The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 62: NBA Deep Dive w/ Haralabos Voulgaris

Episode Date: February 9, 2016

HBO's Bill Simmons and NBA gambler extraordinaire Haralabos Voulgaris break down the 2015-16 NBA season. Topics include: canned NBA coaches, the Spurs' innovation (9:00), SVG's and Brad Stevens's stellar seasons (13:00), Suns-Lakers '06 (25:00), Kyrie comparisons (28:00), Kevin Love's ceiling (34:00), Kawhi vs. Durant (38:00), best shooters in NBA history (42:00), the Warriors' home record vs. the '86 Celtics' home record (49:00), the best NBA owners (59:00), the 2015 NBA draft class (1:09:00), and NBA trade deadline must-do deals (1:11:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's special NBA episode of the BS podcast is brought to you by SeatGeek, our presenting sponsor, our favorite app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music. Go to SeatGeek.com slash BS to start using SeatGeek. That includes Boston transplants, looking for tickets for the Celtics West Coast trip later this month. Bob, you're fired up for that one. Celts on the road, going for a two seed. Don't forget to download the free SeatGeek app,

enter promo code BS, they'll send you $20 once you've made your first purchase. Today's episode is also brought to you by Stamps.com. Instead of relying on the post office, you can buy and print official US postage using your own computer and printer. This is what James Harden used when he mailed in the first month of the season.

Use Stamps.com. Sign up for Stamps.com right now and use the promo code bs you get a four-week trial plus a 110 bonus offer that includes postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com click on the microphone top of the home page and type in bs it's nba time let's go I know he was huge in the Canada, Vancouver area. Big hip hop scene there. Yeah, I was in Montreal when there was a big Tupac scene. People loved Tupac. There was a Montreal Tupac scene.

Yeah, you'd have French Canadians who didn't speak any French, or any English, but knew all the lyrics to Tupac. That's Bob Valgaris, esteemed NBA gambler, one of the best NBA Twitter followers on at haralabob.com, H-A-R-A-L-A-B-O-B. He's been feisty this year. There's been a lot of, bad coaching drives you crazy

and there's been an inordinate amount of it. We've already lost five coaches and it feels like we could have lost five more. Just recently, Derek Fisher, we lost him, although I'm not sure that was for basketball reasons. I think there might be more to that story that might come out, but it's not like that was ever really a well-coached team. George Carl is, by the time this post might get fired, I don't know, he might come back. Why can't we find good NBA coaches? What's wrong?

What are we doing wrong? It's hard to be a good NBA coach, I would say, first of all. And then the other part of it is, I think it's just- That's your answer? It's hard to be an NBA coach? I just don't think they're going- It can't be that hard. No, it's hard for sure. It's hard when you have players who are making three, four, five times as much money as you do.

That part's hard. Who are, by and large, taller than you. Like, imagine, that's why they talk to them when the players are sitting down at the bench. You know, the coach. Right. Because it's just hard to get respect when you're looking and you're staring up at someone. That's what killed Lawrence Frank. I think he might have been a good coach if he was like seven inches taller.

He had to. He can't tell everyone to sit down so you can talk to them. Have a seat. Let me say something while you're standing there sitting down. I think it's tough that. And then I think, I just think it's, um,

it's a job where the, they, there seems to be a lot of retreads and then the ones that are new to the game or new to the, new to the NBA, like Blatt, there's some adjustment there. And then you were kind of,

you were bullish on Blatt though when they hired him, right? You thought he was going to be a little innovative. Well, I think the one part about coaching that maybe I underestimate probably because just my personality, but like the biggest part about coaching is aside from the X's and O's,

which is probably even bigger than the X's and O's, is just being likable. And I think that was the problem. He had nobody liked him, none of his players. Some of them, like JR Smith liked him him he talked about how he really respected him but i think he had there was like a disconnect between him and the players and i think that's the part that is the most difficult is just being a likable person that people want to follow i've written about this so many times over the years i don't know if i've ever written a giant column about it but i feel like it's been spread over 20 years worth. And for me, it starts with Chris Ford.

Were you betting on basketball when Chris Ford was a Celtics coach? He used to yell at, we had all this young team, right? Promising. Dee Brown, before he hurt his knee. Brian Shaw, who ended up having a good career. Rick Fox. What year was that? This was, I'm talking 92, 93.

Yeah, like one year before. 91, 92, 93. Yeah. You know, all these young guys you just yell at them all the time yeah and you could see it starting to wear on them and d brown's dribbling up the ball and telling him to shut up and i'm like i'm still in college this doesn't feel right like you know he just you could see he wasn't resonating with them then it goes to patino in the late 90s comes in huge contract young team and he's a drill sergeant and i do think

fundamentally the players have to want to win for the coach and they have to feel like it's their team and that when the coach positions is as i'm the savior here i am thank god for me you're all you're all expendable you're all pawns in my big chess game that doesn't work luke walton who you know you need to get that no i just turn your phone on well i thought no one called me that's the other thing so it's like maybe maybe another coach got fired probably so like luke walton comes in just a good guy mellow wins respect for his team. You need to get that? I'm trying to turn it off. I apologize. Luke Walton, you know, nice guy. Steers the ship. Hey, Steph, here's the ball.

Draymond, you do your thing. I'm not going to get in your way. And it worked. They were amazing. Maybe coaches should just be substitute teachers that just make sure everybody plays the right amount of minutes. Yeah, it's tough when you have a team of knuckleheads to just kind of be like okay guys roll up the ball and let them go yeah yeah that look when you do that and you have a team that gives up like a 1.2 points yeah a possession on d um so there is a a fine line between being a

micromanager and overbearing and just like completely laissez-faire and letting them do whatever they want i think being like the gardener who showed up and took control of the team. Yeah, and I think that's like one of the things that Phil Jackson had. I mean, I'm not a huge, he wasn't, now it's obvious that he's not a huge analytics guy. I mean, he doesn't, he's not terrible, but he doesn't understand a lot of things about the game. The year they lost to the Celtics in the finals,

they welcomed open three-point shots from the corner because they thought it would lead to Lamar Oom fast breaks the other way little did they know those shots went in at like a 1.5 rate um per shot per possession so but he was able to manage the egos and kind of you know he was famous for never calling a timeout letting the team work it out big runs never getting up and calling a timeout right and then you have the opposite of that which you have coaches who are just like, want to control every little aspect of the game. And I think there's a fine line between the two.

What's weird is we both like Carlisle, but he is kind of micromanager and the guy's looking over the bench all the time. Yeah, he's, it's interesting because he was the worst ever. I mean, the year he played, the year the Pacers and the Pistons played in the Eastern Conference Finals, the totals, I pistons played in the eastern conference finals the totals

i think were in the 130s it was incredible what was the one the famous taishan prince block on which is one of the best players of this century but that game was like 65 to 64 or something yeah i think every every game went below the total and the totals were like in the 140s one it was a joke yeah and the year they won the championship the year dallas won the championship with carla as their coach he kind of let jason kidd call all the plays right and didn't call any plays for the most part and now they're back to where he calls all the plays i don't know if that's a testament to him having a bunch of losing years or the fact that he doesn't trust his point guards or he's constantly having roster upheaval where he's got a new point guard when you have a

new point guard every year it's tough to just say okay buddy you can call all the plays i think that's part of it but yeah they there's definitely a lot of i mean he's at half court both arms out calling a play every time down it's kind of remarkable practice is i heard a great phil jackson story once about about this coach who knew Phil, who had been doing well with his team, but then they hit a little rough patch and he just felt like he was losing them a tiny bit, or they were just kind of on cruise control. He's like, what do I do? He calls Phil, what do I do? And he's like, next practice, don't call any fouls. He's like, what do you mean? He's like, just don't call any fouls. Let them beat the shit out of each other. He's like what do you mean he's like just don't call any fouls let them beat the shit out of each other he's like all right call 20 minutes in guys are starting to get mad they're getting competitive

guys have to be separated they have this great practice everything's fine but i think that's like the little stuff that he used to do that you can't measure he would have his team seated uh legs crossed in a circle, beating drums. Right. Give them the weird Christmas books to make them think about stuff? Yeah, he would give like all, some players, I remember reading, Kobe Bryant never read any of the books. He gave them like a bunch of different books.

I can't remember, some of them were, I think, kind of applicable to Kobe. I think one of them was kind of insulting. One of them was. I remember there was one book he gave to Kobebe bryan i'm like wow right it was like a book about uh i don't remember but it was something that made me think there was like a serial killer or something it's like what are we trying to say he gave him a cultural book i forget in this case you know but it was like a book about how hard it was for like a black kid growing up in a white something like that he gave him and i don't think kobe read that one either but this was like when kobe was younger i remember

people always said about Popovich, and I actually tried to remember this when we were starting Grantland and all that stuff, but he was always like, somebody asked him like, what's the key to your success as a coach like over the long haul? And he's like, treat everyone the same,

have the same relationship with the best player on my team as I do with the 15th best player. Which probably, no way that's true. But at least he, you know, he, I guess the point is he's trying to connect with every guy he has. They're not just these dudes at the end of the bench. Yeah.

And the way he uses the season and his roster, he's really smart. I think that's been the most innovative thing other than what the Warriors have done with small ball defensively. Just the way Papa's rested guys has really kind of revolutionized the league. You see the minutes now. Nobody's over 38 minutes a game.

Guys just rest just to save their bodies. And I think two years ago, two years ago, we did a podcast. Yeah. And we talked exactly about this, about how the Spurs were resting players, how they were. But now they've taken it to another level. Now they're just like, Duncan, you're going to take this week off. They did that two years ago. To this level?

Yeah. Do you remember them using like 13, 14, 15 guys like this then? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Like Jonathan Simmons out of nowhere, all of a sudden he's playing? They were definitely, they were players that you had heard of. So it seemed a little bit different than like, they didn't know, they didn't find like Boban

Marjanovic from a different planet and brought him here to play. Their box score is like a supreme. You just don't know what to expect when you look at the box score if you didn't see the game. It's like, oh, sure, Boban has 20 minutes. Definitely a tough team to predict minutes for, for sure. It seems like more and more teams are borrowing that.

The teams are borrowing it, and I think some teams are overdoing it in some ways. I mean, i always was on tips for playing as players too many minutes and i think there's a fine line between that and then also just like never establishing any type of rotation or establishing any type of flow to a game like i think that's one of the things that bud does for atlanta that maybe serves them well come playoff time i'm not sure but it feels like when i watch their games nobody ever really gets into a flow of the game

because they're constantly every whistle someone else is coming in for someone else and i feel like that may be hampering just the in-game flow of like players getting accustomed to playing with the same players and running the same stuff especially when they run when you run a very elaborate offense like they run. Like they get to half court faster than the other team with the ball on offense. But then their plays take a long time to develop because they're constantly passing and moving

and they're waiting for, they're passing up good shots for better shots. And I feel like when you're taking up Horford and bringing in Splitter, then Splitter comes out and in comes Mascala, then Mascala comes out and in comes Milsap. Now Milsap comes out and Horford comes in. It's just like you're watching the game and if you look at the play-by-play log

and you're just like wait who's playing what position with whom and when and I could see that would be tough it's funny that Jerry Sloan plays Stockton the exact same way every game forever Stockton plays forever he plays more minutes and seasons at point guard than anybody in the history of that position. He's still good when he's like 40, 41. He's still, you know, what was it, 99, 2000, 2001? They're still in the playoffs. Every time he took them out at the same point of the first and third quarter. Yeah.

And he rested them for, what, five, six minutes at the end of the first quarter. All coming through the second quarter, then bring him back. It's weird that nobody emulates this. Some guys do. With Dirk, for instance, the Mavs take him out at the six-minute mark, the first six-minute whistle. Yeah, you're right.

They do that pretty consistently. And then you have... Seltz did that with KG. Doc used to do that. He would take him out. It's weird that he did it. Six-minute timeout. But he doesn't do anything.

He doesn't stagger it. He plays full five-man bench units with the clippers which is just mind box i think just i don't know what happened to duck but um the guy who kind of does that now still what you talked about is uh van gundy yep i mean he's playing the same nine guys the same amount of minutes every game the only time he it it varies a little bit is with drummond if drummond's getting hackered and he doesn't want him to play then then he'll play Danes more than Drummond. But other than that, you know that Reggie Jackson's going to play X amount of minutes. KCP's going to play X. It's pretty consistent.

Even to the point where if they're down like 18, he's still got his players in their regular minutes at the end of the games. It's kind of interesting. Our hero, the next American president, Brad Stevens. It took him almost two and a half years to figure out that he just needed to settle on nine or 10 guys. And he was always mixing and matching and guys shuttling in and out. And it was my one nitpick with him because we just know the NBA is, you need to know who your nine are.

They need to know who the nine are. And then everybody else that they know they're not going to play. They just, you got to be ready. You got to be like David Lee and the Warriors last year. But if you look at that team though and you see like it's one thing if you have like a dominant five starters right these are your guys if you look at that team they don't have they have like bradley smart thomas three evan turner but they have like four guys who all play like the same positions in some ways but they had to stop like the david lee for eight minutes exactly the j James Young for six minutes. That doesn't work.

Yeah. Just pick your dudes. And I don't know. I think Van Gundy, to me, my favorite coaches to watch this year, Van Gundy and Stevens are definitely near the top. And a lot of it is just because now everyone knows their roles. People need to know, all right, crunch time. Here we go. Who's our five?

And even with that, the Celtics took forever. Now they finally realized, like, we just got to play the three guards together. It's weird because if you look at their record this year and you look at pre-David Lee getting minutes. Yeah. David Lee getting minutes. Right. And post-David Lee getting minutes. It's a graph.

It's like a perfect graph of winning. I feel bad. Uh-oh. Losing. And then, uh-oh. He's gone again. He's such a good guy. Probably, yeah.

And it's not even that he's unplayable anywhere but he's definitely unplayable on that team they don't have a they just don't have a role for him that's been so my theory on this last year when these teams were going small and you could take the Celtics and take teams by surprise because you had so many teams that were kind of built for that old school style right and that's atlanta does this whole season where they have these lineups that just not a lot of teams could match up with correctly now this year you've all these teams now that have put some thought into being ready for those kind of lineups and i think it took a while for the celts to they they're not a take you by surprise anymore you know and now they're take by surprise lineup is the three guards at the same time with crowder right which they're just like go to the rim we'll try to stop

you but on the other side we're just gonna attack you and try to outscore you yeah they're a fun that they're a fun team to watch i like watching them probably more than any other eastern conference team yeah there's some thought what's great great about Stevens, I mean, he's been unbelievable, but the plays he draws up when we need a basket, I really feel like I can't wait to see what he does. I don't remember a lot of coaches who've made me feel that way. You don't remember Frank Vogel calling those Monte Ellis clear outs for long three-pointers in tie games? You don't remember those plays?

Did you watch the one where it was a play, but Miles Turner, who I actually like, he screwed games. You don't remember those plays. Did you watch the one where it was a play, but Miles Turner, who I actually like, he screwed up. He didn't come over and Monte Ellis had to take a terrible shot. And then everybody's yelling at Miles Turner. I'm like, Monte Ellis would have taken that terrible shot anyway.

Yeah. He would have shook him off. Yeah. That's, that's gotta be, who are the guys that just take years off your life? If you're a fan of that team, Monte Ellis,

Rudy gay, a fan of like team? Monte Ellis, Rudy Gay. A fan of any team you mean? Just guys who are good enough that casual fans think they're good. But if you're watching them night in, night out, if you love the team, they drive you nuts. Rudy Gay is for sure the... He's got to be the MVP of that team. By far. Because he has all the skills to be an all-star, Hall of Famer. Perfect small ball four.

The textbook. Everything. Yeah. But he just looks like he's bored. Yeah. He just looks, he doesn't have that fire inside him. I mean. Do you worry that Wiggins might be like that?

A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. There's a sniff of that with Wiggins. I like Wiggins a lot, but I worry about him sometimes. I think the difference, I mean, and Rudy Gay's like, by all accounts, like a good human being too. Yeah. But he's just, I don't know.

There's just, I think the difference, it's really tough without being able to have like a lot of exposure to hearing the person speak. And knowing like, okay, is this guy intelligent or is he not intelligent? By all accounts, it seems like Rudy Gay is smart. Like I don't think he's like a dummy by any stretch. And I think the same thing about Andrew Wiggins, so it's tough. But I don't know if it's that or, I mean, also look at Andrew Wiggins just hasn't had a coach. He had Flip Saunders, who was a good coach. He had him for a while.

But now he has Sam Mitchell, who is a top three worst coach. Has to be a detriment to developing talent. He's unbelievably bad at coaching. Yeah. So I think that makes it by the way we knew this anyone who followed basketball this century knew that san mitchell was really bad at coaching i got about 300 notifications in a week when san mitchell became the interim coach or coach from guys from toronto being like oh my god no how how is this happening don't you remember the

late game we would always every close game we would happening don't you remember the late game we would always every close game we would lose don't you remember and i was like no i don't first of all i don't know who why you say we i'm not part of the team i think that's why the the league made the knicks hire rambis as an interim coach because they they just felt bad for sam mitchell he needed somebody to play checkers with when is nicks timber it's like chutes and ladders you find out when nicks timberwolves is because that's the checkers match of the year that's gonna be unbelievable i don't even know if checkers is like what's that game that you just push it bob when we just push the thing in the dice traffic something like that yeah yeah i was looking at rambus i tweeted this

yeah february 20th february 20th wow coming up right after the right after the all-star oh my god that's gonna be appointment viewing. That'll be interesting. Something terrible will happen at the end of that game. Yeah, I looked it up because I had a hazy memory of this being true, but then after five, six years, I just couldn't believe that it was true, but it was true. Kevin Love's second season.

The Timberwolves won 15 games. He played Ryan Gomes. Kurt Rambis played Ryan Gomes. More minutes per game than Kevin Love. Yeah. It's got to be the coaching achievement

of the century. It's not like they were a good team. They're a 15-win team. He's got Kevin Love. They were a... He put together successive sub-20-win seasons.

Yeah, he's one of the worst coaches of all time. He's really bad. What's funny is I did TV with him and I felt bad because I had made fun of him a couple times at comps. Such a nice guy.

Yeah. Whole time I felt bad. He actually was good at TV. I think that's what he should do. I don't think he should be coaching. I can't imagine. It could even be like maybe, I don't know, he was trying to force the triangle down the Timberwolves' throats back then as well. They played the triangle, which is amazing. It's always amazing when teams play the triangle. You're going to play the triangle down the Timberwolves throats back then as well they played the triangle right it's amazing that it's it's always amazing when you're gonna play the

triangle with a young team yeah with a young team a young team and like Johnny Flynn who's the everything you would never want in your triangle point guard just like this young short guy who just wants to run that was I hate systems systems to me are the dumbest thing you can do in basketball like why have a system when you don't know who your players are? Patino needs to do that. It's like, Hey, here's my system. Well, Patino did the famous, there was the strike, the lockout that year. The players came back out of shape and he had guys and he was full court pressing.

I was going to those games. And the players were dying. I mean, they were, they were following 20 pounds heavy. Yeah. And I was just like, there might be, okay, I know you're a press coach, which by the way, it's not college. Press isn't really going to work in the NBA anyways. Yeah.

But if it's going to work, it's certainly not going to work when your guys are out of shape. With that said, I went to a lot of those games and I do think there's a scenario where the press can work in the NBA. I think you'd have to train your eight nine ten eleven and twelve guys super deep team yeah yeah if you need guys the celtics could do it right now they could have done it but i mean well the celtics doc rivers did it the year they were tanking the year before they got kg he did it's his way they would be like in the book they would

be like in the penalty with seven minutes left and then all right let's go full court press i hope you were making money on those last two months those those them and golden state the year golden state tanked with incredible we're just i mean the problem is the lines were not realistic the lines just kept getting higher and higher and so you your model would be like okay the model doesn't know that these teams are actively trying to lose so you're trying to figure out exactly where the you know where the motivation is there i remember doc was playing alan ray with gerald green and rondo and like one other guard it was like the four guard lineup just throwing it out there mark jackson played i i want to say six players an entire game or

five players an entire game yeah well the worst ever was madison that was yeah the three pointers that actually like they were willfully trying to lose the game yeah that was terrible i can't remember what the stakes were um it was post flip it was somebody it was whoever was after flip hold on i want to talk about slender tone you know what slender tone is no i can use it though i bought slender tone before they they actually uh decided they wanted to sponsor the podcast, which I was stunned by because I got it on Amazon. I saw it in an infomercial, and I was like, I need that. I hate doing sit-ups.

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I think they want to, I feel like they want that more than, not more than a championship, but I feel like they would rather have that first than worry about a championship later, which is admirable because it's something that no other team could do and they could be thought of as the greatest team ever.

So. Right now they're 46 and four. I don't see why not. So they'd have to go 28 and four the rest of the way greatest team ever so right now they're 46 and 4 i don't see why they have to go 28 and 4 the rest of the way which seems conceivable if they were healthy seems like a piece of cake yeah like we were saying in a car um it's shocking when these games are even close yeah if they if it's a three-point game i'm like what like philly's hanging with the goal i almost had a heart attack during that game that game philly's hanging with the Golden State. I almost had a heart attack during that game. Philly's hanging with Golden State? What's happening?

Yeah, that game was interesting. I remember watching that game going, what is going on? Yeah. Isch Smith, who New Orleans had no use for. How could you use him? Yeah, how could you use him with all your great point guards? I mean, it's not like they want to play an up-tempo style. Yeah.

There's no way he'll work with Anthony Davis, who loves running and catching alley-oops. He's turned New Orleans' New Orleans into a serviceable offensive superstar don't play him don't be stupid you would watch those games and they would I would watch the Pelicans games and they would start uh Tyreek at the point or even when they got Norris Cole they would play then they played Norris Cole but they would start these terrible lineups and then you would just be sitting there waiting for Ishmith to come in knowing they're going to put up 30 points in that quarter that Ishmith played yeah and you have like a go go go coach supposedly you know seven seconds or less disciple almost made the finals the i was in on the gentry hiring that son's team that came within that kobe airball or tesla up yeah if they win that game

you know what they but i look I went back and watched that series again because I had a big bet on Phoenix to win the series that year and you should have won it I mean they weren't I think I was getting some ridiculous price on it

they were big underdogs I love them I thought they were going to win the series and what they did they went to zone and it worked because it surprised

the Lakers so they played zone so they lost the first two games won the next three or two won the next two and then the game five was the Kobe-Arbault-Artest layup which was actually a great play so first two games, won the next three or two? Won the next two. They won the next two, and then the game five was the Kobe-Arbo-Artest layup,

which was actually a great play. So the two games they played zone, it took the Lakers by surprise. Then they went to the third zone game, and the Lakers kind of figured it out. But at that point, they should have just went back to playing. And he called it, we're going to stick with our girly zone, is what he would say. And it was just, that was the big mistake. That team was entirely Steve Nash.

He was the coach of that team. Great season. And that's where I think coaching is overrated, where it doesn't matter who your coach is. If you have someone who's going to play 35, 40 minutes a game, has the ball in his hand the entire time, does it really matter who your head coach is?

But you see what happens when these coaches lose guys like Steve Nash. Right. And now they're forced to actually coach. And they can't tell the difference between Ish Smith and Norris Cole. But that's, so you take Dan Toney, right? And he could have gone to the Knicks or the Bulls that year

after he left the Suns. He picked the Knicks because they offered him more money. Admirable. Goes to the Bulls. He has Derrick Rose, back when Derrick Rose was actually Derrick Rose playing that style. I'm not positive it would have worked. I don't think it would have worked.

I think he was like- It would have been more interesting to go to the Knicks though. But I think, I mean, he's another coach that I feel like is a good coach, was kind of revolutionized basketball with his- I agree. Philosophy of spread pick and roll. So who would you match him up with? You need Steve Nash.

You need a point. You need John Stump. But what guy right now could do that? Nobody. Stephen Curry. That would be the... I mean, those coaches are... There's no point guard who could play up-tempo like that?

It's not just up-tempo. No, I know. Nash was... The team's Nash was a point guard and had the best offensive rating seven years in a row. Yeah. So all of this talk about D'Antoni revolutionized basketball, that's great.

But Nash was doing it with Don Nelson a few years before in Dallas. a row yeah that so all this talk about d'antoni revolutionized basketball that's great but nash was doing it with don nelson a few years before and in dallas yeah they were they were doing the same thing but it didn't get quite the publicity because they didn't even win the mvp award so so i'm not trying to just you know i'm not trying to disparage d'antoni it's just more a testament to how great steve nash was as a point guard right so right now who do you have i think you know like i look at somebody like kairi and that's not somebody who could work with the antenna because he's too slow he's he's he's the slowest guy ever yeah he's always going left to right and backwards it's like his uh he's

playing xbox and his controller won't go forward he can only go backwards forward side to side i think i've changed my opinion on him 27 times already in five years last year i was after he had that unbelievable game on the uh rip of the beginning of march where what did he have 60 or 50 or whatever he had against the spurs yeah this guy's amazing oh my god he is an amazing offensive basketball player but he's not he's not compatible he needs the ball all the time he'd be like a good point guard that just had the ball you're not going to run with him he's just not going to get play up tempo all game he's he's my fear process is too slow right my fear is he's this generation's Marbury now before you say oh that's

terrible Marbury was really good I think he's better than Marbury I think he's more talented but Marbury was a guy that the whole team had to be built around him he had to decide everything but he's not like he had to move at his pace i don't see i don't remember the name of the social media thing that marbury was doing that one year which was off the chains crazy do you remember this no no i'm i'm what was that he's the vet when he's eating vaseline no but what was the name of that i'm sorry but what was the name of the the it was like a like a version of snapchat but yeah he was eating Vaseline? No, Marbury. But what was the name of that? I'm sorry, but what was the name of the, it was like a version of Snapchat, but different. Yeah, yeah, it was worse. He was streaming his life all the time.

Yeah. Now he lost his mind. I don't see Kyrie being that. I feel that was a big part of the way Marbury played, though. Right. He could separate someone's mental problems from their basketball. I remember going to a Marbury, the Knicks traded for Marbury and went to a playoff game within that year, and the Knicks fans were in on Marbury the Knicks traded for Marbury and went to a playoff game within that year and the Knicks fans were in on Marbury this was like hometown hometown kid New York City tradition

point guards yeah and they were so into him and excited he still was somebody who could get 20 to 28 every game with 10 assists but I sat beside Stefan Marbury on a southwest flight oh no from Las Vegas to Burbank he was actually really nice yeah but it was funny because i was meeting it was during summer league and this was like the year after the celtics won the championship that year 2009 yeah and i met with the he had minutes for us that year right 2009 playoffs and i met with the team that year uh for like an interview so i had my computer and all my models and everything ready to go and i sit down and stefan marbury and his his handler sat down steph sat in the middle seat

and his handler sat in the aisle seat i was in the window so i was like let me just open up my computer and start talking basketball with this guy and so i started talking basketball with him and and running like running queries like what was my rating for this and what was what do you got me in your system and it was actually actually pretty interesting. It was kind of entertaining. But then he, he told me that he wanted to develop some app that would revolutionize communications where you could contact anyone at any time. I was like, you mean like a telephone? And he was like, but different. And he was going to go to China and make it happen.

And I was, I was like, wow, this guy's, this guy's out of his mind. Like a telephone, but different. I want to talk to people in the afterlife. It's different. But I really like Kyrie. I wonder if he's somebody that can just have the ball and then not have the ball and then have the ball and then not have the ball.

I think he might just need to have the ball. Yeah. Which is why, like Marbury, I still feel like the first six years of his career, it could have worked with a certain team. I don't know what that team was. He never should have left KG. The KG Marbury was perfect.

And then you add a couple people and it could have worked. Kyrie. Kyrie's still young though too. He's young. He's like 22, 23. I just hate watching the last four minutes of them. I hate the LeBron one-on-one. I just like watching how they wasted love driving them. I hate the LeBron one-on-one. It's just watching how they wasted love driving me nuts.

Look who his coaches have been. He had Blatt for a year, which is fine. Before that, he had Mike Brown and Byron Scott. That's a disaster. So that's part. Like, imagine only playing 11 games in college and then going to the NBA and having Byron Scott and Mike Brown. Which is why.

Mold you. He's a top 10 untradeable guy. Yeah. You never know what would happen if he went to a decent coach who actually taught him the point guard position. And he's still like 23. He's so young. Yeah. I don't think they'll have the balls to trade him unless something bad happens this year.

And I think they would trade Love before they traded Kyrie. They don't have a backup point guard. Were they going to roll with Del Vadova? I think they'd have to get one back. Yeah. I don't know what type of point guard, but it would seem like... Rondo. Rondo.

That would be a fun trade, watching Rondo and LeBron. It is funny, though. Everybody judges these guys by their offensive stats. It's like, Rondo's back! 11 assists a game, and meanwhile, they're getting just torched defensively. Night after night after night, teams are putting up 120, 128, 130. They had successive games where they gave up 1.20 points per possession in a row. Which is almost impossible. Yeah.

It's hard to do successively. Against terrible teams, too. The Sixers were trying to do it and couldn't pull it off. They were like, let's get to 1.2. Teams were missing shots every now and then. The shots got to go in. The Kings are so bad defensively that I actually, the Warriors-Kings games, and I think there's been two, but I always feel like that's the game where the 160 points and the 33s, 30 made threes.

Someone could score 80 points. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Curry and Klay combines, get into 120. Some sort of freaky statistical accident will happen against the Kings. It's funny because they played the Celtics the other day and I was flying. So I missed the game. The 46 in the first quarter? Right.

So I missed the game. And then I watched, the first thing I did is I listened to Rondo's postgame comments and the coach's postgame comments. And they're like, you know, what about this? You give up this many points. And they were like, we just turned the ball over too much gave away too many easy points that's definitely it well i looked at it and they only gave up 11 points is off off of live turnovers right so what about the other 120 what happened so it's like there's not even any

realization as to why they suck because you know people suck and they can be like honest about it like oh i suck i'm doing this wrong like we're over switching for no reason no one's picking up their man we're taking three point shots with from our center is taking three point shots with his hand in the air watching the follow-through and four guys are like below the free throw line so when the ball ricochets that it's a four on one the other way that's we should maybe stop that but no we gotta stop turning the ball over well he actually didn't turn the give up that many points off of turnover so it's not that he stopped playing defense around 2011 and then he would turn it back on for playoffs big games national tv but for the most part it's hard to just go guys would just go by yeah it's tough and that's why i really like

this celtics team and like i know there's no way we could get David Lee and Sollinger and Brooklyn Pick for Kevin Love. But if you just put Kevin Love in that Sollinger spot on this Celtics team. It would be a big difference. It would be unbelievable. Sollinger bangs a bit more, though. I don't know that Kevin Love could defend and rebound. That shot at the top of the key is wide open for whoever our five is. Yeah.

And that's his shot. And that's one of the reasons it was so frustrating to watch him on cleveland because they're throwing him in the corner it's like he's great at the top of the key that's where that's where he put up his points in minnesota but um the celts are one player away from being i think being just a crazy offensive team because the way they attack and the slash and kick and they have all the right pieces for the most part except for that one, that stretch five. That's why Olenek, whose stats have been pretty good this year and who's been effective and is a better player than I thought he was, but he's effective because that shot's always

open. Stevens just, he knows what he's doing. We just don't have the right players yet. It's tough to find that one piece that can do that. You like Kevin Love, right? Just not defensively. I like him, for sure. I mean, I was, it's funny because I thought Kevin Love was overrated defensively I like him for sure I mean I was it's funny because I'm I'm

the I thought Kevin Love was overrated for a long time and then I was like no he's very very good I remember we did a show together yeah about how great he was and now I'm kind of back to like maybe I was right originally and maybe I shouldn't have listened but I think he I mean he's obviously a very skilled offensive player um I do wonder what his max if he's like a stat guy or if he's like a guy that can actually help a really good team that's not a great team guy yeah i wonder about that but he hasn't had a proper fit yet in cleveland that could really they could do some things like getting him the ball at the elbows great they're trying to do that more um having like running some more pick and rolls with him would be good i think with LeBron as the ball handler,

I think that would be kind of difficult. It's the play I'm always afraid of when the Celtics play them. You know, my play don't run a high screen with LeBron and Kevin Love. Yeah. When, and there's like a play that they could run. I don't,

I don't think they run it that often. So I think it takes a lot of toll on LeBron, but just setting the screen like really, really far away. Yeah. And having him come with a full head of steam and just go to the basket that's like their go-to play when they need a basket and they're losing not in the last play of the game every time like in the last two or three

minutes of the game he'll just like barrel in barrel in and and it's it's either a layup or a foul every time like you said and they don't really run that too much but i feel like if if kevin loves the one studying the screen and then he could pop out that could be an interesting play for them bizarre that they don't run that and you can run it with kairi too i think it's just too tough i think it's too taxing to have them handle the ball that much i think it fatigues them too much he gets banged a lot remember there was like a two-year stretch where uh we always wondered why duran and westbrook just wasn't wasn't the screen world like every time why they didn't do that why didn't they do that? Why didn't Brooks see this?

And now actually they run that. It's tough to stop. And every time they run it, I think they're going to score. And that's why I was watching OKC and the Warriors. And OKC spent a lot of energy trying to come back in that game. So they tied it and then the Warriors closed it out. The Warriors are home. They got a great crowd.

Good players. I thought that game was a moral victory for OKC because it reminded everybody, including the guys on the other team, that they have two of the best four players in the league. It's crazy. People don't even talk about them. If you have a close game, they have two of the best three guys

on the floor. They're more well coached than they used to be and that's a scary team i don't want any part of that team in the playoffs durant's arguably number two in the league right now yeah so what are your rankings they change every week but i i agree with you i think they're i mean curry is number one for me he's just there uh is kawaii in the top four yeah yeah my my thing that switches a lot is My thing that switches a lot is between Kawhi and KD. Yeah. And then whoever's third and Westbrook and LeBron third and fourth.

I think KD has to be higher than Kawhi because I always look at this stuff like, I think so too. If my life depended on it, and I'm in a pickup game, who would I want? Yeah, there's just a lot more. There's just a lot more value to having durant who can score on anyone versus someone like kawaii who's who's who's max value is when he has to play against a player like katie yeah or lebron who um but you can't i mean you

couldn't really go wrong with either one of them for sure that's definitely the top four yeah i think davis davis in another season would be there but i i just haven't liked his season i think a lot of it has to do with i don't blame him but the reason why i don't blame him a little just a tiny bit maybe if your team is just out to lunch every game and you're the best player you that's a little bit's got to be on you i don't care who your teammates are sure i think it's part of your job you're the best player get everyone going yeah he's not in the he's like more of the potential to be in that right than actually there right now i don't think it's fair to anoint

him in that category he's not up there he's not he certainly hasn't accomplished as much as durant has or westbrook has in his career so it's silly to even compare him in that sense i like i like draymond and value draymond slightly more than you do i value him a lot because you don't think you think he's a top 10 player you would never say he's like the fifth best player no never because I think a lot of what's happened with Curry I mean Curry's the best shooter of all time he's Maravich he's modern day Nash all that stuff Curry gives him a little extra I mean Draymond gives him a little extra I'm sorry draymond gives curry a little swagger a little protection um the intensity night tonight i don't think curry and thompson

when they came to the league were wired as night after night i want to rip your hearts out and draymond gives that to those guys there's also not another team could have been really gay there's also there's also just the fact that you can't double him when he runs the screen with draymond because when you do, it's just a pass to Draymond and now Draymond either goes in and gets a layup, like a straight path to the basket, or now you attack on Draymond.

Now you have a wide open corner three for Harrison Barnes, Equidal, or Clay Thompson. So I think without that, having a four, like not what other player can do that. Well, but also what other player I had tips on like a week and a half ago.

And he was just saying like, they're the, my whole, I've done this before, but my whole thing about our Golden State's not replicable. Like all these teams that are like, we gotta be like, you can't. You have Draymond, Klay... It's silly that teams are trying...

And the Klay-Curry combos will never happen again in our lifetime. So you're never gonna have the two of the greatest five shooters of all time on the same team. Do you think Klay Thompson's one of the top five greatest shooters of all time? Who would you have ahead of him?

I mean, I don't know. I never really thought about it, but I never really. I don't think. I'm just thinking. I guess more like a degree of difficulty shooters. I think what you talked about with Draymond brings a little bit more out of Curry. I think you could say that if you put Klay Thompson on the Lakers, for instance. He'd be fine.

No. I don't think so. I think he'd get stats. I don't think he would think i think he'd get he'd get stats you wouldn't i don't think you would be talking about him as one of the top five great shooters i agree like imagine pager and then clay and then clay thompson role yeah you know he probably i like clay thompson i think he's a fine player but i just wouldn't i don't know i have to think about he's also a very good defender but like okay like nash for sure is one of the nash is in the top five for well i guess what i'm talking about... You mean just like a shooter, not also...

Yeah, I'm not talking about statistics. I'm just talking about shot making. Clay has the fastest release. He can shoot when he's moving. Kareem and Curry, they make shots that anybody else in the league, they're the most horrendous shots anyone can take. I'm not even thinking about it. And I'm like, okay, I would take Ray Allen over him.

And I would take Reggie Miller over him. So there's two. See, I would put Clay over Reggie. No reggie no really i would yeah i hate reggie miller's commentary i don't know him as a person but i would and i think reggie miller was a better shooter here's here's the case against reggie they had to run these crazy elaborate offenses with triple and quadruple screens just to get him open to get the shot clay just gets his shot anywhere. Yeah, but Klay's also playing with Stephen Curry who's just attracting so much attention that it's, you never have to,

think about when you watch a Golden State game and let's say you bet the other team or let's say you bet the total under or something like that. That's the most, if you had your entire life on a bet and it was a Golden State under, you would have a heart attack every time Curry was on the court.

Because it's just like, no matter where he is, it's three points right there. And you can see it from the defensive perspective. You can see the defense just panicking like, oh, fuck, we left Curry. Like, oh, my God. And it just creates this chain reaction of every other player having like no focus on them defensively and that's and people started writing about this a few months ago but i always compared it to football when they're like what randy moss gave the patriots and what gronkowski does sometimes now for the patriots where the defenses were just so terrified of them at all times that you know

oh moss is in motion you can see every in the defense you know they're freaking out pointing to each other and that's what curry does the whole time it's just this constant chaos it just makes it like nerve-wracking to play a basketball game against him for sure because you just can't leave him ever the guys who really would have loved this era dale ellis would have been unbelievable if dale ellis said dale Dale Ellis was in a time machine and was in the Clay Thompson spot, would have been outrageous. The Reggie Miller, obviously. Who's the other one I was thinking?

Who would have loved this? Oh, do you remember George McCloud? Oh, yeah. For the Nuggets for a while. George McCloud jacked the threes, man. He would have loved this. He's got to be so mad that he misses. And Del Curry would have liked this too.

But now it's just the mentality of, it didn't really start happening until 10 years ago where people on fast breaks now, the guys go out and they go to the corners and they go to the left side of the top of the key.

But in the old days, they would just, oh, I'm going to run my lane and I'll do a layup. And now it's out. And that's the thing where Reggie Miller and guys like that, they would have just loved this. They would have loved it. Yeah, Reggie Miller, you're right. He might have been a better shooter than Klay Thompson. I just, seeing them both, I've never seen a quicker release than Klay.

Quickest release I've ever seen in person. I think Ray allen had a pretty quick release i would put him i'd have to like watch i'd have to study youtube's yeah i have to go watch some tape but i will say with ray allen i think he's in maybe curry the only part the only two people who could have made that shot he made in the finals someone should do a sports program on that day it was the nfc there was an nfc playoff game championship it was like there was a conference finals that day it was the day kobe shot and scored 81 or 82 was 81 or 82 we took about 06 yeah the year that kobe kobe got the shot 82 points it was conference change the

pats lost to the colts okay but it wasn't 82 or 81 oh no no 81 okay so then and then that night the suns it's the steve nashs, played the Ray Allen Supersonics. And Ray Allen scored like 50 points in it. It was the craziest game. It was with a double or triple overtime. I can't remember which. Ray Allen hit like buzzer beaters at the end of like the quarters, like the overtime, the first overtime regulation. And that was, to me, that day was like the best.

That night of basketball was like it was a sunday night so there wasn't any other games i remember watching those two games and just like thinking i love what i do for a living being able to watch these guys and that was but anyways that night uh people forget people remember that people are like of this generation they kind of just remember the ray allen running around screens like you talked about yeah but that was the tail end of his career he was a primary primary scorer with Milwaukee and with Seattle. He still ran off a lot of screens and did a lot of different, but it wasn't just like a spot up in the corner

like he was for the Celtics or for the Heat. He was having, he had the ball. He was the main scorer and he was an amazing player. You and I and 28,000 Milwaukee fans are the only ones who remember how great... I got the tapes and I watched it, but my memory wasn't... Oh, you had the tapes?

I did. I thought the tapes were destroyed. No, someone... The fishiest series in the history of the NBA. You know what's funny? After we did that podcast, they put it on Hardwood Classics. What?

They put one of the games, the game seven, yeah. Because I remember saying, you won't see that one on. That was the one where Scott Williams got shelved like an hour before the game? I have the DVD of it. Someone sent, someone from Europe sent it to me.

The Sixer fans are funny. They're like, hey, we shot more free throws than them all season. I was like, look, Iverson was going to the line like 20 times a game or whatever. 15, 20. It was crazy. It wasn't as bad as I remembered it to be, which is kind of interesting how your mind can play tricks. Yeah, because they were taking, it's hard to get free throws when you're just coming down and jacking up a two-point shot well there was wasn't there there was one game where but i only have game seven and

game six i don't have the other games the famous game was the one where the calls were so bad that it's i think it was game four yeah that was the one that was i remember being really bad but they were like down seven with two seconds left and the refs called a foul and all the fans did this most sarcastic cheer of all time. Just they're so mad that, oh, now we get one. But Ray was amazing that year. And I love that 07 Sonics team. I think I might have lost money on the 07 Sonics in the playoffs.

They lost to the Spurs, right? They took the Spurs to five, I think. Rashard, Brikowskiukowski ray allen i like that they the three-headed monster yeah they had a jerome james ended up getting paid that was when the spurs were really guarding the three-point line very heavily and so that they just had a steady diet of mid-range jumpers that were just going in every time you're making my i made this case in my book but ray allen was better than i wrote the book in 09 i was like ray allen was better than reggie wrote the book in 2009. I was like, Ray Allen was better than Reggie Miller now. And then he had this whole second life as a role player

and a couple more Celtics teams and Miami teams. Miami's still trying to sign him. He's still trying to get the guy to play. I said this last year. It bothers me that he just won't play in the Warriors. He could be Uncle Splash. Uncle Splash. Uncle Splash.

What's better? Just come in for 10 minutes a game and shoot some threes. How does he not want to do that? Definitely be an upgrade over Barbossa and Brandon Rush. Poor Brandon Rush. He gets a lot of chances. I want to talk about HBO Now really quickly. Every episode of every season of HBO series plus the biggest and latest hit movies before any other streaming service.

All available if you stream HBO. No TV package required. Coming to HBO Now this week. Oh, wait. It's already on. Fast 7. So download the HBO Now app on your favorite device to start your 30-day free trial instantly. Fast 7.

Are you fast? No, but I'll probably watch Deadwood again. Oh, yeah. I think The Wire is great and all that stuff. Yeah. And better than Deadwood. But I remember watching Deadwood and thinking, I want to watch this again. Deadwood again. Oh, yeah. I think The Wire is great and all that stuff. And better than Deadwood. But I remember watching Deadwood and thinking, I want to watch this again.

Deadwood. A classic. I broke off the conversation with the Warriors after you said you thought they could go 74-8. There's another record at stake that to me was one of the unattainable records. My favorite team, the best team of all time, the 86 Celtics. 50-1 at home.

Oh, what was it? One loss all year at home. 50-1. This team could, I don't see them losing a home game. So this Warriors team is now 23-0. And I think you get an extra first round game. So I think for them, 51-1 or 52-1 could be conceivable if one of the series,

excuse me, if one of the series went, you know, they lost a couple on the road and had to come back for a couple game fives, play three around potentially. So they could get to 51-52-1 or 51-52-0, but I thought 50-1 was never happening again.

Yeah, they have to win every home game the rest of the way. They will have 41 regular seasons. It's too hard. They'll have a stinker. How would they even get there? They have 41 regular season home games, right? So they go 41-0 during the regular season. Four rounds.

Four rounds, but that's only two, what is it? Oh, yeah, three. Well, it's a minimum eight, but you probably get at least 10. Yeah, but they're not going to run the slate. I mean, even the 2001 Lakers couldn't run the slate. Right. Although you made money on all of those. Almost ran the slate.

You were a Tyloo. One overtime game. One overtime game one away from running the slate. I have. That team was so dominant, it was ridiculous. That's what the best teams of this century, since the 96 bowls basically

in some order 0-1 Lakers I'd have first this Warriors team they have to finish it but they would be second for me and then I think

the 0-8 Celtics have to be third even though they suck the first two rounds they sucked they backed it up but yeah they just

didn't their playoff series their playoff run was underwhelming it's a fly in the o up but yeah they just had didn't the their playoff series was their playoff run was underwhelming fly in the ointment and they just had like no depth and they had like they were playing all these like posey and playing eddie house and playing like but doc that that was what like what we talked about earlier doc's playing 11 and 12 guys a game in the playoffs and then he finally settled on the lineup we were all waiting for when he would play posey in house and spread the floor for everybody it was a little bit he would play posey at small ball four a couple times yeah and it was a little bit of a prototype of where we were going there's yeah

that's happened a lot that that's happened more in history than people seem to yeah i mean even before him you had like smaller you know pippen would play the four sometimes yeah it's happened a lot yeah people would go people now are just so fascinated with it because they think of like the stretch the idea of the stretch there was guys who'd play the floor but weren't like the stretch for that they talked about part of the reason is we didn't have as many good perimeter guys as we had now every roster was clogged by all these big guys we didn't have twitter where people would just murder and just talk about and just hear hear from people that you would never even know knew a lot about basketball but somehow they become like savants and you start and you just murder teams? And just talk about and just hear from people that you would never even know knew a lot about basketball, but somehow they become like savants

and you just learn more that way. There wasn't that. People were watching games. There was no replay. There was no YouTube. Yeah. So if you didn't catch the game live, you probably weren't going to see it again.

Whereas now everything is consumed and reanalyzed and all these things are talked about. People think that the game of basketball has been reinvented now, but really it's been that way in a lot of ways. It's been, we talked about 04 Pacers Pistons. That was the nadir. Yeah.

That's when I was like, shit, is this, is basketball just, I remember writing columns about it back then. Is basketball just gonna suck now? We went to the Olympics that summer. We got our asses kicked by Argentina. The Greek team beat some. The Greek team.

With Baby Shaq. Yeah, everyone's playing this. We were so stuck in this one-on-one residue of MJ, Kobe style of just want to be clear out. I got it. And then Nash's sons came along. And the tragedy of it, and I guess there were remnants of it

with the White Chocolate Kings played that way a little bit. And then the Dirk dirk nash mavs there were some rule changes some of it the rule changes helped yeah the no illegal defense yeah no five second back because you know that the team that did it the worst was the rudy tom janovich rockets where they had mobley and francis and they would legitimately have four guys standing on the left-hand side of the court or the right-hand side of the court all the way by the benches, and then you only had one guy

who was only allowed to guard the main court. And it would just be clear out every game. And you're just like, who would watch this? It was horrible. It was terrible. Ten years from now, they'll say that about Hackersheck. Probably. Yeah, back in 2016, they could just foul people.

J.J. Reddick climbed on his back, bro. Gave him a piggyback. They fouled the inbounds passer just to get him on the line. K.J. McDaniels came off the bench in the second half and fouled five consecutive times in the first ten seconds. Oh my god. I can't believe they haven't stopped it yet. That's a good... I can't go to

Clipper games anymore. I just won't go. I've been to two all year. By the way, that's like a good analysis or just a good example of how basketball in a laboratory doesn't really work. The hacker, the idea that JB Bickerstaff and management decided they wanted to be more aggressive with the hacking. And so they did it to Drummond at the start of the third quarter.

It was awful. But what really happened was like the players hated it. Yeah. Because the crowd's booing. And I think that's something that you don't realize that these are human beings. I mean, they realize it, but you didn't know how it would react. You didn't know there was an uncontrolled environment. Now you see how it reacts.

Oh my God. It actually helped them. They went on like a 15 to four run while they were doing it. Yeah. But then they just became demoralized afterwards. Like you could see the players talked about afterwards. I hated that. That was stupid.

I didn't like doing that. And it's interesting because that's something where if they were robots, it would be the perfect strategy. Well, that's part of the problem with sports. And I think Daryl found that out this year in Houston. Possibly. He made all of these moves that made sense in a computer. But these are personalities that have to play together.

And when you're building your team around Harden and Howard. western conference finals though and and he did but he went super knucklehead this year though last year he was like at capacity and this year then now you're taking on and i was the knucklehead stuff this year though well the tie loss and that was the one for sure adding that and i did i thought it was a smart trade it's like you got to roll the dice and do it this guy was this guy was the best part of a 55 win team two years ago I got into a fight with people on Twitter but there's no way they're not starting him

people are like no they're gonna start Ty Lawson and I was like how? how could you start him? he doesn't mesh at all with Harden Beverly's the perfect companion perfect kind of partner I thought they were gonna just play him him two seven-minute stretches a half until they figured out if he was an actual guy.

That team is a fun team to watch sometimes. Now they're just playing helter-skelter basketball. Now they play Corey Brewer, Ariza, Beverly, Harden, and then whichever big they have healthy either. See, I like the team when they played both bigs at the same time. I like the Capella Howard Rockets because they were crashing. They were doing everything. They were controlling the glass.

And they were different. Now it's just you watch the game and it's like I get nervous. I don't drink energy drinks or anything. Or I drink a lot of coffee and I'll watch the game and I'll be like, this is making me nervous watching this guy i don't even have a bet on the game and i'm getting nervous why is brewer so amped up just tell him to relax yeah this is the bad it's it gives you bad energy when you watch the games you're just too hyper that actually was a good addition to that because oh yeah i mean when you tell their skelter too and it fits with that whole team that was a great trade for uh by doc rivers the gm of the houston rockets i know just giving

away a player for to your to a team in your conference for nothing well now at this point they might as well just go full scale crazy just rockets yeah they because they're past the point in order to i would hire george carl when he gets fired just bring him in bring him in to be the that's one guy i would not hire i would take jb i want a crazy coach no i would take jb bickers that you like jb i just think George Carl is just... I was kidding about George Carl. George should not coach anymore. He's just...

It's over for George. Like he's on the bench knitting sweaters the entire game, just like knitting, literally knitting, watching the game being played and putting his glasses on to see what's going on every now and then, going back to knitting because he doesn't do anything. He just sits there and he's like, our best perimeter defender is Seth Curry

and we're a terrible defensive team okay well if you really believe that why don't you play your best perimeter defender and let him play a little bit someone was telling me that uh I can't remember who told me this but Popovich when uh it was either somebody who played for him or somebody who knew somebody played for him he showed up on San Antonio and they were basically oh no it wasn't somebody told me i read this this is a world jurorski piece i knew i knew i heard it somewhere it was that david west thing about wards around in the world jurorski thing about how he showed up and they were like they didn't even really have scouting reports for the other teams and pop was just like we're just gonna run our stuff just run our place now i don't care

who we're playing as long as we do our thing it'll be great that's interesting and i was like wow this is this is i think george carl tried this george but he's not great yeah he's like i don't care what other people are running and his team's like yeah but we don't know what we're running either this is a problem that team is uh that's like where you if there was like if you could have a revolution like they had in egypt which didn't really succeed they should be able to do a basketball revolution where someone just takes over and eliminates the owner and i don't mean we know it's funny about i just mean get some out of being the owner because that team will never

succeed as long as that guy owns the team but did you say like the minority owners are getting together yeah they're gonna have a coup yeah how good luck actually doing that how it sounds it's not a public company you can't reporters yeah you can't like have a hostile takeover of a team force them to sell and float bad and it doesn't work that way do you know how many bad nba owners there have been that nobody could get rid of i mean sterling on the team for 30 years you used to sit next to him i there are a lot of great moments i don't know if i sit next to him. He had a lot of great moments next to Sterling. Not only did I sit next to Sterling, but I also rented a house in Malibu

two years in a row and I didn't notice. And I look over one day in my master bathroom, I look over and Donald Sterling's in his master bathroom. I'm on my deck and I look over to my next door neighbor

and it's Sterling lathering himself up with like Calamine Lotion. Oh my God. I was just like, what on earth? This guy lives here too i just saw him a couple days ago i can't avoid this guy what who do you think's the best owner um there's lots of really good owners it seems like the ones we don't talk about are the best

ones yeah peter holt those guys yeah i mean the southics have a really good infrastructure now i like what they do yeah the ones who aren't trying to like micromanage the team i mean cuban micromanages the team he's a good owner but he also has struggled to recapture that you know that flash they had the year that they won i mean he had two finals runs he should have won the year that that that bennett solidor and danny crawford decided that duane is going to win the championship that yes um And then this one. So he was a good owner for sure. But the best owners, I don't know. It seems like there's eight or ten that know.

I don't think Gilbert's a good owner. No. I think you could argue that if you had LeBron falling into your lap in 2003. The dude got the first draft pick like four years ago. I know. That's the thing. If you're just giving anyone else a scenario of you're going to have LeBron in 2003, he's going to leave in 2010, you're going to get three of the next four first picks in the draft,

and then he's going to come back. At some point, you're winning the title with just about any scenario there. The fact that, and it's funny because New Orleans repeated this with Davis. That guy is not the best owner. Whoever the owner, Benson. They're horrible. I don't even know who runs New Orleans. I'm not sure anybody knows who's actually calling the shots,

but with Davis, you just want to build. They give away the two first-rounders for Drew Holiday. They pay Tyreek. They extend Eric Gordon. They give Ashik. Are you watching basketball? how do you give Asik $55 million? that signing was the worst

the whole league is moving away from Asik but I feel bad and I actually think Davis made I said this last summer I thought he made a real mistake grabbing the money over waiting a year because if I'm him I kind of want to make sure i'm not going to be

stuck for my entire 20s on it on like a terrible franchise and that's might have happened i would say that it's very likely to have happened they have cap space if you're free agent do you want to go to that team yeah i mean hey look when you know you can lace it lace them up and go play at the smoothie king arena that's something that's something that you got to really think hard about i can go play at the boston gardener i can go play at smoothie Smoothie King Arena. That's something that you've got to really think hard about. I can go play at the Boston Gardener. I can go play at Smoothie King Center. We both think that there's a Durant-Lakers possibility.

I think Durant's going somewhere other than OKC. Next year or a year from now? I don't know if he signs a one-year deal. He probably is in his best interest to sign a one-year deal, wait for Westbrook, and then make a move together. I was telling you that if the lakers do something that seems fishy on the surface like let's say they just trade d'angelo russell on a contract from mike conley

right and you're like why would they do this they're gonna ruin their top three pick that you know they have to finish second basically to get that to keep that pick like why would you get mike conley why add him to this that to me would be the red flag that they think durant's coming if they trade for somebody that helps them short term and threatens that pick if they trade russell or any of the clarks and one of these young guys for somebody who's better than them who will help them be better right now, that tells me that Durant's coming. So if they don't do that, then maybe he's not. But we know that he lives here in the summer.

We know that he likes Los Angeles. Loves Los Angeles. And I do think the underrated part. I mean, everyone loves it. I said that, but everyone was like, not everyone, it's just the summer. So maybe it's just that. Well, that's the thing.

If you're an NBA player, you're on the road for eight months. You're just bouncing around. It doesn does make it tough with the state tax here you actually want to live here year-round i think for some of these guys so maybe they maybe you win but i don't know i just think la for whatever reason has an appeal to people i mean look you're a transplant well i think if you're like a famous tall celebrity like kevin durant where you stand out everywhere you go i would not want to live in a small city. I'd want to live here. This is the only city other than maybe New York or even New York. I think it's hard to harder to blend in, but here, nobody's going to bother you. There's a million celebrities here. Like Durant can,

that's why all these guys live here in the summer and they train here and they play here because people leave them alone. Uh, trade deadlines coming up. We should talk about that quickly, and then we'll go. Anybody you would target. So I guess the suspects would be Orlando, Sacramento, New Orleans. What do you mean by suspects? Well, just teams that are ready to do something. I think the Celtics are ready to do something the other way because they just have all these assets. You got Brooke Lopez sitting there.

You have Thad Young sitting there. It's toughoke lopez to get traded without a general manager right they need to get a general manager first i don't i'm not i mean he's played every game this season and he's been really good he's single-handedly killing my celtics pick that we have of theirs uh i'm not sure i trade him he's 20 and 8 every night they have like that team is just messed up because they can't do anything they're they're not going to pivot they've given away all their draft picks they have that that's the case of you just bottom out you try to get first rounders for those two guys clear all your calf space they don't even have yeah you need to get new first rounders yeah yeah because they don't even have their own but even if they got the new ones i don't know that it's enough it's just they're just in a there's just a bad i mean the good thing they

have going for them is they got an owner who will spend money i would have used the joe johnson contract to take risky contracts from other teams like hit or miss like if chicago is just saying derrick rose let's just get out of this no No. Well, I'm just saying if they did. Yeah. They could dump Joe Johnson. Or whoever. Or if Cleveland's like, Tristan Thompson, this isn't working. Will you take him and give us an... I think that I would use the Joe Johnson for that. I would not buy him out.

I would try to buy out somebody else's panic move. Or Rudy Gay. The Kings were just like, we should get Rudy Gay out of here. We just want an expiring for him. That's... Yeah, I know. We just want an expiring for him. That's, yeah, I know. I just kept quiet for that one.

My face went white when you mentioned his name. But the Nets, they have no incentive to tank at all. No. So, and they have no chance

of getting better. Better players, even Rudy Gay is better than whoever they're trotting out. I don't know. Rondé Hollis Jefferson? Bargnani? Bargnani. Bargnani? Even Rudy Gay is better than whoever they're trotting out. I don't know. Rondé Hollis Jefferson?

Bargnani? Bargnani. Bargnani? They played Bargnani and Bojan Bogdanovic together one game. It was an absolute disgrace. It really was a disgrace. No, I was just watching the game, watching these two guys play. It was just unbelievable.

I'm just going to quickly look through the standings. And Orlando, who would you try to steal from Orlando? Do you like Harris? I mean, I would try to get Vooch. That's like the best player on the team, but they would never get rid of him. You don't think so? They got to do something. They have all these.

If I was a team, a playoff team that was trying to add a player, not like a stud or anything but just like a player that could add i would try to get fry he's a player that could help he could help cleveland uh boston he could help boston he could still shoot he could make that three in the top of the key that's always open for us so that's a player i would try to poach from that team i would also maybe like he's hurt now but if he when he gets healthy i would look at if I needed a backup point guard, I would look at CJ Watson because he was actually quite good earlier this year. Anyone on the Bucs? I mean, the Bucs? You just look sad. I didn't mean to make you sad.

They just – The team that can't shoot? It's just they have like – they have Middleton and they have Giannis and then they have a team that can't shoot it's just they have like they have middleton and they have yannis and then they have nothing so you're out on jabari i i'm out i mean i don't even know enough to know about jabari anyone does it's his first real year playing but like when they went and added they had a decent team then they added michael carter williams and gregman they now they got mike they got greg monroe who's just completely decimated their defense they play a style that requires a super super like attention to detail they don't have players or and then also the league kind of

figured out that if you get triple penetration against their defense you have a wide open corner three if you make one pass right and you set like a back screen so it's um so you didn't like the greg monroe signing no and you know what the funny thing is i want to talk about a great job phil jackson did that was the guy he wanted right he wanted he needed greg monroe he wanted he was ready to trade the number four pick and the trade fell through at the last second was that what was gonna happen oh yeah the celtics were moving up to four wow so mj be careful anointing someone a wizard for drafting porzingis because you could have had greg monroe instead the celtics were ready to give up four first round picks including this year's brooklyn pick because they like justice winslow that much seems a little

extravagant i think so too after watching justice i like justice a lot i thought he was going to be a potential multi-all-star. Not sure he can shoot. Some of those guys just never develop jump shots, and some of them do. Like Bruce Bowen never had a jump shot that he developed. How about Draymond? Draymond. So it's possible. He's a definite athlete.

He reminds me a little bit of Kawhi without the jump shot. Kawhi developed a jump shot. He developed a three. I would bet on Justice Winslow, but it's just to give up. There's another really, really good. The guy that the Pistons have is also very good, Stanley Johnson. Do you like him? I think he's good.

Just a great draft. It really was. I really like this draft. This is the year if you want to buy basketball cards for your kids, I would recommend this class because pretty, uh, pretty much everybody, even Okafor, I think on the right team could be good, but you just go down like D'Angelo.

I'm not willing to give up on him. Poor Zingas. I love his own. Yeah. I just want him to play. Yeah. Winslow. Willie Colley is actually,

I think on the right team is really, if he's on a contender where he's the only one who can't shoot. Yeah. He can be good. For sure. Um, the, uh,

Stanley Johnson, Winslow. Kaminsky's not a bad ninth man. Not bad at all, yeah. The league's kind of moved away from what he, you know. It's a good draft. All those guys are playing and contributing, which is pretty rare. We need to talk about 11, 12, 13. It was Miles Turner.

Shocked by how good he is. Even the guy Utah has is a good draft. Trey Louse, 12. Devin Booker 13. Booker might be the steal of the draft. And the Celtics were 16 right after the draft fell off. I like Bobby Portis

and I like Nance Jr. I think it's going to be okay. I'm not a big Larry Nance Jr. It's 27th pick. Yeah, for that it's great. Yeah, he could be a ninth man. Anyone on Washington you would take? Would you want to rent Nene for four months?

No. You made a face. I mean, I don't know. He'd be all right, but he's not great. I would take, like, I think if I had a choice, I would take Gortat. They would never get rid of Gortat. I would take Gortat. How about on Phoenix?

P.J. Tucker? No. That team is... You know, I would get... There's a lot of players on Phoenix I would.J. Tucker? No? That team is... You know, I would get... There's a lot of players on Phoenix I would take, actually. Like who? Tell us. I mean, I just hate doing this because I feel like people steal my ideas.

But I would take... Who's going to steal your ideas? It's a podcast. 500,000 people are going to listen to this. I knew this was true. I would take John Luer, Mirza Talalovic. I would take Markeith Morris. I like Mirza.

I like Mirza, too. I want the Celtics to get him. That dude makes threes. He can. I like Mirza. I like Mirza too. I want the Celtics to get him. That dude makes threes. And he's kind of physical. He's a banger. Yeah. He doesn't defend. He's a little suboptimal.

I like nine of the players in that team, and they're terrible. Because they don't have a point guard who can see. Brandon Knight was another terrible sign. And then Bledsoe went down. They were good before Bledsoe went down. They could play. And they had Bledsoe, and they had were good before Bledsoe went down. They could play. And they had Bledsoe and they had... Talk about completely messing your team up forever.

They could have just taken the draft pick instead of Brandon Knight. Instead of paying Brandon Knight $70 million? Yeah, just take the draft pick. But then they wouldn't have been able to sign the artist formerly known as Tyson Chandler for $52 million. Then that move. Which pissed off Marquis. This guy, this owner, I'm going to tell you something about this owner. This guy goes on a rant about millennials.

Yeah. Okay. He fires all of his assistants first. Right. Gets rid of all of his assistants. Then fires the head coach. Now he's got no assistant to be the interim coach. Right.

So he hires a guy who's never coached. Wasn't even an assistant. He was like third row on the back of the bench. Yeah. Got rid of Long Lombardi, whatever his name is. He brought in Earl Watson. Earl thought he was going to get fired. He brought in his playbook.

No, you're the coach. Yeah, you're the coach. And then they get like Bob Hill who, I don't know, has he even been around basketball? What is he doing? Coaching like youth choir or something? They get this guy to be the assistant, the lead assistant. Bob Hill, who used to be a head coach. That's cool.

But it's like, talk about- In 1995. But like, talk about unrealistic expectations like people who want it now generation going off on marquise morris buddy you fired all your assistants then fired the head coach i'm with you what is the i mean what is this guy smoking would you trade for reed gallinari that's another team that's a number one pick for Blake oh I already said that if I was the Clippers I would do that trade

all the time what if the Clippers said I want Will Barton too well that was the trade I said I wanted you didn't want that one yeah I would want all of those guys if you're Denver no if I'm Denver I wouldn't do the trade so you would do Will Barton Gall Yeah, yeah. No, if I'm Denver, I wouldn't do the trade. So you would do Will Barton, Gallinari, and a pick for Blake?

Yeah. But Denver, you wouldn't trade Gallinari, Barton, and a pick? By the way, if the Clippers did that, they would be a better team than they are with Blake. Not because Blake is a bad player, but because Doc doesn't know what he's doing with him anyway. So it's like when the general manager can make a trade to help the coach who doesn't know how to play his best player. It's like he's two people. Right. He's the same guy.

I've seen enough of DeAndre, Blake, and Chris as my top three. They're never going to win the title, the three of them. Dude, they have. Think about this for a second. They have no backup point guard. Oh, come on. Austin Rivers. He's listening.

Okay. And Pablo Prigioni. He's 100 years old. There's like an invisible shield in front of him doesn't allow him to shoot ever and then they have no backup center or backup four and it's a league where there's 80 point guards so they have five point guards anywhere right jared bayless they could just find this guy somewhere anyone sitting around cj watson maybe they could pick maybe i help doc maybe he'll pick up cj watson for me but think they're gonna play a team that needs

luke richard and baamute to guard the team's best three like let's say oklahoma city he can't believe he's getting called listen to this for a second so that's their best four yeah l that's their best backup for luke richard yeah but he has to play the three because their actual four paul pierce can't stay in front of any threes right and so now he has to guard abaca how's this team ever going to win anything like these people are are so out of they're so out they're realistic there's just they have to make a trade because if they're not going to take blake and make him a backup and play him first off the bench which is what they should do because they can't play all of them together anyways and they need to stagger their minutes if they're not going to do that then the gm has to

help the coach out and get some depth because they need some depth. They're the same person. I know, but I'm trying to like, he, maybe he doesn't know he's the same person. He's never been able to figure out how to get five guys who can win a game in the last four minutes. He's has all these different guys, but they never have found the fifth guy. Even last year was Barnes. It's like, I don't know. He's also got Lawrence Frank running his defense, which is a helping matters.

Cole Aldrich, first backup center off the bench versus a team like Oklahoma City that crashes the boards. Good luck. Yeah, good luck with that. Last question, then we'll go. You're running the Utah Jets. I call you up and I offer the Brooklyn pick and David Lee's expiring contract. Why do I have to take David Lee's expiring contract?

Because I have to make the salaries match for Gordon Hayward. No. I don't do that. You don't do that for Utah? No. Brooklyn pick isn't guaranteed to be a terrific pick. What else do I have to throw in? Can I throw in the Dallas pick that's going to be number 18?

I don't know. I just think that first of all, I like Gordon Hayward. I think he's a very good player. That's why I'm trying to make an offer for him. Yeah, you got to give, I don't know. I don't think you have the stuff to make it happen. I don't know. I don't know how that would.

So you wouldn't trade Gordon Hayward? No. I mean, I would trade him for some players, but I wouldn't trade him for a draft pick, even if that draft pick was guaranteed. I mean, if your draft pick was guaranteed to be number one or number two, after the draft order's already been established and you want to make a trade for it's unprotected i get it but it's still a gamble and i don't know that now if that pick ends up being like five or six now you've just traded gordon hayward for a five or six pick i tried to neg his value on twitter last week everyone caught

on yeah i know twitter's too smart now it really is twitter's at the same time too smart and too annoying it's like a very oh it's the worst place on earth it's like a girlfriend who knows you thrive on it it's like a girlfriend

who knows she's better than you and she's still with you and she makes you makes you feel the pain all the time so I'm not getting Gordon Hayward

no okay maybe it's my dream I think he's the one I don't think we can get Boogie I think the Kings minority owners will throw their body

in front of a Boogie trade somehow they might be able to get Boogie I don't think we can get Boogie. I think the Kings minority owners will throw their bodies in front of a Boogie trade somehow. They might be able to get Boogie. I don't know. That team is... Would you want Boogie? Do I want Boogie? I do, right? I don't think you'd want to mess with the cool flow that the team has.

I can get one guy, though, right? It just feels like they have such a good... I don't know. Maybe it would work. He didn't like Isaiah Thomas before. He doesn't like him now. No, that's not true. They like each other. He's not in shape, is my fear with him. I watch't know. Maybe it would work. He didn't like Isaiah Thomas before. He doesn't like him now. No, that's not true. They like each other.

He's not in shape is my fear with him. I watch these games. Barkley said it when he was on the pod two weeks ago, and I agreed. Barkley was calling someone out of shape. I know. Barkley knows. Talk about the kettle. He knows, though.

That's the thing. You can spot it. Thanks to Slender Tone for sponsoring today's podcast. If you want firmer, stronger abs, try abs try slender tones smart fitness device that tones and tightens your abs using clinically proven ems technology you'll get firmer more toned abs in less than six weeks maybe six weeks go to slendertone.com offer code bs for 20 off at checkout it's great i highly recommend it thanks to stamps.com for allowing me to break up with the post office. I buy and print my own us postage using my own computer printer. You can too get a four week trial plus a $110 bonus offer includes postage

and a digital scale. Go to stamps.com. Click on the microphone at the top type in BS. Thanks to HBO. Now download the HBO app. Start your free one month trial today. Thanks to SeatGeek, the presenting sponsor of the Bill Simmons Podcast and Channel 33. And thanks to my man, Bob Valgaris.

That was fun. Yeah, for sure. We hit everything, right? I feel like we did. I think so, too. All right. So tomorrow night, like 12 games, 13 games? Flying out tomorrow night.

Oh, you're flying out. You're missing the Wednesdays. I'm on a 13-hour flight out of here. All right. Just here for a day. Yeah, it'll be fun. All right. Great to see you. Great to do this in person talk to you soon we about this bitch anytime y'all want to see me again rewind this track right here close your eyes and picture me rolling