The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 178: Dealing With the Trade Deadline With J.J. Redick

Episode Date: February 21, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons brings on Clippers guard J.J. Redick to discuss Doc Rivers's offense in L.A. (6:00), the 2009 Finals (14:00), is this the last dance for the Clippers? (19:00), the 3-point revolution (28:00), Bradley Beal's skill set (34:00), the UNC-Duke rivalry (39:00), Magic Johnson taking over the Lakers (48:00), the best non-Warriors team (55:00), ways to beat the Warriors (1:02:00), and the best unicorns in the NBA (1:08:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Download the SeatGeek app today or go right to SeatGeek.com. We were also brought to you by the Ringer NBA show. I went on there yesterday, Monday, with Chris Vernon and broke down the Boogie Cousins trade for 56 action-packed, thrilling minutes and made the case that it was, as unbelievable as it seems, the best possible deal they could have made since there were no other real suitors.

Check that out. The Ringer NBA show. Subscribe now. And obviously, we're brought to you by The Ringer, where you can read my column every Friday, including the trade deadline on Thursday. I'm sure I'll have something on Friday. And it's one of the reasons we have this guy here, because I'm fascinated by what it's like for a player as the trade deadline approaches.

J.J. Reddick coming up right now. J.J. Reddick. You were traded at the trade deadline once. Yeah, 2.59 p.m. 2.59 p.m.? A minute to spare. Did you know you were going to get traded that week, or did you think there was a chance?

Like, what's the process? Are you just refreshing the Internet all the time? What are you doing? It was weird because going back to the summer before, we had a new coach, Jacques Vaughn. We had a new GM, Rob Hennigan. So I met with Rob that summer and I was just like, hey man, if you can just kind of keep me in the loop as things are happening. I was an expiring deal at the time. I think it was like a $6.2 million expiring deal, which at the time with the salary cap was a typical sort of contract that would get traded, especially in a rebuilding situation like we were in. So like with a month to go before the deadline, you know, Rob and I talked and I was like, you know, I would like to be here.

I like to kind of see this rebuild through. And he said, all right, you know, I think that's an option for us too. Then with about like a week to go, I knew there were a few teams, Milwaukee, Detroit. You guys weren't playing that well either. San Antonio. We were terrible that year. San Antonio was another team.

So there's like a few teams that were interested in me. We were in Dallas the day of the trade deadline and we decided to stay over. So we're sitting at the hotel and Arne telling my agent at the time, calling me and he's like, you're safe. You're not getting dealt. Oh no. And I said, great. So I get on the bus, we get to the airport. As soon as we get to the airport, there's always two buses. First bus is the player's bus, coach's bus. We always get to get off first for some reason they let the other bus off which is like the training staff you know fox sports people uh so they're

getting on the on the plane first i'm like this is this is a little weird and then as the players started getting off the bus they kind of just started holding guys back it was like josh mcroberts ish smith gustavo ay I was like, fuck, something's going down. And Arne called me, like as I'm waiting there, it's one of four guys, and he's like, it's looking like Milwaukee. And then at about, literally at 2.59 p.m. Eastern time, Rob called me and said, hey, we just traded you to Milwaukee.

And so it was a nerve-wracking week leading up, and then it was a nerve-wracking week leading up, and then it was a nerve-wracking sort of 24 hours. And even when you feel safe as a player, you're still – I'm not, like, refreshing my Google alerts, but, like, you're still on HoopSype. You're still on Twitter, like, trying to figure out, is there anything going on? You're talking to your agent just about every day,

which I will continue to do this week. And it's nerve wracking though. So you knew a couple of years ago, you knew there was a better chance you might get traded than like this trade deadline, but you're still in the mix. Like you can't feel a hundred percent safe. Who knows?

I don't think I've ever felt a hundred percent safe. Yeah. Well, for the first year with the Clippers, you must've felt safe because Doc was building a whole offense around you running off picks and stuff. My first year with the Clippers, I was hurt. I broke my wrist earlier in the year. When I came back, I played about 10 games, then I had a back injury. So I was out at the deadline. That day, similar situation. We were on the plane. I can't remember where we were headed, but we were on the plane.

And we're all in the player's cabin refreshing Twitter. And there's this, like, trade that's supposed to go down between a few of our guys and a few of the Knicks guys centered around Amon Shumpert. And it's like we're getting real-time info from, you know, the Mark Steins and the Wojis of the world, and Doc's like 30 feet away on the phone. It was the most surreal thing ever. Ultimately, there weren't any major trades. I think we dumped BJ Mullins and Jamison in sort of salary dump, but it wasn't a major trade. Is it weird as a player that Doc is your coach,

but is also the guy who's ultimately going to have final say on who gets traded? It's a weird thing. I felt like the first probably two years, it was a little different. He's surrounded himself now in the front office with a lot of great people. And Lawrence Frank is up there now. And he's, I guess, sort of the de facto guy now. And he's taken some of the responsibility off doc. But I had never experienced that before.

So it was definitely surreal those first couple years. So if he yells at you in practice, you're like, oh, my God. No, it's interesting. I mean, listen, that's like why we have the judicial system and the legislative branch and and the executive branch is checks and balances right um so you need people like around you if you're going to take on that role like like a few guys have in this league like like bud and uh pop and and tibbs like if you're going to have that role you need good people around you so carmelo it becomes out that carmelo might get dealt and that it's only the clippers the calves or the celtics and everybody just including myself

just starts making up trades left and right and with the clippers it's like they for whatever reason they're on the record saying we wouldn't trade any deandre chris or blake for carmelo that's off the table i don't even know how that got reported, but somehow that became fact. I don't know where it came from. So then everybody's looking at the Rivers contract, Jamal Crawford, you. My name got thrown in there.

There's not a lot of contracts that can add up to what it would take to get Carmelo back. So are you aware? Because you're trying to play. You're playing four games a week, basically. Are you aware of all this as it's going on, or are you trying to tune it out or you're trying to tune it out you're you're trying to tune it tune it out at this point to have your name in a trade like a trade rumor you've you've learned by now that uh until you actually get the

call hey you've been traded it it really doesn't matter it's like it's like worrying about a hypothetical you just can't get caught up in that but it's hard not to be aware we were playing in um in golden state uh the week sort of those few days when this was like heavy in the news this clippers nicks thing and uh you know i'm going out for for warm-ups before the game with like 50 on the clock doing my shooting routine and i have like four warriors fans i hope you like it in new york you're out of here, Redick. Trying to pretend you're not listening to them. You can't really tune that out when they're 10 feet away from you. How many years have you been in the Clippers now? Four?

This is my fourth year, yeah. This has been this run where it never all came together. Every year there's been a hiccup or a stumble and the best chance you had was that rocket series when you're up what 25 in game five and it looks like it's done i went to that game the rockets were hard and checked out he was done or 19 whatever it was game six but it was 19 yeah we we uh was it game six or game five it's game six because we we went back to oh yeah you could have won game yeah yeah that's right home court yeah so we had game six. We went back to Houston for game five. They had home court. So we had game six at our place. Blake made a 360 layup in the third quarter. And I remember looking over at the bench and everybody's celebrating.

And I'm like, oh, it's a party in here. And then they bench Harden in the fourth quarter. Harden checked out. I love Harden. I'm a huge Harden defender. But he checked out in that game. It was the Josh Smith and cory brewer game but you know even like last year um and this year if i'm being if i'm being honest it's tough to evaluate our team right um because you know that our four-man group and then luke

as well like our our net rating is as you know as good as good as any five man unit, I think, except for the Warriors. And so to sort of evaluate us when we're healthy is one thing, but we've just had Chris and Blake have just been in and out of the lineup. And then of course, last year in the playoffs, they're gone after, you know, the third or fourth quarter of game four. So what do you think was the best Clippers team of all those, of the four you've been on? What did you feel like was the highest ceiling team?

Probably the first two years. And the first year we lost to OKC. We had a chance to win game five at their place. Game six at home. It was kind of a devastating loss in game five. We were up, I think, 11 with like four minutes to go. We lose. Game six, I didn't even realize this until I watched the game a couple years ago,

but we were up like 19 in the first half. And Kevin Durant had an unbelievable second quarter. He came back and they beat us. But that was before the Warriors were the Warriors. San Antonio ended up winning that year. I'm not saying we would have beat San Antonio in the next round, but that was a the Warriors were the Warriors. Yeah. San Antonio ended up winning that year. So that, you know, I'm not saying we would have beat San Antonio in the next round, but that was a chance for us.

And then the following year was before the Warriors were this, this juggernaut. They were really good. They won 67 games. They won it all. But I still think that year in the, in the conference finals, we would have had a shot against them.

Well, you'd beaten them the year before. We'd beaten them in the playoffs the year before. Which actually turned out to be the best thing that happened to them. They went through that game seven and I don't know, they got good game seven. This is what it's like reps that I think really helped them the next year. The problem with the year after,

I thought your best team was the year that Houston knocked you out just because of how well Blake was playing. I mean, that was the best I've ever seen Blake play. I remember writing at the time. I thought he was, that spring, the third best player in the league. And he's never, you know, whether injuries, whatever. It feels like it's starting to come back for him. But I like the way you matched up with the team.

The problem is the bench. He had to play everybody so many minutes, like the top six and i really thought that that game six against houston that's when it wore out blake was dead in the second half blake and i talked about that yeah we will going back to the first round series we had a seven game slugfest with the spurs which was as tough a series as i've played in my career. And Blake and I have talked about this, but I remember in game seven in Houston in the fourth quarter, like coming out of a timeout. And at the time it was maybe like a seven or eight point game

and just being like, oh my God, I have nothing in the tank. And after the game I talked to Blake, he's like, I felt the same way. He's like, neither of us had ever really felt that before. You know, you just feel like you have nothing left physically in the tank. Well, for you, that's murder because you need your legs to run around. It was tough for me that series, too, because I was the main guy tasked with guarding Harden. So I had to guard Harden and then also run circles on offense. Right.

And guarding Harden is basically... Every play. You just kind of try to get in his way as he does his crazy stuff. There's a strategy to it, but it doesn't work very well. He's pretty damn good. Is he your biggest nightmare to guard? Or you don't want to give anybody the... We have Luke now.

So the last two years, Luke has matched up. Because I don't imagine even how... First of all, all the other stuff he does, the fact that he's matched up because i don't imagine even how first of all all the other stuff he does the fact that he's lefty i always feel like the lefties are the most my dad is like the all-time fan of lefties he feels like as guys get tired you kind of just forget like there'll be some brain fart where you're like oh yeah i forgot he's and he's already going by you but uh he's so unconventional i don't know how you would stop it. Yeah. The only other guy that was like him was Ginobili in his prime.

Right. And those are two of the toughest guys that I've had to guard in my career. I've had to guard Kobe and Dwayne Wade, my position. And those guys in their prime were unbelievable. But there is something about the quirkiness of Ginobili and Harden's game that is really challenging. Yeah, I remember when Harden got traded, I remember writing something about he could be the Manu on this OKC team. And his destiny is kind of a better version of Manu. I never expected him to be what he became. I don't think there were... I don't think many people did. I never would have guessed he was going to be what he became. I don't think there were...

I don't think many people did. I never would have guessed he was going to be one of the five best guys in the league. It's weird because it seemed like at the time it was a great role for him in OKC. Where he starred in that role. Do you know what I mean by that? He was a star in his role and then he became a top three player within the span of two years. He was such a weapon because he could just win a game by himself, potentially, or they didn't need him at all. And Durant and Westbrook could do it.

It's funny because you've had these Clipper seasons where it's just like the bad luck season. Oh, man. But yet in Orlando in 2009, it was the opposite. these clipper seasons where it's just like the bad luck season or oh man why are they but yet in orlando in 09 it was the opposite it was like that everything could go right all the way to the finals thing where it just kind of came together perfectly so you felt that too yeah i mean i wouldn't say everything went right because jameer was an all-star that year and he got hurt right before the all-star game he tore his labrum and had surgery. Good point. And we picked up Ray for Austin. We picked up Ray for Austin. I always like to say our rotation that year was Ray for Austin, Courtney Lee, Turk, Rashard, Dwight,

and then off the bench was Anthony Johnson, myself, Pietris, and Gortat. That was the team that got us to the finals. Yeah. I mean, it's nine deep at least. Yeah. It was a deep team. Garnett was hurt that year, which Pierce likes to remind me of on a daily basis. That was the best Celtics team.

I think they were like 35-5 when KG got hurt. Yeah. Something like that. It was a great team. And then, you know, the first game one against Cleveland, we're down like 22 in the first half. Yeah. That place is so loud. And I'm thinking, oh, God, we don't have a shot against these guys.

We won that game. And really just like we played unbelievable that series. Then we had some – honestly, we had some bad luck in the finals, though. I mean, Courtney Lee missed a layup that could have won it at the end of regulation in game two. Game four broke our backs. We're up 87-82 with 40 seconds to go and Dwight at the free throw line. Somehow that game goes to overtime and we lose it. Well, you had the Derek Fisher three was the moment.

I don't know. I think it was Jameer. Somebody didn't come out on him in time. It was Jameer. Yeah. I love Jameer, but it was Jameer. Somebody didn't come out on him in time. It was Jameer. Yeah. I love Jameer, but it was Jameer. That was a tough one. Jameer is now having his third renaissance in Denver.

Oh, he's great. He's like kicking ass. He's like my age. He can play, man. He can play. Yeah, I think that Lakers Magic Series was way closer and way more dangerous for the Lakers than anyone seems to remember now, which happens sometimes.

Like, Jalen and I used to talk about the 2000 finals, the Lakers' first championship. That was the Philly one? It was Indiana versus... Yeah, it was Indiana. I don't remember. In Indiana, it was way close. It was 2-2, or it was 2...

No, it was 2-1, but then it goes into overtime game four in Indy. Shaq fouls out. Kobe has to put the team on his back. It was the first time he'd ever done it. The game six was super close. Jalen still feels like the officials robbed him. But yeah, the 0-9 magic.

LeBron was at the peak of his early powers. I think he was like 37-12 or something. He had crazy numbers. Every time. Every game, too. It was consistent. He played well. He played well.

But that team he had around him you could just the dwight thing was was i mean that's about as good as dwight's been in terms of rebounding blocking shots not caring if you're running plays for him he's just doing all the stuff that you'd ever want from dwight in a playoff series and and and still average like 25 like he he was good, he didn't have to have plays called for him. We could just run that spread pick and roll, surround him with shooters, and it worked. It's interesting that DeAndre has embraced what Dwight never totally embraced,

which is just rebound and block shots and dunk alley-oops and set picks, and you're a devastating center. But if we're posting you up, now you're hurting us because you're not a great post-up player and we have better offensive players around you. Doc came in and just immediately was like, DeAndre, this is how we're using you.

And he embraced it. It's been a good sort of working partnership between Doc and DJ. I mean, the year before doc came uh dj didn't play in the fourth quarters oh yeah they just averaged like 24 or 25 minutes a game something like that um i mean he always i guess showed potential you know from from afar from a distance watching the clippers play you know he's got potential but um three years later he's first team all nba he's on the olympic team now he's got potential, but three years later, he's first team, all NBA.

He's on the Olympic team. Now he's an all-star four years later. I think he's been terrific this season. I was saying, I think I said a couple of weeks ago, I think he's the most underrated player in the league now. Really? Yeah,

I do. I don't think people realize how good he's been and, and what a, just a consistent force he is. And it's also the way the league has shifted. There's not a lot of big guys left who can stay out there and do all the things he can do without hurting their team in some way like i think the traits really struggled with drummond like how do we use this

guy how do we use the good parts of him right and cover up the parts that aren't as good i think for maybe an old school traditional nba fan uh guys like like DJ and Drummond are frustrating to them because you can't just throw them the ball on the block and they go score. That's just not who they are. But in today's NBA, those guys are as valuable as anybody. The guys that are true fives, defend the rim, are mobile enough to get out and cover pick and rolls and then offensively they just roll to the rim every time i mean that's that's really the value because shooting is is is valued and then you need a big guy who rolls and has that threat of a lob to create space for shooting that's why i like new orleans noel if he can stay in the court there was like this two

week window where i thought the the Celtics were going to steal him. And he would just would have been awesome with Isaiah. Like imagine covering Isaiah and New Orleans Noel on a, on a high screen and roll. And he's never been in that situation, but now Philly knows that he's good. They're not trading him. It's going to be interesting though, because he has a lot of value and there's a lot of teams that could really, really use him and he could end up being

a star like in the same way that dj is yeah yeah do you feel like this is the last dance for the quips you feel like everybody's on this team next year because yeah blake is a free agent if chris is a free agent you're a free agent and like you know because of all the injuries nothing would surprise me i mean i mean if you told me that four years from now like we're all still playing together i'd be like i could see uh i could see that happening yeah um i mean if you told me that one of us leave two of us leave i could see that happening too um i think a lot of it does depend on what happens in the playoffs. And that's ultimately where we've been judged and where we'll be judged at the end of this season.

It's not going to be as easy this year because of all the injuries, you're going to be a five or a six seed probably. Yeah. Which means you've got to go on the road. It's going to be tough. I mean, we'd love to get in that third seed, but I think we're four four back uh in the loss column three four back in the loss column with houston right now um you know we're we're

battling right now for first round home court you need you need you need injuries on a team that's not your team you need like it's you've had most of the bad hard and have an ankle injury nothing serious nothing serious i don't want it i would never wish a serious injury on anyone. Or like mono or something. Like a two-week mono bout. The Rockets are fascinating to me because they need to make one more trade. They need one more perimeter guy. And if they get that guy, and I don't know who it is,

then I think you and your team your team and the and the rockets are the two teams that could game the system against the warriors a little bit you don't think the spurs well the spurs are the spurs i would never i think the spurs they're over here like i they can obviously go toe to toe the rockets can just kind of shoot threes and get hard and hot and just be funky and unconventional. And then you guys, you've played the Warriors so many times. There's a familiarity that I think is a real advantage. I feel like right now there's a familiarity with us getting our asses kicked. Well, that's been recent.

They've completely dominated us. I think we won, geez, man, two seasons ago on Christmas Day. You haven't had your whole team, though. And haven't beaten them since. Yeah. I was surprised there was a Thursday night game about a month ago that there was not a lot of fight in the Clippers. Was that the game at Golden State or was that the home game? It was the home game.

The home game. There was no fight. And that made me think like— It was the high-scoring one. We scored a lot. game the home game there was that it was there was no fight and that that made me think it was the high scoring one we scored a lot but i think that i think the warriors had like 128 offensive efficiency night or something like yeah yeah you need when's chris come back soon sooner than people realize it's breaking news no he'll be back very soon it turns out that when chris paul is out there it's probably better for you guys.

That's one of my expert opinions. It's nice to have the best point guard of the league on your team. It's nice to have one of the five to ten best players in the world. You could argue that you survived. This could have been worse. I think we did fine. Blake, the first game back, I think, was the Philly game. At Philly, we lost.

Yeah. Blake was getting his rhythm. rhythm since that game he's been unbelievable I mean I don't know what his numbers are I don't know what his numbers are but if I had to guess 27 8 and 5 yeah 26 9 and 5 he's been unbelievable the last seven or eight games and he's also trying to dunk on people again I feel like his swagger is back his his basketball swagger is back a little bit and it was gone from the hand injury last year and even when he you know last year just cross off but this year i didn't feel like he was totally blake and now i feel like oh man this guy's starting to look like the guy from 2015 yeah a little bit yeah he's getting back but a lot of it i think you're

right a lot of it is injuries and I think part of it too was when he came back from the hand injury. First of all, he wasn't right. His quad tendon wasn't right, but there was that hand, what happened with the hand injury

and what happened in Toronto. I think that kind of hung over him a little bit and it affected his, not necessarily his psyche, but maybe his demeanor where he took a he took a ton of shit for it he couldn't be himself you know and um and i i just feel like he's he's gotten over that and he's he's back to being who he is yeah did we ever figure out why

the other teams don't like him what is it what's your take on that it's there's there's a couple guys every year that the other teams are just like, they just seem like they try to fuck with them. And it's been that way with Blake for five years. I feel like there's a few guys on our team that are like that. I mean, you had that going back to college, right? Yeah. Guys trying to chip you and cheap shot you and help you coming off picks,

trying to get you off your game. I feel like I brought that on myself. So a little bit of that is just like guys bring that on themselves. Right. Like, I mean, I've said this before and like I love him to death. But, you know, like Chris Paul does not shut up. Right. He's just talking all the time.

And so, you know, I think if you're playing against him, you're like, oh, my God. Like, what? You just want to swat them. Yeah. So it can rub you the wrong way. I think that is the biggest flaw of the Clippers. If you get everybody back and you're healthy, on paper, this is the best Clippers team. Just because you have a better bench.

Yeah. The bitching to the refs, you don't do it as much. But it starts with Doc. I don't think I have a technical this year. That's fantastic. Meanwhile, Boogie has like 18. I've made it. It will knock on wood.

If I'm a referee, and I'm like, oh, I got the Clippers Wednesday night. This is going to suck. Doc's going to be yelling at me from the first minute. Chris is going to be yelling at me all the time. I don't know how to officiate Blake. Blake's like the hardest guy in the league to figure out whether it was a flagrant or just a conventional foul.

And I'm just, this is going to suck. That would be my attitude as the ref. I have to be very careful when discussing anything regarding the referees. But I would just say they're human beings. They're human beings with Yes. They're human beings with feelings. They're sensitive, just like any other human being. And they take stuff personally. I think you want to be treated with respect,

and it goes both ways. It really does. It goes both ways. Well, Doc did this in Boston, too, and I always felt like it became a disadvantage to the Celtics. He just takes bad calls really personally. Yeah. very upset and i don't know it's almost like you guys should make a pact like hey we've tried i think you've tried no we've tried almost every year doc made an announcement to the media like uh maybe like six weeks ago so he got thrown out of two games yeah in like a

two-week period one of them he got super mad yeah yeah and then so he he you know what i think he got kicked out of a third game in november it was in brooklyn then he got kicked out against the wizards oh yeah you guys lost that brooklyn game i was mad because we had the celtics had their pick i was like really did doc get thrown out of this game no they're not in 47 i think you're all right yeah i'm okay but he made this announcement like uh he just said like i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna cut back on the referees and and uh if i do get a technical i'm i'm gonna give the money to charity uh you know in addition to what already goes to charity our technicals out of our double contracts yes he's gonna double up um i think he's been

better i'm not really sure i don't really i don't keep track of doc's technicals necessarily um he's not better but uh he's not better you know it's i don't necessarily think it's the the worst flaw of our team but it's it's a flaw of our team you know it's become a bigger flaw because all the fans at the home games have now taken on the same kind of mental energy. And it's like, it's honestly no different than going to some of my daughter's soccer games and the parents on the, our sidelines good.

Some of the parents in the other sidelines that are just, they think everything's a foul and it's just this constant hysteria. And I've noticed it at the Clipper games, like the fans. It's like, Hey, the Clippers aren't going to get every call. It's going to go back and forth.

I think it's just part of the culture though of sports in general is just like people losing their minds. Wanting to, yeah, wanting to place blame

on something. Yes. Oh, the refs were terrible. Like people will say that to me after games and I'll be like, were they?

Were they terrible? I don't know. I just feel like they made some calls. Some were good. Some were bad. How is that different from any other game? The three-point revolution is just the greatest thing that ever happened. You might play until you're 48.

Because at some point, when you're going to be too old to just be running around screens all day, you could still just sit in the corner and just shoot threes, right? That's another five years of your career. I don't know that I want to continue down that road. Do it. Go to 48. I think Ray Allen could be playing right now. So, first of all, I never really imagined that I'd be doing this at 32.

Right. And I'm in year 11. I'd love to get to 15. I'd love to get to 15. I'd love to get to 15. You stay in good shape. That's going to happen. Yeah. I'm a little too vain to ever get out of shape.

So I stay in shape. I'm admitting that. But no, I'd like to get to 15, and then we'll see what happens from there. But I feel like I have four more good years in me, and then we'll see how my body feels. Has your game changed at all with the way the actual sport has changed are you doing the same things you were doing seven years ago what is there any one thing that's changed about how you think about when you're on the court spots you go to or the flow of it or anything um well when I played for Stan you know it was very pick and roll heavy. Yes.

I was either doing one of two things. I was either spotting up in one of the corners or I was involved in the pick and roll. I didn't get to run as much as Turk or Jameer, but I did get to run pick and rolls. Now with Doc, it's more catch and shoot for me. The one thing, I stole this from Bradley Beal, and now guys are stealing it from me. But I call it the throw and go. Yeah. And so basically, you have the ball on the wing or up top, and you throw it to the big. And most of the time, you throw it to the big, and most guys stand or they go away.

They go cut away and go screen for somebody. But I throw it to the big, you you know most guys stand or they go away they go cut away and go screen for somebody um but you know i i throw it to the big and then i run right and get it and so it's almost like a pick and roll it's the same action yeah except i have i have a head start on my defender because he's not expecting it um the throw and go throw and go bradley beal i stole it from bradley beal yeah Yeah, Bradley Beal is becoming a force. It's funny, there's not a lot of guys. You could almost become the guru for these guys to teach them how to run around and do these little tricks because the Warriors are obviously great at it. Kevin Garnett had this whole conversation with me

in the weight room like two weeks ago about how I should charge younger players in the offseason money so I can teach them my tricks. I have somebody for you. It was a valid. It was actually, I was like, I mean, I'd probably do that for free. No, no, no. He was like, $25,000 for a week.

After one summer, you'll have an extra $300,000. I'm like, ah. You know what? I feel like that's kind of cheating. But okay. I mean, I'll consider it. I have the guy for you. Who is that? Malik Mon. But okay. I mean, I'll consider it. I have the guy for you. Who is that?

Malik Monk on Kentucky. Oh, God. If you made a deal with him where you get 2% of all his future income. Because right now, Tate and I, Tate hosts our college basketball podcast. Malik Monk, who I think has a chance to be really, really special, potentially. But on Kentucky, just stands there. They don't run him around on picks their point guard has the ball all the time and sometimes he just disappears from the offense and

he just stands there and i'm and the key for him at the next level because he's like a 6-3 shooting guard basically but magical footwork and 25 foot range if he learns how to do the circle run around picks the throw and goes all that stuff the, that guy's going to be unstoppable. But if he doesn't learn that stuff, I think there's a lot of guys like him. You have to figure out when you're a great shooter, you have to figure out ways to get your shot off in tight spaces and ways to sort of create that separation. And it's different for everybody. Certain guys like Clay is great in the catch and shoot, but what makes Klay so good is he's big.

He's 6'6". He doesn't jump particularly high on the shot. He's big. And so he's able to shoot over guys. Devin Booker's a little bit the same way. He's got some really good one-on-one moves, but he's a bigger guy. So he shoots over six three guards.

Beal is like— Beal is like the total package. Yeah, he's the total package. He can play and pick and roll. He does the throw and go. Him and Wall have this great combination in transition where literally Wall's throwing three-quarter cross-court passes. And he's hitting Bradley Beal in stride for transition threes like so you know he's he's a guy that kind of does it all um but yeah i mean it's one thing to be a be able to shoot and make shots but you

got to figure out how to do that in an nba game with with scouting and with guys in your shit the wizards are on my radar because the celtics match up terribly with them they also have one trade to make but the the beale wall thing they get what's this what's the uh the seeds right now celts are celts are close to cleveland i mean they're like two and a half and then wizards are wizards if you go like the last two months the records yeah the wizards celtics are like they're two of the top three. So that could be a potential second round matchup. Yeah, and it's a bad one for the Celtics because they have nowhere to hide Isaiah

against the Wizards, you know? You can't put Isaiah on wall. You can't put him on Beal. So you got to put him on Otto Porter, Obre, whoever's out there, which is a problem if those guys can just shoot over him. And then they try to get him in pick and rolls to try to put him on Beal over and over again.

And it's an issue. I mean, you got... Do the Wizards wear black to every game? No, that was just that one. Do they wear black to every game that series? Well, the Celtics have assumed the Blake Griffin identity of they have all these feuds with all these teams now. It's like no matter who they play,

there's bad blood with something that happened somewhere and they love it too. So matter who they play, there's bad blood with something that happens somewhere and they love it too. So every time they play against somebody, it's like a playoff game now in the, in the Eastern conference. I love it though, man. You got to have, well, you got to figure out a way to have your edge. Like if that's what it is, if you have to create these controversies and these disputes to get your edge, then do it, man.

Well, you got to get that edge back against the Warriors. Yeah. The clips, it needs to just be a very physical you know we're not rolling over it's weird it's weird and maybe this this it was like this in the nba when when um when jordan was playing but i just feel like the last like two years it's it's it all comes down can they can you beat the warriors can you beat the warriors it was like five years ago you know you had You always are going to have a handful of teams, five or six teams that have a legit chance.

But it wasn't that one team where you're like, everything Cleveland is doing is can we beat the Warriors? The whole conversation about us, no matter what we do in the regular season, no matter if we get to the conference finals or not, it's can we beat the Warriors? Well, you came on my HBO show and you were saying like, I don't care that they got Durant.

I'm still, I still feel like our team is whatever. Have you changed your tune on that one? No, I haven't changed my tune. I mean, I obviously respect their team, like, in terms of a talent level, their ability. Obviously, they're great. They're a great team. But this notion that nba players are like

scared of other teams or scared of other guys like we wouldn't be nba players if we were scared of other guys i'm not we're not intimidated i'm not intimidated by anyone yeah that doesn't make any sense that's a you i wouldn't be in college were you in college were you ever intimidated no i was always just the shit-talking cocky little white kid i mean that's who i was that's why tate didn't like it tate almost didn't come to work today it's like we got jj reddick yeah i love justin gray uh no i i mean i dude going back to high school i played au um for boo williams for three summers on the 17 and under team. I started playing with them when I was 14. And so I was playing against stronger, better players. And it just that, you know, I had to have.

Which one was Boo Williams? Where did he go? He went to one of those. Boo? No, Boo was like, Boo played at St. Joe's in Philly. Yeah, I was going to say, didn't he have a March Madness cup of coffee where everybody got excited about him for two days? I vaguely remember. I've watched so many March Madnesses. They're all starting to blend into each other. madness cup of coffee where everybody got excited about him for two days i vaguely remember i've

watched so many march madnesses they're all starting to blend into each other but you know that tate honestly believes that when coach k doesn't like his team he comes up with a fake ailment to leave the team for like two to four weeks i've heard unc fans believe this stuff heard this from a lot of unc fans there's nothing like unc versus duke right there's well there's there really isn't i mean there's like yankees Red Sox used to be that way but not anymore because we won the thing with UNC fans it always strikes me as weird as they had this they had this great program yeah we've got a story tradition they've won multiple national championships they've had you know national players a year Jordan went there you know Jordan played there that was the big one for them yeah

and and yet somehow after all that time, they still have this inferiority complex. Oh, Tate! With Duke people. Oh, my gosh! I cannot figure it out. Tate's changing your audio now. You know? It's like, okay, like, for Duke fans, it's like, if UNC does well, there's like a, it

bothers us a little bit. I love how you're playing this. This is so great. But it was like, Duke's success drives UNC so crazy that they're willing to create these conspiracy theories about Coach K. Joe, stay between Tate and JJ. This is great. I mean, you know, UNC's had to cheat a couple times to try to compete.

No, I'm sorry, Tate. There's been academic scandals. Now we're just messing with Tate. Did that ever get resolved? You got to look the other way a little bit on that stuff. Reggie Bullock was my teammate for a couple years. He said he never went to class. Oh, my God.

This is great. And he played there three years. Get him a stretcher. I'm not sure how that worked. Do you still follow the UNC Duke stuff? Do you watch the Duke games like a proud alumni or you don't care anymore? I'm a proud alumni, but I don't get to watch as much college basketball as I used to. I watch Duke games and that's pretty much it.

I got to go back to the Duke UNC game a few weeks ago. It was my first Duke-UNC game since I graduated. I've only been in Cameron three times since 2006. So it was my third game in Cameron. Duke won. It was great. It was a great day. Went in the locker room afterwards and gave Coach K a hug and got to see him.

The Coach K, JJ hug. He seemed strong. He seemed really strong. You know, of course, you know this, but the Duke Hospital, the Duke medical staff is the best in the world. Duke's damn good. What's the most misunderstood thing about Coach K by the general public, in your opinion? Misunderstood. Give me

an idea about Coach K that maybe... I think that he's an opportunist. Really? That he tries to pretend that Duke is this bastion of academic whatever, but really they've been doing a lot of the one-and-done stuff that

Cal Per has done. I think that's a fair criticism. That he uses the Olympic team and his association with him as a major recruiting advantage, which it is, because if he's out with a recruit. Explicitly or implicitly? I think under the radar.

If he's with a recruit and the recruit's like, Kevin Durant's my hero, the only reason I'm doing this. And Coach K could be like, I have him on my cell phone. Let's call him. That's an advantage. See, the problem with that is that UNC had a recruit a few years ago

that wasn't as bright, I guess. And he publicly said in an interview, he's like, yeah, Sean May called me the other day. And he was with Coach Williams. And UNC got in trouble for it. They did. So that's a recruiting evaluation. Yeah.

I can't remember who the guy was. Maybe Coach K tells all the recruits, hey, don't tell the media that I've got LeBron on the phone with you right now. So it would be illegal if he did that? I mean, yeah. Has he ever called you with a recruit? No. No. Or you never did it? No. You said call text oh yeah texting what are the texting roles

i've never texted a recruit never texted never called a recruit how much longer do you think coach k has i mean he's i think he's over 70 now yeah 70 or 71 but he's one of those guys he always looks the same he does look the same for like 40 he's like david robinson when i saw him a few weeks ago i was shocked i was expecting like he's coming off back surgery he's gonna be now he looked good he looked good assuming he had the back surgery right tate's not convinced there was a back surgery i think he just went to cabo for a couple weeks oh that's that's crazy you know what i'm going back to one of your points though like the one and done thing so my my senior year the year i was drafted oh six was the first uh year that that uh they you

know are they outlawed or you know said high school kids can't come out there was like a four or five year period there where coach was not recruiting the one and done guys. Yeah. And, you know, they won in 010. It was with a really veteran team. They got kind of lucky because Kentucky didn't make the final four that year. They got knocked off in a previous round. I think that Kentucky team probably would have beat them. But he had to adjust. And so at some point he said, OK, I'm going to start recruiting these guys.

And, you know, he got Austin Rivers. He got Jabari Parker. And, of course, the 2015 with Tyus Jones and Okafor and Justice Winslow. So he's adjusted. And that's kind of what college basketball is now. And I think he takes as much pride in having those guys for a year as he does for having guys like me or Leitner for four years. Have you talked to Austin?

What was Austin Rivers' experience like? Because it didn't seem like that went as great as some other Duke one. Yeah. They had like six or seven NBA guys that ended up playing in the NBA. And they weren't very good. And they lost the first round. Collectively not good. Yeah, collectively not good.

That was an interesting group. So I've been a Duke fan since 92 when when latner hit the shot to be kentucky um and i i kind of judge every duke team uh and i'm like a i'm like a fan i i you know i see how they interact with each other um i i'm always texting coach k kind of getting updates on the psyche of the team or whatever and and uh that was just it wasn't a good group just the dynamic of the group wasn't great i knew 2015 i knew they had something like i was texting coach all season hey this you guys have a shot you guys have a shot no you're young you i know you have a shot and uh i was the problem with college basketball is because you're throwing

these guys together a lot of times they're just passing through for a year how do you know that the chemistry is going to be a relationship in aau tournaments or a nike camp or something yeah where do you stand on this whole grayson allen thing because once upon a time you took a lot of shit yeah i never i never tripped anyone well yeah that's what i was saying i did throw up the shocker twice once at maryland and once at unc after big threes but grayson allen's like he's he's more villainous like he does stuff yeah do you know him at all I know Grayson um I got to spend a little bit of time with him uh two falls two Septembers ago I was at Duke for about 10 days and got to know him a little bit and then I talked to him last spring um before he was kind of deciding whether or not to go to the NBA or not. But, like, I don't know what he was thinking.

Like, I really don't. Like, the trips, the three times that he, you know, legitimately tripped someone, I have no idea what he was thinking. I mean, it was stupid. Since then, you know, anything he does now is like, you know, ESPN Twitter account will send out a video, a six-second video of him trying to walk through someone else's huddle. I haven't seen him do anything. So I think he's got sort of a target on his back now, but he's smart enough that he's not going to do anything else.

That kind of scrutiny, if you can survive it, i would assume would be really good as a professional athlete i'm sure it helped you like all the shit you went through in 05 and 06 you can do like when you're 18 or 19 years old to prepare you for playing at duke and going on the road and hearing 20 000 people literally at the same time chant fuck you jj like that yeah that's a weird feeling to have as a 19 year old did it mess you up well? Well, my first two years at Duke, yeah, it did. It did mess me up. I created a persona on the court and off the court. I went into like this deep, dark shell because I didn't know who I was.

And you're still trying to find your identity just like any other college kid. Right. Who's not trying to figure out who they are at 19? And so, yeah, it took a little bit of time. But I would say like now as an adult, like I don't – the shit that some NBA players worry about, what someone says on Twitter or what a media member writes about them, like, that's not even on my radar. I'm worried about so much other shit besides that. So I think it helped me develop thick skin um actually you know what there's a chance that maybe that was already like a trait in me yeah that kind of got brought out because of the duke experience if that makes sense well

i think it would have been a even a i don't know a more intense experience in the social media era oh god because i'm sure for grace and alan i don't know if he's on twitter and all that stuff but i don't think i would have clips and stuff that. I wouldn't have made it past my sophomore year at Duke if social media. Or you would have? I would have been kicked off the team if I had done what I did the first two years. Oh, you would have? You would think you would have gone after people on Twitter and stuff? No, no.

I just, I would have gotten in trouble. Like, you know. Slow-mo shots of him. Yeah. It would have been. No, I mean, just like off the court. Like my first two years at Duke, I was probably more committed to being in a fraternity or acting like a frat kid than I was, you know, being a Duke basketball player. I made so many mistakes in college and bad personal choices. I can't even imagine what it would be like to also have that play out on ESPN and CBS and all these different places.

I was worried about like what would, you know, somebody would post on like a UNC fan message board on a Saturday morning or a Sunday morning. And now kids, man, you do anything and it's on Twitter within five minutes and it's on ESPN within 30 minutes. Quick break to talk about Squarespace. If you have resolved to take on a new challenge, like starting a business, changing careers, or launching a creative project in 2017, be sure to lock down your next move with Squarespace. It's used by a wide range of people and businesses, including musicians, designers, artists, restaurants. Allows you to create everything from a professional blog to a portfolio to which to showcase your work, or an online store

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and make your next move and make your next website. And once again, SeatGeek, since we're here, don't forget, download the SeatGeek app today or go right to SeatGeek.com, especially for opera tickets, if you're somebody like my mom. All right, back to JJ Redick. Quickly, as we were taping this uh podcast we've been a

tuesday morning west coast time uh it just came out that the lakers cleaned house and promoted magic johnson to head of basketball operations got rid of mitch kupchak and uh jimmy buss is gonna step down they got rid of some people internally including john black who was like the gatekeeper there forever pretty surprising surprising. Magic now is going to be running his own business. He is part owner of the Dodgers, and now he's also going to run the Lakers. Did you ever think that Clippers and Lakers would flip spots from a dysfunction standpoint? Because it's happened over the last five years. Dating back to the Chris Paul trade, and Kobe hurting his Achilles it's been a flip

but yet I don't feel like it's been represented and the Lakers have way more fans in LA I'm sure you feel that oh they have way more fans but it's almost like the Clippers they've also won like that's the biggest difference so like if they go through a five year stretch like this

I mean it's due even a 30 team league it's gonna happen worried they're always will be the lakers at some point again maybe like was it mid 90s like the mat between magic retiring and them getting shack like there was like a three or four year stretch where they weren't very good true it's weird to me that the clippers like there's times where they'll show a Clipper at Dodger Stadium and the fans will boo because it's very like if you're a Dodger

fan you're a Laker fan and they have no I got wind of that Chris took his son and they put him up on the scoreboard of the Jumbotron or whatever it's called at a baseball stadium but they put him up there and he got booed my wife and I she was like seven months

pregnant at the time this summer we we went and uh we were sitting you know behind the dugout and they're you know in in stadium entertainment people came over and they're like hey we're gonna we'll put you on camera and put you up there and i was like no you're not no you're not i just want i don't want anybody to know i'm here right i don't want to be booed I'm just trying to enjoy the game with my wife and my future son. You're not doing that. Or the other move you could do is you put a picture on your cell phone

and when they show you, you just show the Clipper logo. You just kind of own it. Get the crowd fired up. Maybe I'll do that someday. If we ever win a championship, I'll do that. Let's talk big picture NBA. Boogie Cousins trade? Boogie Cousins and Anthony Davis together. I'm sure you have a game against them at some point this season.

Just as somebody who plays basketball in the same league as this team, Boogie and Davis together, what was your reaction? Skill-wise, I think it works from a fit standpoint um i think they they do complement each other yeah um because both of them space the floor i mean and and and i i don't think it's interesting i don't think that uh either one has the ball in their hands for an extended period of time in other words they're not guys that are just going to hold the ball for 15 seconds. When people talk about those type of guys, like a ball-dominant player, I don't think either one of those guys is that.

They make quick decisions. They both shoot quick, or they move it. It's one or the other. So I think they fit well. Who's their two right now? I mean, do they have any shooting they have drew holiday and then a bunch of hodgepodge guys yeah so it's gonna be a process to i think i don't know that it's like they're the playoff they're not they're getting the eight seed this

year i don't i don't i don't know that i don't i don't know um i have a boogie cousin story by the way i was gonna ask you if you had any boogie cousins material so uh so my first son nox yeah um was was a direct result of boogie cousins okay um my my first year in la um it was like the 15th game of season thereabouts and and we're playing in sacramento and i went up for an offensive rebound and and boogie had already said something to me a couple times that game and he he gave me a little shove, and it kind of upended me. Yeah. So I fell and broke my wrist. And I was out like six weeks, and the next day the team left

for like an extended two-week East Coast trip. And my wife and I were really bored. All of a sudden you have a kid. Do you want to try to have a kid so like yeah let's try and we tried for those two weeks and and then uh 10 months later we had boogie reddick was born yeah we we did we debated about the middle name being like marcus or demarcus or something you know but we ultimately went with a family name. But I told Boogie this story. I ran into him in Cabo two summers ago at Las Ventanas. We were on vacation celebrating our anniversary.

He was there with his family, and I told him the story. He actually appreciated it. Really? Yeah, he appreciated it. He thought it was a good story. But, yeah, my first son is because he gave me a cheap shot. He's the best center in the league statistically. When you played Sacramento, how frightened were you of Boogie?

Did you feel like you could get in his head? What were some of the tactics? I mean, he's just so all over the place. It's not like he's going to figure out a way to be demonstrative like it's not like you're gonna get in his head it's just that the world that is boogie's world on the court is different from off the court if that makes sense like he it's everything and everyone is against him on the court he didn't he never got along with chris paul that was always a little secret feud yeah that's that's that's been established yeah who is the best non-warriors team you guys have played this year best non-warriors team we played this year um it's funny we we've beaten san antonio

twice yeah that was weird we played we i think because you guys are so guard heavy and that's actually like that's a method to potentially beat them houston we played without chris and blake we've only played them once that's kind of tough um in the east we we we suck against toronto i think we've like we're like one and seven in my four years here against toronto like they just always beat us um you know the team I really like is Utah. And that's potentially a for sure. I was going to say that's a three, six or four or five, maybe. And we, we played them really well.

Cause we've defended them well in both games we played them. But their team that I look at and I'm like, they, they have the depth and the pieces. They can play a couple of different ways where they could potentially make a playoff run hopefully you know it's not against us but i like that team i really and i like quinn i mean it you know duke guy of course but uh i think he's one of the better coaches in the nba there's a flexibility with them that i like that they can go big or small that that's probably the biggest issue with the celtics right now is as the trade deadline comes. They have certain lineups that work,

but then if they have to get a little bigger, they don't have the right guys yet. And that's something that I think is a big advantage for you guys because you can go small with multiple guards. You can go a little bigger with Blake and DeAndre. You can kind of fit to whatever the opponent is, which I think is valuable.

And honestly, with the Warriors, their lineup is the best lineup. But they don't have the same flexibility they had last year with Bogut. They don't have that one lineup where it's like, we're bringing in our big dude. And, oh, they're doing this. They're slowing it down. They're going to be super physical. All right, we're going to bring Bogut in. But you've been pretty high on JaVale McGee lately.

Offensively. go all right we're gonna bring bogut but you've been pretty high in javel mcgee lately offensively i think defensively he's you know not even remotely close to bogut in any way bogut was a was great defensively for them i think going back to boston we play you know when we played them recently on like a it was super bowl sunday we played them in boston um they didn't have bradley and uh and we didn't have chris but uh they were as good as anybody we played this year outside of the Warriors. Thank you. Yeah, they were. It was interesting because I felt like the entire game, unless it was Isaiah dribbling into the paint, like they just had you so spread out. Yeah.

I think they shot like 40 something threes that game. We shot like 12. I mean, they just killed us because they just 40-something threes that game. We shot like 12. I mean, they just killed us because they just shot so many threes. And the way Isaiah's playing, they're tough, man. They're tough. They've spent the last two years mastering that spread, just spreading out. And how can Isaiah get in the paint? And he's gotten better and better at it.

Their shooting's a little better than it was last year. Well, I think with Horford, you have to respect, like he spaces the floor. He doesn't necessarily have to shoot 42% from three. Right. But because of the threat of his shot, he spaces the floor. When they played Utah a couple weeks ago,

they just destroyed Utah. And they took Gobert. And I think Gobert is really good. And it was one of the few times I've seen, and he was kind of lost. Like he's, they, they were just pulling them out,

trying to get them away from the rim. And it's, you don't want Gobert 20 feet from the basket. If you're Utah, it was the first time I was like, Oh, and that's when I was thinking with you guys, like,

Oh, you know, this is if the Clippers meet them in the playoffs, this is something they could potentially do against Gobert that I think would be dangerous because you have multiple shooters. Yeah. Could put out four dudes. Austin Rivers.

Yeah. So much maligned when he came to the Clippers. Doc traded for his son. What's he doing? I gotta admit, I wasn't a huge fan of his game for a couple years. I think he's turned into a pretty valuable guard coming off the bench. I've been impressed. I think he's turned into a pretty valuable guard coming off the bench.

I've been impressed. I think he's better defensively than people realize. He's definitely an irrational confidence guy, which is good, coming off the bench. But did you see this coming with him? He's played the last probably six weeks better than I could have imagined at this point. I think at some point I could have imagined at this point. Yeah. I think at some point I could,

could have seen him getting to this level. He, and, and this is what makes him a good player. He believes he can be even better. Like he believes he can be an all star. People tend to forget like two years ago, three years ago,

whenever we got him, like he was like 22 years old. Yeah. He's 24. He might've years old. He's 24. He might have been younger. He's 24 right now. Right. So he does still have potential.

He has more room to grow, but he's been one of the main reasons we've been afloat with Chris out. I mean, he's been unbelievable. It's like I did a pod with Durant two weeks ago and we were talking about Deion Waiters and Durant was saying like, Deion Waiters honestly felt like he was the best guy in every game we played.

Like, he really genuinely believed it. Austin believes that, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a bad quality for a bench guard. Because sometimes that's the guy who ends up winning game six. Right. You know, in some random road game when everybody sucks. And then Austin Rivers is like, I got this, guys.

And he actually makes some threes. That could also shoot you out of the game, too. Well, he's done it in the playoffs for us. Game six last year in Portland, him and Jamal nearly pulled off the upset without Chris and Blake. Yeah. Game three against Houston two years ago. I think he had 25 in game three and did the cooking thing,

the Harden knockoff what's your take on him and doc the father son part of it is he's even a thought with the clippers that oh that doc is austin's dad is it just like you're so used to him as a player i would imagine that's weird of course it's weird yeah like it's cool if you go back to like when we were kids and like you know coach's son yeah yeah coach's son is pitching again you know he's one and eight on the year i don't know why he's pitching again yeah but no it's uh it was weird at first for sure it was weird at first it was it was in the back of your head yeah it couldn't be but you know austin has has earned his place without a doubt. So it's not something that is really even discussed or not something I think about. So I texted you a couple days ago.

I was saying you guys were 50-1 to win the title, and it was the same odds as the Wizards. And I was like, those odds are crazy to me. 50-1 seems like a throwaway. This team has no chance and it's like i actually think people have forgotten how much talent the clippers have which is a nice place to be you're under the radar and but when is if chris comes back even beginning of march all that you have enough time to get him get everybody back get everybody fits their spots

am i wrong to think i mean mean, I know you're, you're going to be biased on this one. This question was way too long. Am I wrong to think that the Clippers, I can't talk about Vegas odds. No, but I know you can talk about Vegas odds, but why don't people think the Clippers are dangerous anymore? Is my long, my long question that I could have asked much quicker. I think the easy and the short answer is what I talked about earlier, and that's just we've been terrible against the Warriors. So I don't think, again, it comes back to that. So I don't think people could envision a scenario where we beat the Warriors

unless Durant, Thompson, Curry, and Green are all hurt. You know, it's just, I mean, we don't believe that, but I think most people believe like if that matchup was ever happening in the playoffs, it's just, I mean, we don't believe that, but I think most people believe like if that was, that matchup was ever happened in the playoffs, it'd be a wrap. They would win. You know, going back to what I was saying earlier about just like evaluating our team over the last two years with the injuries we've had, like it would be great if we could have like a good six weeks of good health and we could sort of figure out our identity.

Because to win in the playoffs, you have to have an identity. And it could be anything. But we have to figure out kind of who we are as a team and how we're going to play as a team. Your identity to me is, I think Blake has to become one of the top ten players in the league again. Which is already a process that I can see happening. But you're going to need two guys playing at the highest possible level to beat that team. Like Cleveland last year.

Kyrie in the finals was unreal. But you could slow them down the way Cleveland did. Basically what Cleveland did was they just messed with the pace of the game. Everything's slow. Everything pick and rolls. And they kind of knocked the Warriors out of game everything's slow everything pick and rolls and they kind of knock the warriors out of that happy go lucky freed awesome thing they had going and all of a sudden these games are 91 to 87 and things like that i feel like you guys could do that conceivably conceivably yeah and i think chris is the point guard that could do it because

the way that he controls the game it's interesting interesting that you say that because when I watch them play on league pass, I'll watch a team and you can attack them. You're saying, oh, we can score on them. And you'll get these high-paced, really fast games, and it'll be like 54 to 38. The team will be up in the first half. It's a home game. Crowd's going nuts.

Warriors are down. And I'm thinking to myself, this is just not the right way to play them. You're playing into their hands. If you think about it, the more possessions there are in a game. The math helps them. Yeah. It's the same thing when Miami, those guys were together with Bosh and D. Wade and LeBron. That's what Spolster figured out.

We have to play at a faster pace. We need to maximize as many possessions as possible where LeBron, D. Wade, and Bosh are involved. And that's the sameolster figured out. We have to play at a faster pace. We need to maximize as many possessions as possible where LeBron, D-Wade, and Bosh are involved. And that's the same thing with the Warriors. The Celtics had success against them last year with the three guards. They had Bradley and Smart to throw at Curry. It really made them work. And then Isaiah is just a weird matchup for Golden State

because they don't really have the shorter point guard to kind of deal with him and they don't have the right guy. And I don't know. There's something to that too, spreading them out with multiple guards. But as you said, the more possessions you have, the math is going to work against you. Who do you guard against the Golden State? Because it seems like a lot.

Sometimes Golden State's. Yeah. They're trying to. I guard Clay. Yeah. Yeah. And Clay game seven, I remember, which was a great game.

That was one of the better basketball games I've been to. Klay, they're posting him up against you that game. But Klay doesn't really post up that much anymore. No. I mean, that was with Mark Jackson. So they did sort of ISO a little bit more. Even with Curry, they would ISO him on the left wing at like 18 feet.

They posted... I love Iguodala, but that, that series, they like the first three games, they posted Iguodala on me like three to five times a game. I think he was like one for 10. That's great for you. Yeah. And so I'm thinking like, you're taking possessions away from Curry and Thompson. This is great for us. Yeah. Um, that's why he's still on tv well curse thing is like jeez sorry i'm kidding curse thing is like you know everything has got to kind of come out of the flow like he's not gonna like go out of his way to like attack they really just don't attack matchups it's like just ball movement and then we're gonna move off the ball the thing that makes them so hard to guard is like you've got action on one side with Curry Thompson or Durant. Yeah.

And then the other side, you've got two of those guys too doing weak side action. So the defense is always occupied. It's really hard to guard. And on top of that, anytime you miss a shot in transition, somebody's sneaking over here, somebody's sneaking over there, and they just get these 27-foot open threes that for 48 minutes, you just have to not let happen. When we played them like a month ago,

we played them twice in a week. So the game you referred to earlier was our home game. We played them a week before that in Golden State. We got killed. But in the first half, there was like two plays where Curry and Thompson were on the wing in transition. we got killed. Uh, but in the first half there was like two plays where, uh, Curry and Thompson were on the wing and transition.

And, and I was, I was a guilty culprit of this too. I ran to Thompson and Draymond just waltzed in for a dunk or Durant waltzed in for a dunk. You'd almost rather have that happen than the three, right? I mean, you hope everybody's back,

but sometimes you just got to make those decisions. Sometimes. It's so funny how the sports change with that stuff. Because in the old days, they're just going for a layup. We played San Antonio, I think, three or four times last year. And Pop does this all the time. But he'll just like, this is how we're going to play tonight. It's totally different than the last time we played him.

So the first time we played him, I had a really good game. I had over 20, but I had like 15 like the first time we played him um i had i had a really good game i had over 20 but i had like 15 in the first quarter and a couple of it was in transition threes and uh so the second time we played him he was like don't stop the ball so like chris blake i think jamal like we were in transition they first half they just kept laying the ball in one on zero because it would be a two-on-one and danny green would run out to me it was crazy um did it work i mean we no we won that game too okay so pop wrote that one up okay that didn't work but no it's like you you gotta mess with that i mean especially when it's thompson and curry you gotta you gotta make those decisions And that's ultimately like when you play them, it's like a series of very difficult decisions that you have to make.

It's like the, the lesser of two evils on, on nearly every possession. Uh, last thing, unicorns. Uh, so many unconventional young guys coming in.

Who's been your favorite out of like Giannis, Jokic, Porzingis, um, Embiid. Wait, any reactions to any of these guys because we're in the this is now turning into the freak generation yeah um i i love porzingis but he's there's something amiss in new york i think we can all agree on yes and so i think that's kind of hurt him a little you this year. You're buying Porzingis

stock. But I like Porzingis. Me too. But of the other guys... You wouldn't use him just standing 25 feet from the basket hoping he would get the ball? He's so skilled. You might want to post him up and run the whole offense around him. You can use him in a lot of different ways. Yeah, I would agree. It would be nice if the Knicks figured that out at some point over the

next five years. They will at some point. They will at some point. They will at some point. They will at some point. Giannis, I don't watch a ton of. I mean, obviously the way he plays is crazy. I think he is a unicorn, like just his body type, his skill set. And Beat is awesome.

Have you played against him, Beat? If I had to pick between those four in terms of who my favorite is, it would be Jokic. It would be Jokic. There's a lot of Jokic momentum right now. There is. There'll be backlash at some point. There always is. Did you see the clip of him or the highlights of him destroying the Warriors?

Yeah. He had like 17, 12, and 18 or some crazy game. And he was like Bill Walton in the 70s throwing these bounce passes. Yeah, I didn't see the Jokic thing coming. It's crazy to me, as good as he was last year, that they did what they did at the beginning of the year. They wasted like 20 to 25 games trying to play him and Nurkic together. And then I think they benched Jokic for like a week or two. He was getting like five minutes a game.

And he's their best player. By far. The first two, first like 10 days of the season, the ringer is Kevin O'Connor. He's one of our basketball writers. He's really good. And I was like, I want you to write a Denver piece. I think they're the sleeper this year.

Like, go watch their games. We'll have a piece. It'll look super smart in three weeks when they become the hot young team. And it went the other way. We wrote the piece and they immediately shit the bed for a month and i was watching it going man i really like this roster but they can't figure out who should and then all of a sudden they were like oh you know we should just play yokich yeah just run the whole team i like i'm partial because he's my friend but i like when jameer's on the court too j's my friend, but I like when Jameer's on the court too. Jameer's been incredible this year. I like when Jameer's on the

court for them. They're good. Jameer, I think, is he a free agent? I'm not sure. Jameer might have one more contract. He keeps signing these three year deals. It's unbelievable. The last time they got him, I think the Celtics had him and

traded him like a salary dump. Yeah, just to get rid of him. Hey, Denver, will you take Jermaine Nelson? We'll give you some money. It'll help us with luxury tax. He signed with Dallas. And then two months later into the season, he got traded to Boston. And then a month later, he got traded to Denver.

And then he ended up resigning. If I ran an NBA team, unless I had the Chris Paul, one of those guys, I would never spend money on point guards. I feel like the point guard surplus, like that Yogi Ferrell, I feel like there's 90 point guards who could give you minutes. And you look at Jameer and all these guys, I would spend all my money on wings and shooters and bigger guys. I just feel like I could get lucky with point guards. That could just be cyclical. It could just be how the game is played now. Like point guards now are different than, not your Isaiahs and your Magics, but, you know, 20 years ago, I mean, Charlie Ward was like an above average starting point guard.

It's totally flipped. It's not. There's reasons for this. Like this year's draft, there's going gonna be five more good point guards coming in the league like elite guys yeah and it's almost like the so like even at my position when i was coming out like 11 years ago you know i was like an undersized two i'm six four like you know that's that position now that most guys are six three or or 6'4". I hate the size thing. I never understood that.

It's like all these, really all these guys that were like tweeners, the undersized guys, are now just ball-dominant point guards. I can't even believe that's a conversation anymore because of you and Avery Bradley and Isaiah and Draymond. It's like, why do we care if somebody's an inch too short? It doesn't matter. One thing I was thinking with point guard zone, it's just a theory. I haven't really looked into this for 20 hours,

but I wonder, like, you have 25 years at AAU, right? The best position, if you're playing AAU, you want to be the point guard because you have the ball all the time. So the better athletes, the dads or the coaches or whatever, they're just putting them at point guard because that's the guy who controls everything. And now I wonder if we're seeing the fruits of that now. I think that's actually a really good theory.

It could be. I don't know if it's true. attention to uh to scattering reports of high school players like when there's a there's a big with potential let's say um you know they you'll make a comment they just don't get the ball that often like the bigs don't get the ball it's miserable in in aau and uh and i also think guys that are guards and maybe are six two and not seven. Like you're just more coordinated at that position. So you're able to develop your skillset a little bit more. So, you know, could be just a little bit of Gladwell's, you know, 10,000 hours where those guys just have the ball in their hands more at a

young age. And, but that's another reason 10 years later, they're 22, you know, 25 years old and they're, they're great. That's another reason why the big guys can shoot threes. Now I'm convinced's they're they're why post up you're not gonna get the ball but if you shoot threes you have a chance to get the naa and like coming up big guys like this this is better for i'll get more shots if i could shoot threes they just start practicing all the time but like you look at uh you're not watching a ton of college but but Markel Fultz on Washington, who's probably going to be number one pick. Yeah. So in a different generation, he's Allen Houston.

Yeah. You know, he's this guy, he's really good. He's a good three point shooter, but he's really good. Like 15 to 20 feet. He's got this little,

yeah. Gets his spot. He shoots high over his head and it's Allen Houston. He's bigger, right? Yeah. He's bigger. He's got size. He can get to the rim.

He's a two guard 20 years ago. And now he's a point guard. And if you look at the Celtics, they would just play him at the two guard, but he has that point guard resume. And it seems like that's where all these guards are going. I don't know if there's specialists like you back in the day where you're like, that guy's a two guard. That guy running my – and that's why Malik Mock is so interesting to me.

That's why you need to take him under your wing just get like two percent oh i forgot one more thing is kg really around the team yeah he's around the team yeah but he's doing this he's not just doing this for us he's around some other teams too but you kg i mean there's no bigger character in the last 20 years in the league yeah so he was he was with us on this last uh road trip we did oh no really came to like three of the cities yeah he came to three of the cities and um i guess it was it was charlotte yeah i was in charlotte after practice and me and him just were like in the weight room together and uh he starts giving me all this stuff yeah just it's very cagey stuff i'm looking at our strength coach

like are you listening to this right now like this is where he told me like you need to you need to take young guys in your wing and charge them twenty five thousand dollars for a week i'd love that he also told me that um he's like you know how do you think beyonce is in such great shape i'm like i don't know it's like one time i saw her working out she was doing her dances and she was singing while she was dancing so then i'm thinking to myself maybe i should run and sing at the same time so in the off seasons i would go to malibu i go down to the beach and i'd run the beach and i'd be like la la la la la la la while i'm while i'm while i'm running so then when i get on the court i'm getting back on defense i'm talking on defense i don't get tired and i'm like okay there's some maybe there's maybe something there but he also he told me some

other stuff too like he told me like after the first game of a back-to-back so in between games that i should go run on a treadmill for 30 minutes and that i should uh i should lift weights so i mean kg if you're listening i'm sorry i'm giving away your secrets but like i just i don't know if that's for me so kj would kg would play a game and go lift go lift and run on the treadmill and play the next day. Well, he said worm. He saw worm run on the treadmill one time. But he's like, you know, you got to play like worm where you're like running around. You're an energy guy.

So it might benefit you. Wow. I wanted to say I'm pretty sure worm was on something. That's why he was able to do that. Right. He was flying. Yeah. Do they talk about the Celticseltics at all kg and paul

any war stories any rondo nothing no get that for the next podcast get some war stories yeah those guys i mean they kind of go off in their little corner and they're they're chatting to each other but we haven't we haven't heard any uh paul hitting that three was amazing in Boston. It was. It was like secretly a super high pressure three. The crowd's calling for him for the whole quarter. He comes in. Hadn't played since the first three minutes of the game. That's a hard shot. It was almost like a fan getting called in to hit a half court shot.

Would it have been like a total dick move? Because Isaiah Thomas was like the closest defender to him. If he just jumped at him. If he just like tried to strip it or jumped at him. You know who would have done that? Ran him off the line. Marcus Smart would have done that. He probably would have.

He probably would have. Yeah, he would have done anything. He gave me a nice shiner, man. I got seven stitches from that game. Marcus elbowed me in the eye. Yeah. I just got my stitches out a couple of days ago. You know, the Celtics fans, Marcus is like our dude.

I know. That's our guy. I know. He's a fighter, man. I know. When you play the Celtics, you're like our dude I know that's our guy I know he's a fighter man I know when you play the Celtics you're like oh shit I got Marcus Smart I gotta deal with him today

I respect guys like that yeah he's good he plays hard every night well I hope the trade deadline I hope you get out of it intact thank you man I want to see this

Clippers team stay together I would like to as well and then and then we can keep talking during the during the season. I'm here if you need podcasts, talk about shit. JJ Redick, thank you.

Thank you. Thanks to JJ Redick. Thanks to SeatGeek, our presenting sponsor. Don't forget SeatGeek. Buy and sell tickets on your phone in just two taps. Everything is fully guaranteed. It is by far the easiest way I found to shop for the best tickets thanks to their

revolutionary grading system download the SeatGeek app today or go right to SeatGeek.com and please check out The Ringer this week we are in our sweet spot with the NBA

a lot of trade deadline stuff a lot of good columns about the Boogie Cousins trade The Ringer NBA show is going to be humming every day this week and the trade deadline I guess that's going to be my Friday column if something happens I assume something is going to be humming every day this week. And the trade deadline, I guess that's going to be my Friday column if something happens.

I assume something is going to happen with all these chess pieces. And don't forget Clippers 50 to 1 in case you love ongoing gambling. Nice little sneaky thing. JJ has no comment. We're back. We have two more podcasts coming this week on Wednesday and Friday. That are good ones. So, until then. On the wayside I'm a person I never was

And I don't have to ever forget