The Bill Simmons Podcast - Jeter and A-Rod Save the Celts, the Jokic Moment, and LeBron’s Retirement Ploy With Kevin O’Connor and Jovan Buha

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin O’Connor to discuss the Celtics avoiding elimination with their Game 4 victory over the Heat and how the next couple of days might affect Boston’s offseason (1:44). They also crown Nikola Jokic the best player in the world (35:38). Then, Bill talks with Jovan Buha of The Athletic about the Nuggets-Lakers series, LeBron James’s ambiguous comments on the possibility of retirement, Lakers offseason decisions, and more (1:01:35). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kevin O’Connor and Jovan Buha Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Put up a new Rewatchables on Monday night. We did Last Days of Disco, an absolute classic late 90s indie. This was one for us, but I also think it was one for a lot of people out there. It is a movie that became a cult movie and then a little bit bigger than that. It's actually hitting with the next generation too. So me and Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan broke it down. You can go check it on that feed.

On Sunday, we're going to be doing a Prestige TV podcast right after episode 10, the season finale of Succession. So stay tuned for that as well. And if you check out theringer.com, we'll be doing a lot of Succession content this week, including best season finales ever, a ranking of the best Succession episodes ever. Yeah, a lot of stuff. I'm going to be doing some Succession stuff on this podcast on Thursday. So stay tuned for that. Coming up, Kevin O'Connor and I are going to be doing some succession stuff on this podcast on Thursday. So stay tuned for that.

Coming up, Kevin O'Connor and I are going to talk about the Celtics fighting off death in Miami. And then Yovan Buha, who covers the Lakers for The Athletic. And we have a little backstory meeting him. But he is going to talk about the end of the Lakers season. More importantly, what it meant for LeBron and what it's like to cover LeBron. This is a really fun conversation. So that's next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this.

8 p.m. exactly Pacific time. I thought this would be a Celtics eulogy podcast with Kevin O'Connor from The Ringer. And then somewhere in the second quarter, KOC, they showed a montage and Derek Jeter was there. I'm like, oh, Jeter's there. That's interesting. Filed that one away.

And I think it was after they cut to A-Rod on the sidelines with Anthony Edwards. And I think all the Boston fans put the two and two together. Like, wait a second, Jeter and A-Rod are at this game? And then I started getting texts and it became a thing. And for the first time in about five Celtics days, KOC, a wave of peace came over me.

Like, you know what? Maybe it is going to be all right. Maybe this is a sign from God. Celtics end up playing one of their best stretches of the entire season, blow out Miami in the second half. What do we think?

Well, I mean, game five of Red Sox-Yankees went to 14 innings. So if game five of Celtics heat in Boston goes, you know, one or two overtimes, they need a bloody sock in game six. If Marcus Smart or something like that, I mean, you never know what could happen. But, I mean, I think ultimately for Boston, that third quarter run, I mean, they shoot over 40% in the game. Verno had a stat on the mismatch the other day.

They're now 37-2 in the season when they shoot 40% or better. I mean, obviously you shoot the ball well, you perform better, but it's especially true for Boston considering the amount of threes that they take. And if there's any team that's equipped you know in the modern NBA it's a team that's shooting you know 40 to 53 pointers per game with the amount of variance that that creates

for your offense so for Boston I mean that third quarter they were absolutely unbelievable started on defense quick hands on drives you know Al Horford stripping Butler on drives, cleanly doing it. Starts, stops led to offense. They were playing with pace, moving the ball. A lot of Tatum. Pick and roll with him. Smart or Horford screening. Ran some dribble handoffs with Marcus Smart handing it off to Tatum. I thought that

third quarter for Boston, leading up to when Bam got into foul trouble in the middle of that quarter when he picked up his fourth. They did great. They handled the zone well, even in the fourth quarter. Once they got Tatum back,

Tatum played an absolutely sensational game and they shot the hell out of it. And then Joe Maz had to mess with us and he sat Tatum beginning of the fourth quarter. That was scary. A little bit for Boston. And he kept sitting and all of a sudden the lead was five. And it was like,

oh my God, here we go again. But then Tatum came back and they blew the game open. There were a couple of moments in this game when it looked like the Celtics were going to take off. And then there were a couple other moments when it looked like it was going to completely crater and the game kind of went back and forth. The big thing was Miami didn't really play that well. Part of that was the Celtics defense. But part of it was they didn't shoot the threes the same way. I was,

I'm sure you were on a million text threads the last couple of days and all these different people reaching out. And I kept saying the same thing to people. It was like,

it's really hard to count the Celtics out when they can hit 20 plus threes in any game. Right? And like the Verno stat you mentioned, that's a lot of teams you could say that about,

but really them, they had a lot of games this year where they would go 20 for 50, 20 for 45, 22 for 51. And it just felt like they were invincible and that didn't happen those first three games. So in the back of my head, I'm thinking, well, if they start hitting threes, great. What I liked about today was the defense. And it just, there was a different

level of activity. And I got to say, and I'm sure you were on the same kind of text threads. It felt like 75% chance they were just going to roll over and be happy to just get out of here, get out of Dodge for the season. And 25% chance they might dig deep and try to fight. And I thought coming out of the gate, they were fighting right in that first quarter, Miami punched them back. All of a sudden they're up seven. And that was the moment where we're like, okay, you can roll over here. You don't have to play a game five in Boston. There'll probably be some trades in the off season. The coach will probably get fired. Like this is it. You have an out right now. And they didn't take the out. And if you watch the bench,

especially in the fourth quarter, guys were standing, guys were yelling, people were locked in. This to me, KOC, felt like a team that did not want to go down, not only with the sweep, but just looking like a bunch of losers. So at least we hit that check mark, right? For sure. I mean, Boston rallied. You've got to give credit there. I mean, I feel like they came out playing more intense, connected, hard-working defense,

especially like I mentioned the drives to the basket. They were very handsy. They were active. A lot of second passes, a lot of third passes, all that stuff. For sure. And I think for the celtics i mean a game plan wise i mean i i didn't i didn't notice on a first watch anything significant they were still doing some of the stuff that was you know frustrating you know

switching derrick white on a jimmy butler you know with the size mismatch there was still some of the stuff like that but i mean ultimately overall just like, from a first viewing, a better overall effort. And, I mean, even though Rob Williams is a minus seven in the game, I don't think that was indicative of his performance tonight. I thought the times that he was switched on to Jimmy Butler, his length, he did a great job with his rim protection. Al Horford, you know, he had his best defensive game individually of the entire series. And, of course, he also shot the ball well on offense. Yeah, you're right, Bill. I mean, they had an opportunity just to fold and they didn't take that chance. And you got to give credit to that Celtics team for rallying around each other. Butler had 29, 10 for 12 from the line.

He missed a couple bunnies around the basket. I wouldn't say it was like the greatest Butler game. Caleb Barton comes out. He's six for six. And I think after he hit his sixth straight, the question was in play, is he the second best player in the series? Like, what is happening?

And then he finally pulled off a little bit. Reggie Miller was calling him the best player in the series during the broadcast. I was like, oh, that's a bit much. Vincent got hurt near the end. But just in general, like from a Celtics standpoint, and I'm sure you were having

a lot of the same conversations, this podcast could have been a lot different tonight. This could have been a, who's going? What are they going to do about the coach? How ambitious are they going to get with the Jalen thing?

And those are questions we still might ask after game five. But I think the first thing we had to find out is did this team like each other? Did they want to stick up for each other? Did they want to actually fight? Or like you had, what was the thing you said in FanDuel TV this week? A team that's kind of tired of fake liking each other.

Right. Have you heard similar there as well? Yeah, you know, I think it's like anything else. When you have coworkers or you have people that are together a lot, like they're not always going to be best friends. But yeah, I think it's tough. I think in this era of the NBA,

teams don't really stick together for that long, you know? And in this case, you have Brown and Tatum together, I think for, what is this? They're six years together? Seven? I can't even remember. Tatum came in the league in 2017.

Oh, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. So they're, yeah, six years together. And with Smart too, that's a long time in basketball terms. That's almost like dog years. You think like,

even the Lakers, the fact that LeBron and AD have played together four years is like a lifetime these days. So, you know, you start wondering like, ah, is Jalen going to want his own stuff? Is he going to want to be the guy? Is he going to want a big contract? Are they going to give Jalen a contract?

Then like, is White, Brogdon, are they happy where they get their minutes yanked around and all the things that happen when a team isn't playing well. Now they could go back to Boston in game five and lose by 10 and have the same kind of shit that happened in the first two games. I don't think I would be surprised, but here's the thing. And this is what multiple people said to me over the last two days. They're probably not coming back from 3-0. See, I'm already sounding like I'm getting sucked in. They probably aren't coming back from 3-0. But if you were going to come back from 3-0,

what's the recipe, right? Well, in basketball, you have variance with the threes. That's one thing. They have home court in five and seven, which normally would be a great thing. With this team, that might not even be a good thing. They have a better team just from a talent standpoint. Miami's played better and they're a better coach, but they have more talent on paper. So to me, this isn't completely inconceivable that they could win game five and at least put Miami in a situation of,

holy shit, if we don't win this one, now we're staring at history going the other way. And then you look at some of the guys in this series for them, not exactly like long-term proven NBA guys. So as the pressure starts going up, the Celtics have been in a bunch of big games. And some of these Miami guys really haven't been in as many big games. So that would be the recipe. I still don't know if I believe it. More because I don't trust the Celtics team. Where do you stand?

Do they have a slogan like the 0-4 Red Sox did? Cowboy up. You got to believe. Anything like that? They had don't let us win one earlier today. Jalen Brown, Marcus Smart saying something like that. How about we coach ourselves? Could that work?

Abby Chin had this quote. Our girl, Abby Chin, who we love. She said, this was with 941 left and forth. Joe Mazzulla calls a quick timeout with 941 left and forth, lead down to five. Marcus Smart immediately sits down in the coach's chair in front of the bench and talks his teammate through the game plan. This is a quote from somebody who covers the Celtics. I tweeted that it was, we've reached the mocks and lands taking over the West Canaan High

sideline for varsity blues. But it does seem like as the playoffs have gone along, haven't you noticed this? The players are becoming more and more involved from a strategy standpoint. I don't know if that's ideal. Yeah. yeah i mean there's been some stuff about like marcus smart subbing himself into games and whatnot too that's been floating around out there so that's part of like what's been going on there for sure it's marcus smart showing hey i want to be a future head coach because i am a current head coach right because i'm coaching right now and every time they cut to joe he's just blinking and squinting it just seems like he's cratered emotionally i don't know this is uh i would say this is up there with one of the weirdest something playoff series i can remember

i mean it's i think i think with joe mizzoula it's like in some ways it's forgivable like he talked about this on ryan's pod like you you know, he's hoisted, you know, he gets hired unexpectedly. You know, right. You said 15 years ago, you would have had nicknames for him. Right. But she's not going to do that anymore.

Like, it's like, you understand. I would have, yeah, I would have called him that, but I'm not going to call him that now. I feel bad.

No, I mean, no, it's second row, Joe. Um, no, it's, it's like row, Joe. No, it's like if Spoh had gotten that

heat job in 2006 instead of 2011, I'm not positive how it turns out for him. Probably not great. But I mean, this team has deeper issues than that. The effort level, the fact that we notice when they're playing hard, to me, is a

problem. You see the way they were kind of flying around on D and Tatum from the get-go, you could see he was flying around. It's like, this is the playoffs. Like I just went to two Denver Laker games in a row in LA and guess who flew around for eight straight quarters,

the nuggets, right? Bruce Brown came out of the game that took him out with like five minutes left. And he kind of screamed at Mike Malone more he was just so upset he was coming out because he just wanted to be out there so badly. It wasn't like he was trying to show him up. Those guys were locked in, the whole bench standing.

They fucking wanted it. And when they won, it wasn't like this overjoyous crazy celebration did you notice that with the nuggets like well you can celebrate that quote he's like what does this mean to you the western conference trophy and the mvp of the western conference and he says nothing because it does mean nothing they it's they want they want to hit another level and do something even greater it's such a tough team and their was like, now we're four wins away. They weren't like, oh my God, we won the West.

Oh Jesus. And then people sobbing. It was like, all right, who's next? And the Celtics team, during the season, they kind of carried themselves like they had really achieved something when they really hadn't. But they at least had a little swagger, and that was what was alarming about this series.

It felt like Miami, especially by the end of Game 3, the swagger was just gone. They just pulled it out of them. Well, I mean, I think for Boston, it started on defense. It did start with that swagger you're talking about, right? But I think it did also translate to offense. Tatum has these seven assists five turnovers it's not like some amazing assist to turnover ratio but he executed in that in the middle of

the game when they're running him through pick and rolls and dhos he executed early in the fourth quarter when he subbed right back in against the zone spoke calls a timeout immediately next play after the timeout they're hard doubling him in the corner and he's executing out of that. Sometimes, I mean, like when it comes to blame game with Boston, it's not just on Joe Mazzola. It's not just on Jalen Brown for whatever injury he has or his inability to dribble or Tatum sometimes coming up short. It's true. I'm laughing because it's true. I mean, it's a collective shared blame but tonight they executed especially jason tatum like he didn't have this 50 point game right he didn't

have a 51 51 point game in the game seven like he did last round but he did have 33 points and he executed at every level that he needed to and that's what you ultimately need when you don't have that traditional you know steadying presence in what you ultimately need when you don't have that traditional steadying presence in your backcourt. You have Marcus Smart, Derek White, Malcolm Brogdon, but none of those guys are that type of steadying. The settle-downers. Yes.

So Tatum, I felt like, did a good job of that tonight when he was asked to. That's the most jarring thing when you watch the Nuggets in person. I just, I just love how they play. But when it's going sideways, Jokic is like their little binky.

Like he's like, Oh, the baby's crying. Give, give them the little binky blanket. And the baby gets it and just like start sucking their thumb and they calm down. It's like a six nothing run.

And it's just like, Oh, let's bring over the binky and Jokic gets the ball at the top of the key. And then he just figures out how to get somebody an awesome shot or he makes a shot and they're good again. Right. And the Celtics team, they've always had that binky issue where, you know, even today you could feel it. They're up like 17 late, right? Then somebody in the heat made a shot, then like Lowry had a layup and then it was like 13 or 14. And I've just watched them blow that lead for a couple of years now where you're like,

oh God, who's going to, now that we're going to come back down, jack up another terrible shot. But this time they actually, you know, were pretty under control. It comes down to Tatum. And I find myself defending Tatum a lot because I think people keep forgetting that he's 25 and he's not a finished product. And I think he really does care. He's immature sometimes. And there's times when he seems 25, like when he held up to 50 last Sunday.

But I still feel like he's not the guy he's going to be when he hits the point Jokic is at right now. You go through history and all the guys who win titles, it's when they're 27, 28, 29. It's always late 20s when they peak. I still feel like he's on the right track. Have you seen anything from him that makes you think he can't get there? No, not at all i think with tatum he's still on the up upward trajectory and just look on the other side their opponent jimmy

butler think about the guy that he was when the when the chicago bulls traded him he was still an all-star level player he was still a great player but he has improved his decision making his feel his control of the game the way he commands an offense his efficiency as a pull-up shooter tatum you know what's he gonna be by the time he's 27 28 could he be the type of guy like butler who keeps improving into his early 30s like development isn't always like on this oh you hit 28 years old and you're done right like it's not always like that and for jason tatum I think with his work ethic, like you can fault him sometimes for kind of not coming into games

with the right mindset. He doesn't always get up for games. And sometimes he doesn't demand the ball enough in those fourth quarters. Like he had his first four quarter points of the series, but you can't fault him for his work ethic away from the court. He always works hard at this game. He always gets better every single summer and i think with tatum you can't you can't expect him to stop improving and that's why he's the guy with jaylen brown he could get better too i just think he has

some more skill limitations as a ball handler and creator than jason tatum what does so tatum ceiling is higher um but that's that's the tough part with this like Michael Pena wrote a nice article on the ringer today about like that's the challenge with potentially trading a Jalen Brown like who do you actually get for him if it does come to that like there's not a lot of guys that you would actually want to flip Jalen Brown for

considering his own youth despite the big money contract coming up too yeah I think with him he's probably pretty close to whoever he's going to be. And he's also been in the league for a year longer than Tatum. But I think for the most part,

we're here with him. Tatum has this whole other mid-range game, low post game thing that we haven't even scratched the surface with. And not to compare him to LeBron because LeBron's obviously a whole higher level of class of player.

But this was LeBron for 10 years where I was like, well, what's the evolution for everything he's doing right now? It's, oh, can he play a little closer to the basket? Can he learn to play with his back to the basket? Can he learn how to bully guys down, you know, to the rim and things like that? And that was stuff he really didn't have

until the mid-2010s. Really like the 2015, that first Cavs season when he came back. And I look at Tatum and I'm just like, this guy's not even close to scratching everything yet. He still doesn't really post up. When they post him up, even though he doesn't really know what he's doing,

the other team always overreacts to it. They hate it. They send doubles or they'll send people or they'll send a guard down, whatever. But if you look at his mid-range stats and his post-up stuff, it's just not good enough yet. And I think that is where he's going to get better because he's 6'9". He's strong. And that should be a real advantage, especially with younger guys on him.

So let's take a break and then lots more to discuss with this. And then I want to get your Denver thoughts, even though you gave them on the mismatch last night. This baseball season, get more thrills out of every at bat on FanDuel, America's number one sports book right now. New customers can step up to the plate with a no sweat first bet up to $1,000. Go to FanDuel.com slash BS, sign up, place yourweat first bet up to $1,000. Go to Fandle.com slash BS. Sign up. Place your first bet. Get up to $1,000 back in bonus bets if you don't win.

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800-522-4700 Wyoming or 1800 gambler.net in West Virginia. It just stares at me smiling. On October 18, discover what hides behind the smile smile 2 alright so Celts go down 3-0

and as usual a lot of stories start being written a lot of things come out one of the things that came out was Adrian Wojnarowski had this

report on TV about how the Celtics one of the reasons that this season has gone sideways is that they were still upset about how the Emea Doca thing was handled and that that's been a recurring theme during the course of the year. And this is, I hadn't heard anything like this before. And I thought it was a really weird report. I don't know where it came from. I don't recall any situation during the course of

the year when it really popped up in a way that felt like it was threatening to the team. It certainly was an issue when they were kicking ass in the beginning of the season. It was an issue with the All-Star break. I was just really dubious of the report, but this is the kind of stuff that happens when things are going sideways. But when when you heard that what was your reaction i hadn't heard anything about it over the course of the season like you um i do know like the guys loved udoka uh yeah maybe i think at the time it happened you know back in august when it happened there was people frustrated with the team but over the course of the season i hadn't really heard anything specifically about you know people being fed up with not having Udoka there. I think there was just an understanding

that this is our situation and let's make the absolute most of it that we can. Yeah, this wasn't like Coach K getting knocked out of Duke. He'd been on the Celtics for a year. It was one year, yeah. Yeah, because the whole thing with the Woj connection to this story, I'm just

really suspicious of it. He was the first one who reported this story. He didn't really have all the details. And then as more details came out, it was Shams who was the one who reported it. Woj is a CA guy. Emad Dok is a CA guy. Ethan Sherwood-Strauss wrote a whole piece about it when it happened. Like, wait, what are we doing here? Are we reporting stuff or are we carrying somebody's water? And then this popped back up again. And I don't know. I just, I don't know sometimes what the reasons are for a report,

but this one I thought was weird and it didn't add up to me because I think there's a lot of reasons the Celtics have kind of created this year. Udoka was a better coach than Joe Mazzola, no question. The coaching staff is way better last year than it was this year, no question. They're not playing defense as well, no question. The Jalen Brown KD trade rumors, a little weird.

I think it affected Jalen. I think it kind of changed his perspective on the organization. I think it probably undermined the fabric of it. But I don't think there, I don't think this is a situation where they're in the playoffs and they win the first two against Atlanta. And then all of a sudden they, things, they start not playing as well. And then they're, they're in the locker room going, man, what do you think happened with that email thing? Anyway, I just thought that was absurd. Anyway, I got to, what were, what were some other weird things that you thought were popping up over the last two days?

Um, I mean, I think with, with that, that's the main one. I mean, were there any others that I'm, I'm not thinking of off the top of my head?

That was the big one. I mean, I had my report, of course, you know, with saying the thing about, uh, you know,

the, the guys are kind of tired of each other. Gary Washburn had something in the Boston Globe saying Jalen Brown's kind of biting his tongue at the podium. But other than that, is there anything else that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head? There was some stuff about...

Woj was the big one. That's the main one. There was some stuff during Game 3 about that. It was getting a little chirpy on the bench between people in the coaches, people who were sitting near the bench said the chemistry was going way sideways. So that was why I didn't know what to expect tonight.

You could have told me they were going to lose. I was texting with the East Coast Bias guys and I was saying, I thought the Celtics were either going to win by 10 or lose by 20. That was it. I was like, those are the two options. either going to win by 10 or lose by 20. That was it. I was like, those are the two options. And we were looking at the FanDuel bets, and one of them was Celtics minus 9.5 was plus 300.

I was like, I would bet that over betting. It's not like they're going to win a close game. They're either going to blow them out or whatever. But going forward with this, let's say they come back and let's say they lose in six to Miami. What's your best guess for what happens with Missoula? Because if you go back and you read all the reports from when they hired him, and even Woj went on TV, you can go watch on YouTube. He's like, Joe Missoula was a finalist for the Utah job. This is a guy, Brad Stevens is convinced he's a head coach. And now it's kind of flipped where it's like, oh my God, it's too soon. He's too young.

I don't know if it's too soon or it's too young. It seems like he's melted down a tiny bit as the season's gone along. So the question is if they had like a couple of veterans on that bench, do you kind of go, let's give them one more year, but we'll just give him a better support staff and we invest in this guy? Or do you just say, we're on a time clock here. There's some good coaches available. We don't want to waste another year of the Tatum Brown thing. We got to act now. On Sunday night, I was like, I think he's gone if they get swept. I don't know what it means if they lose in five or six. If they get to

six, that's where things get interesting. If they lose in five at home in Boston, despite their mixed success there this season, I think that makes it still a pretty easy decision. But if they do get to six, and if along the way, game six against Philadelphia, they have Robert Williams helping off PJ

Tucker. It seemed like an overdue change, but they did it, and it helped change the series for them. If there's a strategic shift, if there's support from players, when Stevens has his exit interviews with Tatum and Brown and all those guys, then you make your decision. I don't think you make your decision the morning after game five if they lose or the morning after game six, they definitely they are on the clock here like the longer this series goes the more of an increased chance like a nick nurse or a vogel like their finalist tom shawani reported tonight for the sun's job along with doc rivers who's like

as he has nine lives how about that come back to the celtics that'd be something else uh but so boston i mean if they do want one of those veterans on to lead the team those those jobs could be taken pretty soon in the coming days i mean the draft is coming in a couple of weeks now so i think those teams want to get that wrapped up and even if it's not a veteran coach and i can't imagine they go for an assistant who hasn't had a job before like uh jord Jordy Fernandez was, uh, King's assistant was the other finalist for that son's job.

I can't see them going for another rookie head coach. Cause that's the best thing with Boston. I mean, they've had two rookie head coaches in a row with your Doka and now Missoula. Are they really going to go with a third one when they, this is a team that has so much experience and has championship expectations.

To me, they got to be going for a veteran here who's been through it before and that they feel like could elevate this roster. Can I tell you who's going to get the Suns, Jeff? Who do you hear? From the producers of I Told You Bronny was going to USC six weeks ago?

Mm-hmm. It's going to be Kevin Young. Oh, okay. So they're going to hire their assistant from their own staff. My question is, what's the Nick Nurse destination? I think

it's going to be Milwaukee. Quinn Snyder's off the table. He's in Atlanta. So you think Milwaukee? Yeah, I think so. I think Nick Nurse is the type of coach that the Bucs, the question is that the Bucs give it to Nurse, but the amount of adjustments he makes,

he's a micromanager. That's what a Giannis-led team needs. It's kind of the opposite of Budenholzer, who is great at setting a foundation and building a system, but not so great at in-game or game-to-game adjustments. He likes to stick to his principles and what he's built over the season. Nurse will toss it in the dumpster and install something new on the off day.

I think that's the type of coach that they're going to need. So I'd say Milwaukee for Nurse. But you're right, those jobs are running out quick, especially if it is going to be Kevin Young going to the Suns. See, I would have thought the most fun outcome would be Nurse to Houston, right? With all those offensive weapons and no defense. And he just could have basically turned them into a really fun G League team for a year as they did whatever, or if they had Harden, even better. And then Adoka going to Milwaukee. But

Nurse, for how creative he is, I don't know what you're unlocking with the Nick Nurse brain with that team. Like what's the ceiling that we're not scratching with them? Like they kind of are who they are, right? Like Giannis is who he is at this point. We know what Drew Holiday's been in the league since what, 14 years at this point?

Middleton's, we know who he is. I just don't know. I don't know how he's going to be much different other than end-of-the-game adjustments and things like that. I don't know. What offense are you going to put in? It's Giannis. What are you going to do?

I think that is the difference. It's about making those in-game adjustments that Budenholzer would often not make at all or be too late to make. Maybe make a coach that makes adjustments. Maybe that's the upgrade. I forget who tweeted this. Like,

so forgive me, but like someone, someone said, I saw like, if you're, if you're like giving credit to what contributes to success for an NBA team

out of like one to 10, maybe coaches are 0.5. But when it gets to this stage and all of these teams are like an eight out of 10 or a nine out of 10 that 0.5 difference can can make give you the edge in a series which we're seeing with spo over missoula which we've seen throughout the postseason so i think that's where those

adjustments really come into play where a nick nurse for milwaukee could make a difference like i think i think setting the system and building the foundation, that's been done. Budenholzer did a good job with that over the course of time, unlocking Giannis and helping elevate him with his own development. But now it's about how do we find that edge over a postseason series so we're not getting upset 8-1 in the first round. Who would want that Philly job? I don't know.

Would you want that Philly job? No don't know. Would you want that Philly job? No. That's a tough job, man. If you lose Harden, what job am I taking over? And then what happens? Because it's like, who do you replace Harden with?

What does that do to your assets? Is Joe L. Embiid in a year going to say, get me out of here? I love Philly. How about a month? Yeah, a month or even by the deadline. I don't know. I don't know who's going to want that Philly job. Has there been any

solid... I haven't heard anything specifically. Is there anything really good out there about who's going to take that gig or has interest in it? I haven't heard anything yet. I think that the Harden makes it almost like a what job am I taking type situation. I think the Harden makes it almost like a, what, what job am I taking type situation? I think it's interesting that Doc wants to coach again. Cause I was, I was ready to bring them into the ringer. I'm still ready. Um, we've had a lot of success

with the Rivers family. We, we can totally add them on. Um, yeah, they do great. Callie and Austin. Oh yeah. We were two for two. So I think Doc would be a home run. But I think with the Celtics thing, I don't know. They're going to fire Joe. They're going to have their fourth coach in... How many years would that be? Fourth.

Fourth coach in like three years, basically. Yeah. I know. It's a lot. This is why I feel like what happened tonight was they bought Joe Mazzola another year, the Celtics team. And there will be some awesome bench coach

that comes in and maybe some second person and maybe some former player who just retired. The only other one I was thinking, I was watching him on first take today talking about the Celtics was JJ. For the Celtics job? I think he's interested in a head coaching job because he was talking about the Celtics. And unlike normal for JJ, was very measured about Tatum and Brown.

And I think you got to see what you have with these guys. And I'm like, oh, JJ, are you sending smoke signals? You would hire JJ Redick to coach the Celtics? I wouldn't hire JJ. I didn't say I would hire him. I just said he was a name. I was trying to think of names, right? It's like Nick Nurse.

It's JJ. It's Monty Williams. It's Doc. Would be hilarious. That would be funny if it was Doc. The names are already running out. Let's talk about the Denver Lakers series quickly. What Denver did in those two games

and we have Yovan Bujas coming up later to talk about the LeBron piece. Oh, Yovan. Yovan's great. Oh, yeah. We had watching them fight off in game three, the refs, and then

in game four, Jokic all of a sudden had five fouls. And then in game four, Jokic all of a sudden had five fouls. And I don't know if you remember this, but Davis had a dunk underneath. And it seemed like Jokic, like they could have called it. If they want to be like, this series is going five,

they probably could have called the cheapie on Jokic, but they held up. But there was this three minute stretch there where it was like the Lakers were just, you could see they were thinking about how do we get this six-file on Jokic. But they fought it off. The offense kind of went sideways. At the end, Jokic made one of the craziest threes

I've ever seen, which, by the way, he makes twice a week. And they just kind of fought it off. But the big thing was LeBron playing all those 48 minutes just seemed like it sapped his legs. But just in general, I think Denver's going to win the title.

I felt that way heading into the conference finals. I feel even more strongly about it now. It just seems like this thing they have going with Jokic, it is the ultimate cheat code right now. I don't see a scenario where they don't win the title unless somebody gets hurt. What are you seeing? I mean, Jokic is the best player in the world right now.

I mean, that goes without saying. That's done, right? Yeah, we're no longer accepting debates. We're turning away the door. We have decided this is now the best player in the world. Yeah, I think he is right now. And also, though, it's not just him. It's Jamal Murray stepping up in the way

he is it's it's that entire roster mpj like look at the 1920 team what they had like the will bartons of the world team and they've replaced those guys with kcp and bruce brown who you raved about earlier jeff green aaron gordon who's and i think you know you got michael maloney benches gordon in the fourth quarter of game three. And then Aaron Gordon, because he still has some offensive talent, comes out and has an explosive game on offense in game four. Michael Porter Jr. Porter Jr. What was he back in 1920? He was still a wild card. Now, MPJ, he's getting praised by Malone after games for not for scoring, which is what he was drafted for and known for, but because of his defense, because of making the extra pass, the rebounding, he has transformed who he is as a player. And honestly, like MPJ is, I mean, Jokic has become an even better player from his MVP years. Murray has improved, but MPJ is the, is the true, you know, transformation story on this Nuggets team. It was the X factor that they took a gamble on,

and it's been a total home run for them, and Malone as well. It's not just the players, but Malone and that staff, they mixed up defensive coverages against Minnesota all throughout the series. They adjusted their help against the Suns throughout that series, but against the Lakers, stuck with the drop, even when it felt like sometimes it wasn't working in that game four lakers are getting the basket but they stuck with it and but they were also because they wanted to shoot yes exactly they wanted them to

shoot and and it worked out but they were flexible with lineups sometimes like when yokich in game three he had a he was on foul trouble they're able to play small. I thought Malone has pulled all the right strings throughout the postseason in all three series, and those players, it's a culmination of the steps they took since the last time they faced the Lakers in the conference finals in the 2020 bubble. All the improvement individual players have made since then and all the improvements the front office has made to that roster, it's built an absolute machine. That's what it feels like they are right now watching them, whether they just seem

unstoppable. It was so funny sitting behind their bench for two games after sitting behind the Warriors bench for two games and Kamingo standing where Jim Goldstein was basically, pulled with the hoodie over his head, and Iguodala just walking around trying to glue guys back together when that team was pretty broken. And then Denver, everybody's up. It's guys like, like DeAndre Jordan, who didn't play a minute is super important on the bench. His arms are around everybody.

People are standing on all the big plays. And then you watch Malone during the timeouts. And there was a couple moments, especially game three was really interesting because the refs were just against them in that game. And they knew it. They know this is what the league's like. We're up 2-0 in a series.

We're on the road in game three. We're not going to get a lot of calls this game. And Malone was working the refs, but not too much. And then on the bench was just trying to get them to calm down, to don't get distracted. just do our thing. We're not going to get calls. Don't get caught up in that. And you could just see he's a real leader. And it's what you think about when you think, unfortunately, about somebody like Joe Maz, who's barely coached. And you got Malone, who's been in the league now for what, 20 years?

Something like that. And has been in all kinds of situations. He knew what was going on in that game before I did with just where it was going, officiating-wise and everything. The Jokic piece of this, and I know we're going to be doing a lot of Jokic content over the next couple weeks, but I had that 42 club that I

started in my book where I was like, if somebody, if the points, rebounds, assists in a post-season, if you add them up and they're 42 or higher, odds are they were a great player. Right. And it's happened way less than you think. And the reason I made it 42 is because I couldn't stand Carl Malone. I thought he was overrated. And Carl Malone had a lot of like 41.2s and 414s. So I was like, I'm making that to cut off. I'm trying to find the list. In 2018, LeBron for the playoffs was a 50.8.

So that was, I think, the highest I measured. Yeah, I think that was the highest I've measured since the 80s. Jokic in this series, he's 29.9, 13.3 rebounds, 10.3 assists. So that's 23.6. He's over 52. Jokic might be starting the 52 club. And when you watch him in the games, it actually sometimes seems like his stats should be higher. Like I looked up a couple of times. I'm like, oh man, only 20, 12 and 10 right now.

It feels like it's a 30, 25 and 20. I've never seen anybody just more involved in a positive way with the offense, right? It's just all additive. It's just, it's just all, all additive. It's unbelievable. He's so much fun to play with. And then the other guys start playing with like, um, it's so funny to people. I think like you and me that the rest of the world, the casuals seem to be like, Oh, this Yoko, she's really good. Huh? And it's like, yeah, this is what we were fucking telling you guys for three years. This is why we voted him MVP and have Jamal Murray for two straight playoffs.

Like this is the guy. So anyway, it feels a little victory lappish for me, but I'm taking it. I mean, he is just a beautiful basketball player. And like there's no other way to put it. He is a beautiful basketball player I'm sure to play with for all the guys in that locker room because he's so selfless and he just has such a contagious style and all the other guys that they have the aaron gordons the bruce browns those guys like to pass the ball too so they can relate to him and they they kind of they have the same dna as players he's just got this freakish dna as a playmaker that nobody else on the planet has and the fact that he's doing this at this stage like regardless of the level of defense that he faces it's like he's going as ad ad who has had

an unbelievable postseason on defense he's one of the reasons despite his ups and downs and offense and how frustrating his offense has been his defense is the reason why they made the western conference finals he's pulverizing him he's pulverizing the lakers when they have rui or lebron on him with ad coming over and helping it doesn't matter what you do and lebron fouling him lebron just they turn the fouls off when lebron it doesn't matter yeah because he figures it out like he's averaging 10.3 assists to only 3.5 turnovers in the postseason. I know. He doesn't make many mistakes at all.

He makes the right play nearly all the time on the floor. He is super efficient from mid-range with those little flip shots he has, from behind the arc with those Wiro stepbacks or regular spot-ups. It doesn't matter. He is Dirk Davidsky. He is Zeebo. He is Larry Bird, all in this seven foot, 300 pound frame. He is unstoppable.

And I think for the NBA, I was talking to somebody from the league and they're like, he still doesn't want to do interviews. And this was during the Western Conference finals. So he doesn't want to do interviews. We got to figure out how to market him. I'm like during the Western Conference finals. So he doesn't want to do interviews. We got to figure out. Yeah, we got to figure out how to market them. I'm like, talk about his game. But even last night, this should have

been like Jokic day today. And LeBron hijacked it in 20 minutes with the retirement stuff. And he was like, that's it, Jokic, you had your 20 minutes. I just, I think about the guys I've watched in my life who had that kind of effect on their teammates. And it's really just him and Bird of Magic that I can remember.

Because even somebody like Nash, Nash is a point guard. Ultimately, he couldn't create his own offense. You could kind of take him out at least a little bit. But he was such an unbelievable playmaker. And there's been a lot of good point guards who could do it, but it's really just bird of magic in Jokic. Even LeBron, as good of a passer as he is, I don't feel like it was never like this. The connective tissue that Jokic has with his teammates at all times, I've only seen it two other times plus Bill Walton when I was like a little kid and you know, I was seven.

So I barely remember it, but, um, it's just such a rare thing to watch somebody where they're so good at what they do that like Aaron Gordon's making backdoor passes. Like you, you watched Aaron Gordon in Orlando. Nobody was like Aaron Gordon, hell of a passer. But now, because all these guys have played with Jokic, they all kind of, they think like him. It's like this osmosis thing. And Murray, Murray's been the big revelation, right? Because he missed those two post seasons. I remember I did the trade value.

I think I probably had him, what was that, January, February. I had him on some tier. It was maybe 30, something like that. Now if you're like, who would you want for a playoff series? He's not one of the first eight guys you take, but he's probably on that next list, right? I'm pulling up your rankings right now just to double-check. You had him 29th.

29th. Yeah, you had him right behind Ingram, Lowry, Markkinen, Siakam, Brunson. You'd bump him up. Yeah, he's in the teens now. Yeah, no doubt about it. I mean, he's definitely – like, playoff performance is where you establish who you are and what your true value is. I mean, like, you had Ingram one spot ahead of him, Zion one spot behind him.

Those guys are more theoretical. We saw Ingram do it in one series against the Suns, but it's a first-round series. When you do it round after round against different defenses, different types of defenders, when you're building fatigue playing every other day, that's where you make your name

and establish who you are. And Jamal Murray has done that. I mean, did it in the bubble? He has stripped himself of the bubble Murray nickname, and rightfully so with his performance now, like he, I don't know, man, like the, like he, he especially, but everybody on that team, they just, they found guys who are all selfless and they're all willing to move without the ball.

Like the two man game with Jokic and the amount of chemistry that they have with the years they've spent together, the DHOs that they run where they just kind of flip the ball to each other they just have such a feel it's like you said they're connected it's like their brains are connected it's my kind of basketball man this is what I love I'm so glad it's

back I wonder is Jokic a unicorn or will other people try to start playing like him or is this just like you can't this guy's from another country you can't this is not replicable we're only going to get this once you can't play like him no like yokich just has like when i interviewed him years ago i think it was 2018 when he was still doing occasional interviews i did a story that nicole yokich in the in the nuggets funky bunch or something like that was the time i

remember that yeah and like he like i asked him about like do you when with your passes that you make do you practice some of those weird angles with your arm or anything like that to make it as pinpoint as it is he was like no i just my whole life like i just look at something and i throw it there and it goes there it's just something he has on the inside. There's something that he has that nobody really does. And like it applies for him as a passer and as a scorer as well. Like it doesn't matter if he's looking at the net or somebody's hands spotting it from behind the arc.

He just knows where to place the ball. And he, he just has so much foresight. You can't be like Jokic. You can't. There's a hand-eye coordination that's just out of control. Like he had a play in the second half yesterday when he was posting up and Gordon cut

and he just quick flick this alley-oop and just put it right next to the rim for Gordon. I was just like, I was like, wanting to look around in my section. Do you guys realize how hard that is? Like that's impossible. So he's got that. And then the footwork piece of it, you know, it's just, the part that's, you can't wrap around your head is just like the way he looks versus what his

hand eye and his footwork is. It just doesn't make sense. Right. It's like you, it's like somebody made him in 2k and thought it would be funny to make a guy that looked like that had his body, but then had all these crazy skills. And you'd be like, oh, look at this guy. He had some drop step turnaround shit on Davis. I think Davis is probably this, when Davis is locked in like he was in the playoffs, probably the single hardest guy to post up.

When you say, is there a harder guy to post up than him? And Jokic a couple times just was able to maneuver around him and get like drop step shit. I was just in awe. It's a really fun team to watch. Like to me,

people are like, oh my God, Denver, what the hell? To me, this is so similar to that first Warriors season. And I think they're even probably more closer to the 2016 Warriors.

But that first Warriors season where we're like, really? this is going to happen? And then all of a sudden, they won the title. And even nationally, people weren't really totally taking the Curry thing seriously. And it's just what this reminds me of. I mean, they were even odds in the Phoenix series. They had home court advantage, right? In this series, I think they started out minus 140 against this Lakers team with a guy in year 20 as their best player. That line climbed up to minus 160. Now it finally seems like they're getting respect, but I don't know. Did they throw people off that last month when they went into the funk, you think?

I think that was part of it for me. I mean, I picked against them last round against the Lakers. I was skeptical of their chances against the Suns, too, with all their shooting on the perimeter with Katie and Devin Booker. How would the Nuggets defend them? How would this defense translate? But it has translated. I mean, I did a Jokic defensive video last year um you know talking like adam mades is like

a great nuggets uh guy with like dnvr his place is called and like we talked about how he's improved physically his conditioning positionally like how yogurts has just improved defensively this was last season but then that last month like you don't really know is this him coasting and conserving energy for the postseason? Or has he hit a wall? So that did play into, I think, the doubt that I personally had with Denver. I can't speak for anybody else, but that was part of it there. But they've answered every single question in every round of the postseason,

playing different ways in each round. It's special, man. They definitely are special. I can't wait. I really can't wait to see the way, you know, ESPN, ABC and the NBA, especially market this guy, because this is the first time a lot of people are going to be watching him. And he does have such a likable game that you can tie to different areas of basketball. So will he, if the Nuggets win the series, the NBA finals, will he explode in popularity nationwide? You know, he's this big seven foot white dude. He's funny. He does have a good personality when you can put a mic in front of his face. Like you get the, he, you know, ties his wedding ring to his shoes. You get the heartfelt stories and all that. Second round pick, right? Drafted during a burrito commercial. You got a lot of angles that we know about,

but the casual fan who's tuning in for just the finals doesn't know about. I just want to know what happens to Jokic after the NBA finals if the Nuggets win at all. Will he explode and become one of the real faces of the game, even though that is the opposite of what he wants?

I convinced my wife and two of her friends to go to game three because we had tickets in the Spotify suite. I'm like, just take it. They're like, they're not really basketball fans. I'm like, just go. It's LeBron. He's the second greatest player of all time. And Denver has this guy you guys are going to be fascinated by.

This guy, Jokic. They're like, oh, we don't care about Jokic. I'm like, just go. You're going to be fascinated by this guy. So they all went. And then after, they were like, that Jokic, Like, I don't care about Jokic. I'm like, just go. You're going to be fascinated by this guy. So they all went. And then after they were like, that Jokic, what's going on with that guy? He's unbelievable. How does he do all that with that body?

Like they were just like dumbfounded by him. It's passing. But it's just, I do wonder like from a casual standpoint, to me, this guy, this could be like a pretty long run for him. Right. Cause he's got the right supporting cast around them. They're in a situation now that if you want to win a ring, that's a team you look at. It's a team that's not afraid to spend money. I think you mentioned the Porter piece earlier and Porter is the all-time hit or miss guy, but he's been way more hit or miss. Now he's starting to look like, what do you think, like 6'10"?

Who? 6'10", Klay Thompson? Something like that. In that realm. He's in that Klay Thompson realm. Klay prime years could probably do a little bit more off the dribble than MPJ. Coming around the screen sideways, just firing threes. For sure. He's got to be on the first team sneaky tall guys, where when you see him on the court, you're like, Jesus Christ,

this guy's as big as Jokic is. I didn't realize he was this tall. He is unbothered. Anytime he gets the ball in his hands and he launches for his three-pointer, it doesn't matter how hard your contest is. He is unbothered. You can be in his landing space space and it doesn't matter to him that's how good of a shooter michael porter jr is and now he's also a good defender he's become a

good defender he used to suck on defense he was a negative defender he's become a positive and he rebounds and he competes and he makes the extra pass i mean like yeah i like him i really like his game he's great man i the the other thing Jokic that I think you really notice in person more than TV is, you know, he does those handoff things, but he's so big that he just knows exactly how to play in himself in front of these guys. And you watch these guys bounce off him and it looks like it hurts. You don't feel it on TV. But in person, like Schroeder's bouncing off him because he doesn like it hurts. You don't feel it on TV, but in person, like

Schroeder's bouncing off him because he doesn't really realize the screen's there. And he's like going backwards and he's like making a face and it, you know, the way he's just so smart with how he uses his body. Now we're having a Jokic chasm. Listen, it's nothing new to us, but it was really fun to watch on a big stage with LeBron, especially last night, throwing everything he could. And Davis, who I thought played pretty well in that game, especially on defense. And just they're trying to gear everything to stopping him. And it just didn't matter. There's some bad blood if it ends up being Miami that I'd forgotten about that a lot of people were talking about last two days, dating back to the Morris twin. And so that could be a feisty series,

but I just think physically they don't have anything close to the beef to stop that team. No, I mean, Denver is 6-0 against Miami. I started my research this morning. 6-0 against Miami in their last three seasons. Bjokic has dominated every single matchup. You can look at the second spectrum matchup data. It doesn't matter what Miami's done against them. He

dominates. I think it'd be really tough for Miami. Bam is an awesome defender. So Denver's rooting for Miami to close this? I think so, yeah. I would think so, rather than Boston. So they're going to pay Jeter and A-Rod not to go to Game 5 and Game 6 and Game 7.

That really was a bad omen for Miami, Bill. If I was a Heat fan, I would have been so mad. You know, you grew up, how old were you when the 04 Red Sox happened? I was 14. The rest of my life and the rest of your life, anytime somebody's down 03 and comes back,

we get to see the Kevin Millar thing. Like today, somebody sent me a pic of it's Shaughnessy talking to Kevin Millar, but instead of Millar, it was Jalen Brown with the face mask on. And it's just like, I'm just so happy this gets to, versus like where we were before you

turned 14, where the Red Sox were just angst, torture, Bill Buckner, Aaron Boone, Babe Ruth, you name it. It was all bad. And now it's not. So I was just so happy that they were there. Thanks for that.

I'm so happy that I'm in a good mood today, that this isn't a eulogy podcast. Before we go, last question. If they got swept, do you think they would have traded Jalen Brown, yes or no? Yes. I think yes too. I wouldn't rule it out either. And I've talked to a bunch of people the last two days and I've looked at the numbers and stuff.

And especially like with the way, I'm still trying to fully comprehend the CBA and that apron and the second apron and all the different, but man, it really kind of seems impossible to have two guys who make $50 million plus a year. You can do it, but it just seems like really,

really, really, really damaging. Super limiting starting next summer. So this would be the year that you kind of can do it and it's not as painful. But starting next year with not being able to trade your pick seven years out, not being able to take more money in a deal, not being able to sign... Not being able out, not being able to take more money in a deal,

not being able to aggregate salaries in a trade. Like my goodness, it is like really restrictive. And that like, even aside from the second nature, Abram restrictions, five years, 295 million for,

I don't know, 20th best player, 25th best player, however you want to write, write Jalen Brown. That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. And you could say like, well,. That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. And you could say like,

well, he's second team all NBA forward. It's like, but no Kawhi, no KD, no LeBron, no Davis. You know,

it was a little bit of a fluke year for forwards. I don't think anybody thinks he's one of the four best forwards in the league, but he's a winning player who's been in a lot of awesome games and he's really good. He's one of the four best forwards in the league but he's a a winning player who's been in a lot of awesome games and he's really good he's one of the top 25 guys in the league totally he's a

really good player he really is really good player he can still get better too he's still young i mean i think we talked about he's probably near his peak but pretty he's been really durable yep i don't i mean what would Belichick do? I'd rather Damian Lillard, despite his advanced age. He just came off a career-best season. He solves your leadership issues. Damian Lillard? The playmaking guy.

I'd go for Dam. That'd be my number one target of the realistic guys. Oh, man. I was thinking if... And I think they end up keeping him, but if they can somehow survive in this series for a few more games. If they lose game five, I don't know. But if they do trade him, to me, it's like more of a get a young asset,

get some flexibility, break him into multiple pieces. Take a minor step back then, in that sense you're saying? Yeah, but maybe you get assets back that you can then flip and something else. That's why I like that Portland trade with the number three, and you get Simons, and then you get other stuff, and then you can kind of figure out what to do with, you know, you have all of a sudden figured out. Bring in Scoot Henderson maybe.

Right. That's an interesting path too. I don't know if Boston would go that route if it comes to it, but that is a path that has a lot of appeal to me too because Tatum's still young. He's still young. There's also the Beal and number eight and something else.

That's a possibility. He's going to be, if they decide shit, we got to do this, we got to trade them. Um, he's by far the best wing in the market, right? Cause the nets aren't trading bridges. It doesn't seem like, no. So, um, and everybody's looking for a guy like him. So I still, you know, I battle back and forth on it, but I, I just don't know where you're going. If you're paying $110 million to two wings in a season the way the rules are.

It just seems daunting. Anyway. All right, KFC. We can see you on FanDuel TV. When's the next one? Thursday. Beyond the Arc will be airing at 9 a.m. Eastern, 6 a.m. Pacific, and mismatch on Friday. There you go.

Good to see you. We'll read you on the ringer.com as well. Thanks for staying up with me. I'm glad this was a happy one. It was a great pod, Bill. Thank you for having me. Over 1,400 lounges worldwide. Redefined possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash businessplatinum. Hey, you. Yeah, you.

Scrolling TikTok and avoiding your chem homework? Chegg here. Hot take. You've seen enough Bama Rush, ASMR keyboard, and viral dance videos for one day. Let's lock in and start that assignment. If you need a little help, lean on Chegg's expert-supported learning tools. I say this with love.

Put on some lo-fi beats and get going with our step-by-step study support. Your weekend will thank you. Small steps today means big wins tomorrow. With Chegg. Subscribe today. You got this. All right, I don't get to say this this many times,

but a former Grantland intern from the original class, 2011, Yovan Buha, who going way back. When did we hire you? May, June? When was it? I want to say it was August going into my sophomore year at USC. Yeah. And I remember talking to your mom. As I've said many times, the whole Grantland experience, we were so busy. I blacked out. I only remember like small, tiny pieces of it. It's the opposite of like how LeBron James can remember like every play in every quarter of every game he's ever played in. I'm the opposite. I remember nothing, but I do remember having a nice conversation with your mom. I always thought you handled your business well. And since then

you rose up the ranks. Now you're covering the Lakers for the athletic. And it was quite a season. I'm going to say that was probably an A-plus season just to follow a team, right? From a content standpoint? Oh, yeah. Never a dull day.

Even last day of the season delivered us something nice. I know. Yeah, I don't even know. I guess we start with that. I just feel like the Le don't even know. I guess we start with that. I just feel like the LeBron, oh, I'm thinking about retiring thing. I just think it's so inauthentic. I don't think there's any way

in a million years he's ever retiring. I do wonder what the point of him saying that was. And I'm sure you've been, how many years have you been covering LeBron now? What are you, a year five? This is my third year. Third year. Okay. So you've been, how many years have you been covering LeBron now? What are you, a year five? This is my third year.

Third year. Okay. So you've, you've interacted with them. Like you've seen him kind of when the cameras aren't on, you've pretty good relationship with them, but there's always intent with LeBron James. So they get swept by a better team than Nuggets, but they were in every game. It was a very entertaining four game series. I want to talk about a little bit, but he comes out and kind of throws that out.

So why? Well, it was a very intentional statement because he had been asked similar questions earlier in the press conference and really deflected the notion of... He was asked about, can you guys be contenders next season? What do you need to be back here?

And he's like, well, I haven't even thought of next season yet. Okay. So then I asked him a similar question of how do you view this season from an individual perspective? You're 38, you're 20. And he's like, I don't reflect on my seasons. I'll do that when my career's over. I'll let you guys talk about it. Yeah, that's true. But then he gets asked a similar thing of, personally, what was the season like for

you? But right before that, Lakers PR says, final question. And then the person asks it and he answers it. It goes on a few different things of, it was nice to help a rookie head coach

go to the conference finals and breaking the scoring record and these different things of it was nice to help a rookie head coach go to the conference finals and breaking the scoring record and these different things. And then he just pivots into what I think was a calculated statement of just, we'll see. For me personally, I have a lot to figure out with my future with the game of basketball. We'll see. I don't know. And just leaves this really cryptic message for us and then walks off the podium immediately. And I guess Chris Haynes and David McManaman were able to track him down and get a couple questions

with him on the way out. And he confirmed, obviously, to them that he is considering retirement. I don't think it's that. From talking to some people today, it sounds... Everyone around the Lakers at least use it as something that what was more of a leverage play and something where, you know, this isn't seriously something, you know, maybe,

maybe he's having a moment of it was here the moment they just lost. He played all but four seconds, had a nearly a 40 point triple double. And it was just kind of a, you know, one of those things where he's just venting on the fly. But to me, I think it kind of read as, you guys need to give me a reason to come back. Come on. Even in our brief time together when we worked together,

I thought I taught you better than that. No, yeah. So there's two things here going on. One, it's just the classic, I got swept, Jokic is now the best player in the world. I want to create a news story just because, and keep myself in the news, which that would be the pessimistic way to look at this. The optimistic way would be, I'm going to start putting the pressure on now because

we are now heading toward the draft, free agency. It's basically trade season as we hit the finals with some either restricted free agents who could potentially become available, some free agents on July 1st. My question is, what does he want the Lakers to do? Because they're going to re-sign Reeves, and they should. And Reeves is at least a $20 million guy at this point, a year. They're probably going to overpay Rui. I'm not sure that's a good idea, but they're going to do it, right? But what's the other move? Unless you put Davis on the table, it's not like they have these other salaries to throw this time getting a better fitting third star. He was pushing for Kyrie last offseason. He was pushing for Kyrie again at the February 9th trade deadline. really the way the Lakers got in this mess in the first place with the Russell Westbrook situation was because LeBron wanted to take a step back offensively, not have the ball as much, at least in the regular season,

and have someone else help him run the show and carry that offensive load. And I think to kind of just even put the context of game four in perspective, like, again, he just played a game where he played all but four seconds, puts up 40 points, and the second leading scorer on that team

was Anthony Davis at 21 points. And he had another one of those. He was kind of on and off during odd and even games where every even game, he kind of had a subpar one. And I think LeBron's kind of looking at the situation like, I don't know if I have enough here. And again, I think he's kind of putting the pressure on the Lakers to say,

you guys got to give me a reason to want to come back to this situation. And I think for him, that's getting at Kyrie Irving. As I reported earlier today on The Athletic, Trey Young is a name I've been hearing some buzz with the Lakers. He was at a couple of playoff games sitting courtside. So I think something like that of, you know, you could consolidate D'Angelo Russell, who just had a really...

Oh, good luck. A really bad conference finals. 25 points on 10 for 31 shooting across four games. He just kind of doubled down on his season and his time with the Lakers and just basically said he didn't make shots in his exit interview. So I think Kyrie and Trey are two of the names I've heard,

but I'm sure there'll be another disgruntled star that pops up at some point this summer. The crowd turned on D'Lo completely. I went to games three and four. It was turning into people just screaming, get him out of there as soon as he's missed a shot. So you didn't mention the possibility of a Davis piece to this,

of a Davis trade, whether that's in play. Because if you're getting Trey Young, I'm pretty sure Atlanta is not going to be like, cool. So the team with no first round picks until 2058 wants Trey Young. Sure. Well, maybe a Schroeder sign and trade and a second rounder. That sounds good. Let's call it in. So Davis would kind of have to be in that and that becomes interesting because if you're talking like Trey Young and a Kong Wu and um maybe some Deep Bay and I don't know what else um and then Davis going to Atlanta and Atlanta basically moves that's the only way I could see that happening

I just don't think it's realistic the Kyrie thing is a little more realistic because as we've seen with um we saw it with Jimmy Butler four years ago. He's like, I want to go to Miami. Well, they don't have cap space. What do we do? Well, I want to go to Miami. And then Philly's like, all right, we'll take Richardson, Josh Richardson. And Whiteside goes to Portland. All of a sudden, Jimmy Butler's in Miami. So if Kyrie says, I want to go to the Lakers, or I'm just going to sign with them for the mid-level exception. Maybe then I'm going to have the full mid-level exception. I'll just sign with them for the minimum.

That's where I want to go. And now the Mavs are in a situation looking at Russell like, all right, well, Russell for a year, sign and trade. Maybe that's how it works. But other than that, I just don't see how they get somebody good without Davis being involved. The other guy I think is still a possibility

is Embiid. Your AD and B trade? Yeah, I think that's, you know, I think if Embiid's going to leave Philly, I think it would be for a situation like the Lakers. Like if I had to do a,

if we did a fantasy draft now of stories that are going to pop up over the next four weeks, I'd be like, Hmm, that one's weird. I would have the Joel Embiid if, if he ever, he doesn't want to get traded, but if he ever did that, that, that, that one would be a first rounder for me. Um, and I don't know if that's enough. I didn't, they have nothing else to throw in from the Davis side, the Lakers, because they basically traded everything. My guess is everybody comes back and they operate around the fringes and then try to figure out the Kyrie piece of this, which...

I mean, do you think that's a good idea? No, I don't. I mean, you could talk yourself into it from like a... I think from a basketball fit perspective, you could kind of see it. But there's obviously a lot that comes with it as you've documented well. So I think...

Well, for you, it would be a godsend. I mean, that's 15 extra stories. Be like, hey, Kyrie came in today and here's what happened. Yeah. I think it would be definitely interesting. And I think you could kind of see... I feel like in this series, you could have seen how he could have helped the Lakers going toe-to-toe with Jamal Murray,

even though Jamal Murray was just on an incredible level in these conference finals. But I don't know. I think there's a lot of downside. And the Lakers just kind of saw this where because of the Russ trade, they had no depth. And even there were some flashes of positive moments with Russ, but because of the surrounding pieces,

that was always just basically a G League roster with three max guys. And I think the Lakers, they could keep Reeves and get Kyrie. So you could maybe talk yourself into, okay, we have four high-level guys. Guys will maybe take discounts to come here. But again, they kind of did that the last couple of years.

And it really, I felt, came back to bite them. Because you also have no guarantees. Like LeBron's going to be year 21, 39. AD just had one of his healthiest seasons ever and still missed 20 plus games. Kyrie obviously has missed a bunch of time over the last few years. So even with those three,

you're not guaranteed to have more than 60 games for any of those guys. Kyrie's been a losing player for a few years here now, and he's not to me, the natural elixir. You said that you made the key point next year's year 21 for LeBron. The situation is kind of what it is. Denver was better because they had the best player in the league at age 28 in

the prime of apex of his career. And then Murray was probably the second best guy in the series. They had the two best guys in the series. You know, I, I was really surprised that LeBron played game four the way he did. And I didn't fully understand it because I thought he completely ran that gas in the fourth quarter.

Like he wouldn't even shoot threes. There was a couple moments that Denver was treating him almost like he was Jared Vanderbilt. They were playing so far off him. And the fourth, because they knew he wasn't going to shoot because he didn't have any legs anymore. I thought it was stupid to play 48 minutes. And I think he's been brilliant for the most part in this postseason.

I thought it was a stupid decision. Get some rest. You're 38 years old. You've just played 39 minutes a game for over a month in the playoffs. And you're going against a team that's really good. Like you need something in the tank in the fourth. And instead it was like, he was, he was like a car that was just revving on set to seven RPMs and just trying to keep going. I thought he wore down. I also didn't think, I thought they had some real good stuff with Reeves in that

series that they could have taken LeBron off the court for six minute stretches in both halves. And they could have run the offense through Reeves. And I'm telling you, it would have worked. I thought Reeves in a lot of ways was as good of a matchup for them as LeBron was in this series. Anytime they ran pick and roll with AD, I thought it was effective. I thought if you're the Nuggets, you're like, I'm glad he's not getting the ball more. I think he had 10 shots in game three, 11 shots in game four. I would have, I just thought he could have

carried the offense for them. Hey, were you watching this Reeves ascent? When did you realize this was a real guy? Probably early in the season. Early this season. Early this season, yeah. You saw flashes of it, you know, the end of last season. He actually had a game in Denver, the final game of the season? Early this season. Early this season, yeah. You saw flashes of it. You know, the end of last season, he actually had a game in Denver,

the final game of the season, when Frank Vogel got fired, basically at the buzzer, where he had a 30-point triple-double, joined some list of like Blake Griffin, Jerry West, and someone else. Only rookies to have a 30-point triple-double. But he had shown flashes those final

couple weeks, but early in the season, it was clear. I honestly think the Lakers I don't want to put the entire they obviously would have only won maybe a couple more games, but I felt like he should have been starting and having a larger role with his team from day one.

It was clear that he was the third or fourth best player between him and Russ. And that quickly, I think, went in Reeves' favor. But I think as much as was made about the deadline additions, I think Reeves stepping into the starting lineup and basically being an 18-5-5 guy with near 50-40-90 splits

was really the story of like, for three months. Yeah. Like, I mean, I even think that the $20 million, like,

that might be a bargain, you know, and I know you're kind of hinting at that, like, that's kind of low for him. I'm not hinting at it. I think the max he can get,

I think, is 98-7. I think he should get it. And I'm not saying that, like, people, they know I'm not a huge Laker fan. Some people hear

that and like, oh, soon he's just trying to start trouble because he wants them to pay that. Like he's going to get that in the open market. There's teams like if I'm the Spurs and I have Wemba Nyama coming in, I have all that cap space and I can add Reeves from what I just watched the last three months. I'm doing that a hundred times out of a hundred. Like I have, I could have him, I could have Devin Vassell, I could have Kelton Johnson. I can have Wempa Nyama, McDermott come off the bench. Like I have the makings of a real team. I think he's going to get that money. And I don't think he should take a discount either, you know, because God knows if LeBron's going to be there a year from now or even next year.

You made the key point in the trade. That trade was so overrated for what they got back. But the key to the trade was just getting rid of Westbrook. Right? Because not only do you get rid of this terrible fit and this guy who was unhappy and all the baggage

that came with that whole situation, but then Reeves got more minutes. So you go to the playoffs, like, I don't know, Malik Beasley didn't even play for the last two rounds. No. Vanderbilt was a defensive guy off the bench, but don't know, Malik Beasley didn't even play for the last two rounds. No. Vanderbilt was a defensive guy off the bench,

but in the last two rounds, his minutes really dropped. And then D'Lo was unplayable in the Denver series. So the guy who ended up being the kind of prize, I guess, from the deadline for them was Rui, who played big, big minutes, probably too many minutes yesterday. I thought that was one of the mistakes they made. But just getting rid of Westbrook

was the key to everything. So it almost made me wonder, they could have just bought out Westbrook and they might have been in the same spot and kept that pick, but LeBron wouldn't have been happy about that, right? Yeah, I think there's an alternate scenario where they make the Indiana trade before the season

and getting Miles Turner and Buddy Heald giving up. Now, you would have given up an extra first-round pick scenario where they make the Indiana trade before the season and like getting Miles Turner and Buddy Heald giving up. Now you would have given up an extra first round pick and you would have been committing to a LeBron 80 miles Buddy quartet. And I guess throw Austin Reeves in there as well. You know, maybe Reeves doesn't get the same opportunity that he gets, but I think that,

I mean, the Russ situation was just so toxic. It really weighed over their entire season. Just that first time walking in the locker room after they had traded him, it was just a completely new energy, a completely new team.

You covered that game, the scoring record game. I've never seen anything like the body language in that game from him. He was so mad and so miserable. And he wasn't even happy for anybody. He wanted to get the F out of there. Yeah, no. It got to the point that final week where I think

he wanted to be out of the Lakers situation as much, if not more, than the Lakers even wanted it. Well, they really insulted him a bunch of times. I mean, they insulted him last summer. He was in every trade rumor possible. And then when LeBron said that Kyrie thing about how disappointed he was that the Kyrie trade, that was such a fuck you to Westbrook. Like, I don't understand.

LeBron's so smart and he's such a good teammate in so many different ways. I don't understand how he doesn't see the cause and effect of something like that, unless he knew that Westbrook was out regardless. I don't know. I think that was part of it. From what I've been told, he was out on Russ pretty early on in the partnership within the first month or two. And they tried to trade him

at the 2022 trade deadline, couldn't ultimately find a suitor. And I think they miscalculated how negative the situation had gotten and was going to be and

even if you want to argue that this the way that this played out set them up better for the future just in terms of flexibility and retaining a young core and whatnot I do think

they would have probably had a better record at least in the first half of the season had they not had Russ on their team whether that was through buyout or trading him,

I think that was just such a negative weight on their roster. Well, the shame of it is that the Brooklyn trade, I still feel like Westbrook in those two firsts was a better trade than what they got. They got Dinwiddie and DFS, and they got one future first. And I just feel like I'd rather have Westbrook in the two first.

I think Westbrook would have helped them for the playoffs too. So it would have been fun to have Kyrie in that series. Ultimately, it wasn't going to change what happened in the series. Jokic is the best player in the world. I was just so, I'm going to talk more about Denver on Thursday's pod, but I was just so impressed

with both of those wins. And, you know, both games were at game three, they didn't get any calls, like just nothing. And they fought through it. Game four, they were fighting this really crazy LeBron performance where it was hard to even tell what the ceiling of it was. And, you know, they just were able to make all that. Every time they made the right plays down the stretch, which was so weird to see LeBron in a situation where

his team wasn't the one executing as well as the other team. So that, that's what made me wonder, like when he talks about retirement, I guess it depends on if it's genuine, which I don't think it is, but it would depend on what your bar is for the kind of career you want to have, right? Are you okay with that you're not one of the best players in the world anymore? Maybe that was something he realized. I don't know. What do you think, like,

his basketball mortality, do you think he has a sense of that? Or does he still in his head think, I'm the best? A little bit. I mean, he had the quotes to ESPN that he thinks he's better than 90 90 to 95% of the league still, which I would agree with.

Yeah, I would too. Because 90 gets you to like top 45. I mean, he's clearly a top 45 guy right now. But yeah, I mean, I think if you just look at LeBron's career, he's always been a guy who like, I mean, elimination game LeBron has been a thing for the past decade plus. And when he shows up in an elimination game LeBron has been a thing for the past decade plus. And when he shows up in an elimination game, his team wins.

And when they don't, it's because they're playing the Golden State Warriors who have arguably the best team ever assembled, best offense ever assembled with KD and Steph. So for him to lose to this team and not even win a game, I'm sure on some level was kind of frustrating and humbling. And, you know, I also think we've seen with LeBron

where if you look at his career, like 2010, there's a Celtics loss. 2014, there's a Spurs loss. 2018, they get swept by the Warriors. Like anytime he kind of has a bad loss you know in the past he's switched teams

in this case I think you know maybe not switching teams necessarily but there is kind of that fork in the road moment for him

where he really reflects and reevaluates things and considers can I actually win in this situation and if he can't that's where we've seen him leave.

So I don't know if there's a secret team out there. It's definitely why he left in 2014. When he left Miami after that fourth year, it had nothing to do with going back to Cleveland. That was a, Cleveland's a better chance for me to win team. You just made me think of something. I think that's the first time he ever lost a series where he definitively, unquestionably,

was not the best player and somebody else was. Right? You could say if you go 2017-18 against the Warriors, him versus Duran, it was close. And you could have maybe made a case for either guy in that. Right? 2015, he was outmanned and he had a bunch of injuries. Dirk, who was better in 2011 and beat Miami,

LeBron had a bad series, right? You could say, oh, if LeBron had played better or whatever. LeBron cratered in that series and it was really bad. 0-7 against the Spurs, like that was like a team effort. Duncan was the best part in the series, but LeBron was close to him. Nobody was close to Jokic in the series. And Jokic, he's just ascended to this whole other crazy level, not to mention the Murray piece too.

So I wonder if that was a piece of it where you're like, man, for the first time, I wasn't the best option in a series, like definitively. Let's take a break. I have some LeBron stuff I want to hit with you. At Wealthsimple, we're built for whatever you're building. Built for Jane, who wants to break into the housing market. We're built for Ted, who's obsessed with what's happening in the global markets.

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When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all.

Trains move quietly, so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See, safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up?

Really? Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. Safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. This message is brought to you by Metrolinx. So I said you cover the Lakers for five years and you corrected me to three because I forgot you actually graduated from the Clippers to the Lakers. One of the great, one of many people have tried to leverage the Clippers upgrade to the Lakers.

You see this with season tickets. You see this with fan bases. You see this with fan bases. Wise move. Good career move. But you cover LeBron for the last three. You're covering one of the most famous people in the world, right? I don't know if he's one of the top 10 famous people or top 15, but whatever the list is, he's on whatever the extended list is.

And he's somebody who's been in the limelight since he was really a sophomore in high school. He's been a professional since 2003. He's covered and dealt with media, been covered by media. He's figured out over the years how to have a much better media strategy than I think he did the first 10 years of his career. He's got a whole team around him. Everything is purposeful. He's also a really good interview. He's, I would say, one of the three or four smartest people you'd ever want to hear talk about basketball,

but he's very careful about what he does it. You never see him on one of those two-hour podcasts talking about his career. It's always really edited stuff like the shop, things like that. But you've had a lot of access to him. What do we not know about him that you've seen over the last three years

just as a leader of a basketball team and a thinker and all those other things? Yeah, well, I think how polished and how media savvy he is, I would say, just to kind of expand on that point where I went from covering Kawhi and PG, who were probably

as media-averse as you could be. And just the access and not wanting to answer certain questions or talk about certain things. By the way, you calling Kawhi media-averse is

the kindest way anybody could have phrased that. He literally won Interactive People. Try to be political. LeBron is like... I think it's one of the big differences between even the Clippers and the Lakers, I would say. He

rolls with the punches of just, I know I'm going to have certain questions lobbed at me. I know there's going to be a certain level of scrutiny and drama that comes with this. But that's just part of being LeBron James and being in the LeBron James business. And he just kind of knows how to handle all of that in ways that I don't think other stars do. And that's where, again, we've seen it with Kevin Durant and some of the Twitter stuff and whatnot. LeBron gets as much criticism, for as much love as he gets,

he gets as much criticism, I think, as any athlete, maybe in history. And just because he came up in the social media era. And just the hype around him and all that stuff. And the way that he's handled that after the 2011 finals and just, you know, the, the, the hype around him and all that stuff. And the way that he's handled that and, and, you know, after the 2011 finals and just all that stuff, like the decision, I think he's handled it incredibly well and you can not like him and you could have whatever qualms you have, but like,

I think he's just knows how to carry himself in a way that few athletes do. So that would be it. Have you had moments with him where you felt like he had private 15-minute stretches where it was just you and him? We did. And one of the interesting things with him too is that the NBA is filming everything.

So he has his own personal camera crew. So you could be having a private conversation with him that is being filmed. It's kind of weird because it's technically off the record, but he owns the rights to that conversation because that is being filmed. It's kind of weird because it's technically off the record, but he owns the rights to that conversation because it's being filmed. So there really is never a private moment with him. And that's kind of another thing is that

you have all the guys in the locker room. They're all changing. They're all talking about whatever. Even talking about the other team or you're just hearing things that you wouldn't hear publicly normally. And LeBron has two camera guys in there filming

him. And again, people will come in the locker room, talk to him. That's on camera. So he really has a next level behind-the-scenes access to the last couple years. And we weren't around them entirely for the 2020-2021

season, my first year, just because of the pandemic. And we weren't allowed them entirely for the 2020-2021 season, my first year, just because of the pandemic and we weren't allowed in the locker room. So I don't know what was being filmed then, but the two years I've been in the locker room, he's had this camera crew and I'm really interested to see what comes out with this documentary

that's eventually going to be coming out with him. But I mean, one thing he shared... Wait, hold that point. Yeah. So I don't think a lot of people know this about the cameras following him around. And it's been a two-year thing, not a one-year thing.

My theory on this was always the last dance kind of broke his brain a little bit because we left the 2010s and it was like LeBron, LeBron, LeBron. And it was all LeBron, LeBron, LeBron. And it was all LeBron. Then he's in, you know, on the Lakers and they're having this great season. The pandemic happens, everything stops. And then what happens in May, the last dance comes out and all of a sudden it's Jordan, Jordan, Jordan, Jordan, Jordan. And LeBron's not really in the last dance. And I felt

like it seemed a little intentional from the Jordan side. Right. So then LeBron wins the title in the bubble. People are like, I have bubble title, Jordan, Jordan, Jordan. And he has behaved a little bit differently since that whole year. Right. He's very more, seems a little more concerned about his legacy. He's been a little more, I don't know, emphatic about how he talks about himself, which he didn't really do that as much in the 2010s. And I feel like he's working on some 20-part documentary that's going to be his version of The Last Dance. You agree with that premise or no? Yeah? Yeah, I do. And I heard too that before I got on the beat, he was a little bit more accessible, kind of pre-pandemic that he spoke even more at practices and shoot-arounds and just was probably a little bit more available

to the media. But it's been unlike anything I've ever covered. I was around the tail end of Kobe. And obviously, he was a giant personality. And I think toward the end of his career, he opened up a lot more with the media and was a bit more accessible. But LeBron is just...

It is like covering a Jordan or someone at that level where everywhere he goes, people are freaking out. There's always fans or people trying to get around him. It's been a really cool experience. Curry's like that too, right? Wouldn't you say those are the two? Because I feel like Curry has a lot of the same pieces. I think he does.

But these are probably the last two. I don't know. When you think about the next generation of guys, I don't think from a superstar crossover standpoint, it's LeBron and Curry, and then they're going to have to build somebody. Maybe Wemba Nyama will have it.

I don't know. I don't know if you saw any of the Wemba Nyama stuff from even the lottery, but he's pretty engaging. Like he's got, there's a charisma about him. I'm going to be interested to see how that unfolds. Do you get the sense from LeBron that he's 100% happy

with the AD partnership? Yeah. I mean, maybe not 100% just because I think with any partnership, there's probably always some room for improvement. I would say to something behind the scenes, I think he and AD are closer than people think. I think that there's been some stuff floated out there

about their relationship or LeBron wanting him traded or whatnot. That was around the trade deadline. And at least from what I've seen being around the team on a daily basis, being in the locker room, those two guys, their lockers are right next to each other.

They're always talking. They're always joking. I think AD really respects LeBron. I know he took it really personally when he got that backlash with the video from behind during LeBron's... Oh, the scoring record.

He made it a point to talk to us and clear the air and just be like, this is what was going on. I was having a really bad game. I was in a really bad headspace. I had no idea he was one basket away. And obviously, if I knew that, I wouldn't be just sitting there

away from the group. He just said he was kind of in a trance and he wanted to clear that up proactively. Westbrook was like, by the way, I'd like to clear it up. I was pissed off. Westbrook was trying to run away. I was miserable.

Don't misinterpret anything I did. I was pissed off. Westbrook was trying to run away. I was miserable. Don't misinterpret anything I did. I was that unhappy. Anyway. So I think, like, I'm sure on some level, LeBron wasn't thrilled with the game four performance.

And again, like, you mentioned the going hard in the first half. Like, it kind of reminded me of Jamal Murray in game three where Jamal Murray scores, I want to say, what, 21 or something?

Well, he scores 30 in the first half, but he had 17-19 in the first quarter, gets up to 30 at halftime. And then what happens in the second half? Nikola Jokic takes over in the fourth quarter, drops 15. I think it was kind of similar with LeBron, where he had 31 in the first half. Playoff career high, which is crazy, that in year 20, he has the most points he's he had 31 in the first half. Playoff career high, which is crazy that in year 20, he has the most points he's ever had in a playoff half and then kind of tails off and I think had 36 or 37 after three.

His legs were gone. But that's where AD has to step up, right? And that's where I think you know, maybe I'm biased because I'm so close to the situation. I think AD's defense is very underappreciated. I voted for him for all defensive second team.

I know the games played was an issue, but he technically played more minutes than a guy like Jaron Jackson Jr. who won defensive play of the year, deserved it. But I thought AD's defense in the playoffs was amazing. Especially those first couple rounds. That was the Lakers' major advantage in both of those series was Memphis and Golden State were afraid

to go to the rim, into the paint against Anthony Davis when he was on the floor. Now, against Jokic, he was too great. He's the best player in the world right now. It was an incredible series. Also, he had the size to kind of... They couldn't push Denver around.

He defended really well. I was impressed. Especially in game four, just slapping the ball away and poking it. I felt it was kind of similar to the way Draymond defended AD. He's a brick wall defensively, able to kind of play with his hands and kind of move

AD that way tip the ball loose like it was very much a ground bound attack from Jokic but I thought he did a very impressive job specifically against AD one on one Jokic and Curry have this rap defensively that's just not true if you actually go to the games

and watch them play defense, especially in playoffs. Like, Jokic, who's slow, and if you put him on an island, you know, and everybody's on the other side,

and yeah, you could go buy him. He's always in the right spots. He's got really good hands. He's a fantastic rebounder. And, you know, it's not,

Davis was not having his way with him. That's for sure. In the last series, him and LeBron just kind of steamrolled him. So yeah, to me, I feel like, I actually feel like they're in a pretty good spot roster-wise, depending on the health of LeBron in year 21,

who the hell knows. The big thing for me is like, how much of the steering wheel is he willing to give up going forward? Because I thought that 48-minute thing was kind of a bad sign of where this might go. We saw with Kobe to the bitter end, like Kobe carried himself like the guy

because he was. He was one of the 12 best ever. For him to actually win another title, I don't think it's conceivable for him to be the best guy on a team anymore. There's always going to be another Jokic or a Giannis or Wembaanyama is going to be coming. So the question for me is who else you can add?

They have to keep Reeves. I'm with you on Davis. I think he is who he is. I think he's never going to be the best guy in the league. He's an excellent defensive player. He's a streaky offensive player. And that's kind of who he is. If you're expecting him to put up 30 a game for seven games in a playoff series, I don't think that's the right guy.

You covered him the last three years. You kind of know right away, right? Yeah, you can kind of tell early in the first. And I think he was another guy who had a foot injury that he was dealing with. I mean, really, that kind of link. I think he was another guy who, you know, he, he had a foot injury that he was dealing with. Uh, I mean, really that kind of link. Like, I think the other,

the other thing here with both guys was like, they just weren't healthy. Like, I think if you look at, if you go back and look at LeBron's film before the three and, and look at his burst and just in the open floor coming off, picking roles, like that was still the old LeBron who could get to the rim in a half

second. And where I think he would have really like, you saw flashes of it, pick and rolls, that was still the old LeBron who could get to the rim in a half second. You saw flashes of it even in Game 4 where he was able to blow by Aaron Gordon, get to the rim against Jokic and score. But the old LeBron could have done that much more consistently. I don't think this version of him... And I'm sure part

of it was fatigue, the workload that he was dealing with. But also part of it was he's probably going to need offseason foot surgery with the way his tendon played out and just the injury. So I think for AD, there was also an element of that. But yeah, I mean, I think... That's always going to be AD though. That's his rest of his career.

It was a thing all season where there's too many times he'd get two shots in the fourth quarter and we'd be asking about it. And it's kind of... Darwin's taking the blame for the play calling and the guards are taking the blame for not getting the ball. AD's taking the blame for not being aggressive. It was kind of a thing. But I think you saw that down the stretch of the game

where there's too many possessions that ended with a Dennis Schroeder jumper or a Rui jumper when it's like you have LeBron and AD on the floor. It's got to funnel through them. Austin, if he has the advantage, which he often did in the series. But I thought there was too many times it was just those guys wouldn't touch the ball for certain segments of possessions.

Whereas Denver was running everything through Jokic and Murray, and you just saw how beautifully that worked. Yeah, it was so great. I still wonder if Lonnie Walker doesn't get hot in Game 4 of the Warriors series, do they win that series? I mean you could even go a series back

and if LeBron doesn't get those two layups against Memphis do they win that series? I think those are the margins of the playoffs By the way, I didn't like that Warriors team and I thought they were Denver would have wiped them out. But if I was a Warriors fan,

I'm like, man, that fucking Lonnie Walker game because it never happened again. And he just took over the game for a half hour. And it was super fluky. The Lakers kind of had that for a lot of the playoffs where they really had the big game won 29 against Memphis.

Austin, I think, proved like that wasn't a fluke. It wasn't like a rant. To close out the playoffs where they really had the big game won 29 against Memphis. Austin, I think, proved like that wasn't a fluke. It wasn't like a rant. To close out the playoffs, he had four straight 20-point games. He's legitimate. But D'Lo had some big games where he went off, I think, game three of the Golden State series. So they kind of had

different guys pop up across the run. But I think the magic kind of fell out during the conference finals where it was really just LeBron, AD, and Austin Reeves, and then occasionally Rui, and they didn't really have much else offensively. I got a weird question

for you. Do you think the Laker fans, is LeBron their guy? Do they consider him a full Laker? Because when I go to these games, and there's real reasons for this, obviously, because Kobe died. But I'm always surprised by the Kobe jerseys. It's like, I would say like two thirds Kobe jerseys. And it just feels like it's still Kobe's team in a lot of ways. And maybe it should be. LeBron's only been there five years.

But do you feel like this is like LeBron, This is like, he's a full-fledged Laker at this point. Cause I have no feel for it. I haven't gone to enough games. What's your sense just anecdotally when you talk to people? Yeah. So it's actually a really good question because this was part of a story I was working on that I ended up killing just because I, I didn't really know which direction to take it. But throughout the season, I interviewed fans on the road, a bunch of Laker fans who, you know, just go into the stands, find someone wearing a Lakers jersey, tried to mix it up where it wasn't always a LeBron fan

and just talk to them about, you know, do you consider LeBron a Laker? What do you think of his Laker legacy? You know, what does it mean for him to pass Kareem in a Laker jersey? That was kind of really the heart of the piece was what is it going to mean? How do Laker fans feel about LeBron breaking this record as a Laker? And by the way, obviously

he's a Laker. We're saying like, is he passing through town or is he actually a Laker? So it really was a wide array of answers where there were some people like, he won us a championship where every season a championship or bust. He's a Laker for life. I love him. The 2020 title, he's

a Laker. There was others who were like, you got to win a couple. You look at all the retired jerseys. Most of those guys have won at least two. That's my level. And then, of course, there were Kobe fans who weren't as receptive to LeBron and in some cases

don't even like LeBron at all and that's where there was that moment during the season where a clip went viral of LeBron kind of going at it with a Kobe fan at a home game where LeBron saying I won one for you guys and the Kobe fans just kind of dismissing it

so I think it's one of the situations where you probably ask 10 Laker fans and you get 10 different answers or maybe at least five different answers. And it really just depends on, are you a Laker fan? Are you a Kobe fan? There's just so many different sects of

Laker fans that I think it really just depends on where your loyalty is. But yeah, I think for the just depends on where your loyalty is. But yeah, I think for the most part though, I actually think this playoff run was a big part in

kind of cementing him as a Laker. I agree. Leading them to Western Conference Finals. Having, I think, that moment against the Grizzlies where he gets the layup, he turns to the crowd, he flexes. I think that's one of those clips

that's going to be on the LeBron highlight reel when we look back at his career, at least as a Laker. So I think this run definitely helped his case as a Laker or helped just strengthen the bond with the fan base because that 2020 bubble run was entirely in the bubble and there was no Laker fans there. that 2020 bubble run was entirely in the bubble and there was no Laker fans there. So I think

this was kind of the first time they had those moments. Yeah, it's interesting. Just for the people listening, I know a lot of Laker fans. There's three types of Laker fans, right? There's the Laker fans who's generations and the team just gets passed down, like what

I grew up with, right. So you have that. Then you have the, the kind of the newer generation became fans during the Shaq Kobe era and are kind of used to the Lakers not being bad, not being good for a while there. So the fact that LeBron made them good. So they're grateful for that. And then there's like this Laker Kobe fan that where it's like Kobe's my fucking guy nobody will nobody will ever how dare LeBron even think he could be like Kobe and it's almost like it's like an adversarial they need LeBron he's on the Lakers but there's like a hint of adversarial

um something to it that I can't really pinpoint but I I'm sure you've seen it too, right? Where they're just like, Kobe's a Laker for life. This guy just is passing through. He's been on all the other teams and he'll go to another team after us. I feel like it stems back to that 2007 to 2010 range where Kobe was the guy and had helped the Lakers,

you know, three straight finals, two straight, sorry to bring that up, back-to-back championships. I tried to black it out, but apparently it's still on basketball reference. But that's when LeBron, like LeBron was ascending at the same time

and it kind of became that Kobe versus LeBron narrative. And, you know, it's funny, we're talking about some full circle stuff here. Like the first column I ever wrote for my high school paper was a LeBron versus Kobe column where I took the LeBron side against the Kobe fan and I was laying out why LeBron was the better player. And I grew up in Southern California, right outside LA. So everyone in my school is big Laker fans. And I got a lot of backlash for that of how could you think LeBron's better than Kobe?

But I think it stems from those times where it was a player rivalry. And it almost felt like LeBron took Kobe's spotlight at a time when he hadn't won an MVP until 2008. He felt like he should have And then LeBron won the next two when Kobe won the two titles. Yeah. Yeah.

So I feel like it was kind of that moment in time that caused the bad blood from the two sides. And since then, I think

because even LeBron was asked this, I want to say in the Memphis series, he was asked, do you consider yourself a Laker? What's your relationship with the fan base? He's like, you got to ask the fan base that. And that answer to me was kind of telling.

He's kind of aware that there just are these different groups within Laker fandom. It's so fascinating. I'm always shocked by how few LeBron jerseys there are at the games. If you go to a Celtic game, Tatum's everywhere. And it's like Tatum, there's a couple smarts, and then it's like a lot of the old school guys. The Lakers, it's just LeBron's one of the best players in the league. And as you see, you don't see that many of them. I was thinking you know, I was thinking like big picture, like basketball hall of fame, he probably goes in as a Cav, right? I don't even know how they do that. I would think so.

But I would assume it would be Cavaliers. Yeah. So like just spinning it forward, like you got the Bronny piece. Bronny's going to USC, which I told everybody six weeks ago that that was happening. He's going to be there for a year.

That is another reason to think LeBron's not going to retire. I also think if LeBron ever retired, he's definitely doing the retirement tour and the whole thing, and he's going to enjoy it. But my guess is he's got one year left with the Lakers and a player option. And it's for like $45 million. He's going to exercise that. But maybe try to get, you know,

it turns into a news story for a while. What's he going to do? We get a couple of those. Oh, he's leaning toward retirement. He's not retiring. Bronny at USC. And then I find it hard to believe Bronny can go from one year of USC into the NBA draft. And I think that would be a mistake based on what we just saw with this high school season.

But maybe that's the plan. And maybe it's like whoever drafts Bronny a year from now, that's going to be my new team. But I don't know. Nobody knows. I just don't think Bronny's ready to be in the NBA in a year. I think that's crazy. It's interesting because last night caused me to reflect on the season where I went back and we have these giant transcriptions of the entire season where after every game, the Lakers beat writers kind of split up the transcription and we have just giant files for each player and Darvin Hamm. And I went back to LeBron transcription.

I was kind of just trying to find different things throughout the season. And there were some kernels of... Going back to... They had a loss in Miami in late December. And he floated out the retirement thing a little bit then of just like, I have to be mentally sharp

to keep playing at this level. And I only care about championships. And if we're not competing, I don't know how much longer I want to be mentally sharp to keep playing at this level. And I only care about championships. And if we're not competing, I don't know how much longer I want to do this. And I think at that point, it was kind of a leverage thing to get the Lakers to ultimately trade Russ and have the turnaround that they had. But similarly, in the Golden State series,

I believe it was after Game 3, which was the day that Bronny committed to USC, he was asked a couple questions about Brawny. And once again, kind of changed his tune of like, well, this is my dream to play with him. But I don't know if it's his dream. And as his dad, I'm going to support him. And obviously, I'm behind him with whatever he wants.

But just because I want this doesn't mean he wants this. And I'm okay with that. And at the time, you don't really think much of that because, I mean, I think the thing with LeBron is we all thought

he was going to do the Brady where he's playing into his early 40s. Dennis Schroeder, earlier this season, told a German publication LeBron was going to, told him he was going to play

until 45. Like, so you kind of thought he was on that track. I filed that one away. I thought that was very telling. Yeah. And for what it's worth, Dennis, today,

I asked him about LeBron and the retirement comments. And he said he can't see LeBron retiring and he thinks he'll play at least two more years. So Dennis has kind of spilled the LeBron beans over the last few years several times. So for what it's worth, Dennis, that's what he said. But I think it's interesting. LeBron has changed his stance where first it was, I'm playing with Bronny. And the implication was I'll go wherever Bronny is.

Then it was like, I just want to be on the floor at the same time as him and have that father-son moment of... It doesn't necessarily have to be on the same team, but just be on the floor at the same time, playing the same game. Yeah. And now it kind of switched to, well, this is my dream. I don't know if it's his dream, etc. So he has kind of been softening it.

And I wonder, that could just be kind of playing into, again, some type of tactical, intentional strategy with him. But it could also just be him accepting where he's at and being at peace with his career. Because really, at this point, he broke the scoring record.

Unless he wins another championship, that's all he's playing for. He needs another championship. He's got to get another one. There's no way he's ending it for. And that's why I think he's just going to be a constant news story. I think you're going to be busy this year because we're going to have the off season. He's an expiring contract, basically, technically, right? So if the season goes badly in any way,

now it's like, could he be in a trade to a contender? Could they buy him out if he was unhappy? Like, what does that look like? But he's not ending at four titles. He's just not. Shaq has four, Curry has four. I guarantee he's probably got a whiteboard

with all the names, right? Kobe has five, Jordan has six. Four is not going to be good enough. If he feels like it's not going to happen with the Lakers, it'll be somewhere else. And it's not going to be like, I want to finish my career in Cleveland. And that's not what it's going to be about.

I actually think he'd be an amazing asset as he gets older, because you could see like the post-up game, these teams had so much trouble with him in the low post and the way he can pass out of there and things like that. It was really his three point shooting this year, which just betrayed him, right? He was like 31% during the year. Playoffs, he was 24%. And that kind of cost him the Denver series in a lot of ways. I felt like in

game two when he missed those couple threes at the beginning of the fourth quarter, it felt like it swung the game. Game four, they were giving him the shot. He wouldn't take it. And I guess that would be if he's going to keep playing as his body gets older and older. Can you reinvent yourself at least a little bit as a better three-point shooter?

But the low post stuff's there. And the physicality, the way he knows how to work, the refs, like how he sniffs shit out. Like Jokic in the game yesterday where he got that fifth foul and LeBron put that heat seeker on him, right? He was just like, five fouls, five fouls. He was just trying to attack him to get that sixth foul. So I think he's so fucking smart. I feel like he can play until he's 50. He won't, but I think 45, I don't know.

I believe that's your thing. I thought that was realistic. Maybe he'll be covering LeBron. It can't be 2028. He'll be like, I can't believe he's still here. His son is now a three-year veteran. All right. This was fun.

Congrats on the season. What a rollercoaster ride. Do you have a Westbrook story for us before we go? Want to give us one? Westbrook story time? Because you liked Westbrook, right? Like everybody said he was a good guy. Yeah, he was a good guy. Yeah, he was a good guy.

I would say my big thing with guys sometimes is just taking accountability. And I didn't feel like that was always the case. Right. And so honestly, I don't have any that jump out off the top of my head. Do you have a Tristan Thompson story? That's it. I mean, what's funny is Tristan and I are from the same area.

So we kind of connected on that. I interviewed him early on in the playoffs, like right when he signed. Yeah. He talked about he wants to be the next Michael Strahan. That's his ambition post-career. But he's... I mean, look, he gave them some minutes in Game 4. talked about he wants to be the next Michael Strahan. That's his ambition post-career. But he's...

He gave them some minutes in Game 4. I was surprised. I thought it was shocking how effective he was. That was the story. It was Mo Bamba's available. You put Tristan Thompson in, he gets a pick-and-roll dunk. He's battling Jokic in the post. I actually thought

they should have played him more after watching him in Game 4 because the one thing he was doing was he was roughing up Jokic in the post. I actually thought they should have played him more after watching him in game four because the one thing he was doing was he was roughing up Jokic. Everybody they had in, nobody was doing that. Jokic, like, plus Jokic is a little crazy. Like, you could kind of rope him into some stuff, you know, as we've seen in some games in the past, but he was really physical with them.

He was elbowing them and he was shoving them. And I was like, oh, they kind of got something. And then we never saw him again. He's a terrible free throw shooter, so you can barely with him. He's elbowing him and he's shoving him. I was like, they kind of got something. Then we never saw him again. He's a terrible free throw shooter, so you can barely play him. I'll add one thing about Russ. We may not have had the best relationship, but

from just talking to people around the Lakers, everyone couldn't have spoken more highly of him. Behind the scenes, there were times he gifted large portions of the organization, Christmas gifts and different things. So he was, by all accounts, a really good guy. I think it just came to some of the basketball stuff.

It just was never a great fit. I never understood it from the jump. I mean, my first story about it, I criticized it. I didn't think it made sense. And I think it probably played out worse than anyone could have even imagined. Even if you were the most pessimistic, I don't think anyone saw that happening. I think I might have been the most pessimistic and it was worse than I thought it was going to be. It was just like, wow, this is, and you kind of knew pretty quickly. Yeah. Within, I would say like six weeks.

All right. I hope you kept notes for a book. Good to see you. I'm really happy for all your success too. Say hi to the fam for me. I will. Thank you, Bill. All right.

That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Yovan Buha. Thanks to Kevin O'Connor. Thanks to Kyle Crane for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerruti as well I will see you on this feed on Thursday

don't forget to check out theringer.com a lot of great succession content this week as well see you Thursday go Sox We saw that I don't have. I don't have.