The Bill Simmons Podcast - Jokic Prevails, Wemby to San Antonio, Philly’s Culture Fail, and Fun NFL Over/Unders With Tate Frazier and Michael Lombardi

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons briefly reacts to the Nuggets winning Game 1 of the Western Conference finals over the Lakers (0:39). Then Bill talks with Tate Frazier about the Spurs winning the NBA draft lottery, the Hornets’ second overall pick, and Scoot Henderson vs. Brandon Miller (8:13), before they are joined by Steve Ceruti to discuss some fake trades, draft prospects, and the ceiling for the Spurs’ 2023-24 season (32:04). Then Bill is joined by Michael Lombardi of ViSN and The Daily Coach to discuss the 76ers’ second-round playoff exit, the Sixers firing Doc Rivers, and the lack of team culture in Philadelphia (1:01:57). Later, they discuss some alarming NFL win totals for next season, including the Texans, Bears, Packers, Steelers, and Patriots (1:34:32). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Michael Lombardi, Tate Frazier, and Steve Ceruti Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, the lottery. We have a winner. Plus, Lakers Nuggets, a Sixers Redux, and a little NFL totals with our old friend Mike Lombardi. It's all next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on prime all season long. Watch prime Monday night hockey deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best. They're all on prime prime Monday night hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's

highest-rated sportsbook is the best place to bet at all. We've been doing pretty well on Million Dollar Picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be

good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way. If you were wrong, you could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs, the next drive. They have so much stuff. It's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use.

And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus look out for FanDuel squares this season. Here's secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit fanduel.com slash BS to download America's number one sportsbook. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Put

up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did an OG. Meet Van Latham, Chris Ryan. We broke down trading places. The 40 year anniversary is next month. Maybe the greatest Philly movie of all time. Maybe the greatest Eddie Murphy movie of all time. Maybe the greatest Dan Aykroyd movie of all time. Maybe just one of the greatest movies of all time. We hit all of the possible storylines. So you can go check that one out. Coming up, we're going to talk about the lottery with Tate Frazier. Victor Wibinyama is going to the San Antonio Spurs. It was a complete hype fest from ESPN. We didn't even talk about this with Tate coming up.

But Woj came on. He said a couple of executives said that Wimby was the best prospect in NBA history and maybe the best prospect in team sports history. That sent my head spinning. I find that hard to believe. And then he said, a couple of people feel that he could be the best player in the league by his third season. That seems ambitious. Jesus. I mean, I've been alive for a lot of great prospects.

LeBron, I was one years old or maybe even six months old for Kareem. Was I born yet for Kareem? I don't know. It's hard for me to believe anybody is a better prospect for Kareem. Was I born yet for Kareem? I don't know. It's hard for me to believe anybody is a better prospect than Kareem or LeBron. So I'm just going to lay that out. With that said, seems like the best prospect in 20 years. So he's going to San Antonio. Tate and I are going to talk about that. And then Mike Lombardi and I talk about what the hell is going to happen to the 76ers? He has a lot of theories about culture and Joel Embiid. He came in hot. And then we talked NFL, win totals, over-unders, things we liked.

And that's a podcast. Just quickly at the top, just watch Nuggets Lakers. It looked like it was going to be one of the great playoff games of all time by Nicola Jokic. She was on pace for, I think it was going to be like, I don't know, I was adding it after the third quarter. It was like 40 plus, 27, 28 rebounds and like 19 assists. It was some combination that almost looked like a lottery ticket or something. But then it seemed like he ran out of gas a little in the fourth quarter.

Plus the Lakers were switching what they were doing on him defensively. They put Rui on him. I thought Van Gundy did a good job kind of spelling out, putting Davis on Gordon, allowing Davis to be under the rim because Gordon was in the dunker spot. And Davis just now roaming around like he's Robert Williams in the Celtics series against the Sixers. And that combined with Jokic started to get a little tired.

And all of a sudden we saw something that we do not see a lot of times with that Denver team. The reason I thought Denver was going to win this series, and I still do, and the reason I thought they should be the favorites to win the title was because the one thing that they're the best at is better than everybody else.

They can always get a good shot, and you saw that the first three quarters. I was funny. I was thinking of all the casual, the Laker fans who are kind of casual NBA fans that I know or that I know of who probably haven't seen a ton of Jokic lately anyway, this version of Jokic. I know they played him a couple of years ago in the playoffs. And I was thinking of all these people watching him going, oh my God, he's amazing. Whoa, is this just a good game or is this what it's like? I mean, this is,

if you're an NBA junkie and if you've watched a lot of Nuggets, which as you know from this podcast, this was my favorite team to watch other than the Celtics. This is what they did every night. They just get awesome shots. He's a cheat code. He can post up. He stays at the top. He sets little screens. He can roll. He just finds cutters, like whatever. They're always getting good shots. And it was really, really, really, really riveting to watch the Lakers disrupt that in the fourth quarter when the Nuggets, they wanted to win. They were trying to keep going what was working. And the Lakers kind of disrupted it. Davis had a really big offensive game. I think he finished with 38 and then was kind of unleashed down the stretch.

And there was this moment when they really came back and was like, holy shit, the Lakers have a chance to steal this. Like four minutes left, LeBron started to get that hop in his step that he gets where he's like, oh yeah, this is my time. And it was on. It was the battle of the half court maestros

where LeBron, like one of the greatest half-court players of all time, one of the greatest players of all time, but one of the great half-court dissectors we ever had. And then Jokic who, you know, it's really him and it's Bird and it's Magic and LeBron as like the four greatest dissectors that I've certainly seen,

both in person and during my lifetime. And it just felt like a half court head-to-head there for a couple of possessions. And it really came down to the Nuggets grabbing that one ball where everybody was landing the ground. It looked like it was gonna be a jump ball for three, four seconds.

And all of a sudden they had the ball and Murray's throwing an alley-oop to Gordon. They get it. I actually think the Nuggets have another level to go to offensively because they're going to figure out that, oh, you're going to use Davis like that defensively, then we're going to do this, this, this, and this.

My question with the Lakers, what do they have left offensively? Because they were really good today. They shot 55%. Reeves played 42 minutes, seven for 14. He had five threes, 23 points, eight assists. They're not getting a better game from him. They're not getting a better game than 14 for 23 for 40 points from Davis. And then LeBron, he was 26, 12, and nine, missed all of his threes, but that's about what you're going to get from him night to night. And then off the bench, as usual, it's the freaking late 90s Yankees.

The Lakers get the Hachimura 17 points off the bench, 8 for 11. Whereas I look at the Nuggets, like Jokic, 34, 21, 14. I know those are crazy numbers, but that's kind of who he is if you're going to play him 42 minutes. In the regular season, he's around 33. If you're just going to play him 30% to 33% more minutes, he's going to be in that 30, 17, 12 range. That's who he is. Murray had a great game.

Caldwell Pope hit a couple threes. And then Bruce Brown was good. But they also had guys like Christian, Christian Brown did do much. Jeff Green didn't do much. Gordon had, you know, it was really a liability, 12.3 rebounds. And they, you know, they use Davis as a way to just shadow him. So I'll be interested to see what their move is. My guess is they're going to get Gordon away from the basket and they're going to try to get it so that Jokic doesn't peak and that he has something left in the tank

because he played 42 minutes today. That's about 10 more than he usually plays. Regardless, awesome series. Not surprised. I still think Denver is going to win, but I think both of these teams are better than Boston or Miami. I know Boston has the most talent, but from a strategy coaching execution standpoint, I'm rolling with Jokic and I'm rolling with LeBron and whatever the Slaker thing is. I

just think these are the two smartest teams right now. The Celtics, their signs of life, the stuff they did in game seven, the way they were using Tatum against Embiid and the way they sped the offense up to try to make Embiid in hard and tired. There was some smart stuff going on at the end of game six and in game seven. Maybe that will carry over to Miami. Maybe Miami will put some more chest hair on them.

But I think Denver's the best team. So if the Lakers can beat them, Godspeed. All right, coming up, we're going to talk to Tay Frazier about the lottery. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is 540 Pacific time. Just watch the NBA Draft Lottery.

Our old friend Tate Frazier is here. Once upon a time was producing. We did at least one lottery reaction show. Now you're the guest. And it's so funny because Charlotte, yet again, comes within one. This happened with Anthony Davis, what, 11 years ago? And then you end up with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. This time around, the Spurs win.

And my immediate reaction to Tate Frazier is, God damn, you don't deserve this twice. You get Duncan and Wemby, but then now I'm happy for them. Great organization. I think he's pumped about it. But just in a vacuum to strike oil twice is pretty crazy, right? Yeah, it's kind of insane. And yeah, like you said, Bill, it's great to be back. I'm sitting here in my little studio. I have my Muggsy Bogues jersey behind me. I have my Hornets pullover on. I'm knocking on wood. I'm very superstitious.

I thought it was all possible as they got to the Final Four. I was like, I think the Hornets are in this. This feels a little bit like Alonzo Mourning to Shaq. Shout out to Cerruti and the Magic back in 1992. The Hornets love to be the runner-up. That's what we're good at in this whole lottery

scenario. Like you said, Popovich gets Wimbinyama. You got one I mean? That's what we're good at in this whole lottery scenario. But like you said, Popovich gets Wimbinyama. You got one of the best coaches, if not the best coach of all time, getting one of the best prospects, if not the best prospect of all time. And it almost feels like it was right on the nose,

right in front of our face the entire time. And like you said, they strike gold again. And here we are. The Spurs are back. It's almost like if the Pats just tanked next year and Caleb Williams, the USC quarterback. Right.

If he was seven foot six and was the best quarterback in 20 years and was also just an alien and a freak. And then the Pats ended up. People would be so mad if this was the Pats. I think people like the Spurs just in general. They've been bad enough, I feel like, over the past couple of years. Then you had DeJounte Murray, their all-star

guy that was supposed to be supposedly a part of the future. He goes to Atlanta. Felt like all hope was lost a little bit, but it also feels like the Spurs yet again have kind of played the tanking game without it being out and forward-facing. They let the Admiral get hurt and

then they sit out and they let Tim Duncan come in 97. And as we all know, the rest is history. You get both those guys in the building. So they did it again. I don't know how they keep getting away with this, but shout out to RC Buford and Greg Popovich. Yeah. They're like one of those eight list actresses who are like, she's so naturally pretty. And it's like, well, I think she's probably had some work done too. The Spurs definitely had some work done in this Duncan season. And this season they were, you know, they, they weren't apologetic about it. Um, if we just go backwards, the draft, the draft goes chalk or the lottery goes chalk and we get to the fifth pick and all of a sudden it's Detroit and Detroit had, uh had the best odds,

just the drive-by shooting of Detroit. They're sitting there going, all right, we're almost in top. We're fifth. That happened to the Celtics. I think it was, I might've blacked out the 2007 lottery. Yeah, there was Jeff Green and the Jeff Green pick where all of a sudden we went so far backwards. It just seemed inconceivable. So we go to commercial, and you look at the four left, and it was Portland, it was your team, it was San Antonio, it was Houston. What were you thinking at that point? Because I was like, they fucking rigged this.

He's going to Portland. For some reason, I was just convinced it was going to be Portland, and then they were the next one, or Houston of a sudden or Houston was next one then it was Portland and then for a split second it comes down to Charlotte or San Antonio I feel at that point Mark Tatum maybe take a break maybe throw it to the desk to build drama like this is the most dramatic moment in 20 years in the lottery yeah just plowed ahead and it was Charlotte yeah and unfortunately like you said they had this commercial break and I'm sitting there my hands are sweating and then they got the damn Google Pixel commercial thrown in my face and I don't I don't care about any of this all I want to know is

are the Charlotte Hornets going to have Victor Wiminyama and obviously the four teams that are there going crazy as well and you know I'm you know my brain works weirdly enough where when I saw the representatives right I just tried to close my eyes and picture which representative makes the most sense to have the number one pick, you know? And so I see Ime Yudoka there and I'm thinking to myself, there's no way that Ime Yudoka is holding on to the number one pick. I thought the same way. I was like, I don't know if they rigged this, but they're definitely rigging it. So he's not congratulating, but being congratulated by Mark Tatum. Right. I'm like, who sent, like who decided on this representative? But when I saw that, I'm like, all right, I took them out. So we're down to three. I see Mark Williams sitting there.

And if you're, you know, trying to play it in a basketball sense, you're saying, well, Victor eventually will probably be a five. I would assume he's seven foot five, but some people think he's going to be a three or two or whatever it may be. But Mark Williams does not look happy to be there because he sees, you know, his life flashing before his eyes. He sees his career kind of going a different direction if they get Victor. That's a great point. Why would you send the guy who is going to be replaced

if you end up winning the lottery to the lottery? He seems sad. And Brandon Roy had kind of a sad face too. Yeah. I thought I'd still be playing. I can't believe I'm just the lottery guy. Right. And the Hornets already did this with LaMelo, right? They sent Devante Graham, who was their most improved candidate, who looked like he

was going to be their point guard of the future. And then the lottery chips fall as they may. And then LaMelo Ball ends up being a Charlotte Hornet. So that was they've already done this kind of weird thing before. Like you said, Brandon Roy, it was tugging at my heartstrings. I was saying to myself, man, does Portland deserve it? Right. Does Dame Lillard and you know, they have sharp there. Is this feel like one of those moments where, you know, they, they get the guy that they're destined to get after, you know, the Sam Bowie, Greg Oden, right. All these moments in time where it just didn't work out. But then it, like I said, it was just so on the nose that of course, of those four that were sitting there, it had to be San Antonio. And I wish we got like a shot of Popovich drinking wine

right now, because I know he popped a great bottle and he's saying to himself, I'm back, baby. Well, in the media, nobody loves Pop more than like basically everybody in the media. Right. Right. They're probably been the most popular franchise. Then the Warriors were there for a while, but then I think they might have turned people off a tiny bit. Big picture. They get Wimp and Yama. They have a bunch of, I think, quality role players around the team.

Like Sohan's like perfect, like kind of sidekick, number three, number four, potentially down the road for him. They have some scores. Maybe now they're a free agent destination for somebody, or maybe they could, you know, they'd take on somebody else's contract. Like if they want to get like a Jordan pool type guy, something like that. Right. Your team at number two becomes the fascinating. Oh, I wonder a, who they're taking and then B the rest of the draft kind of falls into place. What's interesting is I thought scoot was going to go number two. I wasn't falling for the Brandon Miller stuff, but this is probably the one team that you would say,

yeah, actually Scoot doesn't make sense for Charlotte. So do they take Brandon Miller and can they take Brandon Miller when they're already going through this Miles Bridges thing? They're going to put Miles Bridges and Brandon Miller together? Are they going to start a reality show with those two guys? They can't do that, right? I don't know, but I'm sure LaMelo has some sort of contact at Facebook TV that can make that happen. I'm sure they can get it together

and do some Hornets reality TV show, right? I just know that Michael Jordan is trying to wipe his hands clean of that situation. And I can't imagine, I mean, he's going to probably stay a minority owner, but I can't imagine new ownership group comes in

and they say, okay, we already have one headache on our hands. Let's go ahead and throw another one. And also we have Lamello, his impending free agency, that whole conversation coming up in the future, right? There's a lot of levels to what the Charlotte Hornets are going to be looking at. I just think in general, you just hope that you don't have an MKG situation. You mentioned Michael K. Gilchrist. I was going to ask you, as far as the steep decline from the number one guy to the number two guy, I feel like this one isn't as big of a gap between Anthony Davis and the Michael K. Gilchrist. Obviously, Dame Lillard was in that

draft. Harrison Barnes was in that draft. There were some good players in that draft, but I feel like Bradley Beal, right? That's a guy that, you know, your revisionist history says you would probably want him to go in as the number two pick for the Hornets. So I hope they just take the best player. I think Brandon Miller checks a lot of boxes for them also could be a starting three for them. But, um, I don't know if you have, if you have the choice, if you're the Charlotte Hornets, I think you take the best available player to me. I think it is Scoot Henderson. So you take Scoot there, you get him in there, you see how that plays out, and maybe you draft him and then trade him

and try to get some value back to maybe build some more quality guys around LaMelo in the present. But there's a lot of conversations right now in Charlotte about what they're going to do for the future. I really thought that Victor would be the one that kind of galvanizes the whole group. We've had some French guys before, lest we forget Boris Diaw on the Charlotte Bobcats

or Tony Parker and yeah, Batum, right? We paid Batum a hundred some million dollars, right? I mean, there's got to be some sort of kickbacks from the French on that, but we get nothing. And I hope they don't introduce Brandon Miller back into an already kind of scary situation for this franchise. So, all right. So this could go a couple of different ways. But before we go through all the ways, you host the One Shining podcast for us. You follow college basketball pretty obsessively.

Brandon Miller, KOC ended up putting him number two on his big draft board. And then he stunk in March Madness. And KOC is like, I am undaunted. He's still my number two on his big draft board. And then he stunk in March Madness. And KFC is like, I am undaunted. He's still my number two. Scoot had, you know, he did two years in the G League. The second year was pretty weird. He, you know, he had some minor injuries and then they ended up kind of packing it in

because they knew they were going to be a top three pick. Is Scoot a better prospect than LaMelo Ball was? Because my short answer would be 100% yes. I would think he's a better prospect. He's also on a rookie contract, whereas LaMelo has the big extension coming up. So if you're looking at the three routes, one is they just keep them together because it's a guards league. You can never have too many creators put them on the floor i think lamella is really fun to play with he's got size right i think he's a pretty atypical point guard he's not like i need the ball all the time like i actually think he's really fun to play with and it would be fun to play with scoot my preference would be they kept them together plan b would be maybe you

shop lamella right now plan b would be or plan C would be you trade back, you dangle Scoot, you try to get something significant. You take a team like Orlando, right? They have six and 11. Scoot Henderson's literally perfect for them. They have Franz, they have Palo, Fultz, he could play next to Fultz. They have Wendell Carter. And Orlando could say, hey, move back to six. We'll give you 11. We'll give you, maybe you want Jalen Suggs too. We'll do all of that to move up to two. If I were them, I would just pick Scoot and keep LaMelo and watch it for a year.

What would you do if you were them? I like what you're saying where you just take Scoot. I mean, you've had Baron Davis. They drafted Baron Davis in 1999. You bring in an explosive guard that's fun to watch. I think Lomelo's size is very advantageous when you just talk about the construction of a team that can make a run in the playoffs because Lomelo can guard

one, he can guard two, he can guard three, and that's because he's 6'5", 6'6", and I think that is a value when you talk about the size of Scoot. Scoot's not one of those guys, but your backcourt is not going to be a liability with their size. In fact, it might be something that you can lean on. And like you said, you got two initiators.

You have the ability where if Lomelo is struggling a little bit and he's kind of getting a little loose with the basketball as he does with times, Scoot might be more of a reliable guy and can be more of a traditional point guard. My favorite thing about Scoot is that I saw this partnership he has with Steph Curry going on, right? And I like the mentorship there. I like that if he were to go to Charlotte,

Curry's already going back to Charlotte, already has relationships in Charlotte, already has coaches in Charlotte that he knows really well. So maybe there's some connective tissue there. And who knows? Maybe if you're Charlotte and Draymond leaves and the Warriors, what it is kind of blows up. You say, hey, we have LaMelo Ball here. We want to trade him for Stephen Curry

and we'll bring Curry here with Scoot. Curry can play the shooting guard, play off the ball later in his career. And we got Scoot and we got Curry, Bill. Is that too crazy? Am I out on a limb there? Because I feel good about it. That's option D.

Fandel had the over-under was 11 minutes when you wondered how this would lead to the Hornets getting Steph Curry getting him back to come home. I need him. I need him, Bill. As I was watching the Lakers-Warriors series, we were fortunate to go to Game 3 and we're watching this Game 3

and I'm hitting Kyle. I'm like, it's looking like Curry needs to go to Charlotte. It's about that time. Out of all the players, the unlikeliest players to request a trade, he's probably in the top three, but who knows? It can't be ruled out. You were the first person

I knew who was convinced that Curry was going to end his career in Charlotte. So I've always had that in the back of my head. Probably a year or two away from that. I think the Golden State that in the back of my head. Right. Probably a year or two away from that. I think the Golden State thing would have to really fall apart. I like, if you're Charlotte, you really haven't had an identity. I mean, LJ and Zoe together, that was really fun. That was 30 years ago, but that felt like a team of the future. And then

all of a sudden that fell apart and then LJ got hurt. And those guys hated each other too. That was another, it was like a great teammate feud. LJ hated Charlotte from day one. And he was just, I mean, if you ask anybody around that time that dealt with him, they were just like, he's an SOB, right? He, no, he doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to do anything, but he's so naturally gifted that when, you know, the lights turn on, he can turn it on himself. And then we all get excited about LJ grandmama, right? All the great commercials, all the starter jackets are everywhere. That was like when I was a kid, you know, that was the nineties Hornets, you know, Muggsy Bogues is the best.

You got Dell Curry, you know, even Jamal Mashburn, Baron Davis, like I said, the early two thousands guys. I mean, and then George Shin, when he's, when he's moved and sold the team and that whole ordeal, it felt like the Hornets died then. And I know, you know, Jordan brings the name back in 2014, but one of the funniest things to me, and maybe the thing that kind of sticks in your mind is like Anthony Davis got drafted by the Hornets, right? Just, just not, just not the Charlotte Hornets. Right. And then he got drafted by, by the Hornets who play in Charlotte, but it wasn't when the Hornets were playing in Charlotte. Right, exactly. So like, it just feels like an identity crisis for the franchise. And I would like for them to find

a stable horse to help them kind of create whatever that new identity is. My favorite player on the current team is PJ Washington. And I know there's a lot of, you know, teams out in the league that have, you know, an affinity for PJ's game. But just in general, I just feel like there needs to be some sort of overhaul where they can get back to the Hornets of old. And, you know, just going to the playoffs and being able to be a team that's talked about would be fun, Bill. I would like that.

That would be nice. That would be a nice change of pace from what we've seen. Well, it's interesting because Charlotte is in the center of the Duke-UNC thing, which is really all anyone cares about, right? But they have this NBA situation where if you actually go and you look back, it's kind of astonishing how unsuccessful they've been. Like they've never, no Charlotte NBA team has ever played

in the conference finals. The conference finals. The Celtics have made five conference finals since 2017. Charlotte's never made the conference finals. And we talk about the identity thing. The LJ Zoe, the Baron Davis-Mashburn thing was happening for a split second. You had that kind of late 2000s Stephen Jackson thing

for like a whiff of a second. You had the Kemba era, which I don't even know if you can call that an era, and that's really it. So I think of like LaMelo and Scoot together. That's not nothing. And then if you're Portland and you're thinking, you know, you tank last minute, basically.

They were like almost to the trade deadline. We're trying to, you know, kind of do right by Dame. And Dame ends up sacrificing. He probably would have been first team all NBA if he played the whole season. Then up with the third pick. And if they get Brandon Miller, that's an amazing outcome for them, right? That's about as good of a wing as you're going to get at the, you know, if Tatum was the

third pick in 2017, that's about as high end of a wing as you're going to end up with. That's not the number one pick. If he can be like 70% of that, how good is Brandon Miller? What's your take on him? And does he change Portland's destiny? Yeah, I like Jabari Smith a lot. And I think Brandon Miller is a much better prospect just because of his ball handling, just for his ability to do things off the dribble. He's not a spot up guy primarily. I think he's creative. I think he's a really smart kid and he seems to be a pretty mature kid.

Right. And they asked Malika asked Woj at the draft about, you know, Brandon Miller and the way that NBA teams view him. And, you know, the people that I've talked to when they've done their research on Brandon Miller, done their background checks. They're just like, it seems like he checks every single box and so much so that, like you said, KOC and a lot of the draft experts have him at number two. So if Charlotte does decide to kind of stay away from that because of the Bridges situation and just because they want to avoid a headache, they take Scoot. I have a soft spot in my heart for the number three pick. I think it ends up being a very favorable position at times because the two teams in front of you almost feel obligated to take who they're supposed to take. Right. And you end up in a situation where, hey, Michael Jordan was the number three pick, Bill. You know, people forget Joel Embiid was the number three pick. It's kind

of a good spot. And you could get Brandon Miller, who with Shadon Sharp, you plug those two guys in. You got two young, talented guys to build around. I'm glad. I'm so glad you brought up Sharp. He was so exciting last year and they barely played him until down the stretch. But yeah, I mean, you could argue the move for them with the third pick is maybe now you actually do trade Dame and you build around

whatever you get with Dame plus Brandon Miller or Scoot who's ever left, plus Shaden Sharp, plus Simons. And you kind of long haul it because by the time all that stuff's going to be ready, Dame's going to be in his mid-30s and tiny guards don't usually age that well in the NBA,

even with the three-point line. So maybe this is the year to spring. And it's too bad Philly doesn't have any picks because there's definitely like a Maxie plus Tobias's expiring contract and four first rounders type of trade for Dame or two first round top three with this where you don't want to be is where Houston is with the fourth pick and kind of a broken team already where they have I mean defensively they were just an outright atrocity

E-May is going to help that a little bit it was also one of those whoever gets the ball over midcourt gets to shoot teams and it's just a lot of like a lot of stat padding honestly on that team and it was my a lot of like, a lot of stat padding, honestly, on that team, and it was my least favorite team

to watch on League Pass. Last year, I really felt bad for Jabari. I liked Jabari. I voted Jabari. I think I was the only one who voted him first team all rookie because I felt like he gave a shit,

and I thought he tried, and I thought he had size, and I thought he was an impossible situation. He's on this team with, there was no point guard. It was basically, as I said, whoever went over half court and had the ball, they got to shoot. If you add a really good guy

to what they have and if Jalen Grebe makes the bump, but who's the guy? Are you a Thompson twins guy? Are you an Anthony Black guy? Like KFC is Taylor Hendricks, now seventh, the UCF kid. Who's your fourth favorite player in this draft? Yeah, I think I'm an Anthony Black guy just because Anthony Black. I like Cam Whitmore and I like Anthony Black. So between those two guys, whichever one you enjoy more. I like Anthony Black because he's 6'7 and he also can be an initiator on offense. He can almost be your point guard if you want him to be.

Like you said, Houston needs someone that can help get guys in position, get them into an offensive rhythm. There are times where Anthony Black is a little immature, where he can be a little erratic. Houston. Yeah, right. Well, that's my only concern. But I do think Emei, as much as he is maligned for other things

that are not basketball-related, he does seem to get guys to buy in on the defensive end, and he does seem to get their attention, right? So I'm expecting him to have some probably hard practices. You know, I remember that famous story about Jason Kidd taking Christmas vacation away from the Bucs and Giannis like was the only one that was excited about it because he thought that they did need to focus and practice more. Right. I feel like he is the kind of guy that does some things like that with this team. I think Anthony Black would be kind of in the Jalen Green

fold of maturity, but the talent is there. Same with Jalen Green. There's a ton of talent there. I like Singoon. I think they have some solid pieces in Houston, but if it were me and I was Houston, I would probably take Cam Whitmore. I think he's

a little bit more mature. I think he is a guy that went to Villanova and has been in that Villanova system, had to kind of grow into his role there. He showed some flashes early on with Kyle Neptune and as we've seen in the playoffs, it's kind of like when I was a kid, they would say

Carolina guys, you got to have these Carolina guys in the playoffs because they know how to win. It feels like Villanova guys are the guys now that people talk about, right? They're like, oh man, when you see this Dante DiVincenzo, he just knows how to make the winning play, right? So Cam Whitmore, even though he is a one and done guy, I like him as a fit in Houston. I like his maturity, even though he is young. And I like that athleticism. I mean, there's a picture going around right now where this guy's vertical leap looks like it's 50 inches. So I think he would be a nice fit in Houston. Let's take a break.

And I want to bring in Saruti to join us. I hope you're using FanDuel for the NBA playoffs right now. New customers get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000. That is $1,000 back in bonus bets. If your first bet doesn't win, I'm going to announce my Thursday same game parlay with Denver and the Lakers on my Twitter feed. At some point Thursday morning, we hit our boost on Sunday.

We hit the Celtics, Tatum six plus rebounds, Jalen Brown 20 plus points. They boosted that to plus 175. Everybody won. FanDuel has great promotions every day on a safe and secure app. They pay instantly when you win and there is no better place to bet all the playoff action

than right there. America's number one sports book, Fandle.com slash BS. You go there, you get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000. Once again, Fandle.com slash BS.

Fandle, official sports betting partner of the NBA. You must be 21 plus in select states. First online real money wager only $10 deposit required. Refund issued

as non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, or Virginia. 1-800-NEXTSTEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona.

888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 809 with it in Indiana. 800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 877-770-STOP in Louisiana. 800-327-5050 or visit mahelpline.org slash problem gambling in Massachusetts. Visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland, 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York, 800-522-4700 Wyoming or 1800gamber.net in West Virginia. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that

super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you can still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November.

Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, Steve Cerruti has joined us. Orlando Magic fan. Ended up with the 6th and 11th pick. Need your take at this trade. I'm going to throw a Tate. Love it.

Houston calls Charlotte and says, Jalen Green for the number two. What do you do? Would you rather have Jalen Green or would you rather have the Scoot Henderson or Brandon Miller guys? I would rather have, I think those guys have more value personally because of the two years younger rookie contract thing. I would agree. I would agree.

I, you know, we were floating in a text thread, you know, weeks ago about hypothetically, throw the contracts, whatever. Trey Young for Jalen Green, who says no. Just like for like guy. That's kind of how weird the Jalen Green thing is. That's how weird the Trey thing is too. I'm kind of out on Jalen Green. I just don't know. As you said, it's the first guy over half court.

I don't know that. I too felt bad for Javari. I just thought it was a horrible situation for him. And that's partially due to Jalen Green. And again, too, felt bad for Javari. I just thought it was a horrible situation for him. And that's partially due to Jalen Green. And again, you get a point gutter in there. You get somebody who knows what they're doing. Maybe it looks better for him.

But I think we've just seen too much of the bad team, good stats guy stuff from him. And I don't know. I'd just be afraid that's who he's going to be for the rest of his career. Maybe you get him with a good coach,

a good organization, you can turn that around. I'm sorry. I don't know that that's Charlotte. So I don't know if I do that if I'm you, but I think I would probably draft one of those two guys over taking Jalen Green. I agree. Tate, you agree or no? Yeah, I agree. I don't

see Steve Clifford and Jalen Green getting along in the huddles. I think that might be something that just leads to fireworks. In general, I would buy more into the projection of who Scoot can be than what we've already known, you know,

Jalen Green to be. I think Jalen Green could be a really good player. I just think he has to kind of change the way he plays. He plays like he's still playing AAU basketball. And I, I don't know who can actually get in his ear and get his attention because if he did lean into being the talent that he could be, you know,

but sometimes you just are who you are. You know what I mean? You can't try to tell someone to be someone different. They just are who they are. I still like him. I just think those two years were such wasted years where you're just on this all stats, no defense team that really looked like an AAU team.

I almost don't know how to assess him, but I think his skill set is really great. If you're just going to compare his skill how to assess him, but I think his skill set is really great. If you're just going to compare his skill set to Brandon Miller, he's at least equal with him. He's two years older. Yeah, I was thinking with Cerruti, that would be the other one for me. Would you trade six for Jalen Green? You would.

You'd do that, right? So his value is, it's not quite two, but it's not six either. It's somewhere between those two things. Would you though? There's a chemistry thing going on with Orlando where I just think all those guys like each other and they share the ball pretty well. I think they all kind of know their roles. Like Tate and I were talking a little bit like Cole Anthony is kind of like the one odd man. I like Cole. He's carried them at times this year, but he's the guy that's kind of like the, you know, I'm not going to, I'm going to put my head down and not pass anybody and kind of try to take

over a quarter here. I don't, I don't know that Jalen green, like, can he just fit into a role on that team? I don't, I kind of think he's still in that mode because he's young and I don't blame him.

Like we talk about this with a lot of guys, like, you know, these young guys that come in their lottery picks and their entire life, they've been the guy, right. And they're the ones putting up 20 shots a game. And for him year three to accept a role that is probably at best the third fourth option on a team i don't i don't know that he's and i don't and again i don't know that

i if i was him i would even want to accept that role so i don't know you know obviously you're saying hey all right the talent is there is it would it be stupid not to trade the sixth pick for him maybe i would dangle those two picks that orlando has i just don't know that he's the guy here's my next jaylen green i'm sorry somehow this became a jaylen green podcast sixth pick for him. Maybe. I would dangle those two picks that Orlando has. I just don't know that he's the guy. Here's my next Jalen Green. I'm sorry. Somehow this became a Jalen Green podcast. I'm sorry. The Detroit is picking

fifth. And then Orlando is sixth. I was trying to figure out who could take the Thompsons back to back, basically. Which team could pull the Morris twins theory where you get both guys and you just make it work? Maybe it's Houston. Houston ends up with four and then they trade Jalen Green to Detroit for number five and they just take both Thompson twins. But I've always wanted to see somebody do

that. It's never really been pulled off. Has it been pulled off or the, you just, like the Lopez's, I always thought that would have been fun to have just both of them, as they put together at Stanford. But with the Thompson's... We got the Wagner twins. We got the Wagner, well, not the twins, the Wagner brothers in Orlando. You got the Wagner brothers. We love it. I highly endorse that, yeah.

Which Thompson do you like more, Tate? I think, well, first off, these guys should have played college basketball. I just want to put that out there, PSA. Because then I liked them in their interview that they did with Monica McNutt. I was like, wow, I like both these guys. I was going to ask you, are they going to be the best twins ever? We can get into that.

But I think I like Allsore Thompson better. I think both of them have similar games. But I've seen Amin seems to be the one that is supposed to be first. So I just have an affinity for the other guy. It's like a lot of people like Caleb Martin, right? But I like Cody Martin because Cody was more of a defensive minded guard or wing than, you know, Caleb was, even though Caleb was playing great, obviously, for the Heat right now. But just in general, I was looking at the twins in NBA history and the Van Arsdells, right, were the number one twins that everyone goes back to. You got the Morris twins.

You got the Lopez twins. But I feel like if you're the Thompson twins and you have a brand deal with Puma or whoever they sign with, they should be pushing the narrative that they're going to be the best twins in NBA history. I think that's what I would pitch to them because I don't think many people know much about them or have seen much of their highlights because of the OTE coverage in general. But just put that out there. We're going to be the best twins ever.

And I think that'll be great. So Rudy, maybe you take the 11th pick and you move up to five somehow and you dangle other stuff. The problem, Cole, in the 11th pick, you just have two sets of brothers on the team. It's a family vibe.

It's like Fast and Furious. It's all about family, guys. I don't know. I was talking to Tate about this before we started taping. I just don't know that Orlando's in a position

where they could take two lottery picks again. I just think you have to at some point. They were good enough this year to be a playoff team. If the season started

in December, they were like the sixth seed, I believe. They very easily next year, not even a play-in team, they could be a playoff team, I believe, if you add a veteran here or two on the edges. I wonder I don't know that they're maybe I'm

wrong and maybe they're just going to go the OKC route and say hey let's just get as many good young players as we can and then we'll figure out who the dudes are two three years down the line and make a decision then but I don't I kind of feel like they have their core and if they dangle one or two of those picks to try to get a real guy I mean I texted you and joked about it like I'm still not out on Jordan Poole. I would take a flyer on Jordan Poole. I'm not saying I would send 11 or 6 for him, but I think he'd be an interesting guy to eat up that

contract. There's a low pressure on him. Get him out of that situation in Golden State. Maybe not him, but some other guy. They just need a wing shooter, a wing scorer, somebody like an upgrade maybe on Cole Anthony or somebody like that. Another guard who can knock down shots. So I don't know that they're in a position where they should be taking

two more lottery picks to add to this already incredibly young team. Maybe you trade 11 to Golden State for 19 and Jordan Poole. Just take the contract. Gary Harris goes back in that trade and makes the money work. Golden State moves up to 11. Tate likes

that one. I like Gary Harris with the Warriors. Like, as I was watching the playoffs, I'm like, this team just needs more veteran guards and veteran wings that can actually be relied on. Not to Michael Green putting, you know, a cap on LeBron on Instagram or Jordan Poole just, like, taking shots out of the context of the offense. And Gary Harris is a pro, right? And I know Gary Harris is probably forgotten, you know,

amongst the, you know, NBA people because he's been in Orlando, it feels like, for a long time. But I think he would be a nice piece for the Warriors and an upgrade to that position in the playoffs. Tate, how many other than 6 and 11, what else does Cerruti need to offer you to get to number two for the

Magic? Cerruti, if you come out of this with Scoot and with Franz and Paolo, you're fucking set at that point. You want Isaac? I want Isaac. I haven't given up on Isaac. I know a lot of people talk about his knees and obviously some other stuff off the court, but I think Johnny Isaac and Charlotte might work. I don't know why, but bring him there and see what happens. Just give us 6'11 Johnny Isaac and maybe a conditional pick or something else, and then we'll see what happens.

It's a little bit north of the Bible Belt, but yeah, it could work out personality wise, I think, for him. He's a talented player. I haven't sold my Jonathan Isaac stock. I would bring him back next year. I think he's if he's the seventh or eighth best guy on your team, he is a legitimate all defense player. He could win defensive player of the year. He's that good. And if he's your seventh or eighth best player, I'd keep him around if I was the Magic. But listen, if I can get up to two,

all right, now we're talking. Six, 11, would you trade your next, like two unprotected firsts and a swap? To get Scoot? How much would you give up? Can I just, here's my Scoot aside. We're working on this G League documentary with Religion of Sports. It's going to be on Amazon in August. And Scoot's in the documentary and they spent some time with him. Scoot's like one of those puts in the work guys, like for real. He's like an adult. He puts the time in. I'm a big believer. He has the stuff that all the great players have already.

Right. And I think he, you know, the G League, the second year of the G League, maybe he didn't need it, but he wanted to do the two year thing. But I'm actually a real believer in him. The only thing that's a little weird is the size. But when you think like, I don't know how athletic and how strong that dude's going to be, I just think he's going to be able to go by anybody. And he's really competitive.

Like when you think about like what we just watched in that Philly Boston series, where that whole Philly team rolls over, I just don't think he's wired like that. So I don't know, you put him with Paolo and Franz, but, and on the flip side, if I was Charlotte, that's, I think that's who I would take. Yeah. The one that would scare me with, with Scoot and Paolo is that Paolo is the number one, obviously, and Scoot believes he's the number one. And then I feel like those two guys, you have a Jabari Parker, Giannis situation where it's like, oh, no, is this guy better than me? I did not expect that.

That's what concerns me a little bit. That's what I was thinking, too, is like the more you take the ball out of Paolo and Franz's hands, I just feel like the less good those possessions probably are going to end up being in the future. And Markel Fultz is kind of the perfect guard to play with those guys. Again, they need a two guard with shoot. They don't really need a point. They need a two guard who can shoot and score and play defense.

And they just, like Jalen Suggs, I still, again, speaking of guys we're not selling stock on, I'm not selling my stock on him just yet. But I don't think he's going to be a consistent enough knockdown shooter to be that guy going forward. And if you're going to give up that much, you know, that many trade assets to get a guy who doesn't fill that need for you, because you know what your one and two options are going to be for the next five, six, seven years, that's tough. I actually have a question for both you guys, though, about the Brandon Miller versus Scoot thing.

Because can you argue, I mean, putting, I mean, obviously, this is a caveat of like putting whatever, if you clear him of all the off the court stuff um which i know is saying a lot but isn't what brandon miller does like a big six seven wing who can play make a little bit knock down shots isn't that more valuable than a six two guard like i i if the tie to me always goes to the wing guy who's six seven because that's proven year in year out but you're lebron's you're you're kawai's you're paul george's like that type of player is just more valuable so if it's close i'm gonna kind of the tiebreaker is going to be the guy who's six seven your LeBron, your Kawhis, your Paul Georges, that type of player is just more valuable. So if it's close, I'm going to kind of,

the tiebreaker is going to be the guy who's 6'7". Is he taller than 6'7"? How tall is he? 6'9", yeah. I was going to say like... Here's the other tiebreaker, Cerruti. They already have Miles Bridges on their team. And that's where, honestly, this gets complicated. I don't know how you do both of those at the same time.

And that's why I think Scoot might be on the table, but in a vacuum, I think you're right. There's so many good guards in the league. We, my thing is if you're taking a guard that high, that guy better be an all NBA guard. But that brings me to Scoot where I actually think he is. I think he has that kind of talent. You do too, right Tate? Yeah, I think so. And I think, you know, Brandon Miller, the most fascinating part to me is not him playing the three or the four. It's him playing the two, him being a six, nine shooting guard. I just think that is a nightmare of a matchup for anybody. And when you get to the playoffs and you have your two guard, who is traditionally six, five, somewhere in that range, and you have a six, nine guy who's able to

shoot over every single guard that's on him, unless, you know, you have to put, put different mismatches and put different matchups on him and you know in those situations so um yeah i think he's fascinating but i think scoot can be your number one option and i liked when he played victor obviously it was that one g league game showcase game we all watched but when he played victor he he showed up and rose to the occasion and there were times after the game where people were like i don't know i might just takeot if I need a guard. Obviously, that's not reality because Victor is minus 20,000 to go number one. And Windhorse already told him congratulations on going to the Spurs. But I think Scoot and I think it's Wimby on his own level, Scoot on his own level. And then

you get into the Brandon Miller, Anthony Black, you know, you know, which guy you kind of, you know, are more fond of in that next range of guys. Let's go back to Wemby and the Spurs because we didn't talk about them enough. It was just like, oh, they're going to take them. But the basketball piece of it, they have a shitload of cap space. And, you know, like Woj went on TV today and said, this is the best prospect in the history of the NBA. He might be one of the best prospect in the history of the NBA. He might be one of the best prospects in all professional sports. I was like, all right, settle down a little, Woosh.

But this is what I've heard, is that this guy instantly is going to be really good. There's going to be no, oh, a couple years. It's going to be like in the old days when I was growing up, when somebody like Patrick Ewan would come into the NBA, and it was like, this guy's instantly one of the best 15, 12 guys in the league. Um, do the Spurs have an obligation to think about being good this year? Cause if they're 40 million under the cap, unfortunately for them, there's not like a shitload of awesome free agents this year, but you know, they, there's like's people like Jeremy Grant's a free agent. I'm not even sure that's a bit of need.

Fred Van Vliet, also rumored to be an Orlando target. Draymond is a free agent. Do you get weird and say, hey, we'll take Chris Paul's money? Right. Do you take somebody else's contract who's trying to carve out space? Do you take like the Jordan pool?

And be like, all right, we'll take it right off. Here's your get out of geo free card and you'll save a hundred billion. I actually think they're going to have to, and I'm sure this is going to be a topic on this podcast and a bunch of others over the next two months, but I actually think they should try to figure out how to be good because I like some of the dudes on their team. You know, like Kelton Johnson. Zach Collins is a fine rotation guy. Dev Vassell. Sohan, we mentioned.

So they're not that far away from being like kind of a first round playoff team selfishly it kind of reminds me of the Magic before they got Paulo they've just got a bunch of like guys that are like kind of nice but they don't have actually the guy and now that they have the guy it completely changes the way the rest of the players on your roster look

because if you're going yeah like Sochan or all the other guys like yeah they're nice pieces but they're never going to be the dude that you want. You add Wemmy to that mix, and all of those guys kind of take a bump up because they're the two, three, four guys. I think you're kind of right. The only problem is the West, obviously, is difficult.

There's so many teams you'd have to jump in that scenario, but I don't think it's that crazy. Yeah, and Woj said, I wrote this down because it blew my mind, he said that most people expect by his third season that Wim Benyama would be the best player in the NBA, which I think that is probably even more of a big statement than maybe even saying he's the best prospect of all time and all that sort of stuff. I mean, I find that insane to think. But if the expectation is for him to be the best player in the NBA in year three,

then I think, like you said, Bill, there's an obligation to go and try to win in year one especially when you have a guy who's seven foot five when you have knees that are there we know what happens with big guys we've seen it with ralph sampson we've seen it over the years we've seen greg odin right i mean while he's healthy while he's able to play while he's young while you can get mileage on him why not just try to go for it why and you have pop how much time does popovich have too you know what what I mean? What is what is the timeline on Greg Popovich? If it is three to five years, let's go all the way in

in these three to five years when we have salaries, when we have cap money and we don't even have a guy there right now that feels like he's the number one guy. Keldon feels like a great number three on a winning team, right?

So Han feels like a great like additional roster piece that you could have there. That's going to be a winning type player but wimby can go in and doesn't have to deal with the egos of someone like you keep mentioning the magic jalen suggs comes in right and cole anthony is like well i was drafted last year and i'm the point guard right and now you're dealing with that ego and that back and forth and and you have and he hurts suggs his confidence right i mean it's obvious so i mean all that happens and wimby doesn't have to deal with that in San Antonio, which is why maybe it's a win now.

And you can entice people to come play with him because he already has like a reputation around the league because we know so much about him. So they could definitely, because they have so much cap space, they could solve somebody else's problem. You know, you mentioned, who mentioned Chris Paul before? If Phoenix wanted to do like

some sort of three team trade where they took, you know, let's say they want a Kyrie Irving, right? I don't think they would, but just for an example, and they wanted to move Chris Paul's salary out as part of a Kyrie Irving thing. And you're moving it. And basically San Antonio becomes the way station for Chris Paul a lot like,C a few years ago. But in this case, hey, it's Chris Paul. Wemby, he's going to get you the ball in the right spots and show you some stuff for a year. Or maybe Philly wants to get off Tobias Harris because they want to just blow it up. Cool. We'll take Tobias Harris for a year. I do think they have, with all that calf space, it's a better scenario than some of the free agents that are available. Cause it's, it's really one of the worst free agent classes, you know, in a long time.

Zach Levine's another one. What if Chicago just wants to get off that contract? Like, cool. We'll take Zach Levine or like a Wemby and all these other dudes. Or Bradley Beal or someone like that. I mean, the other one. Bradley Beal. That's a great one.

What if Washington just wants out of the Bradley Beal business? I know Joe has those. The other thing that I was thinking of, just from a historical perspective, what if they went for the Oscar-Young-Kareem kind of combo where they say, we want Russell Westbrook and we want him with Wimby. And then Westbrook and Wimby just get together and they make a little run. And it's like, late stage is Oscar, young Kareem, young Wimby, late stages Russ. Russ seems like he figured something out in the playoffs, right? I don't know. He definitely didn't. Russ figured out nothing in the playoffs. I do like the Jordan Poole idea, though.

And, you know, if I'm going state, I would think about it if I could get some sort of a flippable piece and just save a shitload of money. But I think there's a lot of guys like that. I think in general, another guy, I hesitate to even say this, but Julius Randle, who I think the Knicks, all their fans would drive him

to the airport, right? You bring him, you put him on the Spurs, and it's like, all right, we have a low post game. We can space him with our seven foot five alien center. And this is something, I don't think they should do that, and it's like, all right, we have a low post game. We can space them with our 7'5 alien center. And this is something. I don't think they

should do that, but that's another guy who's going to be available. And the funny thing is, of course, you could see any of the guys that we just mentioned, they're going to be good on the Spurs. Pop's going to figure out a way to get somebody to earn 18 points a game and being somewhat efficient. You could just see it happen. But

talking this through Tate too, shouldn't some of that stuff apply to Charlotte too? I mean, hypothetically, what if you draft Scoot and you've got obviously LaMelo there. Do you just bring in Chris Paul to mentor those guys? Just to show, because both those guys probably need help. Again, that's another team where I think you could just dump some guy in there.

I would advocate Julius Randle going there or somebody like that, or even Jordan Poole. There's only one basketball. But Paul, with those two guards to figure out how to teach them really how to play in the NBA, that's not a terrible idea either. Yeah, it's not a terrible idea. I kind of like it. I also like the idea of Chris Paul being a player coach because I think player coaches should come back.

And I like the idea of Steve Clifford can be some player coach. Chris Paul player coach where he's the head coach of the Charlotte Hornets. And he like the idea of, you know, Steve Clifford can be Chris Paul player coach. Chris Paul player coach where he's the head coach of the Charlotte Hornets. And he also comes in at times like if Lomelo is not doing he's supposed to be doing and he's getting yelled at

by Chris Paul. He just takes off, you know, his warm ups and goes and checks himself in for Lomelo. I need to see that. That would be fun. That'd be good.

I like Charlotte had some moments and they, you know, they're trying to tank. But when Hayward came back in the second half of the season, there was a couple, there was like a week and a half there where they were super confident and they were beating teams. They were trying to entice the Lakers, Bill. That's what they were up to. Oh, no question.

But Hayward's, you know, he's expiring contract, but when he's out there, he's pretty good Rozier. So their team's not bad. I personally, as a league pass basketball fan, to me, Scoot and Lamello, if I had that, and then in Portland, I have Shaden Sharp

and Miller, and I get to watch those two guys with Dame. That's now a fun team. And then the Houston, I just will continue to try to skip as much as I possibly can. A league pass. For Jabari. For Jabari.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Hey, do we do a hashtag free Jabari at this point? And then the, the, the Detroit was the one that really took it on the chin today because they

shut down Cade. Let's be honest. I'm, I'm pretty sure Cade didn't need to be shut down for an entire season, but they did it. And it ends up getting them the fifth pick. And, uh, that'm pretty sure Cade didn't need to be shut down for an entire season, but they did it. And it ends up getting them the fifth pick. And that was pretty tough. Anyway,

did we hit everything? One thing I wanted to mention was the Dallas pick, right? Dallas tanked to make sure that it wasn't 11 through 14 and they got the 10th pick. So they got to keep their pick. I thought that was a pretty you know, it was a move that was much, you know, maligned at the time. A lot of people were calling out Dallas for tanking, but it worked out. And

I'm sure like Mark Cuban's fine to pay those fines that they got. And now they're going to get a 10th pick to try to keep Luca happy, which I don't even know who that guy would be. But I just thought that was funny. That was a nice little wrinkle in the whole lottery process. I was dying for them to get 11. Yeah. So, I mean, the question is with the 10th pick, you're looking at Wallace. Maybe you're looking at the 10th pick, you're looking at Wallace. Maybe you're looking at Hendricks. Maybe you're looking at Grady Dick. Is that going to be

a difference maker for Dallas, ultimately? Probably not, right? Grady Dick feels like Corey Kispert 2.0 at number 10. I don't know about that, but if I do know Dallas, I feel like they would like

Grady Dick there at number 10, and maybe he comes in. I like the way he plays. I wish he would have stayed one more year in college, but you can't pass up lottery money, so I don't blame him. But yeah, I don't know if the 10th pick actually does anything for Dallas, but I just thought it was funny. They moved mountains to make it possible and make it happen and they got it. So there you go. We didn't mention House's Wizards who landed the eighth pick. And I'm trying to figure out which one. Is there like a swing man with size and upside who has a spotty competitive thing going in that top 12, Tate? Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of, I mean, I'm just, if Cam Whitmore was there at eight, that would be the guy that you have to go for. And I feel like he's kind of in that range. Maybe they get the worst Thompson twin. Right. I feel like the Thompson twins have a chance or at least one of them to

fall a little bit. So maybe if Detroit doesn't want to take one of the Thompson twins at five, Troy Weaver kind of usually has a different draft board than other people. Right. I mean, you know, we remember, I think he had, I can't remember who he had number one last year, but it wasn't Paolo. But in general, I could see one of those twins falling and Washington feels like a fit for one of the Thompson twins. Yeah, because I wanted the Wizards. That's what I was rooting for because ever since I've known House,

he's just been in hell with the basketball thing. I was like, all right, let's have one nice thing happen to House. What's actually going to happen is they'll probably end up with whatever Thompson twin is going to be the less successful one followed by house complaining that they got the wrong Thompson twin until like 2035. And then that, that Thompson twin, the entire time he's in DC is trying to advocate for getting to wherever the other Thompson twin is. He's like, my brother's so happy. He's immediately unhappy. Yeah. They know how to use him unlike this franchise, right?

It's a whole thing. Last thing before we go. You know, Fandle doesn't have, I would have loved to have seen the, will the Spurs make the playoff sides?

Maybe they'll have those by the time we do the Thursday pod. As Suriti pointed out, the West is really good. But on the flip side, you know, they don't really have, I don't really see any.

I'll try to get them to do something on Thursday. That'd be a really fun bet for next year. Will the Spurs actually make the playoffs with Wemby in their first year? Um, I would say probably plus 200 would say make it. Cause we have no idea. This guy might be fucking amazing. Like Kareem came into the league and was immediately awesome.

Right. Duncan came in. The Spurs were immediately really, really good. And, you know, in the mix, even Evan Mobley, right? Like he went to Cleveland and all of a sudden the Cavs were legit and he was playing the three. And then, I mean, obviously they had a good front line with Mark and and you know Jared Allen but I mean as soon as he went there I mean Cleveland was you know you looked up and you're like wow Cleveland's the five seed in the east right yeah so I mean and now you just have to be a top 10 team right if you're long as you're in the play

and that's what the Lakers have taught us you can still make a run in the playoffs who's the last number one pick to really do that though I mean I mean, I'm just looking through it. Like Cade, Ant, Zion, Aiton, Fultz, Simmons, Cat, Wiggins. All those guys were on bad teams. Yeah, Duncan's the last one that came in and the team was immediately good. But they had David Robinson there, and it was a little fluky. No disrespect to Bill's guy, Moe Boy,

but it was a perfect situation for him. If he goes to a bad team, I don't think he's the difference maker. Still a lot to be desired offensively there. Plus, Markkinen kind of showed his value once he went to Utah too. Just at the time, it felt like Mobley was the one. It was like, wow, Mobley, man, this is amazing.

He can play the three and he's almost seven feet tall. That's insane. Well, congrats to the Spurs fans. Tate, semi-congrats. You didn't get Wemby, but you landed with the two picks. So Rudy, you got six and 11. So you're delighted by that. I think we ended in a good place. Tate, thanks for coming on. So Rudy, thanks for popping by. And I'm sure we'll be talking about Wemby and everything a lot over the next few weeks. Check out Tate's show, by the way, One Shiny Podcast. And you pop on Ringer NBA Draft as well every once in a while too.

So there you go. Thanks, guys. Thanks, BS. Thank you. Today's Retradables is brought to you by SimpliSafe Home Security. Just like on the field, moving requires a team, a real estate agent to help find the place, a crew of movers to do the heavy lifting, and SimpliSafe to protect your new home. With a team of 24-7 monitoring professionals

who always have your back, whether you're at home or away, that is what SimpliSafe does. So we're going to talk about since Charlotte came damn close to winning the lottery tonight. A big almost for them back in 1995. They pay Larry Johnson, I think 12 years, 84 million. And his teammate Alonzo Mourning, who didn't really like Larry Johnson that much, he wants a lot of money too. And he has David Falk as an agent, who you might remember in the Michael Jordan movie, Air, who's a villain. He decides, all right, we'll take 13 million a year, 91 million total, seven years. That's what we want.

The Hornets come back with 100 for 10 years and they have a stalemate. And what happens is Fox, like you gotta trade them. So this is where it gets really good as a retradable. So Miami comes in and the Lakers come in and the Lakers are offering Vlada Divac and some picks for morning. This is fall of 95 right before the season. Miami comes in and they offer Glenn Rice, who was really good, former high lottery pick and

a 25 point a game score potentially. Plus Khalid Reeves and Matt Geiger and their 1996 number one pick, which this is the deal Charlotte took and that pick became Tony Doak. Door B, if they'd done the Lakers trade, then what happens in the summer of 96, they wouldn't have had the money to pay Shaq because they would have already paid Mourning. They wouldn't have had Vlada Divac to trade for Kobe because they would have already traded him to Charlotte. So he goes to Miami. And then what happens to the Lakers? They have the money to pay Shaq. They have the asset to trade for Kobe and the rest is history. And what happens to Charlotte? Well, they had some fun teams there with, uh, with Glenn Rice that I don't think ever got past round two. So I'm going to say it didn't work out for them.

But that's the thing about the retreadables. You have Miami gets Alonzo Mourning, and that's the birth of heat culture. And you get Charlotte who, door B, maybe they get Kobe Bryant out of it. Who the hell knows? But they end up with Glenn Rice in the second round playoff series.

That's it. Today's Retreadables was brought to you by SimpliSafe Home Security. When you move into a new home, it's important to have good defense. And with SimpliSafe, you get a team of professional monitoring agents standing by around the clock. They have a track record for winning. See why U.S. News & World Report named SimpliSafe the best overall home security of 2023 for a free indoor security camera, plus 20% off your order with interactive monitoring, go to simplisafe.com slash BS. That is simplisafe.com slash BS. There is no safe like SimpliSafe.

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. And built for Celine, who just wants to retire and explore the world's flea markets. So take a moment and think about what you're building for. We've got the financial tools to help make it happen. Wealthsimple. Built for possibilities. Visit wealthsimple.com slash possibilities.

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. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. All right, our old friend Mike Lombardi is here. You can hear him on the GM Shuffle podcast. You can hear him on Vissant as well. The preeminent something is wrong with the Sixers culture guy over the last five, six years. Actually,

longer than that, because you hated this from the get-go. You just never believed in the process for one second. No, because it's based on asset management. It's based on no culture. People think that you can build a great team by just collecting talent. And Belichick's line is, talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling. And if you don't have a culture, you know, that's why Walsh had that belief building, you know, the championship. He had those standard of excellence. And so the first thing I noticed as soon as Heikki came in was the players could do anything they wanted to do. Nobody was held accountable. Nobody cared about winning. You know, if you want to take a day off, hey, take a day off. We'll load management. It's all about numerical data. And so to me, when you don't do that in an early age and you don't

make players work hard, how are you going to make them change? One of the things that really proved it to me was if you talk to the Kansas people about Embiid, they would say he wasn't like that at Kansas. They said he was a different guy. To me, this game seven was the cause and effect of a culture that never was laid down. So game seven, you're probably thinking there's two scenarios. Either Philly gets blown out or they miraculously break through and they actually win another game in Boston. But you're kind of leaning toward this is going to be probably a beautiful disaster, I'm guessing. So then it became everything deep down you were thinking would happen. Yeah, except the problem is I don't think it'll, I think they're still kidding themselves. I think they don't see it as their culture problem. I

think they see it as, you know, they fired Doc today. Like Doc's like throwing a chair off the Titanic. Look, Doc has his issues. Doc is what Parcells calls a progress stopper. I mean, I don't, I'm not a basketball expert, but watch Doc during the regular season. He's obsessed with getting in the Hall of Fame. And so he does everything to win the regular season games and he'll only play certain guys, but he never prepares his team for the playoffs. So when you get to the playoffs, his substitution pattern is completely foreign to what he was doing during the regular season. So like, why are we doing that? Why are we playing Shaq Milton? Why are we playing those guys, McDaniels, but they're not good enough to play it? We got to get a guy ready. The greatness of a coach is to understand what lies

ahead. Like if I were the 49ers this year, I would have said, if I was Kyle Heshanahan, I would have said every Thursday after, we're going to spend time studying Philadelphia because if we can't beat Philly's six-back offense, we're not going anywhere. So that's what a head coach does. Doc, it's all about just getting wins. So they throw him overboard, but their culture's never going to change.

You think Embiid's going to get in shape? You know, he cried after 19. You know, he said he was, you know, they bring Al Horford in so that they could make him grow up. He's been conning people for a long time. You know, he's never going to change. He's made it, he won the MVP and he wasn't in shape. He turns 30 next season, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. So at some point you are who you are, as Bill Parcells always said. Wasn't that a Bill Parcells quote? You are who you are. Your record is what your record is.

Yeah. Yeah. Going backwards to the culture piece of it, it reminds me, we both have kids. You have great kids now. You know,

your kids are going to get away with what they get away with, right? And if there's this invisible line that they cross that you don't stop, that just kind of becomes the direction they're going to go, right? And if there's this invisible line that they cross that you don't stop, that just kind of becomes the direction they're going to go, right? You look at the Sixers,

there was no accountability ever for anything. It was always somebody else's fault. It was always, how many GMs have you had now? This is, you had Henke, Colangelo, Brett Brown was running the team there for a second, now Daryl's it. So there's four. All the different coaches

that have passed through the vortex as well. Brett Brown, Doc Rivers, now whoever thisl's it. So there's four. All the different coaches that have passed through the vortex as well. Brett Brown, Doc Rivers, now whoever this next person is. Then it's like, oh, it was actually Ben Simmons' fault this whole time. Jimmy Butler leaves. He's saying,

yeah, you got a bigger problem there than just me. They overpaid Tobias Harris. Then you go backwards even to the team they're trying to build in the first place where they're just taking,

they take a center even though they already have a center, right? They take Okafor, they already have Embiid. They take Simmons, even though they know he can't shoot, but they think, well, we'll figure out how to make this work. Then they trade up for faults. They think he's going to be the magic piece. Part of the whole process was if we have as many swings as possible at a top pick, just the percentages are going to be in our favor. But the part they missed is you also need the person who can figure out what to do with those high picks. And that was kind of what was missing, right? Yeah. I mean, it takes talent to evaluate talent. And so they missed that. I mean, Henke drafts Nolan Stowell, trades Drew Holiday for him. Then he picks Micah Carter-Williams.

All along the same lines of saying, well, we're going to build for the future. Well, if you're building for the future, isn't Giannis the best guy to build for? Because you might hit a three-run homer. He might be the guy that you could build, and you know it takes time. The other thing they missed is player development. Or Porzingis was another one, right? Like Porzingis

in that other draft, that's another ceiling guy. Right. But they have no player development. So they bring these guys in and they say, oh, don't worry about it. You need a year off for your foot. Take two years off. Nobody works hard. Look, the job of a coach in an organization is to make the players better, is to push them, is to create mental toughness.

What did Spolstra say about a month ago? He said, you know, we have embraced the challenges. We like difficulty and it's made us a better team. I mean, they brought Butler in and nobody liked Butler in the building because Butler saw through the fraudulence. He saw that they were all frauds. He saw that nobody worked hard and Simmons cried to management. I don't want him back. I don't want to. OK, Ben, we'll do whatever you want to do. Once you kiss somebody's ass like that, whether it's your children, whether it's anybody in your organization, it's over. And so now you fire Doc. How are you getting that back? How are you getting that back? Are you going to give the coach the authority to demand from the players? Of course not.

You can't unless you change this culture. They're going to be stuck exactly where they started the process to avoid in the middle. But I don't know what no draft picks, but Daryl traded all the draft picks away. Well, and made a pretty big bet on James Harden and he's betting on the star and the person and the guy's ability to age into his mid thirties, late thirties.

And then, you know, he looks terrible and gay. I thought he looked scared to death at the end of game six and in game seven. And then of course it's everyone else's fault. Now Doc Rivers is gone. Little morsels coming out yesterday. Harden's not crazy about having Doc back. He's like, oh, that's it for him then. We know how that's going to play out. With the Embiid thing, it's tough because I actually like Embiid and I think they've spent a lot of time enabling

the persona of Embiid, right? That this guy, and I think we all really like him and we want him to succeed in the MVP thing and he got number two last year and they're working the media trying to get him the MVP than this year. But at some point you have to come through in one of these series, you know, because for the amount of talent he has, the fact that he was number two, number two, and number one in MVP, at least in the regular season, that's a certain like really high bar of talent, but to never make round three, I don't know what to make of his career. And you've watched the whole thing. You're more down on him than I think pretty much any Sixer fan I know. So why?

Because he does nothing of a champion. He's all about himself. I want to win the MVP. I want to do this. He doesn't make players better. He never gets in shape. Look, Van Gundy has the great quote, you know, your best player must set the tone of intolerance for anything that gets in the way of winning. Well, that's not Embiid. He doesn't set the tone of intolerance. They enabled him. He's not a leader.

They had to sign P.J. Tucker to get some toughness in the team. And then P.J. Tucker had to go over to him in game five and say, come on, man, you got to get your ass going. I mean, imagine that. You're this incredibly, look, I recognize his talent. I think he is such an underachiever. And I know he's won the MVP, and that's hard to say, but he doesn't ever, he's not in shape. He can't carry the team. Does he make anybody better? No, of course not. He turns the ball over when it goes to the low post. He doesn't, you know, I mean, he had two rebounds in the first half the other night. I

mean, he's exhausted and we all make excuses for him. He's on the ground. It's funny, my buddy Bill in the neighborhood here, we set the over-under on how many times he's going to be on the ground in a game. I've never seen an elite athlete on the ground this much in all my life. He's on the ground eight times a game, he falls down. And so, like to me, when you're the best player, you got to carry the team. Moses Malone carried the team. Dr. J was there. Larry Bird carries the team.

Magic carries the team. We're putting this guy in that stratosphere and he can't get past the second round. My dad went to game seven and said in the second half, especially in the fourth quarter, he said Embiid, my dad has good seats. He said Embiid, you know, my dad has good seats. He said Embiid was so tired. He thought he was going to lie on the ground to try to catch his breath. And he was like, he was like, you could tell in the second half, as soon as they started isolating Tatum on him and trying to make them work and come out in the perimeter, that that was it. And which was frustrating because that's probably what the Celtics should have been doing a lot sooner. But from like a big picture standpoint, what the Sixers tried to do, are you just morally against all of it? Are you against pieces of it? Like if you had to press

the reset button and go back to 2013 and they were saying, all right, here's what we're going to try. We're going to throw away a couple of years here. We're going to take some chances on some ceiling draft picks. We might take this Embiid kid number three, even though he was going to be the best pick in the draft, got hurt right before the draft. We still think this is a great bet.

We don't care if he doesn't play next year. We'll just get a better pick. What was the piece that they missed other than the whole, the pieces have to fit? If you were their culture advisor, what would you have said? Well, they never demanded player. There was never accountability from the start. There was always excuse. We're going to cater to the talent. I think what Presti's doing in Oklahoma City is exactly what you should do. Yeah, they tanking, they took Al Horford's deal on, they're taking all these picks, but they're developing

and curating talent. I mean, they almost made the playoffs this year. What is year two? They have all these picks. I think you have to set the standard of... They did make the playoffs. They made the play-in. Yeah, they made the play-in. You've got to set a standard

of excellence if you're going to do this. Here's the bar we have to meet. And here's what we're going to do. And the scoreboard is irrelevant. You know, the 49ers, when Walsh was there first year, he's 2-14, 2-14. I mean, you know, we're setting the standard of excellence. They never did that. They just, it was all asset management. We're on acquired talent. And once we get all this talent together, we'll figure out what to do with it. Well, you know, as Parcells says, if they don't bite when they're puppies, they ain't biting later. And so you never teach them how to bite. You know, if you don't teach

them how to bite and then they missed on the character. I mean, Ben Simmons never worked hard. I mean, after year one, when he wouldn't work on his jump shot, like what more did he have to tell you? Here's what I believe. When a player shows you who he is, believe him. Don't make excuses for him. And that's all Philadelphia did was make excuses for Pillars. Simmons showed him who he was year one. But yeah, we'll make his brothers the shooting coach. I mean, you're tolerating that? If I'm the fucking owner of the 76ers and you tell me that I got all this invested in this guy and his brother's going to be the shooting coach, we're going to have a one-on-one. We're going to say, that ain't happening. I own the fucking owner of the 76ers. And you tell me that I got all this invested in this guy and his brother's going to be the shooting coach.

We're going to have a one-on-one. We're going to say that ain't happening. I own the team. Either you do it this way or we won't have you like what happened to that conversation? Well, remember the Atlanta series, the,

the fateful Atlanta series, that was a fork in the road and all a bunch of ways. But I think in that series, in the previous series, Simmons had the worst free throw shooting of any player with like, I don't know, 50 plus attempts in the history of the playoffs. Going back to like, you know, when it was rock fights in the late 40s and the early 50s. Like that's how bad he was. And I'm with you.

Like if you have like a noticeable flaw, right? Like Michael K. Gilchrist, he had, remember he had like a broken arm or something. So his arm didn't like bend completely. I get it with that. Like if there's some sort of physical flaw that screwed up your shot in some way, but for him, it never made sense. And Kevin O'Connor, who works for us, would always say he shot with the wrong hand and it became a running joke. But the fact that he was such an incredible athlete and yet was so bad at these basic things, I don't know, that has to be on the organization at least a little bit. And then Embiid not being in shape would be the other thing.

They never demanded him to be in shape. And then they watched a playoff game where they lose to Toronto. And I'm not a net basketball expert, but Butler played point in that game and he made the team better. And then they naturally don't sign Butler because he's too difficult to deal with. And they signed Tobias because he's a really nice guy. And because Simmons didn't want Butler on the team. But yet it was living proof right there that Butler made the team better than Simmons did. They refused to evaluate their own team. They became so involved in their own bias because

they kept quoting the process, the process, the process. And it was bullshit because the process is a Ponzi scheme if you're not developing talent. I'm all for, okay, we got to get high picks, but somebody's got to coach the players. Somebody's got to demand from the players. We got to have a standard. It never happened. And now they think they're going to tack it on. Embiid says, I'm going to go back and work hard to be a good player. He's, why hasn't this happened before? Now they think they're going to tack it on. Embiid says, I'm going to go back and work hard to be a good player. Why hasn't this happened before? Well, you mentioned Presti. That's a good example.

Because I think the one thing that happened, and there's been teams that have tanked over the years in basketball, but the Sixers took it to the nth degree. Like, there's no question. But then other teams borrowed a little of what worked. I think OKC is the best example where they're basically no man's land with the post-KD era of Westbrook. Paul George wants to go. They fleeced the Clippers with so many picks. Now Westbrook wants to leave. Great.

We'll take Chris Paul back. We'll take even more first. But the key was they nailed some of the picks. Yeah. Right? They identified SGA. They demanded SGA be of the picks. Yeah. Right? They identified SGA. They demanded SGA be in the trade. You look at that Josh Giddey,

who was a pretty controversial prospect, but over and over again, they were spotting some sort of intangible. And I told this story in the pod before, but I went to the game when LeBron broke the scoring record and they played OKC that game. And it was like a 15-minute delay

and everyone's on the court and there's a big hullabaloo, right? And OKC that game. And it was like a 15 minute delay and there's, everyone's on the court and there's a big hullabaloo, right? And OKC is trying to make the play in. And I was watching their bench and I was watching how the guys were kind of reacting to the, and all of them were like, can we start the fucking game again? Like what? And they went out and they actually won the game. Like they were locked in and focused. I was like, oh, he's, he's got some sort of secret sauce with the type of guys that he and focused. I was like, oh, he's got some sort of secret sauce with the type of guys that he was looking. This was going back to our guy Belichick. In the 2000s, there were certain types of free agents and draft picks that he liked. What was the common denominator with the types of players that he always went after?

Well, they wanted guys who were smart, who loved football, and were passionate about being a pro. And Kraft gave him the authority to build that program. See, Brett Brown never had that authority. Brett Brown was told to lose. And if you win too much, we've got to tear it back down. And so it was so disorganized. There was no culture in place. Whereas I think with Presti, he's trying to build a standard and he's collecting assets along the way. Asset management of the pie is a nice piece, but it isn't the whole pie like Philadelphia made it. And these idiots in Philly think it worked. They're just upset with Colangelo because Colangelo blew the picks. I mean, yeah, that's right. He blew the picks. I mean, they brought Markel's faults in for a workout. And I'm told reliably by multiple people,

multiple people that they thought that was the worst workout they've ever seen. And yet they still drafted them because they began with the end in mind. And so to me, this goes back to the owner. The owner is allowing this to happen, Josh Harris. Because he's from an asset management world, he sees it. I mean, think about this, Bill. They go ahead and draft Mikkel Bridges. His mother works for the team, right? And somebody who's in, somebody who's a part owner of the team says, you know, when you

look at the analytics, Zaire Smith and Mikkel Bridges are the same player and we'll get a first round pick for him, which is really a huge asset. Okay, let's make that trade. Well, I've known this from being in the league, evaluating football players for 35 plus years. There's never two players the same. There are never two players. There's always somebody better than somebody else. There are never two players the same. Even when we're kids picking teams in a playground, there are never two players the same. And yet that's what this guy, see, when you're in an asset management program like Philadelphia, anybody without expertise or has never built a team has a voice because, oh, it's an asset. We're asset management. But if you don't understand what it takes to build a champion, which none of those guys do in Philadelphia,

how can you talk? And so that's why I've hated the team for 10 years, because nobody in that building understands one thing about how to build a championship team. And if your poster the Nets. But as the classic look at my awesome stats. And look at my regular season performance. And look how good this works game to game in the regular season. Playoffs hasn't gone great

for me, but that's fine. I'm still one of the best players in the league. And the playoff stuff starts adding up. Then he gets to Philly. Same thing. Well, no, this is great. And him and Joel. And the playoff stuff starts adding up. Then he gets to Philly. Same thing. Well, no, this is great. And him and Joel. And you start hearing little whispers. He doesn't like Doc that much. We get to the playoff series. He's incredible in game one. He's incredible in game four. Rest of the series, eh. And then end of game six, game seven, he's basically, he's just there in body and that's it, not in spirit. And this is what you signed up for. You're adding him to all this other stuff. You already have

culture issues. Now you have this guy who probably thinks it's fine. And Raheem Palmer said he was at the club that night. I mean, during the bye week, he was in Las Vegas and in Atlantic City. And I was told reliably he made a fortune in Atlantic City. But let's go back. Darryl Moore is a smart guy, and I'm not the general manager of the team. But I know this from general managing. When you lock yourself into a bias, I only want this player. You basically make a bad trade. So instead of saying, I'll trade Simmons for the best offer, he was fixated on going to I'm going to reunite the Houston team, which is the first vial. I mean, if anything, the Sloan Analytical Conference teaches is to eliminate bias in

your decision making. But yet the decision, why are we even having this conference if all your decision is based on a bias that you love this player, Even though it's pretty clear to somebody like me who doesn't evaluate basketball talent for a living that his game is declining. It's fairly obvious, but your bias is so strong that you ignored the offers from Indiana. You ignored the offers from Sacramento. You ignored all these offers so you could overpay. And that's what happens with your bias. And yet you talk about being analytical, and yet you violate one of the first rules of being analytical. Analytics is supposed to take away bias. You installed it. Well, one of the reasons this is relevant for the sport you care

about the most is this guy just bought Washington, Josh Harris. So you have this ownership structure that everybody liked the owners. And I think Josh did. I think he's well-liked. I don't think people think he's a bad guy. It's not like a Robert Sarver situation or something. And then they had Michael Rubin in there who sold a stake, but is the most player-friendly, owner-friendly connections guy in professional sports, right? And he's buddies with Embiid. He's buddies with everybody. So you have that piece. But basically, they're just throwing together assets and spending money. Now he's going to try to do this with everybody. So you have that piece, but basically they're just throwing together assets and spending money. Now he's going to try to do this with Washington. Do you think he learned any

lessons from Philly or is the Washington thing going to be the same thing? It's going to be the same thing. He's going to, he's going to, he loves to be, look, he sits next to Doc on the main court. You know, I mean, I knew I could see his face. I watched him closely through the TV, but he was like in game five, I thought he was going to have see his face. I watched him closely through the TV, but he was like in game five, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. It looked like he was in that much pain if they lost that game. And then, you know, I didn't see him after game seven, game six. I saw that face in game six. And I said to my wife, he's getting fired. There's no doubt doc. But to me, I think he, the, most of these owners, they're billionaires. They miss the culture

piece. They don't understand that to win a title, to win a championship, you have to have everybody working on the same page. It's not about being on the same page. It's about everybody has to be aligned. And weren't aligned. We all weren't aligned. I saw the game differently than somebody else. That's not even though we all said we're on the same page to win. We weren't aligned. And I think that's the issue. And Josh doesn't I mean, for the coach, if the coach can't fire the player, then you're going to get nowhere. And in the NBA, they've removed that with guaranteed contracts. So now you've entitled the players. And now with load management, oh, you don't want to play? No problem. Don't play. I don't know how Steve Ballmer does it. He's got quiet Leonard. He's paying them full salary. He guys plays 40 games. I'm so glad to hear. I was just going to bring that up when you said that. The Clippers culture is a great example of that, right? There's Ty Lue stuff right now. It's like Ty Lue might be available. He's under contract. And anytime somebody is available when they're under contract, that means the guy's floating. It's different. This was what Doc Rivers did 10 years ago.

You go back and you read the doc stories in Boston. He had like three years left on his deal. And it's like, eh, Doc Rivers might take a year off. Then all of a sudden he was floated for the Nets job. It's like the Nets job, but he's the Celtics coach. Then it was like, oh, he'd be the Clippers job. He'd be open to that. And the Celtics are going, this guy's got a fucking contract. What's going on here? And they end up, they trade him to the Clippers. The Ty Lue stuff coming out to me doesn't feel accidental. And if I'm Ty Lue, I would be leaving tread marks, getting away from the Clippers. But watching what Kawhi did, I obviously have some Clipper sources and I've had some

tickets with them for a long time. What that culture, whatever they've created of you get to play when you want, we don't get to know what's going on with your body ever. You just kind of come in and out like you're a cat jumping on our lap. You can't. How are you going to win a title that way? It's impossible. No, unless you do.

Look, there's so many great Riley stories because Riley believes in culture. I mean, I'm sure you've heard the story of some. There was a there was a time and this I can't. This is a story. This isn't a fact, but it's fairly reliable, that players went in to complain about Spolstra. And he went downstairs, he told everybody downstairs, I'll be in there in 15 minutes. He made them all line up against the wall. And basically all the mega superstars that were there, he issued, he told every one of them,

you don't ever come in my office and tell me to fire the coach. Your job is to play basketball. That's culture. That's culture. I mean, look at, I mean, it's the same thing happening with Kyle Lowry. Kyle Lowry, you don't want to comply? Okay, we'll put you on the bench and see what you do. You know, you don't think he's been up in Riley's office, got read the mandate by him. And, you know, and so that to me, even though we're in basketball and you say you can't do that, teams that win championships in any sport have to have that culture. Well, there was that great moment when it was unclear whether LeBron was going to leave Miami or not in 2014, when Riley had that press conference, which I'm sure you loved.

And he did that whole thing like, look, only one team wins the title every year. Winning is hard. You're going to have ups, you're going to have downs. You got to stick together. That's part of building a culture. And then LeBron left two days later. But that was his whole speech, I think,

which he thought was going to inspire LeBron and probably drove him out the door even faster. And the way the league works now, these short contracts and the amount of money these guys make, it's probably one of the things I've talked about the most on this podcast. I don't know how you build a culture. You really have to get lucky with your top two. Even the Celtics, which I think they landed the right two guys, Tatum and Brown. And it only takes one little mistake to send things sideways, right? Brown ends up in the KD trade rumors last summer and he's mad about it

the whole season. He should have been. Cause he's like, I just got you guys to the finals. Right. You know, like why am I in trade rumors? What else do I have to do to build it? So it's not just the player's fault. I think the organizationally they can screw it up too, but it's never been harder because the moment somebody is unhappy, we find out about it. We find it about on Twitter on hoops hype, you know, like even yesterday it was like,

Oh, Harden's not sure he wants to pack. I'm like, Oh, this is over. So I don't know how you manage. Football seems a little easier because, um,

I don't know that just the stability of quarterbacks on teams seems to be some sort of centrifugal force. But I don't know how you do it. I mean, how would you do it if you ran an NBA team? I mean, you know, it's funny. I was with a guy in Charlotte two years ago who was trying to buy an NBA team. And I said, basically, you got to start new. You have to basically take everybody in because the old set ways can't work if you're going to try to build culture. I think you have to, it starts with getting the right guy, getting a guy, you know, I know you need talent, but you need players that care, players that want to win. You know, I mean,

think about that press conference with Embiid. Did you ever hear Jordan say, well, PJ Armstrong didn't play well enough this week, or, you know, we didn't have, you know, Bill Wedding. You know, I mean, like I know he said some of the accountability at the beginning, but it was all just deflection. And I think you need to have that. And if you don't really nail that piece down, when the games get tough, how are we going to respond? Every game you win, it's because you've had to overcome something. Every championship, it creates a situation. As soon as the Sixers, they made that run, they quit.

I mean, even Doris Burke, God bless her. She's been one of the few people that's called and beat out of shape. Not many people in the national media ever mentioned this conditioning, ever. She did two years ago. She got lambasted here back in Philadelphia. You know, I got killed for it too. And she mentioned in game six, look, they're walking up the court like you don't care enough. I told I told a coach there after the Toronto game, you know what I would do?

I would hang the giant picture of Joel Embiid crying to his girlfriend or wife, whomever she was, and to remind him that if this this is this fucking important, then why don't you do something about it? Every day. Every day he should see that picture. But they don't want to do that because they don't want confrontation. Part of the thing, like Shaq had this issue, right? Like Shaq was really only in incredible shape in his prime

that one year, the first year they won the Lakers title, and then he would spend the rest of the time playing himself into shape. And it worked in the playoffs for a couple of years. Part of the thing is those guys are so freaking big. Sometimes I watch Embiid sometimes. I'm like, did God mean for this person with this body to run up and down the court for eight months a year and jump and run and land on people? And you, it's kind of amazing he stayed this healthy. Yeah. You know, same for Shaq.

Like Shaq was pretty durable for the size he had and the pounding that he took. It actually felt like it probably could have gone worse. But if he would work at it, he could extend his career. If he would work at it. Well, now he's going to have to. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if he will.

He's never going to change. He's already showed us he's going to, and he has such a great PR campaign that he can convince people that he's working and they won't see the obvious. You know, it's like, even when people see it, they don't say it. Like the guy was winded. Your dad said in the second, in the third, fourth, I mean, I got four texts from, from people in the league. He's gone, he's done in the second quarter. He was exhausted. Oh, he had a bad knee. No, no, he's exhausted in the second quarter. He was exhausted. Oh, he had a bad knee. No, no, he's exhausted in every game. And I never understood why they didn't make him run.

They played faster on Sunday and made him run. It only took seven games. It only took us six and a half games to play faster and have Embiid come out to try to guard Tatum. I was going nuts. Every guy I know in the NBA tells me the scouting report on his Embiid, just make him run, wear him down, make him defend and wear him down. I mean, make him have to go through a big body to get to the rim.

And even they put Marcus Smart on, they know Marcus Smart can't guard him, but he has to work hard. And all they're trying to do with Marcus Smart guard him is to make him work hard to wear him down. Because once he's out of gas, there's no fueling station anywhere near him. Well, it's been a nine-year honeymoon for Embiid. And I think in Philly now, I think the Philly DNA is now out with this.

It is time now, prove to us, prove to us that you can take us past round two, I think is in the air. Let me ask you a question. I've asked this to people. If you were the GM of the Nuggets and I was the GM of the Sixers, and I said, I'll

trade you and Bede for Jokic, what would your answer be? I'd hang up. Of course you would. So how did he win the MVP? Well, I voted for Embiid. I told you I was doing it. And it was partly because I'd voted Jokic two years in a row. And it's like, is this guy going to be a three in a row MVP with like Larry Bird? He's never been in round three. It got in my head. And it's a regular, the other thing is it's a regular season award. I just think it matters a little less than it used to because like

LeBron didn't win it a few years there in the mid 2010s, but we all knew he was the best player in the league. So I don't know. If you're not willing to trade me that trade, you can't make him the MVP. I mean, because he had his- Well, so you would trade him.

You would, because the Knicks- I mean, years ago, I would have traded him for Devin Booker. I mean, I would have traded him for whomever. I mean, I'm convinced he's never- Look, I believe in the theory. Once a player shows you, just believe him. I believe him. He's never- I mean, I don't hate him. Once a player shows you this, believe him. I believe him. He doesn't.

He's never. I mean, I don't hate him. I recognize the talent. I really do. I recognize the uniqueness of his talent. I recognize he can shoot the ball with anybody. But I also know he doesn't have a heart of a champion. And you're never going to win with that.

And you don't think that can belatedly come? No. To me, they've spoiled him so much, Bill. They've spoiled him so much that he's entitled. He's the spokesman. He's out there talking about Doc. He's saying that, he's saying, well, I don't really have a say on who comes back. Yes, you do.

You play tennis with Daryl Morey. You know, you're over at the Rubens playing full court basketball. You know, you've got influence with everybody. Like, don't pretend you don't know. Like, don't say that. Like, you've got influence with everybody. Don't pretend you don't know. Don't say that. You've got influence. My prediction is in July, he'll want to get traded.

I feel like I said this. Yeah, I said this Sunday. I think the Knicks are looming now, like in a real way. And if you're Philly, you have to think about it because this run might have been, this just might have been as far as you can go now. And if you're Philly, you have to think about it because this run might have been, this just might've been as far as you can go now. And especially with the way the salary cap is

going and the lack of assets. And he turns 30 next year. I know, but what are you going to get back from New York? What could you get back from New York? Oh, that Newark will overpay for him. Well, that's the, the other thing is I think what most fans would be shocked at is the value that he would bring back. I think people think it would be shocked at is the value that he would bring back. I think people think it would be like this. I don't see it. I don't I don't see it. I mean, people will love them on this team, but I think but you're basically buying somebody else's problems, too.

Well, you know this better than anyone. It only takes one sucker. Let's take a break. And I want to throw some football overrunners at you. All right, Lombardi, let's just, we don't have to spend a million hours on this, but I'm going to give you nine teams. Do whatever you want to do. I'm going to give you nine teams where I just looked at the win totals and the win totals jumped out at me. One way or the other. I was like,

ooh, that seems higher. Ooh, that seems too low. I had nine teams. I'll give you the... You want the two low teams first, or do you want the two high teams first? Whatever you want to do. Mix it up. I don't care. All right. I'll do two high first, where I just first glimpsed, I was like, ooh, Texans, six and a half.

That seems high. Why are the Texans going to be good? What's going on there? To me, that one seems way too high. Why are the Texans going to be good? What's going on there? To me, that one seems way too high. The only reason I think it's at six and a half is because of the uncertainty in Indianapolis. Is Tennessee going to be any good? Everybody thinks that Will Levis is going to play by week four or five. I don't see it. I know Houston was in a lot of games, but if they play Stroud, I think it's going to be a problem. They'll have a hard time winning game. They're not good enough on defense to play that D'Amico Ryan style of defense,

which is a cover three Seattle cover three, which unless you dominate the front, it's hard to really dominate defensively. So I would go under that. To me, I think it's more of a five and a half number there. The only way you would say over is just because they don't have their first round pick. And in football, for whatever reason, we don't protect picks. Yeah. So they trade that pick to Arizona.

It's like, hey, can you make that a top four protected first? I'm pretty sure Arizona is doing that anyway. Cool. Okay. We'll roll it over if it's in the four. I've been saying that for years. Like, I don't understand it. I agree with you.

Like, I don't know why we don't lottery protect the pick. And then, you know, we trade the Jets trade. If Rogers doesn't play 65%, you know, it's a bad trade for the Jets, right? But you know, he's going to pay 65%. But really, what are you getting? If you're Green Bay, you're getting 28, 29, you're getting, you're not getting a first round pick. I mean, only 11 of the 32 guys, I think, I think 11, maybe picked up their fifth year option. People talk about, oh, we got to get in the first round and get a fifth-year. Nobody wants the fifth-year option. It's too ridiculous. Right.

Next team that was too high. This one I double-taked. The Falcons are eight and a half. I know. What the hell? Just because they have some good, they're a fantasy team? Do they have lines? Do they have a quarterback?

They're a seven-on-seven team without a quarterback. I think a lot of it is because of the division. Tampa's going to suck. What's Carolina with the quarterback? Did you see anything out of Ritter that you would say, look, I think Arthur Smith and they played a lot of good games, but defensively,

every defensive lineman's over 30 years old. I don't know how they're going to be able to really play that way and win. Last year, I don't know. I mean, I don't know how they're going to be able to really play that way and win, you know, last year, Mariota gave them, so they ran that six back office, but at some point you got to have to have the drop back pass game. I think that's way too high for Atlanta. I was in on Ritter and then I watched them and there was, cause I kind of liked that Falcons team. I liked Algier. I thought they could run the ball and they had some weapons.

I thought they were pretty well coached. And Ritter came in and said, all right, this will be fun. I'm going to bet on them this week. In a half, I was like, oh, my God, what is this guy? Is he even a backup? He was terrible. I don't know how they don't draft Jalen Carter. They're 50 miles from his campus.

If they don't know that player better than anybody, they need a three technique. One of the most non-talked-about positions in the NFL is three technique. Everybody thinks you have a great, there are very few great three techniques. And when you have one, you're a really good defense.

And Atlanta could draft it up, and yet they give them the filling. And they take a running, I love B. John Robinson, but they had good running backs on that team. They really did. I loved Algier. It was like,

that would not have been a position I would have picked for the Falcons. All right, next team. I mean, this is really just me setting you up now. This is right now I'm like Steve Nash just driving the lane to dish him off. Yeah, there's no chance Belichick's not getting over eight, seven. No, no, we're going to get that later. We're doing that. We haven't gotten the two low yet. This is still the two high group.

Bears, seven and a half. They're going to go eight and nine? The Chicago Bears? They got the MVP, Bill. They got the MVP on their team. We've just given them the award. I mean, the guy that doesn't have Joe Montana in his top five quarterbacks is now giving out MVP awards in May. I love this. This is incredible. I shake my I just, I shake my head when he talks because I just like, how is this possible? Okay, let's go through some evidence. 91 sacks, averages seven yards every time he gets sacked. 29 fumbles in two years, right? I mean, the guy's a walking turnover machine. He doesn't throw the ball.

His numbers, I mean, I took shit. Davis Mills' numbers and his numbers passing are identical. The problem is Davis Mills won five games. This guy's won four. It pays to have a great PR campaign. And who says the Bears are any good on defense? And I'll add one more for you. Who says Matt Eberflusch is going to be a good head coach?

There's a lot of question marks. The thing with Fields that always made me nervous was they would fall behind and they still wouldn't throw. Yeah. Usually when you're down 20, isn't that a good time to be like, ah, they're in prevent. Let's get some completions. They wouldn't even throw then. Well, let me put it in perspective for you.

The Indianapolis Colts and the Bears, their losing total was 8.5 points per game. That's the point differential. The Colts threw the.5 points per game. That's the point differential. The Colts threw the ball 35 times per game. The Bears threw it 22. They didn't even want to throw when they got behind. I mean, it's right there. 22 throws a game is all they wanted to do. I mean, look, the guy doesn't throw the ball.

Now, we're in this Buzz Lightyear's part of the year. This is Buzz Lightyear. Hey, he's light years ahead of everybody now. He's light years ahead of everybody now. He's light years ahead of where he was last year. Well, he can't complete a crossing route. Like, come on. And you talk about, you know, Kevin O'Connor should look at his throwing motion.

One of the things that really made a lot of people down on fields was his throwing motion, how it was so loose, and it wasn't going to ever be able to be corrected. The one thing with that, like he killed the Patriots. He had a couple games this year where at least for a half, you could see it. And I really like DJ Moore. And if it's there, it's got to be there this year

or else you have to really be like, all right, this just isn't happening. We just got to get better players around him and it'll be good. And then you get better players around him and it's still not good. I should call that the indeed philosophy. DJ Moore isn't going to, I mean, he's got to get the ball to him. He's got to throw it to him. And he's got to read it. And he's got to be able to understand what he's doing.

You get sacked 91 times in two years. You don't understand how to protect. So, Bears 7.5 under. Here's the last one for the too high group. The Niners are 11.5 over under wins. And that is like the all-time, I respect

Kyle Shanahan, over under total. Their quarterbacks are Sam Darnold, Brock Purdy, I don't even know if he's going to be back in time. And Trey Lance, you know, who missed a workout. Sam Darnold, who

on a platter, a playoff spot last year. Big lead against Tampa. It's actually sitting there for Carolina to go to the playoffs, and he couldn't play two halves in a row. How is Shanahan? Shanahan's had these quotes where he's like, this guy to me is like,

he's a true number one pick. He's so talented. I can't wait to have him. Doesn't he watch film? I don't, you love Shanahan. I just don't get this. I mean,

I think when you watch like that game in Tampa, you know, bad interception in the red zone, they couldn't cover my Mark, Mike Evans in that game. Right. I thought he played better last year, but here's what I think is going on. The one win total, you got 11 and a half.

Once the draft ended, San Francisco went to 10 and a half in a lot of shops. Oh, shit. Well, on Fandle right now, it's 11 and a half. That's where I grabbed it. There's some places out there at 10 and a half. I mean, to me, look, Trey Lance hasn't played football in four years. We saw Deshaun Watson not play football in how long and how bad did he look? Now, Kyle came out and said, we have three franchise quarterbacks. I missed that memo. I haven't seen that one. I don't know if Brock-

I think he meant they play for a franchise. Yeah, I've missed that. I mean, look, San Francisco, he does make the game quarterback friendly. And you say, well, why wasn't Lance very good? Well, perhaps maybe Lance wasn't very good. I mean, look, they try to trade. They would love for somebody to take Lance off their head. They can't give him away because nobody knows what he is.

Here's the thing you worry about if you go over San Francisco. They'd have a hard time always staying healthy for 17 games. Last year, they got better at the end of the year. And are they going to have the quarterback? I mean, that's going to be the issue. That seems too high. Well, going to the two low, I have five two low teams, and I'll tie the Seahawks to them.

The Seahawks are eight and a half. I thought that line was going to be at least nine and a half, maybe even 10. And Vegas is telling me if they go nine and eight, you win the bet. I like them for the division too. For the division, they are, at least on FanDuel, plus 260. So to me, that's a toss up between those two teams because of the San Francisco quarterback thing.

But am I too high in Seattle? No, I think Seattle had another really good draft. And Geno Smith's going to play as good as he did last year, maybe better. The two rookie tackles will be improved. And they got a three technique. They signed Dermonte Jones. The first three technique Pete Carroll's had since he lost Michael Bennett. I mean, look, the Rams are going to be atrocious.

And I think the Rams and I think Arizona, there's four wins right there. They should have four wins right there. And now all they need is five more wins over the next. I think that's a pretty good bet. Yeah, I saw the Cardinals were 24 to one to win the NFC West. And I was trying to think if I ever seen a 24 to one. I think those are the worst odds I've ever seen. But it makes sense.

Arizona is going to be, you know, horrific and probably thinking about next year right away. And they're going to have basically two chances at a top five pick. Well, they could get Caleb Williams from USC. Do they take him or do they continue to go down the road with the mayor of Munchkinland? I mean, seriously, what do they do? You talk about a guy that you paid when you didn't have to pay him. I mean, that's going to be an interesting question. Talk about a culture guy.

Yeah, the worst. I'm surprised the Sixers didn't try to sign him to come off the bench. I'm sure they will if he's a free agent. We would love to have him. I'm sure we would. Can you shoot threes? All right. Four more teams, then we're done.

Look, the Steelers, the overrunners, eight and a half. And to me, that's like betting against the house in blackjack. Four more teams and then we're done. Look, the Steelers, the overrunners, eight and a half. And to me, that's like betting against the house and blackjack. Like Tomlin's basically the house. He's just going to go nine and eight, ten. I don't care who's on his team. I actually like what I saw from Pickett last year. Seemed like they had a pretty good draft.

I don't know. That seems like at least a nine-win team to me, right? They got better as the year went on, too. They really improved from the time they got blown out of Buffalo toward the end of the year. I mean, they were giving everybody some trouble. Look, the guy's a really good coach. And what I think people misconstrue is it takes three elements of your team to win, offense, defense, and the kicking game. And Tomlin's really good at that. They didn't play well at home last year. I mean, in that loss, remember the great Zach Wilson had the 14.4th quarter net. That was one of their losses. Kenny Pickett throws two bad interceptions in

that game or else they're going to have what they have nine window. They would have, they would have maybe competed for a playoff. So with you on Pittsburgh, I'm always going to bet on the over with Tomlin. Me too. I kind of like Pickett. Yeah. I mean, I don't think he's bad. Well, he's never going to be a top five player, but what they have is they know they need players around them, so they're going to manage him correctly. And that's half the battle with quarterbacking. Everybody thinks no quarterback needs to be managed.

They all need to be managed. They all need to have the right system in place to make them most efficient. Yeah. All right, the next ones are all seven and a half, three Panthers, seven and a half. I just think they have a lot of talent and I don't know if Bryce will be ready next year,

but he's probably the best bet of all these quarterbacks to at least be decent next year. But I bet on the Panthers second half of the year. They were really good to me until that last Tampa game. I just thought, and your son worked there last year. Yeah. I thought they had a lot of good players on both sides of the ball compared to what their record was and that I thought they

underachieved. So to me, seven and a half in a bad division, that seems reasonable. Yeah. I mean, look, DJ Moore keeps his hat on. They make the playoffs. If the kicker makes an extra point, they make the playoffs. I mean, look, they're not a first pick overall on the draft team. They're good defensively. That offensive look, they're not a first pick overall on the draft team. They're good defensively. That offensive line's really good. Miles Sanders will give them another runner to go at Hubbard. So I'm with you.

And I think Bryce Young will be really good for them. He gives them, you know, part of this we don't put into it. It started this conversation. But when the quarterback's a great leader, it's the, you know, Jimmy G for San Francisco. Bryce Young will be that for carolina that's really important you get that guy that's really driving the team at quarterback that's really important yeah i like some of the stories as you know i'm not a huge college football guy but i

like some of the stories about the the sunday after the saturday game he was the first guy there in alabama and already like thinking about like just unusual stuff for, for that. Uh, all right. Two more. The Packers seven and a half. There's, I just didn't think Rogers was that good last year. And that line is built in. Oh, they're going to take such a hit at quarterback.

And it's like, well, he was like a B minus last year for them. They have a lot of talents though. Why are the bears and the Packers the same? That's what I keep asking everybody. The Packers are better on defense than they are. The Packers' special teams improved last year with that returner that they got in there. Look, and they've got really good running backs.

Their offensive line is now, they're going to be really young. I think the Packers will develop as the year goes on. I don't know what to make of Jordan Love. I think if you're betting the over there, you're saying Jordan Love's going to be decent. I would have a hard time making that bet with LaFleur and Jordan Love, two unknowns, because this is the first time LaFleur is actually going to have to coach a team.

And really, Lee, can he do that? He's got two 13-win seasons riding on the coattails of the MVP Aaron Rodgers. It's going to be interesting to see what he does, how he adapts the offense. For me, I'm cautiously waiting. But to me, there's no reason how they're the same as the Bears. To me, they're better on defense than the Bears alone. So for that one, I think I like the Green Bay division odds more than the over-under because as you said, I'm basically betting on Jordan Love. And if he's decent, that team's talented. In the division, at least on FanDuel, they're plus 350. In a division where Detroit's coming out of the gate, they're in that first game, you know they're going to lose that.

They're zone one. Their schedule's going to be harder. We're in a bunch of national games. Everybody's thinking of them as like, oh, that's the team. I didn't love their draft. I didn't love what they did. There's some red flags with them. Every year there's the team that's the team. I didn't love their draft. I didn't love what they did. There's some red flags with them. Every year, there's the team

that gets the ton of attention and it goes sideways. I could see it happening with them. Three teams, Minnesota, New York, and Detroit. You can put Jacksonville in there too. It's going from good to great. That's the hardest thing to do in sports is to go from good to great,

is to get players to understand what it takes to become great. Everybody wants's the hardest thing to do in sports is to go from good to great is to get players to understand what it takes to become great. And everybody wants to get paid. The Giants paying their guys, right? It's the Riley disease of me. Everybody wants to get paid once we made the playoffs. Now, Minnesota is dumping those guys because they got cap room, you know, but a team like Washington, if you have brought up, I don't trust Rivera, but if they, if Washington traded for Dalvin Cook, I'd play the over because if they had Dalvin Cook on that team

with their defense, that would be a really smart play. You know, it's funny you mentioned Jacksonville because they were minus 160 for the division and I couldn't decide if that was too high or too low because I can't think of a single other team I like in that division. But I also like the Jaguars

being minus favorites in the division. I was like, oh, seems early. I mean, Vrabel is too good of a coach to just, I think he's got a little bit of Mike Tomlin in him. You know, I mean, I think he's going to, with a year to coach this team, I don't trust Levis, nor do I trust Tannehill. But for him, I mean, this is the most remarkable thing I've ever seen in my career in the NFL. On a Sunday night game in Kansas City, both teams coming off a bye. Malik Willis gets a first down with five minutes to go in the second quarter, and they only

get one for the remainder of the game into overtime. And yet the game went into overtime. That's one of the most remarkable coaching jobs in the history of coaching. With a guy who will probably never play quarterback in the NFL. He should never play quarterback again. But remember, he was a top 10 pick this time last year. Oh, yeah. Last one. The Pats are seven and a half. I'm actually offended because they went eight and nine last year and they left two wins on the table that they just literally gave to the other team. They had Matt Patricia, the bane of my existence, a guy who cost you a Superbowl ring as the offensive

coordinator. They had more dysfunction. It was the most un-Belichick, sloppiest, weirdest, terrible game management season strategy. Like, oh my God, is the old man losing it kind of season. And now they have, you know, they reprioritized the coaching staff. They had a really good draft, I thought. They have a shitload of talent. And you were saying like, what am I getting with Jordan Love? It's like, well, Max done more than Jordan Love has.

Yeah, no doubt. They can't go eight, nine. Also, like, why am I afraid of the Bills at this point? Like, what have the Bills done? They blew the playoffs in 13 seconds two years ago. Last year, they rolled over and Minnesota, the stupid play against the Raiders. I mean, they're in so many games that, you know, look, at the end of the year, the difference between 12 and 5 and 5 and 12 are about 12 plays. And all those 12 plays went against New England. And so they're 8 and nine. And so I think that the guy is going to coach the team, Bill O'Brien. I think that the most important thing they did this off season is get a line coach. I mean, Patricia was also coaching the line. That line play was

horrendous. People say, well, you got to get a receiver for Mac Jones. No, if you get Mac Jones a little bit of time, maybe he could throw the ball and not turn it over. Like he was getting a shit kicked out of him, and I think that'll improve. They had no receivers who could catch the ball and then run with it for more than a yard and a half. The entire team. The offensive line was

really, really atypically bad for a Belichick team. And the strategy stuff was horrific. But I thought they had a lot of talent. I look at the defense now. If they hit with the second round pick and they hit with Gonzalez, which it seems like everybody's just penciling him,

he's going to play. They're actually kind of loaded on defense now. Plus, they fixed the kicking game. That was another thing we didn't mention. Jake Bailey was the worst punter of all time last year. And they finally got a punter. And they have a kicker just in case Folk finally, you know, it hits midnight for him. But I just think they're deep. I do, too.

And I think that this Mop, the kid they drafted from Sac State in the third round, gives them a box player that can tackle big guys like Josh Allen and defend the six-pack attack, which they've struggled with. And then when you look at them offensively, Stevenson is a legitimate big-time running back. I mean, this guy, I mean, if he can protect the football, that's another game that we didn't even talk about. They're going to beat Cincinnati. And he fumbles the ball going in the, I mean, we've got the ball inside the five-yard line and he fumbles it and loses that game. So it was very uncharacteristic. I can't see that happening two years in a row. Yeah, I don't either. And they're plus 750 for the division, which I also think seemed a little crazy

because it goes back to the Bills thing. I just feel like the Bills get a pretty big benefit of the doubt at this point. And they should be the favorites. But then I look at Miami. It's like, I don't know how many more games two is going to play. Three concussions last year.

Then I look at the Jets. I don't know how many more games two is going to play. He had three concussions last year. Then I look at the Jets. I don't know when Brees Hall is coming back. I don't know about the coach. We haven't seen him actually coaching a real playoff team. I have no idea what's going to happen with Rodgers. I didn't like how he looked last year. So there's a scenario where they're really good, but there's

also a scenario where it's disappointing and it feels like the Mets season right now, where all the Mets fans are like, what happened? I thought we were going to be awesome. Yeah. I mean, look, the offensive line is still an issue. I mean, Miami just signed Isaiah Wynn. I mean, if you're worried about concussion protocol, I'm not sure you want to sign Isaiah Wynn.

It's a good point. It's your left tackle. So the Miami has severe offensive line issues that they've got to fix, or else Tua is going to get hit again. And that's going to be problematic. But look, it's wide open. I think every, when has there ever been a time where on paper it goes the way it thinks on paper? Never does.

Well, the one thing that we know for sure is that the NFC is not talented enough, which means at least from like an over under division type of thing, that's where the real inefficiencies are going to be, right? NFC South, something weird happened to NFC North, maybe Seattle right now. To me, Seattle looks like what Philly was like last year, where it started out. Dallas was the favorites and Philly was like plus 200. And then Philly started creeping toward them. And by the time, what did we hit? August, Philly was the favorites in the division.

People started looking at their schedule. Like, wait a second. If they get past week two, it's like smooth sailing after that. So I have my eye on Seattle as like maybe still some value there. I said this on my show and pod. I would bet overs in the NFC, unders in the AFC. Oh, good one. Who's your favorite quarterback right now, Stilma Holmes?

I mean, it's hard to argue with them. I mean, Burrow, to me, has that it factor, that ability to win. This is one of the key things that I think Bryce Young has, too, is that ability to play with instincts and awareness around you. The bird factor, the magic. Great players have that. And when you sit down and talk to them about a game, they can remember the game like it was yesterday. I mean, I've told this story. Bill Russell's wife bought him a video of him in the

56 NCAA game against LaSalle. And he sat down at 86 years old and he watched it and he knew every play. He knew every player, knew every play. He thought he was 21. Great players have that instinct. And to me, Burrow's got that. I have a hard time doubting them. And I think Amaromo is a really good defensive coordinator. And if they could run the ball more and get a little bit, help him out and take some pressure off, I think it would really. People say, well, you can't run the ball. I agree. But you have to pace the game. You got to pace the game a little bit because when the, when the quarterback's got to throw it 50 times, something bad is going to happen. So you would have Mahomes and Burrow. Who else is on that top, top tier for you before we

go? Is it, is it a list of like six or two? I love Herbert, but I can't put, you know, I mean, Staley is, you know, for me, it's just so hard. I think Jalen Hurts in the six back offense is really hard to defend. You know, never has to throw drop-back passes, right? He never has to do that because they play from in front. I mean, they had a plus 175 first half point differential last year. You know, I love Herbert's talent, you know, but to me, there's something missing about that team. To me, it's that toughness factor with the Chargers. They can't stop the run. And I think that's problematic. And look, without Brady and Rodgers, Jared Goff is actually one of the top quarterbacks in the NFC. I know. It's hilarious. I thought Peyton was going to wait for that Chargers job

because I just couldn't imagine that Staley was going to be more than another year. But he obviously just wanted to coach again. He loved it. Then Denver threw a shitload of money at him. Well, I think D'Amico turning that job down because he wasn't going to get that job if D'Amico took it and he took Houston instead. And so I think he realized, you know, I better take this now because if I wait, it meant maybe something doesn't happen. I think coaches get a little worried about that. They better take one if not. All right. Michael Lombardi, great to see you. Thank you, Bill. Nice to be here. I'm glad the Sixers brought us together on the podcast again. I love it. Great win for my team. Maybe a Seminole. We'll fork in the road moment for the Sixers franchise. We'll see how it goes. It's going to keep going down. We could keep

lying to ourselves. It's lying season, but I appreciate being here. It's been great. Thank you, Bill. All right. Good to see you. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Tate Frazier. Thanks to Michael Lombardi. Thanks to Kyle Crank for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerruti as well.

Don't forget, rewatchables, trading places. That is up on the feed now. I'll be back on this feed on Thursday night. See you then.