The Bill Simmons Podcast - Lakers/LeBron/Bubble Stories with Jared Dudley and Ryen Russillo. Plus a 2021 NBA Free Agency Primer 

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo and 2020 NBA champion Jared Dudley to discuss the Lakers' title win, how it felt to leave the NBA bubble, LeBron stories, appreciating Rajon Rondo, the anticlimactic Battle for L.A., young NBA talent, and more. Then Bill and Ryen speculate about 2021 NBA free agency, what teams will have to do to combat the defending NBA champions, Finals media coverage, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, I'm going to talk to Ryan Rosillo and Jared Dudley, who just won an NBA championship about life in the bubble and being teammates with LeBron and a whole bunch of awesome stuff. This is really good. And then Rosillo and I are going to talk about free agency and a lot of NBA stuff. This is a long podcast. Get ready. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book 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

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Me, Van Latham, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan. That is about one of the earliest since it happened movies that we've done. I think we've only done like four or five movies from 2059. But yeah, The Martian, really good movie. We tackled that one. Coming up, Jared Dudley for the

first hour with me and Rosillo, and then Rosillo and I just keep going and going and going until Nephew Kyle finally said, hey, guys, stop. Please stop doing the podcast. So we stopped. It's all coming up. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Taping this on a Tuesday. Ryan Russillo is here.

Jared Dudley is here, NBA champ, just back from the bubble. What's it like? What's it like to be out of the bubble? Man, I don't know if you guys have seen that picture. It's me, Kuzma, Braun, and AD. We get off the plane. We walk down. Have you ever seen the movie Shawshank Redemption? When he gets out of prison and his eyes, it was just like, you know, to get out, the air

felt different. We just like, we're sitting there for like a minute, just soaking it in, just being outside, man. I've never been to prison. I'm not saying it was like prison, but it felt like you were isolated from the world to be able to get out. Man, it was, and then have to be a champion and have a trophy. No better feeling I've had.

What, what is the point? You were there three and a half months? Three and a half months, 95 days. So what, what day do you start

looking around going, oh my God, we have two months left. See, it got off to a rocky start because they weren't prepared. The hotel wasn't prepared for that many people when it came from the food. The food was awful early on for Disney, the type of

food they had. Our chefs, every team had a chef. They weren't allowed in the first couple of weeks and the room service was only available from 5 p.m. on. So if you didn't like a meal, you literally had nothing to eat. So guys were eating protein bars, bronze, eating peanut butter and jelly, like, yo, I can't do this. And then the food got better. Food finally got better. Chefs got back in there.

Disney picked it up. They opened up a restaurant that everyone loves. And then by like week seven or eight, it's like, man, how many more weeks we have in here? It was really a mental. That's why people say the hardest championship. It was a mental grind that like, man, as much wine we drank as a team

to try to get through all this. It was just a funny time, like really a college experience. I told Braun, this was his college experience right here. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, because he never went. Was he the only non-college guy? J.R. Smith, non-college guy.

Dwight Howard, non-college guy. True. They did AAU tournaments, but this was the dorm. And it was your freshman dorm where guys were on one and the girls were on another, but this was just all guys all around. So it was a little bit different at this time. Rosillo, you want to just alternate questions

so we don't step on each other? You go and then I'll take the next one. You brought up so many things immediately that I already want to follow up on. Yeah, me too. Were you guys drinking a lot of wine when you had the restart and you couldn't shoot? Like, what was going on that first week when the regular season game started? Man, it first started for me.

My birthday was July 10th. So we had wine the first day. Just for celebrating my birthday. We're quarantined and, you know, a glass of wine outside my door, you know, and we're talking through the doors. And so that's how it first started. But to be honest was... Wait, you were talking through the doors because you guys couldn't interact? Yeah, I mean, it's a and we're talking through the doors. And so that's how it first started. But to be honest was. Wait, you were talking through the doors because you guys couldn't interact?

Yeah, I mean, this is day one. You couldn't interact. We had to quarantine 48 hours. So my birthday was day one. So I couldn't, you know, so the wine outside the door, boom, boom, trying to, you know, get our drinks in, you know, hey, happy birthday. Just turned 35. And so that's when it first started.

But you know, when you win a game on the road, when it was pre-pandemic, you'd go out, you'd have a drink with your guys. And so Braun is his, you know, wine conduit sewer. So we would have it mostly after wins, after a game, because the next day we'd have practice. And so I took a picture in his room of all the different wines we had and different, you know, he had a wine cellar in there. So that was the big thing that we had. It was kind of our dessert where after

wins, we'd all get together. If it was cigar outside, hanging out, drinking some wine. And that was one thing about us. The chemistry was crazy with this team. Well, you know, it's funny because when I met you, we met at Sundance and we went out to dinner with Nash and Nash had gotten you into the no sugar diet and you were asking Nash what to order. And I was like, wow, Nash really is a leader. Jared Dudley's asking him what to order, but you were this no sugar thing. Now you're with LeBron.

Now he's turned you into a wineaholic. You know what? He definitely upped my wine intake. I will definitely say that. But he put me on other stuff when it comes to his chamber that he sleeps in to help recover. Oh, tell us about that. I want more about the chamber.

I would say this, you know, he would do it on off days for recovery where he'd get in and take his naps. It might be an hour, hour and a half nap. You know, Braun is real methodical of his recovery process. There's a reason why he's going to go down as either the greatest or the second or third, depending on your opinion of him, is because his recovery process of him stretching every day before and after practice when it comes to him recovering in this chamber where, man, it felt like, have you ever seen Demolition Man? When they freeze up the ice to try to save you and have you bring you back 20

years in the future? He's in this chamber, zips them all up, he recovers and then comes out. I mean, I know, I think Gilbert Arenas had one and it's just recovery, man. I mean, it's just very impressive of how he recovers his body, man. Okay. So when you get down there and, and, you know, we've been through the timeline of it all. And, and I was, I was obviously like watching the restart and it was, it was hard because it was so, it was bad.

You guys just played below what any of us would expect from you. Was it that you were still trying to figure things out? Like, did, did you know, Hey, no problem. We'll flip the switch. Or was there ever any moment of concern that, you know, it wasn't the way you would finish you because when you finished Bill and I, during the normal part of the regular season, we're like, man, I don't know if anybody wants to pick against these guys. And then it was this two week stretch from like, what is wrong with them? Well, for us, it was calculated in the sense, obviously, you're not trying to play bad,

but we were putting guys on minute restriction. We had, after we beat, basically, the Clippers game one, we knew mathematically we were going to be the number one seed. So we didn't want people for injuries, as you saw injuries could be a part of it. So, hey, LeBron, we're going to play you 25, then 28, then 32. So we're not basically taking it like a playoff game where we can play LeBron, we're going to play you 25, then 28, then 32. So we're not basically taking it like a playoff game where we can play LeBron, Nadieh, 37, 40 minutes.

Then Rondo, we lose Rondo game one. Not even game one. He didn't even play the Clippers game. So we lose him. Then you lose another playmaker, Ballhandler. We don't have, we're the only team that didn't have a starter didn't come. I think us in Portland with Trevor Reza, our starting shooting guard didn't even come, our best on-ball defender. So you're losing two guards. And then now we adding, we're trying to play Dion Waiters. We're trying to play J.R. Smith. Markeith wasn't there in the beginning of our bubble.

So it was basically, hey, we're not taking these games all the way serious enough to try to win them from a coaching standpoint, playing our main guys. Let's not get hurt. Let's work on chemistry. And then we know when the playoffs come, you still got to beat us four times.

Do you feel like chemistry was almost more important than talent in the bubble? Because it seems like the four teams that made it to the end, including Denver and Boston, were teams that were all tight. And there has to be something to do that, right? Because you guys are with each other all day. You have no distractions.

You have your family there for the first half of the whole thing. And if a team's either not getting along, doesn't have a great leader, has some under-the-surface shit going on, all that stuff's going to bubble up in the bubble, right? No pun intended. For sure. That was our whole thing from the beginning, even during the regular season

before the pandemic. Our chemistry. LeBron throwing the Halloween party. Him throwing the birthday party. Us on the road. Us having the ugly sweater Christmas. Everyone showed up. It wasn't seven, eight guys. It was 15 guys. We hung

out after games, win or lose. We had a four-game losing streak. You didn't hear any tweets about LeBron, him doing something passive-aggressive. We had none of that because he could tell you someone, because we had this conversation, me, Rondo, LeBron, in the locker room. And it was before I got really, really tight with LeBron. And it was Rondo coming out of games. And I said, yo, if you don't pass the ball to LeBron, we're going to take you out. I'm saying it right in front of him, in front of LeBron. Like, yo, like I'm someone, let's just get it all out in front of each other's faces. This is how this team is going to be. These are our roles. And if you can't conform to the role, then there's going

to be consequences of not playing. And so it took Rondo a little second to adjust that, which he started doing. And Dwight Howard took him an adjustment of, hey, listen, this is the world we need you. And as you saw, chemistry was number one. But what it is, is we have LeBron and AD. And when teams want to go small ball, we have AD is the best small ball five, and LeBron's the best small ball four. So you're not going to out small ball this team unless you have KD, Steph, and Klay, and Draymond. We're not facing that team. And so over the course of the time, it's just going to be hard for you to beat us four out of seven times.

What's the best way for all of us who'll never understand what it's like to be around Rondo? We can hear the stories. We can watch him. But as you just said, you almost had to remind him of his role, which I'm sure he's not super inviting being questioned because of his personality. But what's the best way to explain the Rondo experience now that you've

gone through it. And basically he turned into a completely different player again was a huge part. I think of the success. I felt vindicated too. Cause I've never, I never sold my Rondo stock ever at any point. I had it from 2007.

Hey, you know how it is with Rondo Rondo. I'm gonna give you the good and the bad. Cause I love Rondo. When I say bad, you know how it is with Rondo. Rondo, I'm going to give you the good and the bad because I love Rondo. When I say bad, you use the word stubborn. Stubborn is what he's in a sense of. He's been so elite for so long, being a point guard and stuff like that. And you know, the older you get, you lose some of that. His IQ is the best I've ever played with.

And I'm putting him and Braun on the same level. Wow. We broke down film so much. After game five, I call him. We're breaking down film. We're breaking down film versus the same level. Wow. We broke down film so much. After game five, I call him, we're breaking down film. We're breaking down film versus the Houston series. We're going LeBron's room.

We are- Can you give me an example of like the Houston series, something Rondo points out in film that you're like, oh, wow. All right, like that specific way. Oh, for sure.

It's like, it's how we're playing Harden. If somehow we're not aggressive enough and he'll leave his man and make up his own stuff. And that's the bad sometimes because when he's really, really good at it, he'll get a deflection. He'll do the back tap he did, you know,

and he does in the Boston series. We get out and steals. And he basically helped us win that series. But we're telling Rondo is, well, let us know your freestyle. What do you like to know so that we can cover up for you? So when you freestyle, we don't know. But he's pointing out of James Harden, his moves.

When he goes back and forth, it's usually the third dribble he wants to do a step back so he can sit on it. He's critiquing it on that type of level. Hey, when he goes to his Euro step, it's 65% going this way to that way. He is a savant when it comes to knowing people's tendencies, and he's putting it up. And that's why you saw the Jimmy Butler's. It was him. Like, yo, we're picking up Jimmy Butler full full court i'm tired of this man feeling comfortable braun

you got to pick him up so if you saw in that period rondo's picking him up rondo and that's what he did to james harden to get to steal in the background so he knew he's like yo this man there was even a time like danny green in the last game i was like what are they doing are they cross-matched here it was like no we're just whoever's near him is picking him up right and now and that's rondo that was rondo's idea we're just whoever's near him is picking them up, right? And that's Rondo. That was Rondo's idea. I'm tired of him saying that in the field. I'm tired of this man being comfortable. We're picking him up.

He's the only playmaker. He was saying that. This is the only guy that can playmake for anyone else. They don't have Gawans, not healthy. He's the only one that can make plays, so we're going to wear him all the way down. That 47 minutes is going to be a lot different this time. I salute him for coming up with that game plan and being so confident

that it instilled confidence in all of us. You're right, Rondo. On the flip side, teams didn't do that to you, especially with LeBron. If I had a critique of all the teams you played, there's this deference with LeBron because of who he is.

If he's going to bring the ball up, I'm pressuring him full court. I'm trying to exact every single mile I can get out of that dude. If he's driving the basket, hard foul him every time. Let him complain. Let him get flagrants, whatever. But it seems like there's so much respect for that guy. Butler was the first guy you played in four rounds who just carried himself like all right let's go toe to toe and i wonder why don't you think more teams do that is he just

so elevated above everybody people are afraid to challenge him let's be honest like usually those players that do that are role guys like if you if you remember the first two games pat bev was doing that they put pat bev on him he was picking up full court. And so our counter was to have either AD, Avery Bradley, which, right, they're not as comfortable. What it is is star players don't want to do that. Let's be honest with you. LeBron didn't want to pick up Jimmy Butler full court. No, you're trying in a playoff to conserve as much energy as possible.

So when we did Denver, Jeremy Grant would do it, but those aren't defensive guys. So when you're talking about you need the Inga Dollars of the world, the Jalen Browns that are in condition, that don't need to score 20, 25 points for their team to win to be able to do that. And so teams didn't have that personnel. I think that's the first thing. I think that the Clippers would have done that. And that's why we were playing Dion Waiters versus Clippers in game one, where he had 18 points because we need another ball handler. We had no Rondo and maybe we would have started Rondo like we did Caruso. We might have had to adjust.

And so our coaching versatility of to be able to not play this guy, Dwight Howard, you start, Caruso, you start, it's very rare. You saw Kerr do it in the finals one time to play Inguadala. Okay, I give you that. But for us, it's Caruso didn't start all year. His first start is in the NBA Finals game six. It's a lot of balls to do that. And you've got to salute Fogle and give you that. But for us, it's crucial to start all year. His first start is in the NBA Finals Game 6. It's a lot of balls to do that, and you've got to salute Fogle and us doing that. What was the reaction?

What were you guys saying to each other when you saw the Clippers blow that 3-1 lead? We were laughing. We were laughing. We were laughing in a sense like, I can't believe it. I picked them to win Game 7. There was no way I thought they were going to lose. Our whole mind was, we've got to beat the Clippers. We want the Clippers. They wanted us. It was the

trash talking that happened. Pat Bev checked ball during the pandemic. Playoff P talking about he's the best, him and Kawhi. Kawhi with the commercials, the crown. We're seeing all these billboards up here. And so when we go to practice every day, there's a Kawhi billboard. We see this billboard every single day. It's right there. Right there. It's right there. And so now this is what the world wants it. The world's picking the Clippers. We have it. The Clippers were happy. Avery Bradley didn't show up to the bubble because he was picking what Bill was saying about Pat Bev. Avery Bradley, we stuck on Pat Bev, ripped him, our home game, the one game we beat them this year, and we set a tone for them, like, hey, this is how we're going to guard you, and so we were looking forward to that matchup.

But you know what? It was just crazy. You see Paul George hit the side of the backboard, Kawhi not having that, but those boys, they didn't want to be in the bubble. They didn't want to be there, and I don't blame them for certain times, but the world needed to see the Clippers and Lakers, and it was unfortunate we didn't get to see that. And I don't blame them for certain times, but the world needed to see the Clippers and Lakers,

and it was unfortunate we didn't get to see that. Did you cross paths with those guys even before they got knocked out? Yeah, for sure. We're in the same hotel. So how they worked was the top four teams on each conference were in the same hotel. So for us, Clippers, we saw Boston every day. We saw Miami.

I remember Denver. We beat Denver. When AD hits a shot, both teams are walking into the hotel. Both buses came at the same time. And then when we lose to Miami, that one, I was like, yo, make sure us buses don't show up the same time. I don't want to see those guys walking in. And when Miami wins games, their whole staff is partying in the lobby.

We hear them doing karaoke. Like, man, it was a weird vibe, man. And it really was. I mean, even AAU didn't have that vibe man so uh it was definitely it was definitely was different interesting okay jimmy in in this series i think elevated his his standing whatever it was before you don't get out of the second round we know how the rules work with guys but because he was taking on this i'm he kind of took on this character in a way that's like, I'm the best. I'm not afraid of anybody. And I don't know if LeBron started it with him saying they're in trouble.

But after they get that first game and he starts screaming, they're in trouble. What was the mindset? Like, what were you guys talking about with each other once it definitely got a little like he was getting really chesty about who they were in the finals? We knew they didn't have enough. Let's just be honest. We knew that. But we knew that, but we knew that we couldn't let our guard down. Their whole thing is you're playing, you know,

Hero and Robinson are coming off a thousand. They're very similar to the Warriors in a sense of, you know, Bama is their dream on, and they got these two shooters who aren't as good, but still they come off these different pin downs. They do the split action. When they drive, they look for these shooters. And so Jimmy, we knew Jimmy had to basically get Robinson. He said, hey, he's going to win us one game, six, seven threes. And so for us, it was, hey, let's just lock into what we can control. Don't let Robinson hit these threes that are, we let your guard down. Hero's a rookie.

We know the percentage is going to even out. He was making every floater, every tough shot. We know that he's going to come back to earth. And then for Jimmy was, we actually gave Jimmy a little too much respect. We, we wanted to force him left in the post. We didn't double. We let him just go to the basket. So he was getting easy tools. And it really took us to game six. We're like, Hey, listen, we're going to trap you in the post. If you get a small guy on you, we're going to pick you up full court. And that's because we respected their shooters

and we didn't want to give them open looks, but we were so ticked off by game six. We didn't care anymore. The draggage piece of it. Are you saying you knew they didn't have enough post-draggage or even before the series? Even before the series. Interesting.

Yeah. Even before, they didn't have enough. You know, you guys have been covering basketball longer than I have been alive in the sense of like – Whoa, easy, bro. Yeah, come on. We're not 100.

Talent wins. No, the talent – you got two top five guys. Like, at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, you got to stop LeBron AD. You have to double every time down. Or you can be like the Warriors and stay home, be one-on-one LeBron, and then you better outscore us. That's not their game plan.

So for us, we were missing. I think one game we missed 23 open three-pointers. That's what you've got to live with. As a coach, you've got to be scared. And then on the offensive rebound, that. And so we just knew, listen, defensively, do your role, and no one's going to beat you four or seven. Nobody.

Yeah, I mean, that was the case for betting on the Lakers in game six is if you looked at the three-pointers and you're like, man, all of those shots were open and they're not even shooting that well on them and they were missing because Miami was just like, all right, that's what it's going to have to be. I still feel like Dragic would have hurt you guys

if he was healthy. For sure he would have. I think he would have unleashed Bam a little bit because it was not just losing him but now Bam's not getting the screen and roll and stuff like For sure he would have. And I think he would have unleashed Bam a little bit because I, it was not just losing him, but, you know, now Bam's not getting the screen and roll and stuff like that.

It would have been a harder series. I thought Miami had a really good chance to win even despite you having the best two players. But I have a question about LeBron.

So, if you had to do a pie chart for motivation for him, Okay. the last dance for five weeks in a row and this whole Michael Jordan orgasm for a month and a half, basically, by everybody. And then the Kawhi Leonard is now the best player

in the league narrative. And then I'll give other. Maybe there's... Is there anything else I'm not thinking of, Priscilla? It seems like those were the two biggest motivators. Part of it, which is, I think, all connected to kind of what you're saying. I mean, I just don't know. Now I'm being told all these people that were writing you guys off.

And I really felt like it was the Clippers or Lakers either. Yeah, you were favorite. I don't know that. I think it was Clippers but us. I think we were the top three for sure. And I just think that I thought people thought it was such a bigger gap. People had the Clippers as such a bigger gap. People had the Clippers at such a bigger gap than us

and I didn't really understood that. I know they were deeper in a sense of overall talent wise. I just thought that people didn't really realize how good KCP is. I know he might struggle earlier in the year,

but he hit timely big shots. He was good. Markeith Morris, he didn't get enough credit. I think he got enough. I think he got enough. It was a fair amount. But with the LeBron thing though, do you think...

Yeah, go back to that. Because he was definitely after the game there was definitely he's playing the respect card and I'm trying to think like who is that targeted to? Is it the Michael Jordan month and a half long lap dance or is it the Kawhi thing? Is it both? Is there something else half long lap dance? Or is it the Kawhi thing? Is it both?

Is there something else? Like, what was your interpretation of that? I think, you know, that's a great one. Because to be honest with you, a little nugget, I watched the last dance with Braun. Braun's a huge Jordan guy. He's a Jordan guy. The respect, man, we all are.

We grew up watching him. The documentary, man, we watching that every Thursday, Saturday, every Thursday, Sunday, we was watching that. And so the respect level LeBron has for Jordan is unmatched. That's for one. I think when it comes to his respect level of thinking these guys are on the same level, the pie chart, you know, that's what Kawhi included. Even Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant is phenomenal champion, all that.

Like there is a gap and I get it. Understand because LeBron and the, you know, playoff LeBron and regular season is he, he picks and chooses his spots. Like, listen, I've been one of them. We've kind of lost. It's okay. It's good for us. That's how it is.

We lost four in a row. There was no panic in December. I thought for sure, all right, here goes the reports. We're going to start seeing different stuff, maybe a tweet, pass to LeBron. No, because he was so cool with everyone. We could talk it out. So I don't think it was a Jordan thing because LeBron knows that there's certain people that are just Jordan guys, and he could win it out. So I don't think it was a Jordan thing because Braun knows that there's certain people that are just Jordan guys and he can win two more.

Jordan was 6-0. They're going to go with that. They're going to go with that. And even though Braun's going to win the longevity, Braun's going to play until he's 40. He's going to be number one in scoring titles all said and done. He's going to have 13 finals appearances, and he might win five or six rings, but people go 6-0.

So his whole thing was, hey, listen, I'm dominating my era i'm gonna have that yes steph curry might have won a couple too but when it comes to kawaii's other guys put some respect on my name is there's a gap there's always been a gap and let me just solidify it with this which is basically this bubble championship all right let's stay on this bill because i'm already i have like a million follow-ups here because i do think the part that i've struggled with in the past with LeBron is that there's the regular season where it's still ridiculous, but we're judging him against his peak. And when Steph had some of those flawless regular seasons,

you'd go, wait, is Steph playing better than him? And to be fair, I think there are times you go, is LeBron behind a few guys? And then at the end of the year, you're like, okay, that was stupid and we shouldn't have done it. And that's where he wins. But you're watching the last dance with him. Yeah.

Does he watch it and go, I don't know how to phrase this. Does he watch and go, well, I'm still better than this guy? Or does he see, did he see an episode where he's like, damn, he's like, maybe, maybe this dude was better than me. I mean, I know it's an athlete, so he's probably never going to say that. But like, was there any part of that where it was almost a conflict for him? No, you know what? No, I won't say it in a sense of like, I never heard him say a comment like that. It was just so like, man, Mike was a bad boy or the Rodman series.

He loved the Rodman series. We all did like Rodman, like, like, man, like imagine the social media, him going to Vegas for three days. Like we, we thought that like, when we saw that, like, we just tripped out. We're like, man, man, like with that, with James Harden do that, like who's, who's our Rodman in this era? Like we're trying to like, we thought that, like, when we saw that, like, we just tripped out. We're like, man, that's, man, like, would James Harden do that? Like, who's our Robin in this era? Like, we're trying to, like, you know, laugh. But I just think that, like, some of the stuff that,

if Jordan was in the social media era, he would have got killed for, that maybe LeBron has to go through. So it's different. No, imagine, I was thinking about this. Imagine TV shows if LeBron was like, hey, I'm just, I'm not going to play for a year. A year and a half. Hey, how about this imagine if imagine tv shows if lebron was like hey i'm just i'm not gonna play for a year a year and a half hey how about this i'm gonna play tennis how about golfing how about golfing in the finals right how about with danny aims how about that one or go you're leaving with

your dad to go to go gamble like all this different stuff like man, LeBron gets killed for a lot of different stuff like that. You have UFC fighters after winning games and about politics and all this stuff more than a boat. Like, man, the stuff this man has to go through, and I'm there. And it's just crazy to see how he handles it, Derek Jeter-esque, of trying to do everything the right way, trying to be the role model. And at the end of the day, the man he's competing with as a GOAT is a man that he grew up loving and idolizing.

It's a healthy respect. His whole thing is at the end of the day, he's going to have all his awards and it's going to be for us to decide. Either way he just wants to be seen eye to eye. The thing he can win

though is he can win the career thing. I think the peak thing will be up to the person. But like you talked, like when you're talking before about him sleeping in the fucking chamber and him having a chef and all of the different things that he has that enables him to recover and keep playing until he's 40. And they just didn't have that 20 years ago.

Even the stuff when you were with Nash, what was that, late 2010? Nash was like the first guy who was even thinking this way about like, oh shit, I'll cut out sugar. I sleep better. I'm going to take naps. Nobody had even thought of that stuff before him and Kobe.

So I think it's like impossible to compare from a longevity point anything before 2008. But we all know, and Jordan's my guy because Jordan drafted me and I played for him. That's my guy. But Jordan had a harder lifestyle. If we would say more politically correct, let's be honest. You know, so this is like, LeBron

takes care of his body a lot better. LeBron, I mean, maybe you're right. The science, I agree with that. There's someone there to stretch LeBron at night when he wakes up in the morning, doing his different lunges, him doing different stuff like that, him in the weight room. Now, Jordan was a huge weight room guy, and I'm with you on that, the different science and stuff like that.

But even today, even with today's players, the stuff that he does is way better than anybody, including Nash. And me and Steve talk about this all the time, man. The stuff that he does, like Kevin Durant Kyrie none of these have they have these guys has his own own trainer own strength coach he has all they're on the staff so what he does even now is ahead of players we have now and I've been on superstar teams with Shaq and etc he just thinks on a different level man knowing that you know you're a Jordan guy I think everybody even reluctantly is're a Jordan guy, I think everybody, even reluctantly, is like a Jordan-era guy, especially for Bill and I as older. Is it weird that he and LeBron don't have much of a relationship, even though he's chasing him?

Or is that the reason why the relationship probably isn't as good as maybe people think on the outside? That's a great question. And that's something that I think that LeBron, for me, looking from the outside in, is I feel like the relationship will grow once he's done playing. You know, Bron can potentially be an owner, and then they can be on that side of the ball and talking. And, you know, Bron, I know we went golfing one time during the thing. We went to go watch golfing, and that's something he thinks about getting into. So maybe he can be golfing with Jordan and Barack Obama.

You know, it's those type of relationships. But right now he's so in the moment, and Jordan knows he's in the moment. It's kind of more like, you know, it's a healthy race to try to go get it. So he's always respected them. He's always liked them. And it's something even with Kobe. Like when Braun and them were going at it, they weren't like super – I mean, they were close, but not nearly once he retired.

Like Braun, one thing he said about Kobe when he came was like, man, I've never seen this man more happier. This is before he passed. More happier coming to the games, smiling with his daughter. He just seemed like he was at peace of his life. And I think that you'll see that with Jordan and LeBron once he's done playing.

What year was your first year? 07 or 08? 07. So you've been in the league basically the entire time with LeBron. You missed basically his college years in Cleveland. Yep. And I say this as a compliment. There's a meanness to him now that he did not have those first 10 years that I feel like grew in a good way for even where you look where he was in Miami, that first Dallas series, some of the stuff Dallas did to him.

And I really noticed it in 16. And then especially 2018, his last Cleveland year, when there was just this aggro side that came out and you could see it again in these playoffs where he could just bully ball his, his way to the rim, basically whenever he wanted something he could have do 10 years ago, when you see stuff like that, when he's overpowering like that,

first of all, was it in there the whole time? Did the internet make it come out? Did, did just getting beaten up in 2010 and 11, the competitiveness, like how do you develop that midway through your career? Where does it come from? I, if you're. How do you develop that midway through your career? Where does it come from? If you're asking me, and I think LeBron would agree with this, I think Miami brought that out of him. I think him going there, that culture, let's just be honest,

they run like a military, body fat every Monday, Haslam, Alonzo Mourning. You heard the stories of Pat Riley walking in, everyone lining up like you're a drill sergeant and embracing this. Knee pads during shoot around, tape during shoot around. It's a mantra like, listen, we're going to out-tough you. Even when they lost, you toughen up. You know how Pat Riley had the whole mantra?

Get that from there. That was his college experience. He said, hey, I had to go away. I had to learn stuff. D. Wade teaching him some things. Him learning from, you know, just different players. Him having guys like Jawan Howard. You know, like LeBron's always had teammates on that end of the bench to help him to that.

Jawan Howard, James Jones. I was that guy this year. I'm in the room breaking down film. You talk about that bully ball. And I'm saying during the games, downhill. Do not settle. For one, these refs, they haven't given you two calls. They're going to make it up.

You know how these refs are when they miss a couple calls or they're trying to even up. Wait, LeBron didn't get calls in the playoffs? I missed that. What game was that? Look, hey, for me being in the finals, you saw the way difference. The refs do not want to call those calls. They don't want to.

Both ways. Sometimes we hammer guys and they didn't want to call those calls. They don't want to. Both ways. Sometimes we hammer guys and they didn't get it. You can see they don't want to. Those James Harden Euro flops, they're not giving to you those in the playoffs. And Luka will learn in that second, third round to go down. Unless you're Jimmy Butler initiating contact, jumping into you, they're not

giving you those type of calls. And for LeBron is, LeBron flops in different ways. He flops to act like he's hurt different times. You might lay down, but he's not a European flopper. If that's the more political way he's doing that, he's more strength and he doesn't get some of them that I thought he should,

but it sets the tone presence. You're going to feel this freight train every time. you know why he doesn't get them. It's like the shack thing. He's so fucking strong. The ref, you know, somebody's fouling him and he's not budging because he's a freight train. And then the ref's like, oh, I don't think he got game. If he played that same way he did, he would be left out. So listen, I'm going to throw it out to A.D. A.D., I need you.

I need your takeover. I need you to be leading scorer some games. I need to have it. You know what? Let me instill confidence. Let me pass this ball here. You know what? Let me take Giannis.

I'm going to take him for this game to let him know in the playoffs when it comes out to it, this is what you're going to have. But in between time, you guys might beat us. We might beat you. But you're going to have Danny Green guarding you. But when the chips are on the table, Kawhi them, I'm guarding you. And that's what people are saying. The regular season is different than the playoffs.

I'm going to play. Those times when you go on those little 10 to 2 runs when I'm out the game, you're not getting that. Braun said in game six, match five minutes with Jimmy Butler. That's done. Like, when it's winning time, you're now going to have to beat me the same amount of time. Unless you have those Warriors type team,

it's going to be tough. I have some AD stuff I want to get to, but I have to share with both of you my favorite officiating moment of the season and one of the all-time favorites, which was at the Houston or Denver series where Mark Davis yelled at the other official after LeBron had yelled at him

and he changed the call. And Davis said, hey, you can't just change the call because LeBron keeps yelling at you and he changed the call and Davis said, hey, you can't just change the call because LeBron keeps yelling it. It was Houston. That was hysterical that we actually got to hear an official yelling at another official saying stop giving into LeBron.

Did you guys catch, I mean, obviously you told me it was Houston's here. That was hilarious. If you don't look at it, LeBron doesn't touch him. The guy calls a foul. I'm not debating the foul. No, no, no. That's what happened though. He's like, what? I didn't touch him. He's like, yeah, you're right. I'm tripping. And he blows the whistle. And

Martinez is like, you can't do that! He comes over, and LeBron's like... And then Mark Bates said, yo, I know he's wrong, but he already made the call. And so you're right. You don't usually see that. You don't hear that. And that's why I wanted a mic for the refs. If you're going to do this whole bubble thing, let them hear how players

talk. We're already doing it. I would have loved loved that you can't have fans let's get the inner time ratings being low like hey you'll hear westbrook say 100 cuss words but you'll hear how we talk to play and don't lie like refs were yelling back at us this time to be honest with you the bubble i saw a different side of the refs in a good way like stop complaining this and to me mark dav Davis and these guys, I thought the one mistake the NBA makes is not having a ref microphone to be able to have for the people.

They'll never do it. They would never do that. Yeah, they're too protective. Hey, when it comes to scoring great hires for your business, you may be up against some obstacles like lots of applicants, but difficulty finding the right ones for your job

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the smartest way to hire ZipCruiter before we get to Davis can I ask one question about the quality of play because I just want to make sure we don't forget this I had a couple friends that were there for some of the games including the last two rounds they were talking about how fucking intense it was and how locked in the

players were. And I was talking with one of them about just like reasons for this. And we were like, you know, less distractions. Um, like you said, it's basically like being in a really nice outdoor prison,

but you're so focused. You got nothing else really to think about. And then the same continuity of the shooting background, you're not traveling, all that stuff. But one of my friends was basically saying, you have no idea how good the basketball was. Like that Friday night game, which was just one of the best played finals games

I think I've seen. Could you feel that being in the building? Did it feel different from a quality of play? Yes. The intensity and from the benches being so locked in. Now, you know each other's plays. You're calling it out. Now, you know,

you're on the road and you call, and he can't really hear it. Now, everyone, the attention to detail is up to a high standard. You have the coaches with the video for instant replay. So literally, if a play works, they can show you on the video within one minute because of the streaming of the game going right to their iPad. Oh, I didn't even think of that.

We had that. So when to challenge, when not to challenge. It was a lot of stuff for us to be able to have, man, from technology-wise. So you felt like those guys could, you actually could have a voice during these games because you weren't being drowned out by the fans or the music? Oh, huge. I mean, listen,

we helped on saving threes of players being able to react because they could hear us on the dot, even across the court. You can hear it. It's like, it's an open jam. I mean, even the fans that were there, they didn't. Like, they weren't even allowed to talk. There were rules there. You couldn't boo and make noise.

So you could hear literally everything. So I know when you guys are watching that crowd noise, we don't hear that. It's silence. So you can hear a drop, people complaining. And I just thought that the level of play was high. I thought that people were engaged. And you're right.

All you had to focus was basketball. People had families. Some didn't. No distraction. No females. People weren't going to clubs. No drinking. All you are.

And so that's where I think that the shooting might have improved from us. Free throws with no fans. But I tell you, the biggest thing for us is just playing every other day and not having to travel and be able just to lock in. I thought it was good for us. I thought the more days we had off, the worse we looked. Anthony Davis is one of my favorite players from day one. I've defended him all the time.

I think the Pelicans' failures had almost nothing to do with him. And then he comes to you guys, and I feel like he was almost not reluctant, but sometimes I think he doesn't realize how special he is. And whether it was him being assigned to Jimmy Butler after game three, where you could see, even though Butler had a good stat line for game four, it was a completely different approach. He wasn't attacking the way he had been the previous games. And then what I think we've all wanted is why don't they just close?

They close with you close with him at the five. I know he doesn't like to play the five big guys get weird about stuff and positioning, but then you come into game six. It's like, hey, by the way, we're going to go small. Caruso's in. Davis at the five. No Dwight getting hunted the whole time.

Give me the best way to explain the kind of evolution of Anthony Davis. And it's not that he didn't think he was special, but you being around for this long and seeing his growth in a year. I think the first thing about Anthony Davis, that before I even knew him when he came in, saying he wanted to be defensive player of the year.

He didn't say, I want to be MVP. He said, I'm going to challenge LeBron. And the first practice we had, him calling him out, no, I called this defensive coverage.

And he even, he's not a big vocal guy. So for him to set the tone, like, oh, okay. He knows this is his role on this team when it comes to defensively of how to make an impact.

He wanted to be defensive player of the year. He's calling LeBron out early on different stuff. He made LeBron pick up his intensity for the duration of the regular season. We all know LeBron picks and chooses spots, but you couldn't do that when AD wanted to be defensive player of the year, wanted to be the top defensive team, and now is making sure we have Avery Bradley guarding the ball. Now LeBron, if you mess up weak side, we're on top of you.

And so that was the first thing I noticed for him. Now, basketball-wise, he can handle it. He can shoot it. He can post up. So they're trying to put guards on him. And my whole thing was like, AD, in the fourth quarter, I don't want you in the corner. I could be in the corner. That's our job.

That's a role player. We want you in the corner. I don't care if LeBron shoots it. Go get in the pick and roll. Switch it. Give me some duckings. Force us to what to be able to do. And as you saw that game six, Ingo Dalla ducking in, dunking on him. When he becomes aggressive in that mindset, and that was the best thing playing with LeBron because LeBron brought that out of him a lot of times. Yo, it's time to go. You could just see the way LeBron talked to him was way different than

anybody else, as it should be. And so when I see his evolution is you saw that was kind of my job with him. Like, hey, when they're posting you up, when you're posting up and they're doubling you, they're taking you out of the game, you're Anthony Davis. They can't take you out just by doubling you to post because you have a mid-range game. Do a pick and roll Rondo. If that big helps, you have the elbow. He shot, I think it was 50% from mid-range jump shots. It's unheard of from a big. Tim Duncan, Bank S, it's all these guys that had it. For me, it's

once I saw him to be able to battle through the injuries that he did, because that was the knock on him. He's in New Orleans. He gets hurt. Can't finish the season. Me talking to him, weight room. Stay in that weight room. Keep going. I just saw him, LeBron, pushing know, me talking to him, weight room. Stay in that weight room. Keep going.

And I just saw him, LeBron pushing him, getting him in that weight room, doing it. It's ideal. And the torch is getting slowly getting past. It's already slowly there. And eventually,

that's what LeBron wants. He wants eventually, AD, this is your show. And eventually, I'm going to be second guy to you. And so, their relationship was special

and I'm glad I got to be a part of it. Is he the best power forward you've seen? Yes, he is when it comes to that. I think Duncan was more of a set standard in a sense of you knew exactly what you were going to get from Duncan. He could go inside out. I think AD's way more talented,

better defensively because he can guard, especially in this modern era, to switch on ball screens. I think AD has another level. I think we all agree on it. And the question is, is his mindset going to be like, hey, listen, I think AD has another level. I think we all agree on it. And the question is, is his mindset going to be like, hey, listen, I'm going to be even more aggressive. And just know my aggressiveness doesn't mean injury. It just means that my attack level is going to be, you don't have to be Kobe-esque, but he can take that up another level. And I expect that to be

next year as a champion and as his role even increases even more. Because I remember I wrote a column. When did he have his breakout? After Boogie went down. That was two years ago, right? 2018? Yeah. Boogie went down and Davis went on that tear.

And I wrote a column basically about he's Duncan 2.0, but the difference is he has the ability, I don't know, eight, nine times a year to just completely eviscerate somebody, right? To put up like 47 and 18. Duncan, I think, was steadier. He was an incredible teammate. Great playoff guy.

But Davis has this little extra evisceration factor to his game. And you know it when you see it, right? You know within like six minutes.

He was like, uh-oh. I think it was Denver. I think he started the game with nine for nine. He had certain games. You're right. And then 47 versus Memphis is just that. And the thing about him is for how good of a mid-range shooter he is.

And this happened to me early in my career. It takes you about a full year, year and a half to become a good three-point shooter. Just because that two, three feet, that's his next development. Wait to the three ball. Like he gets open looks. He's shooting around with low 30s. Once he gets to like 36, 37, he's going to go from 25-point score to 28, just off that, 28, 28 and a half.

And then that's going to open up the pump fake jump into you. You know how that works. The sky's the limit, man. And so for him, it's like taking care of your body, not getting hurt, and then being more aggressive. Listen, he knows how good he is. You can be even better. And you should be an MVP in this league

one day. LeBron pairings, it worked. When he was in Miami, it worked. But he was the same age as those guys. Kyrie's younger, but Kyrie is difficult. And it still worked. And then it didn't. And then it was over. Last year's a wash because LeBron, for the first time,

gets hurt. How important do you think, not just AD probably looking up to LeBron, the player, because he's been in the league so much longer, but that age difference where you have two of our, like at worst, two of the four best players in the league, that's the worst it would be, but that they're not the same age kind of fighting over that same stuff that happens in this league where if guys are the same age and they're on the same team, it's like, cool, I kind of want to win,

but I definitely want my love and all the extra stuff too. Maybe more so than winning where this doesn't seem to be the case at all. The important things are the right things. He looked up to him. He went to his camp in high school, LeBron James basketball camp. You know what I'm saying? Like that. So he eventually he was a big man that wanted to be able to dribble, wanted to be able to shoot. And so it was more of a like, Hey man, that's a big brother. So you're right. He's not fighting over it. And LeBron's

like, listen, like there's one thing LeBron's been labeled. He's probably the one of the most unselfish superstars ever. Him and Magic, right? So LeBron, he wants to give him the ball. Like earlier in the year, we were force feeding AD, like, listen, we want you to have the ball, stuff like that. So I just think the respect level of him being a big brother, LeBron telling him how great he is and how you haven't even tapped into it. And then I think that coming to LA, hey, listen, if we can do it here in LA, it cements you. I mean, this franchise, we know it's the Celtics, it's the Lakers. And if the Knicks ever figure it out, if they could ever have one.

No, not happening. This is it. Now that he's figured it out, man, and now we won the first year and we put together a roster within a week. All right, settle down, Dudley. Don't start talking about five years in a row. Come on. You're going to ruin my

week. What the hell? This is tough enough of a podcast for me. Now you're going to talk about a whole decade? Hey, you know I'm a future GM or head coach In this league You see how it is The writing's on the wall for these guys It's going to be a better Laker team coming next year

Okay but do you think Tatum Can be an MVP next year Yeah yeah let's talk about Tatum No I mean honestly the guy If we're going to be honest Luka is the shadow. He's coming. I don't know if it's next year or if it's three years from now,

but he's… Luka is there. Listen, I'm impressed by Luka. IQ. Braun speaks highly of his IQ, the passing ability that he has. Once his three-ball percentage gets up there, too, he's just a low… For how good of a shooter he is,

his not being athletic was still his zero-step, getting guys fouled and his. He's just a low, for how good of a shooter he is. His not being athletic was still his zero step getting guys fouled. He's huge. He's fucking strong. He is. He has to pick up defensively. He can't just be a liability like Harden has before. That's his last little development.

That's the team to look out for Giannis. I totally agree. Here's what LeBron should do. He's probably already planning this with Luka. Take him under his wing. Teach him how to take care of his body. But as he's doing it, he's just planning all this stuff in there and really trying to mess with him a little bit mentally

while making it seem like he's helping him. But you're not going to be happy in Dallas. What's going on there. You got to get out of there and do like little LeBron stuff as they're drinking wine. I, I could see him. He's a chess master.

Potentially, but you know, your Europeans think different than Americans. You know, they can, you know, the heroes are different. And plus someone like Luca,

you know how it works in this. When you're a restricted phrase and you're there at least seven years, you take that four year extension. You're going to get the, you know, it works in this. When you're restricted for a reason, you're there at least seven years. You take that four-year extension, you're going to get the three player option after four. You're going to do that and stuff like that. So he's solidified for that seven. But Luka is there. Luka is top five. And next

year, hopefully Prazingis can be healthy. If they add someone like Giannis, it's between them and Miami, right? Maybe the Warriors. Those three, man. So one more year. Wait, that's it. Those are your three.

What about my Celtics? No, for sure. No, I'm talking about if, if Giannis go for Giannis. Oh, okay.

No, Hey, listen, Tatum, love Tatum, uh, love that young core. What are they going to do?

What are they going to do with Gordon Haywood? That's the big factor. They need to like have an exorcism for him or something. I've never seen anybody with worse luck for three years. Man, it's tough. Obviously, Kimba, was he 100% right? I mean, listen, the Brad Stevens coaching job and what he does with those bigs and the seal,

we copied them. We tried to get Dwight and JaVale. They get Tatum and Kimba and Brown, eight to ten points just off pick and roll. The big sits back and seal. We call it the Boston, the Boston roll. Wow. Yeah, hey, the way –

This is great. They need – In this league, you got to have – They need one big. I like Tyus. Cancer, he's Cancer. But they're one piece. Wait, what? Did you just Tyus. Cancer is cancer. They're one piece.

Wait, what? Did you just call them? Cancer is cancer. You know what I'm saying? I just said that. When it comes to that, you've got to have defense. You know in the playoffs, we're going to pick on you. They're going to pick on Kimball.

They're going to pick on Tanner. You see how it is. And so Marcus Smart, you can't guard everybody. Listen, Marcus Smart, he tries to guard. You can't guard them all. They're going to pinpoint it. And that's where Miami exploited it. Priscilla, do you want to ask the Dwight Howard question or why don't you take this?

I don't trust myself. In the very beginning, when they were talking about life in the bubble and Dwight ended up at the only party by himself, I thought that's the most Dwight Howard thing ever. And I didn't know if it was good or if it was bad. When he was in the pool? Yeah, and then there was like the DJ and people couldn't figure out if it was actually going on or if just Dwight went by himself. Give me your best Dwight story. It's probably the safest way to ask this.

Yeah, good way to ask. Okay, I got two weird, funny Dwight Howard type stories. For one, we were in Atlanta. He's like, hey, he invited me to come over his crib you said no yeah because you were in Atlanta it was temporarily he's like yeah I want to show you my snake collection I'm like what he's like yeah he had a

tattoo of his snakes I'm like how many snakes do you have I have 24 snakes why the hell do you have 24 snakes he's like yeah there's this one snake I want to you know I really don't take out because it takes you like three, four hours to get the snake back in. It's,

it's cage. I said three, four hours. How big is this snake? And like, I don't know if it was like 38 feet. I mean, it was something.

It's not the zoo. This is not the zoo. And so, you know, you know, in Atlanta, if you live far out, big cribs.

So that was one thing about Dwight when it comes to these snakes, it was just, it was just, it was different. Second story I have, we're in San Antonio. Hey, you want to go to Six Flags with me? No, I don't want to go to Six Flags. We play the Spurs tomorrow. Yeah, I want to jump

off this cliff that goes down. I said, Dwight, I'll come and I'll watch you. That was his whole thing. He always wanted the thrill of jumping out, doing a roller coaster. He jumps 30 feet in the air. He's our Rodman. He's a little bit different.

We love him. We couldn't have won the Denver series without him. He's crucial. We need to bring him back. But Dwight, I mean, listen, for him to sacrifice that, and I say sacrifice, a lot of teams didn't want Dwight Howard. I don't know what team would have took him. A lot of teams, every team.

Right. 29 teams didn't want him. How in shape did he come back? He came back ready. I heard he destroyed that workout. He came in, and Dwight Howard is a huge reason why we won this championship. Well, it's funny because you talked about

how great the chemistry was on the team. You need at least one oddball guy, right? If the team is really close, you also need somebody that everybody's going to talk about and who's in on the joke. Who are the guys? Rondo stirs the pot.

Someone who stirs the pot, who questions everything, who has always something to say. That's our Rondo for sure. Dwight, Dwight's always asking a hundred different questions about, listen, Dwight, just do your job. That's all we ask you. Just do your job. That's all we ask. Do your job.

But Rondo, his IQ is so high. It's like, all right, man, you're too smart for your own good. Listen, you know, it's one of those. So Rondo was our stirrup in the pot and everyone else, man, was just. Well, come on. JR is a little off the reservation, right? JR came at the end. He came at the end. So JR was on his best behavior.

He just had, you know, he golfing, hanging out. We playing four on four. And JR was big on the social justice of us talking about it. Us was doing better because him and his daughters, the WNBA helping out getting these owners. He was big for that one behind the scenes that people really didn't know about, but he didn't stir the pot. Now, maybe if he was there the whole year, he, he didn't get to have that. And then JaVale was like the quirky, like free spirited hippie, you know what I'm saying? Like he was a funny guy, but I mean, to be honest with you, man,

it was a perfect mix, man. And if Frank Vogel wasn't the coach, I don't know if it would have worked. I don't think he gets enough credit because no ego, you're dealing with all these star players, like stars, and sometimes he sits back

and there's six conversations and he'll wait till the conversation's over. He's like, you guys done? All right, now moving on. A lot of coaches have such an ego. Hey, listen up. Nah, you can't fight with this team. This team wasn't like that.

And shots out to Rob Palenka. Seventh on the executive. Come on now. I know we got the A&D trade. You think he might get too much, but the Dwight Howard, no one wanted. Avery Bradley for the different pieces. Markeith Morris at the deadline.

I think that he didn't get his just. Those are two things to say. I want follow up more on on vogel before we finish here just because i think coaches get all this crap because like oh they lost this guy doesn't know anything they lose a playoff game hey that and i'm just always pushed back and be like how quickly we assume a guy is out coached by the other one is if the other one couldn't figure out what the other one was doing and the players don't do it. What's different about Vogel in comparison to other coaches? And not necessarily saying better or worse,

but something that's different, like the scattering report on Vogel. The preparation we had was phenomenal. The best I've had, and I've been in the league, and I've been with some great coaches, Doc Rivers. When we first got down, we're breaking down Houston to Denver to Miami

on each player of going up there. Everyone knows, okay, they drive this amount of times, drive right. When he goes through the legs, how many dribbles it takes to go to the step back, going through their plays, the attention to detail defensively, because he's a defensive guy of how he wants to be played and to see it now transpired. A lot of times people want to practice. We didn't practice a lot. So the film sessions and the critique of the scouting department, him, you got to think about it. I mean, he didn't pick a lot of his staff.

So you got to think of the Phil Haney's and for him to be able to ingrain himself with them. Hey, Phil, take over a little defense here and there. J. Kid, take some offensive edits, listen to them, be able to critique it. And to go in, I just thought the preparation was top tier to the point is there was a couple of film stuff.

I think it was after the either the Portland, it was a Portland series of Dame and CJ and how we're going to play the scout report. I remember Braun clapping it up like that's a hell of a scout. That's a hell of a job. And we don't see it too often, how thorough they were. And so, you know, the Brad Stevens

of the world, the Carlisles, the pop of the X and O's, you don't think of, of, of Fogle like that. You think of him more of a defensive guy because he had that Indiana. A lot of it is what you get is the pieces you have. You know, we don't have the Tatums and the Jalen Browns and the Kyries and Kimbas. We were a team that had two superstars and role players that were limited on certain stuff that we could do. I don't want to rehash all the bubble boycott stuff because it's been talked about a million times, but you're somebody who's like us, right? You're in your hotel room. You're reading all this stuff. You're probably on Twitter. You're reading the different articles.

As you're reading this stuff get covered, the boycott the day after, everybody in the ballroom, the voting potentially, the Clippers potentially not wanting to play. Maybe the Lakers not wanting to play, all this stuff. How aware are you of all the coverage? How aware is the team? And how do you drown that stuff out when you're trying to both accomplish all the social justice stuff you care about, but also like you have this title that you still have to worry about.

I mean, it was, it was difficult because we, I mean, listen, every player's on their phone 24 seven. I don't care what anyone tells you. We read everything. AD Braun knows if you say something so crazy, because maybe their friend tells them, Skip Bayless, Stephen A, all these everybody, you know, Shannon Sharp. I mean, yeah, Shannon Sharp.

We read everything. And some people use it as motivation, but the social injustice one of what was going on, man, all these everybody you know shannon sharp i mean yeah shannon sharp we read everything and some people use it as motivation but the social injustice one of what's going on man and and milwaukee not playing and we're going through that process like man what just really happened and people being fired up but we still have a championship we want to win you know people back home in your communities hey this is bigger than basketball but yet the nba players in the past sacrificed so much for us to make so much money. Are we going to throw down the drain for the future NBA players in our communities that we can get back to? And I just think that

once we took a day, I think it was even two days of sleeping on it, going through the pros and cons, and I think Obama's phone call to Chris Paul, Ingo Dalla, and LeBron to seal the deal of how he would handle it, getting a leadership group together, how we're going to attack the owners. And then once we put that to bed, it was time, after talking to LeBron, after he talked to Obama,

I was like, all right, if Obama said it, what other better advice can we get than that leader of the president I've highly respected? I said, there's nothing else to talk about. We playing. There's nothing else to talk about we playing there's nothing else i said we're not talking about and once we went in that room and we all decided to play man we put the switch so fast to be like hey listen this is our title to win let's go get it how close was it because i think on the outside

and as you just said like you're in it and you're like man are we are we really not going to play because if the counter is always as bigger than basketball, which it is, it's hard to argue against that. But I'm sure in that moment, you're going, we have a really good chance at winning. Was there a moment, was there an hour, was there a night you went to bed being like, hey, we're probably not playing? After the first night, I thought it was 70, 30 of us not playing.

I did too. And I wasn't even there. It was just like, it was so much tension. It was bigger than basketball at that time. Clippers, ourselves of certain people being conflicted. And let's just be honest, like, like Bron, Kawhi, Giannis, they have a different role than just, you know, their voice is different than our voices.

And we know that. And so if their mind's not into it, if their heart, and that's why you need a day or two and then the next day 60 40. then after that it flipped the third day of how it is just you know talking to your parents you know how it is when you have a tough day at work you talk to your wife that's how we do the same thing we talk to our wife we're gonna talk to people we respect your agent everyone has an opinion obama came into it and then eventually was like all right listen man this is bigger than just us. And this is something that we have to do. And we can help change in this one and still take care of our communities. Owners can get involved.

And I think that the bubble was perfect for it, but let's never do it again, please. Well, and the bubble probably had something to do with it in the first place, right? Because everybody's kind of on edge to begin with. And then- I agree with that. I agree with that. When Wisconsin happens and you know, you have this reckoning of like, wait a second, why the fuck are we here?

None of this is working. Wait, let's just go. I'm, I'm 100% with you. I'm 100% with you. And, and to be honest with you,

man, like, like at that time, you look back on it, George Hill, he wasn't even trying. He, he wasn't just not going to play.

And you look at, I'm glad that we, I'm back on it, George Hill, he wasn't even trying. He wasn't just not going to play. And you look at, I'm glad that we, I'm glad that he decided not to play just because of what happened. But in retrospect, they could have easily played without him, play that one game and you would never heard nothing. Now, I'm glad it happened and transpired, but people thought that all the time. There's different days that people don't feel like playing and that's just how it is. But it's time for us to change. And I'm glad we had that.

And I'm glad we had the bubble and that experience and stuff like that but we need fans we need this it's not the same not doing in staples it's not the same not playing at the garden it's that's what that's what it's made for and you know what and those are different pressure situations you you get your legacy by that anthony davis hits that game-winning shot in denver at staples oh come come on come on i i gotta tell you watching you guys celebrate and i love jr going for the trophy before anybody else me too that's great you gotta be kidding me he gets away with that stuff yeah yeah and i'm going this is even as you know bill and i as boston guys i'm like i felt bad for you guys and again

to feel bad for you you know how it goes, I felt bad for you guys. And again, to feel bad for you, you know how it goes. Oh, you feel bad for these guys, millionaires. They just won a championship. I felt bad for you. I felt bad for Lakers fans. There couldn't be people in the building. And even if you want to run the road. Well, no parade, too.

No parade. Yeah, parade, any of that kind of stuff. So I'm wondering, with your contract being up, do you have LeBron ranked ahead of Jordan? And then you'll revisit this argument if you get another one-year deal out of the Lakers. I have him neck and neck. And for one, I'm coming back. Listen, okay? I'll go on Rob Palenka's front door and knock on his door. I'm coming back for that. They need me on that

backside of the bench and practices. But no, I got them neck and neck. I have them neck and neck. If you want to give slight edge to Jordan right now, because it's how it is, you have to give the pass a slight edge because LeBron's not done. LeBron is fully not done, but like I said, I think LeBron's going to play three, four more years minimum. And so, just the longevity, I think he's going to pass them on longevity.

Now, we're going to debate whose peak is the highest. Like, okay, that's a different thing. That's subjective. That becomes art almost. Yeah, it's like arguing about best actor ever or something. Exactly. Because of two roles they did in different movies. But man, I get it. Jordan was 6-0.

It's different eras. Kevin Durant going to the Warriors. Jordan didn't have to deal with that. Now, Jordan had other stuff like that. The top star. It's hard to win two, three in a row. You saw the Warriors and how they had to give up. And that was Brooklyn.

So I just think when it's all said and done, if this man gets five Six rings In the 13 finals Okay yeah he lost six of them To get the 13 finals Now in the West If he does it in the West Like if he gets three in the West Oh come on man

Like He's gonna have all the accolades Bill Simmons in the podcast Of him winning another one At Staples It's just We're gonna be a A memory of just

Of the last Sounds terrible Yeah That sounds like my nightmare Wait before Before we go Yeah We gotta talk about a memory of just of the last sounds terrible. Yeah. That sounds like my nightmare. Um, wait, before, before we go,

yeah, we got to talk about Boston college grad, Jared Dudley winning an NBA championship. Cool. How many Boston college basketball players have won an NBA championship? Because I was thinking about this earlier and I literally couldn't come up with any, I'm sure there is one.

Is there one? I don't know. There, there has to be one from like the sixties or seventies. I'm looking it up now. Bill loves asking these questions. We got an IT team on this, but it's not,

it's not a long list of Boston college NBA success stories. I'm with you. I mean, when my mom, my mom went there in the late sixties and you know, like Kareem Kareem, I think, almost went there. I think it was in play. BC was one of the players.

And then, same thing for Patrick Ewing. It was like Georgetown or BC. But BC was legit for a long time, and now I don't know what happened. My plan is to low-key do my NBA first, GM or head coach, do that, and then eventually go back to BC. Turn that around.

I'm in. I'm in on that. I'll support that. Yeah, that's eventually. When I'm coming, I need the donors. I need a whole new facilities. We're changing it all up. All right, but before you go, because the reason I brought up the champion thing, you have

two moments in your career that are those classic fork in the road, what if moments. First one, 2010. Oh, gosh. You double team Kobe into the air ball. And it's actually the worst possible scenario because if it hits the rim, you get the rebound. Doesn't hit the rim.

Artest comes out of nowhere with a jet pack on his back, gets it, lays it in. You guys end up not making the finals. I really liked that 2010 Suns team. I thought that team was really good. I loved it. And then I was going to say 2014, Clips OKC.

Up at OKC. And Chris Paul falls apart in the last 30 seconds. Probably the best pure point guard of all time. It just kind of self-destructs in that one game, and then you blow game five. But which one was worse? And did you think about either of them after you actually won the title? Yes.

The Kobe one was worse because we felt we had all the parts. The two superstars, Amari and that. We had the role players, Goran, Barbosa, everyone in their young prime. Jason Richardson, Grant Hill, past his prime, but good enough. They couldn't stop us. We couldn't stop them. And that was the one game. You got to steal one road game.

Kobe air balls. And that's how you lose. I can lose a lot of different ways. But that one, I think the 2000, the Clippers won. It was just like we were on the road. And just to see that meltdown on that plane ride going home, I think the 2000, the Clippers won. It was just like, we were on the road and just to see that meltdown on that plane ride going home, I knew it was over. You knew it, just how everyone was, it was over.

The foul on Westbrook, the fake try to three, the turnover, it was just like, I've never seen anything like it. I've never seen anything like it. And that team and that organization never recovered from that. Well, then a year later, they'd blow the game six to Houston. But because, you know how it works, though. You win that series and you go on. You win those series when you're up 3-1.

It's just how it is. It's just you know how to win. You're not letting, when you go through adversity, you don't let it be down. And to be honest with you, that's the Clippers' luck. It's unfortunate. You thought Kawhi might change it, but as you and I both know,

it's a Lakers town. Yeah. That was never a debate for me. I think Ballmer was the only one who seemed to think he had a chance to turn this into a Lakers town. It was absurd. Russell and I would talk about it.

You go to a Dodger game and they would show anything Clippers on the scoreboard, everybody would boo. They're not considered a local team. Nope. They're considered the... I don't know how you fight that if you're anything Clippers on the scoreboard, everybody would boo. They're not considered a local team. Nope. They're considered the... I don't know how you fight that if you're the Clippers.

You got to leave. You got to leave. It's like the Chargers. I'm going to send you. You're going to go to LA. They're not going to support you. Anaheim. No, you got to...

Listen, you want your own place, man. Ballver's like, no, I'm staying. I'm building an arena in Eaglewood. Fuck you. I'm going to make this work. Good luck. Good luck. I don't think so, Rosillo. I think this is a Lakers town for life.

Yeah, what was up, Dudley? No, I was saying, if you're still searching for that Boston College, it's probably nobody. Yeah, I can't find it. It's not Chris Herron. It's not Sean Williams. Sean Williams, my man Craigig smith who i love

no um ernie cobb no i mean curly michael adams never happened jared jared and i've mentioned this once but we were neighbors when he was at bc we didn't hang out did troy murphy ever land on a team like this he never had one either right he honestly wasn't in the league as long as i remember when we thought the celtics drafted him and it was the trade with Memphis, the Perkins trade. Oh, Troy Bale. Yeah, Troy Bale. Oh, Troy Bale.

I was talking about... Oh, Troy Murphy. Was Troy Murphy BC? Notre Dame. That's actually racist, Bill. You just assumed Troy Murphy went to BC. He didn't go to BC?

Notre Dame. Went to Notre Dame. Felt like he should have gone to BC. It did. It did. For sure. That was his safety Before we go

Do you have any idea when the next season is going to happen? Because it doesn't seem like anyone has any idea Whatsoever, but if anyone had an idea it would be LeBron The two dates I've heard I've heard that Marlon's a king date I've heard like January 18th I'm hoping for, and I've heard there will be rumblings Early February

But to be honest it's going to be about the testing and how we can get fans back in. So I've even heard March. So plan on that mid-January to mid-February in those four weeks. I would bet on March. I hope so. We need the fans, man. We need the fans.

We need the revenue. We got to get this bag rolling. And the more time, the better for us. All right. I got nothing else. We can let Deadly go unless you have anything else. I'm good, man. This is unbelievable. I mean, I knew you'd be great, but it's even better than I thought it would be, Jared. How does the ringer get in on the Dudley sweepstakes? What do we have to do? Do we have to battle Palenka? Can we share you? You know, I'm going to be there soon enough. Let me enjoy. Let me get. Let me, let me get another one of this ride. I need the staples ride. All right.

We'll wait. We'll wait. We're here for you. You tell us when you're ready, dude. That was so good. All right. It was good seeing you.

You too, man. Just give you guys a couple of hidden gems. Congratulations. Thank you, sir. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance.

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Just search Movember. What's the feeling of fall? It's finally catching the sunrise. And not because you woke up early. No, you woke up nice and late. And you know what? The sun waited. Then you went and got what you love from Starbucks.

The new pecan crunch oat latte and new baked apple croissant. And enjoyed that warm apple filling and those nutty flavors with rich brown buttery notes. While the sun rose. Just for you. That's the feeling of fall. And it's only at Starbucks. All right, that was was fun i don't know how we can top deadly i don't want to try because it was that was unbelievable he was great so not

surprised let's talk about um what do you want to do you want to do odds for next year or do you want to talk about some of the media coverage this week let's do the media coverage now because i think we can do all the odd stuff later although i did see miami ninth in a power rankings today where you go i can't imagine how bad it'd be this has to be torture for you though right like how are we how are we doing bill how's my friend bill doing the i mean obviously i don't like i don't love the lakers i thought lebron was amazing though like i really like uh i was really blown away by how good he was in the bubble I don't love the Lakers. I thought LeBron was amazing, though. I really was really blown away by how good

he was in the bubble. It does make you think, God, am I a moron that I thought Kawhi was now the best playoff guy in the league? Why did we discount the LeBron piece of it? But I do think it goes back to something I remember writing about

a couple years ago. I know we've talked about in this podcast, like the fucking carrots when you wave and the carrots in front of that dude. And he just has the ability to feel slighted and turn it into fuel for whatever his quest is. And they had a couple of huge carrots this time. I really do think the last dance, like I know Deadly was being diplomatic, but this whole Jordan coron coordination thing, I,

that had to have been fuel for him. And then the Kauai piece of it. And then the Clippers just getting knocked out, not even showing up for this prize fight where it's like, Ali Frazier, let's go Madison square garden, 1970, April,

whatever that fight was. And they're ready and they're lacing up and the Clippers are like, yeah, we're not going to make it. We'll see you guys next season. I just think he could smell it from the moment that happened. And he was awesome in the finals.

I mean, do you see his stats? He almost shot like 60%. Look, after game six, I mean, he was at the hoop at will, first of all. any momentum whatsoever. There just was no wing. There was no size. I mean, Iguodala has moments if you wait for him.

But to think that Jimmy Butler can handle him physically. I mean, none of this stuff is breaking news. Hey, LeBron's awesome. But the thing that I kept getting back to, and you could see, especially when they obliterated that zone, you go, you have two of the most skilled guys ever like this, the best skill size combination we've probably ever seen in LeBron. It's like, who's been his size that has those skills?

No one. Dudley made the key point, right? He was like, we have, if you're going small by, we have the best small by five in the league and the best small by four in the league.

So good luck. And it's like, yeah exactly yeah that's true and so even as i'll try to go man lebron was good but there were moments where i'm like oh my god with this guy and when you looked at his at the rim numbers he wasn't missing he wasn't missing any shots and i know people that are anti-lebron will turn that into like oh why did he pass danny green and it's like well first of all just shut the fuck up no that was the right play it was the way he took off in his body angle there was no layup there other than i guess i can just do something that's definitely going to miss um and danny green missed a wide open three none of that stuff even matters anymore but there was another i don't know if it's reminder bill i don't know what the right way is of phrasing it all, but there were moments where it feels stupid after 17 years

to be surprised by LeBron. And maybe surprise isn't the right word, but just another moment where you're just at, I'm sitting at home by myself, just saying stuff out loud on my couch, shaking my head and amazed at him once again. For the playoffs, he was basically 30-12, eight and a half assists,

59% field goal and 42% three point. It's statistically the best he's been. But I test, it felt like over and over again, when he really wanted to, he could create whatever shot he wants. And the overpowering thing, I was thinking about how we'd remember this Laker team. Cause I really do think this was because of those two guys, like a pretty memorable team, ultimately, even if maybe Miami shouldn't have taken them to six, whatever. Um, both of those guys, when they really wanted to be, were overpowering. And you think about like, I mean, talk about great teams and the phrase overpowering and like the 86 Celtics, which is my favorite team. Yeah.

That team ultimately. They're your favorite team? Yeah, they're my favorite team. Ultimately, when they wanted to be overpowering and they were just around the rim and it was like you almost, it was like an onslaught. You couldn't keep them away from the rim. And Lakers had that combo of when they were really going, of that fast break. Anytime you fucked up, they were gone.

And when things slowed down, they could go to Kareem. And it was just like, shit, what do we do? But really, you know, you think about actual overpowering and it's like Shaq in those 0-0-0-1-0-2,

that Shaq run that he had, where you kind of would watch those playoff games. You'd be like, I don't know how you stop this. Unless they allow the other team to foul. How do you, how do you keep this guy from getting three feet from the rim, turning around and dunking? And they reminded me a little of that. Like there was a helplessness sometimes in some of these games where like, how do you stop this? Um,

and part of it was cause LeBron and Davis, as you pointed out in that Dudley podcast, they totally figured out that whatever alpha dog issue might happen, it just didn't exist. There was a comfort with those two that was really rare for first season. But just physically, I was just thinking

ahead of, because KOC and Verno talked about this a little bit. If you're putting together a team for next year and you know you have to deal with these guys again, like let's say you're the Celtics, you know you can't actually win the title with the team you had this year because you're not going to be big enough in a series with the Lakers. You're not going to outsmart them. You need size. So weirdly, size could be more important. We've seen this cycle in the NBA before where teams go, oh shit, that's what's winning. We got a rally. And sometimes that works badly. I don't know if anybody can beat this team without at least having the size option,

right? Is that an overreaction? No, it isn't because isn't it crazy as we're just talking this out, the league felt like it's got small overnight, right? It felt like it got small where you're watching all these regular season games. You go, all these teams are closing small now. Like this is kind of crazy. And then I think as quickly as it got small, I think it got big again, even quicker, but it was a different kind of big where it's not the traditional big where you're running any post stuff. I mean, nobody even throws it into the post anymore. I mean, the numbers that we had on Embiid posting were like 10 post touches a game that led the league.

And that's that's less than half of what Al Jefferson was doing 10 years ago. So that's nuts. And then you factor in that Miami. And again, I think Miami did Boston a favor because I don't think Boston,

even if they had more wings, supposedly to throw LeBron, it doesn't matter because you're never matching his size strength combination. And it would have been Tice chasing around Anthony Davis and he couldn't do anything like they had a hard time with bam.

So then we factor in that, that Miami, I mean, we, we argued about Myers Leonard there for a little while. They tried it. They didn't, they didn't do that very long because you still, even with an like forget healthy bam, you don't have a fully healthy bam. And when you know, you can go to that. And I even thought there were times too many times, uh, probably in game five where I'm like, why are you not sealing more with ad? healthy bam you don't have a fully healthy bam and when you know you can go to that and i even thought there were times too many times uh probably in game five where i'm like why are you not sealing

more with ad why are you not doing some of these things that we saw earlier on in these series where i think that's kind of why they lost game five it's a bunch of different reasons but i don't know who's gonna match up with their like you you don't get you can they're gonna play they can play small with you they're just gonna be bigger, you know? Well, so let's look at, let's look at the West, right? You're Dallas. Who's huge, by the way, when they're right.

Right. So hopefully Porzingis is healthy. I saw a picture of him on crutches recently. That scared me a little, but you know, they have Hardaway as an expiring. Dwight Powell, I think will be back. They have Kleber. But if I'm just thinking like,

all right, if we actually can compete for a title with Luka because he's that good, what's our lineup when the Lakers go to this LeBron Davis lineup? How are we combating this? We could play Porzingis, but we still need that four who can handle LeBron who's got the kind of size. So they have that. The Clippers cannot beat the Lakers with the team they have. I think they're at a come-to-Jesus moment with Harrell, right? They have this guy, Harrell, who's going

to need $15 million a year, but you can't play him against Denver or the Lakers, two of the teams you need to beat. Then if you're Denver, you're getting rid of the Millsap contract, but you got to figure out like, all right, who is with, who is with Joker if we're actually going toe to toe

against these dudes? I just think all of these teams have to think about what is our crunch time five against this team when they do this? Because the Lakers are actually, Dudley said it, the Lakers are going to be a little bit better.

They're going to be able to get a couple more guys who are going to be ring hunting, right. They're going to be able to get a couple more guys who are going to be ring hunting, right? Like they might end up with Serge Ibaka next year. You know, I'm just throwing that out. Right. But it could be somebody like that who's just like, yeah, fuck it.

I'll try to, I didn't like the contracts I was being offered. I'll go one year, 5 million and try to win a ring. Great. So I think they're going to be better as long as they're healthy. Cap space is bad this year. It'slanta it's the knicks it's detroit it's miami at north of 20 million practical cap space you know things could change and the cap might be going backwards it could but i think you'd agree with me here instead of the projection of 115 116 it'll probably stay at 109 so that they don't have to cut back and they can kind of figure

that all out with escrow anyway i don't want to be super annoying and boring about this which is probably too late but i think the reason they want to keep it flat is they don't want to drop it down and then have it spike back up again um which is everything that i've heard but you never know they could change all these things around i could see a team like atlanta probably throwing money at surge and just going hey we're gonna have to spend it on somebody let's bring in a veteran number now while we figure out which young guys we actually want to hang. I like Serge. Can it be the Celtics?

Serge was... It's funny because I went from liking Serge to going, this guy's comically overrated, to don't even talk to me about Serge, to the last two years loving Serge again. So Serge has been a real roller coaster. To me, thank you, my lucky stars. They weren't playing him more in that Toronto-Boston series. I'm going to give you some free agents. Can we just stay with dallas though i just as you were going through everything as as i just there's a couple things i need to follow up on there the if perzingas is healthy

thing and i've stuck up for him his entire career i i can't assume the guy's ever going to be healthy i'm totally scared of him i'm afraid of him although i do like when he is healthy what dallas would do against the lakers and make Davis guard Porzingis. So what you should be thinking is, which big can you take Davis out of his comfort zone defensively? Not do we match up and can we shut down Anthony Davis? Davis is getting 30 points. And if he wants to get 30 points, I think what you have to do is have a big that makes Davis respect him away from the hoop, which is a big ass. That guy doesn't exist right now on the Clippers. It's not Montrez. It's certainly not Zubac, even though we like him. But I would push back a little bit if we have a normal, as disappointing as this Clippers thing was, and it's a disaster. I still don't believe it's the disaster. I don't think it's an irreparable disaster where maybe a year again together with everybody a tweak here a tweak there where they're still winning a lot of games and maybe a year later we're going hey maybe that's a team that could beat the Lakers

here like I'm not I I don't want to just play the results the recency so much here that now we're starting to treat the Clippers like a four seed that has no chance of ever beating this Lakers team. Was that your audition for Clippers head coach? Listen, the Clippers have two fundamental problems. Harrell and Lou Williams. I think they have to cut bait with both of those guys because I don't think you can play those guys in a big playoff series against the teams they need to beat. Either of those guys is getting played off the court.

So if you're going to spend, I lose already in a contract, but I would shop him. And I am not spending 15 million a year on Harrell. I'm just not. I'm not spending money on him either. I'm not talking myself into the, look, the bubble was weird.

He was going through some stuff. And by the way, who's offering him this? Is Detroit spending 15 to 20 on Montrezl Harrell? No. He's Miami. He's a really good energy guy. He can't make... Once you're paying him 15 million a year,

you're paying basically a character actor to lead your movie. You can't do it. He's a character actor. But the big thing for me is he can't play against Denver or the Lakers. We know this. I'm going to throw a name out there to you. Do you think Utah would ever get weird with Gobert and see what was out there? Oh, 100%. If you gave me a list of

what names wouldn't surprise you who are going to get traded over the next three, he is 100,000% one of my five. I'm just wondering if another team would go, let's get real weird here and bring him in, not as a solution, but an option. Because there's going to be nights where... The problem is he's like $27 million a year.

So it's tough to be like, this is our conditional $27 million a year guy. Yeah. Maybe it would have to be two years of Clippers exits that bother you. I have a couple of names for you. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it would have to be two years of Clippers exits that bother you. But then again, I have a couple names for you. You're going to be really excited.

Andre Drummond. Hasn't he already said he's picking up his $29 million option? Well, all right. So we'll cross them off. Hassan Whiteside. I thought you said I was going to get excited. Well, I'm just saying, this is who's out there for contenders

that are like, we need more size. Hassan Whiteside, aging Marc Gasol, Ibaka, Derek Favors, Bismack Biambo. I want Bismack Biambo just for America

to get another contract. You'd be like, only in this country could Bismack Biambo get another multi-year deal. Make $130 million over the course of his career. Tristan Thompson?

Guess how old Tristan Thompson is, by the way. All right. So because you've said that, I know he's younger. I'll say 28. 29. I would say 28. Hmm.

29. I would have said like 35, but yeah, it makes sense. He was in like the two, 23. So Tristan. All right.

So that's to me, that's a great guy, right? Tristan Thompson. Great for, for the purposes of this discussion, because that's somebody that I actually feel like I could play in the last five minutes

of a playoff game against the Lakers if I had somebody else with him because he can rebound. He knows where to go. He's tough. He's been in big games. I think we held this contract against him. He was making $18-19 million a year, but that dude played in a lot of big games

and was effective sometimes. Effective and unplayable, though. There's so many of these guys that I always talk about where I can't guarantee a guy is completely unplayable in a series because we'll see moments where we're like, wow, Tristan Thompson is tough to deal with

right now. Here's an awesome tidbit on Tristan Thompson. That was the guy the Celtics wanted at the deadline, but then he didn't get bought out. Yeah, I think they wanted to try to figure out a way to keep him in Cleveland, but I... Ridiculous. Ridiculous. I honestly think that was just

information that makes it sound like the client is open to any option when they're trying to get paid again. So... Myers Leonard? Why would I want him when his own coach wouldn't trust him when they had no big guys to go against this huge team?

I'm just giving you the names. I'm mad at you just because we spent 20 minutes on Myers-Leonard. Robin Lopez. JaVale McGee. My point is, everybody everybody's gonna be like like we just did you gotta have more size

to beat the Lakers you're not getting in in free agency because I just read you all the names the only guy that I kinda like is Tristan Thompson

and the reason I bring up Gobert is because he's on the books one more year for 25 plus and then you have to have a really tough conversation where you go who do we want to be if we're Utah do we do we want to figure out how to add another wing do we have to do something dramatic to keep Donovan Mitchell happy and this isn't based this is just common sense of looking at it would another team say but I almost feel like some of these teams

would have to struggle one more year against the Lakers before then they'd start changing this whole thing around. And I know people think, hey, Anthony Davis is a free agent too. For the hundredth time, I don't think he's going to bail on the Lakers. Yeah, I will say though, after watching those last two rounds,

if I'm Utah, I'm a lot less excited to trade Gobert. Because that's, I still have to go through the Lakers ultimately if I'm trying to quote unquote win the title. So it's like,

why am I trading a guy that would actually help me in a series when the other team has overpowering dudes? Dallas is the team to watch out for because out of anyone

in the conference, they have the guy who can actually go toe-to-toe with LeBron in a real way. Completely unafraid, can match him play-for-play, and if they can put the right pieces around him, which honestly

wouldn't be that hard. It'd be two moves on top of a healthy Porzingis. What are the two moves? One more big guy. I think they need a better wing. I'm not sure how they get that, but they need

to somehow flip Hardaway into a real 3 and D guy even if they have to use the expiring and a pick or something like that. Because Hardaway's an option, right? At like 19 million? I think it's a player option yeah which he's gonna opt in right unless and this is this is always one of those things because

we've been surprised by this you can hear things and then you go wait that guy opted out and it's like well you know what even though the per he's still pretty young for that but he's only 28 but i wonder with the bad free agent class the worst one we've had in three years if there wouldn't be another team that goes hey you know he's at these spaces the floor you know all these things i mean maybe he'd look because he was with luca but would he get some kind of longer term deal out there that makes sense to take advantage of a weak free agent class and could he still be at 19 per would he would he look at hey 15 over five you know where it would be four i don't know it's just one of those things you know because there have been

times where guys have opted out and you've been like what the hell is he doing like nobody thought that was going to happen so it's just at least worth reminding ourselves or dallas could do the thing where they tear up his last year but give him 50 million for four years something like that and he gets the security of the longer deal, not knowing where the cap is going next couple years. Or you could waive your trade exception and then be in a movie. I'm excited.

The free agent class is ghastly. It's so bad. I'm on SpotTrack just looking at their list and the top free agent just for in terms of who made the most money last year is Hayward. And people think Hayward

will opt in for a whole bunch of reasons. But do you think he's going to opt out? I wouldn't have been completely stunned if it happened before he got hurt again.

Yeah. I still was, what is it? before he got hurt again. Yeah. I still was. What is it? $32 million player option? Yeah. But if it's a week free agent class and you have teams trying to spend money and somebody talks themselves into. It's $34 million.

Yeah. Well, I think he stays down. I think it's a moot point. Yeah. All right. Let's talk media coverage. Take back your free time with PC Express Online grocery delivery and pickup. Score in-store promos,

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how your stomach feels as the RPMs build, how your wheels hug the curves, and how, with the Pennzoil Platinum Up to 15-Year, 800,000 Kilometer Protection Guarantee, your adventures will be many. Pennzoil. Long may we drive. Available at your local Canadian tire. Enrollment required. Keep your receipts. I want to talk about the media coverage there. I don't know if this is a product of just the times we're in, but there's a lot of like,

why are you insulting my intelligence sports coverage out there? And one of the things I noticed this week was this narrative people were pushing about how this Lakers ownership, it had its act together after all.

And a lot of praising Jeannie Buss for her steady hand and things like that. You did that piece for The Ringer, the sports history piece about the last seven years of the Lakers. It's just how dysfunctional it was. I don't know why everybody is so afraid to just say what this was. The Lakers were an absolute dumpster fire the way they were run,, really since the moment they did the Steve Nash, Dwight Howard trades.

And LeBron wanted to live in Los Angeles and they were able to sign him, which led to them being able to overpay for Anthony Davis. There was really nothing other than that. It was those two things. I feel like my fucking son could have owned the Lakers and pulled off at least one of those moves because LeBron was playing in LA. He was moving here.

It was going to be Lakers or Clippers and the Lakers had the cap space. But why do we do this? Why do we try to pretend the last eight years didn't happen? They were a dumpster fire. We could go through all their moves. It's like, there's literally, I have this document right here. These are like all the terrible moves they did the last eight years. Go for it. Cause I just did a video on the entire thing. Oh, we don't have to, we don't have to go through all of it. I just like, I, they, so the question is what, why? Well, cause they won and nobody ever wants to write something after somebody wins and goes, well, actually, but I agree with you. I mean, mean it was really simple and even as i did the video i go my point was all these terrible things happened and they were accurately terrible and people deserve to criticize them but i just feel like in life

there's all these things that we think matter and it didn't really matter because lebron wanted to come to the lakers at some point and even though when he came to the lakers there was an immediate negative reaction to who else they brought in because we couldn't believe it. We're like, wait a minute, it's LeBron and what? Rondo? Lance Stevenson? Michael Beasley? Like, what the hell's going on? And then Palenka and Magic are saying,

like, we need guys that could win a fight in the parking lot with the Warriors. And you're like, yeah, but do you want them to make any shots? So even then it didn't make any sense until Clutch got with Anthony Davis and it all worked out. I agree with you. I don't know what's wrong with saying, hey, this actually isn't about ownership vision. This isn't about Palenka being the greatest executive ever.

This isn't about all these things you guys want to pretend that it is. LeBron picked you and it fucking worked. So congrats. And I know people are going to say, oh, you're just too much. I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit. I care about the truth. And the truth is this front office wasn't.

Now, I think Jesse Buss and that scouting department never get any credit. I don't know why that is. They never even get talked about. And if you look at their draft track record, they're actually pretty good. And the assets are able to move around and stuff. So they never get. But as far as like the top things, I also think the media, I just think there's a lot of people in the media that really love Jeannie Buss. I think they like going out to dinner with her.

I think they're very, very friendly with her. And that they're in a rush to give her a ton of credit when, again, I don't think it mattered who was running this team. I can't remember an ownership in a front office doing less to help a team win a title. You could argue that they won the title despite the ownership of the front office the last eight years.

I mean, they had, would they have the second, second, and second pick in three different drafts? They had Julius Randle. They took seventh. Even like when they got LeBron, they whiffed on the Paul George thing. We'll never know what happened with that,

but they thought they were getting LeBron and Paul George. They were clearing all that crap space for it. Imagine that. Think about this. Were they better off not getting him? Yeah, maybe they were. Maybe he would have hurt them. But remember that summer after they got LeBron,

they renounced Julius Randle's rights for reasons that I actually Googled this to try to figure out if there was a story that really wasn't a story. Like he wanted a two-year deal, but he was a restricted free agent. All they had to do is basically, you know, keep them. Instead, they wanted to use that money to guy, get KCP, Stevenson, Beasley, McGee. They let Brooke Lopez leave, which seems incredible. They had Brooke Lopez. He ended up signing with the Bucs for like three and a half million a year.

And you think like he was kind of the perfect center for what they're trying to do. They had no idea. But everybody, I feel like the NBA world told us though, when he only gets a three and a half

million dollar deal at that time of the Bucs before he got the new bigger deal, the NBA seemed to be off of Brooke Lopez. Yeah, but that Randall, did that make sense to you? It never made sense to me.

I always liked him. He was killing the on the Nets. He was killing the Celtics draft pick that one year because he was like single-handedly winning games. I don't know. It's something got skewed off there, but. But he definitely got a recharge sort of reinvention in Milwaukee, though, too.

So I just think it's important to remember that. Him or Jamel McGee. They drafted Lonzo over Jason Tatum. They traded Russell after two years, after picking him second with the Mozgov contract that they never should have signed in the first place for Lopez and the 27th pick. You talked in the video that 2016,

they signed Dang and Mozgov for $136 million for four years. But when you think backwards, 2016 couldn't even get a meeting with Kevin Durant. He's doing this free agent tour, wouldn't meet with them. 2015, LaMarcus Aldridge wanted to come here. I know for a fact. Had the meeting, the meeting was so bad, he ended up choosing between San Antonio and Phoenix. They lost Dwight in 2013. Free agents wouldn't come there for years and years. They absolutely were born on third base with this whole thing because LeBron wanted to play here. And I don't know why we can't just say that. Why is that so hard to say that this team really since Dr. Buss got sick, who is the

greatest owner in the history of the league, in my opinion. Best owner we've ever had. Since he got sick, they were a train wreck until LeBron showed up. And then even after LeBron showed up, they tried to screw that up. And then it finally worked out. But why can't we just say that? What's wrong with that? Because we just play the results.

I mean, this isn't new, but it seems to be cranked up to a different level. Because it's almost like calling somebody an asshole that died. You know, I think after like a few hours of some sports figure dies and maybe he doesn't have the greatest rep, nobody wants to tweet like condolences to the family, but this guy was a dick, right? You just, you give it a couple. I don't even know that, you know, what are you supposed to do? Okay. Well, now that it's been three days, this guy was an asshole. And here's my tweet. You know, you don't even really feel like doing that. And in a less serious version of this, when somebody wins, we want to turn everything into a positive narrative of why it isn't just a result.

Like one of the things I said on the podcast is that not every, every result is not necessarily a timeline defining moment. Sometimes it's just the result. And the result is the Lakers ended up beating everybody and LeBron was incredible again, but it's LeBron deciding to go there. It's not the wisdom passed down from generation to generation. It just isn't because where was that wisdom from 2013, the Kobe contract, 48.5 million, a two-year extension at 35 years old off an Achilles injury, which leads to mellow saying no, which led to Bosch saying no LeBron saying no, because people were like, wait, LeBron's going to go help Kobe get more rings when these guys are kind of dueling that out. It was six years ago.

It shouldn't be that hard to forget or that it shouldn't be so easy to forget. Kyle Lowry even said no. Pau Gasol signed with Chicago. And as you mentioned, LaMarcus comes in and Kobe talked for three minutes and was like, you're going to work off of me like Pau Gasol did. And we make movies out here. You'll be in movies like lamarcus aldridge what fucking movie is he gonna be in so you know he was turned off and by the way what i loved about my lamarcus research going back to that 15 free agent time i love reading old free agent pursuit stories they're unbelievable we should actually try to put together like the top 10 funniest free agency pursuit stuff of the last decade because it's out of control there was one guy that tweeted just spoke with source lamarcus aldridge absolutely floored by the

houston rockets presentation it was so strong and aggressive and it's like yeah then he went to san antonio so all these things are happening and we're not, look, the gym bus stuff. I, if you're telling me a GM was going to say no to Dwight, Powell, Nash, and Kobe, and I know it didn't work, but every other GM given the opportunity would have gone and done it. So I don't defend them all the way. I defend them on that. But then the other stuff where Palenka and magic come in and nobody really knows what to make of it.

And they don't have any relationship. We thought they did. And then I found that clip or magic. They were like, Hey, what kind of relationship did you have he's like none i didn't know him and then magic telling people apparently day one we can replace all of you and then he decides like in 2019 the end of the regular season going i can't do this shit anymore i'm out did you tell anybody no because i don't want to do it because he wanted to fire luke walton and then they wouldn't let him fire lu Walton. Then they fired Luke Walton and they've been on five coaches since

2013. My point was this was a disaster for seven years and they still won. So there's no hurdle that is too great in sports. It feels like to get over, but nobody ever wants to, you're right though. Nobody ever wants to write that story. But if you're hanging that on Jeannie, it's unfair to hang all the Jimmy bus stuff on her because she wasn't in charge but she wasn't no no i'm i'm saying for me because i'm saying the last eight years were a dumpster fire that's tough i mean it's your sibling you know like you imagine how tough that must have been but she did take over and you know you look at some of the stuff they did which really really starts with February 2017, they put Magic in charge. And Thought Magic, who, look, I don't know whether he's the guy, like from a company and as a Dodger stuff does all these speaking engagements and you're asking this guy to battle,

you know, all the GMs and people, people like Presti, and he's going to do this kind of halftime. And you go back and read the quotes when he took over and he was making it seem like, no, no,

I told them this is my thing. And then when he was on his way out the door, he was like, I told Genie this wasn't going to be a full-time thing for me. Well, that's not how you sold it to your fans. You put him with Palenka, who had never had the job before. Then we come to find out they have no relationship

and Magic feels like Palenka's backstabbing him. And you go back and you just read the stuff from last year, the bizarre press conference of Magic leaves and then goes on first take and takes a fucking blowtorch to Palenka and Tim Harris, talks about backstabbers and they're saying I didn't work hard. It's like, yeah, because you weren't working hard. We could see what you were doing. There was one summer where he was away for like six weeks on his European vacation, whenever he goes. It's like, all the other GMs are working. I don't know what you're doing.

So anyway, that happened on Genie's watch. And I think it's fine to say, look, that was a rocky eight years. I'm sure Genie learned some lessons, but this isn't like a fucking triumph. This is like LeBron James

wanting to play for the Lakers and you guys were bad for so many years in a row. You had all these picks to trade for Anthony Davis because you had Brandon Ingram and Lonzo ball. Cause you had the second pick two years in a row. Plus you gave up three more picks, but I don't know. It's not, it's not like any of this was intentional. They were spending a shitload of money in 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Like there was a a couple years where they had the fourth highest payroll and the worst record. Shit like that.

It was just incompetence. And I don't know why everyone's so afraid to just say that. I mean, do you have any theories? No. I just think I don't get it. I don't know what happened to just kind of calling it like it is.

I think it's a source thing though. Okay, let's be totally real about this. Do you have moments where if it's a GM you like, you're softer? No, I think to my detriment. I mean, I had a good relationship with Jimmy Butler.

He'd done my podcast twice. And when he did all that Minnesota stuff, I felt like I had to rip him on the podcast and I knew I, he probably wouldn't come on again after that. But he hasn't, you guys don't talk now. I haven't had him on since, but that's fine.

Whatever. I still feel like when you have something as orchestrated as that Minnesota thing was, and you know, we all know what was happening. It's hard for me to defend that i don't like that stuff because i know i know there's guys that i like but i don't think i've ever gone and defended something terrible like if bob myers all of a sudden traded steph curry for deon waiters i wouldn't then come on a podcast and go well you know i really like bob myers so i can see what you know we need time to move on from steph challenge

an internal struggle and that kind of stuff. But I think that's what happens with Jeannie. I think a lot of people like Jeannie and you can tell the way certain stories are written that she's the source on it. She's she's a she's great. Yeah. She's like a great hacker. So

I wonder, you know, if that's part of it. Like, I don't really ever talk to anybody. I actually I'll just say it like I don't talk to anybody with the of it. I don't really ever talk to anybody. Actually, I'll just say it. I don't talk to anybody with the Lakers. I don't. One of the articles I read was about there was this big dinner with LeBron and Rich Paul and Genie and somebody else in May 2019.

They were all like, let's do this. It's going to take a lot of work. It's like, all right, well, you try to trade for Davis at the trade deadline. Everybody knew you were getting him from the moment he signed with Clutch. It just came down to how much you were going to give up. And then you got him.

And then there was another thing I read about praising Polenko about his agent skills, learned him to always have a backup plan. And it's like, if we don't get Kawhi, I have to have a backup plan. So here's going to be our plan B. It was like, oh, his savviness from using his agent skills,

knowing he'd have to have a plan B. Who the fuck doesn't have a plan B? It's free agency. You have like three moves you can make. It's like, oh, we get Kawhi. Rob, what's your plan B? What? Plan B? What do you mean?

Literally every team outlines plans A through whatever. A through like J. They have like 10 ways. Every sort of draft, anything could go like nobody's blindsided by anything. So yeah, you didn't get Kawhi and your plan B was Danny Green. You signed him. Congratulations. You're an NBA team.

That's how it works. I don't know. But I think the point here is though is that when it was going bad, that's how it works. I don't know. But I think the point here is though, is that when it was going bad, that's what happens. It's the piling on. I mean, the Palenka part that I thought some of the things I thought were unfair

about criticisms of him were, well, he couldn't pull the trigger on the Anthony Davis deal that had more to do with the Pelicans and Gail Benson deciding to like pull everything off the table and becoming a little bit more difficult to work with is that Pelicans thing was falling apart. So that wasn't really entirely. Weren't they mad about the leaks though?

I thought that was at least a piece of it. They were mad about all of it. They were mad about all of it. And the Gail Benson was very upset throughout the entire stretch of that season with the Andy Davis thing, which I totally understand. Would you have traded him if you're in New Orleans? Because I feel like

at least half of me would have been like, fuck you. You're playing out your contract here. No way. Because I got to get assets. And if there's a good version of this trade, I mean, Brandon Ingram, we did the free agent thing. I don't think he's going anywhere. The trade was unbelievable. They played it perfectly. I don't know how much of it was intentional versus stubborn. You can't let ego and spite and that shit get in the way of a transaction that allows assets to come your way. So you can't. ego and spite and that shit get in the way of a transaction that allows assets to come your way. So you can't...

The trade's amazing. I mean, I was looking at it. I forgot how much they got. Ingram, Lonzo, Josh Hart. Fourth pick in 2019, which, whatever, wasn't the blue chipper like it would be in some years.

But they were able to turn that into Jackson Hayes and some more stuff. Top eight protected pick 2021, which is unprotected in 2022 if it becomes protected. So basically an unprotected 2022 pick unprotected swap in 23, and then their choice of unprotected in 24 or 25, which is the really juicy one because at that point,

who knows? Sure. No doubt. But let's be fair that when the trade went down, you thought it was a ton to give up. I thought it was too much. I look at Anthony Davis as, you know, the prices on these guys has actually gone up, even when it's a difficult situation. I mean, if you're going to get that much stuff for Paul George, then you should get that

much for Anthony Davis. But if I'm on the other side of that call with the Lakers, I'm going Lonzo stinks. Okay. Which he doesn't. But I'm saying it over and over again. Yeah. You're nagging, nagging. Yeah. Right. Right. And then I'm going Brandon Ingram's. What are we like, what are we talking about here? Medically? Like what were you talking about? A blood problem here? Like what's, what's the deal? So I'm hammering those things. And I think that's part of the negotiation. And you know, even though you feel like you're only negotiating with one team, it is a nice haul.

But there's also a version of that trade where you could have looked at it a couple years later and gone, man, none of this stuff ever worked out. And I'm going to try not to hold Lonzo, bubble Lonzo, up to the standard because regular season Lonzo looked like a good player. Different, but good. I just don't know. Who were they bidding against was my question with that. I think there was a real desperation on the Lakers side.

Cause if they don't get him, what do you tell LeBron at that point? Cause LeBron's basically like, I'll come to the Lakers. Then he gets hurt. He doesn't like the coach. Some of the young guys were too deferential to him. I think,

I don't think he realized how weird and Brady had this problem too with the Patriots as his career got older, when you're playing with these guys who idolized you. I think he realized like, ah, this is weird. And my poster just fell. But if they don't get Davis, they really didn't have a killer plan B. So they had to get Davis and Griffin knew it

and he played it perfectly. Okay, but this is also one of those deals there where, you know, the voice outside of that transaction, like there are other GMs going, oh, I can't believe

one team did this or these guys are stupid and all these different things. Like, yeah, but you weren't in that chair. Like you weren't Palenka going, I have to get this Anthony Davis deal done.

And if it means a 25 unprotected, like at the end of the day, I'm not going to care. I'm going to get fired anyway. If it doesn't work. That's why I kind of love Preston away on that Paul George deal. Be like,

what did you sit down with? Did you start asking by like for 10 picks? Like what was the, what was the beginning of that trade? Yeah, right. Like I understand the negotiation. You asked what you don't think you can get for,

but what would you have actually done? There'd be a great, like if you could just do something 20 years removed, where you got all these GMs to follow up different transactions and say, okay, this is what you got. What were you willing to do it for? And just get two guys in a room that have a good relationship.

And 20 years later, like what get Griff and to get Palenka 20 years later, be like, what would you have done Griff? What would you have done Palenka? But if you're in that chair and you're Palenka you're going okay this is more than i want to give up and yes this could go bad and whatever but i'm going to get to introduce anthony davis in a lakers uniform here in a week like all right you know what like i'm going to get this done over what

could be a pick in the 20s or the seventh pick six years from now like that's a tough thing to say no to okay so we can pretend it's a ton of stuff to give up to, but I can't imagine, I wouldn't call it anxiety, but the juice of being on that phone call and going, if you can say yes to this right now, you get Anthony Davis. I mean, all the people that think they know what they would do in that moment. Good luck. Because most everybody I think would say, all right, whatever. All right.

You've done deal Griff, send him, send him this way and be like, oh, I think, would say, all right, whatever. You've done deal, Griff. Send him this way. And be like, oh, I forgot he's already here. When do you think Balmer had his moment with the Kauai trade where it was like his waking up in Vegas on a Sunday morning and you just have no pants on and your wallet's

gone and you're like, what happened? Do you think at what point did he have that moment with all the stuff they gave up? So what happened? Do you think it was after they got bounced? Do you think? Yeah, I think it was like it was like Orlando. Wait, can I see what how many picks we gave up?

But he's reading the list. He's like, oh my God. That was a lot. It's a lot of picks. Yeah, I think it happened though. I definitely think it happened at some point, but it was probably after blowing a 3-1 lead. Look, all right.

So praising the Lakers, to be fair, on their moves. They really bought in on the Rondo thing because they had the experience with it last year and they easily could have cut the cord. But to their credit, they went back to it and ran it back because he's not the easiest dude, but he was humongous for them in the playoffs. And there were just certain games where it was like a big three type situation with how good he was playing. So that was big. They deserve a ton of credit for the Dwight Howard thing. Um, granted, um, as much as we made fun of them,

like they really did need that one more body for some of these regular season games. As Dudley pointed out, he was important in Denver and that, in that Denver series. And Dwight was sitting there for everybody. Like I know the Celtics kicked the tires on him and, and did the internal poll

and everybody was like, ah, we can't, can't do it too risky. So you get credit for that. Um, Caldwell Pope, I think they overpaid both of those years.

I don't know where else he was getting that money, but he did come through in the playoffs. And then it was part of the LeBron transaction too. I think it was, we'll take care of your guy you know don't forget us i mean look you probably could have still not paid pope that much especially in that first year and lebron at some point that would seem like a favorite of clutch that was my interpretation of that yeah that's what i'm telling you i but yeah you know

do you and then the caruso you know the caruso was a valuable playoff guy and somebody that I would have loved to have out of the Celtics, you know, and they found that dude last year at some point and we made jokes about his hairline. And I remember when he, we did a ringer video and LeBron broke 30,000 points or whatever. And he hugged Caruso and we did a thing about, hi, I'm Alex Caruso, introducing himself to LeBron. Then Caruso starts game six of the finals. And it was like a key adjustment. So you get credit for that. And then I think, you know, I don't think clutch is the easiest thing to navigate.

If you're a front office in an organization where you're dealing with an agency that represents the two best guys in your team. And three or four other guys and was probably trying to put in the coach that they wanted and all that stuff and they navigated that. So I'm not saying Genie doesn't deserve some credit in Polenka, but you just can't gloss over what a train wreck they were

and what a train wreck I think they would have continued to be if LeBron had decided not to come. That's probably the best way of putting it because you know back to the Palenka getting beat up on all the time and then remember the report about he didn't know the rules and the trade rules which turned out to be unfair I remember we made fun of him on this pot and it was not true and it wasn't then it was like oh wait but that also meant it felt like it sounded like somebody with the Lakers may have I don't know

if it was somebody I don't know what the backstory to that was. Was it somebody else? Because that had to be sourced. Somebody had to have thrown that out there for then to people to have people go, hey, this is what people are saying about Blanco with the date of the transaction of the Davis trade and how it's going to screw up the cap thing.

And then it was like, actually, no, he knew the rule. But the Rondo point of it, I mean, he shot 40% from three on, he took 53s in the playoffs and made 40% of them. And this was a guy that was, you didn't guard, you didn't guard. And they still didn't really ever guard him because you're going to, he's not going to keep making all of these. Do you know how old he is?

Oh, he's like 30 or 31. He's 33, but it still seems so young it still seems young for somebody whose body is going to age great and i always thought like this year when he came back i go you know he's moving around really well he's just not playing very well so when you say big three i know you're kind of kidding but he was that steady for them and provided shooting that kind of came out of nowhere for a team that wasn't really you know shooting wasn't exactly the first thing you thought of when you thought of the lakers you thought of defense and stars that could close better than other stars he was

unbelievable he was for what because you remember when um i think we even did a podcast and i remember zach was saying on his podcast too. I just thought people were totally underrated in the Rondo Bradley not being there in the regular season piece. I thought it was really hard for me to assess what their ceiling was without those two guys. Because I thought Rondo really brought something different that they needed. There was a creativity to him that took a lot of pressure off LeBron in a lot of different ways when LeBron wasn't in the game. And then also when, you know, when LeBron was in the game, the way he interacted with Davis, but it's a bummer because I, it would have been nice to

have him on the Celtics instead of Wanamaker. You know, you think like he was kind of sitting there for anybody. I think he could have helped a bunch of playoff teams, this version of Rondo and, and the Lakers were smart enough to not give up on him. But do you think he could have helped a bunch of playoff teams, this version of Rondo, and the Lakers were smart enough to not give up on him. But do you think he plays this hard with a non-LeBron team? No, and I do think when you're factoring in all the important things LeBron brings to the

table, this was very similar to Jordan, right? The ability to elevate certain people because it's so cool to play with somebody who's that great and you just want to give them your best and you see you know like day in day out the stuff he's doing in the bubble how do you not get caught up on that if you're one of his teammates somebody's working a hundred times harder than you are and you're gonna eventually get swept up in that and i think

to me that's that's the biggest thing with Luka. Talk about like his ceiling, what it's going to look like, all that stuff. It's like, is he going to have that crazy LeBron Jordan work on my body thing? Because that's the last piece. You know,

those two guys, I think even Bird toward the end of his prime really embraced it, but probably too late. He was already pretty banged up at that point. But there were like two Bird years there at the end of his prime when he was like, yeah, he's working out. He's doing Nautilus. His vertical leap has improved. It's go back and read it now.

It's hilarious. Was there actually an article that said his vertical leap improved? Oh, yeah. I'm not doubting you, but that's amazing. His last good year was the 87-88 year, and he came in in the preseason, and you could see it. He was jumping higher.

He looked awesome, but he had this follow-up dunk, and it was like a big deal in Boston. It's like, burn! It's a follow-up jam! Dunk contest? The legend! But, yeah, it was so long ago

now you have LeBron sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber in an Orlando bubble how do they get the chamber in? I'm sure LeBron can figure it out LeBron made some calls in Orlando well listen

this was our last of our basketball season podcasts I remember March 2019 you, me, Rich Paul, Jeff Chow, we all went to dinner and we all looked at each other and we said, we know what we got to do. There's a lot of work here to be done.

We know what needs to happen. And I think we delivered. I think we had some good pots. Yeah. I don't remember that dinner. That must've been a good, you don't remember that you're pretty drunk, but,

uh, but we still might pop on each other's pot at least one or two times. We have, there'll be some sort of drafting we'll do. And then we'll, we have free HD, what December 1st. So it's like, like right after Thanksgiving,

allegedly TBD. Why, why are you dismissive? Just because I've know how much it's changed. So, I mean, if we're locked into this, okay,

but we don't even know when the start of the season is. I mean, it doesn't mean that you can't do free. I think they're locking in draft and free agency. I think those are going to be the dates. And the free agency thing will be fun because I think it's like Thanksgiving

and then what day is December 1st? December 1st is a Tuesday after Thanksgiving. So that'll be a really fun weekend because I'm sure stuff will start getting leaked out, right?

Yeah, but it's just been going. And you know what? I always got to check myself because you look at the free agent class, you look at the cap room, you look at all that stuff, you're like, man, this is going to suck. We're guaranteed.

There's going to be big trades. There's always something that happens in this league. This league, there'd be something that none of us are even thinking about right now. Oladipo, Indiana. The Nets will do something. The Nets have to do something.

The Pacers, everybody seems to be trying to circle what's going on there. There's a big Giannis has to be mentioned. Clippers will look different. Tice, does he get the Max or the Super Max? We got to figure that out.

Who knows? And then my favorite subplot, which is not a huge subplot, but I'm fascinated by it because I really like him as Buddy Heald. Because I actually just got somebody. You're determined to get him out of there. All right.

So I'm running the Celts. And I call them and I say, I'll give you Hayward, I'll give you Romeo, and I'll give you our middle first round pick, 26th. You get Hayward for a year. You get Romeo, who really has a lot of potential. We really like him. It's hard for us to let him go, but we'll do it. And a middle first rounder, we'll take Buddy.

No. Okay. Alright. and we'll take Buddy. No. Okay. All right. How about the 15th pick, Romeo and Gordon Hayward? No. Why do I want Romeo Lankford? Why do I want to get rid of a guy

that I know exactly who he is right now? Time Lord's on the table. I love Time Lord's passing. Time Lord? No, but I do think somebody's going to try to do that with the Kings where they'll be like we'll take that contract off your hands because you don't

want to pay 24 million a year for a six man and we'll throw in this young asset that could be the Nets for all we know the Bogdanovich thing too is worth factoring into all of that because it seems like they're keeping him yeah but maybe that's that's well they're key it seems like they're keeping him yeah but I'm you know maybe that's that's how you go about this

I do wonder if we'll start to see restrictions on spending in ways that haven't happened before because even if a team was cheap you're paying 90% of the salary cap and whatever and then you look at how many teams are in the tax I think I saw 10 teams already

over the tax line for next year because it's not really about the cap number. It's about the tax number. And it'd be kind of weird. Normally, we just go, hey, this guy's a free agent. He's going to get... I mean, even guys that aren't great are getting $15 million a year. Will you have an owner that goes, I just don't even want to go over the 90% to the cap. Forget the tax. Don't even come to me if you're in front office and talk about paying a tax with all this stuff. I think we're seeing it with coaches too because I think there's been a certain price for coaches.

Philly had to do what they had to do. They needed some sort of good news to happen before they went to next season. Doc was available. Doc, if anybody's going to figure out the Embiid-Simmons thing, it's got to be a respected coach with some weight. But I think in general, somebody like Fertitta

isn't going to be totally psyched about paying a coach like $7 million a year. And I can't remember this many coaching vacancies after the finals. Can you? This has been so weird though the coach jobs open this has been on this is unlike any other time i can remember not just sheer numbers but the oddity of lou getting the philly job d'antoni getting the philly job oh wait balmer's actually

firing doc with 22 million left in the deal but then doc what's he want to go does he want to go to tv what's going on with van gundy is van gundy done with tv does he want to go to TV? What's going on with Van Gundy? Is Van Gundy done with TV? Does he want to go to the Clippers? But does Jerry West want it to be Ty Lue? Like Ty Lue, we should learn from Ty Lue turning down three years, 18 million with the Lakers because it wasn't enough years. It wasn't enough money. Then we should know. Okay, well, his price is beyond that. And if you're the Pelicans, are you paying Ty Lue like seven, eight million dollars a

year? By the way, that was one of the worst moves the last year because what happens is like i get sticking up for yourself and wanting to go hey i'm not working for below this like i want a title this is what i should make but when you start going a couple years without making the money that you've turned down now you've missed out potentially on six to twelve million that you would have made that you know again the coaching thing can be a little different but you're right like that that looks like the bad move that you would have made that, you know, again, the coaching thing can be a little different, but you're right. That looks like the bad move because you would have rather made 6 and won a title.

Also, like the I won a title thing, and I think Lou's a good coach, but you had one of the two best players of all time on your team. You know, it's not like you were Norman Dale and Hoosiers

figuring out South Bend High. You had LeBron James with trying to bring a title to Cleveland. I thought he made a huge mistake because especially when you know Davis is coming, it's like your odds of LeBron and Davis potentially winning a title, you're one of the four teams that has a chance.

And he should have known that. He was represented by Clutch at the time, too. So it's not like he didn't know what was going on. The weirdest thing to me, Sal and House and I did the odds. For what, next year? On Sunday's pod for NBA ads. And the Nets had better odds than the Celtics.

They were 13-1. The Celts were 14-1. I was surprised. Now, I know their job is to create odds that they are trying to get action on. If they feel like there's dumb Nets money out there, they're going to lower the thing. I'd just be really surprised if the

Nets were good. Good in making the finals, potentially winning the title kind of way. I think that's going to be a very strange team. I'm not saying going to be a very strange team. And I'm not saying it can't happen, but you have a brand new coach. You have a guy coming off Achilles.

You have another guy who really didn't play at all last year and has been pretty injury prone. And has had some surgeries and all kinds of things. Kyrie. And just kind of, you got Dinwiddie there. He's one of the classic I got this guys. They're going to have to overpay Joe Harris.

Feels like they have a trade to make. I don't know what you do with Levert. But I was surprised that they had better odds than Dallas. To me, it's like, Luka's going to be probably one of the three or four best players in the league next year, and he's going to win a title at some point.

I would rather roll the dice on that happening two years too early than betting on that weird Nets team. Am I crazy? I don't know what to do with the Nets. I could see it go in any direction because I could see Durant come back and be like, Hey, remember when we didn't mention him at all in this LeBron Giannis Kawhi

thing over and over again. And that's what happens. You get hurt. You know, we start to move on from you, but I could see him come back LeBron, Giannis, Kawhi thing over and over again. And that's what happens. You get hurt. We start to move on from you. But I could see him come back and you go, oh, wait. Remember when he was the best player in the world? But with the Durant thing, though, it could be two years for him.

He got hurt. It was end of April 2019. No, it had to be a little bit later than that, wasn't it? No, it was second round. It was early second round. I thought he came back and played.

He played for 10 minutes. That's right. I'm saying the awesome Durant we remember, we haven't seen now for 18 months, plus the season might not start until March. That's a pretty large that's a giant layoff don't you think her he got hurt and I don't know I just look he's 7-1 and can shoot like no one we've ever seen so I kind of expect I'm just saying he's out for two years that's not good

let's uh let's double check this so he he was... It was like third game, second round. Yeah, I just... All right. So I just want to make sure it was May because it was May. It was May. He gets hurt game five. So like beginning of May.

Yeah, it was. It was May 8th. It was May 8th. So it's not going to be... Look, I'm not worried about Durant. I mean, I'm worried that Durant could get hurt again because... I'm a little worried about him. That's fine. But I think..., I'm not worried about Durant. I mean, I'm worried that Durant could get hurt again. I'm a little worried about him.

That's fine. I don't like layoffs like that. I think when your two-year layoff from anything is dangerous. Two years, you're stretching it, though. Maybe drinking. It is going to be two years. The season's not going to come back until March. Yeah, but if you don't drink for two years and you try to go out with your buddies,

if you haven't drank for two years, that's worse than coming back from an Achilles injury. Well, that's that one guy who ruins the bachelor party. The guy with four kids who hasn't been out in a while. Who is that guy trouble? We had a buddy that a couple kids flew cross country for this huge weekend where we all get together in denver and he called from the airport and was like can somebody come get me and we're like dude get a

cab the denver airport as everybody knows is actually in south dakota yeah and you have to drive to denver from there and i all of us were you know already getting after it we were at a buddy's apartment downtown i mean it was a long time ago but he was kind of the first to be the grown-up out of the group and he was an unbelievable he's an awesome guy he's still an awesome guy to this day but he gets so drunk on the flight like right out of manhattan friday undoes the tie a few manhattans he's the rabbit he just he's the rabbit in the race we had to send him a car because he couldn't figure out how to get a taxi he clearly didn't get his luggage he was that much of a mess. We get him to the apartment and he's like, where's the bed?

And just goes and passes out. And then that's how we were like, hey, what do we got? Now, he did rally. I'll give him that. But there's the guy that has been off the game for a while. Maybe that's your Durant theory. Maybe he's domesticated Kevin Durant. I'm worried about it.

I love watching Durant. And the bottom line is it's going to be almost two years before we see him playing a basketball game. Before we go, let's talk about the Ben Fritz book really quickly, just the After Earth part, and then we'll leave. So you read this book. You were so excited about it. I bought it on Amazon.

It's called The Big Picture. And I read two thirds of it last night. It's called The Big Picture. And I read two thirds of it last night. My wife was getting annoyed because I was just ignoring her, just diving into this. And it's about the movie industry and how much it changed. And it's basically this guy went through all the Sony hack emails and crafted this narrative about how Sony kind of botching their movie business over the last 12 years or so. Kind of shows how the movie business changed. And as part of this, they were really in on Will Smith and Adam Sandler.

As these two stars that they just over and over again hit home runs for them. Started to lose their box office draw a little bit. Leading to After Earth. And I'll let you take it from there. Yeah, right. So the movie's basically all about the fight for the future of movies. The big picture's the book. started to lose their box office draw a little bit leading to after earth. And I'll let you take it from there. Yeah. Right. So the movies, uh,

basically it's all about the, the fight for the future of movies, the big pictures, the book, Ben Fritz. I'm so excited about it. I almost called you in the middle of the night when the after earth stuff happened.

And the best way to explain the timeline of it is that we all kind of grew up thinking, you know, movies are built around stars and Sony was at the forefront of that. And then, as you said, like once these Marvel and Disney, it ends up looking like Disney just knew what to do

and cleaned up with all these Marvel, the Cinematic Universe stuff. Franchises. Franchises, tentpoles, all these, and how it's like the traditional drama and that actually stars are not automatic anymore. And then the irony is Sony has Spider-Man and Marvel's like,

hey, for an extra 15 million, you could have everybody in the Marvel Universe. They're like, why would we want that? Fuck that. And they don't grab it, which is one of the most brutal mistakes anyone's made the last 20 years in Hollywood. Right, right. So the fact that we have the emails from the hack is huge. But my favorite part and the part that I was freaking out wanting to talk about was that i'm always i'm not ever envious i'm impressed by the delusion of super super successful people like i think sometimes the people that are incredibly

like the top of the world success they almost have to be delusional about themselves to even get to that point because most people be like i don't know if i can pull that off and will smith's like i'm gonna be the biggest movie star in the world. And for a time he arguably was, and Sony had the Sandler stuff, the Will Smith stuff, but Smith starts to flop. Sandler starts to have some flops, which kind of changed his course and leads to the Netflix thing that gets later in the book. But my favorite part of the book so far is that it wasn't just after earth. It was that he got together Will Smith with his production company and they created this whole after earth world where it wasn't just going to be a movie. It was going he got together, Will Smith, with his production company, and they created this whole after-Earth world where it wasn't just going to be a movie.

It was going to be a string of movies that then branched out because essentially they basically sat in a room. They wrote a 300-page Bible about this world. They created a world. They created a world. With backstories. Yes. So instead of, hey, we're going to just have a movie. No, no, no. We're going to have a world that, that branches out where like star Wars and star Trek, it becomes a part of people's

lives. And we're also going to have toys and we're going to have a television spinoff. And then there's going to be characters within the movie that are going to spin off. And meanwhile, they're like, okay, but who's in the movie. Will like, are you in the movie? Like, ah, my kid's going to be in the movie. And they're like, well, we need you to be in the movie. And we're like, all right, spaceship crash, you'll be in the movie. And then your kid's running around in a jumpsuit the whole time. And they're like, and with the way social media works, which is my favorite thing about the industry and talk with people, is people just use words and say stuff. And they'll go, we could control a daily social network based on the movie and this franchise where people will spend their days

checking in on the after earth forums they said it was gonna be the new facebook yeah because they were like who knows what'll happen with facebook in five years well you know what probably won't happen is that after earth won't then become the thing you check every morning and then they were like and we're gonna have toys in cologne cologne was the best that was what that was what pushed over the top they called it like ae 1000 with this universe and they they had a backstory with the bible and creating like all these narratives for ae leading to this whole how it was going to play out, but they were so confident. It was like, so here's what will happen. Sequels, books,

we'll replace Facebook, TV show, and cologne. We're going to replace Facebook and cologne. It's like, hey, can you get me the AE1000 cologne for Christmas? Imagine, hey, do you want to go out tonight? No, I'm going to check

AE1000. I'm just going to check AE1000. I'm just going to message some people. Will Smith's posted on there later, something about the universe. Like, how do we connect? Oh, AE1000. Look me up. Double R. Double R lasers. And then the other part was how he didn't want to be in the movie because he wanted to make his son

a star. So he's in the movie, but he's like, basically like Marlon Brando in Superman, just on satellite talking to his son. But then they realized the advertising, the marketing campaign, they have to make people think Will Smith's in the movie because they don't want to sell it as a Jaden Smith movie. So all the ads, they're like, hey, don't let people know he's paralyzed because he's paralyzed in a spaceship, right? Was that the plot?

Yeah, yeah. He's stuck in it. He's stuck. And it almost, there's so many moments in this where you find yourself siding with the studio, which I don't think anybody that's into writing or creating ever wants to admit.

But when they go, hey, Will, is it okay if you're in the movie? Right. We thought that would be cool. It's one of our notes. I don't have a problem with this line here as much as you're not in any of it. We're good with the cologne, but could you be in the movie? And it was, it was just a bunch of, it sounds like will smith and some guys got together and just said let's just shoot for the stars on this one like what what do you want to do no no i remember bigger i wrote about him the first year at grantland about i was so fascinated

by the choices he made in his career because and he's talked about it in magazine pieces where him and his guy Lasseter, they studied the list of like the top 20 biggest movies of all time. And I think like half of them were some sort of alien outer space, science fiction, something. So they would like, it was almost like he was advanced metrics-ing the movie industry. And it was like, we have to do these kind of movies. And if you look at all the choices he made, it was all outer space stuff, science fiction stuff, stuff that had a chance to have a sequel. He was really smart. He kind of saw where Hollywood was going before almost anybody.

So this is what people want. Because he turned down Django and the Jamie Foxx part, which I think really would have been an important part for him. But he just didn't do stuff like that. He didn't want to take chances as an actor. He just wanted to be in these giant franchises. So it all culminates in After Earth, where they're now creating this fucking alternate universe set in the future with the sun battling. I don't even know who I never saw the movie. Did you ever see it?

I saw it. No, you should check it out, but it's, it's not good. It's not good, but there's a Will Smith article that he did after it, where it's the most I've ever liked Will Smith,

where he was talking about the failures. And by the way, every one of these guys, like if we treated movie stars, the way we treat some of these NBA players, we'd be talking about all of them sucking because every one of them have not just finals losses. They have sweeps in the first round.

I mean, it's just the way the business works. And I remember, and not that I've been on really many panels, I think it might've been one of two panels I've ever been on. It was the Greenwich film festival. It was run by somebody who was kind of a lifelong friend. And she asked me to come down and cause I'd hosted a couple of things there and they were like, Hey, will you do it? Cause

it's going to grant out back in Connecticut. And the book emphasizes this. And it's something that I think I noticed is that people can sit there and get mad about, Oh, it's all just superhero movies or it's just sequels or it's just these franchises or why are there reboots? But a lot of times the art that we get is because that's really what we want. And I say this about politicians all the time. The reason politicians talk to us this way is because this is the way we apparently want to be talked to. Because if they talk to us with real tone, then we'd be more thrown off by it. And so this is just how it's been conditioned.

It's the same thing with what we watch. And I don't mean you or I, but I'm just talking about hundreds of millions of people in the country. Like they actually don't want to learn anything new for the most part. They want established characters. That's why stars worked for such a long time and that's why sandler cleaned up and he cleaned up internationally and why these stars had these massive runs and so on this panel they were like hey why do you think this happens and i think i told you the story before but i was like you know i don't get some of these sandler movies now i'm like pixels you know but sandler's a lot like my kids are

he's gonna make money and i'm like i don't get it either and then the girl was like hey great job she's like but um is it jack girapudo i don't know how to pronounce sandler's buddy's last name um they're like sandler's co-guy is in the audience and he saw you say that and she's like he's gonna be at the after party and i was like fuck cool and so i went up and i was like hey man what's going on he's like hey i was like oh you know i was like hope you understood but he's like yeah and then he was kind of like he's looking at me he was kind of like yeah and then i go uh and he's like you say you're moving to la i was like yeah i try to be a writer he's like ah all right cool good luck and it was like such a it was such a like you're not gonna actually

try to think like we have a connection now do you and i was like no no i'm reading this perfectly like you're kind of telling me to go fuck myself which i deserved but i still think that it's it's not really anyone's fault that this is what people want but i don't think it's wrong to point out like you know some of these movies that people keep rebooting over and over again they're safer bets for the studio and that's why we had far more of those movies made and why the book will tell you the the path that it's going on and well and also sony they prioritize those they call them like mid-budget you know movies for dramas right like i don't know if they made gone girl or not but movies like that gone girls social network Social Network, those are like the-

Social Network's a perfect example. The ultimate kind of movies that Amy Pascal, the lady who ran Sony, wanted to make. And the reality is, over the last 15 years, a lot of those ideas went to TV and became more fun to do on TV

if you were the creator. And also, I had no idea how much they made from Breaking Bad. They made almost half a billion dollars from Breaking Bad with the DVDs and everything else and the rights and selling the different rights to the different streamers and things like that. And the book made the point like it's actually a better business to be in TV. And yet all the studios always kind of prioritize the movie side and that gets the bigger budgets and more

attention and stuff like that. Meanwhile, the TV side is just banking. And I think now people have kind of figured out that side too. But the biggest thing is just Netflix. And we're seeing this now at Disney. I was talking to this... Who was I? I think I was talking to Sean about this.

As movie theaters kind of fantasy. As movie theaters go by the wayside like the Disney model where Disney's fine. They'll just release stuff on Disney Plus and they'll do what Netflix is doing and maybe they won't need movie theaters at all.

All these subscription services now have the ability to go right to us and we're cool with it. Because most people have Wi-Fi. Most people have at least a decent TV. And now you don't have to go to the movie theater. So if you go to a movie theater, you want like a real experience.

And I don't know who would go to a movie theater now, but when it comes back. Yeah, look, my limited experience in this and a couple things that i've written in and get great feedback and then the guys like do you have like any is there any part of you that wants to write like a heist or a big action thing and i was like not really like i've never and they go yeah well the stuff you write like nobody's gonna make this nobody makes this stuff i'm like nobody seems going to make this. Nobody makes this stuff. I'm like, nobody seems excessive.

And they're like, yeah. Why don't you do a superhero movie about a superhero called Masshole? And he's just walking around. What? You looking at me? Just do like all the jokes we ever made about like the guy at 1.30 in the morning

at the Beacon Hill Pub. He's just now a superhero you should work on this workshop it somebody's like dude with great power comes great responsibility and he says he's like fuck that dude i'm robbing a bank like dude who wants bleacher tickets just fly in uh yeah i don't know that doesn't really seem to be to my speed but the crazy part too about ben's book is looking at the business model of the studios they go okay this movie's going to cost 120 million to make and i'm like all right well we only made 45 million that's it all right it's not worth it like let's you know it's like that is book publishing's like that too

where they know going in you know almost that they break even, it's a win. Like very rarely do you get like the Da Vinci Code type books. But for the most part, when they're doing somebody's book and it sells 30,000 copies or whatever, and it's like, cool, broke even on this one. That's a win. How much does an author, how many books do you have to sell for an author to make money? I have no idea about that. Depends on what the advance is. Because they do the advance.

It's like one-third, one-third, one-third. You get one-third when you sign. You get one-third when you deliver the manuscript. You get one-third when the book's done. And then once the book makes back whatever the advance was, then you get the royalties from that point on. So when you do the book of basketball, I mean,

clearly people know that it's going to sell. So you're not just the regular guy throwing a manuscript or even an idea. Um, do they, do they change their projections with somebody like you were, or did you blow the projections out of the water with the basketball book? Um, they,

they, they kind of blew it on the projections a little, which I didn't never... It still doesn't make sense to me. They didn't print enough in the first... They printed like 100,000, but that's all over the place. More than that.

But it was... I'm not going to ask you exactly how much you made. But when it got to number one on New York Times, they didn't print enough more than that. But it was... I'm not going to ask you exactly how much you made. But when I got... When it got to number one on New York Times, they didn't print enough. So... And I was so upset

because going through airports and you have like the top 15 of the books and it's like in the number one spot. I was in one airport and there was no book in the number one spot

because they didn't have any copies of my book. And I was like, you got to be fucking kidding me. I'm so mad. Because that was when clearly the book was going to do okay. But their attitude is they never want to be stuck with the books, which I get. So their worst case scenario is they say, we'll print 200,000 books and then you sell 45,000. And that's how you end up with the bargain basement books

on Amazon and places like that because they're trying to dump them. But this was all 10, 11 years ago. I don't know what it's like now because so much of it's online. I'm sure it's completely different parameters now. I mean, I'm sure online's got to be two-thirds of the purchases now.

Yeah, and I imagine the digital part of it too. I'm sure online's got to be like two-thirds of the purchases now. Yeah, and I imagine the digital part of it too. I'm sure you do. Now this is turning into your parents talking. Yeah, let's go. We'll wrap it up anyway. Kyle's about to kill himself. Russillo, one more pod for you this week. We'll do at least a draft week pod,

and we'll do a free agency pod down the road. And then I might put you on Million Dollar Picks every once in a while when I need help. I'm on fire. So let's do it. All right. Good seeing you. One more podcast coming up on Thursday, including at least one celebrity guest. So that's going to happen. Plus million dollar picks. What a year for million dollar picks. I'm all over the slate, and somehow I'm just barely below even. I've had some of the worst beats of my life, and you're not going to break me, NFL. I'm still coming back.

I'm not scared of you. I have a good feel for this season. Some bad luck, though, man. So we're covering all that, and I will see you then.