The Bill Simmons Podcast - Free-Market Zion, the Madness Lap, Philly's Talent Glut, and Club Alpha Dogs With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the yearly sports lap, March Madness, Zion Williamson and sports activists, NBA playoff projections, a deep MVP race, All-NBA teams, mailbag questions, a new edition of "Gym Corner," and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the podcast that we still haven't named with Ryan Russillo is brought to you as always by ZipRecruiter. The best teams start with great talent like Duke. They just went and got great talent. Now they're a number one seed. They have a generational player in Zion. That was easy. You know what else is easy?

ZipRecruiter. They deliver qualified candidates fast. They understand talent. So effective. 80% of employers who post on ZipCruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day. My listeners can try it for free. Go to zipcruiter.com slash BS. ZipCruiter is the smartest way to hire. Meanwhile, Yahoo Sports, it's the middle of March. Madness is here. As soon as you know

who you're picking, head to Yahoo Sports, fill out your free bracket for a chance to have America's best bracket. This year, it's worth $1 million. $1 million, Kyle. That's a payday right there. You're going to have to fill one out. Remember, you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be the best. Someone is going to be the closest.

Someone's going to win. Might as well be you. Join the rest of the country for a chance at a million dollars. Sign up for Tourney Pick'Em. Get started. Go to yahoo.com slash best bracket to get picking uh our one shiny podcast crew they did a podcast last night right after the brackets came out mark titus wrote about his favorite scenarios for the ringer.com today and on the ringers twitter

feed we are doing a live bracket show that is about to happen by the time you hear this podcast. It will have already happened, but you can go on our Twitter, which is at ringer and watch it. If you want to see those guys make fun of each other. What's Tate's back situation like these days? Is it brutal? I mean, he's upright. He looks good to me. Okay, good.

All right. Tate's in rounding into madness form. So we got that. We have also, speaking of Titus, his old AAU teammate, once upon a time, Mike Conley is on this latest episode of Winging It with Baze and VC and Annie. So check that out. We have new rewatchables coming this week. I think, I don't know what day it's going up, but we did The Natural, which I used to think was the greatest sports movie of all time. Not so sure now, but me and Miley Rubin

did one of the all-time deep dives. And it was way racier than I thought it was going to be. I got to be honest, this is almost an R-rated podcast. There's a lot of talk about Roy Hobbs' sex life. It's all over the map. We tried to figure out his stats, which I tried to do in 2001 for Page Two's ESPN, ESPN.com,

and realized 18 years later that I screwed it up when I tried to figure out the stats. So we did a better job of that this time around. Also tried to figure out if it is still the greatest baseball movie of all time or if it's something else. But this was a great podcast. Valerie really brought it to the table.

I think she's been watching too much Game of Thrones. Coming up, we're going to talk to Ryan Rosillo for the weekly edition of our NBA talk. We have some possible names for this pot. I'm going to throw it in. But before we get to that, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Ryan Rosillo is here.

We do this every week through mid-July. He also hosts Dual Threat, a podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. March Madness, let's just get it over with in 10 seconds. I don't care about your bracket. You don't care about mine. Neither of us have any idea who's going to win. It'll be really fun to watch Duke. And those are all my opinions.

Yeah, the only thing I'd add to that is, um, you know, this, the college basketball guys that are real college basketball guys. And I used to be one and now I'm just not, I watch all NBA games and then I try to throw on an NBA lottery picks game whenever I can. Like when I went a month or so before I'd seen John Moran, I'm like, all right, we need to get some eyes on this guy. So for college basketball guys to hear all of us talk about how bad the seating is because we watched basketball for one week. It's got to just kill them. It must be the worst. Yeah. And I'm thinking of specific people just screaming about Michigan State seating. And you're like, you literally watched the Big Ten tournament. And now you haven't looked at any of the other 30 games. You don't know any of the resumes and your looked at like any of the other 30 games you don't know any of the resumes and your outrage and that's the other thing too is that with the seating

let's say 30 of the arguments they're personal and they're completely isolated they're your argument you're you're you're one you're mad you're so pissed off that you're a six and not a five and you're completely ignoring like what the other 30 moving pieces are besides the automatic bids yeah i turned 50 this year and in some ways i love sports exactly how i used to and then in other ways i'm just having done the lap year after year just kind of like what's the lap the lap is just like every year we do this and it's the same arguments and the same things. And then we get to the actual tournament. It's like, oh my God, a 13 beat a four. It's like, yeah, these kids are 19 and 20.

It's one game. They don't know what the fuck's going to happen in 10 minutes from now, these kids. So it's so to, to make, to make like, you actually know what's going to happen with 19, 20 and 21 year old kids is insane. And it took me years and years to realize that. But like Sal, we always talk, he wants to do a thousand bets. He'll do these parlays with the higher seeds and one of them won't blow it. And he's like, outrage. It's like, what'd you expect? These kids are, they're babies. No, that's, that's the best part of it. And that, that four days, the Thursday,

Friday into the Saturday and Sunday, it really is my favorite thing. I love it. It's so much fun. I don't know if there's anything in sports I like better than that. But I don't take it personally. I don't get, like, when people get outraged. Doing this job, like, I don't care.

How are they a five seed? They shouldn't have been higher than seven. It's like, who cares? Come on. That's kind of how I feel. Just wait till Thursday. And we can look at certain regions and be like okay this one i just don't know that you understand what it's like to be in that room and try to place these 64 68 teams and i hate that

it's the extra four i hate that people are like no you better get it on tuesday yeah round one starts tuesday like no it doesn't yeah it starts on thursday no never mind stop pretending um the lap thing though is, is really good. Cause it does play back into the whole, like, how do we fix this? How do we fix this? And when you looked at the bubble this year, the bubble was so bad. And when people start saying, well, look at the expansion of the other leagues and look at how college football has expanded, you know, people that want to double this up.

I don't need a 10 and 18 team in there. I just don't that, that had a decent, you know, conference, uh, in a, and 18 team in there i just don't that that had a decent you know conference uh in a in a tougher conference so i like i'm talking about this as a guy that knew he was just peering in at college basketball sporadically throughout the season for for titus and tate they must lose their minds they must lose their minds listening to people the last 24 hours i can you could talk me into like 96 before i agreed to 68 why do you want 96 it's just like 68 so stupid at that point just have like 128 or 96 and just have a whole extra round like i think seaton hall at 6 and 12 was sneaky tough you know

like i don't i don't want to have i don't want to see billis arguing 6 and 12 seat and haul with anybody. The old days when, so when I was a kid, I think it was 32. That was right before I got there. My dad went to Holy Cross, which is where I ended up going. But Holy Cross was good in the 70s. Holy Cross used to be awesome at everything. Yeah. Well, you know. But they made it, and I think they advanced.

I can't even remember at this point. It was 40 years ago. But it was like a big deal to make the 32. And then if you advance, it's like you're four wins away from winning the title all of a sudden. You know, now it's like, I don't get outraged by it. I still love it. I'm with you. I don't get outraged.

But the lap thing is really good because when you sit there and you'll think, like, I heard somebody saying, if Kay doesn't win with this group, it'll be the worst season he's ever had. And you're like, wait a minute. They're all babies and as great as Zion is. And it was so much fun. I watched, Zion was appointment watching this entire week. Whatever I was doing, I was like, I gotta make sure I'm there to watch that. We're gonna talk about him in a little bit.

But they can't shoot. They have no bench. They had this one white kid that comes out whose only role is to be scared the whole time now. Are we sure Coach K can still coach really well? I couldn't believe how... Well, it was without Zion in the second UNC game, but I was really surprised.

How does he not recruit more three-point shooters in 2019? Normally, I think he has had it covered. How do you not have four white dudes who all they can do is hit 25- do is hit 25 footers? The problem is when you're going to get the number one, number three, and number four pick perhaps in the draft and you bring them in. So go, go. I actually, I haven't liked Barrett and Reddish as much, but I know we're going to do all the Zion stuff later. How do they not go to, how does he not go to like Evansville and just find some, some kid who made 27 threes in a row and some division two high school. I don't know.

Because he's crazy. Because he's probably looking around and he's looking at his bench. He goes, I don't have one guy that's absolutely hated by the entire country. This is weird. What did we do wrong? I was reading Titus's bracket preview today

and he was talking about Purdue is playing, I think Villanova or somebody in round two potentially. It's two teams that jack up a ton of threes. And I was thinking like this was the easiest way for Holy Cross to come back. If you're just like just an entire team of three-point shooters, that's all you're doing is looking for kids around the country that shoot threes and you shoot like 50 threes a game. Like has Moriball trickled into college basketball that way yet?

Because we've seen the super gimmicky version in like Div 2, but has like a mid-level college team just said, screw it, we're shooting 63s a game. That one, I don't know. I don't know that off the top of my head. Seems like it would be a decent plan for a Holy Cross, right? Yeah.

Or like a Lehigh. Sounds more like a Holy Cross segment. Or Pepperdine. Like one of these whack schools that never makes it because you're gonna come to pepperdine you're gonna look at the beach every day and we're taking 63 yeah that's great that's like you could sell that um i have a couple we have a lot to get to today oh about the lap let's just quickly i love the lap i like this theory well it's not even a theory. It's a real thing. It's a scheduling of events to complain about. Another thing I don't get been out of shape anymore that I just, I've done the lap too many times. So the DNCA, we're not changing the NCAA. It's not happening. So you, you joke about

this on Twitter all the time. This is the Zion stuff. The last couple of weeks is incredible. These, these,. These sports activists. Yes. He's like, Zion, he doesn't know them anything. It's like, Zion likes playing basketball and he likes his teammates. We've talked about this before. Yeah, what a fucking concept. We're not changing the NCAA.

It's never happening. I've done the lap now a million times with Goodell in the NFL. And I was really in it, obviously. And it ended up from a career standpoint, maybe cost me a couple of times, but- Do you regret any of that? I don't. All right. Because I was going to say, as you say, it would cost me a little bit. It cost me money. I'm still focused on the two-week salary I lost. But we're never changing

the NFL the way we would want to change it. They're never really going to care. They're going to pretend they care. They're never really going to care. They're never really going to make it that much safer. And ultimately these guys are making the decision to play in the NFL and you get paid. And I just give up. Well,

I've already given up on that. So that's what I'm saying. I've done the lap and now, now it's like, all right, some of the Roger Goodell stuff that comes out out now and i don't know if this is okay to say it like one time i wrote this thing when i filled in for oberman where i kind of made a point where i stuck up for goodell the writers were like hey we're kind of the show that doesn't stick up

for goodell so can you not have that be in your monologue can you tweak that um it just it just turned to this thing like anything like oh you know kareem, and here we go again. What's up, Roger? And you go, you know, Roger's the one that's, he's not hitting anybody. You guys understand that, right? Yeah. And when they're like, I think Charles Pierce had a piece up recently that goes the double standard with NFL owners and players. You'd be like, oh, wait a minute. So the people in charge have a different conduct policy than the guys that work for them?

No way. That's crazy. Which country is this report from so i'm i don't think that people are necessarily wrong to point it out but i like you have given up on some of this stuff like i don't know the ncaa will slowly give in a little bit more and a little bit more no no i think the money is right but i think some of the money stuff but it's like the mafia but for the entire structure to be torn down, which is really what my whole Zion point was, it was the sports activists weren't thinking about Zion. They were thinking, how can something happen that damages the NCAA that I don't like? So I want the NCAA to be ruined. So I want something bad to happen to them. I want Zion to not play. That hurts the NCAA. I feel better about myself. And it's like, yeah, but you've completely ignored the part where the guy who plays sports his whole life likes playing sports

and wants to actually try to win a championship. Yeah, and wants to create memories for the rest of his life the time he won a national championship. Imagine being a college kid. Imagine being a freshman and being him, the best player in the country, and going,

eh, I'm just going to jump on boxes and post it on Instagram for the next few months to get ready for the draft. And I don't want, I'll watch that on TV because I have a chance to go do that and dominate, but I don't want it. But where does this end? So now let's say Zion decides he's not going to play in the NCAA tournament. Doesn't want to. Somebody's going to do it. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

Zion becomes the number one pick. And then he's like, you know what? I'm not, I'm, I'm only making like 90 years, the number one pick, but five years from now I can make 40. So I'm going to take it easy these five years too. I'll see you when I'm age 27. I'm going to, I'm going to do the Anthony Davis Pelicans routine. Hey, I'm just, I'm going to play limited minutes, 25 minutes a game. We'll get a lot of lottery picks. And then when I get paid, that's when I'm really going to try. When do we stop? This is all the stuff. And I remember like one time when I brought it up and it was like, oh, you know, I just, whenever I think about some of these things, I think like, where does that end?

And then I got pulled aside at ESPN and they were like, you know, just be careful with the way you phrase that because it has a lot to do with segregation in the 50s, that phrase of when it is. I go, wait a minute. So now we're doing that. I go, we're doing that. So if I have like a 50s, if I have a parent teacher conference don't have a kid but if i had one yeah and said hey you know i just think it's like for the greater good does that mean i'm malse tongue like what what what are we doing here on the like

i actually got pulled aside for phrasing of something and then that meant like you know a little dicey there mississippi and i'm like what the fuck so i think what you just said is a great like further examining the tipping point of this of and i don't know who came up with load management but it's horrible but if zion decides you know it's really about the second deal so i'm like i'm whoever drafts me and then he decides it's about the third deal yeah i. I go, I want to be capped at 50. I read it. I read a really good article on True Hoop. Yeah. And I want to play like 50 games max a season the first five years. I'm only going to make 40 million my first four years.

But I could make 240. Why do I want to risk it? It's all so stupid. I know this sounds stupid, but these are the kind of things I think of too, where I go, there has to be a point where you go, oh wait, that actually might be bad. That might be bad. We're at this point with the Zion thing. But it didn't happen.

There's no debate. People are like, well, it's a healthy debate. It's like, no, it's not. It's not a healthy debate to tell somebody who's 100% to not play basketball when he loves to play basketball. There's nothing healthy about that. He's going to make 300 plus million dollars with his shoe contract. Zion's fine. Don't bring the violins out for Zion. The contract, the shoe contract that he signs will be the biggest we've ever had.

And maybe, well, you can't say. There's probably somebody else coming who's going to be maybe even greater than him, but he's certainly the best prospect since LeBron. I have him over Davis now. Okay, so that's, do we want to just do this then? No, no, I want to, I have two more lap things I want to throw you. Okay. NBA All-Star weekend, I'm done.

I don't want to have any, I've tried, I tried to save it for the entire 2000s. Horse, slam dunk, bring amateurs, I'm out. NBA groupies, the NBA groupies, female game. You know what? It's going to be- Is that outdated now? Can you not say that say that which one when you said you should just have a five on five female groupies play each other and the game's mvp gets a chance to sleep with whatever player

was that is that uncool now did i say that yeah was that back in my archives oh jesus i have to apologize for that i don I don't think I said that. We're going to get research. We're going to get the IT team on this. I swear to God, how would I remember that wrong? Because I remember thinking how funny it was. And now maybe I have to apologize. That was back in the days when people could be funny.

No, it's like, yeah, anything. Yeah, three years ago, we were good. The all-star game I've done. Here's another thing I'm done with, and this is a personal example for something that's happened this weekend. Soccer, the penalty kicks. None of us like it, but nobody's

been able to come up with a better solution. My daughter just lost the National Cup on Saturday. This game, they dominate second half. They dominate extra time. The other team's coaches start subbing to basically get to PKs because the odds are better. Get dominate extra time. The other team's coaches start subbing to basically get to PKs because the odds are better. Get to PKs.

I think 16 kids kick before we finally lost. We had eight kids. I mean, it was like the first five were tied because the third round and we lost. It was devastating. Everybody's crying. Did you cry? I didn't cry. I felt really bad. I'm not going to judge you or think less.

I felt really bad. My daughter was really upset. So when your kid's really upset, it definitely hurts. Um, I don't know how else we could have done it. What are they going to play for four hours? I get the only other move is maybe remove two kids or maybe go nine on nine,

but then I don't know. So my point is I've done the lap on the soccer thing. A thousand. I don't, there's no solution like penalty kicks suck lap on the soccer thing a thousand i don't there's no solution like penalty kicks suck and that's just the way we have to do it what other laps do you have the college football expanding thing that you know whenever that happens and it's like oh we left everybody out or we left i still think it's kind of silly the con the conference presidents agreed to something where it's like you guys realize that no matter what happens every year,

like one, maybe two of you are going to be screwed on this, and you're agreeing to this at a time. But they move in slow motion with everything they do. But I don't really know that I want eight. And every time it comes up, because if we're doing bracket-busting last four in and last four out with college basketball, those are teams 69 through 72 i can't even fathom what it would be like if we go to eight in college football and then it's like

team 13 thinks they have an argument right and to me you're like that's what the 12 games were for the force seems like it's worked pretty well yeah people would rather have eight people rather have eight so i'm not if eight happens, I'm not going to freak. Could you go six and have a bye week for the top two? You could. You could, but like- That'll probably happen. People look at UCF and go, it's a shame.

Like, I'm not that guy. I go, this is a chance to play for the national championship. And there shouldn't be five automatic bids and then the best non-five. Because some years, that team that's in the best non-five, you're going to be like, what are we doing here with this yeah so that's one college football recruiting is another one no matter how they change the date another coach does some sit down with a writer who's like actually the way they should do it is this way and if they did it that way and changed it then next week another coach from a different conference would go well the problem with this is because it's just no one's

aligned so that's why sometimes you just have to be harsh and go here's the date everyone shut up sorry that there are problems with it you know like it's almost like a budget plan with some of this stuff right like if i had to write up a budget plan for the town i lived in there's no question that people could pick apart 20 different things in it but it's like you're only it's almost like the beginning of this conversation you're only looking at your team seating and your team's argument and all these things and uh that's that's why this stuff is hard that's why this stuff is hard to come to any consensus whatsoever i don't have to do a budget plan though so i'm not worried about it i'm trying to think if i have anything else for a lap i wish it by i've given up on this too but i

wish the world cup was more frequent than every four years i've heard all the reasons for it and i've kind of given up on fighting for it but but it just feels like- Logistically, that's not, it's not an, I'm asking this. I don't know. I wish the Olympics and the World Cup were every three years. And I've said this over and over again, and it will never change in our lifetime, but it just seems like everybody loves those two things. They're this great litmus test for what countries matter. Like, why do we have to wait four years to find out who the fastest person is? Do you feel less about yourself as an American when we don't do as well in the Olympics?

No, I don't care. Right, but that was weird that you just- I used to care. I used to count them up, be like, ah, Russia. I remember 84. Yeah, are you kidding me? Those wusses from Russia didn't show up. We're dominating.

And then I remember my father reading me excerpts of like Russia had their own Olympics in 84 when theyussia didn't show up we're dominating and then i remember my father reading the excerpts like russia had their own olympics in 84 when they decided not to show up and they were like smoking us in certain events be like oh my god this guy just threw the shot put so much further like because russia just had like their own little deal um oh speaking of that that's another lap that i'm done with i don't care about the baseball hall of fame anymore i used to like really really care and it led to a bunch of pieces I wrote on ESPN.com. And then the book of basketball was Wally Ramsey's idea to blow up the baseball hall of fame.

How did that work for basketball? All these guys should be in. And the fact that they're not in has ruined the hall of fame for me. I can't believe I could go to Cooperstown and Barry Bonds. There's just no record of him playing baseball or Roger Clemens or A-Rod. These guys just aren't going to be in the hall of fame. What the fuck is the point? Just put it on their plaque. How hard is this? Yeah. The Rose one, I actually have an issue with. Pete Rose? Yeah. I would never want him in. But he should be in, in some form. He had the most hits. But what does that mean? Like,

does it mean, like i've been a couple times what's the point of the hall of fame it's to learn everything about i actually like michael jackson's out uh because he's because because of the all the stuff let's leave it at that but so now michael jackson's out like at some point a hall of fame is a museum where you go and you learn about what the sport or the genre or whatever you're there for. It's the duty of it. But see, like that's the thing is I don't need instructions.

Like I know when I show up, Barry isn't there. I would vote for those guys. I would never vote for Pete. But do we really think these guys were the only people that cheated at sports? We don't think NBA stars have done PEDs. Yeah,

but that's, we don't think NFL players have done PEDs. Yeah, but that's... We don't think NFL players have done PEDs. Like, why are we singling out these dudes? Right, but that's stupid. That's hearsay versus like absolute proof.

We don't have proof with some of these guys. Bonds? Not a... Who's the one we don't totally... Like Ortiz was in that

New York Times thing, but we don't know if he actually... We just know it was like a substance. We don't know what it was. Ortiz has always gotten a pass, which is always kind of weird. But Ortiz might not get in because he was in that New York times thing.

I don't know. It feels like the public never takes like shots at him the way that they do other guys. Like that when Piazza got in, it was like, wow, you might not get in because you know, it was like, we think he might've taken steroids. So he's not going to get in because you know it's like we think he might have taken steroids so he's not gonna get in now yeah but that's i think the whole baseball thing is like far more obvious even if there's not just hey here's a positive piss test in front of you where basketball we just don't talk about the sport that way it's it's harder for us to register like wait a minute why is this guy like we don't have these years where all of a sudden a guy who scored eight a game scored 28 a game.

But do you think the baseball guys did anything wrong? There was no rule before 2004. Like being illegal probably would have. They didn't break a rule. Well, baseball rule and law are two different things, aren't they? But like, so if somebody corks their bat, or like Gaylord Perry, like he broke rules too. Like I'm not even anti the steroid guys.

I really am not. But I can understand how, like when I go through and look at some of the records, like I was looking at a baseball reference the other day. I was just going through it. Yeah. Because I was like, you know, I just remember being in the backyard

and knowing every one of those numbers. And I was like, that's funny. I don't know those numbers anymore because I don't care. And so I could understand an old school baseball guy being like, I don't want to vote for these dudes or this generation of guys that kind of threw chaos in this whole thing. I personally would vote for him. I know that if I went and saw a plaque of a guy, I would know the difference. I would, I just, again, like I don't need my handheld. What if it came out, what if it came out that multiple NBA stars, there was some whole PD thing, some biogenesis clinic somewhere and these guys bought whatever. And now we know if they were the best players, I would, I would still want them. I mean, look, everybody gets into the basketball hall of fame. There's part of me that actually respects the baseball hall

of fame a little bit more, not because of the steroid thing, because it's just harder to get into. I like that it's harder to get into. David West is going to be a basketball Hall of Famer. I had to think about it for a second. Marcus Smart might make it. I don't know what the bottom threshold is. If you started on a conference

finalist, you might make the basketball Hall of Fame. If you're 15 years in the league and you won a title in the NBA. Lou Williams, Hall of Famer. When you said David West, I had to go. Wait a second. It's why Jamison might make the Hall of Fame. He might because I don't know what his total numbers are,

but I'd have to go and look at some of the numbers. Vince Carter for a while, everybody loves Vince Carter now Vince Carter's in. Yeah. When it was five years ago before it just turned into like a love fest that he was still out there and playing. Yeah. I'm like, what's his playoff moment.

What's like Vince Carter's going to get in. But to me at what point, like Vince Carter was a fun dunker, but beyond that, you didn't, he wasn't scary. 20,000 points. And Oh,

I know he's in. I know. I'm trying to do the resume. Really? Really? Uh, points and oh I know he's in I know I'm trying to do the resume really really uh I think him and C-Web were probably the two guys from the last 20 years that I just feel like their career should have been better and C-Web at least had the whole run with the Kings and he was first team all-nba like VC was never first team all-nba he was never I don't think a top three or four MVP candidate I can't think of a year that he was because at first he comes out on the scene you know like this is awesome right

those first few years are so much fun with vince and then the first real controversy he had was the graduation thing you know when i don't think we realized like how bad the east was like we thought the east was bad some of the more the The Celtics almost made it the next year. That was one of the worst. I mean, that was- It was bad, I would say, the last two years. 500 team. But I look back at some of those teams and we were like, we were so excited about Milwaukee. And you're like, wow.

Wait, I have thoughts on this. Let's take a quick break. Let's take a break to talk about To Kill a Mockingbird. You might remember Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin, the legend, was on this show earlier this year discussing his long career and all the great movies and television shows he made, including The West Wing, Social Network, A Few Good Men. Well, he also discussed his new play on Broadway, which is an adaptation of one of my daughter's favorite books, Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning To Kill a Mockingbird since Aaron was last on the show To Kill a Mockingbird had set a record as the highest grossing American play in Broadway history.

Selected as a Critics Pick by the New York Times, called one of the great plays in history by NPR. Two-time Emmy Award winner Jeff Daniels from the newsroom in Dumb and Dumber. That's how I know him as well. Yeah, definitely. He stars live on stage as Atticus Finch. Variety said it's one of the greatest stage successes

of this or any Broadway season. Has not played to a single empty seat. My daughter and my wife are going to be in New York City this spring. I can't get tickets. I have to ask Aaron Sorkin.

Be like, hey, remember we did that podcast? Could I have some tickets? To kill a mockingbird, one of Broadway's hottest tickets in a long time. Yeah, it's tough

to get her the next few weeks, but good seats are available directly from the show's website for performances beginning this June. So if you want to go over the summer, go to the show's official website address, to killamockingbirdbroadway.com. I think when we talk about the NBA sometimes, and especially with the All-NBA, I noticed this when I was doing my book. And now these last 10 years, now that there's been another talent explosion, and you kind of look back at, you know, you talk about that 2000 to 2003 stretch.

There was another really bad stretch, I think, in the mid-, um, where the league kind of ebbs and flows with the talent for whatever reason. And like that Milwaukee team, it was Ray Allen, big dog, Glenn Robinson, Sam Cassell. Those, that was like their kind of big three. Not really that great. That team really should have made the finals in 2001. They won 50. They were the two seed. They won 52 games. Yeah. And again, that's that Sixers team. That's one of the great Stern might've, don't know if he fixed it, but definitely the referees were instructed to call certain things, certain ways, series Philly shot, I think like 90 more free throws in that series than Milwaukee something like that 85 but yeah it was a seven seven game series yeah like I I remember being excited about these teams and now when I think about the depth and sometimes this is kind of

being caught up not in the moment so it's Ray Cassell and Tim Thomas was on that team right but you know whatever Lindsey Hunter but think about the 0-3 finals 0-3 finals, the Spurs beat the Nets Spurs, Duncans, they're only like Hall of Famer, All-NBA guy in the team, Steven Jackson really young Parker, really young Manu, and a broken down David Robinson

and they ended up beating the Nets, so we had J.K. Kittles Kenny Martin, Richard Jefferson, Todd McCullough. Like the teams, I just think the teams now have so much more talent. Yeah, think about that team on paper. And I don't like doing the time traveling thing too much because I still think there's just a three-point part of it where you go. I can't imagine what guys, if you did the time machine thing, you dropped them into a game, they would go like, whatever. But if you just looked at it from like a talent on paper and you put that team in the East today,

and that's the thing that I kind of like about this year's, the whole season is that the top teams in the East are awesome. I think these teams are all really good. Top four. Three and a half, maybe. Top four. And then it's really a shame Oladipo got hurt because I really think that,

I think we would add a top five. You're still counting the Celtics, huh? Yeah, why not? How long did it take us, Kyle, to get to the Celtics? No, I don't want to talk about the Celtics. Good. What did you learn from the Philly-Milwaukee game yesterday? Great question.

Here's my number one lesson was- So you'll go first. No, no. I'm just, this wouldn't be in your top three. Here's my number one lesson. So you'll go first. No, no. I'm just, this wouldn't be in your top three. No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead. I think Malcolm Brogdon

is just really good and I'm shocked by how much they miss him in a game like that. What did you learn? Two things. I keep watching Philly trying to figure out

how they're going to figure it out. And what I've realized is this is what it's going to be. It's just every, it's just going to be right. You never know. That's kind of the point. And yesterday was clearly let's get Butler going. Right.

And Butler was really good against Sacramento too. So he's had a good week and his overall numbers. If you just looked at his numbers, you go like, what's the point? What's the problem with Jimmy Butler? Like, look at these numbers,

19 a game. The shooting's okay. Uh, like what's the point what's the problem with jimmy butler like look at these numbers 19 a game the shooting's okay shots uh i just think there's going to be nights where he looks bad or simmons looks bad or maybe tobias and tobias's shot numbers are still pretty good but in beads consistently always going to get his the rest of those guys are just going to be a collection where they're just going to have to deal with the disappointment of having a bad night and that's how it's going to look through the rest of the regular season that's how it's going to look through the playoffs and expecting this thing to miraculously gel in some way where everybody's getting theirs and everybody's playing off of each

other i don't think that's ever going to happen that's okay it's still okay it still may work based on what you just said right now uh first round they're down 2-1 there's five minutes left and they're playing who? Brooklyn? Detroit. Yeah, the Detroit- But they're Detroit. Nobody can believe this series. They're down 2-1. Detroit. The crowd's going nuts. Five minutes left. Who's the I got this guy in Philly?

Who says I got this at that moment? I feel like it's Jimmy Butler. Well, Jimmy is the most experienced, kind of confident guy in a situation where things are unraveling yeah for jimmy i think it'll be him looking at okay who's checking me here because really if you look at those two matchups i think brooklyn would have more options to check them um you know simmons may go hey let me just let me get let's get him beat out and i'm

gonna go post somebody i mean mean, I actually like that. I like that from Simmons all the time. but Embiid is like, you know, they said a double at Embiid and Embiid tries to dribble. Like that's the only, like I have two minor knocks on Embiid.

The three pointers are outrageous. It's, he's shooting 12% this month on him. I think he was 29% last month. And it's almost like five attempts now. I was looking at it this morning. So, those threes,

now you can make an argument that that up fake, I can't believe how many bigs show and bite for his up fake at three-point line. Something about it. They go for it. Spooky. It's slow. It's hypnotizing.

So it does actually allow him to use that up fake. I mean, it sounds insane at his size, like 7'2", up fake, like shot fake into dribble drive from the three-point line, but it works. So I don't know if there's a part of you where you go, let's let him take a couple to keep everybody honest.

But if he just took three less of those a game, those are the other shots for those guys. Take zero. Take none. He shot it really well his rookie year. It's declined since. Get out of here. Or the first year he played.

Every time he takes that, the other team is delighted. I just know when the Celtics play him, I stand out there from 25 feet keep taking them five five games too many two i think one of games too many i'd like him to give two of those to like hey if i'm gonna miss these ben we'd like you to miss a couple just to to get more comfortable they are so fucking talented they're so good and that's why i think if it's right and even if it doesn't perfectly gel i think my my question back to you would be i don't i'm not gonna be shocked if philadelphia gets out of the east but you think that they're fragile still you still think they're fragile enough that they would get freaked out like i don't think they'd lose to detroit or brooklyn really but i could

see it being weird because they haven't closed there's times where i still look at them and i go i don't know how well they're gonna play off so The playoffs are tough. We saw it last year in that Celtics-Philly series. You can have more talent and it doesn't matter. The crowds are different. The pressure's different. The pace of the series is different. Teams get really used to what you do over the course of a series. And if you don't have a great coach who can mix stuff up, that's a hindrance. And my fear with this team i still don't like the five together at the end that they play i don't i don't feel like they've figured that out completely i don't know where reddick fits in as the fifth and i'm not sure he does even though on paper he does but when i actually watch it it just doesn't maybe my brain's just not recognizing it correctly but it

just doesn't feel right for me those five guys reddick's probably not going to get the shots that he should get i mean as good as reddick's i don't know when it first started so i'm not acting like i just noticed this but i've never seen a shooter have as horrible a base like dirk used to be that way dirk all the way legs knees hips it could all be wrong shoulders could be wrong and he would still get it square on on the release and it was beautiful reddick is catching these things full speed floating sideways and hitting these shots he had an air ball in that game yesterday i was like that's what it should look like all this is such a hard shot and he's doing this so i think it's all hand i yeah reddick's whole role now is just to whip around these and hope to

get a handoff. Mike Scott's been really good for them. The bench has been fine. Like worries about the bench. I think after his Boban's good. Would you like this team more if they had made the Harris trade, but never made the Butler trade? Yeah,

probably. And they had Covington and Sarich and just more or whatever. Just a ton of size. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know maybe I don't know that seems because then Butler you're right about Butler like there are certain guys that take the shot because they think they're supposed to

he really he really believes he's the one who should take it nothing would annoy me more than like a B tier a tier whatever you want to say star who just saw the Jordan ads and grew up with Jordan. And then he'd take an awful, awful shot.

And he'd be like, well, at least I'm not afraid. And like the rest of us were, he's really good. He's, I don't know what goes on with him when they're not playing. And I don't know if he,

if he'll be happy unless he's really prominently involved in these playoff games, but they have a lot of talent, man. Yeah. I'm not, by the way, And I don't know if he'll be happy unless he's really prominently involved in these playoff games. But they have a lot of talent, man. Yeah, just with his stuff. By the way, I'm not breaking news with that. But man, when you watch a game like yesterday, and Giannis puts up 50 plus, and they were never really, I don't know, they almost got within two.

But it felt like Philly was going to win. I watched the second half again last night because I felt like I wasn't really locked in. I wasn't doing stuff. So it was like, it felt like Philly was going to win. I watched the second half again last night. Cause I felt like I wasn't really locked in doing stuff. So I was like, watch. So when you're sitting there going, okay, he's about to have 35 points in the second half. Let's watch him and count them and keep track and see. And it was so effortless. It's like, it's, it's not, it's like young Shaq.

He just gets points. 35 in the second half. And it didn't even seem that crazy. Like he wasn't hot. No, it was all like flow of the game. His threes, you know, he hit a couple of threes, which is always nice for him, but the way he can step and you don't really know what to do. I mean, there's different ways that these guys are unguardable now.

Yeah. And with Giannis, like he had that dunk where he came back right and finished his step left looked like he may walk out of bounds and yet he stopped himself on like a full speed step to his left and then got himself settled stopped and then got into the air and finished with a right-handed dunk and i don't know it might have been a beat or bobon or somebody and they just like looked and went what and? And then how about him calling Simmons a fucking baby? And that wasn't about you either. That was Ben.

Yeah, maybe he got confused. That was kind of, I didn't know he did that. Had you seen that from him before? Yeah, there's a little bit of, I've seen it a couple of times. There's a little fuck you in him, which I like. And I think any great player has to have. Oh no, I'm all. He did come out a couple of times in There's a little fuck you in them, which I like, and I think any great player has to have. Oh, no, I'm all. He'd simply come out

a couple of times in the games I've seen. But Embiid has it too. And, you know, if that's, when would that be? So that would be Philly right now

is 45 and 25. They're three seed. Indy's 44 and 26. Boston's 43 and 27. There's still a chance this could flip around. Actually, let's just do this now.

Playoff matchups. Every time we've done this, let's just do this now. Playoff matchups. Every time we've done this, this is the best version of the playoff matchups we've had. Bucks heat. I think, so do we think Brogdon can be back in time later? There's no way, right? It's six to eight weeks, so I don't, man. I feel like the Bucks are,

I can't believe I'm saying this, but super beatable in round one. Because of no Brogdon? Dude, if they don't get out of round one, even without Brogdon. Depending on who they play? Oh, come on. They're going to beat the Heat, dude. Are you serious right now?

Would you bet your life on it? Yeah, I would. You would? You'd bet your life on it? Yeah. Yeah. What do I get, though? I don't trust playoff teams that have really no experience at all.

And I liked their crunch time five. But I think Brogdon was just way more important for them than people realized. They still have Bledsoe. They still have Middleton. They have the Lopez deal. Iliasov was always a player I would always want on my team. Spoh? So that doesn't scare you at all?

Yeah, but here's the thing. It's not Spoh spo prunty now it's like when they did that whole breakdown and i don't know if it was just the countdown stuff that that kirk goldsberry did yeah but then they were doing this other shit they went from like the worst rebounding team to the best they're the number one defensive efficiency team i get it we've talked about it budenhol plus 10. He has done an amazing job with this. So I'm not as great as I think Spoh is. Come on, dude. He don't even 500, right?

33 and 36. Yeah. The Heat scare me. Why? Didn't we do this? Didn't we fall into this last year? Remember when they were going to sneaky beat the Sixers? Same shit, man. Same shit as last year.

Okay, good. You talked me out of it. Yeah. Toronto, Brooklyn would be our 2-7. I just want to point out Kawhi's missed 19 games already. I was going to do it just now if you didn't. Because remember when we were doing our All-NBA. He's played 51 of 70.

Well, we're going to do All-NBA after this. Because remember, it was like you can't put LeBron on because he's missed all these games and Kawhi automatically was on it. And then I started thinking about it last week after we talked about it. He's played 51, missed 19. He's missing again. I think he's missing tonight. Toronto or Brooklyn?

Let me double check that. Can we get IT on that? Brooklyn will be a sexy first round upset pick, whoever they play, just because they're really fun to watch and people see a lot of them. The entire basketball internet lives in Brooklyn. I think their crowds will be good. I don't think they have the talent to beat Toronto, but they're definitely

kind of what I want Miami to be, but you just talked me out of them. I still feel like Milwaukee's vulnerable. Milwaukee, Brooklyn, if Brooklyn was the eighth seed and seven to seven. I'm just chewing on Giannis, and it's not like Brogdon, as good as he is, they still have a couple other guys that can fill it up. So the recipe would be Bledsoe goes south.

He just craters in round one. Right. Middleton has to miss everything. You know, a big reason why they lost to Philly too. And Philly was great in that game, but Miritich was terrible. Brogdon gives them insurance

for whatever game where Bledsoe just looks like he did in that Boston series. At least they have the other guy. By the way, another point about the Kawhi missing, he'll end up missing like a quarter of the season

when this is all said and done. It feels like, right? Yeah. Well, actually, he'd be more than that if he keeps on his pace. Think about how good they are as a team organization and what they do to be this close to being the one seed. Because if Kawhi plays the whole season,

they're your one. It's because this Siakam thing is out of control. Out of control. They just basically, if Kawhi doesn't play, they have somebody who could just do a Kawhi impersonation. It'd be like Adrian Griffin turning into Carl Malone. Adrian Griffin. My all-time favorite Celtic.

But I think they probably know he's leaving. Doing everything? No, they don't mind the games where Kawhi doesn't play because it also gives them a little bit of foundation for down the road. So they're doing the anti-Brewers, Ned Yost, CeCe Sabathia thing. Anti?

Remember? When he pitched like every third game, they're like, we're not re-signing him. Damage kids, we don't care. Philly, Detroit would be our 3-6, which I'm genuinely excited about because the Drummond and Bede thing, you know, Drummond's been great for the last,

I don't know, last six weeks or seven weeks, something like that. And part of me wonders, could it, like Mbid just really emasculated him a couple of times there. And not only, right. You can't, not only destroyed him, but like embarrassed him. And Drummond has gone to another level. And I wonder if he's like, it's like Rocky III. He's in the fucking gym getting ready for the seven games against Embiid. So if they go Philly, Detroit, there'll at least be fight. There's some feistiness with that. And then Indy Boston would be the four or five. Bogdanovich is now the greatest player in the league.

I don't know how that happened. Which one? Aren't they one and two? Maybe. It's like James Harden and Bogdanovich. And that feels like a super losable series for the Celts. Where it's like,

wow, how are they losing this? They have so much more talent and just weird shit starts happening. I have been happy with how they've played the last two weeks. The Celts? And I really like what I've seen from Kyrie. And that's all I'm going to say. He fell on the sword and he's played differently the last two weeks. He's much more engaged and he is much more touchy feely.

And he's much more, let me get everybody else involved-y. Now, whether this is all ploy because he realized that he sabotaged his own free agents dating a little bit. And this is all an act. I have no idea. I'm withholding judgment then. Okay, good. Yeah. Because I've watched him the last week or so

and it does look better. The biggest thing that's happened with the Celtics is Jalen Brown has gone up a level. Yeah. He's actually been better than Tatum now for, I would say, five, six weeks. And the Horford thing still worries me because... Well, they even admitted it now.

So when we were talking about him being dinged up... Yeah, because after we talked about that, and then people are writing about it, Horford's having the best run of his season. I'm like, I just went to the game. It looked like he's playing hurt. And now they've... Seems like.

Anyway, the West, Golden State Clippers would be your 1-8, which might break the record for most opposing fans at round one, two round one playoff games. That might be 10,000 Warriors fans there. If they ever did a thing where it's just one through 16 and the Celtics played the Clippers. Yeah, that'd be bad. That's really weird when you're in that building.

That was my first Celtics at Clippers game. And you're like, man man there's so many people out here would you want to play the clippers if you were the warriors i would not well sacramento's falling off unfortunately the bad we think killed them they're out uh i i wouldn't care like i'm the warriors i wouldn't care so whenever we do this stuff where it's like well who who's dangerous at eight i'm worried about myself at one i actually was going to ask you this at some point. I think the Warriors without Durant would still be the one seed. So that would take...

And I'm not dissing. Look, we couldn't have been nicer. So you go 57 and 25 is the one seed. I think they could do that. Unless they were just bored and playing the same level of defense. Maybe they're not. I mean, maybe they're the three seed,

but are they three seed? They would have had to like buy out, buy out guy like a West Matthews, I think. Cause you'd have to replace some of those minutes somehow. Right. Right. They were never getting Robert Lopez.

Or Patrick McCaw. Maybe he stays. Maybe Pep McCaw stays. Yeah. It'd be exciting. Yeah. I just, we're going to talkvp in a little bit

i think curry's mvp campaign is now underrated not for the top two but when the third spot's wide open and i think curry has to be discussed um done without durant i i think is somewhere between 55 and 57 yeah not impossible but if they're the three seat i don't think it would be by a couple a couple so that's your 1a right now no and even though i love what the clippers have done and lou williams this weekend again and look we spent 20 minutes on them yeah by the way one cleanup for me last week when we were talking about the lakers which we're not going to talk about uh which i don't think so unless we get the lebron stuff no um i did have a team that was like, everything you said about the Lakers was right, but you were way too soft on them about the Kawhi deal.

And that it's known around the league, at least according to what I was being told, is that if they had included Ingram, they could have done that. They could have done that this year, but they did the same thing as they were doing with the Paul George thing. Like, we'll wait, we'll just get him later.

So I was given like a B for my my analysis i've heard conflicting i've heard that version but i've also heard that san antonio was just like fuck you we're never trading him yeah so that's the other thing too is that i don't know i don't know what the answer is right that's what i was told so i wanted to share that after last week so you're two seven right now is not as fun denver utah where are you with denver that yokich uh donchage game was so it's so incredible that was the game of the month i wanted to send somebody a check after that game it was so donchage is and by the way he hasn't you know he's definitely tailed off a little the last few weeks but that dunk in traffic with five seconds left was, holy, holy shit. That's like a top five

career highlight for me. Oh my God. Yeah. That was nuts because you're going, is he going to try to yoke this? Jokic has this weird off balance,

you know, around nine, 10 feet, these wrong foot kind of, and the end, but makes, what's he supposed to do with that?

Makes them, and every time he's doing it, you go, that's a terrible shot. And then it'll go in. And I don't know how you defend that. I still worry about like the consistency of the other pieces around Jokic.

It's just, it's my same issue with Milwaukee. A lot of guys who have really never been in a big game. Now Milwaukee, they, a couple of those guys had the game seven in Boston last year. That helps. So they at least went through it once.

These Denver guys, you know, Beasley and Morris and Jamal Murray. I think Morris has been great. I love their guards. Yeah. You know, but Gary Harris is like hit or miss. It goes to show you like it just probably doesn't ever make sense to spend more than like two to 3 million on a guard unless it's somebody really good. It seems like these Beasley Morris types are just out there.

Spencer Dinwiddie. These dudes are out there. There's a guard surplus in the league right now. So you treating like Curry. Yeah. Well, the, whenever you ever spend $12 million on Marcus smart or Terry Rozier,

like maybe not. Yeah. That might actually be a bad use of salary cap. Should you ever spend $12 million on Marcus Smart or Terry Rozier? Maybe not. That might actually be a bad use of salary cap because you can always get these dudes who are rotation guys. I kind of like this theory. You're almost treating the third guard. Like Landry Schammett. Yeah, Landry Schammett. Just find a way to sit in the corner.

He's throwing for this fucking trade, and now he's playing 25 minutes a game on a playoff team. He can dribble too. I mean, he ran teams. So it's not. I think, I think there's way too many guards and it's really easy to find them. And I would never. They're the running backs of the NBA.

Is that what you're telling me? That's what I'm telling you. Yeah. They're the, like Damien Williams. So who's the fat guy on the Rams? CJ Anderson. CJ Anderson. There's a lot of CJ Andersons in the NBA.

I remember DeAndre Burton checked in for the Thunder and I went, oh, what? Oh my God. And then I looked him up. I remember DeAndre Burton checked in for the Thunder, and I went, oh, what? Oh, my God. And then I looked him up. I go, every Iowa State rookie is 25 years old. There's some rule that when you go to Iowa State, and they're like, hey, whatever happens, but once we promise you get to the NBA, it'll be almost 30.

The Clips have a guy, Wallace? Yeah, yeah. I like him. He used to play more. I think he's going to have a moment for somebody at some point. And then I even like who's the guy? Thornwell?

Yeah, the kid from South Carolina. He doesn't play at all. I like him too. I feel like he could give somebody 15 minutes. Houston, San Antonio would be our 3-6. I can't wait to watch the Spurs tonight because I realize in my rotation of all the stuff I watch, I go, I haven't had my eyes on the Spurs in a while.

We all gave up on them three weeks ago. I was all thinking, well, they might not make the playoffs. That's kind of when I stopped. And then they won like eight straight. So I'm looking forward to watching them tonight because they got Golden State, right? Yeah. Portland OKC is your four or five. Still seems like Paul George isn't 100%.

Nope. I've been watching him. I would love to know what the actual injury is but it seems like it's some sort of rotator cuff thing but i i'd love to know what it is well he had the one shoulder that was iced and then he hit the other one yeah and he has that cool tape that i've even tried wearing hoping it was going to help me feel better you're wearing it right now and uh i mean i feel great today so you tell me the tape he doesn't he's tailed off, I think. But it seems from a physical standpoint, not from a performance standpoint.

So let's talk Westbrook. Because Westbrook's shooting improved from really disastrous levels. And I say disastrous because no one would ever be allowed to, or no one would even think to have the volume that he would work at and continue to take those bad shots. I have this really hard thing with Westbrook all the time and i feel like i i sit there and qualify it because of how hard he plays and i've said all these things a million times

over but that foul against clay to get the tech was so lame and westbrook i don't think understand like how how much he's benefited from nasty jazz guy for people to overlook the parts of westbrook that suck and he's had a confrontation like that nasty jazz guy is that moniker right so nasty jazz guy is you know clown all right and westbrook goes at him and i don't have a problem with westbrook you know for the most part um defending himself but we saw a video of him going after a different guy. Look, the week, no one cared because it was a game that wasn't. But he knocked. Now, Nurkic may have tripped him.

It looked like he had. But he went right back at Nurkic and just knocked him to the ground. In the same game against Clay on Saturday night, Kevon Looney put his hands up to almost help Westbrook from running into him. And Westbrook went at him and slapped his hands away. I can't believe somebody hasn't really decided, hey, you know what, Westbrook?

I'm done with you. Do you really think? I can't believe it hasn't caused a fight. And I think all of this bullshit with him. Like the KG Anthony Peeler moment? Yes, exactly. Anthony Peeler's like, I'm ready right now. And then just punched him.

I think it's just all of this stuff with him, and he has no idea how good he has at OKC, by the way. They're so scared to even criticize him because of what happened with Durant. But I think that's what part of this is all about. Like it's enabling. So when I'm looking at this guy that I have to bet on to do things in the playoffs,

and there have been times where I've watched him where I really like this team, man. And I've thought they have maybe this mental thing at stake with a matchup with Durant that could screw him up a little bit. Like there have been most of the season I've felt like OKC is the team. Like I can't wait to see what they look like in the playoffs. I like them more four weeks ago, though. But I have a hard time with this Westbrook stuff.

And it's the same stuff I keep coming back to. He's very aggro. And he seems like he's gotten more aggro. I think he has 16 technicals already. He does. He's suspended now. And he carries himself now

all the time. Like these dudes from the mid-90s that if you're coming, if you're walking by the harp at two in the morning and you saw like the three mass holes

coming out of the harp and they just have that look in their eye like, are you looking at me? You looking at me? Yeah. And that's how he carries himself all the time now. Before, he's a walking confrontation. But even in the postgame,

I was driving to work today and Coward was talking. He played the press conference. They're like, Russell, do you think about the 16th technical? And he's like, next question. And then they ask him something else next question and he just like just was like

swatting the reporters away I think he carries himself the best analogy I could give is you know somebody who's on a long running TV show

where it's like they've been on they've been the star of the show for nine years and the show can't exist without them. And they could just act like a complete dick and it doesn't matter what's going to happen.

They're not going to fold the show. And you just kind of have to put up with it. And he kind of carries himself that way. Not to his teammates, not the people that work around, but just on the court, there's like an ego with him now that's really weird. It's like a, how dare you? How dare you cross paths with me? I'm Russell Westbrook. It's like, ego with him now that's really weird it's like a how dare you how dare you cross paths with me i'm russell westbrook it's like who the hell are you dude yeah and i don't think what a title this is always something like i've asked people down there like what's

his name like you'd like him like he actually he's not like a bad guy everyone says that total normal sweet guy but this is like the mindset he's in now with basketball if i'm looking at them as a team that i have to bet on you know a team to go all right i really trust them i just don't trust them because i think all of this stuff that happens with him he's so pissed off it's like all right now things aren't working out like he it's like a guy that gets hurt working out and then he's so mad that he's hurt he works out harder and you're like well that's that's not the way to fix the problem and there's been nothing throughout his career that tells me tight moment late and against a good team i'm not saying he

hasn't hit some big shots because he has but i don't i don't know when this is, you're asking a guy that is built a certain way. And that's why he's been this great to change the way he is. And I don't know that that's ever going to happen. It hasn't mattered who the coaches, it hasn't mattered who the teammates are. And the clay thing was so funny. Cause clay's like, whatever,

dude, most guys would have been pissed. And clay's like laughing at him. Also the clay's the most liked player in the league. Right. So now you're going with him. Right. You were mad you didn't get a call, and then you check me,

and Clay's like, whatever. I don't know. I don't know. Look, if I were a Thunder fan, I'd be annoyed by it now. But I know they're all going to get mad because they're going to stick up for the guy. Preach to the church of Westbrook. I'm going to tell you who he reminds me of right after this break. Let's take a break to talk about Hotel Tonight. This winter is a great time to check them out. Whether you want to take a spontaneous ski trip, escape to a warm beach, book a room

with one of their last minute deals. You know how much I love this app. Tons of empty hotel rooms out there waiting to be booked. Hotel Tonight scores incredible rates on them. They team up with awesome hotels to help them sell those rooms, pass the savings along to you. And these are not last resort, you know, not that great places. These are good, cool, top-rated hotels you'd actually want to stay at. You don't have to scroll through endless lists of hotels. Hotel Tonight does a lot of the work for you. They show you the best deals,

short profiles. They steer you toward their HT perks program. The more you book, the better the deals get. And it's not just for last minute bookings. You can book well in advance as well. Start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels for the app that is like an indie band that has now blown up and become a mainstream band. Go to hoteltonight.com or download the app right now. Westbrook, the energy reminds me of Calipari in these March Madness games, where somebody has themselves so worked up and they're so intense that it's actually becomes a little detrimental. There's, you know, I was looking at like wartime president, peacetime president, right? At some point, you want a wartime president as your best guy or your coach.

The guy who's like, it's good. I got this. Come on. Follow me this way. Westbrook is more of a peacetime president to me. You want him when you're going against Memphis in game 48 at home and it's like you're down six and Westbrook will do it. When I think he's had some playoff failures,

I think he really, really wants to make the finals and he really, really wants to prove the finals and he really, really wants to prove that he didn't need Durant. And as the stakes keep going up, and even like these national televised game, he's like that. And I don't know if you can win when your best player's like that.

There's certainly no record of it happening in the history of the league. At some point, you just got to do your thing. I don't see it because I don't think he ever goes, okay, I'm struggling. We saw it last year in the Utah series, remember? They were terrible. Remember when it really

started to go south in game six and he took like, what did he take, 43 shots? He unraveled. Right, and then guess what happens? People go, well, hey, look, at least he's not afraid. He's trying. Yeah yeah he's trying like he's the only one out there competing and you just go find better shots because you know what else is happening is the other four guys now they're not playing as hard on defense they're not running as hard in transition they're like this dude's going to take 43 shots and 10 of them are going to be just horrible looks and I'm supposed to be invested. This was LeBron's greatest strength

these in the middle of this decade when he, as his supporting cast got worse and worse, and he would be in these big games and these big moments and especially on the road. And there was a calmness about him and he would almost like get more focused and was just better at everything he was doing. Like the bigger the moment, he actually would embrace that. And I heard somebody say how, can't remember where I read it, but people talking about LeBron's game one in the finals in 2018, last year.

The J.S. Smith game. You were there for that, weren't you? I was there for that. And I'd forgotten how amazing he was in that game. And somebody, the Warriors were saying that, I forget where I read this, but they were saying like, that was the greatest game they'd ever seen anyone play.

I kind of felt like that when I was there. I was like, I think this is the greatest game I've ever seen anyone play. He was, he just controlled every aspect of it. And, you know, when you talk about Westbrook, I just don't think he has that wherewithal to be that guy. I just don't. I don't think it's ever going to happen at this point.

It's been the league 11 years. Yeah, why is it going to change? He is who he is at this point. Right. And I know that there were things, and I would watch him differently and be like, okay, is he deferring more? Even if he was in regular season games, letting other people initiate the action

playing off a schruder which they were doing and seeing how great paul george is doing last couple minutes of a playoff game we all know what's going to happen we all know maybe he does hit a 35 foot three and it's a game winner and all that like it's like he's he's won games that way too and maybe that happened but i just it's hard for me to go for seven games against another really good team like the warriors i expect him to come out on top and make all the right plays down the stretch i just it's hard for me to believe it well they're four or five right now be portland okc and i don't like that matchup for okc i i think they're gonna have a column injury is he gonna be back in time now uh i i don't know that we know what the deal is so

so if he is out for round one then that suddenly becomes the team i'd want to play but if he's healthy for round one i don't think okc has anybody to guard lewitt like i really feel like he could run amok in that series and And I actually like the Nurkic-Adams battle. I think Nurkic... Adams definitely doesn't look the same. I don't think that he looked earlier in the year. He's banged up. He's played a lot of games over the last few years, too. I like what I saw.

I like what I've seen from Nurkic. And I don't know. If Portland's healthy, I think that's a dangerous series for OKC, if that's what it ends up being. What does it say for McCollum? Re-evaluated in a week with the knee strain. So, we don't know. Yeah, Nurkic.

Do you think he should just declare for the NBA and not play college basketball anywhere? Do you want to risk it? What if McCollum says, I know I could be back for the playoffs, but this is a long-term play. Long-term play for my next deal two years from now. Our all-NBA checkpoint, Giannis, George, Harden, Curry is still four of the top five.

Jokic versus Embiid is going to be a great argument as this gets a little closer about two weeks from now. And Embiid, the defensive metrics are great with him. Jokic, the fact that that has a chance to be a one seed and he's really the only great player on the team. It's nuts, but I'd still go Embiid. I'm still split. So it's going to be one or the other. Second team, Durant, Lillard, and Westbrook, I think will be second team on NBA. The second forward spot, Griffin, LeBron and Kawhi.

If Kawhi ends up missing like 24 games or something, I'm not voting for him for second team on NBA. I was looking at this Pistons team. You love the Pistons. I just can't, but they're 36 and 33. Can you, can you name,

can you name their crunch time right not their crunch time can you name their nine-man rotation right now no i know that i know that the other day i was watching their game and that luke canard had the best plus minus of i think anyone off the bench since january 1st i think this has become the story of the year. Okay. So this is post all-star break, which is now a 13 game sample size. Minutes leaders on the Pistons. Drummond, Blake Griffin, Luke Kennard, third at 27 minutes a game. Reggie Jackson, Wayne Ellington, Ish Smith, Langston Galloway. Is this Ish Smith's like fourth time being on the Pistons?

Yeah. Bruce Brown, Fon Maker. Yeah, Thin Maker. That's their rotation. With Zaza Pekulia as their 10th guy. Are you fucking kidding me? This team's going to go 45 and 37? So I look at Blake,

and Blake is basically 24, 8, and 5 every night. And is there a crunch time guy? Like, I think he has to be considered for second team all NBA. And this might be the best Blake Griffin season ever. I think that one year that he was there with the Clippers. Right. Where Paul was out for a good chunk in the middle. In the playoffs, he had the best three, four-week stretch of his career.

And by the end, when they got knocked out, I think we all thought he was one of the best five players in the league. Yeah, so that's the world he kind of flirted. But that wasn't really in the regular season as much. There was a stretch, no. There was a regular season. It might have been before 15 then, when Paul had missed a good chunk in the middle.

And Blake was playing point forward. a good chunk in the middle and Blake was playing point forward legitimately like in the MVP conversation and what we mean that is that he wasn't going to win but it was disrespectful to not mention him at some point so then third team Towns Towns who's been awesome right he's been on that and it's not a fool's gold tear with him because we know how good he can be and the other two from LeBron Kawhi Griffin, Kyrie is going to make it. And I think Bradley Beal is the third guard now, or the sixth guard. Because he's like 30 a game since the All-Star break, and he's carrying this Washington team that was trying to tank, and he's basically not allowing them to tank.

Every night with them, I go back and I'm like, man, Beal's having this incredible run hidden on this terrible team um so those are the 15 those are going to be the 15 all nba guys in some sort of order i don't i don't see anybody else cracking it at this point unless um you know unless pascal siakam really takes it up a notch goes up a level how many games How many games would you not, if Kawhi missed 23 games, would you penalize him and he's 13-0 NBA at that point? By the way,

I really wanted to knock LeBron off 13-0 NBA and I couldn't figure out a way to do it. Yeah, it felt like last time we were doing this, you would put together the formula to do it. But if you're holding him to that, if you're putting that standard on him, then you have to put it on Kawhi too. And here's the thing lebron got hurt kawaii like i have a problem with you going yeah i'm just cool missing i'm gonna skip the back-to-back right we his numbers by

the way are sick they're sick so but he's not hurt so i would think it would mean it would damage you more to me as a voter if you're just missing all these games versus missing him because of an injury. A couple of just random stats just to consider. Harden is still at 35.9 points a game. Is he eight points higher than the second I have in front of me now?

This is the 35-point club is Wilt, Jordan, Barry, and Kobe Bryant so he will be the fifth player ever to do this significant you can point to the three pointers and the look on your face as you said significant I just want the listener to know he means it

I love this stuff it's eight points better than the number two score in Paul George I think it's a ludicrous number. And then you talk about he's going to play like 78, 79, 80 games, something like that. He has a chance to get 3000 points, which is like another ludicrous number that does not happen. And I actually think I like total points in some ways more than a scoring average because it's the combination of the durability and you know the ridiculous production like you score 3,000 points in a

season you're uh you're really doing something I don't think he can get there because I think he'll be just short but that that's just a crazy number to me right so he's already scored more points this year in 66 games than he ever has before right and then if you go leaders best shout out to the basketball reference guy whoever that oh actually he's eight points he's eight points off of his total scoring from four years ago or so only two people Only two people have ever scored 3000 points in a season. Wilt did it three times. Jordan did it in 87. He had 3041 points.

Kobe is the last guy who even came close. He had 2832 in the 05, 06 season. And then what does Harden have right now? Harden has 23683-6-8 with 12 games to go right so he has a chance to get to where Kobe got to and that's about it

so I thought that was nuts Giannis we should just mention is averaging 28-13-6 well we did mention it last week I'm going to mention it every week 58% shooting and B now up to 27 and 14 these are crazy numbers it's all like what's is it that it's just because this is the part where

i go okay we both agree the league like we forget how lean some of those years are we've already been over that not only on this podcast but before but are we really this lucky that in this moment we have this many guys that could win an MVP? Like that seems nuts. If you just said at the beginning of the year, give me the, that's not fucking crazy list. If this guy wins an MVP.

Yeah. It feels like it's 12 guys now. Yeah, it's true. I, I think it's a combination of the, uh, the non-American players, the,

the number of talented guys we have has never been better. The guys are just healthier these days. And I think LeBron and the way he took care of his body and the amount of money he spends on it and how seriously he took the day-to-day, which was also Kobe's legacy too, I think. I think these guys just do it now. Like Harden, I think somebody 20 years ago who just wouldn't have been wired this way. Now you read this stuff about Harden. He's like, you know, they'll have a game and he's like working out after he's in the gym and say, he doesn't get nearly enough credit for how hard he works on his conditioning and all that stuff. And it's just seems like all these guys are doing that. You know, it's funny too. Like we ask different people, you know, and be like, well,

what's this guy like, or who goes out or who's kind of in there like it hardens always the guy people mention yeah but now he's out you just hear about how dorky a bunch of the teams are right which i'm certainly not complaining about look at donchus playing fortnite right they're worried about his fortnite use yeah you want to hear a story like give me a story on somebody and be like oh oh, this guy, man. Yeah, he's just crazy. Now it's, yeah, they stay in and get postmates. So MVP watch Harden, Giannis, 1-2 or 2-1, however you want to say it. Who do you have for three right now? We only have 12 games left.

The candidates are Jokic, Embiid, George, or Curry. I wanted to put Embiid in there all the time. I feel like I just accept Curry. I always feel like I'm the one that's arguing that he's not appreciated enough. And then that theme came up again on the Saturday night game where they're like, people actually think he's underrated. And Van Gunn, he's like, yeah, he is underrated. I'm like, yeah, of course he is. He's like the most overlooked star to be that good and be that good. And then to be this afterthought,

like we don't, we don't really throw them around in the other stuff. Yeah. There's like this always weird to me in Van Pelt. And I used to talk about this all the time, this odd resentment from his peers to Curry. But I still don't know that I'd put him three. Now I'm not going to get off the Paul George thing just yet.

I have Yoko three. Now you have himokic three now. You have him over Embiid. It's weird. I think there's a world in which I vote Embiid for first team all NBA, but Jokic for third choice MVP. Yeah. I think he means more just how infectious his style is.

And the fact that he has come through at the end of games and just, it's almost more like a high school team or like a mid-major college team, the way that team's constructed. And he's like the focal point of it. Whereas Philly, like if Embiid's out for two, three weeks,

they can get by with the players they have, you know, they won't be as good, but they can get by. If, if Jokic is out for Denver, they're not getting by. They're not the same team.

They're not even a playoff team. Yeah. They're like, they're an eight seed fringe. So, uh, and're not getting by. They're not the same team. They're not even a playoff team. They're an eight seed, fringe. And then Lou Williams fourth. And climbing. With an arrow. No, but I think usually we're struggling

for five MVP guys. I remember there was a year, Peja Stojakovic was the third vote. Like a final real vote, he came in third. there was a year Peja Stojakovic was the third vote getter? Third vote. Like a final real vote? Yeah. He came in third?

Damn. Was that a Shaq year? I mean, here's some actual guys. Some actual guys who have third or fourth place MVPs. Ryan Russillo.

Jermaine O'Neal. Third place. Remember Patino tried to trade for? Carmelo, third place. Carmelo had a year there where he deserved it, so it's not. Blake Griffin got a third place. Davis got a third place. Fourth place, Tracy McGrady, two fourths. Robert Parrish got a fourth place once. What year was that? I think it was 82. Sid Moncrief, McHale, Tim Hardaway, senior fourth place. Less surprising. C-Web fourth place. Stojakovic was fourth place by bad. Joe came Noah fourth place. Damian Lillard. I remember the Noah deserved coming in the top five that year. And by the way, could he get a vote this year?

I love when I watch Noah in Memphis now, I go, how could more teams that were competing not have wanted him? Am I nuts there? Do I just like him too much? Am I seeing him differently? Is it the tan? I'm always stunned. I like him too.

I'm always stunned that the Nick, I'm always stunned when anybody just buys a guy out over keeping him as an expiring contract. It's like negligence to your fans. An expiring contract it's like negligence to your fans an expiring like phoenix if they had those expiring contracts now those two guys they could have been so much more creative at the deadline well that one's so nasty it's just no one's bad too no but they could have bought they could have they could have done the carve out thing this summer and it would have had the same effect right but i mean the no one it's like we bring in tyson chandler here i'm not no but Noah one, it's like we bring in Tyson Chandler here.

I'm not Noah, but Phoenix. You're like, we bring in Chandler. We want, you know, DeAndre Ayton. It's like, all right, it's been two weeks. He soaked it all up. We're good. Let's give him to LeBron. I mean, that's what was weird.

I can't believe Ariza didn't end up with the Lakers there too earlier. And James Jones just kept hooking him up. And Sarver's like, wait a minute, I can sign guys and then save a little bit of money by just buying them out a few weeks into the season. Done. Winning. Good to go. Let's take one more break and then we got to do some mailbags.

Hey, let's talk about SeatGeek. Getting tickets online can be far too complicated with hundreds of sites and varying levels of reliability. It's hard to know who to trust. Well, SeatGeek, you know I trust them. They pull millions of tickets into one place so you can easily find the seats you want for a price you're willing to pay. Closer to the action, great value. That's what SeatGeek's about. They make your ticket buying experience as easy as it could possibly be. If you've ever been to this site,

you know how great it is. They grade every ticket based on value. They search all kinds of sites to make sure that you know what the best deals are. They have color-coded maps. I have it on my phone. Sometimes I just check to see what's the hot ticket lately. I've used SeatGeek to buy last-minute tickets for Clipper games, to buy last-minute tickets

for LAFC, to concerts, you name it. Lately, Lakers games. Tickets are available right now to see the alleged goat, LeBron James. Best of all, my listeners get $10 off their first SeatGeek purchase. Just download the SeatGeek app, enter promo code BS today.

SeatGeek, life's an event. We have the tickets. The new Microsoft Surface Pro 6 can help you get things done whether you're on the field or running a business. Take Brian Arakpo and Michael Griffin, two former NFL teammates who have opened a cupcake shop.

With the Surface Pro, they can do everything they need from setting schedules to creating promotions for social media and designing new flavors. Plus it's light, super fast, has a great battery life. Brian and Michael are proving you can tackle

all your passions with the power and speed of the new surface pro 6 all right this is the best part of the podcast we're gonna save the topic that i sent you that i want to do we'll save it for next week because we blew by it yeah we'll save it for next week don't give it away um no i did it but i need to know what the hell i'm doing right now because i've got a lot of these some mailbag questions creative things that i would you send me the heads up and now my mind's been working well just put it put it in the freezer for a week might not be as fresh that's bullshit uh some other some other titles that readers have our listeners have suggested for the uh theRusillo Weekly NBA Podcast.

Three-hour run. I wish. Sunday pickup. Pod Strickland was thrown out there, which I thought was a great name. We decided it didn't work. We both loved it though. Maybe we have- I love it so much.

Maybe that's how we'll end the podcast every episode with a Rod Strickland fact. Now it's time for Pod Strickland fact. Well, now it's time for Pod Strickland. That's what I want to do. I want to name it that, but it doesn't make any sense. And I'm afraid after a few months, you're going to be like, why are we still calling this Pod Strickland? And you're right. We would have to do some kind of Rod Strickland thing. Although I'll tell you, like every time when I ran into Rod Strickland with the combine last year. Did he throw up hot dogs on you? No, I was like, hey, man. And I don't know if he had any idea who I was or not,

but he played along. I was like, I just want to tell you, of all the guys that I've met that played, there's always this slow, almost revered, just way a former player talks about you. Like Rod Strickland, man, that dude. He doesn't get the love of just full full-blown established stars of their generation. I feel like Vince has that too, but a better version of it.

Rod Strickland has as high a level of respect that you can have from his play, the guys that played with him, other than being just Jordan or somebody like that. Like dudes loved him and were like, he could ball and it sucked to deal with. Didn't he play with a toothpick in his mouth for a while and they told him he had to get rid of it i think that's true i don't know that uh another title load management who came up with that it sounds like a porn unfortunately um who came up with that it sucks it's the worst it's so bad welcome Welcome to load management. Hey, I'm only going to be here half the show. And I need next Monday off. Someone suggested, you think you're better than me?

That we just call it that. And it said we're the best, just as Zach said every time. Right. And then I just go through slights throughout the profession. Welcome to you think you're better than me? So then 07, I see. And then I like this one. i didn't tell you this one the glue guys not bad you know there's a great glue guy story for you yeah rick buecher classic

rick buecher yeah we had him on and it was when rick was so pro kobe that it was almost disgusting how anti-lebron he was yeah he just was that was almost disgusting how anti-LeBron he was. Yeah. He just was, that was what he was going to do. I used to just mock him openly to him on my podcast about this. And so Buecher is on and we were comparing him again somehow. And this may have been like, it could have been before LeBron's first title, actually. Yeah.

And he's like, you know, look, he goes, this is, he goes this is he goes really lebron's more of a glue guy than he is anything else not the best player in the league but just a glue guy and i just lost it was like glue guy you're right and so we had that drop anytime glue guys were mentioned oh because i couldn't believe it right. So it looks like the double shift, Pod Strickland and the glue guys, maybe are the three finalists. How do we make Pod Strickland not be cool six months from now?

Do we get them on every week? We'll hear from the listeners. You can email us more suggestions at themailbagattheringer.com. Pod Strickland does sound like if we were huge Knicks fans. Oh, another. Really young. I forgot one name.

This is from Patrick. McCaw. He said, I'm a bartender. Huge fan of you guys. Since Sunday nights are always industry nights for bartenders. Yes. I thought it could be an interesting play of the fact that you both bartended in your NBA industry insiders

could call the podcast Industry Night. That's pretty good. It's strong. A lot of thought in that. Industry Night was the best. All right. So we'll put that

as a fourth option. Jeff Chow, president of The Ringer, had a joke recently that I'm going to repeat on the podcast. I thought it was really funny. We were talking about players only.

And I was just complaining about it as I want to do. It's too much now. Yeah, it's over the top. And now they have the catchphrase of players only, baby, which I don't understand either. And I was complaining to Jeff about it. I was like, this is like on an airplane. I wouldn't want the passengers to fly the plane. That's why we have the pilots.

And that's how I feel about play-by-play guys. Like they're the pilots. It's like, you don't bring the guy in from the seventh row and he's suddenly going to fly the plane now. So Jeff Chow said, passengers only. Like that could be a gimmick for Delta, like players only. And then I was trying to think,'s worse players only or passengers only. If I had to have one for the next 20 years of my life,

which gimmick would, would, would be worse. And I actually think it's still players only. Passengers only. It's like, ah, maybe that guy,

he flew in the air force. It's still, I'm still feeling better than him than greg yeah you know and then uh i still think it's players only this is um from mitch blum that sounds he manages to insult us here which i like most suggestions are focusing on the fact that you're both assholes that love basketball what really unifies you is you're both assholes that love basketball. What really unifies you is you're both guys that went Hollywood. You still want to claim being from Boston to boost your credibility, but you've gone big time and clearly think you're better than the rest of us Bostonians.

Hence big time hoops with a Z. He thought that should be the name. Big time hoops. I'm waiting to go big time. So I don't, I don't think I can serenity yeah and then uh justin from golden colorado said thanks so much for running with my idea for jim corner on this week's pod yeah it was fantastic after being a college professor for seven years i think

i've finally made a positive impact on society let Let him know if he wants me to speak his class. If it's in Colorado. All right. Couple of mailbag questions. Aaron Solomon wonders, what's the biggest story that you knew about, but weren't allowed to share it at the time? I was leaving ESPN.

No, no, it's a sports story. Oh, doing my radio show every day with will kane being like yeah it's gonna be awesome uh no he knew he knew he knew i was probably not gonna do it and i'm still with you uh i had some good stuff on the durant thing going to golden state really early really mentioned it yeah i'd mentioned it and then it got to the point where i kind of had the whole

mapped out moving pieces of all the transactions and i did it on mike and got to the point where i kind of had the whole mapped out moving pieces of all the transactions and i did it on mike and mike i was like if it happens this is how it would happen and i was i had it all and i was actually always kind of amazed that nobody really paid attention to it i was like wait a minute didn't he just say like this is what they'll do bogut and this is harrison barnes and then this will be here and this is who they'll do with Bogut, and this is Harrison Barnes, and then this will be here, and this is who they'll resign, and we'll have to do this kind of deal. That's pretty good. That one, but I only did that once free agency had started. So at that point, that information was like, look, if we can get them,

meaning Golden State, this is how it would, in theory, happen. But I think I had first heard about it in, in January of that year. Oh, wow. Yeah. I had pretty good LeBron to the Lakers that, that 2017 summer. So you're talking,

but we started talking about it on the ringer. Yeah. That's why we KLC and I did a whole podcast and we felt pretty confident it was going to happen. What was, can you give me any? Just had some, heard some things. It wasn't as interesting TV shows though, right? Because like that one to me.

The one I, when LeBron signed with Miami and Stephen A reported it like a week before and everybody thought he was crazy, including me. But then about 36 hours before, I heard that that's where he was going. And I wrote a piece right before the decision, like that day, like setting it up. And I framed it in a way that if you reread it, it's clear that I knew he was going to Miami, but I just couldn't write it.

But you can tell if you read the piece. So did you write that piece to get the information out? Or did you write that piece so that later on you can say, see? No, I wrote the piece because I was assigned to write a piece about the decision. And I had to write it in a way that- You didn't pretend that you didn't know. I mean, I wasn't, would I bet my life on it? I don't know. But i was like 99.7 sure

i'm one of the podcasts i did for espn i went back and read all the articles leading up to the decision yeah it's the best people got really upset no i'm talking about before he had decided oh and the theories and in all the different and like Chicago played some clips from Family Guy which is his favorite cartoon during the pitch and the Bulls like two sources

within the Bulls said this couldn't have gone better. He loves Family Guy. This would be a good new podcast for you for The Ringer. You can just read

these columns and make fun of them. Well, I have the Sports Illustrated scouting reports for the beginning of this season that I'm going to read

after the season's over. This would be a good podcast where you just read old things from the past and you just make fun of them. Like, how are they so stupid with Ryan Russillo? Today, I'm going to read

Peter Gammons' thing from 1990 where he said Sam Horan is going to revolutionize baseball. Derek Barton is a better on-base Albert Pujols. Derek Barton, I remember him. King of OBP. Kieran wants to know,

if you put all 450 NBA players in a bar and they were all ordered to compete for the right to bring one specific random girl back to their hotel that night, who'd you bet on to win? Best question ever. That's a great one. Do you want to go first? No, you go first.

Okay. You can eliminate probably 400 plus before we even get there. Because if you can go home with Steph Curry, why are you going to go home with Seth Curry? Right? Fair. No offense. Great point. So we got to kind of go at the heaviest guys, the biggest alphas.

I think because in that room where there's alphas, so like Paul George has no chance. I'm sorry. Like Rudy Gerbera has no chance, even though french guys are smooth and girls always fall for that stuff um i do i never rule out the french never boris dial you like insulted american women tony parker thing yeah let's leave it there yeah yeah yeah not matt bonner so so when uh when i started thinking about this like i started thinking draymond because i think draymond oh he just out out off as everybody right like he would just scream at other guys and you know you've got to factor in like how good a guy looks like i think draymond you know i'm not i don't know if he'd be voted best looking guy in the nba but he's he's working with enough force Force of nature guy. Force of nature, Midwest, Michigan State strong.

That'd be tough. You couldn't be another guy fighting over that girl and be passive around him. He's just going to eat you up. But would it be too much? Would it be too much? Whereas I started thinking, okay, well, the easy one's LeBron. LeBron walks in a room. He's more of the showstopper than everybody else.

But if LeBron doesn't have enough help, he's going to be like, motherfucker, I told you don't wear that hoodie. And then he'll be like, Mav, I said Lyft, not Uber. Like this is bullshit. So like if it started going bad for LeBron, then everybody around him would get blamed.

So like maybe that would screw that up too. Clay wouldn't care. Clay would be like, wait a minute, I a minute i'm supposed to the girl would have to make the move right you'd have to pursue clay i have a dog to pet and he would leave so i actually do think despite us spending a lot of time on this that it would be westbrook because fashion he's not absurdly huge we should say if westbrook was single he's happily married with right right yeah this is where assuming everyone in the league is single. He's got the LA experience with the Midwestern values.

He's alpha as hell, so he's not afraid of anybody else. Rational confidence. Right. And he's just going to shoot. So it's Russell Westbrook and Draymond going for the same. And he's going to win. Westbrook's going to win because he's going to shoot more. Because Draymond still struggles with his shot a bit and is hesitant,

even when wide open. Russ walks into the gym thinking he's open, and he's going to walk into that club thinking that he's closer. I went into this thinking it was Blake Griffin because I like the experience of being in L.A., being around beautiful women for eight, nine years. He's dated a lot of attractive women. I just feel like I want that big game experience.

Kyle, right? Yeah. Big game experience. I like the Westbrook answer. That's a good one. Kevin J in Portland wants to know, is LeBron having the greatest good stats, bad team season in history?

The answer is not even close. Go look at some of the Will Chamberlain's good stats, bad team season. It is the best one in a couple of years though, because he's going to end up like 27, nine and nine or something. And for a team that was 32 games. Well,

it'd be funny too, because this summer when everybody forgets everything that happened and we start talking and whatever ends up happening with the Lakers and all this stuff. Yeah. They're going to be guys that are like, are you kidding me? LeBron did everything.

He was awesome. Look at these numbers. And you just go, well, that's, that's part of it. Caesar and Brooklyn. This one got me thinking. Brighter future right now. Right now. Not knowing what's going to happen in the draft. Brighter future right now. Knicks or Lakers. Which team

would you rather be? I'm amazed how fast I settled on the Knicks. Oh, man. Come on. You can't immediately? I said it on the Knicks. It took me three seconds. Did you see LeBron get blocked by Mario Hazonia yesterday? Yeah, but you figure they're going to get rid of Hazonia this offseason. Yeah, they were like, what are you doing, dude? Just saying.

I'd rather have the top three pick. I'd rather have the cap space. Katie's coming. Probably. I feel like I have some Davis chess pieces to maybe trade if I don't get Zion. I have the hope of Zion. And who knows?

Like the bidding for Davis now can be, might actually be way worse than we thought it was going to be. Because you get the Brandon Ingram thing. I don't know if the Celtics are still going to want it. If Kyrie bolts, can they really do that for Anthony Davis? All of a sudden, the Knicks could be a real player here for Davis in a trade

because the Lakers and Celtics packages aren't the same now. The Celtics are like, twist our arm. We'll throw Tatum in there just don't watch any of his February or March games right just don't here's here's a DVD from the first half of the season here's a DVD from him going head-to-head against LeBron in round three look how great he is we have a Connor show like really struggling eight-part Tatum against the Charlotte Hornets series. Eight hours.

We got screen lit. So I'd rather be the Knicks. I'm not. I don't think you should answer it with that swiftness. I'm sorry. That's how I roll. You might not be wrong, but I just feel like you're too decisive.

Grant from San Francisco said, a few pods back, Ryan asked the question, what is the case against Adam Silver? As to say, who actually dislikes him? Well, to my knowledge, two fan bases have legitimate gripes. Philly for pushing out Sam Hickey and installing the collar clown. That's what he said. And then Golden State for the unjust Draymond suspension. And if you don't believe me, he gets booed during the introductions for the 17 and 18 ring nights. Is that the biggest mistake he's made this decade? The Draymond suspension? Well, in the sign of the times, Draymond being suspended there was not that crazy

to me. It wasn't. Um, I would be crazy 10 years ago. It would be unheard of prior to that, that anybody would be suspended. I just think the way shit happens, there's so many calls I'm like, oh, that won't be that. I'm like, oh, there it is. I mean, that call where it was an offensive foul on Grant in the game on Saturday night,

these are just kind of the way the game's gone, and I think it's ridiculous. So if you're making it specific to fan bases being upset because something happened that hurt their team, to me, that's not part of the overall approval rating for a guy like Silver. What do you think? Should Draymond have been suspended?

I think Draymond... Draymond kind of... All these guys that get into trouble all the time, they act like they didn't start all of it. Yeah. So I don't think what draymond did by itself deserved them being suspended and we could be looking at the warriors probably going tough on this swing of series well you you're looking at me right now like you don't think there's any way that

he should have been suspended do you think silver made a mistake i don't feel great about it i didn't i didn't like it at the time and um i was more mad at Draymond because it was... That's what I mean. He got goaded into it, but I just... I don't feel like shit like that should decide a playoff series. I'm still... I still like some of the Sun Spurs stuff when Robert Horry throws Steve

Nash against the scorer's table. And it really looked like he hurt him. And these guys instinctively walk over a couple steps because their leader just got hurt. i just don't understand how you penalize people don't you feel like by the way they've been more lenient with like the actual toe on the line yeah i think they have that's why they could be lenient with that all right last question this is a good one from holding k wood how much would zion fetch if there was no draft and and Zion was just a free agent available to all 30 teams? Max.

I agree. He'd get five years 240, right? Immediately? He wouldn't be eligible for that one. No, I'm saying we're throwing out the whole system. If you get all the rules? Yeah. Yeah, he would get that.

What if we had no rules at all and we had no salary cap? What does he get? I don't even know because like would the next pay him seven years 700 million dollars no seriously is that a bad idea that seems like a lot could you make that money back well those guys all say they're losing money all the time. Seven years, $700 million for Zion or like Brooklyn. Doesn't it feel like LeBron was worth a hundred million a year for LeBron years? Forever.

I used to make that case all the time. Right. I always thought he was worth like 75 million a year easy. Because you could see from the evaluation of the Cavaliers when LeBron wasn't there versus when LeBron was there. We're talking about the value of the franchise. Yeah. The value of the franchise.

All of a sudden they were a $1.7 billion franchise because they had LeBron was there. We're talking about the value of the franchise. Yeah, the value of the franchise. All of a sudden, they were a $1.7 billion franchise because they had LeBron. What's Curry been worth to the Warriors? Curry took a team that was worth, they paid $460,000, and now they're worth probably $3 billion. Yeah, but some of that, too, is just the TV contracts. Let's not. Some of it. tv contracts let's not some of it right let's not make it all like sometimes i see those valuations and i'm like wait a minute so this team is now worth what like forbes says it's worth a quarter of what it was i have a lot of place i have a lot

of because they don't factor in the ego tax like the knicks are probably worth two seven but they would get four plus because somebody would want to own the Knicks and be the guy in New York. And hey, I own the Knicks. I'm Bob Johnson. Yeah, these aren't comps on Zillow. No. All right, it's time for Jim Corner. Okay, all right.

Now we're wrapping up. This is it. Jim Corner's our closer until we figure out a Pod Strickland gimmick. Look, I'm not so big as we all know like i'm normal decent size but i'm not like oh you know look at him at the gym at all right not even close and so there's always a couple guys like that at the gym and we used to have a guy back in uh connecticut who we said behind his back we called him steroid rick but everybody liked him and he's the nicest guy. And like, he would, he would be like, how's it going? And like,

I think he had like a torn bicep and I'm like, what happened there? He's like, Oh, it was a brawl in the eighties. And he was, he would, he got to the point and I'm kind of wanting to get there where I could wear just full blown tights, but i'm just not there and he started doing it and you know he would just go he would just go it's like he's like on on a bobsled team yeah no shorts just tights oh jesus yeah yeah but he he worked for him and then sometimes he'd wear like a big hoodie and then sometimes he would just wear like a stringer t yeah stringer tank or something and but he was always the he's the nicest guy in the universe because sometimes the big guy like each gym has their big guy yeah and a lot of times you don't know what's going to

happen like is is this gym's big guy going to be cool and accepting and like sometimes like i'll have issues with some male trainers like some trainers where i've gone they're like oh this guy like i just kind of put my head down and do my thing. And some people think like, oh, he thinks he's cool. And I'll be like, yeah, I do sometimes. And then other guys are really friendly. And then I've legitimately become friends with guys and hung out with them and stuff like this. But as I had first referenced him this way, as steroid Rick, I got this frantic call from another gym member being like steroid Rick is looking for you and he's looking for your number and he's like he's pissed that you said that about him because i don't even know if he's ever taken anything he's just enormous so it's just like a funny nickname and i was i was

legitimately nervous because i was home and there was a chance i was going to see him yeah so i i was kind of like man he's pretty big and'm like, am I really going to have to deal with this? And then what's your move? You go low, you go low and you knock him backwards and you hope like he hits his head as, as I would try to get an elbow in there. I would throw like a faint or a fake jab or something. And I would know full blown, like you're getting my right elbow as hard as you possibly can. Okay. And if that doesn't do anything to you then i know i'm gonna lose anyway yeah but if i get you one shot right i'm loading up on this right elbow right with just because you're gonna think it's a fist coming somewhere i'm gonna just gonna i'm gonna go all right this i wouldn't even want to do to somebody normally but i have to do

this to you stay right rick's trying to kill you right and so i was um i admit i had like a little anxiousness about it yeah and i was like this is a weird feeling i haven't felt this in the longest time but i'm gonna have to handle it we'll see what happens and he i go hey man it's ursillo um i heard you're looking for me i was like so just give me a call like let me know what's up and he calls me back and he's like dude are you kidding he goes greatest nickname ever he's like dude are you kidding he goes greatest nickname ever he's like we're on the he goes we were at work and he goes i played it like 20 times everybody thinks it's the greatest thing ever that's it you have to fight steroid i didn't have to fight him wow we're still good friends oh that's great yeah it's a happy ending great story

jim corner exclusively here on Industry Night on the BS Podcast with Carved Up in Segments. Alright, dual threat, you've come in this week or no? Yeah, we're going to do a dual threat where I think we're just going to kind of do like this free agency trade stuff and then we'll get back to part three and part four of the Backup QB stories, which has been awesome.

Great. Alright. Always a pleasure. See you next week. Alright, thanks so much to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to OneShiny Podcast. Don't forget to listen to all their March Madness content this week. I mean, if you care about winning money and gambling and daily fantasy and winning your pool, I would listen to those guys. Thanks to Hotel Tonight. They make it easy to book awesome hotels at amazing rates.

They're like a matchmaker between top-rated hotels with unsold rooms and people who would like to book those rooms. Hotel Tonight, not just for last-minute bookings. Book for tonight, tomorrow, and beyond. Perfect for planners, procrastinators, everyone in between. Find sweet deals at cool hotels you'll actually want to stay at. Go to hoteltonight.com or download the app right now. Back with two more podcasts this week.

And don't forget about the rewatchables, the natural. And if you like sports rewatchables, the one we did on this podcast, the Ring of the NFL show has the Seattle, San Francisco 2013 title game up right now if you want to check that out as well. Back later. Enjoy the first part of the week.