The Bill Simmons Podcast - LeBron’s MVP Run, L.A.’s Big Weekend, Brooklyn’s "New Owner Syndrome," Plus Houston’s Swoon With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Lakers' first win over the Clippers this season, the revitalized MVP race, the Brooklyn Nets' firing of head coach Kenny Atkinson, the Rockets' slump, some new segments, Gym Corner, and much more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit surface.com slash laptop3 to learn more. That is surface.com slash laptop3. Hey, the Book of Basketball season one is done. We have moved the rewatchables into that Monday night spot starting this week, although we posted this week's rewatchables podcast a little earlier. We're gonna have two this week.

We have Godfather 3 coming later in the week. We posted, we did a podcast about Contagion, the Steven Soderbergh movie that came out in 2011, which is a disturbing rewatch. And as a movie, a lot of people are rewatching right now. So we threw away the categories and we just had a conversation about the movie nine years later and how disturbing and eerie it is in so many different ways. And I think a lot of people feel that way because if you go to the Apple store or wherever, it is in the top five rentals all over the place. So check that out. We put that up already, me, Sean Fennessy, and Chris Ryan. Coming up, Ryan Rosillo. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Ryan Russillo is on the line.

He joins me every Sunday night here on the podcast, normally in person. We're doing this one on the phone. Got some emails from people who are still upset that we haven't named this pod yet. Jeff Goldberg thinks it should be called We Both Played Basketball. What do you think of that, Rosillo? I think that was mentioned last year. I still can't get past how great I think Pod Strickland is. Pod Strickland? We Both Played Basketball. But it just doesn't seem right. And then Justin said,

hey guys, I was listening to your latest pod. I think you stumbled across the perfect name for the pod. Sunday Night Heat has a WWF feel, a little homage to an 80s movie. Sunday Night Heat, that's another one. So I don't know. I still don't feel like it's jumped off the page. I do like we both play basketball though. I think that's strong. Anyway, Lakers Clippers today was the biggest regular season game of the year for a few different reasons. The Clippers, if they had won the game, they would have basically been up 3-0 in the series. And we would have had this whole narrative of, well, we're hearing how great the Lakers are, but they can't beat the Clippers. So that was in play. We also had LeBron with an improbable MVP run, which we'll get to in a second, that a Lakers win really would have helped with that. And then the third thing was just, if this is going to be a playoff series, no team has been more decimated from a home court advantage standpoint than the Clippers when they play the Lakers in a big game.

I thought it was going to be 50-50. My wife and my son went. She said it was like 70-30, maybe even 75-25. What was your biggest lesson from today? I don't know what we do with the three games now in total because I think you would agree, talking to just people that live in the city, it's that when it comes down to it, it's a playoff series. There's nothing that the Clippers can do with Anthony Davis. The Clippers win that first game. Granted, that's the first game of the season, so I don't know what it means now. We've seen so many different versions of this Clippers team. Yeah, throw out that first game. Everybody barely knew each other at that point. Yeah, agreed. No Paul George in that one. So game two,

the Christmas game, Clippers win that one. The shooting across the board, it's something I'm looking at because it wasn't a great shooting game today. The Lakers are minus 11 in free throws. And I actually during that game kind of felt like the Lakers were better, right? And then the Clippers get together in this last week. They

smash Houston and you start thinking, well, wait a minute. If this is the version of this team, full go, maybe they're even better than we thought, even though I actually left the Christmas game thinking the Lakers were the better basketball team, but the Clippers have these first two. So yet no one can stop Davis.

It's like, are they going to win a game? And not only do the Lakers do this, and LeBron is putting together this run where he looks even better now than the beginning of the season, and the fact that the Clippers had everybody, and Paul George looks like he's going nuts. I'm like, man, if he's going to play like this, and then he has two points in the fourth quarter,

I was like, okay, there he is. And then you add that in with the Milwaukee win. I mean, it's just hard to sit here today, and I try not to be a prisoner of any of this stuff, but I mean, what's the argument against the Lakers being the best team, at least in the West, if not the entire league? We called out the Clippers two weeks ago.

Not a call-out, like, oh, I'm calling out the Clippers, but we were just like, look, if they're going to win the title, we'd like to see a really nice stretch from them during this season. We're not asking for too much. Play well for three weeks in a row, lay the smack down. They were doing that.

We were in the middle of it. It was, they had finally hit a point where they were the running on all cylinders when they wanted to lock it down defensively, they could. The two guys, Kawhi and Paul, kind of trading who was going to be super hot from quarter to quarter, game to game. And it just, they started to get that look. And yet going into this game, I really thought the Lakers were going to win. And I felt that way about this Lakers team

since I went to that Celtics game when I thought the Celtics played really well in LA a couple weeks ago. And there hits this point where it just becomes this playoff game type of feel. And you have AD and you have LeBron. And LeBron, this is one of the better runs that he's had. I know the statistics. The nerds can go in there and be like, oh, no, actually, this is a 20-game run. I think all the stuff he's doing with this team and how he has basically imposed his, for lack of a better word, will, and just alpha dogness with the stuff that in the end of the 2000s, we worried that he didn't have in him and now he has it in him galore. And there's this

will that this team has in these tight games where they have a different kind of switch. There's a physicality that comes into place. They're really hard to officiate. They're just near the rim. They're protecting the rim. They're getting to the rim. And you could feel it today in that Clipper game. Clippers didn't play great. But you look at the Lakers thing,

other than Avery Bradley and Kuzma defensively, I didn't feel like the Lakers played great. Did you? No. I mean, look, the Clippers are up at the half. This wasn't some, oh my God, there's no comparison of these teams. I wouldn't feel that way. If I'm a Clippers fan, yeah, I'm upset and I'm worried.

I'm scared because I think these two teams, I mean, the Clippers are coming off this week where they smashed Houston. We'll get to Houston a little bit later. They smashed Denver on that Friday night game a week ago. Yeah. Maybe the conclusion of this whole thing, Bill, is that these two teams are that much better than everybody else. But as much as I love Kawhi, and this is still a compliment, I actually think he's the best isolation guy in the league. I'm sure

there's points for possession stuff that could argue against it. I'm sure there's some numbers that probably put Harden there from just the productivity that you get from him iso-ing and how much Houston isos. But I love Kawhi with the ball because there from just the productivity that you get from him isoing and how much is Houston isos. But I love Kawhi with the ball because there's just not really much that you can do with him because of his body, the way he plays angles, his handle is completely underrated. He's so tight with that handle. But then you look at it on the other side and you've got the smartest player maybe we've ever seen in LeBron. And that's what's always so funny. It's like everybody always wants everybody to run these intricate plays with all these movements and decoys and swinging the ball to the weak side

when the action was on the other side. And what the Lakers did is they just went Lou Williams hunting. And I feel like that might be the one takeaway from this because I feel like the names for the Clippers and some of the depth, I actually do like better. Like I go, you know, they got some different guys they can throw at you. Like look at Montrez's numbers. Look what Pat Beverly does.

Look at Lou Williams scoring. But they were hunting every single Lou Williams switch. And then LeBron was dictating everything he wanted to do off of that. So in all those spots where they needed to stop, they went right back to a very basic, slow thing. LeBron's going to find you in this bad switch. We're going to switch you up against Lou, who is not just a bad defensive player. But sometimes he gets really lackadaisical with it.

He's not just always locked in. I mean, he's been that way his entire career and that might be the biggest takeaway for a playoff series where you go okay that's something that doc's gonna have to find a way to remedy and they even tried some things where they were trying to change some of their defensive alignments but then they got back to lou williams a couple different times there so uh i'm just so impressed with lebron i mean i know that sounds like it's stating the obvious but i just don't know that anybody's supposed to be doing this 48,000 minutes in plus another.

Like, I was doing the numbers. He's at 58,000 career minutes with the playoffs at 35 years old. And I'm not saying he's as good as those peak Miami numbers because some of those numbers were insane. But it's hard to bet against this guy. Like, he should scare everybody. And we expected him at some point. He has to slow down, but it's not happening this year. Yeah, I remember before the season adding all that up and thinking he had an outside chance to get to 60 this season,

assuming they played 23, 24 playoff games, whatever, 60,000, which is just his Karl Malone Kareem, and that's it. For a perimeter guy to be doing that, not only that he's still able to do it at this level, but the way he's played the last few weeks, again, the stats aren't much different. The field goal percentage is a little bit up. He's getting the free throw line a tiny bit more, but there's a physicality to him that reminds me of the 2018 final, the, you know, the Eastern finals, then that game, one of the finals when he almost beat the Warriors by himself, where he, you know, Marcus Morris, a guy who I'm not going to say he had success against LeBron, but didn't do the worst job in the world, guarding him on the Celtics. That was kind of the reason

they traded for him in the first place, was that the numbers when he guarded LeBron were about as good as anybody defending LeBron. LeBron was just running over him in the fourth quarter. Did you see those plays when he was getting in the rim anytime he wanted against a guy that is supposed to be a good defender against him? So he's in one of these grooves. And again, when you talk about the physicality of that team and how hard they are to officiate, I feel like they are the prohibitive favorite because here, look at this. They play

today 10 for 35 from three as a team. They win by nine. They play the Bucks on Friday night, six for 32 from three. They don't even need to shoot that well to beat really good teams. And they're the only team that can say that, right? Is there another team that could be like, we're going to miss almost all of our threes today and still beat you by nine. That's it. It's them. And that's it. No, it's an awesome point because, you know, so many of these teams will look and be like, how did that happen? You're like, oh, they shot 40% from three tonight and they took a million of them, you know, like, Hey, how come that team lost? So they shot 21% from three, you know, too many times now when you that team lost? So they shot 21% from three,

you know, too many times now when you go through, like if you, if you didn't catch every single game and you go to look like what happened, the conclusions, like what did everybody do with three and how many did you miss? And for them to be able to do this in an age where when you shoot

that poorly, usually lose. And they were, look, the reason they were down at the half until they blew it up in the third quarter, they were minus, I was tracking like minus 11,

minus 12 in the rebounding margin. And I thinking like look how big they are and you know they're doing these things or they're combining stuff a little differently the marquise morris edition they went small for the start of the fourth quarter which van gundy pointed out where it's like that's kind of dwight's time um and you know here we are with these two teams that are this good because i still don't want to like go just because the lakers won that we don't respect how good the clippers are and and still can be because I think the Houston win matters and again the Denver thing was just barely a week ago but they lost the rebounding edge they went with Markeith a little bit smaller and none of it really matters and instead of this obsession

with the big three and who's that third guy going to be and it still seems a little silly that we were like yeah Kuzma's their third guy like they don't need kuzma every night they don't need danny green every night and avery bradley was the guy that stepped up for him and you know vogel still seems to love rondo and rondo had like a weird stretch in there where he wasn't very effective but vogel gave him a ton of credit afterwards so i don't know if that's just him talking him up still or maybe he's doing stuff that we're not seeing i don't know because i don't see it but it just comes down to this lebron possession by possession thing where he's going to be't know because I don't see it. But it just comes down to this LeBron possession by possession thing where he's going to be better than you.

I don't think it's that much more difficult than that. And it's funny. You go through their guys. Really, they have two guys you would completely trust, and that's it. When you talk about they don't have the third star, I don't even think they have the third guy that you know you're going to be able to count on in a game seven. Do you think they do?

I don't think they have the guy. Like Bradley was great today. In the last game, the Bucks game on Friday night, he was 0 for 5. Today he was 6 for 12 just from threes. But, you know, he's going to be feast or famine. Danny Green is an all-time feast or famine guy. I mean, he's one of this century. If you made the feast or famine 21st century all-star team, he's one of this century. I, if you made the feast or famine

21st century all-star team, he has to be on it. And I mean that as a compliment, because when he's good, he can still make shots. And when, when he can't make a shot, he can at least be in the right spots and play defense and not be afraid. But I think the Kuzma X factor with them is the subplot to watch as we head toward April, May, June. And I thought the first time he really impressed me was in that Boston game. Not to keep bringing up that one game, but Tatum was unstoppable and Kuzma came in and really played good defense. And I think if you talk to the Laker fans, who I think are a little bit irrationally

attached to Kuzma, the one thing I don't think they expected from him is what's been happening in the last month and a half or so, where he's just like, all right, I'm not going to get the ball that much. I'm playing 22 minutes a game. How can I affect the game? And he's affecting it with rebounding and defense. And he doesn't seem scared, which is the other thing. And we're going to hit a point in these playoff games where Vogel's going to have to just look around and be like, all right, who are my guys that weren't scared? Markeith Morris? Maybe. Dwight Howard played seven minutes. I don't think we see him. I don't think we see Rondo. The Caldwell Pope is another guy. I'm not sure we end up seeing. Today, they only played McGee and Howard 19 minutes combined, which was 100% purposeful, right? Because they know that to beat the Clippers, their biggest advantage is Davis at the five.

So if this is the only series they play Davis at the five in the playoffs, I think that's a smart move because I don't know how the Clippers counteract that. Then you flip to the Clippers side, look at all the guys who didn't show up for them in today's game. And you think like,

do you trust Shammett in a playoff series? You like him a little more than I do. I do not trust him. Beverly was a no-show today. You're going down the line and Davis James just as a combo is just going to be more reliable than anyone else in the league, including Kawhi and Paul George. So Kawhi could still be awesome, but man, I think the Lakers have this season by the ball so they can stay healthy. Is that a fair thing to say now? Because I feel like it is. Does it feel, there's still more to do on this Clippers side here, but off of that statement, does it feel a little disrespectful to Milwaukee to say that?

Because the Bucs fans are very touchy. Let's be honest, very touchy. Friday night was why we don't believe in the Bucs yet. Sorry, we just don't. Because that turned into a game seven and you could feel it. And it basically just felt like Giannis against AD and LeBron. Didn't you feel that way? Did you feel like,

who was his second guy in that final eight minutes that you felt fantastic about? Was there anybody on his team? Midd's another guy that i i can't tell if i'm like hey you need to be you need to be nicer to middleton and then when i feel like i'm being nice to him i'm like do you really trust him you know so i'm i don't want to be dismissive of him but i think it's totally fair to say like he's he's got a better handle. He's big. You know how well he shoots it. There's stretches I've seen him in without Giannis where this guy's killing it right now.

But we're never going to do it. It's like the Lowry stuff with the playoffs forever. I didn't care what Lowry's stats were in the regular season. You get all these horrible playoff performances, and Lowry had more bad ones than Middleton certainly has. But that game, I think, became really frustrating for the whole thing because that whole system is based on spreading it out with shooting and Giannis having more freedom. And once Davis got in foul trouble and Davis had a bad start to that game. And I do think that sometimes we get really excited about defensive matchups that aren't as big as they really were. Remember when LeBron switched on to Derrick Rose

in the Heat Bulls playoff series? Yeah. Rose couldn't shake him, and then all of a sudden, it was like LeBron totally shut him down. You're like, well, not really. He guarded him a couple possessions. It's kind of like the Steph Curry thing, like, oh, he couldn't even shake Kevin Love.

I know I made the mistake after reading, like, is that what he did? Then he's like, no, I took a bad three like i went for the three i went for the kill shot yeah and then it turned into a kevin love stayed in front of him you're like no i think actually steph could have gotten if he wanted to but he really was setting himself up to take a three but when you're defending yannis and you know lebron did a really good job of taking that on i was texting with somebody you know close to the lakers i was like is anything different here after today's game i was texting with somebody close to the Lakers. I was like, is anything different here after today's game? I was texting with somebody like, is there anything different that you're doing with LeBron? Because there's a matchup thing with them where they've done a really good job of protecting him.

And I'm not mad when he's defending somebody that's the least of a threat offensively on the opposing team. I expect that this all is part of the maintenance, but what he did against Giannis and then what they did as a team against Giannis, I think is always the thing that you think about when you watch all of these games against Milwaukee, where you go, how different will it be in the playoffs? And once you kind of cut off the Giannis, just driving through everybody at will, like the Lakers did. And it isn't just one guy. It's everybody paying attention to what he's doing. It makes them look weird. Uh, does. Now, they still might roll through the East, but that game, this whole weekend, you can't help but go into Monday going, man,

maybe you're right. I mean, by the balls feels aggressive, but I don't know. How do you go into Monday if you're at work talking with your buddies saying, you know, now the Lakers, you know, they're just hot right now. They've only really had two bad stretches. They lost four in a row. They had some weird stretches that was like a week and a half. And then, you know, obviously with Kobe's passing, you know, you could point to that after the fact.

They had a couple losses before that. But I just trust the AD LeBron thing. And even AD, like in the beginning, you're like, oh, is he a little soft? He ends up with 30 tonight. So, and really good defense too. Yeah. And he solves, he solves a lot of their problems. I, I hate to be a broken record about the free throws, but 26 between Davis and James

on Friday night and 22 today. And that's, that's the difference with them and all the other teams. Giannis can get to the line too, but he's by himself, right? He's in a big game that really starts to get that game five, game seven type of feel. He can get to the free throw line between 10 and 16 times, but Davis and LeBron can do that. And it's the great equalizer when everyone in your team all of a sudden can't make a three for a quarter. And I think you could feel it on that Friday night game.

Granted, one game. Granted, they're still on pace to win 68, 69 games. But that game was damaging because if they lay the smack down that night, now it's like, all right, shut up. We are the favorites. We don't want to hear it anymore. Didn't happen. And then Giannis gets hurt at the end on a really dopey play where he basically just lands.

Who was lying down? Caruso? Or I forget who was the Laker lying down, but ends up, it almost looked like he blew out his knee for a second. And then it seemed like he was fine because he's Giannis. And Giannis and LeBron, I think, are the two guys that could take the hardest falls possible. And you just assume they're going to get up and be fine. But now it turns out that he's not fine,

which, and it might be a little, you know, minor knee tweak, whatever, but it's not the kind of momentum you want heading into the playoffs. Now they're going to, in round one, they're going to play some team that they're going to be favored by 18 points a game against each round.

The Lakers are not going to have that luxury. The Lakers are at least going to be playing, you know, a frisky Grizzlies team that they'll sweep, but they are at least going to be playing a frisky Grizzlies team that they'll sweep, but they'll at least have to break a sweat. I don't think Milwaukee have to break a sweat in round one, but I just think LeBron's got to be so fired up because you think about it, the four Cleveland years, first year is right. That one off. Everyone's so happy. He's back. Guys get hurt, whatever. 16 and 17. Those Cavs teams were really good. 18 was LeBron as a one man show. Last year was a throwaway. Now he has the kind of team where not only is it a championship contender, but a lot of motivation.

And I think that's been, I wrote about this with LeBron a couple of years ago. The recurring theme of LeBron's career is there's always a carrot being waved in front of him. Every time he could be completely satiated, it's something else, right? He has, you know, he goes the 2000s. He had to get by the Pistons and then the Celtics. And then he never could make the finals. Now Kobe is supposedly the best player. Then he goes to Miami.

Everyone hates that. They're the villains. He's got to get through that. San Antonio beats him in 14. Now he's at Cleveland. Now it's like, I got to bring Cleveland a title. He finally does that. But now the Curry and the Warriors, KD's on Golden State. Now it's like, oh God, I got to bring Cleveland a title he finally does that but now the Curry and the Warriors KD's on on Golden State now it's like oh god I got to beat these guys and then

finally he goes to LA can't get it together Kawhi ends up on the Clippers everyone's saying Giannis is the best player it's like motivation over and over and over again and if you look at Jordan's career he just never had that he would would vanquish whoever the competitor was in a year and the guy would be done. It'd be like, Clyde Drexler, you're my, oh, I'm going to ruin your career. You'll never be the same after I'm done with you in 1992, which was kind of true. And over and over again, through Karl Malone, it was like, who's next? I'm rolling this guy over. LeBron, just over and over again, there a carrot you notice that is it there's been no career like this i also think in the age of today like as we sit here and i'll go through every star

right and i've always thought it was fascinating that the top six or seven guys in the league at one point have all had ad campaigns based on them going back at the haters right and it's it's unbelievable like ever i could tell you every guy like okay what are you talking about like all right you know like westbrook not eating sushi in okc you know he's like all right yeah like you're not supposed to do this oh i'll do this oh you shouldn't do this like every single guy like even curry hardens had it lebron's had it durant's had it kairi's all of these guys have had these ad campaigns built about being hated. And Jordan, we could sit here and go, okay, well, Harden, he was scoring 37 a game, but here are the things I don't like about him. Okay, fine. All right, Westbrook got a triple double. Okay, but now we dig into it. Maybe I don't really like him. And then hell, Curry goes

on this epic run. It's like, yeah, but he's kind of soft. And can he really do it in the playoffs? You're like, God, what the hell? He's like, you guys need him to get 40 every single night. And then Giannis, if they don't get out of the east it's gonna happen where it's gonna be like i thought this guy was supposed to be the best you can't even get out of the east um anthony davis who i love you know i i love i think i've been as pro anthony davis as like any national guy going and we thought like his his introduction to the major audience was that sweep of portland a years ago where you're like, wait a minute, maybe this guy's announcing right now I'm the best player in the world. And throughout all of it, LeBron at age 35 with all of those minutes feels like the safest bet. And I know how much we applaud him but like when people have a problem with him

i go like if you got a problem with that guy like who do you like and i'm gonna ask can i ask you this because as i was going through those minutes things and you've always done a really good job with this historically like hey this is kind of where you break down and then i started looking like guys at the end of their careers and they hit some of these minute plateaus, and they still play, but they're just not the same guy. Yeah. But for LeBron, 35 years old, he enters the league at 18. He's eighth in minutes. I think he'll get to seventh this year.

It's 48,000 regular season minutes, as we mentioned, 58,000 with the playoffs. Jordan, who entered the league at 21, he played 11 full seasons, so he had the injury in the second year and then he had the short season when he came back. So he had those 11 full seasons and then two extra ones when he came back to the Wizards

after the second break. But he was at age 34 in kind of the final real season. He was at only 35, 36,000 regular season minutes, 43,000 total minutes, including the playoffs at that point. LeBron is 15,000 minutes ahead of him at this pace. Well, I shouldn't say pace, but at this stage of his career, his entrance to how many he's played,

he's that many ahead of 15,000 minutes, Bill, and he looks this good. Well well I think the guy to compare him to would be Carl Malone because physically they're basically the same Malone was 6'9 270 and I think LeBron. And thank God I wrote my book and you can read all my Karl Malone opinions in there. He's weirdly the most overrated superstar. But now if you look at his statistical resume, he's weirdly underrated too. But I would say that's more of the comparison. I think what happens, and this happened to Kobe too, which I think is another guy we can throw in there.

These guys that take care of their bodies in a really, really special, unique, relentless kind of way can keep going way further than we would ever think. The problem is if there's an injury, then they can't get it back. And that's what happened to Karl Malone. That's what happened to Kobe. Kobe's 2012-13 season was as good offensively as really any of the other seasons he had played in the previous like three or four.

But then he tore his Achilles in the last game. And then he could just never get back after that because once you get hurt, then you can't do the everyday workout routine thing. So knock on wood with LeBron, but as long as he can avoid an injury that would disrupt whatever machine thing he has going, because obviously it's, wouldn't you agree? I mean, Ryan, not only are you a basketball player, you're a fitness aficionado. It's 365 days a year for LeBron. He's not like, I'm going to take a month off and get fat and go to Italy. Like that dude's waking up. That dude treats his body like it's a pristine

painting. And that's why he's able to get to 60,000 minutes is 70,000 minutes realistic. I don't know. Do you think that's realistic? It's not unrealistic. Well, I just, I just don't know what to do because, you know, nutrition and all this stuff, it's always getting better, right? It's always getting better. I think Duncan's one of the best examples ever of extending his career by changing his body type, right? Like he got thinner and thinner as he got older. Yeah. We had moments with Duncan that we probably thought he was like done.

What was it? The feet problems that he had, you Duncan that we probably thought he was done. What was it? The feet problems that he had? You know, in 2007, they won it. And after that, I think there was a stretch. You're like, okay, what are you really going to get out of this guy? Then they have those back-to-back years where they could have won both.

But I think they were motivated to win the second one because of the way they lost the first one. And you're like, you know, if you were being honest with yourself, like Duncan was doing stuff five years later than we thought he would. But I know everybody's different like I think anybody that really understands fit and I don't but I do

believe that everybody's body is different in the way you react to stuff and some guys it's like are you really better off just working out non-stop all the time on top of a grueling full NBA schedule and the finals runs that this guy's been on. Like I'd have to imagine at some point the body needs rest. And maybe for him, rest is just going overseas for two weeks and that's all he needs. But that's just, you know, some guys don't need to be in great shape.

Some guys, when they let themselves go a little bit, then they're never the same. Some guys work out too much and that's why they're hurt more often. I think there's, there's people talking about younger kids, you know, and throwing up all this weight and squat racks and stuff.

And then they show up to college campuses, and they're stiff as a board, and they can't even move their hips. So I just look at him like the Karl Malone one I think is good because he was really productive, and he was 40 in that last season with the Lakers in 03 and 04, and I was looking at it, and that's where it fell off. Because he got hurt. But his productivity was going to fall off.

Yeah, he got hurt, minutes, that whole thing. But he also, the entire time he was in Utah, ran to one place on the floor and waited for the best assist man in history to set him up every single time. and they're playing with pace and he's playing in a league where the possessions are the highest they've been really probably since the mid eighties. So, you know, when you talk about the durability though, some people just don't get hurt. It's just the way it goes, you know? Like absolutely. And it's, it's Carl Malone was like that too, until he finally got hurt when he was 40, but every year he played 82 games and some people can just do it. Like even my son, who I feel like should have 15 broken bones at this point, he finally broke a bone in his foot two weeks ago playing football because his foot got stuck. And we were like shocked he got hurt because there were 30 times when we thought he should have hurt something. And just some people

are just have a body type that just allows that. But I do think the amount of time and money that he spends on his body, and all the stuff, the dieting, he's been on that pretty early. So I think that's part of it. We're gonna take a quick break. I wanna keep talking about him. Hey, don't you wish you were at the post office right now?

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that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a digital scale without any long-term commitment, go to stamps.com. Click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in BS, stamps.com, NRBS. Okay, so here's the other crazy thing that happened with LeBron. I had Zach Lowe on my podcast, I think it was two Wednesdays ago. So we're talking now 11 days ago. And before we started recording, I said to Zach, like, you know, we're going to do this 25 best players. We're trying to win the playoffs right now. Gimmick.

And, uh, and I was like, if we, if we have time at the end, what do you want to talk about? Like MVP? He's like, he's like, no, that's done. That's that's a wrap. I'm like, you're right. It's a wrap. I looked at the ads.

I think, look. I think Giannis that day was probably like minus 700 to win the MVP. Now the narrative started to shift because the Bucks started coming back to earth a tiny bit. They had a chance to go like 72 and 10, 70 and 12, whatever. And with the season Giannis is having, not just offensively, but defensively too, The MVP was a wrap. Now the Lakers are two games behind the Bucs. I emailed House and Sally yesterday and I was like, LeBron's four to one,

they win the MVP. I think if they beat the Clippers tomorrow, I think he's going to win it. And they were like, you're right, because they had big Giannis bets. And now LeBron is plus 180. And you know how this goes. Ryan, you're a guy who's been in media for a long time. You know how this goes. People love narratives. You can feel where this is going. Giannis won last year. Nobody's going to feel bad if he doesn't win

again. LeBron's having a great season. He's peaking at the right time. He's only won four MVPs. And if you're looking historically, Kareem has six. FYI, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was fucking awesome. Go read that chapter in my book, people out there, if you want to understand Kareem. Kareem won six MVPs in 10 years in the seventies. So he's won six, Jordan won five, and then Russell won five. LeBron has four. It feels like this makes sense for him to win the fifth. Whether he deserves it or not, we can argue that when we get to the end of the season pods, but it's back in play. can you talk about your feelings about when narratives, when narratives take hold in the 24 seven sports media cycle, I am telling you what's going to happen this week. The LeBron should win the MVP followed by the next guy on the show going, well, he should win the MVP every year.

He should have 15 MVPs, Ryan. And it's just, I know what's going to happen this week. Can't you feel it? Yeah, it's already happening. Okay. It's absolutely already happening.

So I've always said the MVP becomes more about story in that year than it does. Just like, who do you think is having the better season? And I know that when Nash won it, it was like, okay, well, this whole thing's new and this is really exciting. And then he did even better. So it felt like he had to give it to him again Steph changes the way the game is played and so it's like okay he's he's gonna win it and then it's like oh he's even better and the team's even better we got to give it to him again and with LeBron like I also think there's times where you're like okay that guy's done like I think Harden even being in the race like their playoff exits that he's had where i go he'll never win another mvp because of what

everybody's going to see right now and yet the fact that he's even like flirting with it especially when he started the year at like 38 37 points a game the first couple months i'm like is he actually going to win one because i didn't think anybody would ever vote for him again after being anti him after the playoffs i didn't think steph would ever win another one i still don't think steph will ever win another one but as as Giannis has been this clear favorite, except for that very beginning, I would say the first six weeks with Harden, Giannis' numbers have been incredible.

The team's record is going to be incredible on this record pace. I mean, they're not going to get to 73, 74 wins now. We know that. But I, a week ago, tweeted like, hey, does it feel like LeBron's being talked enough about with the MVP and I don't know that I ever love that because I think it's always silly it's like hey can you talk a little bit more about this guy you'd be like what I mean the guy who's going to be fourth

yeah great he's had a good year he's going to be fourth you know like what topic has ever been presented where you're like you know what I love is that the Indiana Pacers are talked about the perfect amount you know that statement is never said about anything but like when mike wilbon tweets out i'm voting for lebron and whether it's the lebron head-to-head thing with yannis which probably gets too much um of an emphasis put on it for an mvp race because that doesn't seem fair to yannis but then him to do this now and then back to the whole point which i'll transition to you here is the voting and how the voting becomes a story. And then all of a sudden, a bunch of guys start looking around and the talk shows are saying it should be LeBron. And then people are like, you know, it'd be nice. Is LeBron getting one more?

Giannis is going to be around forever. He's going to win a couple more. Giannis will be fine. He won one last year. What LeBron's doing, the one seed, they just beat him head to head on a marquee matchup that everybody was watching. Let's give LeBron one more. And I do think voters, it's a lot like politics, where I think people become followers more so than leaders when it comes to those kinds of votes. And this stuff can happen really quick because that now becomes the better story that LeBron in this 35-year-old season,

the one seed where I didn't think, look, I thought the Lakers were going to be good. I didn't think they were going to go the Lakers were going to be good. I didn't think they were going to go after the regular season the way they had. And I could see this happening now. Like, I really, I still think it's a little dismissive to Giannis and what this team has been able to accomplish to just say today, hey, I'd vote LeBron. But you have a vote. So where are you right now?

Here's my answer. And I would like to say this to all the people out there who are telling, uh, America who they're voting for already. Fuck off. It's too early. It's game 64. Fuck off. You can't say who you're voting for because the story has not been written yet. Here's what's happened over the last two weeks. Giannis had the MVP. It was over. LeBron has climbed back into the race. That's all we know. We now have 18 more games to figure out who should be the MVP. I would say right now, I would give Giannis a slight edge, but I think it's slight. And I think if Milwaukee ends up 68 and 14 or 67 and 15 or whatever, and the Lakers are 65 and 17 and win-loss record is now removed from the equation. And now we're just talking about all the stuff

that goes into place with MVP, which as I've probably written more dumb words about the MVP than anybody. I have a whole system. I had a whole chapter in my book. I probably care about it the most. I'm not, I'm, I'm ashamed. I wish I cared about it less. But if you start with the premise of when I look back at this season someday, who I remember first, I think if the season ended today after 64 games, you might say LeBron. It's not the wrong answer. And if you also had the question, if I could pick one player from this season, if the aliens dropped to earth and I needed somebody to trust

because the aliens are going to try to beat us in basketball, probably picking LeBron or Kawhi, right? So you go through all these things and it's an MVP campaign season. It is. And the nerds are going to get involved is what's going to happen next

because all of the metrics with Giannis are out of control. Per 36, the defensive numbers are way better than pretty much anybody in the league, actually. And then what he does offensively,

the fact that they don't have a second all-star, the LeBron detractors will point to Anthony Davis. It's going to go. My advice to everybody, let it play out. Let's enjoy the next four weeks. We can argue about it,

but nobody should decide until that final week. I think it's crazy to, I hate when people do this. I hate when the best of the year comes out on like November 20th. You know, when they do that, like magazines, it'd be like, I'm remembering 2020. And it's like, it's November 20th. There's a month left. How are we doing awards? We haven't even hit Thanksgiving.

So I would say it's a two man race. I think the odds are pretty fair. Giannis is like minus 200. LeBron's in that plus 170, 180 range. And I think if the Lakers continue to lay the smack down and LeBron continues to go 28-8-8 with eight free throws a game and he's going to lead the league in assist and carry this team that's really a two-man team with a bunch of weird role players, I think he deserves to be in it. So that's my answer. Is that a fair answer? Yeah, it's a fair answer answer but that's not how it works you know nobody i know we would have you on a tv show going hey we're gonna have bill on to tell us to not say who your mvp is in the a block um you know i would that's what i would do i did it on countdown yeah i remember we did an mvp thing on countdown once i was like it's too early i'm not saying who

my mvp is i need to see more basketball but i think it's i think this race i don't remember another time when the race was dead and then became alive really it was yannis hard in there for about two months and then it just seemed like yannis was going to win for another what 10 weeks there and now yeah it fell over and yeah we do do that we do that a lot we make that mistake by the way one time i was on sports center we were doing a lebron mj debate which was just killer and um i i decided i'd always thought it was hilarious what was the game show you'll remember this where you could pass you could just say um i forget what it was it was

like you had to guess a word and if the clue was just you weren't feeling it and it wasn't like rapid fire but it was like and you could just go like the game contest could go pass oh like card sharks or match game one of those jokers wild yeah i don't i don't think it was card sharks although i love that show but it came around to me you know everybody like legs had said his his piece and another nba guy had said his thing they're like ryan i went and i just looked at the gandhi and i went pass and uh nobody got it nobody really loved it i was really proud of myself for for doing that but it's not it's not great television um let's nerd out for a second because I did

do all the numbers between Giannis and LeBron just to do those for everybody. And I know there's even more than I looked at. But win shares, Harden's actually still first there. But if you want to start talking attempts and every time it's a per 30, I don't think anybody does the

per 48 because it just doesn't really make any sense. But when Giannis plays as many minutes as he does, he's low minutes, 30-31 compared to everybody else. But he's second in win shares, and he's almost even with LeBron, who's third. And by the way, the first three guys are almost double the fourth-place guy in win shares, and that's Jokic. So that's just kind of putting into perspective how far away those three guys are to the rest of the league. Real plus minus, that's close, but Giannis is almost a full point ahead of LeBron. So they're first and second. Defensive plus minus, Giannis isups than LeBron has, where LeBron's been better as a guy that's kind of... He plays a lesser opponent, but it also helps him freelance a little bit more.

But I also think he has Anthony Davis with him, which changes a lot of things, because Davis is just insane. The offensive plus-minus, it's second and third again in the league. The edge Giannis. The PER is a pretty big gap. Giannis is first.

LeBron's seventh. The defensive box scores. This is where Giannis actually doubles PER is a pretty big gap. Giannis is first, LeBron seventh. The defensive box scores, this is where Giannis actually doubles up on LeBron and it's pretty impressive. And then win shares is like 10 and a half to nine. So LeBron's right there, but Giannis is ahead of them in every single one of them. So we talked about narratives. This is in the giant MVP column I wrote about my book and I did the all-time MVP travesties and counted them down. And you know what the number one travesty of all time was. It was Karl Malone winning the 1997 MVP. And here's what happened. This is what I wrote. And it was the second Bulls season after Jordan came back. So they won 73. He wins the unanimous MVP or almost close to unanimous,

whatever it was. They win the title. The next year was a really good Bulls team, 69 and 13. And everyone's just bored with the season. I know. And so here's what I wrote. See if this sounds familiar. By mid-March, once everyone realized the Bulls couldn't win 73 games, we were just plain bored and waiting the playoffs. Then SI's Jackie McMullen wrote the following piece for March 19th column on Sports Illustrated. Headline, the Jazzmaster. Subhead, Malone is playing like an MVP. Not that anyone has noticed. You get the idea. You can't blame Jackie for looking for a cute angle. She spent about 800

words talking about how underappreciated Malone was over the years. That got the ball rolling. Within a couple of weeks, this became the cute story du jour. Why couldn't the mailman win the MVP? I hadn't even started my own website yet, but I remember thinking, why couldn't he win the MVP? Because MJ's in the league. How about that reason? So he ended up winning.

He won the MVP and it was honestly the dumb, stupid narrative thing. And so we've seen that. There's been years where I think Kobe in 2008, I think that was a classic narrative MVP. There were, he should have won in 2006. 2008 was, I thought Kevin Gardner, Chris Paul should have won. But right around mid-March, the narrative starts.

And I think you and I both see where this is heading. This is, this is the this is heading. This is, this is the LeBron. This is like Al Pacino, son of a woman type of when he went for the Oscar for that year, you know, where it's like, it's not just about this season. It's about, you know what? LeBron doesn't have enough MVPs. This is even between these two guys. Giannis won last year. LeBron's having an awesome season. Let's give this to him. We're going to give him his fifth MVP. He deserves it.

If it plays out that way and they're relatively even, I'm not against it. Are you? If it plays out that way, I'm actually not against it. I'm not down though with I don't like the revisionist history though of like, oh, that guy was the best. LeBron should have just won it 10 years in a row. That's not fair. Even with the MJ history, though, of like, oh, that guy was the best. LeBron should have just won it 10 years in a row. No.

You're like, okay, that's not fair. And even with the MJ stuff, like, look, I'm a huge Barkley fan. Everybody knows that. I don't think Barkley winning it in that first year in Phoenix was bad. No. He was incredible. He was. He was incredible that year, and he changed the entire franchise.

And, you know, of all the Jordan finals, like, that's the one I play back my head, probably more than any of them where I go, that should have been the one they lost. Yeah. And they didn't, you know, I look at it. He did what he did to everybody. Just like you mentioned before Drexler,

magic Barkley, and then Malone, um, a couple of times there. And then Gary Payton, even although Sean Kemp doesn't feel like he should necessarily be in that conversation of, of denying one of the games.

Great. It's as much fun as he was to watch, but you know, maybe it's, it's that stupid thing we do in college football all the time. You know, it's week five and you're like, there's 700 feet of teams.

What the hell is the committee going to do? You're like, some teams are probably going to lose. They're playing each other. Yeah. Some teams are probably going to lose. And then, you know,

if you were to say in December, like maybe this is the perfect counterbalance, at least for this year where it's, Oh, it's Giannis. And if you've been suggested anybody else, like people thought I was sarcastic with my tweet a week ago where I go, you know, I feel like LeBron's being a little overlooked in this MVP thing. And people were like, obviously you're kidding. We're still on. I'm like, I know I do the sarcasm thing, but when you're actually trying to be sincere about it, nobody even believes you. And then it brings out everybody who's already lined up with their camps on where they feel about LeBron.

But maybe the pivot here is valid where, yes, the narrative thing is going to take off. This week is going to be flooded with opinion people going, my vote's for LeBron. But I don't know. Again, I'd have to go over and look at who was voting because most of the people on the TV shows don't have to vote anyway. But it starts to almost like a campaign it starts to influence everybody but maybe that's a good thing in this case because lebron shouldn't have been written off as quickly as he was but again when the bucks i remember at one point when they had three losses and i look back and i go this team could actually be undefeated right now right and and you know it's nobody's going to want to hear it like nobody's going to want to hear it like nobody's going to

want to hear your lebron mvp segment but you're right like that's why it's 82 games man and that's if he were to win as of right now i wouldn't be against it but again i think when you look at all those stats i just ran through like if we're a week removed from what the lakers just did this weekend what if they have a bad loss and i don't think it should be every single night this stuff i don't think it should be head-to-head in in the NBA over the course of a season but I can we both know where this is going we both absolutely know where this is going and if they keep playing this way and LeBron has another head-to-head and they have a April what is it April 7th matchup so I don't know who will even be playing in that Lakers Clippers game who knows there's two things to remember as you hear all

these people talking about it this week. First of all, do you know how many MVPs LeBron should have at this point? He has four. How many do you think he should have? I'll give you the answer. Four. I was there the whole time. I had my calm his entire career. I had a vote for most of that time. He's won the right amount of MVPs. There's no revisionist history where he should add seven. He should add eight. He should have four. It's the right number. The only case you could potentially make. Derrick Rose? The Derrick Rose year.

But go back and read. I was writing about the league back then. Zach Lowe was writing about the league. Nobody was making the, you know, it was the MVP LeBron. And we can go backwards and look at the stats and stuff. But it just was not in the ether back then. Other than that, you know, if he ends up with the fifth one here, great. That's awesome. So that's one thing to remember. He should actually have four MVPs. That's the right number.

It doesn't take away from the fact that he's the second best player of all time. And then the second thing is for anyone to say with 18 games left that they voted on the MVP is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life where we, we have a full quarter of the season left and a lot of things in play. We just saw how things swung over the last 10 days. You know, Giannis could come back and put up 40 a night for three straight weeks and just take the MVP back. So, uh, I would say settle down, but let's play it out and we can do the whole LeBron thing. All the usual suspects will be buttering it up and pouring it on and we know who they are. We're going to take another break. A lot of other stuff to talk about.

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solving for? Visit g.co slash cloud slash solving. Once again, that is g.co slash cloud slash solving. All right, we have some other hardcore basketball stuff to talk about. One shocking thing that happened over the weekend was Kenny Great Hire Atkinson got fired by the Brooklyn Nets. Probably the media's most popular coach. I'm actually upset that I don't have a better relationship with Kenny Atkinson because everyone else does. But people reacted like, I don't know, like a child was trapped in a well, they were just shocked and horrified. And, um, they won 42 games last year.

Didn't really seem like they had a great feel to them this year. And, um, I can't say I was shocked. I was shocked at the timing to do it with 20 games left, but I don't think anybody watched the Kyrie part of the net season this year and thought, oh, this will work out great with him and Kenny Atkinson. Did you feel that way when you watched Kyrie this year? You're like, man, he's finally found a coach who understands him. I did not feel that way.

So I was shocked, but not shocked. What was your reaction? Well, first of all, the NBA media likesny atkinson more than the mainstream media likes that climate change teenager um and i would agree that i would agree that like when i saw some of our really close friends rave about his hire and then freak out when he got fired i i like you was like should I have just called him more? Could I? That shit's head of a Christmas camp.

Could I have been like, well, my net sources are telling me. Like, I could have been more of a Nets guy. Yeah, you blew it. I didn't realize. So I'll tell you this. Like, I had all sorts of thoughts on this. So, yeah, it was a surprise.

They're competitive. Let me just get to my main one because it's the one that probably drove me the most crazy about this whole thing. That when Kyrie and Katie went there, this idea that it was that the Nets had built this culture

that these two stars were in such favor of. It's like, okay, we like the way the Nets do things. Bullshit. And actually, i don't blame kairi for saying all the right things hey i like the culture i like the staff i like the way they do things i really like kenny atkinson i was reading durant's quotes this weekend after it happened where he was like i went on youtube and started looking at clips that they were doing and i was like looking at these different clips and stuff they run and i was like man this is the guy for me and i don't blame those guys for saying that okay i blame people

for believing it right and it's really simple kairi and katie are close kairi was never staying in boston okay he's never staying and i don't believe he even thought he was staying when he was like if you guys will have me that was his way of getting everybody off of him. Katie, we both know had probably made up his mind very early on. And the Warriors sort of knew just the whole time there was this last minute hope. And there was even hope when he got hurt, like, Hey, we'll give you that fifth year if you want to stay here. And he wasn't. And so those two guys get together, like, where do you want to go? They weren't going to go to Chicago. Um, and I don't mean that as like anti-Chicago.

And there's all these different cap situations. Who had cap room? Who didn't? And it was basically like, what place can we go do our thing that's in a big market? And, you know, we don't want to go to the Knicks because of Dolan. So we're just going to go to Brooklyn. That's it. That's all it was.

And it's okay that that's all it was. And I don't even care that they were trying to tell us it was anything other than that. Like, I know how the game is played, but for other people to buy it and act like, yep, the Nets way is the way. And it's pretty simple. If those guys like Atkinson, he would still be the coach. Now, I don't know what Durant had to do with it. I guess Durant hasn't even talked to the Nets media since September. Is that right?

That's what I'd read. And Kyrie, like, I'm not even going to turn this into an anti-Kyrie thing. Oh, please do. the nets media since september is that right that's what i'd read um and and kairi like i'm not even going to turn this into an anti-kairi thing oh please i just wonder no i'll let you do that um i i don't i sent a few texts though i was like how are you what are you hearing on this and the one constant thing that was similar because there were a lot of confused people about it where um it's joseph sai right yeah the new owner yeah right he went and talked to players and i have this theory i've written about it but it hasn't been published yet um the new owner syndrome that's my theory like 20 years you thief you thief did you oh i think it was newer owner syndrome is what my title was

no are you serious when did you come up with that a while ago it's fine it's fine oh I didn't I didn't know that uh I don't read everything you do man that's fine uh it's fine we'll get we'll get through this okay well look we're on the same page then so the point is is like if you're a new owner and it's like hey you know what I'm gonna do go down to the locker page then so the point is is like if you're a new owner and it's like hey you know what i'm gonna do go down to the locker room and ask the kids how they feel about their coach like none none of no one likes anybody anymore so i don't know if atkinson was like hey these guys tune me out i'm ready to move on somewhere else because i've heard that theory too that it was mutual and that he wanted to do this so he get a jump on the next thing that's how they sold

it doesn't make any sense because here's what coaches like to do they like to coach coaches nobody likes getting fired and even though they were going to beat anybody in the playoffs i'm sure he wanted to keep the job but i don't know how much of this i know that the real popular thing is that kairi was pulling all the strings behind the whole thing i don't know i mean dinwiddie didn't get back into that game when they came back against the celtics which i thought was really interesting like dinwiddie never got back into that game because caris LeVert goes for 50. So I'll give you the floor here because I don't have it definitive enough

to blame like one player, but it sounds like the players in general just didn't like him and the owner went with the players. Well, there was definitely the DeAndre Jordan slash Jared Allen thing was definitely weird because if you asked 100 people who watch basketball, who's better, Jared Allen or

DeAndre Jordan, and who would you, who should you play in a season where you have no chance of winning the title? Is there anybody who would pick DeAndre Jordan? Is there one person who would be like, no, actually you should probably play Jared Allen, the young guy who keeps getting better. I already had some good moments. Yeah. Well, he's, he's boys with Kyrie and KD. I think that was trouble. And then the other thing was he had that motion offense. Everybody gets involved and everybody was super happy playing for him last year. And when Kyrie was out there this year, it was like, hey guys, clear out. I got this. And I don't think that was Kenny Atkins' offense. You made the key point with the owner.

We've seen this. I think, I'm trying to remember the first time this was on my radar, but I think it was when Wick bought the Celtics. And they did, remember he like retired Cedric Maxwell's number, and then they did that Rafe LaFrance trade. And it's just like when new owners come in,

they just kind of want to do stuff. You know, even Toman Fertitta, it was Westbrook trade didn't have to do the Westbrook trade, but he just kind of wants to get a, get on the board. It's almost like they're at a casino and they're sitting down at a blackjack table and the cards aren't there. And they just started upping their bets. Just like, Oh man, I get turned this around. All of a sudden they're in a hole.

But, uh, I, we see this all the time. And I'm with you. I think the owner, I think he's super tight with Durant and KD just from these guys were investments to him. And probably just wants to find a coach that they bless. And obviously they didn't bless Kenny Atkinson. Everyone who tweeted this weekend or wrote that

if those two guys wanted him to stay, he would have stayed, that's how the league works, unfortunately. There's no conspiracy theory in that. If those two guys liked him, he would still be there. Do you agree with that? Of course.

Because why would they do that? Why would they bring in these two guys and then, you know, there's no way. I mean, of all the scenarios you want to believe or don't want to believe there's no way that like kairi and katie are texting sean marks going what the hell dude right whoa what what about a heads up yeah there's that way so there's there's no way that that happened. You did say something in there, though, that I thought was because I'm trying to actually pull it up right now. And I don't know if you're going to be interested in this.

Pull it up. I had one more point. Okay, go ahead. I will say this. It seems like the other teams really respected how the Nets kind of did their stuff. There was surprise more in the coach kind of executive community about this one. I do think he's respected. And sometimes that's a little off because we've seen that in other cases, like Fizdale on Memphis, when that thing fell through,

it was the same kind of thing. So I never know what's real and not real, but I do know that when the Celtics played them and I always felt like the Nets were really well-prepared, really smart. They were a little Brad Stevens-y and I don't know, I respected him as a coach. And I think everybody's been talking about how there's going to be 10, 12 jobs potentially open this summer. I would say he's at the top of the line. And when people were saying,

oh, they're saying it was mutual. Come on, there's never a mutual thing. I actually think this might've been mutual because I think he saw the writing on the wall. The sooner you get out, the sooner you're at the front of the line for all these other coaching jobs. And there's going to be some really good ones. I think he makes sense with the Knicks, ironically. I actually really think I could, I think that's a great PR move for the Knicks too. It's not like they're going to find a better coach than him. So why can't he be the Knicks coach? He gets to stay in New York. His whole family's there and they could be, you know,

that would be one way of them getting one up on the Nets, especially if he does a good job. Thoughts on that one? No? I think it would be, no, no, no, no. Look, I'm not, I'm not disputing at all. I don't think, I don't see Dolan doing that. I really think and again, it feels like it's going to be a Leon Rose thing, so I don't know what the relationship is there. I'm not saying that actually, I don't know off the top of my head. Would the

Knicks feel like, oh, we're getting the Nets guy that was fired, even though he might be the right guy? I just don't think that the Knicks would do that. It feels like... Can we all agree that since the KD Kyrie signings, it hasn't gone

well for the Nets? Just leave it at that. We're talking six, seven, eight. It's been a rough eight months for the Nets. Really feeling good last April and May. They'd really turned things around. Good times. Spilled in a little something. Had some cap space, and now it's like, yikes.

And if KD doesn't come back 100%, it gets even a little dicier. What were you looking up? I was looking up the new owner stuff, but I did think it was important to just mention with Atkinson that I never know what's fair or who is actually responsible for the development because sometimes it's the player and the coach stinks and the player gets better

and then everybody says the coach was awesome at developing them. That mistake has been made. And then there's other times where the player absolutely develops because of the coaching staff. There's so many guys in San Antonio that's happened with,

I think, Brad Stevens. When you look at who these young players have turned into, like he has to get credit for that. And when you look at D'Angelo Russell, who was just a mess of a player, and even though I don't really love him, he turned into a really good player for them. And obviously not good enough to get in the way of them bringing in Kyrie and KD. So that's not going to matter.

So it don't matter. They moved on from him. And Dinwiddie is like a movie that I was told was going to be bad. So I've always kind of liked Dinwiddie. But there's parts of his game that I don't always love. It's almost like DeAngelo Russell-like at times. But Atkinson benched DeAngelo Russell last year in a Houston Rockets comeback where it was actually led by Dinwiddie. And then he benches, as I mentioned before, Dinwiddie in that Celtics

comeback. And I wonder if that actually is why guys don't bench their best players, even if the play on the court tells you to keep them on the bench. You know how many games we watch where you'll see the comeback happen with the other group because it's matchups or they're more inspired or your starter just doesn't really have it. But you just put your guy back in. And maybe that's why you put your guy back in so you don't get fired. And I really think it's a bigger topic on what does today's player want in a coach? Because I really think what he wants more than anything. I don't think guys want hard coaching. I don't think guys want to be benched when they don't deserve to be in the game. I think guys want things to be easy.

And I think the biggest thing is personality. And how are you going to impact my lifestyle? And unfortunately, that's what I think that job is now. And it's really, really hard to be somebody who's newer because Atkinson is newer. Like Pop can get away with anything. Doc can get away with anything. Brad, I think, is lucky that he's had really good guys that buy in like horford um and gordon really wouldn't have much of a you know like what's

he going to yell at marcus stevens who recruited him yeah marcus smart kemba is the anti-kyrie he's buying in jalen and jason are young enough on that team that they're probably going to buy in a little bit more as younger guys but you start feeling yourself a little bit in this league and i just i don't think most of these guys really want that coaching like why i i don't know kairi has that relationship with tyloo so we've already heard that name there but this first year though were you saying hey has this first year been a disaster it was kind of supposed to be a disaster. So to me, this grade is still incomplete. Like as bad as the Nets could go in the playoffs, because it's not going to go great,

and as bad as this is, this whole thing, like this was never about this year. It's only about what they are in probably the two following years. Again, it's a four-year contract, so we'll see. I'll be interested to see if Ty Lue wants to coach Kyrie again. We should mention Kenny Atkinson, represented by CAA, where Leon Rose ran the basketball division.

So, yeah. That was good. I'm glad you put that because as I was thinking of it out loud, I'm like, if Atkinson's a CAA guy, then there's your Leon Rose connection. Do you want me to go over a few amazing new owner highlights in my manifesto that I wrote up? I can't wait. Okay.

Prokhorov, 2010 Nets, promised a championship in five years. They had free agency, cap space. They signed Travis Outlaw, Johan Petro, and Jordan Farmar with their cap space. Great picture of that. Great picture of them on signing day, holding the Nets jerseys up. One of my favorite dumb NBA pictures. All of them holding the Nets jerseys up. One of my favorite dumb NBA pictures. All of them holding their Nets jerseys. They traded the pick that was Damian Lillard to take on a 30-year-old

Gerald Wallace and his $30 million remaining. Yeah, just for the record, that trade was a true apocalypse immediately when it happened. I have a column somewhere going completely crazy about it. Cause they only did a top three protected thing. And then remember Billy King had the classic quote. Uh, we only like four players or five.

We only like three players. No, I thought it was, we only like three players in the draft. That's why they top three protected it. But meanwhile, they made the trade in February. Yeah.

Great one. Good job. Meanwhile, Portland would have done it for probably a lottery-protected pick. That was tough. Keep going. Cuban bought the team in 2000. And the first draft,

they drafted guys that never played there. And I'm not going to board everybody to death because I have it all outlined in the whole thing. So after he drafted these guys, he couldn't get them out of there quick enough. And in February 2001, so he's owned the team a year, so he's still in that new owner syndrome window, he traded for Juwan Howard's $39 million remaining on his contract. But it actually got better because then a year later at the deadline, he traded the Juwan Howard money for Rafe LaFrance and then doubled down on Rafe and gave him a seven-year, $70 million deal. I will never, ever forget,

because this is me before I'm even working in sports. I'm bartending. I'm driving around Burlington, Vermont in my beat-up pickup truck. I would listen to Dan Patrick's show religiously and Kornheiser. Little did I know the seeds were being planted. And Cuban came on and I'm just a person because he was so good in defending it and explaining how great it was that I was like, oh yeah, okay, now I get it. And it was just, it was so impressive by Cuban. And then the irony of that, as you mentioned, Wick and his ownership group take over in 2003. And it's honestly like one of the only things they've done wrong, but it's that thing that you're talking about. You finally own a team. I want to do something. And then they ironically traded for Rafe's banged up knee and the money remaining

on the Cuban deal that he had just given him. So it was almost like this thing where it's like, oh, wow, I just screwed up. Who just bought a team? Oh, I i'm gonna give these guys our banged up guy joe lake up in 2010 he bought the warriors in 2011 they did a sign and trade because they wanted to make a splash and gave david lee six years 80 million i have millions more of these well there's nothing more predictable wait wait you can't leave out vivek vivek was a classic new owner syndrome guy he came in and he was like look i don't know if you guys know this, but my daughter's eight-year-old girls basketball team, I put in a press, we won every game.

I'm ready to own an NBA team now. And they started doing stuff like from the moment he took over, remember? They were doing all kinds of things. That was when they did that crazy trade where they traded a future pick to Philly. Remember? So they could take some contracts so they could sign Rajon Rondo. Remember that? That was a classic.

I have it all here. Yeah. I have it all here. He bought it March 2013. His first deal, they did a deal because they didn't want to pay Tyreek Evans. And I have my notes. I'm like, okay, you don't want to pay Tyreek. That's fine. But they moved out

Tyreek Evans and Robin Lopez and ended up with Gravis Vasquez and Jeff Withey and two second rounders. Nice. And then the Rudy Gay deal, because remember when Vivek did this, he's like, look, I'm bloated. You know what I do? I find value where there is no value,

and nobody wants Rudy Gay because he's expensive and makes your team worse. I'm in. And he traded for him. And then he's like, three years later, I'll be trading for Harrison Barnes too. Don't count me out.

They had Rudy Gay. This is 13, 14 money remember okay yeah rudy gay was making 18 and was due 19.3 the following year and then he blew out his achilles and they gave him a 40 million dollar extension it's so there's a million examples doing the can i give you the psychology right these guys i already know what it is but go ahead these guys have just been in charge of There's a million examples. Can I give you the psychology? I already know what it is, but go ahead. These guys have just been in charge of shit and made a lot of money. And they're used to getting what they want. And they assume, I'm going to take over this basketball team.

And I'm just going to do it the way I've done everything else. I'm a huge success. It's not going to be any different. I'm going to be me. And I'm just going to win I'm going to be me and I'm just going to win. Like I have one everywhere else. And they go in and they try to immediately do a lot of stuff, which never works. They end up trusting either too few people or having too many people. Balmer's a good example, right? Balmer, who I had on my podcast, I think two years ago, and he talked about this. He was like, I came in,

I gave Doc Rivers way too much power. I made him my coach and my GM. Now, as I've been in the league a couple of years, I realized those are two different jobs. And it's like, yeah, yeah, those are two different jobs. Nobody's ever pulled those two jobs off successfully at the same time without help. We'll see. I feel like Joe Sy has more stuff in him. I think there's more coming. I think this is a tip of the iceberg for him.

We were talking about after the pull-down scene in Vision Quest that Matthew Modine apparently is still upset about because he can't stop tweeting about it. We were saying you wanted to be the sports continuity guy, sports advisor on movies. It's a role that I've always hoped to have. Like you see a movie, a baseball movie, and the guy runs from second base to first on the camera angle. And you're like, he probably could have done that better. Um, and I think, I think there's another business where

the next new guy that buys a team, you and I fly in, suits, no tie. Maybe one of us has a briefcase. And we sit down and we go, hey, you just bought the fill-in-the-blank team. And we have these big grins on our face. We're like, look, we know you're excited. You know you just think we're two idiots on a podcast. One's a little bit more successful than the other. we know what you're going to feel billy you're going to want to do this like neil o'shea is going to call you congratulate you on buying a team and then he's going to try

to trade you carmelo anthony for a first rounder and you're going to want to do it and what what we're telling you to do is don't do anything. The first two years, don't do anything. Cause you're right now you're, you're unbelievably stupid. You think you're smart because you have been, but these first 24 months on the job with your courtside seats, you're an idiot and everybody is going to prey on you and try to dump their garbage on you. And you're going to want to do it because it's a little different than trading for Patrick Mahomes in fantasy, isn't it? It's fun. Yeah. If you went to a strip joint, new owner guy, wearing a suit that's just all $100 bills that could be plucked off, and you go sit down in a booth and strippers start coming at you and

offering lap dances and flirting with you, all this stuff. Guess what? It's not because you, it's because you're wearing that suit with a hundred dollar bills. And same thing with you take over a team. You're just like fresh meat. You're the dude in Shawshank. When the fresh meat comes in in the beginning and they're betting on who's going to fold first, you're fresh meat. Daryl's like, oh my God, a new owner I can make a trade with and basically pillage him. So here's what would be my advice. I don't even think we need the briefcase in the meeting. Next guy who buys the team. I'm not sure who that's going to be. We'll free of services, me, Rossello, and House. We'll just be on a text thread, just the four of us. Just float some of your ideas. And if all three of us make fun of

the idea, don't do it. Right. It's that simple. Yeah. Look, we, we make mistakes, but all I'm telling you is you're going to make really stupid ones because all anyone's ever done. I think Wick and his ownership group, I really think they're as good as it gets. I really do. Think how smart they've been. They hired Ainge, what, in 03? And people were like, that guy, he only coached, he didn't do it. And maybe there was a little love because he was part of the 86 team. But Ainge, and I know it's just weird. People liked hating on Ainge. And it's not like I even talked to the guy, so I don't have some sort of bias here where I'm talking him up. But like Ainge wins trades and he doesn't do the stupid thing. He doesn't do the terrible signing that doesn't make any sense. You can make fun of the Gordon Hayward one, but he just hasn't been healthy.

And every other team would have been in line to give Gordon Hayward that contract when he was a free agent. But my point is like, they're really good at what they do. And that first year, they made a mistake.

Like Ainge is, you could argue the worst trade they ever made was like that first one with Rafe because you were taking on Rafe and then they had a really bad flip rave in a first rounder to take on theo ratliff just to have somebody else take on the extra year of rave's contract so they had that costume you know that that brandon roy pick so so um so somebody buys the how good you are right somebody buys the next let's say don tomorrow says fuck this i'm out

sells the next to happy new owner guy the me you and house starting to text right with them mid-juni texas hey sam presti says i could have chris paul what do you guys think what do we say well i would say yes i love chris paul i did i kind of do too maybe that's a bad example scratch that one no I have one for you okay give me a better one who I have the best one ever I just thought of it alright what's the guy's name what's the new owner's name

Billy Schmuckman Billy Schmuckman hey Mr. Schmuckman it's Daryl Morey of the Houston Rockets congratulations on purchasing the team Schmuckman. Hey, Mr. Schmuckman. It's Daryl Morey with the Houston Rockets. Congratulations on purchasing the team. I don't know if you've read some of the analytic pieces.

You just had the conference at Sloan. Wide is in now. Wide hips are in. And Eric Gordon's wider than RJ Barrett. And I think that would make sense for you guys.

So if you could do a, a non-protected first and RJ Barrett, cause he's younger and Eric Gordon has more experience and is wider. I'd like to offer that trade, but I'm still not a hundred percent sure if I want to do it. So I'll call you back in five minutes. And I'll throw in Jeff green. Do you like the wider thing? I like the wider thing.

That was good. I thought you were going Westbrook. Hey, Russell Westbrook, he made the all NBA team again. You know, his contract, if you look at production, it's pretty fair. You've got a lot of cap space. You need a star in New York. By the way, I have to follow up there. I'm not going to comment anymore on any Westbrook trade rumors. So I'm staying on that one. Okay. Aggregators beware. We're taking a break. We'll be right back. Hey, it's allergy season. You know what that means? Sneezing, watery eyes, runny nose, head to the pharmacy in search of relief. Well, research shows 80% of allergy sufferers fail to select the best medication off the shelf to treat their symptoms. And on the flip side, you could even spend up to forever in a specialist waiting room, trying to get an appointment, get a prescription, whatever. I've had allergies my

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or want to talk about adjusting your treatment plan with Roman, no commitments, cancel anytime. Stop wandering aimlessly through the allergy treatment out at the pharmacy. Go to getroman.com slash bill for a free online visit. Once again, getroman.com slash bill. Eligibility requirements and additional terms do apply. You thought the Rockets might have the Encore virus.

Do you want to talk about that? Yes. Let's revisit last week's pod because this is also something that's pretty fascinating is that now you and I were two pro rockets is that what people are going with here's what happened the rockets did a thing where everybody doubted them i brought up once again that when the rockets do things that people doubt it actually usually works out for the rockets despite playoff failures or lack of success because i don't think them going to

game seven against the Warriors was a failure at all. I thought that was a success. So I thought that was important to bring up. And guess what? They kept beating everybody. They unlocked Westbrook in a new way, but we still left it with the, this has been really good. Let's give them credit. But what does it mean? I wasn't picking them to win a title. I mentioned the rebound rate. And since that podcast, they lost to the Knicks where they're out rebounded by 31. They lost to the Clippers. They're out rebounded by only six.

But that game was disgusting in the first half. It ended up being a 15-point differential. That's not what that game was. Russ shot 0 for 2 from 3. Harden was 0 for 8. They lost to Charlotte where they actually won the rebounding edge, but started off the game down 20-0. And they lost to Orlando tonight, where they're out-rebounded by 11.

Harden, in his last five games, is 12-59 from 3 for 20%. Westbrook missed the Charlotte game. Eric Gordon's missed the last two games. And I will only present this theory. They were due for a stinker because they were beating everybody. So that's not a problem. The Clippers thing I don't think was that much of a surprise. But then you go Orlando and Charlotte.

Like, what the hell's going on? Is it possible that despite the talk of how them being small, they're not really small in stature. They're big. They push people off of driving lanes they're wide they have these big hips like these are all these things that people are buying into and they're winging you know westbrook drives are like post touches because everybody collapses if he doesn't want to take a layup could it also just be that this

is exhausting and maybe they're not going to win an nba championship with it so that was my theory when this happened that there was no way they could there's no way they could sustain it that yeah you could do this but you can't actually do this for four months you can't do this in uh you know the third round of the nba playoffs when you're playing every other night you can't physically do this when you're undersized like this and then they played so well last Last week, we both apologized and admitted, all right, we misread this. We were wrong. And now they've completely fallen apart. There were a lot of rumors about Harden at the Encore Casino in Boston the night

before. And I'll put it this way. I have some friends with the Celtics, as do you. All of them have said that this new casino being built in downtown Boston was one of the best advantages they've had in a while, just in general. Because the NBA players, they stay downtown, somewhere near there. It's like a 10-minute cab ride or Uber if they have a car or whatever. And you put Blackjack that close to an NBA star of certain stature with a lot of disposable income. They know they can go somewhere and not be bothered, go in the high roller area.

And odds are they might go. And I think the heart of the next day was like, what, seven for 25, something like that. And there was just a lot of Boston buzz that he'd been in the encore and uh and they still won that game i look i remember watching the beginning of that game that's the first thing i'll look at like i'll look at certain defensive matchups and in harden which i think we even touched on before but like i watched his first few fake closeouts i was like

whoa like he's he's not locked in and then i can win the freaking game yeah you know um i don't know that it's quite a toronto day game on the weekend home court advantage it felt like i i think you'd have to be able to retire if you'd only bet toronto at home during the day on a weekend because i swear it felt like they always won those games and probably somebody will look it up and say actually they're you know 49 against the spread but i don't know it always felt like that was a huge advantage for those guys i wish we had stuck to our guns, but on the other hand, maybe we reverse jinxed them into a losing streak.

So either way, I'm happy. You motherfuckers, you knew what you were doing last week. You said all that nice shit about us. You're just trying to reverse jinx us, you fuckers. Fuck you. That was Rockets fan.

Rockets Twitter. It's my impersonation of rockets twitter can can an entire twitter fan base be impersonated i just tried it people really liked your rockets impersonation i didn't think it was one of your strongest ones and then when i was like is that really your bernie sanders um people were like thought i was a jerk and way too dismissive they thought your bernie sanders was fantastic what people didn't like is they thought that that meant that we were i love when i get lumped in as oh you two rich guys like yeah okay um with bernie anti bernie yeah anti bernie like people can't understand like you can't make a joke about a candidate's

platform even if you liked his platform and apply it to a basketball game, that seemed a little absurd. So I did work on my Bernie a little bit, though. Oh, you want to give it a whirl? Yeah, I don't know. It's a little late. All right. A little late for you at the East Coast? Want me to do it?

I'll do some. Yeah, give me your Bernie. That may get me warmed up. Okay. People don't understand. You have two rich podcasters. There's only a two seat table. Nobody else has a seat at the table.

Go ahead. You want to go? I want to do yours. Yeah. How can you have a swimmer who wins seven golds in that many events? Why can't we have more swimmers

in each of the events? Spread the golds out. Michael Phelps wins seven golds. Michael Phelps is the worst thing since Standard Oil. People want LeBron James to win his fifth MVP. What about the other people who haven't won an MVP yet? Why can't Nikola Jokic win an MVP?

And while we're at it, why is the MVP limited to just the National Basketball Association? What's wrong with a G League player getting a vote? Or a 12th man. Semi-Auxilie should be considered for the MVP. Semi-Auxilie has to tell his children that he can never get an MVP vote while LeBron's about to win his fifth. That's not the country that I want to grow up in.

I like you. There's a little Francesa in your Bernie Sanders now. Hey, dog. It was better. It was better at home by myself. Yeah. Traveling too much. We should just, we should mention really quickly this,

you know, the coronavirus. They just canceled Indian Wells today, the tennis tournament that is the first major sports thing that's happened. There's been a lot of buzz about what's going to happen with the NBA. Are they playing empty arenas and all that stuff? It feels weird to do a two hour NBA podcast and not talk about this stuff. But I think you and I both have a rule. If there's a segment where neither of us are an expert, have any information or have any idea what might happen, that's probably a bad segment. So I think we should steer clear of it. Do you agree? I just think it's going to be really weird if we see empty arenas. And I'm not saying

that's the wrong thing. I'm not anti it. I just think like everybody, I'm not saying that's the wrong thing i'm not anti it i just think like everybody i'm not sure who to believe i don't know what information i was oddly enough at a hospital this past week not for me and i talked to somebody about it and they gave me like really compelling information it was convincing and everything but i i don't i don't know you know what i can't believe is like people i guess i shouldn't be surprised bill but people that do what we do and it doesn't necessarily like just limit itself to sports people but different people in the opinion business maybe in news and politics like giving out their takes on the coronavirus for the retweets and you're like you don't know anything yeah you're just reading the same stuff we're all reading so um i really i'm with you i

don't have a ton to offer on it but i don't want to ignore it but i'm not going to sit and pretend i know what the hell i'm talking about because i don't. Yeah. It feels like this week is going to go off the rails. I think the market's going to be in an all time swoon and God knows how the virus will spread or what we're going to learn about it. Just this weekend, Westchester County in New York all of a sudden became one of the epicenters and there's just no way to predict anything. So just wanted to make sure we at least mentioned that. I don't think either of us like doing segments where we're just talking out of our ass, trying to pretend we know something, but there's, there's really nothing to know on this.

One other thing that we should, well, I have two, two short games based off last week when we talked about that segment called Wait, so when did this happen? Remember that segment? Yeah. I'll give you this week's version. It's from Doug Ziegler. He wants to know,

when did it start being a thing in basketball games when a player gets knocked down or falls during a game then just waits on the floor, hands up like a toddler, waiting for teammates to pull him up off the floor. Apparently dudes can't stand up on their own anymore. Ryan Rosillo, so when did this happen? This has been going on, I would say, more than five, less than 10. Not that no one's ever helped up other guys in previous generations, but it's very clear that everybody decided that to show how

locked in you were at the game and locked in as a teammate that you have to all four guys run over to pick up the guy that fell down. And to the point where you see a player sometimes wave off the opponent that goes to help him because he has to wait for his teammates. So it's one of those things. the dumbest thing everybody throws up the four the four fingers

fourth quarter football games like it's original and you're like yeah we got it it's fourth quarter you know like the first few teams that did it like oh that's kind of cool fourth quarter mindset get your fours up and now when everybody does it like who cares but it's definitely become more and more of a thing because it just it speaks to like hey we're going to get what i love what i love is when a team knows their season is over and it's a guy that is always on the ground and his teammates are like i'm not going over yeah fuck i fuck you just get up yourself that's when that's when real lessons are being learned like it'll happen every now and then i'll be like okay that's how much no one likes you on your team.

Can I give you a theory? Here's my theory for when this started. I think it was the KG Celtics, the Ubuntu Celtics in 2007-8. They made a real effort to do stuff like that, where if somebody fell down, three guys ran over and picked them up. I don't really remember seeing it in full force until that season if somebody else did it before then i don't know but that that was the first team i remember that doing it shocks me that the the first one that you remember is the celtics uh can i do a quick 30 second aside though

in defensive harden and defensive gambling okay i had heard that that 2018 when they were playing the pistons like in between pistons games they found the closest casino it might have been in toronto at that point yep and like people like are you guys seriously that desperate to be out that you guys have to go hit up a casino like they're trying to get to the nba finals here you guys have a chance to win a championship and they they were like, what, are you going to stay in? And they won the title anyway. Well, Michael Jordan, 93, was going to Atlantic City during those Knicks series. 92 and 93.

Do you really believe he never slept before some of those games? I've heard that. Yeah. Never slept? I do feel like that was a real thing with him. Where he would just stay up 36 straight hours. Ahmad Rashad told me a great story once about, he said there's some playoff series.

I can't remember which one, what year it was, where maybe it was the Phoenix finals. And he says, if you go and look at it, there's one game where Jordan's like sunburned because they played 36 hours of golf. I think it was the sun's final. And he says, I was saying his skin's actually darker because they were in the sun just baking. And then he went out and played and he was like, you go look, you go look back at the

tape. So I, I think Jordan, I think there's a million stories like that. Yeah. Yeah. I, um, I had a hard time sleeping. I wouldn't say I'm a great sleeper but i had some really bad stretches when i was younger and uh not like young young but like espn years and it never really affected me though like i you know if i didn't fight a night where i

just didn't sleep like i just would get up i go to work earlier and i just like fine whatever i'm just gonna go to work and it never ever affected me on a show ever. Like I never felt like, Oh, cause like when you're doing a show, I don't care how tired I've ever been. Like once the mic goes on, you just kind of get used to it, you know, pros pro and cow herd was in the, in the hallway. And those are some of my favorite times ever. And cow herd was like, what's going on? I was like, ah, man, I haven't been sleeping great. He's like, you don't sleep. I was like, no, you know, I'm not a great sleeper. Well, you know, I got an FBI friend, good friend in the, he's in the FBI. Says two people don't sleep. Mom, serial killers.

That'd be good. That'd be a good TV show on FS1. I have a new segment. We're launching. I know, I know you love when we launch new segments. Actually, I'm going to take one more break, and then we're launching a new segment. Well, cyber criminals are coming up with plenty of innovative ways to rip us off. New account fraud, a tactic in which someone opens an account and your name is on the rise. Another new type of identity fraud tricks victims

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up today, save 25% or more off your first year. Go to norton.com slash Simmons. That is norton.com slash Simmons for 25% off. All right, here's a new segment. It's called See It to Believe It. This is off an email from Peter from Toronto. It's directed to you, not even to me. It just says, Ryan, you often mention that you need to see it in order to believe it when it comes to various NBA contenders. What's your baseline for need to see it in order to believe it? Are we talking conference finals, finals, winning the whole thing?

Explain it. Thanks for the great content. Peter from Toronto. I always have said this, but I think it's really hard for us to accept new as great. It just really is. Even that Boston team in 2008, I remember sitting with Rick Carlisle. I hope I have these years right. Not name dropping.

He was working at ESPN, you know, and one of my favorite things about it was if you got to know a guy pretty well, you know, George Carl would spend some time with you. Tibbs spends, you know, we watched games together a couple times, but when the Celtics got off that insane start in 2008, I was like, hey, what do you think?

And Rick's like, oh, it's new, it's exciting, but, you know, we'll see. And remember when the Celtics put that team together, it was like, okay, they're going to be good this year, year but like they're really gonna be good in 2009 when they're able to add a piece to this and it was like nope they're just gonna they're just gonna roll through teams and it wasn't like they were faux faux faux type of stuff but it was it was really impressive but it's just it's hard for me like golden state before they won it, I was like, this is special. I think you could be a newer team that battles

in an Eastern Conference Finals, Western Conference Finals. If the Clippers go to seven games with the Lakers and don't win, I'm going to go into next year being like, the Clippers are really good. I think new is always hard. There isn't some baseline

like, hey, win this many games, have this kind of guy. My biggest thing is usually like, who's your second best player? And I really think that that's what this league is about. Who's your second best guy? And that's why I keep kind of falling back on the Lakers all this time. So I don't know that I can give you this definitive

here's what it would say in the dictionary. I have it. I have it for you. I'm going to define your own theory. I think Denver is the baseline of this. Denver is a classic. They could win 10 straight. And I think both of us would be like, all right. I have to see it to believe it.

Sorry. You're going to have to show this to me when it really matters because I'm not buying right now. So that would be the baseline. Are you sure you didn't write that question? Because you understood it way better than I did. Well, I was reading it. Yours was more about, yeah.

But your answer was more about who wouldn't qualify. And you're absolutely right. That's a perfect example of it. I think Toronto, I remember going on TV during the Sixers series where I go, you know, if you really look at what they did with their substitutions and this whole thing, like they're the best team in the East. And everybody looked at me like I was an idiot. I was on first take. I was like, Hey, Toronto's the best team in the East. Like, I'm not worried about this back and forth Sixers thing. And, but you know, it wasn't like I'm sitting there going, Oh,

I'm Mr. Raptor because I still think they would you know they weren't going to beat durant and clay but you know that wasn't really seeing it until you believe it i think that's another good example of it because it's like oh okay okay toronto won well kyle lowry all right now i kyle lowry's a good example kyle lowry literally had to win the title and be awesome in the deciding game for us to be like, alright, you got us. I believe you now. So maybe that's what that theory is. Yeah, yeah. When the confetti is falling and you have the trophy

then I'm like, you know what, I think you guys are pretty good. Alright, it's time to play In or Out. First one, Brad Wanamaker, In or Out. Uh, I am, I'm so out.

I mean, it's like if, if I had a summer place that wasn't winterized and I had to live there in the winter, I would be like, don't even, don't even put any insulation because I don't want to go in there. I'm out.

Like when you're on your iPhone and there's some Apple news story where they say, uh, husband, father missing for six days, no sign. That's how out I am. I'm Brad Watermaker.

I'm, I'm out to the point that I'm actually missing in the, in the cops have to be involved wondering where I am. That's how far gone I am. I might be in another country I'm so out. It's a really bad job by them that they, and I'm not a

Reggie Jackson fan at all, but even he is an upgrade over Brad Wanamaker. It's just tough. He seems like a great guy. I think his teammates really like him. I don't think he's meant to play 35 minutes in an NBA game, but unfortunately with the injuries they keep having, then the Kimball Walker thing, I, uh, I just don't think he looks right. I don't think he has any lift. There's a moment today in

the, uh, they had, you know, they've had some terrible losses this week and it's March. You're not going to overreact, but some bad losses. But the concerning thing is he doesn't have any lift. And there was one play, I'm going to say like two and a half minutes left. He drove down the lane and missed the layup, which he kind of rushed because he didn't have any lift and he knew he didn't have any lift. And I just don't think he looks right. I would rather see them not play him versus play him at like half speed. I hate when somebody's knee is getting drained. There's a lot of red flags with this. And if you're going to be like, what could keep the Celtics from doing anything this year?

It starts with that. How healthy is that guy going to be? The signs are not that healthy. So that would be one. If Wanamaker were a guy, though, like in the mix, because I liked the Wanamaker story in the beginning. He's a nice story. Defensively, matchups, some decent size.

He'd give you some minutes. Wasn't a problem. Like, he would be the guy that was like, oh, hey, you know who was fun the other night? Dave. And then he turned into like, hey, was Dave there that weekend? And you're like, oh, I don't remember.

And the last month of his play is like, did Dave drunk dial your mom? And you're like, yeah, he remember and the last month of his play is like did dave drunk dial your mom you're like yeah he did that's been his his game log my car had a big dent in the back i think dave hit my car uh he went from lending you his car to crashing yours i lent dave 200 dollars in vegas and he still hasn't paid me back. Oh, wait, that's house. That's not Dave. That's actually house. Still owes you $200.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, he still owes me. Next, in or out. The 2020 NBA draft, in or out. Oh, I'm... This looks so out right now. They said Cole Anthony was like a potential number one pick. They said Cole Anthony was like a potential

number one pick, right? Cole Anthony? I watched the UNC Duke game. I don't know. Is he like a lottery pick? I would be shocked if he was a top five pick. I don't see it.

I don't understand it. I think it's just a historically bad draft. The problem is writing 14 names down. Yeah, writing 14 names down is tough because I'll start looking at guys being like well wait a minute why can't he go top five um but write down 14 names and it's it's

pretty tough to do but i haven't started my draft yet so the uh the urts kids in or out because i'm all the way in why don't you take the lead on this one? I don't even know if they have kids yet. Anyone who remembers back when I used to write before my fingers stopped working, I loved the idea of good athletes getting married and having kids. I thought this was really our way to combat the other countries in the Olympics and stuff like that. You have Julie Ertz, who is a fantastic soccer player. Really, she had the winning goal today, and they played Spain in the We Believe Cup,

whatever it was called. She had this super athletic header off a cross, and she's just a badass. She's so much fun to watch. I really, really like watching her. And she's married to Zach Ertz, who's the third best tight end in football, and he's, I'm going to say, like 6'4", 250, something like that with speed.

She's about as good of a female athlete as you're going to get. And they're going to have children. And I'm really excited. I'm all in on the Earth's Kids. I was saying they might end up having Bo Jackson, LeBron, and Christian McCaffrey as their three kids, basically, athletically. It's going to be a huge disappointment if they're not all studs. I'll tell you which relationship I... I don't mean to put pressure on the fetuses of the Ertz family,

but I have high expectations. Yeah, this is a weird segment, but I'm kind of in. I got to tell you, I remember when it first came onto the scene, it was a long, long time ago, this dating rumor, LeVar Arrington and serena williams oh yeah i was like oh my god please make this work out because like whatever their kid was going to be like zion williamson was going to have posters of that kid yeah in his bedroom yeah didn't work out well serena ended up marrying the reddit guy which i i think hurt my theory the the Ertz kids, though, I'm all in.

Next in or out? The Celtics just saying, we've signed J.R. Smith. In or out? I just don't think they need another guard that thinks his shot is the best option every time yeah i think i'm out too i would just like another adult in a tight game because i just think they're uh i think they're short i some teams should sign jr smith though i don't think he's done yet at least if he's out there he's gonna feel like he belongs out there i would like to see the guys all play together

before the season's over i i think i looked at it because i went to this jazz game on friday in boston how about me back-to-back jazz celtics games within 10 days utah then boston who's this guy that's your sky miles guy right there doing this but um at 13 times you've had Tatum, Brown, Hayward, Kemba, Tice play. Ridiculous. All in the same game. And by the way, are we really going to do almost two hours and not mention how disastrous that loss was to Oklahoma City after the Nets lost this week?

Are you just not doing it? Are you refusing to bring it up? Both losses really hurt my feelings. And now they're guaranteed to be a three seed. They're going to have to win. And they're going to lose to the Sixers. Well, I don't know. Catching the Sixers might not be a bad thing.

But yeah. But think how weird this is though. Because I was looking at the standings, the Sixers not having their guys back and falling to the six seed in Boston if they're the three seed. And then if the Sixers get everybody back, this could actually be the best thing,

and then the Sixers could end up playing Toronto in the second round. I think I just talked myself into the Sixers in the Eastern Conference Finals despite nobody being healthy. I don't think we're going to be seeing Simmons. All words and all accounts seem to, there's legit concern about him. I don't think we'll be seeing him anytime soon. But yeah, another Boston Philly series wouldn't be,

I'm in on that. We'll finish in or out with both of us are in on a Boston Philly series. Okay, one email from Jeffrey Storm, then we're gonna do gym corner, then we're going. Jeffrey Storm says, NBA teams retire jerseys all the time, but shouldn't there be a reverse jersey retire?

A team could banish a jersey number from future use when it causes significant pain and turmoil to a franchise. Instead, it can be reverse retired into the stadium basement hung above a toilet. and Kyle Singler, whose massive contracts and poor play indirectly caused a finals loss, the hardened trade, July 4th, 2016, and the disintegration of one of the greatest NBA non-dynasties ever collected. I am accepting names for a reverse retire. The leading candidate is a Jersey detire, a detirement ceremony. Jeffrey Storm, fantastic email. Kudos to you. I love the concept of a detirement. I wish the Celtics could detire Jeff Green's jersey. Okay.

I think I like the concept. I don't like the examples. Singler signed for four years and $19 million. The reason you didn't have Harden is because no one with for four years and 19 million. So, you know, I mean, the reason you didn't have Harden is because no one with your organization

seemed to understand how the TV contract bump was going to work. And they were really cheap and they traded Harden a year before they had to. Yeah, I agree with all of this. So there's a lot of stuff. And then Perk didn't come until later anyway. No, Perk was before the Harden trade

because they traded the Perk-Jeff Green trade was 2011 season. Yeah, but that's money moving out, money moving in versus like Perk wasn't in play. Perk didn't get there until in 11. No, no, no. Wait a minute. Yeah, he was there in 11.

But I think the OKC fans always felt like keep hard and amnesty Perkins. And then we don't have to trade James hard. I have another email from Damon in Pittsburgh. He wants to know if me house or Jacko would care to make a public statement about Holy Cross's men's basketball program going three and 29 finishing dead last in the Patriot league and not even qualifying repeat, not even last in the Patriot League and not even qualifying. Repeat, not even qualifying for the Patriot League tournament this season.

My silence is deafening, says Damon from Pittsburgh. I don't know what to say. I mean, the Holy Cross basketball died last decade and you think like Koozie and Heinzen are still alive and Holy Cross's team goes three and 29. Three and 29 is a cry for help. And they lost to a Div 3 team this year.

15 years ago, we were thinking they could be Gonzaga East. And now it's like, would the NESCAC take them? Could they get in there? Could they squeeze into the NESCAC? I don't know. Well, let me call some of my guys at NESCAC. Can you call in a couple favors? I love the cross.

You know that I grew up with. I know. That's why I brought it up. That was my first football thing. But I wanted to go there too. I can't imagine. You would probably hate me. Because if I had gone to Holy Cross.

You would have loved it. And graduated. No, I wouldn't have. You would have loved it. You would have loved the intramural basketball scene. You really would have. It would have been it and graduated no i wouldn't have you would have loved it you would have loved the intramural basketball scene you really would have big for me i don't know how i would have done in worcester but you would love it i could survive burlington but i would have been calling you i'd be like bill because if there's one thing like you learn about bill is like bill lets you know when you're in the inner circle and i would have just assumed like, hey, dude, we're both Holy Cross guys. When do I start?

And so you would have been so turned off by my brash Holy Cross 20-year-old version of me that you'd be like, this guy sucks. Yeah, it's like that Holy Cross guy. I got, God, he emailed me again. Duncan from New Zealand. Duncan from New Zealand says, watching Marcus Morris shoot everything and flat out refuse to pass the ball is incredible.

If someone had told me his career per game average of 1.5 assists was actually his total career assists, I'd be 60% sure they were lying. My question for you is, who's your current, I'm not passing the fucking ball starting five. That's pretty good. Dinwiddie Clarkson or probably your backcourt yeah clarkson's definitely in there is clarkson had this this year

here's the thing clarkson's actually been really good for them yeah um they needed because the way they use him it's like you know it's seen him in person it's just it's not like he's the quickest guy it's just he finds a way it's just, it's not like he's the quickest guy. It's just, he finds a way. It's just guys that know angles better than everybody else. Clarkson has this angle understanding where you're like, oh, he's free at the hoop again. Oh, there's another layup for Clarkson. Oh, Clarkson got open again. He's a really special scorer, but he's never, ever, ever wanted to pass.

But it's actually fine for Utah because they've had their own problems um lately dinwiddie you know westbrook and those guys sometimes you know people just always do this thing where it's like oh look at his assist you guys are idiots there's difference there's different assist guys and if you have the ball every freaking time you're gonna get some assists so i think dinwiddie be back there um what about kendrick nunn yeah he's he's under four assists a game i had him he's one of my guys because he's under four that's high well he's the point guard though you're down on that one yeah i mean it's no it's just it's just that butler yeah he's 3.4 assists.

That's probably more than I thought. You know what I should look up? Oh, I got one. I got one. Austin Rivers? Ooh, that's a really good one. Robert Covington is averaging 30 minutes a game and 1.2 assists.

Solid. Great job by him. What's Levine's situation? Levine's at four assists the game really top 10 in usage yeah but you know it's funny it's like now the perimeter guys are getting back at everybody else because you remember the bigs remember like all the bigs that we grew up with as soon as they got the post touch it just meant four guys are gonna watch yeah that's what the game used to be like so i guess the little guys are getting back at him. Cause it just really like,

okay. And a lot of that happens with like a lot of college guys that were big their whole life. And then maybe the team isn't great. And they're sort of by default, the best player, especially when I'm doing my draft stuff, you're like,

Oh cool. Every time this guy gets the ball, the possessions over. So to be fair, Tyler suggested Booker's box score as a segment. Read Devin Booker's most recent box score completely deadpan and then move on to the next segment. Okay.

Today, Booker was 13 for 17, 36 points, 8 assists, 5 rebounds. So there you go on that. GetDough123 wants to know, LeBron started every game at point guard. He there you go on that. Get dough. One, two, three wants to know LeBron started every game at point guard. He's listed as point guard. He initiates the offense, has the ball. Most of the time he leads the league and assists. Why is he not listed at guard for all NBA? This is category fraud. I don't have an answer. Love it. I guess because he doesn't guard other teams' point guards, maybe? That's the only reason I can think. Sometimes he does.

If it's an opposing point guard, although every point guard now scores. If the two perimeter guys are pretty good and the point guard isn't, sometimes I think he's... He's kind of different against the Clippers today. I'm already gone too far with this whole thing. I think he's, I mean, he's kind of like what was different against the Clippers today. But I don't know. I'm not going to, I'm already gone too far with this whole thing. I love that idea because my all-time least favorite ever was, was Duncan not being a center.

And it wasn't even that I get as mad at Duncan about it, but Spurs fans were like, he's not a center. Why are you arguing this? It doesn't mean he's not as good. We put Tiago Splitter's corpse next to him. He's not a center. Yeah. I'd be like, yeah, whatever.

Rasha Listervich. Look it up. Like. Yeah, I'd be like, yeah, whatever. Rasha Ustervich. Look it up. Like, I have. I looked up every center he played with, and guess what? None of them were on the floor at the end of games. Guess who was playing? Guess who was catching it on the post and having cuts, and he would make the decision?

It was him. Like, Tim Duncan was a center. Thomas Benjamin wants to know why sports analysts on pregame shows, halftime shows, and postgame shows always hold pens they never actually write anything why are they holding pens one of the weirdest things in television

is what to do with your hands okay and you see a lot of guys do this now if you're standing with no pen you don't know where to put your hands because you can't put them in your pockets because you look like an asshole well if you're standing with no pen you don't know where to put your hands because you can't put them in your pockets because you look like an asshole well if you're sitting behind a desk if you're sitting behind a desk and you put your hands below your desk it looks like you have no

arms so you have to put them somewhere right you have to put them somewhere i'm telling you right now the pen works it works it relaxes you do a do a mock segment at your desk right now in front of the mirror if you're listening. You're going to feel like you know what's going on. Digger Phelps had a weird thing with the highlighter. And then I think Digger Phelps was secretly toying with running for president where he said the country needs a coach, which was one of the weirdest fucking things of all time. That doesn't get enough attention. I think Digger Phelps was slowly announcing that he may run for president during college basketball raps.

But he always had a highlighter that matches Ty. Yeah. And that was weird. So whatever. Yeah, that's right. The pen thing, it makes you feel like you know what you're doing with your hands. That's why guys do it. And I actually think, you know, if you were on TV, you'd know that.

My issue with the pen, which I tried when i was doing countdown was i would start tapping the pen on the table like a drum and then somebody would yell at me in the air so i got rid of the pen i went closed fist with the left hand on the table never moved there could have been an earthquake my fist wouldn't have moved it just stayed stuck to it was almost like it was super glued to the table and then I would use my right hand as I talk, but then sometimes bring the left hand up, then put the fist back down. I was in the left fist school.

When you're watching, this is a good... We always have our best stuff at the two-hour mark of the pod. When you're watching these shows on ESPN and FS1, just watch the hand strategies because they're pretty great. Some people do the clasp. They do that. They put the hand. I tried that one as well.

That was another move for me is the clasping the hands together on the desk and just kind of not moving them unless you got animated was another move. I always got a lot of feedback because of my entry point was his asshole at ESPN. So anytime I ever did anything, I would get all these notes about how bad I was at everything. And I tried one hand in the pocket and then point with the other hand. And then that was problem. Although I'll admit neck hair probably wasn't the look they were hoping I was going to go for when I just started growing out the beard.

Yeah. I was so early on the beard that I had a beard at the one of the combines i did and i got an email being like are you serious you have a beard on television and then you know bob lee the general's got one little salt and pepper deal five years later on otl so who was who was on the forefront of that but mcshay does a thing, and I've noticed other guys doing this now. If you're standing full screen, nothing in your hands, where the left hand holds the middle or ring finger of the right hand, so it's not a clasp, it's not a fist, it looks like you're loose, it looks like you're comfortable, but it's actually predetermined. And I'm seeing more and more people do the hold the opposite hands single finger.

And I got to tell you, I like it. I like what I've seen so far in early returns. McShay does some good full body work. All right, it's time for Jim Corner. He always has. Jim Corner, this is a really good one. It's from Dave in Fuquay. I don't know where that is.

He says, Ryan, themes have found their way into restaurants, clubs, and bars. Western music, future movie, and tropical are just a few of the dozens of themed eateries. Why haven't gyms capitalized on this marketing idea? My friends and I thought gyms could increase membership by catering to a specific concept. For example, we thought it would be amazing if a gym had a specific concept. For example, we thought it would be amazing if a gym had a zoo concept. You walk in and right behind the squat rack is a caged lion.

Maybe you're finishing a set on the incline bench and an anaconda slithers past your foot. I knew I could certainly make some serious gains with help of the animal kingdom. I'm curious if Ryan has any ideas for his own theme gym. Well, there you go. I can't wait for this answer. I do. Okay.

I think everybody loves an 80s party. Yeah. I don't understand why there isn't an 80s themed gym. And I wasn't working out in the 80s, mind you. But I think full Oakley blades, maybe some Bosworth haircuts, stringer tanks, leotards, headbands, leg warmers on the women. And just everything is super outdated exercises with trainers who are all on steroids. And you dress up. You know, everybody's kind of dressing up now and they go to the gym anyway.

Yeah. And no one married is allowed to be there. You can't be married and join this gym. Right. So you're saying basically the John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtis, anti-classic perfect, which is about the most 80s movie that anyone made. Not great, but also kind of a fun rewatch and just one of those, how the fuck did anyone think this was going to work as a movie movies? Everyone, the way they're dressed in that movie, you would just want as a gym that you could go to yeah that and like no smoothies it'd be like carnation instant breakfast chocolate with milk so like maybe maybe i shouldn't open that up maybe that's a bad idea that part's bad the nutrition bar has like pizza hot dogs soda pepsi machine oh yeah that's good it would have to be something like

yeah it would have to be like healthy pepperoni pizza 80s 80s healthy pepperoni pizza but yeah nobody can be married because you know what i don't need i don't need married guys that are trying to pretend they're still in the mix right and they're not right you know like just get out of here you know um there's that dating app for celebrities i think it's called like raya you know i'm talking about i'm gonna tell you i know what it is and then people are gonna think i'm on it and i'm not it's called raya raya yeah why aren't you on it you're a celebrity well my initial instinct i've never been on one first of all so i guess i'm just going to keep that one going somebody asked me once why i wasn't on it during sports center i said that's because i'm on tv and i looked into the camera i also got

a note on that sports center appearance being like hey that was kind of a d-bag thing to say and i was like yeah i know that was kind of a joke and i was with sarah walsh because she like made a joke on sports center why aren't you on a dating app and i was like because i'm on tv and uh it's supposed to sound like a jerk move but when i heard about the raya thing and i was like well celebrity like real celebrities must be on this like i'd read about like real actresses yeah like that you've heard about are actually on this like i'd read about like real actresses yeah like that you've heard about are actually on this thing and then a guy who you know i'm not going to name names um was like oh i'll give you an invite to it and then i was like well this guy's on it but then i just i don't know i'd have way too much fun writing a profile that was absolutely the dumbest thing i could ever write and i um i don't know i'm not if i haven't done it by now I'm never going to do it

I'm going to convince you to do this for the playoffs we're going to need something the I don't want to talk about that stuff really though the reason I brought up dating apps was because couldn't it work where it's a gym but everybody has to be single and it's a combination

dating app gym has anyone thought of that? Did I just come up with a billion dollar idea? Yeah. The problem that I would have is I'd be like, hey, this is messing up my workout. I got to join a different gym. Right. Because you didn't want to cross the beams. Yeah, I got it.

Right. Because I'd be like, hey, I finally met somebody. She's moving in, but my arms look terrible. Good point. Maybe. Yeah, that's it. That's why that's not a billion dollar idea.

All right. Rosillo, uh, safe travels coming back. We'll do this, uh, in person next week, hopefully. And then you have two more podcasts on,

on your feed, the Ryan Rosillo Show. It's a podcaster show, I always forget. Ryan Rosillo Show. It is just The Ryan Rosillo Podcast. Right. I actually say show sometimes myself, so don't worry about it.

The Ryan Rosillo Podcast, two more this week, and then we'll see you again on Sunday. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, thanks to ZipCruiter. Thanks to Norton Secure VPN. Norton 360 with LifeLock is an all-in-one membership for your cyber safety.

If there's an identity theft problem, they have specialists who will work to fix it. No one can prevent cyber crime and identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But Norton 360 with LifeLock is a powerful ally for your cyber safety. Kyle, leave this in so people can know what a dumbass I am. Sign up today and save 25% or more off your first year. Go to norton.com slash Simmons for 25% off. Don't forget the rewatchables. We threw away the categories, but we did contagion. So check that one out. I think it's only like 45 minutes.

Godfather 3 coming up later in the week. Two more podcasts on this feed. Stay safe out there. See you in a couple of days. I don't have feelings within On the wayside I'm a bruised soul I never was I don't have feelings within