The Bill Simmons Podcast - Luka Legend, Sorry Sixers, Embiid Trades, and Denver’s Future With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss Luka Doncic and the Mavericks' win over the Clippers, tying the series at 2-2; the 76ers getting swept by the Celtics in another disappointing playoff exit; the Jazz working toward upsetting the Nuggets with another win; Round 2 speculations; teams that should be looking to trade in the offseason; Quarantine Corner; and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So that's all happening. Coming up, Russel and I are going to break down a really surprisingly memorable playoff weekend of the bubble because of one man and his name. He goes by one name. He lost his last name. He's just one guy now. He's Luca.

That's it. He's like Beyonce. He doesn't have a last name. He's lost it. He's too good for a last name. That's all coming up. We got a lot coming for you. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

All right. We're taping this Sunday night. It's Luka Day. It's time for our first playoff Luka-gasm. Look, Ryan Marcello is here. I'm just going to start us off. I don't want to overreact, but I'm going to overreact. I think if somebody is truly great, there's some checkpoints they have to hit along the way in a formative stage.

And I think this is one of the things that makes the NBA great because you can go back, you can look at all these different eras. You can look at 75 years of basketball and you can see all these different people that the players have had who came in early and kind of came through when money was online early in their careers. And then you could look back and go, oh yeah, remember that? Oh man, that was a good sign. And I think LeBron was a good recent example, right? When he had that 2007 48 point game against Detroit.

That was his fourth year in the league. I don't want to, I don't feel like we can overstate this enough. The stuff Luka is doing here in year two, as a 21 year old, where he is already this fully formed offensive superstar who goes toe to toe against his Clippers team today that we thought was the best defensive team in the league that we thought was the best team to go against him. He's playing on one leg. He, we didn't know if he was going to play until game time.

He has to change how he plays subtly in all these different ways. He's a little slower. He's a little more deliberate. It's a little harder for him to get to his spots. Does it anyway. He's got no Porzingis. And he comes through over and over and over and over again. And, you know, we see this happen in sports sometimes.

Tiger Woods early in his career. We saw it with Mahomes early in his career. It starts to transcend the normal stuff. And I don't know if they're going to win this series or not, but Rosillo, this is the kind of thing we need to see if this is going to be an all-time player. And I really think if he doesn't get injured, he's going to be. So that's how I'm going to start us off. You don't want a Wade Boggs story to start this week. No. All right. So, um, I, I'm always a, all right, hold on. Let me see. Like I think early Giannis when everybody got really excited about him was a fun video clip, but he wasn't a fully formed basketball player.

And, um, maybe sometimes I'm late, but I think also being cautious has prevented me at times from kind of freaking out about somebody. And then we're like, Hey, remember when everybody was losing your mind about this guy? And then, and then it didn't really happen. And that's, that's always been kind of one of my rules. even though i liked luca coming out you know like i don't know you know we still you wonder despite the amazing resume overseas at such a young age you're like is it really going to translate that quickly the fact that they won 33 games last year on that mavs team that won 24 the year before was almost a sign like wait what what's going on like how are the mavs winning even this many games because you just look at the roster you go what's what is there to be excited about they make the Przingis trade

you start to see some of these pieces uh around him whether it's the hardaway contract you're like oh that's abysmal that's just a throw in you're like oh I kind of like him um I think Maxi Kleber does a lot of really nice things out there I mean he hasn't been able to hit a shot really in the playoffs so far but for Luka to already be this in control in his first playoffs ever, and yes, it's game four in the first round, I think guys like you and I will remember it forever. If the Clippers end up winning this series, which I still feel like they will, we will get lost in all this stuff.

But at least in the moment, for there to be no other option, and there are even some moments where I'm like, are you seriously going to keep pulling up from 30 feet, man? Like there was a couple of possessions where it almost felt like he was trying to match Kawhi. Cause by the way, Kawhi,

every shot was great except for the one out of the timeout at the end of regulation. We were like, wait, why you're the guy that I trust to always make the right play. I trust you to never. Why are you trying to play for overtime? Yeah.

Why are you the guy? Like there's so many stars where I go, this guy's going to take a bad shot. Kawhi never does that, and yet here he is at the end of regulation with that, and then yet he keeps it going, and then Morris, of all people, hits an overtime three,

and you go, can they really pull this off? So it's not just the insane stat line. It's not just that it's his fourth playoff game. It's that he closes it out without Przingis against a team with Kaawaii and paul george and morris at least physically who can kind of match donchage at least from a size standpoint three guys to throw at him and none of them can do anything with them and when they know he's not really going to do anything except towards the end shoot which is crazy because i had moments

where i'm like do you play him to pass now in the corner and and not charge at him because he's going to burn you remember that one where van gu Gundy was like that three to the right side and Van Gundy goes, that is legendary. He goes, that is a legendary kind of pass. And that's probably the best way to describe Luca. He feels like a legend already in his first playoffs. So, you know, who knows if they win the series, they lose whatever. I think if they win the series, we'll remember this game as a real moment that we'll be talking about 15 years later. If they lose the series, we'll remember this game as a real moment that we'll be talking about 15 years later. If they lose the series, maybe it won't have that kind of impact, but it'll be kind of the coming out party in a playoff stage. I think what impressed me so much about this one, because we've seen him do this before.

He's had games like this. This isn't the first time I've watched him have a ridiculous stat line and make big plays down the stretch. The fact that he was compromised, that he was clearly hurt, that he didn't have that same kind of explosive push off. Like he, you know, sometimes he has that like 2011, Derek Rose kind of torque when he's going to the basket so hard. And he just couldn't do that anymore.

And he kind of changed how he played. He was a little slower, a little deliberate, but he was still getting the shots and creating the shots. He wanted a friend of a friend of the math sent to me today. He had 77 touches in that game. Think about that. Like most times when we,

the nineties, like when we were doing those, uh, MJ rewatchables games, there were games where guys, you know, they were teams took like 65 shots in a game. Lucas involved everywhere.

And as you said, he's doing it with Maxi Kleber. He's doing it with Seth Curry who bounced around the league and has now really turned into, I think, a special role player. Trey Burke, who's on the Sixers. I'm going to say the Sixers might have needed him. It's just kind of this Band-Aid team of role players that we always made fun of the 2007 calves this is a 2007 calves type supporting cast but it's suited to him it makes sense for him everyone can shoot

the irony of porzingis going out is all it did was they just loaded up on shooters even more they start trey burke and the clippers you know whether they come out of the series or not the thing that i would be concerned about is how easy it is for teams to getting it to the rim against them. This was their Achilles heel, right? You know, no Beverly's part of this, but not that Beverly's going to slow down Donchage. If Kawhi has struggling one-on-one moments with Donchage, Beverly is with the size differential. No shot blocker, though, I guess is my, the bigger thing is once you get by somebody it's easy you're at the rim i just think he gets by everybody so i i don't i don't look at this as oh wow i can't believe the clippers can't stay in

front of him i i don't know that i put it like a peak rose where rose would just go side to side on you so quickly i just i see somebody that understands every angle. He understands right as he's about to start his drive, can I finish away from you enough to clear this, or do I keep driving through and under the basket knowing that I'm going to throw this pass that a lot of other guys can't throw? And when they switched with Jackson on that last play, and you're going, what's going's going on here like why that was

such a fail i don't know how you don't because you have time because you have time yeah like you gotta send two guys at him do you remember what oklahoma city did at the end of regulation when houston had the ball and they're ready to inbound they started harden at half court they basically put a wall it was like a tight end staying in with a left tackle to stay in front of harden and they go you know figure it out with somebody else and we'll go ahead and deal with that and harden doesn't bother and harden just goes all right whatever you blocked me i'm done um i don't like to be hindsight double everybody guy because there's a lot of times where you see the full double and you get burned by someone else but in that point uh at that point

he's shooting there's three and a half seconds left. You don't have time to create a shot. I think that the startling thing for me is how sophisticated offensively he is already. And the only experience I have just seeing a rookie come in like that was when bird showed up at the Celtics. I was living in Boston. We're going to the games. Bird was like 23 or 24 when he got right to the Celtics. He was a couple of years older than Luke already, but he came in and he just had this higher advanced understanding. And Bill Fitch called him Kodak because he was like, his brain just photographs images and he knows what's happening ahead of time. And you saw magic come in too, in the same season for the Lakers. And he

was Luke's age, um, as last year and comes in and has that same kind of feel for everything. But I don't feel like either of those guys really turned into the peak versions of themselves until the mid eighties, you know, and the part I'm looking at Luka, I'm like, he, he's already making the right decisions all the time. So if you're going to be like, all right, what could he get better at? You really just say the three point shooting because everything else is already at, I don't, I don't think he can get to a higher level of how he controls the game and creates for other guys, stuff like that. It's the three point shot. It's the fact that he is not a dead eye shooter yet. And in five years, if he is, he's going to be unstoppable. I don't know what happens. Okay. So can I do

the part, which I think is a very normal timeline for basically every NBA star. He's only in his second year. They were not expected to beat the Clippers. And here we are after a game four where the stat line is, you know, when I pulled it up again, I go, you gotta be kidding me. 43 points, 18 to 31, four, 10 from three, which is good for him. He only took five free throws despite 77 touches which seems insane 17 boards 13 assists all right it's so but by the way i love the boards i love that he fucking rebounds i i love when my superstar is getting dirty down low and just taking care of business but sorry go ahead i you're going to agree but you know yannis is facing this right now not to get ahead to yannis too much but if

yannis were to lose in the second round you know what if he doesn't get out of the east with the regular season they had on paper then it'll start to be a little bit hey wait yeah what's going on in the world what do we have here i mean the la fan base had anthony davis for one playoff game and started going you know this guy's never really done in the playoffs despite when you look at his stat lines they're insane they just were never better than anybody even when they beat portland and i because i went back and looked at him like wait does he have any duds like actually he doesn lines, they're insane. They just were never better than anybody, even when they beat Portland. And I, cause I went back and looked at him like, wait, does he have any duds? He's like, actually he doesn't like they're just insane numbers.

So Luca is too young. And in the comp to Harden, you know, I I'd seen some people do, Hey, how come Harden catches all this shit? And there are so many similarities in their style of play. And you're like, okay, but Harden has been around for a really long time. Now it's 10 years older than Harden has the Clippers comeback where he's watching he has a Golden State loss where he was at the end of the bench lying down and people like what's the deal with this guy he has that elimination game against the Spurs where people thought he had a concussion because he was just out of it totally and you're like is that what I still think he did okay he

shot oh for a million when they were up 3-2 against the golden state warriors and then he has the game at home where curry goes scoreless in the first half and comes back what i think is the greatest steph curry game ever and even though harden's final line is really good you go where are you if you're better did you mention the 2012 finals or no i don't think that that's fair because if you look at the way he's older than he's older than luca in that finals yeah but he's not even close to being... I'm mentioning it. I didn't want to beat up... But this isn't an anti-Harden thing.

No. What I'm saying is that Harden has a resume of playoff stuff where Luka could be the exact same player. Luka will be a better version of what we've just seen. Just understanding and just different things. It doesn't mean numbers. The numbers aren't going to necessarily get better. He will become a better player, but then we will find things.

If he doesn't have playoff success to beat up on him the same way when it was LeBron needs to go to Elijah one post-up camp, which now seems stupid 10 years later before he'd want to ring. And then he comes back and he's doing post catches. He didn't have any post moves and he had post touches and he would kick it out to other people. But LeBron never became this like terrific post actual like post move McHale type stuff. I mean, nobody does that stuff anymore. So it's not an anti Luca thing. It's just the reality of how we treat our stars. Yeah. But here's the thing you mentioned LeBron. I don't feel like LeBron got to the level as an all-around basketball player, even though he'd already won MVPs in Cleveland, where he reached another level that second year in Miami.

And I think those second and third Miami years, something changed. And he just kind of figured out exactly who he was on a basketball court, how to take the best advantage of his teammates. He figured out efficiency stuff that he hadn't really, you know, and then as the moment got bigger, he just could solve stuff over and over and over again. And I think that's the Luca thing that how young he is to watch these things out. You already think he's figured all these things out just to know, to watch him have the right answers. A lot of the time here at the age he's at,

I don't think we can talk extensively enough about how rare that is. And you're comparing him to Harden. I think statistically and what he does for the teams. Yeah. But I, I just think from a talent impact standpoint in his age, he has a chance to be one of the all-time guys, like all time. I'm talking LeBron, Bird, Magic, Oscar Robertson, Kareem, Wilt, all these guys, because the stuff he's doing has no parallel to anything we've seen in the last 20 years. And it is not hyperbole. It is not overstatement. I felt this way the entire time. I felt this way when he was in Europe, when he's 18 years old, playing against a bunch of 30-year-old dudes who were smoking after games.

He's just dusting them. I just think he's really special. And it's weird that, you know, we do this with Mahomes and the NFL. It's like everyone kind of, Mahomes hit a point where everybody just kind of looked at each other and said, wow, this guy's really different. This guy's special. And I think Luke is there.

And if it took today's game for people to finally realize that, great. But he had a couple moments against Kawhi. And Kawhi didn't guard him a lot in this game. But near the end, Kawhi was like, all right, guys, I got this. And I'm not saying he dusted Kawhi. But Kawhi was trying. Kawhi has been unbelievable in the bubble. This is like full-fledged impact Kawhi, trying. Kawhi has been unbelievable in the bubble. This is like full-fledged, you know, impact Kawhi, everything you'd want. Luka was like kind of getting the shots he wanted. And Kawhi was like, gave a shit.

And I've never seen anybody do that to Kawhi. I'm not saying he destroyed him, but Kawhi was like really trying and Luka was still getting to his spots. There were two plays in the playoffs that I've enjoyed more than any and actually one was was in bead where it looked like he didn't have kemba looked like he lost kemba on the baseline and then he just turned and blocked him and i thought he killed him for a

second and right it was a little reminder of when i'm big and you're really small i can recover but it was luca at the end of was it game one when they lost but he was just trying to drive to yeah perzingo was thrown out at the end of game one luca just decided you know what i don't think any of these guys actually can stay in front of me like none of them so i'm just going to keep going and he threw a shoulder into the center of kawai's chest, and Kawhi recoiled off of Luka, and you're just not used to seeing that. Now, Luka did have a drive on Kawhi where Kawhi is so good, where he's upright, his chest is out,

and he was still reaching at the ball in a completely controlled way, trying to flick it away from Doncic while he's also... Do you know how hard it is to reach and try to flick the ball away yet still have really good position? And Kawhi held up. Luka couldn't get him on that one and then luca took a step back and that's just the

win he missed the shot but you could just tell like whatever the matchup is that's a win there but i'm i hope you understand though when i when i point out the hardened stuff that's not to bring up it's just the predictability of how the rules work for any superstar. I think they're very similar. Right, but for all the love that we have for him, and it's all, none of this is overstating it. I'm with you on that part of it. But there's very little negativity because this is his first playoff round.

There's nothing to knock. Yeah, Harden we've watched for a long time. Most of these guys are going to have negative playoff outcomes where the longer you're in this league, the math just works kind of against you because very few guys at the end of it get to be the champ. I thought Kawhi was the best player I watched over the past week. Um, just his all around play. I thought the game three that he played on Friday night was at just absolutely ridiculous. It was actually the first time I felt like he was a hundred percent healthy in a couple of years. There's no, like

his legs, not dragging at all. He's got his full explosiveness is in complete command. He's doing whatever he wants. He has a couple of wow plays every game. And I just, I, one of the topics I had written down before this game was why do we keep forgetting that Kawhi is the best playoff guy in the league? Because there's two seasons, as we've talked about a million times. There's regular season playoffs. I just, Kawhi is the guy I would want first if I'm trying to win the title right now of all these available guys. It was interesting to watch Luka just go toe-to-toe with him.

And the biggest advantage they had today was, I don't know what's happened to Paul George. And I don't know if this is a funk or if he's hurt, but not only was he terrible, but he must be hurt. He may, he has to be because he had ice on his shoulder last two games. Well,

what, what are the possible explanations? He's hurt or he's just in a complete funk, but this guy was the number three candidate for MVP last year. He finished in third place. And if you watch this game, you would have thought Marcus Morris was Paul George. You're like, Oh, Marcus Morris is the big acquisition, right? He's like, no, no, it's actually Paul George, the guy who's two for 14, taking some of the worst shots of all time and completely disappearing on the other end. What do you think's happened to him?

All right, you know who you're talking to here, right? I know. I'm just saying, how do you explain the last week? It's Paul George. I mean, even this is bad. I mean, he's obviously going to go off for 30 at some point because he's just due. I thought it might happen in game four

because he was so bad in game three. And I'll keep track of how many points. He had zero, I think, in one half of one of the games in this series. And I'll look at halftime and be like, okay, let's see what happens. Yeah, because he had nine points in the third quarter of the game. I believe that he had zero at the half or maybe it was two. Doesn't matter. Here's a problem for Paul George is Marcus Morris thinks he's better than Paul George. And he has been for the last. He has been right. If Mark, if Paul George had Marcus Morris thinks he's better than Paul George. Well, he has been for the last few years. He has been, right. If Paul George had Marcus Morris' attitude,

he'd be the best player in the league. Well, Marcus Morris was the second or third best player of the Clippers the past week. Guess who was in the top three? Zubach was really good today, too, by the way. Zubach had to really lose. If Paul George is even mediocre today, they win by 10. Yeah, he's so bad right now that

you can tell he's like all right i'm gonna be you can actually see his energy on specific possessions where he's like i haven't done shit in like six minutes seven i need one okay i need a taste i'm gonna get one and then he hit a layup on a drive where the defender kind of lost him and then he went right back at him and didn't make the layup. And then it was done. Now Dallas has done a bunch of things where defensively they've had a small guy on Morris and Morris is like, look, I'm going to try to post up a Seth Curry on a switch.

I'm going to, I'm going to, if this is the actual defensive assignment, not even a switch, I'm going to post this guy up. And as you and I both know, when you watch Marcus Morris over a long period of time, you almost want him to shoot a little bit less, even though we realize he's a pretty talented guy. But what is happening to Paul George,

at least as more Morris is awaiting for Paul George. Morris isn't thinking I need to get it back to Paul George. Morris is like, I'm going to get mine. And so that makes somebody who I just think George is a very apprehensive player. He just is when things really matter. He's apprehensive.

I've already mentioned the resume a million times, and it's kind of funny to see, at least for me, because I've done these segments with you. I did this other thing about 30 and 13s in my podcast this week, where there's a group of really good players in the league where if they had 30 in a playoff game, you wouldn't be surprised, but you also wouldn't be surprised if they had 13. And Paul George is the number one pick, and now more and more people are starting to notice this as if it's new, and it's not new. So the quick answer is I don't think anything's really happened to him other than this is kind of who he is but he's due to go off he has to at some point because that's usually what he ends up doing

they should be ashamed the clippers honestly they they should be ashamed and embarrassed the series is two two porzingis got thrown out of a game. Yeah. Right? Luka sprained his ankle and missed what did he miss? Half of game 3? They brought him back. Yeah, he was a shell of himself. It wasn't even close, yeah. No Porzingis today and Luka on a sprained ankle. The series should be

at least 3-1. They should honestly be ashamed. Not to mention, they had the ball in regulation with 25 seconds left called the timeout and came out of the timeout with the strategy of Kawhi kill as much of the clock as you can. And then take a terrible 23 footer. And maybe the ball, maybe the buzzer will end and we'll go to OT. It's like, what are you doing? Kawhi can get whatever, whatever shot he wants, whatever he wants. Just get a good Kawhi shot. Why are you playing scared? They were doubling him at times.

I don't know if that was part of the concern, but he went so late that he didn't really give himself a chance. Look, they have today, other than Luka, do you think the Clippers had the next five best players in the game? Would you be Seth Curry versus Marcus Morris is probably a wash? mean kawaii was so

good down the stretch when it looked like they were gonna lose the game and it's what it's it's like i don't have the scores in front of me here if i want to go back no they were down game long they were down five on defense with like a minute and a half left and red was 116 109 it was 119 yeah it was 119 11 111 when Jackson made that save where it was the perfect pass to Kawhi who catches it, shoots a three that made it 119, 14. So that whole stretch, you're going, all right, Dallas is still going to win this game.

And Kawhi is just systematically. So I wasn't saying that because I've watched Dallas blow leads like that all season, as have all the other Mavs fans. I guarantee there wasn't a Mavs fan going, we got this. It's all good. I want to take a quick break. Then we'll come back, talk more. other mass fans. I guarantee there wasn't a mass fan going. We got this. It's it's all good. Um, I want to take a quick break. Then we'll come back. Talk more quick break to talk about our special ultimate hoops ringer contest on fan duel. You can keep playing fantasy basketball

throughout the playoffs. Every day, we're going to have a playoff game on the ultimate hoops ringer contest, $5 entry fee per contest. If you win, you get a ticket to the leaderboard series during the NBA finals where all the winners will compete for a share of 50K cash ringer swag and to be deemed the sole survivor of the Ultimate Hoops Ringer. The great thing about this is every day is a new chance to win the day and advance to the finals. There's still time to enter contests for a chance to get into that leaderboard series. What are you waiting for? Learn more, enter at fanduel.com slash hoops, ringer, age and location restrictions do apply.

Just quickly on this clips, this whole clips, Mavs thing, there was a point this morning where we were looking at maybe not even a game six in any series, round one, right? Because you're thinking like, all right, OKC is basically one play away from being down 3-0 in that series. Utah, Denver, it looks like Utah

could win that in five. You're just going down the line, you're like, oh man, what would they do? Would they have to move all these up? And now we have a lot more stuff in play. But with this Clips Mavs thing, is there anything you're seeing from the Clips that has made you change your mind

that they're the team to beat? Because for me, I guess the only thing I've noticed over the first four games versus a team like the Mavs. The Mavs to me seem like a true team. They're not very good, but they're a true team. They're built. They're almost built like a high school team.

Like Lucas, the Jimmy Chitwood, you know, Porzingis is the big center. They got to keep them involved. Sometimes they've got a bunch of shooters for Hoosiers. They have a bunch of guys with chips on their shoulders who other teams have given up on, you know, and, and you could see from the reaction when Luca made the shot, you know, if you're grading like, oh, I'm studying the team chemistry just from reactions. Like you could tell that that Mavs team is all in on each other. Like they read that team is really close. They love each other. The clips to me still seem like a bunch of hired guns.

They have a, a pickup basketball kind of vibe to them. And I think some of it has to do with, they don't have a true of hired guns. They have a pickup basketball kind of vibe to them. And I think some of it has to do with, they don't have a true kind of creator other than Kawhi. It's a lot of one-on-one stuff. It's a lot of people who weren't there a year ago, but when I watched them, it still feels to me a little like how the 08 Celtics felt until they finally started to get those scars in the playoffs where the 08 Celtics, all the guys were new and it just felt like a pickup team the whole year, even though they're doing well, it was just like, these guys aren't used to each other. And then they had a couple of seven game series and they

kind of started to get used to each other. And then they kind of took off. Do you feel that with the clips or am I overanalyzing it? I feel like Luca doesn't make that shot that you're talking about team that's up three, one-1 and still probably the better looking team of any of the teams in the West. Okay. That's why I asked. I'm not... I think Beverly not being there

is a lot for them emotionally because George is a dud emotionally. Okay? Kawhi is not going to... Kawhi's a robot. Yeah. He's just not programmed that way. Zubach is not going to... Quasarobot. Yeah, he's just not programmed that way. Zubac is not going to be that guy.

Morris is probably the most emotional player out there. Even Lou is a little laid back. So they need Beverly back there. They do. And you can tell Doc, despite how much we want this team to be the team in the West, at least for those of us that picked them,

the guard situation, I mean, it's crazy. You're in the playoffs, and this is the challenge of a shutdown for four months and then figuring this out on the fly and the fact that the Clippers, this wasn't by design. I remember going on with Cowherd. He goes, you know, they did a really good job of resting all these different guys. I go, yeah, but you know what?

I think if they were being totally honest with you, they would tell you that it would have been nice to have 20 straight games with a tight rotation and knowing what you were going to do for the most part. And they've already changed their guard rotation a couple of times in this, where they bailed on Reggie Jackson. He had a game where I think he played like 20 minutes. The first 18 minutes, the first half didn't have an assist. And, you know, Reggie Jackson is going to have some moments. And I think the hustle plays for him are the important ones now, because it's like, Hey man, if you got Kawhi and even this version of Paul George and Morris and Lou Williams and zubach cleaning up everything in montrez coming back which is another part of this where they got rid

of him a little bit today reggie jackson doesn't need to drive into everybody to see if his layups are working okay and he's hit some threes so that's help but they sham it who we loved after the tobias harris trade he almost forgot he was on the team. So he got, he got sick. I think they're still trying to bring them back a hundred percent. Right. But he just, he doesn't look like the same guy. So it's still a confusing group. So I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I, I think Van Gundy made a really good point where he goes, their energy is just off. And it kind of goes back to that doc. That's why I brought it up. Right. Where doc rivers, the first time he said it, when, you know, I was in Boston and I said, we were interviewing

before a game and the other team was missing one of their big guys. He goes, I'd rather him be out there. I thought he was lying. But he's consistently always said this because he goes, as soon as the other team doesn't have one of their main guys, your team relaxes. Your team relaxes. And whether that was Doncic coming back into the game, he was like, yeah, it's fine if he's coming back.

Or when Doncic had some fouls, he's like, I don't care. I don't like to get distracted and chase fouls. Or Przingis not being there today. It wasn't the case. They were down 21 points. So whatever it was, they were up for it. But they relaxed. And then they relaxed. Van Gundy absolutely pointed it out.

And that's what's so great about Van Gundy is that he's pointing out just stuff other people don't pick up on. He goes right now, their energy is a problem. And then you could see doc went really small to switch defensively, but he also was doing something where he had five guys that could score out there, which I went, Hey, I know they lost, but I liked that. He tried it. I think one of the things I've noticed with them, I don't really know how to describe Kawhi and Paul George as a tandem. And I don't, I don't really know how to describe Kawhi and Paul George as a tandem. And I don't think they've found their identity as a twosome yet. You think of like twosomes over the years, right? You could feel it in the MJ doc, the last dance,

when him and Pippen finally became a twosome in the year before they won the first title. But all of a sudden, they just kind of took off. And collectively, they were almost more powerful than these two separate entities. And you've seen that over the years. Sometimes you see when, when stars get thrown together. I remember Davis and Boogie cousins before Boogie got hurt. They just kind of had something together. It was like, oh, this is, this is cool. I think Tatum and Brown have something together. You know, when you go down the line, like LeBron joined Wade in Miami in 2010,

the supporting cast was bad. They, they definitely had, they developed a chemistry over the course of that year and they would have the alley-oops and stuff. And there was like a connection with them, even though they didn't win the title. I guess my question is what's the connection with Kawhi and Paul George? Who, if you were to describe it, you're like, what is this? Because Kawhi is clearly the alpha dog. I think Kawhi is the best playoff guy in the league. So does Paul George know, like, I'm pipping, I'm going to fill in all the blanks,

or does he think it's the two of us together? It's kind of like they're on the court together, but they don't interact. And I think it's weird. Ross from Friends would be the alpha dog if he were teammates with Paul George. Okay. So I,

I mean, I'm going through my head, trying to think of another top tier player where Paul George would be the alpha. And it just, I don't believe that exists. And that's part of the problem. George,

what's his role on this team? What would you want from Paul George? If Paul George called you and he's like, Hey, Ryan, can you help me figure this out? I'm struggling. What would you tell him? You know how when they send traps at Damian Lillard and it just means now CJ is going to go four on three

and make a really good decision or have a nice look? That's what Paul George should be doing here. And there were moments where they were doubling. I don't know the total number. Maybe it wasn't that many. But I would look for what Paul George was doing. And he watches, he just watches and you go, wait a minute, man, if they're sending to a Kawhi now, it's on like, you should be able to get past all these guys anyway. Like, yeah, Max Kleber stays upright, but I mean, you're Paul George. Are you kidding? So it is, uh, it's just a mental thing

with him that I don't, I don't know that this is really that hard. You know, I don't want to keep doing it over and over again, but he needs at least if you can't get it going and hit some open shots or, you know, just, I would hope to get him going to transition a little bit,

you know, really I would. So that was my biggest note. If I, if I'm the clips, I would play faster because I think they have so many athletic advantages. You got a team out there that's got Seth Curry and Trey Burke and, you know, Maxie Kleber and you, you have better athletes across the board. Why are you walking it down? If I'm Dallas, I'm like, this is great. Go half court on us. This is awesome. Cause we're

just going to shoot threes of the other. And anyway, we're going to shoot more threes than you. And now that you're slowing down, we don't have to worry about fast break. Now we can play Seth Curry and Trey Burke together. We can do, we can play Boban, please slow down. And that, that was, I was confused by that. I was also confused by over and over again, as Dallas was pulling away in the fourth quarter, why Lou Williams was on Tim Hardaway and Luca is just like, oh, cool. I'm just going to keep getting a switch and I'm going to keep torching Lou Williams.

And, and doc was just sitting there for three minutes doing nothing. There's, I just don't feel like as talented as this Clippers team is. Sometimes they do things where I'm like, wow, you're the team that's the favorite to win the title. Yeah. But why are you such a work in progress?

Yeah. But well, cause they didn't play. They really, there's no version of this team that, and between Lou being gone and then coming back, Montrez being gone, coming back, Beverly being, look, I'm just starting to repeat myself, but you're right that they haven't had the continuity that you would want them to have.

But I also think Lou Williams is in the game because his scoring per minutes, it was off the charts. I get it, but move him to Kleber and at least make somebody else set the pick for Luca. And if it, if it's Cleber, great, then all right, then you should, I, the Tim Hardaway thing, it was just over anyway. Um, I do want to mention we were robbed that that Lucas shot didn't happen. This is the first time I really miss fans. Luca made that game winner that that didn't happen in Dallas in a game four. I almost feel like the fans would have charged the court. I feel bad for the Dallas fans. Luca made that game winner that that didn't happen in Dallas in a game four. I almost feel like the fans would have charged the court. I feel bad for the Dallas fans. I mean, Dallas,

they win the lottery literally with this guy. He falls in their lap. Three teams pass on him. It's still the dumbest thing that's happened this century, um, for NBA purposes. And I know it's that they've got to be so happy, but to be distant from it, to not be able to actually see it in person, it's got to be a bummer. Anyway, would you rapid fire Luca questions? Would you trade the entire Celtics roster for him right now?

No. Would you move back to Boston if he ended up on the Celtics next year? Yeah. Yeah. That'd be the one thing that could get me back somebody Jason Gay asked me if you know

Luca and Porzingis or Tatum and Brown he was like people would take Luca and Porzingis but Tatum and Brown is a little closer

my thought was like I would take Luca and anybody against so and so and a second person right because

at Luca's age, and really injury is the only thing that's going to stop him, you just get him for the next 15 years. And we know, to me, it's like him and Giannis specifically, we never have to worry about these guys competitively. There's never going to be an Embiid situation, like the Embiid situation we just watched over the last week, where you're just going,

man, he looks exhausted 24 minutes into this playoff game. Or, oh man, I wish this guy would work on this. Like those are two guys we never have to worry about. I want to talk about Philly. All right, let's do it. Is this, can you remember being more disappointed in the 21st century in a basketball team?

Okay, I didn't know when we were just talking about the basketball. I was racking my brain. In a basketball team for what the ceiling was versus how it played out over a 15-month span. Maybe that Lakers team

that loaded up with Howard, Gasol, Nash, Kobe, but it wasn't a four-year soap opera. Five-year soap opera is what this feels like. It was a shorter disappointment than what we have here with the Sixers, but we've basically done the same Sixers segment for about three years is what it feels like.

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Find exactly what you're looking for and more at homedepot.com slash decor. So here's how we're going to mix the Sixers segment up this year. I assume, well, Brett Brown's going to get fired. I assume Elton Brand will get reassigned to a different role in the organization. The Sixers call Ryan Rosso and they say,

hey man, we're hiring you as a GM. Figure this out for us. Here's what you got. How long is my contract before I say yes? Well, first you say I need five years. Their payroll the next three years, 147.4, 147.3, 138. So three years from now, they're 20 million over the cap, at least. They have Simmons, five years left, 169. Tobias Harris, four years left, 147.2. Embiid left, four years, 120.2. Horford, three years, 81. And Richardson, two years, 22.5.

Horford and Harris are untradeable. Richardson's probably tradable, but what are you going to get? And then it becomes a, if we blow this up, we probably have to blow it up with, by trading Simmons or Embiid, or you talk yourself into,

no, no, we're going to get a better coach. It'll be a coach. You'll be able to figure this out. What would you do? What would be your first move? Well, I tell the staff, I go, I probably am not in the position here of wanting to make ourselves worse

to move off of Harrison Horford. I mean, Horford is declining. That third year has some really weird guarantees that probably aren't super likely. So the total number on that in the third year maybe is a little bit more palatable for a team, but it just looked pretty bad. I mean, there were moments

where we saw him slowing down with Boston, although we appreciated what he was, but that's why Boston was like, all right, go ahead, when it became that number. I do feel bad that he's completely out of position on this team. I mean, I think he's on the right kind of team where he's a stretch five.

He could be useful, I think, not for 27 million, but I just think this is the worst case scenario situation for him and has been from day one. Harris might be, I know John Wall is up there. I, you know, some of the, the Westbrook stuff where I go, at least if I were trading for Westbrook, I think I would know what I was getting. Um, even though his $47 million number three years from now is pretty scary, but I think I'd rather have him at 47 million than Tobias Harris at 39 million four years from now. I Harris is, is one, would 47 million than Tobias Harris at 39 million four years from now. Would you agree that Tobias Harris deal right now is one of the five least tradable contracts in the NBA?

Oh, I think they have two of the top five. I think Wall is 41.3, 44.3, and 47.4. He's number one. I think Blake Griffin at 36.8 and 39, not knowing if he's going to be able to play basketball at a high level anymore is in the top five, but I think you could make a case. Harris is two. And I think Horford is probably three, honestly, unless you want to say Kevin Love for 30 million a year. Yeah. Kevin Love is three years at 30. Is that what we're talking about? Kevin Love's 31.3, 31.3, 28.9. So I think he's in the top five. Wiggins contract. I like, I can't wait to see what it looks like now though

with him. There's a chance that it looks a little bit better, but three years, 94.6 million on paper right now. It looks terrible. Um, yeah, 47 million for Westbrook in three years, or that'd be in two years. Cause he's got three years plus one 32, uh, John Walls, 47 million in two years. You know what? When I was doing these,

cause you and I were texting each other about this. Can I just shout out to Chicago bulls? Yeah. Who gave Felicio, Christiana Felicio, or it's Christian Felicio. Excuse me. I even forgot his name.

Yeah. They gave him four years and 32 million after not even 100 games. He played 10 minutes per game his rookie year and then 15 minutes per game in his second year. And they were like, here's 32 million guaranteed. That's unbelievable. So here's your best chance to get rid of Harris, a team that's delusional and thinks they're one scoring forward away and looks at it as,

oh, well, it's Harris. One of those years is gone. So it's basically like we're signing him as a free agent for four years, 147. It's a little high, but like if you're Chicago and I don't think they would do this, but Chicago could be like, cool, we'll trade you. Otto Porter's expiring and Feliciano's expiring. You're basically get a reset with that Harris money with these huge expirings and we'll take on Harris. He's great. I'm not saying they would do that, but that's really their only option to get rid of that contract. Horford is tougher because the Horford one is actually like with the third year guarantee on it. I think it's easier to digest. Now you could do, I was talking to some people about this, right? Because we knew what the homework assignment was um the first thing i wouldn't do is i wouldn't attach a million draft

picks just to get rid of the guy so i don't want to end up in draft pick hell agree because now because those draft picks if you trust yourself and if you actually are named a gm no gm goes you know i suck at doing drafting i fucking suck at it so i should just trade all these picks because i just i just don't get it whatever it is about these college kids I just don't see it you know no one does that so I wouldn't want to trade all of these potential at least a role guy a rotation player that's a lot cheaper than me having to beg my seventh choice to come off the bench and pay him way too much a free agency anyway even though I don't have any cap space all right so then it comes down to a Simmons and Embiid thing even though I like Embiid more as the player and the talent,

I would probably look to trade him because I am so tired of watching him be exhausted in the second halves of all of these games. And look, man, I think we both really like him. But the first three games of this series, points per game in the first half, 19. In the second half, 11. Field goal percentage, 59% in the first half 19 in the second half 11 field goal percentage 59 in the first half second half 29 from three oh for four in the second half after making a couple rebounds cut from nine in the first half to four in the second half he doesn't show and he and he also he

he he jumped his stats and garbage time in game four he had 10 points when the game was over that's why i didn't count he said 11 the game, the game, the second half, but it's really, it was really like seven. And then he made a couple of shots when the game was over. Exactly. So he had the weakest 30 and 10 I've ever watched in my life. That's good. No, it's a good foot. He was completely, I was embarrassed for him. Honestly, I'm embarrassed for him. He was completely out of shape. He looked exhausted. He is some of the stuff he did on defense in game three was astonishing. And, and for whatever reason, I thought the announcers were way too favorable toward Philly. I was honestly embarrassed for him beat.

It's, it's like they single-handedly got Kemba Walker going in that series. Kemba was like, I don't really have my legs back. I don't have my feel. Well, here's what'll help take, take 50 wide open jumpers. You're you're. Oh, I'm back. Hey, I remember what I'm doing. And partly it's because, and beats just under the basket hanging out.

I was embarrassed for him. I, I, I, he's the guy I would trade. I would come in and I'd be like, we have to trade and bead. This is only going to get worse. I don't think he takes this seriously enough. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't tell anyone on my staff. We have to trade and beat. I would say, hey, call all your

second and third level guys and see what we can get for Embiid. Yeah. But here's what's going to happen. I could sit here and say, hey, you know, what makes sense on paper?

But what I wouldn't do is make my team worse talent-wise just to split these guys up. Because here's what's going to happen. The new coach is going to come in and the new coach is going to say, I can fix these guys.

And there's a really good chance they're going to give the new coach is going to come in and the new coach is going to say i can fix these guys and there's a really good chance you're going to give the new coach one year to figure this thing out uh i wouldn't want anyone to ever think i have to trade either these guys but i don't know did you do the exercise of trying to have a realistic conversation about what could happen with either of these players because i do think you would obviously get something real for either one of them, but would you then be trading the best player for two lesser pieces and then really think you're a better basketball team? I would not trade Simmons. I think Simmons is borderline special. And if he had been in this series and Embiid was the one who got hurt, there's no way the Celtics sweep them. They

would have won one of those games. I, I think if anything, we learned people take Simmons as frustrating as he is in the holes or, you know, it's like, goes back to my old 90, 10 theory that about Westbrook where somebody is 90% good. And the 10% is really glaring with certain guys with Simmons. It's probably like 13, 15%, but it's so glaring that you end up getting frustrated the whole day against them. He was the only guy on that team who could create a shot. He was the best defender on that team by far. He's the most competitive guy on that team. And I just think they would have put up a bigger fight. I was embarrassed for them. I don't know whether they were quitting on their coach or what happened, but as a Celtics fan who

loves the Celtics, we lose Hayward in game one. I was never worried. I bet on the Celtics every game in the series. I was never worried. I bet on the Celtics every game this series. I was never worried. I always thought the Sixers were going to roll over. I thought they were terribly coached. And even you see Brett Brown today, he's like, you know what? I'm going, I don't care what the numbers say about Embiid and Horford together. I'm running it back. I want to see if I can get them to minus 15 again together. Like he just didn't get it. And, and to think like shake Milton, the team was shake Milton was going to be the answer. The fucking guy can't throw an entry pass. So I partly felt bad for him because nobody could get him for the ball. But on the other hand,

he was so fucking tired. It didn't matter anyway, because he, you know, all he had to do is run back and forth a few times by the third quarter, he was dead. And I, I just think it's such, when you think of where they were before the Harris trade and it all goes back to the Harris trade, the Harris trade, they gave up a bunch of assets for this guy. It's a weird piece. It doesn't help them get even past round two. Then they panic and overpay him and give him one of the worst contracts, um, of the last five years. And it's like, you make the mistake and then you compound the mistake by making the second mistake. That's when teams get fucked up for five years. And this team is now fucked up. I don't think the process was a failure

because a lot of the moves, they all got in a position to where they were last, you know, January, 2019, where it's like, you have assets, you have Jimmy Butler and Beaton Simmons, you have a chance. But now looking back, it's like, man, this is probably the worst way the process could have played out. They won two round one series. This is a seven-year odyssey now. They've never made it out of round two. Jazz odyssey.

They just got swept. All right, let me push back a little as if I'm from philly and go yeah but you already answered like why are you beating up on my team when we you just said how special simmons is now and i think for those of us that were like what's his deal a lot of people those people have come around it's something we touched on even last week so if he's not playing and you don't like the coach i mean people are losing it about like everybody should be fired. Get ownership out of here. Well, that's not going to happen. And Elton Brand got the job almost exactly three years ago.

So I don't know if he gets, like you said, does he get reassigned? He was bumped up like eight months later. You know what they should do is the new GM should say, hey, will you go take the Sacramento job and then trade me Bagley and De'Aaron Fox for Simmons or Embiid? And then go, let's get us out there and start because I did start trying to think of like what two for once would you do Embiid for Sabonis and Oladipo and then run it back with Simmons

I would do Embiid for Sabonis and Oladipo before the other GM who called me finished the Poe in Oladipo he was like hey who called me finished the Poe in Oladipo. He was like, Hey, do you want to do Sabonis for her Simmons for Sabonis and Oladipo?

Yeah. Yes. Yes. I would. What if he was saying old and Polonise? Would you then regret it? Maybe I should wait till the end of the Sobo. Yeah.

I was thinking like I would even do Embiid for Wendell Carter and come on and marketing and their pick Carter marketing their pick for Embiid. I would I would call it into the league right now. I would do it because there is a part of me that if I'm from Philly and I love the Sixers and I'm watching this version of a team out there with arguably the worst backcourt of any team in the playoffs.

You're going oh, wait a minute. Why like if you guys all said Simmons is really good and everybody's kind of in on Simmons, now, we can back to the fundamental problems of what we think Embiid and Simmons are. We've been over those numbers.

Yeah, we don't need to litigate that again. But we do have to litigate this. As we know, agents can start controlling destinies if they decide they don't like a situation. Clutch is involved with Mr. Simmons. What if Clutch says this sucks?

Kuzma, Caruso. Yeah. Well, what if they say this sucks? You got to trade them. He wants his own team. He wants to go to New Orleans and play with Zion. He wants to go to Phoenix and play with Devin Booker. He wants to play with LeBron.

He wants to play with LeBron and Davis. Well, they don't have anything to trade. We don't care. Make it happen. We've seen agents do this. Simmons is under this long contract. He has no leverage at all, but who knows? So I, I personally think that MB will be the move, whether they make it this, this off season or a year from now. But I think that has to be the mood because you can't run, you're going to lose three years here with the, with these five guys or four guys, I guess, you've known. Are we on the same, but it's a really great reminder of all the times you're like, ah, this is one thing that's probably going to happen. You go beware of the unexpected pissed off player that has the juice to pull it off beware the grenade it's it's a great

the agent grenade where it's like oh oh wait you're oh so this is done you're breaking up with me yeah but i'm still paying you it's a great point it's a great i'm still paying you no no we're done we're you have to trade us now the rules are only with a year left yeah we changed it wait oh no he's doing he's doing an interview with Rachel Nichols about how unhappy he is. Fuck! Oh God, we got Chatham! Why is Rachel Nichols in the building?

My name is Rachel Nichols. I'm here with Ben Simmons. She said she was doing a sit-down with Raul Neto on his upbringing. What happened? She double-crossed us. Yeah, I'm here with Ben Simmons. Ben, it's been a trying five years for you

why do you need a change of scenery so badly well you know rachel i just want to i just want to play basketball and be happy why is he a southern i just want to be happy what's going on right now with your ben simmons i'm being i'm basically bill simmons it's been so oh okay all right i just want to be happy rachel. You know, I just think everybody needs to change the scenery. We had a great run in Philly. Pause. Nobody mentioned something. You never got out of round two. It wasn't really that great. But you know, I think it's maybe time to move on. Then what does Philly do if he says that? I just want to do a Rachel follow-up like, okay, how, how great of investment is Los Angeles real estate right now? Just out of nowhere to bits of it.

He's probably, he's probably on Redfin right now, looking at different neighborhoods, trying to figure out where he's going to live. It's like Calabasas, a lot of property, big backyards, a lot of space. It could fit a lot of friends here. I think they should shop and bead. I don't think friends here. I think they should shop Embiid. I don't think they will. I think they will talk themselves into,

we can make this work for one year. Here's the case for Embiid to shop. He's had major injuries. He doesn't seem to fully value being in incredible shape. Doesn't seem to understand it yet. The risk is, well, the risk is he figures it out and has this awesome year where he just runs through the league like a, like a knife going through butter. And you're like, Oh my God, we traded this guy. He's the best player in the

league. I just think you are who you are by your mid twenties. And he's in his mid twenties. I just think this is who he is. And I really like him. I wish he wasn't like this. I really enjoy watching him play basketball, but I was never concerned about him. And then they're going like, oh, you got to feed him bead more in this Boston series. I'm like, great. Guess what? Everyone else is going to stand around as he takes 10 seconds deciding what to do and probably ends up with like a 15 footer when he's seven foot three. I just don't think he gets it. I really don't. He has way too many possessions where he doesn't. As great as he is at passing out of doubles at times.

And by the way, the Marcus Smart steal in game three. I was watching. I forget. That was awesome. All the highlights that I saw. Somebody was saying, oh, Embiid should want that. Or you can't make that pass. You're like, do you understand what Marcus Smart just did?

Yeah, how amazing that was. He made himself invisible behind a guy. And then jumped out like a defensive back on like a screen pass. where you're like, what the hell is that guy doing over there? He looked like Stefan Gilmore. It didn't even make any sense. It didn't look like a basketball player doing a basketball thing. Right. But your summary of it, despite how long this took, is that I think it's the accurate one that you can talk yourself into feeling bad and yet not wondering

if a guy gets it all at the same time. And that's, that's where you're at with them. Well, have you, you don't have to name the couple, but I'm sure you've had a couple in your life that was a volatile couple, broke up a lot, um, broke up with each other, got back together. All their friends hated, hated them when they were together. And you're just like, man, I wish they would break up. And then they go to you and like, Hey, good news. We're having a kid. This'll make it better. We're going to bring a kid into this. The kid, the kid will bond us. It'll be great. And you're, and you're thinking like, ah, that's going to make it worse. Don't do that. Um, to me, the sixes are at the point now where if the hiring the new coach

and the new GM and being like, we're changing stuff is the equivalent of we're having a kid. It's going to be great. Would you do Lou door? And I just, I want to do more of these, but I know they're all stupid because I really if I had to bet a lot of money on it I would go whoever the new coach is he's going to say he has it completely figured out and it's gonna be a coach with some stature I would imagine a little juice and poor Brett Brown looked like he had like every every year as it got worse, you would look at him and he looked like your buddy who woke up the next day after the golf trip going, that one got away from me.

Where were you? We had breakfast this morning. You weren't in your room. What are you talking about? It's two. Well, how about when he called the timeout down seven with six and a half seconds left? That was a real, I don't know who that was a fuck you for but it was the possibilities were the referee joelle was it the challenge was it

because uh brad challenged the play at the end well i don't know he went one and eight against brad in the playoffs that was the final record he may have also wanted to do kind of a pj fleck thing where he just decides hey everyone, everyone, gave it our all. When they played his speech for him, I felt bad. To like Philadelphia, Boston, Andrew Toney, Mo Cheeks, Terry Catledge. I love that because I wanted the camera to pan back, and Embiid is on some website trying to figure out if they get back to Philly in time, could he have dinner at like 10 o'clock?

Embiid was gone. Did you feel like that? I felt like he was gone after the first half of game three when he got tired and he was like, oh man, we're not winning this. Can we talk about the Celtics really quick? And I mean really quick. Yeah, I imagine we would. So Hayward goes down.

Looks a little... It's like, fuck, that's going to be bad for the Toronto series. It's not going to matter for this series. But at least some other guys will be able to get some minutes.

The big thing that happened the last three games was Kemba. And Kemba looked like the Kemba from the first two months of the season. I did not think we were going to see that version of him again. I was really, really, really discouraged and pessimistic about his ceiling. And by the end of this series,

I thought he looked like Kemba again. And now I'm revising my Celtics ceiling. I do think they have a chance. Against Toronto. I do think they have a chance. Against Toronto? I just think they have a chance now because I think Kemba... Chance to what? Get out of the East?

What are we talking about? Yeah, to win any series. I didn't think they could beat Toronto if Kemba was compromised or 75%, something like that. But if he can go and he can play at that level, they have a chance.

I mean, I'm not... I'm not creating a new not, I'm not, uh, you know, creating a new formula for success or anything, but I, I just, I was pessimistic until these last 48 hours. I like the Celtics against Toronto with, with Hayward because they could put all these bigger guys on their guards or they at least had a big guy still with Siakam. They would put a bigger player on Lowry.

I think they would put in the most recent game, they had Kemba on Van Vliet, who is just as dangerous as kind of any of these guys. Cause when you start to look at like some of the Siakam numbers, they've declined, but they declined because of shots. Like they were, they were absurd at the beginning of the year and they had like a bad

shooting month, which everybody has, but he's still really tough once he gets that deep catch. But when you look at his actual shot attempts, they've gone down because other guys are just as good. Norman Powell might be the most surprising 16-point-a-game guy for a season. Totally agree. If you scroll the entire points per game, leaders,

and you go, Norman Powell gets 16 a game? And then when you watch him, you go, you know what? This makes sense. It's like the 1980s where you go, you know what? This makes sense. It's like the 1980s where you go through the old, the rosters and there's guys like, wow, that guy averaged 17 a game that year. What? Yeah, that's a, you know, it's exactly because.

Like Bob McAdoo and the 82 Lakers. He was 19 a game. What? McAdoo. McAdoo crushed it back then. But Siakam only played in two of the regular season games. And I think Gasol's kind of unplayable against the Celtics. But no Hayward. And then I don't know how dated this will be once it comes out, but Lowry left the game, the clinching game,

against Brooklyn with an ankle injury. So we'll see what that is. I mean, Lowry not being around, although I don't know that it's that significant. They were up big and not a big deal. But my dad wanted us to talk about that. The Hayward loss is actually more important than people realize because of the ball just moves better when he's out there, regardless of whether he's shooting that well,

he's so unselfish. And to just replace that with this hodgepodge of the semi-augilary types, like you do feel it. There was a lot of one-on-one stuff the last three games. It didn't matter because Philly was so atrocious defensively and had such bad schemes, but it's going to matter against Toronto.

The one-on-one stuff, they'll be able to slow down. Yeah, I think Toronto is going to go small. Gasol looked pretty bad in that matchup there. It's a much better matchup for Tice, but you know what's crazy watching Tice against Embiid? It's not ideal, obviously.

And if the other team's not going to expose canner with high screen roles because they don't like their guards even though philadelphia did try to do it twice the beginning the fourth quarters of like hey wait a minute doesn't everybody attack canner like we can try that right and then they did it for two plays they actually got one decent shot missed the other shot wasn't very good tice is a better defensive player than joelle and beat we certainly tries harder you're not all the way with me on that i know this is well i think there's there's really good stat defensive metrics for mb when he's engaged i i would say he was unhing he was unengaged in this series

yeah but at least with tice but tice is a better matchup in the toronto thing but your hayward point your dad's hayward point is spot on because even with the version of Hayward, that's still probably generally disappointing him as your fourth option. Yeah. That's an insane fourth option. Somebody who knows how to play basketball and knows how to switch and knows how to make extra passes and knows how to run a three on one and all little things that, you know, the, out of all the guys from the last couple of drafts, which have not been great, uh, Grant Williams was the only one that kind of looked like he knew where to go and what to do. And he made a couple of good plays in game two and game three, and at

least seems like he's playable. And I think they're going to need them for this next round. But I, this is one of the reasons I love them against Philly. Remember you asked me if I was worried about Philly and I was like, no. Toronto worries me for a variety of reasons, but one is that it's crazy to say this because he was a nobody two years ago, but like Van Vliet is an awful matchup for the Celtics team. He's the type of guy that they have a ton of trouble defending.

Even Marcus, who I think is a wonderful, fantastic defender, even he has trouble against the Van Vliet guys. It puts a lot of pressure on Kemba. My big fear with this Kemba-Boston thing is just I want Kemba to be healthy. I want him to keep his explosiveness. You saw how much they needed him in those three games. If they're putting a huge defensive workload on him against Lowry and Van Vliet, I'm worried that he's going to wear down the longer the series goes. Now, Boston got a huge rest here. Toronto's going to get rest too.

I don't know if they're going to speed up the start of the series. But the Kemba thing, that determines the floor of the ceiling for this Celtics building, whether it's a 10-floor building or a 7-floor building, whatever it is. It all comes down to Kemba. And if Hayward can come back by the conference finals, great. But, um, I worry about the Kemba piece and there's, by the way, going to be a lot of Wanamaker in this next series, which was, of course we do for a variety of reasons. Maybe Brett Brown called the timeout because he couldn't believe that Brad Stevens was trying to show him up by playing Grant Williams, Romeo Langford, and Brad Wanamaker at the same time. I couldn't believe

that group was in there. And by the way, the Sixers didn't make up any ground whatsoever. Van Vliet is someone who went from three points a game and barely playing, not even half the season, eight points a game, 11 points a game, and now he's 17 points a game and 39% from three, although he doesn't shoot it great inside or at least overall but he's fucking crafty the crafty dudes he's so like the kemba point is a good one because it did look like kemba closing shots like those what he did to horford is obviously it's against horford but he made some guys miss like it looked like yukon kemba again and i don't know when he comes back four month bubble

and you're like wait he's still not ready to go like what the hell and so credit to the celtics because they actually look like they handled this the right way because it looks like it's going to at least last for this year but van vliet is he is kind of shamit face kawaii when you look at his development you like that shamit Shamit faced Kawhi because Kawhi was, oh, all right, who's this guy not scoring? There's just a bunch of players now that, not like Van Vliet's some star star, but his production in four straight years is off the charts

and no one would have picked this his first year. Well, let's say Boston beats Toronto. Toronto's gets sent packing. What happens to that team? I think that's a storyline that I hadn't really thought about. And then I was thinking about, you know, that Lowry,

they extended for one more year, but I think Gasol and a Baca are free agents, right? Extended. So what do we got? We got Lowry one more year who they extended before Gasol's up Baca's up Van Vliet is um he's up but it's it's not even restricted is he no he's just going to get paid right so what do you do if you're them because you could make a case you won the title you went

on Kawhi and it worked, you defended the title this year in a really good way. Let's say Boston beats them. Now it's like, well, what are we going to do? We're trying to protect this round two team, basically. Like, you're not paying Gasol and Ibaka again.

Could you make a case that they could actually, like, try to rebuild after this? You know, like, could, like, see Ockham. People are, I think Golden State's going to end up trading

that number two pick, right? I think they moved that pick trying to get a veteran. Golden State calls you and says, hey, what's happening? It's Golden State.

What are your thoughts about Wiggins, the number two pick and our Minnesota pick for Siakam? Bring Wiggins home? Yeah, he's from Canada. He's from Canada. He's a hometown kid.

You've already won the title. They would hang up on you so fast. Just because you won the title. Yeah, just because you won the title doesn't mean you go, hey, you guys want to take this year off? I don't even want to scout any of the Southern teams. Yeah, me neither. We won the title.

They hang up. Okay. By the way, that's not even... You think Toronto hangs up on Golden State? You can't trade Siakam for a number two pick in this draft. You can't. Real quick, I think with Nurse being this good, maybe they flip Lowry with the one year and 30 remaining to somebody,

pay Van Vliet. I wouldn't mind paying Ibaka again. I'm back all in on Ibaka, especially with the way he's... I think I agree with you. I just wanted to talk it out. Give me your other trade

that I feel like you're more embarrassed to share with me now. For who? I thought you had another Toronto trade somebody else was going to call. No, that was really it.

I was trying to figure out if they rebuilt... Because, cause I do think Messiah is one of those GMs where he could look at the Siakam thing and be like, all right, this guy's really good. He's not that good. There's actually like, we'd be trading this guy for full price. Could it do? I think he could be like the number one guy in a championship team? No, I still don't have a number one guy. Maybe this is a way to rebuild and whatever.

But I could also see what you described. They just bring everybody back. They keep it going and they try to figure out how to work around the margins. But I think it gets tough when the Lowry contract

is really scary. I think there's nothing scarier than how old is he now? Like 32, 33. I can't believe he doesn't get hurt more often considering his he's on the ground. He's in the 2006 draft. He's 34. Yeah. So it's still really good. Right. But I think next year would probably be the last year you'd want to be paying him over 20 million a year. And then Van Vliet, I don't, I mean, two years from now, he might be the best player you'd want to be paying him over 20 million a year and then van vliet i don't i mean two years from now he might be the best player in the league for all we know he's

the rate that he improves each year he might be alan iverson in two years i i also don't think that it's a product whatever their off season is it isn't oh we lost to boston in seven games oh we beat boston six, so now let's keep this group together because I just don't think smart front offices make those decisions. I only mention it because I think had they not won the title last year, I think they probably would have blown

this team up. You don't think so? I think part of the reason they kept this team together was because they smartly and respectfully believed in defending a title and keeping a nucleus together. And they were smart.

And now they have a chance to win another title. But all of us were so wrong on it. And I was incredibly... When they did the extension on Lowry, I thought it was to be able to make him more valuable in a trade before this year's deadline instead of a team losing him in free agency. But I think that's why they did it.

We don't expect Siakam to improve that much. He did. OG and Inouye, who I think any of us that saw him healthy, goes, yeah, maybe he has a chance, but I really like him. Ibaka, to me, has had this resurgence that showed up last year in the playoffs

in certain spots, especially against Golden State. Van Vliet, the level he's at, that's another one. And then every single rotation guy, you're like, oh, Terrence Davis is going to get his buckets. Oh, like Caruso's skinny, taller, older brother is going to get buckets too.

There's just all of these guys that you don't hate. And that's, you know, I haven't even mentioned Norman Paligan since that whole thing. So I was wrong about this team, but I also don't think you're going to make mistakes by losing the top player in the league after you win a title and going, I don't expect as much from this team. And they don't think you're going to make mistakes by losing the top player in the league after you win a title and going i don't expect as much from this team and they filled in all those gaps but we'll really know that they've replaced kawaii depending on who who's their

bucket getter in those huge spots because there's no one on that team that's that guy so you know sometimes when i hear all the could be maple jordan maple jordan next year but you know even mark jones is from from Canada on the broadcast because hey Toronto's the most disrespected champion ever and you go okay but it's

it's very simple yeah they lost the best guy in the league that's it that's all it is yeah sorry we're disrespecting a team that doesn't

have its best player anymore yeah one of the three at worst and maybe as you said there was some weird announcer I thought there was some weird announcer

stuff the last week. Like this whole week, Mark Jones praising Philly for trying hard. It's like, it's the fucking playoffs. You're supposed to try hard. Oh, look at,

look at this team. They've read. There's no quit in this team. It's like, well, we've seen a lot of quit actually the last couple, last couple of games. Um,

and they would roll over at the first chance. I don't know. I thought, I think the announcing's been strange mark jackson had one where he goes if i'm kawaii i'm telling coach i got luca here on out and i i'm not 100 sure because i certainly wasn't in the building because who was it um it was paul mcguire I think was the biggest culprit on Sunday Night Football. He was terrible.

He would see the ref that throws the flag in a football game, goes to the lead official, and will be like, hey, offsides, whatever. And then it's the oldest trick in the announcing booth, where you see what the ref did to tell the lead who's going to announce it and you're like i think they got a hold on 57 here i think i think i think i saw him holding you're like you already know that it's a hold because we can't see that part on the camera angle so mark when he goes if i'm kawaii leonard i tell my head coach i have luca the rest of the way he's mine.

That was good Mark Jackson. I know, I got it down. And Van Gundy was like, yeah, I think you can see Luca. So I think he gave it away a little bit that he was basically saying like Luca was pointing to Doc Rivers as Mark was like, if I'm Kawhi Leonard. And so I was like, you know,

it felt a little bit like that or maybe Mark Jackson absolutely nailed it. Who knows? I like whatwhi Leonard. And so I was like, you know, it felt a little bit like that or maybe Mark Jackson absolutely nailed it. Who knows? I like what Mark Jackson does. Like people don't talk enough about how buff Ryan Russillo is. Like when he makes it seem like he's discovering something

that everybody has already acknowledged years ago. You know, people don't talk about what a creator Kawhi Leonard is. It's like, no, we actually do. We talked about it last year. That one doesn't make any... He did it with Mello. He'll do it with some weird ones where he'll be like,

people over the years knocking Mello's commitment to defense. Challenge accepted. You're like... Yeah, he was an atrocious defensive player for years on end. That's why we questioned it. I had a tweet because he had one where it was so obvious and I was going to tweet it, but I wasn't going to sign it by anybody.

And it was going to be like, of all the great friends in the history of television, Rachel, Ross, Monica, Phoebe, and Chandler Bing are at the top. Just let people guess who it was. No, I can't do it. It's played out. I left Joey out, I think.

Sorry. Anyway, Boston-Toronto is going to be awesome. I'm really excited for round two because we also have Miami and Milwaukee, which I want to talk about. One second. Let's take a break. Let's take a break to talk about FanDuel Sportsbook for the NBA playoffs,

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Must wager on designated boost market. Max bonus $200. See full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Colorado, 800-522-4700. West Virginia, 1800gamber.net. Indiana, 800-9 with it. So our round two could look like this. Boston, Toronto, Miami, Milwaukee, Lakers, Houston, and then Utah versus Clippers, Dallas, which would probably be more fun if Luka somehow shocked the world and made round two and then we just got to ride the Luka train but either way that's probably the week series

unless Luka's in there which one of those three are you the most excited about Boston Toronto Miami Milwaukee or Lakers Houston because I feel like I'm going to hate watch the Lakers-Houston? Because I feel like I'm going to hate-watch the Lakers-Houston series. And it's basically like a battle

of basketball soul. Houston, all due respect, you're doing it the right way. If you can win playoff games with James Harden and a bunch of cast-offs, much like Dallas is doing, you're doing something correctly. But now they'd be going against the Lakers where they'd basically be saying, um, all right, Davis, we're going to give you,

we're going to spot you 42 points a night and probably 18 rebounds and LeBron. Um, you're probably going to have a 35, 15 and 12 every night, but we're going to shoot 63. Good luck. That's how it's going to play out. And if I'm the Lakers, I'm terrified because I have two of the best three players in the series. I traded the farm to get Davis. I'm on my way to this Clipper series, but now I have this weird Houston team. That's basically like, if you're in a football, if you're in the NFL playoffs and you're going, it's the team that's running like the fucking wishbone and you're like, what is this? I know we're better than

this team, but Jesus Christ, what do we do? I would say that series has the highest WTF upside. I think Boston-Toronto is the best pure series and I think Miami-Milwaukee is the best chance for an upset.

The best series is probably Toronto and Boston. And I think without Hayward, I'm picking Toronto. I'm not a hundred percent sure though. I'm not, not all the way. I'm like 60, 40 Toronto for me.

I'm trying to not put too much in the regular season. As I mentioned again, before Siakam missing the two, two of the four games. So what do you do with that? Um, as we've mentioned numerous times, and I feel like I'm doing everybody a favor.

Like I'm admitting my bias here. When Jeff Green is raining threes in game three and Chris Paul is about to be eliminated, while Chris Paul really was on the bench and Dennis Schroeder decided to go Atlantis, Dennis Schroeder and was screwing up almost every single possession. And game two was so frustrating

because you're watching Oklahoma City. And again, I say frustrating not as a Thunder fan, but we all know where I'm at with this. When Houston is just cooking, it's one of the most helpless feelings going against Houston when it's just working on it. Even with every single hardened shot, you're like, that's going to go in.

That's going to go in. Hardened's amazing. And it works, okay? So the whole premise of it works. And the small thing, we've been over it. I've talked about all the rebounding rate stuff. But if the Lakers get Houston, and I don't know if Oklahoma City's uncovered something there

with getting Adams out, because the weird thing about Game 3 is... Playing Gallo at center, we were waiting for it. Yeah, and the rebounding rate was actually... Houston was up in the rebounding advantage in that game. And you're like, well, Adams is going to turn up like Adams. Sometimes we'll get a look at the bucket real close and he kicks it back out to somebody else.

And you go, no, this is the, this is the series where you're supposed to make these guys pay a little bit. This is supposed to be like the running game where you, you get some of these touches to try to wear them down in the inside and it didn't matter. And then Oklahoma city completely fell apart with no secondary cuts. There was no action. And now you're telling me like Shay and Schroeder and Chris Paul can't make something happen.

And then it all sort of magically happened there. I thought they figured out, they figured out their identity as that game went along. And I do think that's going to go seven. That's serious. Dort. This is enormous because now that the refs know that Dort Is this guy defensively He's not gonna get

Called for shit that other guys get His arms are I mean, that's the dude in pickup Where you're like, oh fuck, I hope that dude doesn't guard me Oh no Oh, I got Dort on me Fuck Get who gets you when you walk all the way away from Dort

You're like, D like you're like in your car still he's like the guy pick up he's got bad bo he's just all over here you're like fuck he has to hold five dollars can i can i do a quick loot loot dort thing because well i mean he's one of the breakout stars of the bubble for me all right i have I have an NBA theory for you. Say ratings, say in 10 years, the NBA has some issues. Whole new style of league. Just Lou Dort? No.

30 teams and you can keep four players, but then the rest, no, or you can keep five. All right. So let's just put it that way. 150, you can keep your five starters, but then the other 300 players

are NBA mercenaries. And that means you can- your five starters but then the other 300 players are nba mercenaries and that means you can like jeff green pretty much yeah jeff green except that means lou dort's never assigned to a team it just means somebody calls and goes hey it's the trailblazers we got hardened this week we're gonna we're gonna pay you one1 million to show up on Thursday. I like it. What would Lou Dort get? Like Lawrence Fishburne and John Wick or something. This is an actual text exchange. Me and my dad, Thursday, 2.43 p.m. My dad texts me.

He must be so upset about Lou Dort. My dad texts me. I know it's Jeff Green, but we could have used him off our bench. Now I'm worried about him. Tell him I'm actually worried about him now. I texted him back. Stop it.

He texted me back. Everyone deserves a third chance. I texted him back. He was your least favorite Celtic of the last 10 years. You're going to want Al Abdel Nabi back next. And he said, true. Forget I brought it up. Like the way Houston uses him.

They pull him if he sucks. He just made three threes. Jeff Green winning over my dad as a playoff guy is my new most shocking moment in 2020. It's replaced all the other crazy things that happen, including a global pandemic. Jeff Green on the Rockets. Anyone on the Rockets.

If Ben McLemore is now a problem at least in social media terms if Ben McLemore can become a problem anyone that goes to the Rockets is like any dude in his 20s having a personal stylist that lives with him it just increases your whole efficiency

your output you're a different person in that system and that's why I always think it's kind of funny. Say they lose. Say the Rockets blow the series. D'Antoni's out. I think there'd be some really weird stuff that could possibly happen with that team. Because I also think D'Antoni could be a person of interest with a lot of other teams.

Like the New Orleans Pelicans? Maybe the Sixers. Like the Pelicans of New Orleans? What are you trying to say? You know something? Like the New Orleans Pelicans? Sounds like you're trying to say? You know something? Like the New Orleans Pelicans? Sounds like you're trying to say you know something. Alright, well. I just think he goes to where the

pace and the point guard is. He's learned that from his Knicks experience. He took the Knicks job without having the type of team that now he knows. If I'm going to a new team, I'm going to a team that has a guy that can do what I like to do. Because I don't know if we're going to do some of our trade stuff a little bit later on, which is all... I want to do it right now.

Alright, but it's... I would just be so interested to see what the Rockets would run because what Harden... Harden doesn't want to not run this. What if they were like, hey, we're going to actually... We're going to be posting up

Dwayne Dedman and then run it around him? The thing is, if you have somebody as special as Harden or as special as Luka, this is the style you have to play. You just have to go get shooters for them. What are you going to have post-up guys for? What do you want guys clogging the paint? You want to spread it out. Why doesn't Golden State do this? Because they have two guys?

Maybe they will. No. What do you why doesn't Golden State do this? Because they have two guys? Maybe they will. No. What do you mean no? Golden State keeps moving. That's the difference. That's some of the stuff that drives me nuts on these five-out

offensive formations. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, they try to get action out of it while they're playing that stuff. I know this is a shocking concept, but when you're not in the play, the guy moves to maybe be an option.

And Dallas will do it on some cuts. I think Dallas does it more than Houston does it. Russ off the ball will cut. I don't know that stuff off the top of my head as far as the numbers. I liked when OKC had Gallo at center. And they just basically did the Luca, Harden, spread the floor thing but if I was

Houston, I'm like, oh fuck, they figured this out because if I'm Houston, I'm like, great, you're playing Adams awesome, this is great for us, please keep doing this but now the Gallo at center, and Gallo looks like he's half confused in this series. Kind of like, what the fuck is what's going on?

What sport am I playing? Um, but at the same time, like to be down to one, when, I mean, they were like 10 to one underdogs after the, when they went down to nothing.

And I keep hearing Westbrook's not as close to coming back as I think people seem to think. What words have you heard on that? Well, it's Russell Westbrook who I would think would play with anything. And if it was just as quad, I expected it to be, and this wasn't based on any information,

but you're like, Oh, it's Westbrook. All right. He's just, I mean, that guy, it's like when KG got hurt in oh nine,

not to say it's the same injury, but no, the longer the KG thing dragged on, you're going, well, this doesn't, this doesn't feel right. This guy's like the all-time warrior. So the Westbrook thing, I don't know. I think the longer he sits,

the more OKC is going to figure out what to do. And your guy, Chris Paul, I know you're rooting for him. There was a moment there where it's like, all right, Chris, we're going to be adding this to your resume of terrible playoff series that turned out badly for some reason. And then he kind of started looking like Chris Paul a little bit.

It's like Schroeder inspired him. Schroeder was great. Well, Schroeder, I'm telling you, Schroeder in the end of that third quarter, it was bad. And Chris was watching that part. But I was more frustrated with Chris Paul in game two than i even was in game very passive game two it was a wait a minute like you're chris paul you're the guy that's supposed

to unlock this and figure something out like how could you guys have this many bad possessions in a row and then once paul starts hitting all those threes i was like like, Hey, there's my guy. There is a, let's do, um, let's do trades. Okay. So you want to start? Well, I, I think, uh,

what do you do if you're Indiana is a good question because I really do like their team. And I thought Sabonis was one of the best 20 players in the league this year. Wow. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I hadn't thought of it that way. But,

or maybe 25. He's definitely an all-star. I haven't got my list today. I thought he was a real problem. And, He's just built different. Turner thing.

I don't know. Who would you rather have out there for 40 minutes a game? Sabonis or Turner? Like, there's no way that's not a massive drop-off.

So, I don't know if Indiana should be a panic team. At the same time, Old Depot's got a year left at 21 million. I don't know if Indiana should be a panic team at the same time. Old Depot has got a year left at 21 million. I don't, I can't imagine he's going to stay there a year from now, especially cause it kind of feels more like, you know, the Brogdon old Depot thing.

I'm not sure you need both anyway. And it just seems like he's a natural trade piece. And honestly, I had to get holiday holiday, the kid they drafted. I like, I like him too. I, I gotta tell you, I wasn't, it's big on him at UCLA. natural trade piece and honestly i had to get holiday holiday the kid they drafted i like i like him too i i gotta tell you i wasn't it's big on him at ucla and watching him more and more there's something there and i don't know what the ceiling is but i went from sort of disinterest to oh i kind of like that kid now so i feel like he gets traded is he on the Pacers next year, yes or no? Oladipo? Yeah.

I'm going to say no because they've paid Brogdon and not that you can only pay one guy. Paid Sabonis. I got to tell you, I know I don't have... Here's what I do. I'm pretty sure most people that...

We're not reporters, but you talk to enough people and you go, hey, you know, who do you think might be willing to shake some things up? Hey, give me some names that you hear that could be available. And we're going to get to some of those names

because you and I double-checked the list and all that kind of stuff. But the Pacers thing feels like it could go in a bunch of different directions. That's it. That's as comfortable as I feel like talking about it right now at this point. But

it just seems to be all over the place. Well, who would you keep? Because I really like their team, and I actually think Miami's just really good. And it's a bad matchup for them without Sabonis, because I think Sabonis would have been a real problem for

Miami. Because I think Miles Turner is somebody that you like from afar and then if you have him every night you go, oh. You kind of ruined him for me. I liked him more than you and then you kind of peed on him a little and then now when I watch him, I watch him through that tainted lens. Sorry.

You should be thanking me. He takes some shots. You're like, why? Do you know that he'll make a three he takes he takes some shots you're like why do you know they make a three every once in a while and you're like oh when they were making a run in the last miami game they ran a time out like an out of time out they ran a three for him and i was like wow and i just i didn't know if that's one of those deals with the coach where it doesn't seem to make a ton of sense but it's like i hopefully like I get him going and I wanted him to know like these other things that we never really think about from the outside where we ran that for you because I trust you and, you know, be energized and we don't even care that it didn't go in and all that kind of stuff. Um, so that's one team. That's one of the teams.

The reason I think Oladipo is an important conversation. Cause I think he gets you something. I think he gets you something. And I think there's going to be some teams that are pretty aggressive. Like I guarantee both of us think Brooklyn is going to be doing stuff. And Brooklyn's got tradable contracts. They have the Joe Harris thing they got to figure out, but you know, they're going to try to figure out who that third fit is.

I don't think either of us, you had to tell them you're Levert overrated, underrated thing. Okay. This happens in life all the time, but Karis Levert, when you watch him in college, you're like, Whoa. And so when they drafted him, I'm like, you know what? I really liked that pick. It makes sense. And then he comes along and you're like, this is pretty incredible. And then he gets hurt. We're all kind of bummed out. And then it ends up not being that bad of an injury. And Karis LeVert has become this really nice story because he's drafting behind all these other stories. And then the more you watch Karis LeVert, you go as talented as he is.

Him taking a bad shot, not making it against Portland in that final game in the bubble. That was like one of the least surprising things. I think he's, this is unbelievable that Brooklyn has had this run of high usage kind of i'm gonna really do my own thing here where d'angelo russell actually got better with them but was was piggish there for a while and then you never felt like it was going in at the end and then dinwiddie you're like you know who i like is this dinwiddie guy a little bit he's got something and you can even see atkinson i think trusted dinwiddie more than russell at some point and then the more you started watching dinwiddie you're like is dinwiddie now another version of russell and then kairi comes in and kairi puts up these massive numbers but you're like is this in

the flow of anything and then once kairi was out was like dinwiddie's like i'm back and now that dinwiddie's gone caris lavert's like all of you guys can fuck off because now it's my team and so yes he's talented yes i like the story but if you let caris lavert probably have the keys to your car it's a little early so i remember way back when when i i used to be a writer i don't know if you knew this i have a great i actually was going to pitch you a writing idea nba mercenaries i had um to get you back in the scene i did a whole riff about david west i had him as an overrated, underrated guy where the announcers were saying

how underrated he was for like two years and he weirdly became overrated because it's like, all right, he's 17 and eight. Settle down. But for two years, you know who's great? It's this David West. And then there's always guys like that. And I do wonder if Karis LeVert maybe is our next guy.

We all like the story. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But anyway, I think he's probably a trade candidate. Dinwiddie at 10 million, who's kind of a loose cannon. Jared Allen, because DeAndre is Kawhi and, I mean, Kyrie and KD's buddy. So I was

wondering if there was some sort of Oladipo thingy in there. And then Dinwiddie's a player option so remember he was doing the thing where he was like oh yeah if you guys venmo me i'll go anywhere for the minimum which immediately like everybody was like that's a cap violation the most interesting guy to me who's who's i think out there is buddy healed whose contract kicks in next year at 24.4. I just like Buddy Heald. I think he was in a bad situation in Sacramento,

and I think he's the type of guy that I could see in a playoff series like the ones we're watching right now. Would you do Bagley and Buddy Heald for Embiid? I'd probably have to get their pick two and something else. Bagley hasn't been able to stay on the court, though. Not at all.

But I know you like him. I need multiple firsts for him. I don't know, man. We're just shopping Embiid around anywhere. I just like throwing him at you from time to time, man. Well, I... The thing is, if you get Embiid and then, you know, he's like, I'm mad. I got traded.

I'm getting in shape this year. The whole league's going to be like, oh fuck. I mean, trust me, the league likes the way it is right now. Um, so yeah, Indiana, I think Denver is another one where we're taping this in order. So it's seven o'clock PT. We don't know this Denver, Utah is playing out. But if this Denver series ends badly or something happens,

they have a lot of pieces, right? Because they have the Harris contract is $19 million. They have Porter. They have Will Barton's at $13 million. They even have the Jamal Murray card to play. So it's like, if you really wanted to put a

full fledged second star next to Yoke, and you're trying to do that without giving up Murray. So you're trying to basically make Murray your third guy and you bring in a second star next to Murray and Yoke. They have the salaries and they have the Porter piece. And I do think Porter would have a lot of trade value. You agree? Oh have a ton are you kidding me his look we've been over the defensive lapses but every time you watch a michael porter jr game his shot making ability he would be the guy as a an olympic diver that would go i'm gonna win because i'm gonna take the most difficult attempts at this i didn't think you were gonna to get an Olympics today. Sorry that I gave it to you, but there's shots that he pulls up. There's just 90% of the league. You'd be like, don't take that shot. And he keeps making these

where these pull-ups contested threes and his, I don't know who the last announcer was. Cause you lose track, but it wasn't a horrible comp. I'm not saying he's Durant, but Durant's impossible because the shot release, you're just not going to do anything with it. Garnett was impossible because the shot release, like it's never going to be contested. I'm trying to think of a little bit of that. The athleticism around the rim and the stuff he's able to do when he's at

weird angles, it's pretty unusual. And I don't know who the, uh, who the doppelgangers are for that. You don't see that. Who would you rather have? Well, I think it's a little McGrady-ish,

but he doesn't have any McGrady's playmaking ability. And he's probably more physical than McGrady is. Well, the thing is, if you're Denver, you have this guy, Jokic, who is one of the, I think, eight or nine best players in the league. You don't really have the second piece with him. You don't know how long your window is

with any of this stuff. And with Porter, like the guy's coming off a major injury, small sample size, You don't really have the second piece with them. You don't know how long your window is with any of this stuff. And with Porter, the guy's coming off a major injury, small sample size, high trade value, and it's like maybe you cash in and try to get a legit second star. You have the salaries with Porter to actually go and pursue a real guy if you wanted to. I don't know who that real guy is, but, um, let's run through the exercise. Cause when you texted this assignment to me for Denver,

and by the way, Yoko just getting destroyed and Utah is playing. And I, you know, we're saying this before we know what's going to happen in game four. Okay. But so far in this series, the games that Utah played in game two and three was almost perfect basketball. They're humiliating this team. The third quarter number, I'm a big third quarter guy, as everybody knows, back in the NBA Today days. But Denver is getting outscored 109-68 in the third quarters. 109-68.

Well, the third quarter hasn't happened in this, so I'm afraid to talk about it because they might make us look bad. All right, maybe. Let's say this series goes bad for Denver. They lose in five or six. Well, I think at this point, at least everybody is cool enough that, yes, three games in, Gobert has – what Gobert did to Jokic in game three,

I didn't really expect to see that in there, and Jokic is lost. And so if you look at the – Harris hasn't played. Barton hasn't played, but Bogdanovich isn't there. Conley missed the first two games. So you can't really make that excuse if you're Denver. So yes, you still have Jokic who a little bit in the Aaron Rogers part where when it looks good, you're like, man, he's just so goofy, but it all works. And then when it doesn't work, you're like, this guy's just plotting around the whole time. Like when Aaron Rogers and the team is doing great, you're like, look at him steely, calm, never affected when. When the Packers aren't doing well, look how pissed off Rogers is right now. You can just see it on his face.

It's the exact same guy the whole time. Would you rather have Murray or Oladipo? I think I'd rather have Murray. Yeah, probably, after the injury. Although I do think Oladipo physically, the way he's moved around after the bubble has looked better. Agreed? Yeah, but he's not where after the bubble has looked better. Agreed. Can I, yeah.

Yeah. He's, he's not where he was two years ago, even close. That just doesn't seem like he's the same guy. Not doesn't mean he won't happen next year, but I think the combo of not knowing if he would stay as a free agent and things like that,

the guy I was thinking for them is Chris Paul, because, you know, I, I think there's, I think there's a different conversation along the lines of what we're talking about with some of these other teams. Like, if OKC loses in round one, what do you do?

You're not going to pay $135 million for this expensive team when you have all these draft picks. The obvious move is to rebuild around Shea, start over. Why would you pay the tax? Denver could put together a package. I don't think they would have to put Porter in it. You know, you could do Harris. Well, Porter's a non-starter, I think, at this point.

Like, if you're Conley, just hang it up. For like a Chris Paul trade, yeah. But you could do like Harris, Barton, and Bull Bull. Something like that. Just be like, yeah, we're going to save you you eight nine million this year we're getting the best part in the trade we're taking on this giant chris paul contract and it's basically a salary dump if you're okay see

i'm just any denver conversation that i would have with denver if i'm the other team. And I go, I got to pay $40 million for Gary Harris' defensive matchup the next two years? No. And, you know, we had moments where we thought Gary Harris might be something. And maybe it's still a little too early to give up on him. But it's a $40 million bill guaranteed the next two years for somebody who you like in your guard rotation because he plays good defense.

That's, I did like him in the past. I just thought he was bad this season. He became unplayable. So you're saying you think Denver is just better off riding the Porter thing, playing it by year. And they're, they're probably not a title team anyway for the next year,

but try to do the slow game and try to build around Jokic. Maybe there's a way to pick Paul off if some of this ownership stuff gets really weird, and maybe the Thunder are one of those teams with whatever the cap is going to be, which is a whole other discussion about some of these monster contracts. But I think it would all get scaled a little bit with the CBA anyway. Maybe that exists. Maybe there's a pick package in there where you feel like, okay, we're getting a couple picks out of this, but there's not really one player you're not going to get porter jr bull

bull i just have a hard time believing like there's a ton of gms out there that are really really excited about him which may not be fair as of right now but 30 i'm not that excited about yeah 30 million in in in salaries in one year coming back for harris and jeremy grant and they already had jeremy grant in oklah Oklahoma City. I think Denver, who I've never quite understood why people would always be like, hey, this is a team that can win the championship. There's just not much there. And even Murray's comments after game three where he said,

quote, I think we just have a target on our back. Why do you think you have a target on your back? Yeah, there's no Denver conversation at all. By the way, they should have lost game one except Murray got red hot, which he does every four or five games. But it was really Utah could have won the first three. But yeah, I think you're right.

I think Denver slow plays this. Yeah, I think they just hope Porter Jr. turns into like a real 35 minute a night kind of borderline star and stops having the defensive lapses that have prevented Malone from trusting him, which still is happening at times. Are we sure Denver has the right coach?

I know this is going to make you laugh, but the great Chris Wallace, who I know has some bad trades on his resume, but back when I first was breaking into the business, no one was nicer to me as far as being a front office guy. I never told him any secrets, but he would talk to me about theories, right? He would talk to me about the general thought

of the disconnect between front office and coach. And it was brilliant stuff. Chris was really great, gracious. And he actually taught me a lot of stuff that still holds up now. He'd be like, there's just completely like different philosophies battling with each other between the front office being like let's develop porter and the coach

being like my job is to win the game and i think malone's done a good job with getting yokich and murray to these points but the the porter stuff this is a guess but that had to be incredibly frustrating all year for the front office to be like, are you serious? Remember those stretches where you talk about it on this podcast, where they'd have all these injuries and he still wouldn't play him any meaningful minutes. And now you see what you have. What if those minutes were real? What if he'd been playing more minutes before? And then you now just trusted him more. If you have real playoff aspirations, which going into it, Denver always looks at the C8 or the third seed, look at our record, but Denver not getting any home games

in the playoffs. I think this is playing out, even if they beat Utah, which they still certainly could. Again, I could be jamming myself up here, so I should stop talking about it. But, you know, look, we thought it would be Utah

because we thought Utah was kind of a mess going into this. And now they've looked at those games, two and three, Utah's like almost playing perfect basketball. So we're going to do something. We're going to try something on this Sunday night. We're going to take a break.

And when we come back, it's going to be an hour and a half later on Sunday night. We're going to take a break. When you come back, we're going to tell you what we thought about Denver, Utah. Second half, game four. And if we learned anything, we'll continue this Denver conversation. So there you go. See you in a second. Everybody loves game shows.

Everybody has a podcast. I've got both. Hi, everybody. I'm Kyle Grant. In my new show, 10 Questions, is a game show talk show. Athletes, movie stars, everybody will come on,

not just to talk, they come on this show to compete. 10 questions that whether they know it or not, are somehow inspired by a moment in their life or their career. 10 questions, 10 points, so much fun. Head over to Spotify and please subscribe to 10 Questions with Kyle Brandt. All right, we're back. We've fast-forwarded your life by an hour and 40 minutes. We just watched the second half of Utah-Denver,

which I'm glad we saved this because this was an awesome game. I remember I was talking to Salon House about betting this game today, and I was like, I just think Utah has the series wrapped. The only thing that Denver has going for it is the random Jamal Murray 40-point game. It happened again, but Mitchell was a little bit better. This was one of the

most entertaining games of the bubble. What was your big takeaway? You're so frustrated if you're Denver because you get an epic game from Murray, which was kind of like what we saw in game one, but it was even bigger. And I think the positives of all of this is we got Jokic, you've got Murray, but even in the two game man game with those two guys that I think at times to be a little

predictable and limits them, it was on fire. The problem is, is that Donovan Mitchell's on the other side in Utah has these moments where they're playing unbelievable offensive basketball. They shot from three, they shot 48%. And that's what happens when you have Jokic and Murray go off. You're like, how do they lose? They're like, well, because the other team isn't missing from three right now. And this is three

games on offense for Utah. That's insane. Mitchell, who got the mid-2000s Wade thing thrown around with him a few times, including on this podcast by me, has looked very 06 Wade-ish this series. But I think partly because Denver doesn't really have the apparatus to contain him. I'll be interested to see what happens in the next series, which I

would assume would be the Clippers, unless Luca has something to say about it. But next series, the Clippers just have a million guys to throw at him. I think it's going to be a lot harder for him to do the things he was doing in this series. Yeah, they went with Grant and as we were taping the podcast, so I don't know all the defensive assignments in the first half. I'll go back and look, but they went with Grant there more towards the end. And there was a stretch where it was actually starting to work a little, but then, you know, like really great players with momentum in the ball they just kind of start their movement a little bit further out and you're just such a massive disadvantage i mean there's even a time where there's probably a moving screen but i don't really care because everybody sort of moves on

some of these screens but there was a play where mitchell went left was bringing grant stayed with him and then gobert instead of staying with the screens just kind of backed up and mitchell rode grant into the back of go bear yeah finished on the left side and grant's freaking out to the ref being like it's a moving screen but it was it wasn't even the go bear was doing one of those daniel tice seals it was just mitchell there's something to be said about driving players with the ball that understand how to work their defender into another one of their guys like and it's not everybody's great at it. Some people just get the ball, hey, here's the screen, I'm going to go.

Mitchell's great at it. And he was just better than everybody, which is saying something because Murray was on fire. He reminds me of one of those running backs who can just be at full speed all of a sudden. You know, where it's like, all of a sudden he's running a 4-2-40. Ty Lawson was a little bit like that

during the two years when Ty Lawson was really effective and kind of underrated. But you'd set him a pick, and then all of a sudden he was like two feet from the rim, and you'd be like, what happened? I think Mitchell, I think he's gone up a level from last year, two years ago, from a sophistication standpoint with how he's navigating the team he has.

I think part of it is because no Bogdanovich, Conley has been rendered basically a sidekick and he's just over and over and over again, has to figure it out. It's a little like the Donchich-Harton stuff we were talking earlier, where it's the same guy over and over again, making decisions. And it just feels like he's gone up maybe a half level. You don't agree? No, I'm not, I'm not saying that. I just, I just think it's, it's kind of ironic that we're finishing the pod with this kind of topic. And yet if Mitchell were in his second year, like Luca is, we'd be going, Oh my my God, like, what is this guy capable of? But what we do is we kind of turn the page on some of these guys just because of the limitations of what happens.

Like, this was a team I had big expectations for this year. And even though the record was pretty good, it just never felt like it was clicking the right way. They lose Bogdanovich. I feel like this is a huge problem because Mitchell in the past, it felt like he was trying to do everything. I'm with you. I think that Mitchell had these Wade moments, and then it felt a little Westbrook

ishy where it was, oh man, you're really just trying to do all of this on your own. And that has to always be the frustration for the most gifted score where, how do I figure out a way to keep everybody engaged and not be gross but yet know, hey, you know what I don't want is another Jordan Clarkson drive and it was weird because Quinn left Clarkson out there with the main guys and then Clarkson did have in the fourth quarter a couple drives that were both bad they're both turnovers and then

you're watching that going you know this is kind of back to the whole Harden Mori thing where Mori was probably like why do I want guys that aren't as good as the best guy having the ball at any moment yeah and and it actually when you break it down that way, makes sense. And that's all they did. It was really two teams going with their two man game and go bear continues to show an aggressiveness that I don't know that we all banked on seeing. I mean, he had that dunking in traffic a couple of times that catch at the baseline. And then he went right at Jokic to be like, okay, I'm not even remotely afraid of you. I'm not even sure he always makes that catch, but his confidence is way up here too. It's too bad for Denver because I think if Millsap, I don't think he went off a cliff, but he definitely drove off the road

career wise. He's just not the same guy. And, uh, for what they're paying from that spot, a $30 million guy. And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. When you're paying big money for these dudes who start hitting 32, 33, 34, it just becomes a complete crapshoot. You know, Toronto's paying big money for Kyle Lowry. Who's as good as ever. Utah's paying big money for Millsap and Conley. Not as good as ever. You's paying big money for Millsap and Conley. Not as good as ever. You just kind of don't know. There's no way to gauge it.

And they're a guy short. Porter is nice, but you even saw it tonight. He's just, he just needs more reps. So to go back to our Denver discussion from before, I think we both really like Murray, but I would love to see, no team needs a wing as a third dude more than that team.

Yeah, and the Will Barton part. A really reliable shooting wing who just can do stuff. Will Barton, not having him is a huge problem, especially in those kind of second group parts where you worry where the offense is consistently. You're absolutely right on Porter because it wasn't just offense.

They were seeking him out as a switch guy there for a little bit. It's not his fault. No, and he's just not not ready for it and i really felt like there was a possession on offense that showed porter still not understanding the nba game where he drove into traffic got hit and then passed it and you go you know if you put that up at the rim you're probably going to get the call there although if you're a denver fan you're looking at the free throw discrepancy freaking out about it um and i know murray, he got hit on that Gobert thing. Gobert was up vertically, but he came down with his left arm

and did foul Murray. That was the biggest play of the game. I was surprised they didn't challenge it. Maybe because so much basketball happened after the play. Maybe you can challenge it. But I thought if you're ever going to challenge a call in a game, that would have been the call. Down four.

Pretty obvious foul in the replay. I don't know the rule off the top of my head, so I'm just asking, is this an edit? Can't they... It doesn't have to be a foul called to be challenged? I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out instant replay. All I know is we can have it to decide whether something was a charge or a block

and slow it down and waste five minutes of our lives to decide if somebody leaned by a half inch, but then Murray gets fouled in the biggest play of the game. We can't review that. So I would say they're still in the workshop on that one. Um, all right. What? Oh, I just want to look it up. Yeah. They can't, they can't challenge it if it's not called. Well, I wish you could challenge plays like that. Like if we're going to have challenges I guess I just don't understand the point of the conditional challenge rule

this thing that slows down games for 4 minutes and in certain cases like charge vs block that's such a blink blink call I would much rather see stuff like the Murray stuff get challenged like hey my guy got fouled on that play I I want, I want to replay. You missed it. And now they're down to, and Utah has to make a play at the end. So anyway, I would rather the hostile act thing just go away because it's how hostile act like 5% of the time. So let's just get the 5% wrong and keep it moving. Yeah. They should really take a look at, uh, every review they've done over the course of the year

and almost like break it down with advanced metrics. What was a good idea? What was worth it? What wasn't worth it? Because I hate it. I hate the break. I hate the break in the game. It got a little quicker during the quarantine, but it still sucks.

Speaking of quarantine, before we go, we'll start a little quarantine corner on Sundays. We're heading toward halfway through month six here. Is it really month six? People are just kind of getting used to being whatever their version of weird is. I mean, for me, it's...

What's it been like for you? I power walk every day around LA for two and a half hours a day. Did you think at this stage of your life, you'd be power walking? I used to like to power walk, but I would only do it for an hour. And now I just like, I schedule calls around it. Everyone, everyone I work with at ringer and Spotify, if I'm on the phone, they know I'm usually walking around the Google hangouts where I'm just kind of

holding the phone and people are just looking at sky and trees. Um, and it's, you know, otherwise it'd be going nuts. It would just be around it. You know, my family, we've been around each other for five and a month now.

It's getting a little gamey, getting a little gamey with, with Ben starting to yell at him now. Where's he at with not like, does he want to go to school really badly now at this point? Yeah. He really misses his friends. We, uh, the big thing for him is he at with not like, does he want to go to school really badly now at this point? Yeah. He really misses his friends. We, uh, the big thing for him is he just changed rooms.

He moved from his room to the guest room. It was just a, just a huge power move. Power move. We decorated it. Did he ask? No, he's just like, I'm doing this. I want my own bathroom. It's happening.

And, uh, and that was it. And, um, it's just, I think everybody's starting to get a little punchy six months in what's it been like for you? I haven't left Manhattan beach in six months. Wow. That's for any reason. That's an unheard of stretch. Now I did go to mammoth for two nights and I moved. So that was a big reason why I don't think I went anywhere. And you and I talk pretty regularly and I kept, I actually had a bag packed, not the go bag, but I had a bag packed for almost a month where I kept going, all right, just get in the car. I drive up to Montana, do a mountain stretch.

But my fear was, first of all, because I had moved, I had a million things that I had to do to get the move done. And as I'm sitting here in August, the move still isn't 100% done because it's just whatever takes time. I can't imagine having a wife because there'd be all sorts of accessories that I'd be getting wrong for the house. But I regret not getting in the car and doing anything because now I'm just not used to never going anywhere. But then again, I don't know if I can get on a plane. I can't get on a plane and visit my parents at this stage because I would hate if I ended up getting something on the plane right over. And then I was the reason somebody else got sick. So that's part of it. And I was always afraid if I went on some road trip, like what would the towns be like? But I don't know if you feel this way. We probably still feel it more in L.A. County, the new normal, because it's not normal yet.

But I'll see footage from other cities and go, well, wait a minute. Is it totally normal in these other places? And I think it is. I think some places have just decided I'm not making like Florida jokes about the beach or any of that, but I've, I've just noted different places where my friends live and they go, yeah, it's actually been pretty standard other than going to a pack bar, which, you know, most, most of my friends at this stage, it's not even something that really do except for maybe, you know, most, most of my friends at this stage, it's not even something to really do, except for maybe, you know, uh, the, the boys weekend or, you know, some kind of golf day that goes a little bit later. But I, I've never been, I think in one place this long since I was in my twenties when I couldn't afford to go anywhere. New York city seems to be the one place that's out of, out of all the places we have in america that's been changed the most

um a lot of people fleeing from there rents are dropping um there's there's been more crime in certain areas and things like that and you know a lot of people are just leaving new york and and do you have friends that have bolted because i do yeah i have multiple friends that bolted friends that are lucky enough to have an escape plan. I know multiple people that just said, fuck it, moved and moved to New Jersey or Connecticut or whatever. They're just out.

So I'll be interested to see how long that takes. I think New York's pretty resilient, but there have been stories recently about people wondering, is New York going to bounce back from this with all the restaurants that have closed and the inability of a subway-driven culture, which now who wants to be in a subway, all the elevators, all the big office buildings, and then people thinking like, are Monday through Friday driving into New York City or commuting to New York City so you can spend

time in an office when we're learning in real time that you can get a lot of your job done at home. What's the point of that? Why even do that? Maybe you could just work from home, go to the office one day a week. So it does feel like there's patterns now that are shifting that will stay in place for in it to at least some degree after all this stuff comes back yeah i know i can't even compare myself to anybody you know sitting here saying oh i haven't been able to go anywhere when i know that work is fine so i'm really i don't want to make it sound like i'm complaining it's just a change in my routine um because i i do feel bad for the people that are wondering when this is going to end. But I also, uh, I wonder how many

of the companies, I feel like some of the tech companies looked at it a little bit like college football where once one conference was like, Hey, we're done this fall. It felt like there was a bunch of announcements from the biggest companies in tech that have just said no office work until June of next year. And it did make me wonder, does that, is that because it actually makes a little bit more financial sense or is it a liability? I mean, I don't know. I mean, I can read on it, but it doesn't mean I trust what I'm reading, but I, there's, there's liability stuff that gets removed. Okay. And then, uh, you know, it is cheaper to, you don't have to, you could cancel your parking and do subtle things like that. You could have leases for, let's say, 20 floors in an office.

Maybe you just do a lease for five of the floors, all that stuff. I just think people now realize something that I probably knew a little earlier than some people just because I had been working from home a lot. And it is easier to do stuff at home sometimes. Like the office is great. And I miss some stuff with the ringer, like just the spitball sessions and just being able to be in the room with people

and meeting with salespeople. There's some real advantages to being in the room. But for the most part, you can patch this together by like 80, 90%, at least for what I do for a living. Yeah, I would miss it though. And I do think you're this way and it's again, lucky enough to have the freedom of, okay, maybe I don't have to be in the office five days a week, but you know, when people were like, why do you like living in Connecticut? I said, well, I actually don't hate West Hartford. I just wanted to do something different at that time. But I would, if I were still at ESPN, I would really miss being in the studio all the time and

going in like it gave me energy i would show up it didn't matter what the day was it didn't matter anything that was going on in my life at least for this profession and i understand you know when you're not on air it's a little different but counting down i'd be in my office i'd be writing out stuff make a couple phone calls call and saruti double check with something and then be like okay are we good to go and there's just an energy around it where the worst day wasn't that bad. It was pretty good. And if I were doing five days a week and I know that they've brought back some of the studio stuff, but a lot of it's still pretty remote and there's some split screen stuff. I would, I would miss that so much. And I look, I know I wasn't at the ringer all the time,

but I still liked going up once a week. Cause you felt like you were a part of something. Right. And I'm sure a lot of people feel that way. Yeah. It's weird. Like we did that lottery show on Thursday that I actually thought was really fun. And it's, you know, it's really hard to do a four person zoom and we're doing something with Roger for the first time and all that. And we pulled it off. It would have been more fun if the four of us were together. And I think it's just easier to do media. It's easier to do the stuff we do. If you can see each other and play off each other and just different energy.

Um, but I think from an, just an office standpoint and meetings and things like that, like we got to Spotify, you know, they bought us and it became official. It was like eight days for the pandemic hit. And, um, you know, we're trying to get all this stuff done.

And meanwhile, it's, we haven't really met any of these people in person. It's just, when you think about it, it's really odd. Like a couple of my bosses I had met already and a couple other people, but for the most part, it's all people I've only seen on Zoom. Like I'm looking at you now and it's like, man, this is on the one hand weird. On the other hand, weird that this is pull-offable. You know, like you're integrating

this whole side into what we're doing. I'm learning all these things and yet I'm never in an office with anybody. So I don't know what that says about the future. Yeah, we have no choice, but it's actually like workable. There are so many things just in life where you go, well, that can't happen. That would never work. And you go, well, do you know that?

I mean, it's just easy to be dismissive of it. And everything, a lot of stuff that's happening now, like, oh, that's not going to work. I mean, Manhattan Beach is kind of interesting because definitely some places went out of business. But now it's almost like a European town at night because they just said, all right, we're building all this outdoor seating, forget the parking spaces. So it's become even more localized here than it already was. But if you walk around on a Friday or Saturday night, it feels like you're walking through some small European town because of all the seating. So part of it, you're like, oh, that's kind of cool. But you know, like everybody, you have these moments where you, you kind of miss the normalcy of everything. So what's the gym situation

like for you? I'm getting a lot of questions about that for you. Well, there was, uh, the Equinox did open for a little stretch there and I was a little on the fence about it and I go, you know what, I'm going to go, I'm going to see what it's like. And it was, uh, it was weird because it wasn't busy, but then you weren't required to wear a mask while you're working out. So like every girl that got done up that I saw was, was not wearing a mask and they were all younger. So I was like, wow, that really surprised me. And I wore a mask every time. And then I never thought I'd like working out at home, but I just, in the new place, I have a garage. It's, it's pretty decked out. I put together as much stuff as I can. I have this new trainer. Who's a buddy of mine from high college, not high

school. I don't talk to anybody in high school. And I'm in a perfect routine. I actually like it now. I used to be a big afternoon guy. And now until my day starts with putting myself through something, I'm not right. So pretty much I wake up, I look at a few things, send some work emails, just like you do, deal with booking the show and all that kind of stuff. And usually by eight or nine, I'm ready to go. But I don't open the garage door so that people can see me. I noticed that a lot in Manhattan beach where people keep the garage door open to kind of, you know, Hey, I'm in here and I'm, I'm very focused. Although I threw up in my, I threw up in my mask today. That was disgusting. Oh my God. Yeah. I had like one of those cayenne pepper and lemon juices to get the day going.

Cause you know, it, it, and I, I was doing this going because you know it and i i was doing this new kind of high tempo thing and it was really messing me up and i threw up cayenne lemon water juice into my mask while i was wearing it so that sucked that sounds awful i like that you're working out in your garage like spacey and american beauty less creepy like a less creepy spacey left the door open. I don't want to be compared to Spacey ever, but I don't even know

he's allowed to be brought up anymore. But there's nothing better than trying to portray a character in a movie or a TV show who thinks he's getting it back a little bit where he's on just a Joe Weider plastic plates with sand in them,

bench press, and all the weights are stupid and it's like a pyramid at both ends. And then he's just doing a couple little reps, and he's like, all right, I am fucking back. I'm running out of movies to watch. Last night I watched The Vanished, starring Thomas Jane, Ann Hetch, and Jason Patrick. How? How does that happen?

Give me the thought process of, of serving and then landing on that. It was a new movie. Um, I was so fascinated by the threesome of Thomas Jane and Hedge and Jason Patrick, all of whom, you know,

it's like when, when, uh, the Mavs were trying to get, you know, LeBron in 2014. And eventually you just have to settle for DeAndre Jordan and a couple others.

And I've been very open about this many times. I'm always in on a kidnap movie. Okay, all right. Give me back my son. I got it. If somebody's taken, I'm at least giving you a chance. So it was also directed by Peter Fassanelli, Jenny Garth's ex-husband.

So that was another draw for me. Because if it's written and directed by Peter Fascinelli, I'm like, all right, from a comedy standpoint, this might be good. It was exceedingly watchable, and somebody got kidnapped. And that's just where I am with movies right now. Because I don't know what they're doing. They keep showing the tenant that the tenant commercials, which has been coming out for three months now.

And it seems like it's finally coming out. And it's like the first real movie that feels like it's come out in like three months where it's like, Oh, this is actually a movie. They spent real money on with real actors and real director. I'm starting to think that's the movie that Christopher Nolan has never going to come out. Yeah to think that's the movie that Christopher Nolan has. Yeah. Like that was the next level that Nolan went to where there is no movie. There's just clips and it's going to go on for two years and then you're going to have to piece them together and there's going to be some mail-in kit.

It's real high level stuff. At least that's a guess right now. Well, I think they're going to stack it so that all the movies come out in like December for, to be eligible for Oscars. Like they're basically hoarding all these, hoping that life like December to be eligible for Oscars. Like they're basically hoarding all these,

hoping that life's going to be normal before December, but then it's not going to be. And they're just all of a sudden, like 30 good movies are going to come out in the span of two weeks. It's going to be amazing. Can I ask you a kidnapping related story? Yeah. If Ben were kidnapped, would you give it a few days?

I think they would give him back he would just wear him down okay guys this house sucks what the hell there's no video games you have no pop tarts fucking christ this place sucks jesus he's all excited because you you know, Madden's coming out Tuesday. That's right. I'm hoping to get some codes for some listeners. We'll see. And Lamar's on the cover and Lamar already had to sit out two practices in a row mysteriously

for reasons that remain unclear this weekend. There was like some tired arm rumors. Nobody knows what's going on. That Earl Thomas thing was interesting. I started to get to the point like hey does anybody think maybe it's Earl Thomas's fault right anyone well it seems like the Patriots would be a logical suitor

for him considering they don't have Chung we gotta get and they have all this cap space we get a you know we should do is we should call he'll do it too because we should just zoom cowherd in on one of the next ones and have you and him go at it about the Pats are tanking. That's his dumbest take of all time. The Pats are going to go like 11-5 or 12-4 again.

They are. Well, in that division, why would they ever... It's just not Belichick. If you guys really think that he's going to, he Belichick would never want four and 12 on his resume in the first year post Brady. Never. He's just by him being on the sideline, we're eight and eight. I don't even care who's on the team. And then if cam who has looked good by all accounts can give us like a B or a B plus now it's 11 and five. I'm not worried. I got to say,

my guard is up with this football season though. I still have not like, I haven't done any fantasy homework yet. I'm just starting to get emails from my buddy Gus, who runs the Picks League I'm in. The two commissioners of the Fantasy Leagues I'm in, starting to sniff it out. But nobody wants to fully admit this is about to happen.

And we're talking talking it's like what's today's date like the 20th 23rd 23rd yeah i mean we're three weeks away right two weeks away yeah a little less than three right and there's no preseason so it's all out of whack but this seems like it's gonna happen and i i I just can't wrap my head around it. I, I always thought NFL would at least try. And I would think it's a little bit more containable.

Yeah. We got Texas chiefs, September 10th. God, that seems, it seems September 10th. That's 20 days from now. That's amazing.

I, I, so I'm going to have to start doing fantasy football. I mean, I was listening to our fantasy pod that we have. That's the only thing. So I kind of know what's going on. I have the chiefs,

the chiefs running back with the three names. Seems like the guy he's going to be the hot guy this year. He'll go way too high. Yeah. Oh, way too high. Or for $20 more than he should everyone because damon williams is sitting out and everyone's talking about how awesome he is but it seems

like he's got the buzz already yeah i that's the thing about fantasy and look fantasy's awesome i'm not being anti-fantasy guy but over the years whenever i would look at some of the draft averages on people there would just always be this running back like if eddie lacy didn't go second and you go do you really want to take eddie lacy ahead of every other player except for two because you're projecting him to do something that he's never done before like that's the part and i think it definitely was with the running backs because back then you'd always have to find the running backs and now it's not even worth it right you're probably just better off taking receivers and quarterbacks and trying to piecemeal it. But yeah, Clyde Edwards or Laird is going to go too high.

My strategy is I always want an awesome quarterback. So either I'll take like four of them or I'll just take like the Mahomes person. You're like Gruden. I just hate not having a good quarterback in fantasy. It sucks me out. Yeah, it just blows. You can always like patch together the other pieces.

Batman trailer? I didn't see it. You didn't watch it? No. Who's Batman now? Your daughter's former favorite Twilight actor. I remember you writing about him. R. Pat?

Yeah. He's Batman? Yeah, he's Batman. And the trailer looks incredible. So we shall see. But I just, I want to know the answer. I'll die before I get it. How many Batmans is too many Batmans?

Because it's pretty unbelievable how often that can be recreated. And I'm going to watch it. You know, I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm going to watch it. But I don't know. Has there ever been anything like that from a content standpoint where you could just keep coming up with the same angle on a storyline? I mean,

they remade the Spider-Man thing, but I guess I had a lot to do with the studios. I don't know that much about it, so I'm not gonna pretend that I do, but I looked at the trailer and it just, it just dawned on me. I go, this is unbelievable.

Like the Nolan Batmans, the first two, especially, but the second one, the first two were, the second one's one of my favorites of the century it's one of my favorite all-time movies and you go now you want to follow that that's like following saban it's weird because when i was growing up the old

adam west batman's i used to love those because they're disindicated where burgess meredith was the penguin and juliemar was the catwoman. We didn't know any better either, too. It was cool and colorful. It looked different. There was always good fights and all that stuff. But then it became kind of ironically fun in the 80s to remember those shows.

But then all of a sudden, they were making Batman with Nicholson as the Joker in 89. And it was a huge deal. That felt like one of the biggest movies of the decade that they were doing that. And Michael Keaton was going to be Batman and all that stuff. And that was like, what? Nine Batmans ago?

And that was in college when that happened. Is it more than nine? I think it's like nine. All right. So they did the three Nolan ones. Keaton was in two. Val Comer's in one. Clooney's in one okay so wait a minute wait a minute that's for Keaton Keaton Val you just said Clooney that might

have been in two now I don't was one should we get IT on this all right so three with bail that's seven and then you're forgetting about Affleck right so eight eight but was there a second one that he's part of yeah Justice League seven and then you're forgetting about Affleck. Right. That's eight. Eight. But was there a second one that he's part of? Yeah. The Justice League? Sort of. Yeah. The nine. Yeah.

I wasn't as locked in on those, I'll admit. I hate to say that about Ben, too. Don't tell him I said that. I was fired up that he got the giant paycheck, but yeah. How's he doing? You guys talking a lot lately? We're not talking. No, he's got the new girlfriend. He's dating doing? You guys talking a lot lately? Well, he's got, we're not talking. And no, he's got the new girlfriend.

He's dating the girl from Knives Out. Yeah, no, I'm excited for him. He looks great in some of these paparazzi pictures I've seen. He looks like his shoulders are really coming in again. I always think, I was talking to somebody about how weird, because we have two of our kids are like almost exactly the same age, but to have the new girlfriend who's like 31, but you have a daughter who's 15.

And I just like being in that situation of imagining how those interactions go and the 50, how judgmental the, a 15 year old girl can be about stuff like that insensitive. And just what, how that would be harder to navigate than being Batman. Like honestly, insensitive and just what how that would be harder to navigate than being batman like honestly all of that stuff how to how to ingratiate the new kind of stepmom figure into it but she's some hot 30 year old actress i just can't imagine how that goes i'm probably not gonna have to worry about that either so that's not that's not on my list of things what which celebrity has surprisingly

ghosted you during the quarantine and which celebrity won't leave you alone which celebrities ghosted me that i don't know which one is sent which one have you sent two texts to that now you're like oh so i'm not gonna text john ham a third time is that how it goes like i have i have a celebrity right now where i think he's gotten two texts in a call and i thought we were even pretty close for a long time and now i think no no coward and i are cool i've been going on the show every now and then so i don't think i don't i think the staff likes me coming on the show because i give him i give him the business the what for every. I haven't been invited on lately because every time I come on, it's like a 10-8 round for Simmons. And I think after, I think he loses his confidence after a while.

I come in hot. I make fun of him. The Joy Taylor is always on my side. And I just don't think he likes it that much. I like Joy. She's been, she's kind of fun. She's really good. Yeah.

Yeah. She was fun the last time i went on because every cowherd made like three different questions they turned into like a therapy analogy and then at the last one i go is are you are you all right are you good what's going on and he's doing great i mean he was laughing it off but i was like we got a lot of therapy yeah we need to do that we need Zoom. We should have Zoom face-offs now at the end of some of these. It's Sunday night.

Nobody's doing anything. It's a good idea. Zoom crash. Yeah, let's do that. Well, I'll set up the cow herd one and I'm just going to sit back and get my popcorn. All right. Good seeing you.

So you got two pods this week and then I'll see you Sunday night. I have no idea what's in store for us Sunday night. We could be like talking about game two of six series, or a couple of these series might have gone to seven. Who the fuck knows? I have no idea when they're starting. So it's Raptors.

Any of this. When we first started our quarantine pods, it was, all right, one book review, one television recommendation. Oh, yeah, that's right. And then we should do at least one kind of TV. It doesn't have to be three. And you know what we should do

is we should do a re-readables because I finished the first SNL book from the Lorne years before he hands it over. Oh, yeah. And I finished the book. You said it was one of the best

oral histories ever. It's not like a straight oral history, but it's unbelievable. It's great. So it's actually not a total oral history. It's just a lot of history. No, it's like a book book, but yeah. Like how great was that

Chevy chase chapter? The Chevy chase deal where he like all of these guys are fairly unknown. Yeah. At the beginning. And Lauren has this vision. If there's one thing I take from that whole book is that Lauren who hadn't had any real success in the United States, he's a Canadian guy. He had married the daughter of a pretty famous television person in Toronto, and he had done some kind of stand-up sketch stuff. And he shows up to NBC and acted like he was Christopher Nolan today, walking into a studio. Like, Lorne, I don't even know if he's 30 when the thing starts. Maybe he just turned 30.

The confidence from that book, like, it was a a lesson in there where you just show up going, yeah, I'm the fucking man. Like, this is how we're doing it. And I can't believe he actually got away with it. And then he would quit. He would, every time there'd be a problem about budget or stage or anything he wanted to do, he'd be like, all right, I'm going to quit. And then they just didn't want him to quit.

And I had no idea he had actually finally bounced after like five years but chevy as you said and i'll let you tell it better than i will but from chevy in that first year to go from i will see how this works out where he was going to be a writer he wasn't even going to be one of the actors and they just loved his energy in the writer's room and he was kind of pitching sketches to be accepted to be on tv and then his ascension to that year is, it's a weird, because it's a perfect time for that. I don't know. I don't know that anybody could become that famous that quickly back then, 1975. I did a pod with Lauren in his office, I think in 2014. We talked a lot about that first year because I was so fascinated by those guys becoming, from going from anonymous to really legitimately famous,

where like 20 million people are watching those shows. And the ratings were bad, by the way. The ratings weren't even what they would hope they would have been, but it was working. You know what I'm saying? Right, but even back then, if you had any show, you were getting watched by 10 million, 12 million people. You're're right though, it was 20 million for them in the beginning. By the second year, it was 30, which is what we get for the Superbowl now. But Chevy went from,

you know, weaseling his way, not weaseling, but like maneuvering his way on to be on the show to within 10 weeks, he's, is this the next Johnny Carson on the cover of New York magazine? And everywhere he's going in New York, people are pointing at him and saying, right, Chevy chase, you're not and all that stuff. And I don't remember fame just doesn't work that way anymore. No, no way. It was, it was, you would have to be so established to achieve that kind of fame. And of course it was entirely different. And Lauren hit that note perfectly that we're going to do something on television. That's never really been accepted before. of course it was entirely different and lauren hit that note perfectly that we're going to do something on television that's never really been accepted before and because it was on late at night on a saturday he got away with all the stuff that actually as it

plays out in the book you can't believe like all these fights he would have with the censors and he'd always again get his way because he had like one main nbc exec that mattered with the juice that always kind of back him and then chevy leaves after one year, which I think is an easy thing to forget. And I love the Bill Murray part of it because Bill Murray has always been somebody for me where it doesn't really matter what he's doing. I just think he's funny. And there's, there's like peak Bill Murray where he's going nuts. And then there's subtle Bill Murray, but it's, it was bombing. Like he wasn't funny and people didn't like it. And then they even did this weird break the fourth wall thing with him, where he does this monologue where he starts asking people to laugh more at his jokes.

And hey, I'm sorry, I'm Bill Murray. It'd really mean a lot if he would laugh. And that like totally bombed. And they're thinking they're going to have to get rid of the guy. And then just this one skit, that shower skit clicks. And he starts doing a little bit more of his goofy sketch stuff he had done in chicago and it totally works but like chevy and bill almost get into a fight and then everybody thought that bill was kind of a tough kid because he was from a place in chicago where he was fighting his whole life and then the belushi stuff is the belushi stuff is worth it just for

the book belushi stuff's amazing we did the caddyshack pod last week we were talking about how chevy and bill murray in the same movie and they hadn't seen each other since they almost Stuff's amazing. We did the Caddyshack pod last week. We were talking about how Chevy and Bill Murray in the same movie, and they hadn't seen each other since they almost, they got in a legit fight at SNL when Chevy came back to host. The book's great. It's by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, I think.

It is. I think it's just called Saturday Night. I think it is. But it's available on Apple Books. It's one of my favorites. It's a good read. Daddy Murphy stuff's good too. All right, Rosillo, I'll see you in a week.

All right, sounds good. All right, don't forget rewatchables on Monday night. We're doing 40-Year-Old Virgin. Thanks to Spotify. Thanks to Home Depot. We're decorating your home is now easier than ever before. They offer free delivery on select items. $45 or more and now for a limited time. 10% off the styles you love when you use

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