The Bill Simmons Podcast - Madness, NBA, Trump, and MLB With Kevin O'Connor and JackO (Ep. 192)

Episode Date: March 24, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin O'Connor to discuss the top-five draft picks in UK-UCLA (6:00), Lonzo Ball's NBA fit (13:00), the top-eight draft picks as of right now (23:00), the Clippers' losing ways (33:00), the NBA Sweet 16 model (40:00), Gordon Hayward's free agency (46:00), and the Nets' improved play (50:00). Then, JackO joins to discuss Trump's Time interview (54:00), the future of the Republican Party (1:01:00), and the Yankees' many prospects (1:05:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's where I posted a Friday NBA mailbag today. Talked about resting. Talked about Karl-Anthony Towns versus Nikola Jokic. Talked about the Ball Brothers. Talked about a bunch of stuff that we're probably going to talk about with Kevin O'Connor from The Ringer here in just a second. But I tried to solve the resting issue. I'll be interested to see what O'Connor thinks about that.

And if you haven't checked out The Ringer Podcast Network, Mike Lombardi's new NFL podcast, GM Street, co-hosted with our pal Tate Frazier. That's on the Ringer NFL show. He posted another one yesterday, talked about Cam Newton, draft quarterbacks. Mitch Trubisky did not fare very well, I have to say. Check that out, Ringer NFL Show.

And now, without further ado, Pro Jam. All right. As promised, the ringer's Kevin O'Connor, a.k.a. KOC. This is his time of year, March Madness. He is in the top, top, top percentile of draft nerds that I know and also loves the NBA and writes about the NBA three times a week on The Ringer. Alright, first question. Right now I have it

Lonzo 1, Fultz 2, Josh Jackson 3, Jason Tatum 4 for the lottery. Where am I wrong? Okay. I wonder, well, who do you have right behind tatum that's my question for you because i feel like a lot of people have soured on tatum after his um last performance for

duke wow really what do you have right behind him yeah i'm just curious i mean who's right behind tatum i want to know the full top five tatum had one bad game and we're bumping him out of the top four well i feel like i get the sense that people have soured a little bit. So I'm curious, is Monk five for you right behind Tatum? Because I know you're a Monk guy. I love Monk. I get the Fox thing. I understand it.

I personally would not take him in the top five because, as we've discussed before, I think there are just too many point guards now. And unless you're getting a point guard who has a chance to be one of the five best point guards in the league, if there's an impact guy at another position, I just think it's easier to find a point guard. Monk to me, I thought Sunday was a good example.

I think he gets a bad rap for certain things. I think he's better defensively than people realize. His arms are long. He seems like kind of a gamer. He has a knack for making big plays when the team needs it. Doesn't have the ball a lot in his hands. I think he's a sneaky good passer that at the next level would pop up.

But Fox has a chance to be an A-lister defensively. The thing that jumps out to me with him, everyone's going to focus on a shot at the next level, and nobody wants a point guard who can't shoot. But defensively, the guy's A-list. We have Kentucky UCLA tonight, Fox guarding Lonzo again.

I think if he demolishes Lonzo tonight or knocks him out of his game or just gets the edge in some way, then I think he could sneak up to number four. What do you think? Well, I think, you know, in terms of the Lonzo-Ball matchup tonight, I think that's where you're kind of wrong. I still have Fultz number one over Ball,

and I think one of the reasons why is because we might see that tonight with Fox's ability to really defend at a super high level. I thought Ball was outstanding in their matchup earlier this season. I think it was a 97-92 game in favor of UCLA, and Monk had a great night. Fox did too, and Ball, as he always does, made incredible winning plays. But I do think what we do need to see from Ball is his ability to create when his shot isn't falling.

So if tonight's a night for him where ability to create when his shot isn't falling. So if tonight's a night for him where, for whatever reason, shot isn't dropping for him, we need to see him really elevate his game in other ways. Get to the basket, draw fouls when he's not able to shoot from outside, and that's where Fox really could separate himself from some of the other point guards like Dennis Smith and Tilly Kanna, the international point guard in the lottery. So I do think Fox has a lot of edges over Monk, but at the same time, like we talked about on a prior podcast, Monk can create his shot from anywhere on the court.

Yeah. You know what I really like about Fox? He's just a gamer. He seems like the kind of guy, like, you know, if you just watched him for a split second flashy lefty athletic you know you think he's gonna be like kind of a showman maybe maybe a little bit too much swagger stuff like that he just kind of fits that profile but then when you actually watch him he's just a gamer all he might like he'll he'll have this huge dunk in

traffic he won't he won't do anything other than he's just going to pick up the point guard dribbling the ball up like he he's very focused at all times which i think is a great quality um the the the thing that about tonight that i think is so fascinating i can't remember a more of a marquee matchup in the sweet 16 where we might i i think i mean i wrote it today in the mailbag i think lonzo's special i really do i i'm gonna die on that hill i think that guy is the kind of guy that no matter what nba team he goes to everyone on the team is gonna end up playing like him and thinking like him because he's got this contagious ability to just he's always pushing the ball his head's always. He's always playing at a certain pace that the game just

seems to kind of adapt over time. Even the guys on the other team kind of play the pace. He's, he's almost like a running back that's going downhill where just everything he's doing is moving forward, thinking forward, trying to gain whatever edge. He's such a brilliant passer to the inside guys. And to have him going against Fox and Monk, who might be like both take it in the four to six range. We might have three of the top six in this game, not to mention Bam. I'm super excited.

And usually when I'm this excited about a college game it always lets me down is there a chance this one won't let me down not if it's anything like the last game like I said the 97-92 game if it's half as fun as that game was we're going to have a good time watching it tonight and from the perspective of the scouting for the NBA

this is exactly what I think everybody could have wished for when the brackets first came out. No matter who you watch on these teams, forget about the top guys. A lot of these players were top high school recruits, and a lot of them have the chance to get drafted. So it's a good chance for people who are only casual college fans to really get used to some of these guys who are going to be in the NBA for a long time. And with Lonzo Ball, the article I wrote last week about him on The Ringer, about his jump shot, and some of the flaws with that, I think some people kind of misunderstood that. It's not like a knock on Lonzo in the sense that his shot could prevent him from becoming a good player. I think he's a no-fail prospect in the sense that he's going to

find success. At worst, he'll be like a really good rotational point guard, maybe the 15th, 20th best point guard in the loaded point guard NBA. But he also has a chance to be really, really, really special. He's one of those guys you can look at and say, he has a chance to become a speed match type of point guard. He could become the best passing playmaking point guard in the NBA, but what he needs to become that is a shot that can really fire off from anywhere on the court. And that's what needs to develop for him at the next level.

And other than that, there's really not a lot you can look at and say, that's going to hold him back from becoming great. He has talent, and as you said, I like the running back analogy. He always falls forward at the line of scrimmage. He doesn't lose yardage. He always seems to make positive plays for his teammates, whether it's in the past or creating off the dribble. He's really special.

Yeah, and he's more athletic than it seems like he should be, but I like the Nash analogy. He needs to learn a couple of those in-traffic tricks that considering he's a college freshman, I think there's plenty of time, but he needs the little drive into the paint, the little 12-footer where all of a sudden he's falling backwards, the shot that Isaiah Thomas learned really had to perfect over the last 12 months, but he needs that.

I think being able to post up at the next level once he gets a little stronger. Because, you know, there's so many guards now in the NBA that I think we're headed to this era where it's not inconceivable where 20 to 25 teams are going to have two point guards that they're just playing at the same time. And they aren't even really, you know, point guards in the old school sense of tiny Archibald, Isaiah Thomas, Norm Nixon, guys like that. Just guys who can handle the ball and

guys who can either create the shot with slashing kick or guys who can all of a sudden stand over on the side the next day, let the other guy do it. A little bit what Phoenix has going now with Eric Buzzo and Devin Booker. And that's one of the things I love the most about Lonzo is you look at any of the top four teams, right? On the Celtics, he could come right in. He could either be the Celtics' second unit point guard when Isaiah's not in the game. He could play with Isaiah.

He could play with Isaiah Marcus and Avery, uh, and every Bradley, they could just play four guards, like whatever. He'll, he'll just fit in. And, and he's such a good passer and creator and thinker. He'll just make it work. He goes to Lakers. They're just giving him the car keys. That's it. It's his team. He has it the whole time. He goes to Ph same thing he goes to new orleans great here here you go you have two big toys and boogie and anthony davis make it work you're going down the line but i don't think it matters where he goes whereas like faults you know he's he's kind of that old school he's going to need the ball is that there's a little westbrook but you know he's the old school revolve the offense around him but he has to get a lot of shots and a lot of touches to succeed.

I don't think Lonzo is really like that. I think Lonzo just fits in. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, I had a conversation with someone recently that kind of touched on with Lonzo. I look at him, and he has the it factor. I mean, he has that special ingredient a lot of those transcendent level players have i just i just can't i can't get over the fact though that folks it's just he has a better overall game he's better at driving to the basket he's better at

drawing fouls he has a wider frame to add more muscle he has higher defensive potential even though he has his moments where he gets lackadaisical on that end. He just does more things overall, and he's still, on top of that, a really, really good passer. He's not quite Lonzo Ball's level, but he's really great. And he was in such a bad situation at Washington, a team that played with

two big men all the time that couldn't space the floor. He didn't have the opportunity to run high pick and roll with four out shooting shooters that he will be almost all the time in the floor. He didn't have the opportunity to run high pick and roll with four out shooting shooters that he will be almost all the time in the NBA. I think Fultz, part of the flaws we

observe with him was as a result of his situation. Maybe if you put him on UCLA, we'd think a lot more highly of him than we already do. I still like Fultz more, but he doesn't have that it factored like ball does he he doesn't have that and and that's where that's where ball really closes the gap for me because that matters that that does make a difference even though it's kind

of just you know a a variable that's hard to account for a measure ball has it and that's something i think almost everybody observes when they watch him. Yeah. And it'll be interesting to see if he raises his game a little tonight against the Kentucky guys. I would say this is easily the biggest game in his career that he's ever played. And, you know, Fox is so often like when we're scouting guys and watching guys and trying to project them, the hardest thing to do is to project the level of competition.

You've written about this a bunch. How do you know if some post-up guy is going to be able to do the same stuff that he did in the NBA when he's going against a 6'8", unathletic guy that he's just roasting? You just don't know in this case, Fox already is so good defensively that there's no better test case to see, Hey, what would it look like if Lonzo went against an awesome athlete? Cause we're going to see it tonight for, for two hours.

And then on top of it, you know, mock too, I think is somebody that, you know, UCLA doesn't really, they don't really have anybody to shut him down and he hasn't had a heat check yet. Been waiting for the mock heat check. He didn't really have it in the first two games. So if this game starts kind of climbing the ladder from an intensity excitement standpoint,

you have two guys in this game that just feed off that, which is why i think it has a chance to be special you're too young to remember the latener shot everyone remembers the clip now against kentucky but the the thing about that game was we were all watching that game there are less channels back then it was the early 90s i was in college but we were watching that game because we were freaking excited for that game because Because it was Jamal Mashburn and Christian Laitner and Grant Hill. Like, there were great guys in this game that were going to be these future NBA players. So we were all watching anyway with like, in our heads already had this high, high level of what the game could be.

And then it went to a whole other level. And afterwards, we were just like, let's go play basketball. We're going to the gym. We have to go play after that. and i think tonight has a chance so keeping my fingers crossed who do you think is going to win out of curiosity i have uh kentucky winning that at least at the beginning of my bracket which looks awful now i had kentucky moving on i think i'll stick with that even though my bracket is completely busted yeah Yeah. I had Kentucky over Villanova in the final. So that one's done.

But the thing is like you saw it Sunday when you have a close game in college and you have Monk and Fox on the floor, it's just, it's kind of unparalleled. I can't remember a backcourt in college. I'm sure it's happened. I just can't remember it where you have two top six picks in a loaded draft or just the backcourt in college. I'm sure it's happened. I just can't remember it where your two top six picks in a loaded draft are just the backcourt. It's ridiculous. I'm not even sure Cal's

ever had that. Who else has jumped out for you? I have one thought on something you said earlier, Bill. Related to the point guards and the NBA, this is something that's been on my mind a lot. You said how it's easy to find a point guard,

and we kind of see that with Kentucky. They have two guards that are going to be taken in the top six or seven. Do you think with more point guards being in the NBA, that diminishes the value in the same way it does for running backs in the NFL, in the sense that you can find a good

running back in the second, third, or fourth round. You don't need to invest a top first-round pick in it. So therefore you don't need to blow that pick. Or because there's so many great point guards, it raises the value finding one of those guys because of the nature of the NBA. It's different in the NFL because those point guards are going against each other. They're on the field at the same time. So answer is both i i think i think it makes somebody who has franchise point guard potentially even more valuable because i'm not convinced you can even compete at a high level anymore in the nba unless you have a creator and it doesn't necessarily matter if it's a point guard but it's got to be somebody who can create slash and kick and

can the whole offense can run through them so whether it's harden whether it's is be somebody who can create slash and kick and can, the whole offense can run through them. So whether it's Harden, whether it's Isaiah Thomas, whether it's John Wall, whoever, you have to have that guy now. You just have to. And that's what's made San Antonio season so fascinating to me is that they don't have that guy. They're kind of the anomaly. They have Patty Mills and Parker and I, you know, you'd probably take Patty Mills at gunpoint, but as a collection, that's on the bottom half of point guards in the league,

but they're on pace for 62 wins. Some of it runs through Kawhi. Some of it's the infrastructure, the system, the fact that they have all these low post guys. They're a good rebounding team, all that stuff. But they're the anomaly, I think, for the most part. You have to have the guy. You have to have the guy. You have to have the creator.

And, you know, I think Lonzo and Fultz, definitely. Those are two more. So now we have, you know, you're looking at like Devin Booker. I think Jokic, in a weird way, is kind of the creator for Denver. He's the unconventional one. Call point guard. Yeah, Minnesota has Towns and Wiggins, but neither of them are that guy.

And Rubio's kind of stepped up lately. But, you know, look, there's a good example. They have two great young players, and they're barely within seven or eight games of 500. But you go on down the line, everybody has that one guy. This draft has Lonzo. It has Fultz. And I think Monk could be that guy i mean don't you

think there's some devin booker potential with him where we just didn't get a chance to see it in college but at the next level he could have it oh yeah absolutely that's one thing i talked to devin booker about when i when i talked to him in phoenix for the suns article i wrote in january it was basically you know you i said to him, you ran like 11 pick-and-rolls at Kentucky, and now that's your most popular play type for the Phoenix Suns. And he basically said, we all have to sacrifice. That was just the nature of the system. He said, if you watch Carl Anthony Towns at Kentucky, he didn't shoot threes. You would think he's an interior player, and we know now that's exactly what he's not. He's a perimeter big man who can also play inside.

So Monk, when he hasn't played with Fox for the couple games Fox has out, Monk did more as the playmaker. He ran more pick and roll, and we saw that he does have that ability. It's definitely there, and I think every NBA team knows that. I think they've seen him play at the

AAU level, they've seen him play in high school, they've seen him play in different competitions. And you'll see that when he comes in for workouts as well. I don't think they worry about that. But from our perspective from the outside, I definitely think it can skew our perspective when we see Fox running pick and roll. It might make you think Monk can't do it,

even though just because a player isn't doing something, it doesn't mean that they can't. It means that they haven't had the opportunity. Quick break to talk about Squarespace. Whatever your next big idea might be, count on Squarespace to help you create an eye-catching online platform that brings it to life. Whether you need a portfolio to showcase your work, a store to sell your products and services, or a blog to share your ideas, Squarespace gives you everything you need to look like an expert right from the start. You even get a unique domain, which strengthens your brand. It makes it easier for visitors to find you. And with Squarespace's award-winning templates, creating a beautiful website is a

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Give me your top eight right now. So it sounds like you have Fultz one, Lonzo two. Josh Jackson, I think, has just grabbed number three. I mean, that guy, Tate and I were talking before we started the podcast, that one rebound he had in traffic yesterday that he caught one-handed and got fouled on, that was like a man's

play i mean he looks like when i watched josh jackson reminds me of watching james worthy and uh in north carolina 35 years ago when he had the beard and it was like is james worthy too old to be in this game and josh jackson reminds me of that he's a freshman i think i i just i tweeted it last night i can't imagine three teams passing on him. Do you think he's locked up number three? I think he could end up in the one or two conversation, depending on the team. I think everybody assumes Fultz and Ball are one and two,

and maybe that's true for a consensus ranking, but there's going to be individual teams that have Jackson ahead of Ball or Fultz. I don't see why that wouldn't happen. And the reason why is because he's not just a forward. He can play make, too. He can run, pick, and roll. We saw some of that last night, as we've seen all season. He can pass, especially in transition.

And he can defend multiple positions. So I think, you know, we said earlier how your point guard, quote-unquote point guard, doesn't need to be your creator. Jackson could potentially become that creator at the next level and i think for that reason he easily could be in the one or two conversation and for me yeah you have to know my top eight he's pretty much locked in at three right now he might move up to two but i i don't see him dropping from three at all what we've seen from him the last two months, even though I'm still not convinced his shot is for real or that it's sustainable, it's a preview of what he can be if the shot is real. And what that is, is a really, really special player. That's the top three, unless he screws it up somehow off the court. He's already shown

hints of possibly doing so. That'd be the only thing I could see him dropping out of if the team that was sitting at number three just got spooked by some of the behavior. But we'll see. Maybe, who knows? Maybe there were misunderstandings. I don't know. I never know what to believe with this stuff anymore.

Number four, sounds like that's wide open for you. Still Tatum. Still Tatum. Same for me. Still Tatum. Even though I asked you about him earlier, I Still Tatum. Still Tatum. Same for me. Still Tatum, even though I asked you about him earlier. Still Tatum, Monk's five for me, and I still have Lowry marketing at six,

even though last night was, I mean, every flaw that he has put on the national stage. Yeah. Because he, I mean, we talk about, I tweeted this last night, and we talk about him as a seven-footer, but does that matter if he doesn't play like a seven-footer? He rebounds like a guard.

He can't defend on the interior. He got tossed around on that last position where Xavier won the game. So that's a problem for him. If he can't rebound like a big man, if he can't defend like a big man, and his perimeter game is all on the perimeter, it's all his success on the offense is derived from outside, he's really like a wing in a seven-footer's body, and I know that's kind of a cliche, but with Markkinen, that's really true, and as much as I love him, and I think he can become a truly great scorer, there's some serious flaws, and he's really going to need to improve two things.

One, his perimeter defense, he's going to need to improve two things one his perimeter defense he's going to need to be able to defend the perimeter because small teams are going to put wings and forwards on him and maybe even guards because he can't beat you inside so he needs to be able to defend those guys on the other end of the floor to keep him on it's like the anti-dramon green in the sense that draymond you can switch him on to anybody, but you can't switch anybody on to him because he can overpower smaller guys and he can out-quick bigger guys. Yeah.

Or he can defend either of those guys on the other position. And Markkinen can't. And that's concerning if he's in a situation where he doesn't get that right fit around him. So I still have him sixth, but I have some real hesitations with him. What a flaccid endorsement that was.

Yeah, there's a lot of poor man's dot, dot, dot with him. It's like, oh, he's the poor man's Dirk. Oh, he's like a shorter poor man's Prusingas. My thing with this is I just want to know, with five minutes left in an NBA game, let's say I'm playing the Clippers. Who's he guarding? I have no idea. That's the question.

I can't come up with an answer. I don't know. If he's playing the Celtics, is he guarding Jay Crowder? Is he guarding Al Horford? If he's guarding the Cavaliers, is he supposed to be boxing out Tristan Thompson? Do you have him on Kevin Love? If you're up.

See, that's what scares me about him because I can't figure out where he matches up on the other side. And my guess is that he's going to drop a few spots as we get closer to actual draft time. I think Fox is such a good athlete, and these teams are going to work him out, and they're going to get big fat boners, and I can't see him falling out of the top six.

I just think, I think they're going to be like, oh my God, this guy's like legitimately a freak athlete, and already seems to have a pretty good feel for running a team. He's lefty, which I like. He can't shoot. I don't like his shot. I don't think it's going to go in.

But we've seen freak athletes come into the draft who worked really hard and turned themselves into decent shooters. I think Kawhi is always the go-to example for that. Is there anyone else in the top that you could see climbing into the 6'7 range? I think Dennis Smith could. I know he's not in a tournament right now, but I re-watched a lot of

Dennis Smith the last week or so, and I don't love his feel for the game, and he makes a lot of dumb errors that really bother me, especially in a league where you want your point guard to be able to distribute and play off the ball. But at the same time, like with him, he makes a lot of those wow plays where you watch and you're like, whoa, whether it's a spin move

or a step through, a nasty crossover to get to the lane and then draw a foul or have an and-one. He has a lot of those moments, especially compared to a guy like Fultz who plays a little bit more at his own pace. Even compared to Ball, he has a lot of those wow moments. And I don't know if that matters with assessing a point guard in college because it's a different playing level, but at the same time, what is the common trait with all the top NBA point guards?

They have a ton of those wow moments, and that's what we see with Dennis Smith. But I still am a little bit held back with him because he can't defend well. He doesn't defend consistently, and because he makes a lot of silly errors on the offensive end of the floor, whereas with Fox, he does everything well except for shoot the ball. So I have Fox 8, Isaac 7 to round off the top eight, but Smith is knocking on the door at nine. What do we know about the French kid, Nitlakina? It's called Frank. It's called Frank.

It's called Frank? Frank N? Yeah. He's the only one. It's called Sophie Frank. Every year there's a Euro guy or a foreign guy or somewhere far away from this country that just starts climbing.

And Chad Ford gets excited, gets an amazing workout. He's like, oh, he could go as high as Ford. And the momentum goes. He would be the obvious pick for that. Is there any chance he climbs into the top five? I don't think it would happen. I don't think he'll climb into the top five but with that said i like frank a lot and i think in many ways if we had him in college basketball right

now if he was playing tonight if he was on kentucky instead of the aaron fox we might be looking at him as a top five guy because he he does so many things well he's like he's like six foot five super long arms can defend multiple positions and he's a smart playmaker the one hiccup with him is he's not a good shooter but he's further ahead than foxes as a shooter he can shoot off the catch the question is off the dribble and he does so many of those things well that i think he probably is a top five talent but the question is will there be a team in the top five that's willing to gamble on him when you have so many other strong choices this year,

whether it's forwards like Isaac or Tatum or the guards like Monk and Fox. I just don't know if you can have the confidence level to take him over some of those guys. But it's possible. I just think it's very unlikely. Let's switch gears to the NBA, the Clippers. They lost another terrible game last night. It is... I'm officially... I don't know how to even describe what we're watching with this team

anymore. They have somebody who, on paper, statistically, is the greatest point guard of all time. I'm not saying he is, but Chris Paul, statistically, if you take his resume of his career since 05 and you go through all the efficiency benchmarks and the fact that he's a very good defensive player on the other end, he's the best two-way point guard of all time at the very least. And yet at the end of games, they completely screw up. They take terrible shots. They dribble the ball off their feet.

They air ball shots. They miss free throws. It's this team that just shoots itself in the foot over and over again. I watch them. And I've thought this way really ever since three years ago when they blew the Oklahoma City series. Then it even compounded in the Houston series the following year. And it just keeps going. It's a team that seems like they don't believe they're going to come through

at the end. Is there any chance this turns around? I mean, you hope it does because, like, I like these guys as individual players. I love Jay Zaretek's game. Love Blake Griffin. Maybe the best passing big man I've ever seen. Best playmaking big man. Chris Paul is outstanding. But the fit just isn't great. And Doc Rivers has tried the same thing

over and over again. Because each year, there's been a legitimate excuse in the playoffs, oftentimes with injuries. But still, the fit isn't perfect. It isn't great. It's not enough to get over the hump. So I think they could win a playoff series, but I don't think they can go much further than that because they just don't have a great fit with these guys. And I want to see Blake Griffin in a situation where he's playing small ball five and he's in a playmaking role. But you can't do that when you're also playing with maybe the greatest point guard

of all time and a team that also happens to have one of the better rim protectors in the league in DeAndre Jordan. It's hard to put out what could be an effective small ball lineup when your roster construct doesn't allow you to do that. That's frustrating because I want to see Blake in that role. It's a six-year sample size now

and it's time for it to... If it doesn't happen this year, you just got to Audible. You just have to. You have to. And maybe the Audible will take care of itself. Like, I think Doc's, if they're first rounding out, I think he's gone. That would be my bet.

No inside info. Just a bet. Just watching how he's handled his career, I could see him just kind of sneaking out and going to Orlando or something like that. I really wonder if Blake's going to opt out of his deal. There's not a huge financial incentive for him to stay because he didn't make All-NBA last year and he's not going to make it this year. So maybe that's how it resets. The other move would be to trade DeAndre.

But, you know, you think they have a chance to win a first-round series. I think they have pretty much no chance because— Against OKC? Well, no, I don't think—I think they're going to fall to the sixth seed. I think OKC's going to jump them. And that puts the Clippers against Houston in round one. And that's a suicide mission. They're not going to beat Houston.

That's done. They wouldn't beat Houston. You know, the only reason that they even are fighting for the five seed right now is because they got to play the Lakers twice. And Ty Lue threw his old buddy Doc a solid, rested all his dudes on Saturday night. Holy mackerel. Please tell me someday you'll do something as nice for me as Ty Lue did for Doc Rivers that night. And that really pissed me off because I don't care about the wrestling thing that much. It's going to happen.

People get bent out of shape. It sucks. The fans get upset. I get it. The thing that made me mad was that was the night that LeBron should have tried to win the MVP. It's like, all right, coach, you're going to arrest Kyrie and Kevin Love. That's great.

We're on ABC. I'm going to put up 45, 12, and 17 tonight, and I'm going to single-handedly flip the MVP race. I'm going to beat the Clippers by myself on national TV. And then I'll take tomorrow night off. Go that way. Be competitive. Seize the moment. And instead they just rolled over.

But anyway, I think if it wasn't for that little three-game stretch, I think the Clipper season was going to start spiraling out of control anyway. And now we're seeing it. If they fall to six, it's over. Houston's beating them unless James Harden gets hurt. If they go to five, I still don't think they can win a game seven in Utah. Can you see this Clippers team going into Utah with that crowd and winning a game seven?

I would not bet my life on this. Well, when I say they can win a first-round series, it's not like a total confidence. I don't have total confidence in that statement. I think they can, but I don they can win a first-round series, it's not like a total confidence. I don't have total confidence in that statement. I think they can, but I don't know if they will. I think Utah's a great team. I think if they had stayed healthy the entire season, they might have maybe four or five more wins this season,

and that would put them right on the edge of that three seed if they had stayed healthy. People forget, early in the year, they didn't have their starting five healthy for maybe the first 30 games or so overall uh the fact that they're in the position they're in is kind of remarkable and i think quinn snyder is low-key kind of a head coaching head coach of the year candidate but there's a lot of good choices out there besides him but it's also a team that they don't totally have a crunch time guy as great as gordon hayward's played this year from a statistical way and he's done

everything i want when it's gordon hayward versus westbrook or it's gordon hayward versus james harden or it's gordon hayward versus isaiah thomas that's when it cut the spotlight it's kind of shined on the fact that they just don't have a guy on the level of the top eight or nine offensive guys. But I still really like them. And I think defensively, when Gobert is really going, that's a devastating team. And then you look at the way the Clippers play offensively. And over the course of a seven game series, I think they would just clip their wings off. I really think the Clippers are done. I really do. I'm not even, I'm not saying that in like a hot take, like cut this clip out and let's run it on social media.

Simmons says they're done. I just think they're done. I think it's over. I don't think they could beat Utah. I don't think they could beat Houston. I don't think they're, I don't think from a character standpoint, they don't seem like they don't,

I'm not seeing a ton of fight from them. I don't see really a character standpoint, they don't seem like they don't. I'm not seeing a ton of fight from them. I don't see really any chemistry from them. It doesn't seem like guys that really like playing with each other that much. And I'm going tomorrow. I'm going to watch them in person play the jazz, ironically. And to me, it's like that's a must win game. That's a that's a playoff game. Let's see it.

You got to take care of business. So anyway, wait, I want to talk to you about this Kirk Goldsberry Sweet 16 idea. But we have to first talk about our friends at Blue Apron. Is it lunchtime in the East Coast there? Did you eat lunch yet? I ate lunch already. All right. Well, if you were hungry and you could have stopped wasting your money did you get takeout would you do make it make

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Pork chops and miso butter with bok choy and marinated apple. Vegetable chili and baked sweet potatoes with crispy tortilla strips. Spicy shrimp coconut curry with cabbage and rick. Is that what it's called? R-I-C? Tate's nodding. Right now you can get your first three blue apron meals for free with free shipping just go to blueapron.com slash bs blue apron a better way to cook so kurt goldsberry for grantland three years ago wrote an idea about what if the nba just the sweet 16? What if we threw away conferences? What if we just did one through 16 seeds, one play 16?

I wrote in my mailbag today for the 100th straight year, I wrote about the entertaining as hell tournament, which I think could tie into the need that apparently we have now to rest players because the game is just harder to play. And I think it's hard to expect these guys to play 82 games unless they're superhuman like Westbrook. But the point was 76 games, an entertaining – you guarantee seven playoff spots for each conference.

The other 16 teams play for the last two spots. If we had an NBA Sweet 16 and you just guaranteed seven spots in each conference for the first 14 teams, and then after that, play in tournament for the last two, and then we go one through 16, all of a sudden, for a team like the Clippers,

that makes their road a wee bit easier. So they would have, right now they are the five, they are the ninth team. So I guess they would play Toronto. It would be an 8-9 matchup, Toronto versus the Clippers. Anyway, would you buy into a Sweet 16? Would you rather have that or do you like the conferences? I hate conferences.

But I think, first of of all i think it's disappointing that the league still has them in a sense that every team should have basically equal strength of schedule entering the season like you should play i i prefer a shorter schedule like 58 games or you play every team that's not happening are you crazy but one of the one of the things is like you know it won't be 58 games but if you have that as a baseline. Are you crazy? But one of the things is, like, you know, it won't be 58 games, but if you have that as a baseline and you insist on 82, right, you can have some type of structure that allows the teams to play basically equal schedules, right?

Yeah. Because right now the conference is weighed heavily on one side than it is on the other. So I just would like to see some balance across the league because that way we get to see these teams truly for what they are, I think, in the sense that we won't see, I don't know, the Miami Heat starting off

terribly, fighting for the 8th team. We won't see the Chicago Bulls potentially in the playoffs because we're going to have the 16 best teams. And I think with modern traveling sleep, I think player health now, it would be fine having these players travel

more if the schedule was structured a little bit better with no conferences. So if we had an NBA Sweet 16 this year, Golden State would still play Denver, one versus 16 if the season ended today. It's a dramatic difference for the number two team team because San

Antonio right now is going to play Memphis probably in round one. You at least have to break a real sweat in the Memphis series, right? They got big guys. Who knows? You're going to have to break out the guns at least to get through that one. Otherwise, if you're in an NBA Sweet 16, San Antonio's playing Miami in round one, the 15 seed. And Houston, instead of having to deal with the Clippers, who I still think they'd beat, but you still have to deal with Chris Paul and DeAndre and J.J. Redick and Blake Griffin, they'd be playing the Pacers in round one.

Now, the flip side of this argument would be, well, round one would be much more boring because Houston Clippers is a great, it's overqualified to be a first round one. Now, the flip side of this argument would be, well, round one would be much more boring because Houston Clippers is a great, it's overqualified to be a first round series. That would be awesome. I'd say we would still get a couple good ones because you'd have the Celtics are the five seed right now and you'd have Atlanta as the 12 seed right now.

That's a pretty good series. You'd have Washington against Memphis. It's a pretty good series. You'd have Washington against Memphis. It's a weird matchup. Oh, no, I'm doing this wrong. 7, 8, 9, 10. You'd have, oh, wow. You'd have Washington against Oklahoma City in round one. How about that?

Tate, would you watch every game in that series? Yeah, absolutely. John Wall in that series John Walvers Russ and we'd have Toronto and the Clippers those are two great series so yeah I think NBA Sweet 16 so what would be the obstacle against this happening I think the main argument is traveling

I think you could have teams going west coast to east coast in the first round of the playoffs. Oh, it's so tough in their chartered planes. I don't buy into that. I just can't. Look, I argue against that in the sense that I don't think traveling is much of an issue today. Especially with days off teams having the playoffs. It's not an issue, but that's the only argument I've really ever seen presented against having no conferences.

That's the only legitimate argument I think anybody has ever brought to the table against no conferences. Whenever I hear the travel argument, they make it seem like they have to show up two and a half hours in advance to check their bags and then go through TSA and sit in first class. These guys are getting right on a plane that lands right at the airport and then they get in a fancy bus that takes them right to the Ritz Carlton. They're fine. The Celtics leave Boston at 8.30 in the morning and they get to L.A. at 1 o'clock and they're in their hotel by 1.30. They're all good.

They're staying in a suite. On the plane, they're in these big comfy seats and they have Wi-Fi and they're getting fed shrimp and lobster. They're all good. They're staying in a suite. On the plane, they're in these big comfy seats and they have Wi-Fi and they're getting fed shrimp and lobster. They'll be fine. I think my preference would be that this is the last year that we have the traditional system. I really don't understand why we have 82 games. I wrote about it today. There's no rhyme or reason to how we ended up there. It's just this arbitrary number that they kind of settled on. It could easily, 76 makes so much more sense because you'd play the other conference 30 times total.

You'd play your non-division teams 30 times, three times each. And then you'd play the four teams in your division four times each. That gets to 76 and you're good. I don't understand why the 82, there you go. You're losing one game a month. You can solve every back-to-back four and five nights issue.

I don't understand why they wouldn't do that. Let me ask you something. We have to start one argument every podcast when we're on because we tend to agree too much because we're both smart guys who really understand what's right and wrong about basketball. What's our biggest disagreement right now? I don't know, Bill. It's hard to say what is a disagreement. From this podcast, it's faults versus ball.

I'm still faults, number one, and that's probably pretty clear for me. I'm going to throw one at you. Okay, fine. Throw one at me. I don't think Isaiah Thomas is a Celtic next season if the Celtics get Fultz or Ball. So you think they would cash in right away? I think they would cash in. They would trade Isaiah at his peak.

Yes. At his peak this summer. Yes. Because his value would probably drop if the Celtics had a top point guard next season. I have no idea. What if they also signed Gordon Hayward using cap space? Oh. Would they still cash out on Isaiah?

Like, you know, beginning of the season or right before the summer? So you're saying they'd actually make a run at the NBA title next season. They go get Hayward. They keep Isaiah. They have Fultz as, like, Fultz or Ball if they were lucky enough to get one of them as kind of the next guy in training. And then Isaiah's going to play this whole season without knowing what his contract situation is with his replacement that he's staring at every single day. And he's going to be happy.

I just think the time to sell Isaiah, if you're going to sell Isaiah and you're out of title contention, you're not quite within your reach, I think the time to do it is year two of his next deal. So keep him for a while. He's locked up. This is good. Because if you trade him this summer, you're missing a potential opportunity.

I mean, I don't think... If the Celtics were to sign Gordon Hayward and if they trade for another star, they still might not have enough. But I think that team is close enough where you have to give it a shot. And if you do trade Isaiah, you could be missing a significant opportunity with this core, which needs another guy, possibly another two guys.

But they're close in the sense that they have so many assets and the cap space to add that. I think it would be a missed opportunity to do that. Interesting. Why do I feel like Gordon Hayward is really in play? If you're a Celtics fan, you should be rooting against the jazz in round one. I'll put it that way. Like Titus explained it last week when we were hanging out watching basketball because Titus knows Hayward a little bit from their Indiana days.

He was like, Brad Stevens recruited Hayward when he was like five foot nine, like before he had his big growth spurt, they'd known each other forever. It's, it's when push comes to shove and it's actually time to have the conversation. These are just two people that have known each other now for 10 years and have a great relationship. It's a serious threat. If, if, if you're Utah, it's not great. Like Brad Stevens, the seeds have been planted when Gordon Hayward had like zits on his head and he was five foot nine. So if they think that they can actually get Hayward

and they can somehow cash in with a top three pick and keep Isaiah, and then you look at Cleveland who has really literally no way of getting better next year. Maybe you're right. Maybe that is the move. I don't know. It would really depend. It really seems like they're hesitant to kind of go all in

on one way or the other. It's like a very hedge your bets type of thing because you look at how they kind of missed out on the trade deadline. And if this team doesn't make the finals or even doesn't make round three, I think one of the biggest reasons is because they didn't upgrade the Amir Johnson

and Jurebko spots. Those guys play... Look how good P.J. Tucker looks in Toronto. He's had one possession every night where he just locks down a guy for all 24 seconds. Are you surprised? You watch basketball? Yeah, but I mean, were you surprised by this? We saw

him do this on the Suns. We knew this guy was a real guy. It's like, where were the Celtics on that one? What about Bogdanovich? That was another one. What about, I mean, Ibaka? All these guys. There were a lot of guys that could have swung the thing, but P.J. Tucker, like Toronto, they kind of stole.

They didn't even give up a first-round pick, right? I don't think so. I think Ibaka would have cost it too much. I know a first-round pick isn't a lot, but the Raptors gave up their first-round pick this year. I mean, the Celtics would have had to have given up a more valuable pick in the future, which could bite you in the end if Ibaka ends up walking,

and you wouldn't want to re-sign him anyway if you're aiming for bigger fish in free agency, a.k.a. Hayward. True. On the other hand, how many picks and assets can you have? You redrafted the 2016 NBA draft in a piece you wrote, I think this week.

And you had Ante Zizic and Yabasele, the two guys that the Celtics took last year in the first round and stashed. You had them both in the top 14. Why wouldn't they have dangled one of those guys to try to get somebody like a Bach? I mean, that's my point. I don't think that, I don't think that they feel like they have a chance to win the title. So they're like, screw it. Let's just,

let's just stockpile all of our assets and figure it out next summer. Because, you know, if they had a Bach on this team, even if you're renting them, well, what's the price for a rental baseball teams do this all the time, you know, and the Celtics are probably the only team that actually had enough assets to go rent somebody for a year, but you put a Baca on this team and the ceiling of it's a little different. That's why I I'm not convinced that they think they can actually make the finals. What's your take on that?

Well, I think, you know, you mentioned Zizic. If they had traded Zizic for Ibaka, Zizic is the guy that couldn't end up being your starting center for the next X amount of years, where Ibaka would be for maybe three months. I think it depends largely on how they view Zizic. I think his

improvement this year has been pretty significant. A lot like Zubat from the Lakers. He's gotten significantly better this past year. So I think those guys would, this year, would be like back-end lottery picks, maybe like in the 15 to 20 range if they aren't in the lottery. So I don't know if I'd want to give that pick for Ibaka, no matter what team I was, knowing that he's a rental and he's really declined over the past few years. Still a really good player, don't get me wrong,

but I wouldn't want to dump that asset for Ibaka at this point. Especially if you don't think he can win the title. I'm going to be thinking about Zizic in round two when Amir Johnson gets a pass under the rim and can't jump to dunk it because his ankles are shot. And he's a

great guy and a great teammate and all that stuff, but I just don't know how you can think you can seriously compete in the playoffs when you have Jurebko and Johnson in two of those spots. And it was pretty easy to upgrade. I guess one of the issues is they didn't have the late-round, first-round pick to dangle this year. If it had been next year, it would have been a lot easier for them to do because they had the pick swap.

Are you watching this Brooklyn Renaissance, by the way? Have you been following? K.J. McDaniels is coming alive. I love K.J. McDaniels prior to the draft, but he's coming alive right now. They're five back from L.A. with 11 games left, but they have this insanely easy schedule. They're playing like Orlando twice and Chicago twice. And it's not good. I mean, the Lakers might just lose every game the rest

of the way and the Nets would have to go six and five. And all of a sudden the Celtics number one pick would drop. Not great. Anyway. All right. Enjoy Lonzo versus Kentucky tonight. I'm interested to read your take about it next week. Thanks for the time. Appreciate all the Ringer stuff, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for having me, Bill. All right. We're going to call my friend Jacko, but first let's talk about propercloth.com.

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Stop wearing shirts that don't fit. Look your best. Go to propercloth.com slash BS. Enter gift code BS to save $20 on your first shirt. Once again, propercloth.com slash BS. Gift code BS. All right, let's call Jacko. All right, as promised, Jacko on the line.

Did you read Trump's interview on Time Magazine? Did you read it? Did you read that thing? Did you read that, Johnny? I did not read the whole thing. I did see excerpts and saw people tweet about various aspects of it, but I can't say that I studied it with any great detail because it was too troubling. He's the president and we're not, Johnny.

That's true. And say hi to everybody for me or whatever his final thing was. I'm the president, you're not. Say hi to everybody or whatever it was. It was the single craziest interview that I've read or watched since Mike Tyson and Jim Gray in the mid-90s,

whatever that was. It seemed like Mike Tyson was just going to start eating Jim Gray you can't still have the capacity to be like surprised by anything he says or does at this point though can you? well I think because

I think when he's the president I guess it's more surprising to me that he's impossible to protect it's just impossible for the people around him to just stop him from tweeting on a saturday morning or to just give a completely insane time magazine interview or or whatever i think that's what shocks me i wish i could buy stock in the nearest liquor store to sean spicer's house because it must be doing a phenomenal business.

Or Kellyanne Conway's. What do you think, as a longtime fan and student of the Republican Party, what are their moves right now? I was going to make a joke about the Heaven's Gate cult, but they've already used that one. So I'm not sure what the moves are. I mean, that's one of the scariest things about all this is that no matter where you look, I mean, there just doesn't seem to be, it's a cliche, but I'll go with it, there doesn't seem to be any grown-ups in charge. Like, I don't know who's running things.

Like, when Trump got elected, what I consoled myself with was, well, at least hopefully Congress, you know, maybe they'll just sort of let Trump, he'll get to hear a hail to the chief and he gets to ride on Air Force One. But really, Congress will set the agenda and Congress will do what's right and they'll just put things in front of him to sign. are not really instilling me with any great deal of confidence, which is an understatement, because they've decided to rush headlong into health care for some reason, and that's turned into a massive disaster now. So you look at Trump, who doesn't know what he's doing, and, you know, he's happy sitting in a truck. I mean, you see the pictures yesterday of him sitting in a truck, grinning like a 12-year-old. And you have Congress that's making a hash out of health care, and for some reason rushing through this unpopular bill that's popular with nobody in the country, not even like base Republicans or any conservatives.

So I have no idea what they're doing. So and then you look at, you know, the Democrats are completely insane and running amok. So it's like, who's running the country in a time of crisis? I just, if you really sit back and think about it, it makes your head hurt. You just made my head hurt. So basically, when you say, what's the Republicans' play? I have no idea. I mean, the Republicans' play was to kill the Trump candidacy in its crib back a year and a half ago, but here we are. They didn't do that. So their only play now, I would think, is to...

Well, the play they seem to have adopted is they're just going to embrace him. And I mean, I see these polls and, you know, Republicans, you know, we love Putin now, and whatever Trump says is the new mantra of the Republican Party. It's all just so, so depressing. And, you know, you would hope that they would have stood for something, but it turns out that it's Trump's party now. I mean, I don't know what the future of the Republican Party is, because he's going to go down in flames and he's going to take them with it, at least if they had said some distancing from him but they've decided to embrace him because they're afraid of him sending out nasty tweets

at four in the morning or whatever so i don't know not good sad remember in 2009 we used to do we on the pod, we used to do, Johnny, are you worried yet? And I'd ask you how worried, and then I'd say how worried I was about the Red Sox season, and we would just go through it. Now nobody's ever worried because everyone makes the playoffs. Right. But I thought it would be fun to revive that game for this,

for the Trump presidency. Yeah. How worried are you at a scale of one to 10? I'm like a 15, because it seems like North, it's not even within the country, right? Like, whatever. Yeah.

Stupid laws can get passed, you know? All that stuff, we can manage, we can live. People will take charge of certain spots that'll be terrible. Whatever happens, we'll manage. It's when will take charge of certain spots that'll be terrible whatever happens we'll manage it's when like north korea starts getting frisky right and uh and europe decides that they're completely out on the united states and russia is tampering with our election maybe and all this stuff is happening outside the borders, that's when I start to get nervous. Yeah, it's the foreign policy thing that's really disconcerting,

to say the least, obviously. Yeah, I mean, you have a lunatic in North Korea who's fooling around with trying to get missiles, and I don't think they have the technological basis really to directly threaten the United States, but if he wanted to screw around with South Korea, so to speak, that's an ally of ours and that we're pledged to defend. Yes.

And you don't really want to be in a land war in Asia or any kind of a war. Not that I think we would have a problem defeating North Korea, but you don't want to be in a war if you can help it, obviously, and you just don't know what he's capable of with nukes. You know, you have Europe where Putin not only is screwing around in our election, but he's trying to screw around in the election with France now, where he wants to put this nationalist Marie Le Pen as the president of France. And he's trying to play games there. Now, we always had a bulwark against Russian expansionism with NATO, but Trump doesn't like NATO because they're not paying the bills or whatever his claims are. So there's no – I don't know where Germany is on things. You have this whole issue with immigration from the Middle East and Europe,

and you see the problems that obviously just happened more than problems with the Terrorist Act that happened in London the other day. So Europe is a mess, not to mention the economic difficulties they have, and now you have Brexit and everything else. So this would really be a time for stable American leadership, the Pax Americana that we've had for the past 60 years or so. And we have a guy in the White House who should be in charge of this great American superpower that's wearing an I love trucks button and pretending to drive an 18 wheeler. You know, it's not great. And you would hope, well, at least maybe Paul Ryan has a few brains

and he's running around trying to overturn Obamacare with a plan that nobody understands and nobody likes. It's really not good. And you undersold the Middle East. Oh, completely. I didn't even bring, I didn't really bring up that. You didn't even bring up the Middle East, yeah. Right.

ISIS in Afghanistan, where we've been for 16 years, and it's no better today than it was then, arguably. You know, Iraq is still a mess. You have all these other, Syria is, my God, you can't even talk about Syria, what a disaster it is. It's horrific. It's horrific. That's one of the problems. That's one of the things that led to Trump, I think, is that for years people could sort of set their watch by that America was going to keep the world safe, keep Europe safe, keep America safe. Things were running correctly. And now it just seems like since, I don't know, maybe since 2000, maybe since 9-11, you know, that the world is just, it's a mess and that there doesn't seem to be any order to things and's going to help us this one time, kind of deal

with this. And then we've teamed up with Russia. And then who the hell knows where that goes? I'm prepared for anything. Well, Trump kept saying during the campaign, he keeps saying, would it really be so bad if we were friends with Russia? Would that be so bad? Right.

Well, Russia does not have the best interest in the United States at heart. It hasn't since 1917, and Putin was a KGB agent. So this notion that he just forgot about all the things where America was the prime enemy, and he's forgotten about that. I mean, his whole goal is to restore the greatness, as he sees it, of the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union did not have our best interests. So great, that would be great if we could all be friendly and sing Kumbaya and hold hands. But when there's two diametrically opposed positions, viewpoints of the world, and in terms of who's going to run the show,

you can't be friends with somebody like that. You can't, Johnny, you just can't. You can't do it. You can't be friends with Russia. Despite what Rocky Balboa said in Rocky IV, I'm not sure we're ever going to get along that great with Russia while they have a Putin-esque leader in charge. Yeah, it's like if the Yankees and the Red Sox teamed up

to make baseball, but it's just not happening. It's in the DNA. It's doomed. That's exactly right. The Yankees are just loaded with lovable prospects. Right. There's Roy Hobbs everywhere you look and great pitchers and great arms. Yeah.

The shortstop they got in the Chapman trade is a slam dinger. A slam dinger, he is. I made up that word. Good one. Thank you. You're feeling good. There's some sleeper potential. It's going to be a fun team to watch.

Bunch of young guys. Very un-Yankee-like team. It's the first time in my lifetime, probably, or certainly since the 90s, when it's not a collection of overpriced, overage veterans, where there's hope for the future and young guys and prospects. And, you know, you have visions of a dynasty, another dynasty, another core four situation with Bird at first, and obviously Sanchez has already shown greatness at catcher, and Torres for the future, and Clint Frazier in the minor leagues, and not to mention guys

like Kaprilian and Justice Sheffield. I mean, they got a litany of cacophony. That's really not the right word, but a multitude of young prospects to look at. A potpourri. A potpourri of stars of the future, one hopes. So, yeah, it's exciting. It's exciting. Greg Bird is like Lou Gehrig reincarnated, you know, and he has a cat that's related to Mr. Bigglesworth from

Austin Powers what's not to like fun stories like that amazing it's just what a time to be a Yankee fan is this the year that Batonsis his arm falls off as he's throwing a slider it feels like it could be no

today's his birthday by the way I think yesterday was his birthday i saw on twitter so young young buck good setup guys great the problem is randy levine who's a moron you know they want yankees win an arbitration and then randy levine decided to take a victory lap and rub batances nose in the mud like i can't wait to be a free agent good good work randy well done all around give me your top three starters. For the Hanks? Yeah. Pitching? Well, that's where we're running into some problems.

It's going to unravel a tiny bit. Tanaka has been brilliant in spring training. Now it's spring training ticket for what it's worth, but I think he's pitched like, I forget how many show that innings he's pitched, 16 or something ridiculous. He's looked really good, but I mean his elbows are like David Price's held together by Duck James. Oh, Johnny.

So you hope he can last, and then I don't even know who's number two. I guess Pineda? I don't know. It's troubling. That's your number two starter? Maybe last year, Sabathia. The starting is not great. You guys are going to stink.

Yeah. This year, we're in a transition year, this year we're in a transition year. We're in a transition year. They're going to have some pop, though. Their offense is going to be good. But they're going to give up a lot of runs. It's about next year. Are you prepared for the world when you're bouncing your grandkids on your lap,

telling them about the time that you got to watch Betts and Benintendi and Jackie Bradley in the same outfield? I am not ready for that time, no. I got my Sports Illustrated yesterday with them on the cover, though. Whoever was on the cover, I couldn't really bring myself to even really look at it. The most amazing part of that story was that you got your Sports Illustrated. Yeah, I know, I know. I'm a dinosaur.

Throwback to a different time, yes. I didn't get it on my iPad. I got it in my mailbox. Did you read it as you were watching the 6.30 nightly news? And eating a Hungry Man? I was making some calls on my rotary phone as I breezed through it. Eating your Hungry Man frozen dinner? The TV tray in front of me, yeah, exactly. Are you prepared for the world when David Ortiz

announces in June, he just sends out the tweet that says, I'm back? Oh yeah, I can already see that coming. There's no question about that. You wrote a tweet about that a while ago. You could totally see that coming because they have Chris Sale and they have Porcello and whatever's left of david price so they have a theoretically a good rotation but um so yeah if they're you know in first place

they're doing well and he thinks he can sniff one more ring and then he comes back and then you know everybody goes crazy yeah that'll be wonderful the chris sale trade makes me nervous because even though it's going to be really fun to watch him pitch, all the prospect lists come out in March. Yeah. And I'm in that crazy league of dorks. We basically gave up one of the top five prospects and then the 13th best prospect. Right.

So he better be good. It was about as steep of a price that I can remember. I mean, who knows with prospects? You never know. One of them could fall through, both of them, whatever. But holy shit, man. It's expensive. That was a lot to give up.

I hope it's not a situation where he shows up and it takes him a year to adjust and he didn't realize the fans are going to be on top of him and all the stuff that happens half the times when the Red Sox get a pitcher. Oh, man. He played for the White Sox. This whole city, they're the second banana in Chicago because everybody cares about the Cubs, so there's probably no pressure being a White Sox.

And now he goes to probably the most intense place because everybody lives and dies with every pitch. And, yeah, let's going to be a rude. Let's hope it's a rude awakening for him. Let's hope he hates it. And then you have Handley Ramirez without David Ortiz, which I think is. Yeah, he got a lot bigger in the offseason, I noticed, too. That's convenient.

Yeah. Bulked up. What happens to a lot of guys over 30 or 35, whatever he is. Well, it's, you know, weight training is really good these days. Yeah, good nutrition. You get a different trainer. Eat differently. Maybe add a little granola in the mornings.

Well, he's all bulked up, and now he's going to try to do too much because there's no Big Papi, so he's got to be the offense. So that's an injury waiting to happen. Big Papi did seem like he was the prototypical big brother for Hanley that just kind of yeah led him through stuff and now Hanley's like the big brother's off in college and it's just Hanley down Hanley's like hey guys my parents are gone tonight let's have a party and I don't know worries me a little bit did you watch the WBC or no I did not I literally did not watch a single pitch of it and And I kind of

regretted it because our, your friend, our friend, our mutual friend, Gus Ramsey, was tweeting liberally about it, and it seemed like it was some pretty exciting games, and the U.S. won. I'm always happy to see America be made great again. And, um, but I was not into it, no. I tried.

I, I, I really did. I tried. I've had it on a couple times it just something about march baseball with the stakes i just it just didn't feel right i'm not against it i was glad people enjoyed it i thought the adam jones catch was awesome i liked right i liked how i like the fans and you know it's fun the puerto ricans were all fired up and right the blonde hair and all Catch was awesome. I liked the fans. It was fun. The Puerto Ricans were all fired up. Right, the blonde hair and all that. Yeah, I get it.

It just felt weird. March is like spring training, and it's lazy, and it's March madness. And I just want to read stories about some random Red Sox prospect I've never heard of is lighting it up. I'm not ready for, like, real competition. Real competitive. Yeah, I just couldn't adjust. Yeah, it's too soon.

They need to do something with that. I mean, I've heard Francesca talk about this before it started, and he said he wasn't going to watch any of it. And people were trying to tweak it, and they were saying, like, what if you had it at the end of the season, like after the World Series? But he's like, nobody would play because guys are so drained from the season. And if you had guys that were in the postseason, they're not going to then go play in it,

so you're not going to have theoretically the best players. You know, then you're going to start to compete with football. That's problematic. People are kind of beyond baseball at that point. So it's tough because there's not really any good time to have it. You can't have it, obviously, in the middle of the season because teams are never going to agree to take two weeks off. So I don't know.

It's just not a bad event. I like, you know, sort of a mini-Olympic thing for baseball, but I just don't know when you would have it that you'd be able to draw eyes, you know? Yeah, you know what I'm good with? The baseball playoffs. Yeah, right. Maybe that's what we should keep. Right, exactly.

And like, you know, March is March Madness. They own the month. And so yeah, I'm more focused on that than I am on baseball at this point. And you know, I'll tell you another thing, Johnny, with how divided this country has become after the election, maybe it's not a good idea

for the nationalities to compete against one another. Maybe we all need to band together, Johnny. That's really good. We should join hands as a brotherhood of man. Come on. I don't see countries anymore, Johnny. I see people. I see Americans. I don't want to compete. I don't need your flag to compete against me. We're all under one flag, Johnny. We're all under the flag of the United States of America. That's it. As long as I can still hate the Red Sox, I agree. Johnny. A pleasure, as always. Talk to you soon.

Good times. Take it easy, buddy. Bye-bye. That's it for the BS Podcast. Thanks to SeatGeek, our presenting sponsor. Don't forget to download the SeatGeek app or go to SeatGeek.com. Thanks again to Proper Cloth. Finding a dress shirt that fits is hard. Ordering a custom fit shirt has never

been easier thanks to proper cloth their custom shirts start from 85 high quality shirts made from premium italian and japanese fabrics they even guarantee a perfect fit and remakes are free stop wearing shirts that don't fit start looking your best go to propercloth.com slash bs enter gift code bs to save 20 in your first shirt don't forget. Start looking your best. Go to propercloth.com slash BS. Enter gift code BS to save $20 on your first shirt. Don't forget my NBA mailbag up on theringer.com. Don't forget to listen to the Blue Chips Sports Movie Hall of Fame podcast that we put up Tuesday if you love Blue Chips. Don't forget about the Ringer NFL show and Mike Lombardi's new podcast.

Don't forget. Tate, when are you doing teed up this weekend? Tonight. You're doing it after every game? I did one last night, Saturday, Sunday. So the Teed Up podcast on Ringer University, Tate and Titus, they went full scale last

week. They're going to bring it back. They're going to do nightly podcasts after these games. Try not to have too many beers before the... Are you drinking tonight? Friday night? Stone Cold Sober. Stone Cold Sober. That's what the pot should be called. Tate and Titus breaking it down. They've done a really good job so far.

We also almost watched Tate die on a live stream on Sunday as UNC was blowing the game. You were so mad. I don't know if I like angry, sarcastic, bitter Tate Frazier. I didn't sign the NDA. Jesus. Went to a dark place. At one point, Tate was like, this is my fault.

I shouldn't live here. I should be in North Carolina. I was like, what's going on? Is Tate quitting? Wow, it was emotional. But yeah, so teed up on the Ring University podcast. If you want immediate feedback on all these games, those guys will break it down to you.

Enjoy the weekend. We'll be back next week in the BS podcast. On the wayside On the first sun Never lost it I don't have To ever forget