to feel this way, for you to feel so sad. And then you realize how cynical and how easy it is for you to brush off

all of these previous attacks when it doesn't happen two blocks from your high school and a mile from your childhood house. And then you feel the sadness of every other attack you've ever brushed off and every other problem with guns in this country that you brushed off. And then you feel you feel it in a way that you've never felt before. You feel the gun problem in this country like you've never felt it before. And it really, really sucks. And you were telling me that Orlando's history with gay culture was much deeper and more storied. I had no idea. I never knew any of that stuff. In 1998, we put up pride flags throughout the city. It was a huge thing at the time.

Pat Robertson said we were going to hit with a meteor. Orlando has obviously Disney and Universal, who in the 90s had gay days to celebrate pride. That was another thing where that sort of Pat Robertson circle sort of said, you know, this is not right. And we were roundly criticized by a lot of people in this country. And quite frankly, people like Patty Sheehan, city council member, Buddy Dyer, the mayor, they passed, and the New York Times addressed this in one of their stories very early on, they passed some of the first gay-friendly ordinances in the South, very progressive overall. it was not only an attack on a club and 50 people who just wanted to have a good time, but other than that, it was an attack on a city that has a real culture of progressive attitudes toward gays. And the way the city united in the last two weeks was good to see. So how do you see the summer playing out with everything in Orlando?

How do they rebuild? How do they recover? What's the process? Well, I think that overall, it's not for me to speak on how the gay community goes forward here. But I think that the thing that, the thing for, I think, that would help the city heal in that regard is just to keep going. You know, have parties,

have parades downtown in which the city comes together. You know, we don't need to keep having candlelight vigils necessarily. You don't need to keep mourning. I think you spin it forward and you have you know celebrations of the city of the community of the way that we've rallied these last two weeks

and so i just think that overall um you know you saw it in boston after the marathon i think you can have celebrations of of who you are and what your town is and what your culture is and really come together in that way yeah you never know how it's going to play out like in boston which you know wasn't nearly as many people sure um but at the same time i think resonated in a way a lot like what this was where it hit something that was very distinct to what the city was about, that the marathon was year after year. It was that one day we, it was our own personal holiday and like somebody mess with that. And you know,

that was what hit people more than anything, much like how, um, progressiveness was part of Orlando and somebody mess with that. Progressiveness and, and a modern stance on things that is orlando because orlando there's so many people who who cycle in and out of the city because it's it's a service industry city because it's you know disney universal it's entertainment it's you know disney animators

whatever it is and so orlando prides itself on always being at the cutting edge because it's always people there's no there are so few people who moved to Orlando in 1954 and now live there throughout their entire life and have old school views or whatever. It is always people coming in and changing. And that's actually what makes it great. You might say, oh, that means there's no sense of community or whatever. And it's like, no, everyone moved there for a specific purpose.

Everyone wants to be on the cutting edge of whatever it is because they're only in Orlando for four or five years. It is one of the most modern current cities you can have in an American city. I was 3,000 miles away from the marathon thing, but I knew how Boston was going to respond. Initially, people were like, should we have the marathon next year? What do we do? Boston, the DNA, which goes back to the 1770s, was like, fuck this. We're not letting them fuck with the marathon we're i mean more

people ran the marathon the next year than i think could ever run it before because that's boston rallies that way they're like you're not going to tell us whatever but sports was a big part of it too and you had the ortiz speech and you had the red sox kind of came and you had the boston strong t-shirt started popping up and it became somewhat of a galvanizing thing for people like it rallied the city in a lot of ways and then the red sox ended up winning the world series and it all kind of snowballed a certain way and i think that really helped the healing process i don't know how it plays out for orlando i mean that was unique to boston i'm sure orlando over the next five six months will have its own thing that kind of

pushes people a certain way and helps them heal and all that. Maybe it'll be gun control and maybe Orlando becomes the city that becomes one of the focal points for that. Pushing agendas? I don't know. What do you got cooking for the NFL? Defensive line podcast.

Oh yeah, you and Maze are doing your top ten series? Still doing. Still rolling Mays are doing your top 10 series. Still doing. Still rolling. Yeah, top 10. We did 20 for the defensive line. Mays, for linemen, we have to go to 20. He's such a dork.

Because you have to do interior and exterior. So we got 10 parts, and then we've been planning our coverage for NFL's creeping. It's creeping. It's getting there. All of a sudden, it's July. July means mini camps. July means. And then training camp.

Oh, yeah. It means Oxnard. It means getting there. All of a sudden it's July. July means mini camps. July means. And then training camp. Oh yeah. It means Oxnard and it means Hard Knocks. Like the 28's. Yeah. We have an NFL team this year, the Rams, that are going to be playing very close to us that we're going to try to infiltrate.

Yeah. Hopefully get a couple of the Rams on the pods. Who would be our top three wish list? Oof. Gurley. Gurley. Goff. And then this is a sleeper because not a lot of people know him.

It's not a player. It's Les Snead, the GM. I think I've spoken to him. He's one of the most thoughtful GMs in the NFL. Okay. Yeah, so ringer NFL show. And listen to our podcast. We have, I think we have eight.

We might add some more. We got NFL. We got MLB. We got NBA. We have, we're going to add a tech one soon uh channel 33 with the watch we have shack house keep it at 1600 uh and this one tate tate's over there nodding he just wants his own podcast he's dying for it uh i uh i want to thank five four club they have you covered with styling advice and hand-picked clothes delivered to your door every month or so.

There's even free shipping. It's only $60 per month. Go to 5-4 Club.com. Use promo code BS and sign up and get 50% off your first package. F-I-V-E-F-O-U-R Club.com. It's the stamps.com buy and print official US postage using your own computer and printer. Sign up for stamps.com right now and use the promo code BS for a four-week trial plus a $110 bonus offer that includes postage and a digital scale.

Go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, type in BS. Thanks to SeatGeek, the presenting sponsor of the BS podcast. Thanks to Miller Lite, the sponsor this month for The Ringer. Thanks to HBO for giving me my own show. It happened. Any given Wednesday. We put some extra bonus clips, as I mentioned, on HBO Now that you can check out because we had so much good content from the taping session on Tuesday

that we put some more stuff and we have another episode coming on Wednesday with Mark Cuban, Malcolm Gladwell, and Bill Hader. Yeah. How are we going to cram all that stuff in 30 minutes? Thanks so much. Enjoy the weekend. We're probably going to cut down to one podcast per week on the BS podcast for these next six, seven weeks. Because the show is a grind and we want to make sure it's good.

The TV show, I mean. And then hopefully we'll be able to cycle back and do two a week after that. Enjoy the weekend. Thank you. Take care. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here. Close your eyes eyes and picture me