The Bill Simmons Podcast - NBA Draft Reactions and Lots of Pelicans Jokes With Joe House and J. Kyle Mann

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House and J. Kyle Mann live after the first round of the 2025 NBA draft to break down the lottery picks and draft-night moves (3:05). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Joe House and J. Kyle Mann Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is presented by State Farm®. Dishing the assists you need off the court. State Farm® with the Assist. Get started today at HubSpot.com/AI The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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where I have a new rewatchables that went up on Monday. We did Die Hard with a Vengeance. It was super fun. It was me and Ben, Lathan and Chris Ryan. And I think I had multiple big mistakes in this one. It's hard to host. Before you lump too much vitriol at me, it's hard to host. Sometimes you make mistakes.

You're trying to do nine things. And I said in Die Hard 2, the airport was Chicago and it was Washington. I knew this because I did the Die Hard 2 rewatchables. Obviously I knew it was Washington, but that's the thing. You had moving parts, so I screwed up. And then I think, what's that song at the beginning of Die Hard 2 I called it Hot Time, Summer in the City or something? Listen, I'm in my mid-50s now. I'm going to have a couple doozies every episode now. It's just part of the package. Next rewatchable is going to be the last one for New York City Month. I'm going to tell you the movie now. So you have a couple of days to watch it. It's pretty obscure, but it's also pretty well known and renowned.

And it is the definition of an eighties cult movie. It is directed by Martin Scorsese. It's called After Hours and there's great stories and all kinds of anecdotes about how this movie got made, why it didn't hit and then how it eventually grew. So that is, and it is the ultimate nighttime New York City movie. So that's the last one. You have five days to watch it. It's, I think you got to rent it, but it, but you can rent it anywhere. It's like four bucks. So after hours will be the last one on Monday. Coming up on this podcast, Joe House and J Kyle Mann are going to come on to recap the 2025 NBA draft, which had the potential to be an a plus and be incredible and

have all kinds of comedy and craziness pretty chalk for a while. And then it got goofy and I can't wait to talk about it. So it's all next. We're going to take a break. We're going to bring in Pearl Jam and then house, Jake Kyle, man, NBA draft coming up. This episode is presented by state farm. It's no secret that great teams need great teammates.

I've been saying this for years. And when it comes to insurance, State Farm is there to help you find the right coverage for your home, car, and more. Whether you need an in-person or digital assist, they're ready when life hits you with a full court press. Get a game plan that helps fit your life. Talk to State Farm today. State Farm with the Assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability and eligibility. Vary by state. We're live. Yeah. Joe House is here. I'm Bill Simmons.

We are live after pick 28 of the NBA draft. I waited to see who the Celtics were going to take and they took a Yugo. We're going to go, you guys were a car that we've made fun of. And now the Celtics have a pick that doesn't seem like he can shoot. I didn't do a lot of Yugo studying. Anyway, house. Um, this was the Cooper flag draft. This was the San Antonio took Dylan Harper.

And I really want to know how him and deer and Fox are going to co-exist draft. This was the, I can't wait to see what happens at three, but I think it's going to be VJ edge comb draft. And that's what happened. Um, this was the, where the hell is ace Bailey going. Draft. Whereas where you came in, your beloved Washington Wizards, the former Bullets, uh, Ace Bailey seemed like he wanted to come either play for

your team or Brooklyn. We're getting a little, you get a little Ace in your pocket and then Utah. Danny Ainge, who's like, Ace doesn't want to play here. He's literally announced. He doesn't want to go to Utah. Danny Ainge is like, I'm Danny Ainge. I do whatever the hell I want. He takes him, he grabs him from you.

Were you bummed? God damn it, Danny Ainge. I mean, Bill Simmons, I was preparing to come on. I was going to pop a bubble. There was two scenarios under which I was going to pop a bottle and pop a bubble. I was going to do both. One was Malawatch. That was my preferred pick

for Washington. Over the course of today, I got so many incoming messages from folks in the know and around the team. And you know, this Ace Bailey thing is legit. It's not a joke. It really could be him arriving in Washington and say, wait a minute. It's not an often that Washington is on the receiving end of some, you know, whatever misjudgments or, or, or whatever was driving, uh, the potential for ACE Bailey to, to drop a superstar by all regards in terms of this draft, this draft class, yes, the way that everybody was sizing this thing up a top three selection by every single measure falling to six.

I got so excited and then Danny Ainge did a Danny Ainge thing. He just did the smart thing and that was it. You've set up the right way to evaluate it, which was so often Washington is on the receiving end, dot, dot, dot often Washington is on the receiving end, dot, dot, dot. And it's the receiving end, get it rammed right in your rectum. That's what happened. It was a rectum ramming. I wouldn't go that far.

No, I mean, this is, we're kind of prepared for this outcome because a lot of the chatter, ACE was never a reality until the last 24 hours or so. He became more tantalizing. I know how disappointed you are. You were more than tantal, he became more tantalizing. I know how disappointed you are. You were more than tantalized. I was tantalized. Like I said, I was ready to pop a bubble. I mean, pop a bottle, both of them, right up until,

I mean, I did have chills, I will say, sitting in the moment, it's like, is this potentially a franchise altering moment for me? I just like, no, no, of course not. Well, there were five, five legit ESPN top 100, 2024 recruiting class blue chippers in this draft, plus Knipple who I think rose up and everybody loved him too. ACE was the wild card. I read everything. I sent you a long article that somebody wrote.

I think the New York star ledger had a feature. I don't know what to make. He he's combining like 40 things. We've been following basketball for so long, 40 red flags, just shrewd all over the place. And yet he's just so talented. And this is, you know, that we've seen these guys over and over again. It's like the Michael Beasley syndrome where you just like, I know there's red

flags here, but wow, is this guy talented? And he ends up going second in the draft. Danny knowing Utah has all of these draft picks, all of these pieces, and yet doesn't have like the guy. You have to take a swing at some point and he's, they take a swing. I think the thing with ACE, if you're taking them at five, worst case scenario, he's trade bait for a bigger trade, right? If you're, if you're trying to get somebody awesome, that's a centerpiece kind

of guy, and that was why I thought I was really surprised. Uh, I mean, we'll go into some of the stuff Brooklyn did, but you know, if, if Brooklyn, I think is one of the teams that would have a chance for Yanis down the road. I just want somebody who can be at number eight, who can be in that Yanis trade and not take the, the project from BYU who most people had in the 14 and 20 range. We'll talk about them when Kyle Mann gets here. But I liked that. I really thought that was the right pick from Utah.

Take the asset, worry about it later. What's he going to do? Not playing the NBA. What's he going to sit out? It was also draft for need. Like they need that, that dynamic, uh, playmaking. They need, you know, that, that back court help, uh, and pairing him with Walter Clayton, I mean, Bobby Marx couldn't contain, he popped a bubble on

TV ready to give, uh, Utah the, you know, the, the lead position in best draft, uh, through, you know, the, the, the first 20 picks or so. Um, well that was nice that Clayton went 18 because normally the norm in the history of the draft, that's the guy who usually goes 33, 34. And we're like, all right, that's stupid. Canipples the guy who goes like 15th because they start talking themselves out of like his athleticism on defense. It seems like people for the most part are getting better

at where these guys would go. And then the nets are like, hold my beer. And they start doing their stuff. Well, now I'm interested in, you know, part of the quiet, you know, things that Smart Utah does in the background is sign will Hardy to an extension that goes through 2031. Uh, and I want to see these kids with Will Hardy in this five out offense. I want to see a therapist for him now.

Cause ACE might be a handful. Ace, Ace has like his support team. There's like the agent who's not certified to be an agent. Anytime there's a, you have an agent who's not actually certified to be the agent. I get nervous. Is that the guy who wanted, wanted a hundred dollars to appear on television? Is it that dude? It's there's, there's some stories.

Allegations, allegations have been made. You know, people can always change their support team as they get older and more established Speaking of that very quick aside, you know who changed his support team Who you heard this? It's I and Williamson He did new agent look up his new agent. Yeah, hire a chef I mean, you know, you can get to, he doesn't need a chef. They have Ozempic out there now. Uh, we, we got to save New Orleans for Kyle.

I agree. We got to save that. Like when we went, well, when you and I go to dinner and there's some entree or some thing in the restaurant you have to try, and sometimes it'll be on the, on the table with a bunch of different plates. And you're like, I'm not going to touch that yet. I'm saving it. I'm going to have that the potatoes are grown and they're famous for it. I'm not going to have it yet.

I'm going to wait. I'm going to eat all these other things. That's New Orleans today. Great. New Orleans is the potatoes are grown. It's the house specialty. Don't eat it yet. It's over here.

I have it on the side of the table and then we'll get a big spoonful of it later. We have it on the side of the table. Then we'll get a big spoonful of it later. Um, but, uh, the Utah, Danny getting ace Bailey with the fifth pick when it seemed like they had thrown their season away, right? They're in this tank fest comes down to the last day and then they drop all the way to five, your team drops all the way to six, you guys still got blue chip players like Trey Johnson. I don't know what he is.

Ultimately. I was saying, wesello on Sunday, he's like the greatest version ever of like those Eddie house sharp shooter type guys. He's way better than obviously, but you know, I'm not sure he'll be finishing around the rim that much for you. And I don't know. Yeah. I don't know where it goes, but I do think he's one of those you're

texting your friends like, Oh my God, Trey's getting hot. Trey has eight threes in the second quarter. He's one of those guys. I hope that's true. I hope that's true. I mean, Washington finished almost 25 points behind Oklahoma City and net rating, which really seems almost impossible. Almost impossible.

25 points? Yes. And Washington was negative 12 point something and Oklahoma City was positive 12 points, damn near 25 points behind and Washington. Congratulations. That's great. Bottom four in, in by almost all defensive metrics and bottom two in almost all offensive metrics.

So you take the best available and Washington, you know, just bereft of any kind of threat on offense from both the two ball and the three ball. So Trey, welcome, your ability to- And CJ McCollum, welcome. How long is he going to be here? Why are you laughing? At least a year. He'll be here a year. It's a professional score. I like him and he's going to come in and be a good mentor to these kids.

I mean, the reason that I was bummed that Ballantunis got traded, he was a good mentor to the kids. CJ, you know, leader of the union guy. He'll be a very good mentor. Yeah, leader of the union, great. CBA they pulled off there. They gave the league a hard cap.

Nobody has any free agents. Somebody nice job. Uh, yeah, you have Marcus smart too. I think it's funny that they're putting together the 2017 Celtics, the team that broke your heart and Washington's last. You mean with Kelly Olenek, Marcus smart. Maybe we get Avery Bradley back. You might, you might have it. Uh, I like the trade Johnson pick. So I'm going to start in order in the top and I'll really try to save New

Orleans for when Kyle gets here, but Dallas Cooper flag goes one. They show the war room. There are some great war room. Videos today, none better than Brooklyn celebrating over and over again, after they took yet another point card, just wild celebrations. Um, but they, they show Nico Harrison. He looks like he's FaceTime somebody somebody and the whole war and he's just grinning like a madman and you think like, I know we've talked about this

a million times, but they trade Luka Dacic and it's the worst, craziest sports trade, uh, at least in this decade. It's one of the craziest NBA trades ever. And they end up with Anthony Davis and Max Christie in a 2029 first and Cooper flag. And just fundamentally it's a trade you would make. I'm not saying it was their intention, but the way it worked out, like they showed all these Dallas fans going to watch the draft, like the Dallas fans are

now sucked back in the Cooper flag buzzes nuts. And it's like all the stink from that trade is gone. It's incredible. It's an incredible turn of events. So incredible that you had some suspicions of how incredible it was. It's not all washed away for me. You used the word sucked. I could tell you right now. I, I, well, I won't say what I really think. We're, we're live. We're live. We're live.

Save it for our text thread with Jacoby and Verna. Yeah. Um, which, which is, which is on fire. Yeah. Anyway, so that, so Dallas it all works out and they're doing great. Congratulations. They're in a conference where there's some, some stinko teams that just seem like they're flailing.

Like Utah is not going to be good next year. Sacramento doesn't know what the hell they are. You know, San Antonio by taking Harper and not kind of moving all in. We'll see with Wemby, but I don't think they're a guaranteed playoff team. Phoenix who now has two centers. We'll talk about that. They don't, they have more than two. Well, they have, they still have Nick Richards for some reason.

They decided to acquire the Charlotte Hornets entire front quarter in less than six months. Right. Charlotte's just trying to get rid of their centers and Phoenix is like, we'll take them. But there's, my point is the West, which I think is deep at the top. I do think there's some, there's some room on the bottom half, maybe to maneuver around, which might be nice for, uh, for the maps. We'll see with Kyrie. They sent Kyrie to a nice little extension.

They're talking about getting a point guard, like Dennis Schroeder, Chris Paul, stop gap guy until Kyrie can come back. I heard, uh, Malcolm Brogdon and DeAngelo Russell. Those were the names that I, that I saw hit the wire. I liked your guy, the guys that you said better than either one of Brogdon or. Or Russell. DeAngelo Russell. Like really?

I don't know who wrote that. We're still going to do this. Somebody wrote it. I saw it too. I'm just like, that's, that's your stopgap. Why not just get Chris Paul, just tell him four months you can retire in February or we'll buy you out. You can be on whatever team you want.

Um, I'll tell you from the gambling odds perspective, I like the idea of where San Antonio is headed next season more than I like the idea of where Dallas is headed next season. You mean just for pure over unders for wins. Yeah. And, and, and positioning for, for division and all that kind of stuff. Let me have San Antonio.

I'm going to see if there's ways to bet on this. Um, I know that there are. Conference odds, San Antonio 17 to one Dallas 20 to one. So your instincts were correct. Do tell. Interesting. See, I think San Antonio, if they don't do anything else, it's, I think it's gonna be a little clumsy with all the guards.

Could be. It's a lot of guys, a lot of guards who can't shoot. It's a team that's going to take a little while to figure out what it is, but they also might be a trade team in January, February. I'm more bullish on Dallas than you because I think flag can be impactful immediately as a all around guy. I think he can play multiple positions, guard people, defend the rim. I think there's a Gafford Anthony Davis flag frontline where they just

sort of like watch this. So that might actually be pretty interesting. Name the, their best shot creator, name their best creator. Kyrie Irving who's working out every day, hoping to get his leg back to a 100%. By when? I mean, this is like the same enthusiasm. I'm going to go ahead and take a shot. Like, it's the same enthusiasm I keep hearing for Stefan Diggs with the Patriots.

When is he going to play football? Why are we talking about Kyrie Irving? I'm just making a comparison. Why don't you bring up Terry McCorick, holding out. He's got a guy, a giant contract. I mean, he deserves it. Do you know, okay. See is plus one 30 to win the West next year.

That feels like a Mahomes MVP, like layaway bet. I literally had this, this conversation on East coast bias with the guys this week, the odds for them to win the title or plus two 20 and as that's too far, but I am going to bet them at plus one 30 because what if this is the best value on them that you're going to get the entire season if they come out corollary. Yeah. Take them home as MVP odds right now at five to one. It's the best chance, best odds you're getting.

It's possible. Well, the funny thing is Houston's five to one. It's possible. Well, the funny thing is Houston's five to one. So Vegas got so excited by that Durant trade that I personally would not have Houston as the number two title team. I agree. I understand the market and I understand why they are where they are, but I also want no part of betting on that.

Let's see it. Let me see a little bit. No, you go through and I think Minnesota who is the two one probably is the second best odds. Uh, there are Cooper flag odds by the way, for a rookie on your stuff. They have, will he record a triple double at any game in 25, 26 is minus one 15. I think I would take that. Minus I'm not laying odds.

Triple double is hard. How do I get one triple double? Are they gonna make him point forward right away? Like if we see that, if that's what they show us, if he's the creator, if he's the playmaker, they let him be the straw, then hopefully those odds will still be there and we'll jump on them in October.

All right, we tangented. them in October. All right. We tangented. So Dylan Harper goes second to San Antonio. I still feel like there's a Darren Fox. I'm not, I'm not buying. I hope Darren Fox is renting. I hope he's renting like Tony Parker's house. I hope he didn't buy a house in San Antonio.

I just don't, I think Dylan Harper is too good. I don't, we've already seen Darren Fox try to juggle ball handling stuff with another really good guard and his name was Tyrese Haliburton who they traded after a season and a half. I don't see those two together. He's an expiring this year. Is that right? Well, but there was always, people thought there was a wink, wink that they were going

to take care of them after. But maybe so, but as, as we sit here right now, it's, it's not in, infeasible that he. Well, they should trade them to Brooklyn. Cause Brooklyn took three point guards and Danny Wolf was a point center. Maybe they'll want the Aaron Fox trying to collect them. Um, I'm fine with San Antonio saying, we don't know what we're doing yet. We're going to give, we're going to just throw these dudes out and look at it.

But it was the right pick. Um, did you know, when did you find out Ron Harper was his dad? Oh, um, coming into the season. Yeah. Like we knew, we knew ahead of time. I felt like it was underplayed. Like Ron Harper was a massive, massive part of a couple of MJ Bulls title teams. He's like when, when we were in college and he was initially on the Cavs and

then got, was in the Danny Fairtrade, went to the Clippers and was just a really fun two guard, um, and had a really, really good career. And it's just weird. I felt like they could have spent two minutes on that on the draft telecast instead of all the other dumb shit they did, which we'll talk about later. I would have liked more of him with his brother, Ron Harper Jr. I didn't forget about that. There's a lot of Harper stuff.

I was in on any of the Harper subplots. All right. Number three, this is where the draft got interesting. Although not really interesting. Not really that interesting to me because I predicted this a long time ago. VJ Edgecombe going to Philiate. Yeah. Just a classic.

Checked a lot of the Darrell boxes. Maxi, Edgecombe, and McCain as a young up and coming arrow pointing up back court. It's pretty nice. My question to you is I thought that we might get some inkling of what direction Philadelphia might go in, in terms of solving their identity crisis. And we did, we got nothing. We got them making the smart value pick, you know, the pure Dara Mori pick. They still have an identity crisis that they need to solve for.

Right. I think they were open to every possible scenario with that pick and didn't get an offer that they loved and didn't see a reason to trade backwards to pick somebody, didn't see a veteran, any of that stuff. I just think it was what it was. And then you take the best guy. And I think that's the guy, Charlotte's taking him,

if he's at four, Utah's taking him as if he's at five. So you gotta take him. I wonder, there's an identity thing, which I think you're alluding to with Philly, where you're on this weird and beat time table where I have no idea where he's playing. You're trying to contend. You have Paul George, who's in his mid thirties now,

who's at a weird point in his career. You have some veterans. And then you have this really young backcourt of guys other than Maxey, who haven't really been in big games yet or anything. McCain was in high school, one, two, three years, two years ago, three, two and a half years ago. And then you have lumbering Joel Embiid coming off eight surgeries, walking it up, playing, not playing. I just don't know what that team is house.

And I know when we're doing over unders, that's going to be one of the hardest ones to pick. We don't know how many games that he's going to play. Is, does he change his name to if Joel Embiid stays healthy? Is it we're officially at that point? Does he have to do a name change? Well, the question I have speaking speaking of are we to this point, will the books even offer a number for Philadelphia?

Like a win total? Yeah, it feels like you just play the under. Whatever it is, it could be 46, it could be 36, it could be 29. So what would you bet it at? All right, I'll throw a couple over unders at oh. So now we know who's on their team basically. They, they, we'll see if they can bring back Grimes and I don't think they can bring back Yabba Sallie.

42 and a half. Should you go over or under? Under. You have to bet it. The problem is, they're in the east. You have to bet it. The problem is they're in the East. So you'd go under 42 and a half for the Sixers. 42 and 40. I think I'd go under two. It's, I mean, it's impossible.

It's a more likely scenario that Embiid has more injury problems and they decide to basically just go with the youth and you know. But they get the benefit of., Brooklyn, and Washington still in the East, none of whom did anything to push themselves into any kind of contending position by way of this draft. And I can't imagine any of those three teams doing anything in free agency to tilt. You don't think Brooklyn pushed themselves? They got seven ball handlers.

They think the league next year is going to have multiple basketballs in the same game. They're hoping they can play at Rucker. That's where they push themselves. This episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Growing a business, it can feel impossible, but HubSpot's customer platform, I promise, can help you. It's powered by a suite of AI tools called Breeze, so you can generate more leads, close more deals,

and scale your service fast. With Breeze agents handling the busy work, customers are cutting sales cycles in half and saving hours on work each week. Best of all, you can see results in days, not months. Visit hubspot.com slash AI to learn more. Kyle, man, we deliberately saved everything after pick three for you. Although we did talk about Ace Bailey going to Utah so quickly.

I would, we were, the thing we both said was like, Danny Ange could give zero fucks if somebody's like, yeah, I don't really wanna play in Utah. He's going for the talent. You must have loved the fit of Ace Bailey going to Utah. Yeah, I think it makes sense. I mean, he's somebody, if he embraces playing, this has always been the thing for me.

If he embraces life off ball in the short term, he's going to make a lot of hay in that offense. I think he makes a whole lot of sense. So yeah. I mean, once he gets out there, I mean, I think that's kind of everybody's experience with Utah is you hear things and everything. And like, well, I was joking with Zach about like, that place is changing. I made a whole fucking video about it, about it is different than people think.

And you get out there and you hear weird things about the liquor laws. It's like, it's not that weird. It's like, it's a place that's really changing. And yeah, I mean, they needed shooting and the fact that they had access to him at that spot, you get the upside of the star stuff. And I think Will Hardy is gonna be a great mentor for him.

I think Will Hardy's gotten to the point where he's earned that credibility, where you just, you think anybody's gonna be better with him because he's such a good coach. They told Ace like, Ace, if you don't think Salt Lake City is that much fun, you got to watch the show in Hulu, the moms of TikTok, whatever that show is. Watch these ladies.

The Mormon moms. Watch the Mormon wives. Try to make me watch that. Just give this like five hours. Fun city. Just for the record, I did not watch that. House you're missing out. Um, edge comb to Philly.

That was the most likely pick. It does put the team on two separate timetables. And my guess is like, if McCain would be the greatest third guard possible, right? He's probably severely overqualified as his career goes up and up to be a third guard, but you can also, you can do the Indiana thing, play three guards together. I like the flexibility gizm. I just have no idea how they make sense with Embiid was the other topic we talked about.

I get the sense that there is maybe more quiet sort of shifting of, there are people who, who have quiet confidence that McCain could legitimately have a chance to be as good or better than Maxey. I know that might seem crazy. So I wouldn't be surprised if this, if in the short term, I agree with you on the, it makes it at first when I was thinking about Edgecombe and those two guys, I was just like, that's dissonant. That kind of makes my head hurt. I don't see how that's going to work.

Maybe they're a little small, but Edgecombe is six five. I think if you take the pressure off of him to be a highly productive handler in the short term, you can get some of the benefit of some of the things that he adds, like the spacing and that you just unleashed this crazy athlete. Where was it? Was it the Clippers that unleashed like Bledsoe with that team back in like 2010 and every once in a while he'd just do something crazy. I think it's going to be a low stakes role like that for him.

You evaluate how it plays out. If McCain improves a whole lot, maybe you shift once this immediate title conversation is kind of simmered a little bit, and then you make a decision going forward and then edge come can be a big part of your thinking. What did you say? Immediate title conversation? What title? Let me add a word hypothetical.

Yeah. Well, I don't even know if that does go far enough. It was the on paper, on paper title. It's the saber metric. If you play out a season on a computer title, the worst contract in the NBA title, they have two of the top three. They have two of the top three. That's a title.

Bradley Beals. Sorry. Sorry. You're not grabbing the number one spot as long as I'm here. It's named the whole, the whole thing's named for him. Yeah, we might have to do that with W.A.S. next year, name it the Bradley Beal Memorial worst contract draft. Cause I think it's the single worst one. Con Canipal goes to Charlotte at number four.

We could see this one coming for a while. Perfect offensive fit. We got to meet the five Caniple brothers, enjoyed that. And as much as I am excited to watch this team on offense, there's gonna be some trouble on defense, guys. This is not gonna go great. I don't know, the only problem on offense when you're playing Charlotte is you have no idea

who to hunt, there's just too many options. It's like paralyzing Kyle. That could be to their advantage. Yeah. They just in their excitement, they get indecisive and then Charlotte scores a bunch of points. That's, that's one philosophy, right? Yeah.

I mean, you and I were joking earlier about, I mean, hypothetically, who would you have to have at the four and five spot to make this a defense that could keep its head above water? I think you'd have to have, you'd have to have Anthony Davis. You'd have to have, uh, I don't know, man. It's that's tough sledding. There's going to be a lot of, uh, who's playing center.

Who plays center for Charlotte? They're all on Phoenix now. I don't know. After Mark Williams, Charlotte was just aggressively trying to trade for him in the Lakers backed out of his physical, even though they needed a center. And now Charlotte is again, shopping them in June. I would just be really nervous acquiring Mark Williams. This team's just like, Hey, how about Mark Williams?

Any interest? You like them? And somehow they ended up getting a first, I think they got the 29th pick and then a future first, which wasn't nearly as good as the one New Orleans gave up. We're not ready to talk about that yet. We will talk about this first New Orleans pick though. Jeremiah fears at number seven.

Where did you have, how, how high, how, how much higher did you have Trey Johnson and Jeremiah fears just in your head mentally from a ceiling standpoint. If Trey Johnson goes 20 floors, how high were the, how many floors did the Jeremiah Fears building go? I mean, this was one that I was off consensus on. I mean, I had Fears at 20 in our final big board. It's a tricky conversation because on the one hand, I do acknowledge and see how well to answer your question, I mean, I had Trey it for Trey Johnson before, just cause I thought the simple, like the simple propositions of him, even if his star upsides don't play out, this is a dude

that you're just going to be able to throw like a freaking, like, you know, pinball around an offense and just make him run. He, if he, if he, that's another guy, if he dedicates himself to just being a marathon man in offense and just setting screen and run around, it'll work. But Jeremiah Fears, he definitely is like arguably the most like electric, like, you know, ball handler in this class.

Like he can get in the pain, he's very smooth, he has a nice gait to his game. But the data just says, I had this written down here. Um, there are some sites that sort of compile, uh, statistics across all event types, going back to like the earliest stuff that they've done. And I was looking at fears and you know, from sample to sample, you can kind of argue this way or that and be like with Liam McNeely, you'd be like, I've seen him shoot the ball in the past.

I don't trust this one with fears. It's been pretty consistent. He overall on their database is 28.4%. That goes back to 2021. I feel like that's the type of shooter he is. So if you're going to trust that that guy's going to be a load-bearing decision-maker, you're just already kind of encountering problems. And then you go ahead and combine that with the fact that he has a

lot of defensive questions. Granted, he's young. He's got a lot to learn. The combination of those two things just make me really queasy. So I had a hard time going seven there. I had a hard time thinking of reaching for him there. He's one of those guys that you're like, I like him, but not at that spot. And that's kind of how I felt about him at seven.

That's how I felt. Joe House did the most homework on him because he was worried the Wizards were going to take him at six. How worried is that where you landed house? No, no, I, I wouldn't even really countenance that, that outcome. Um, I, uh, didn't think he's, he's, he's not very big and it doesn't make sense for Washington to have a not very big, uh, 6'2", barely, not even 180. How about 6'2", and not a good three-point shooter? Seems like a recipe for disaster. Who are the dudes that the smaller ball handling can't hit three's guards that you can even think

of at this point. And if you're going to be like that, you have to be like a really great two way player, which I don't think he is. I, you know, he's 18. He's a project who knows. And when you read this stuff, he's definitely, they made a point of saying this in the draft. He's one of those, I'll remember every guy that got taken ahead of me. It's one of those guys.

He played football and baseball all the way, I think through high school. Like he's a great athlete. Um, but the shooting makes me really nervous though for, if it was the 13th pick, I get it, but seventh in a draft that I think we all thought was pretty deep. It's it's that's a little scary. Yeah. I, um, he, to be fair to him in that was six, two and a half barefooted.

He'll be six, four functionally on the court. Um, six, five and a quarter wingspan. Um, but he just, yeah, he's a good decision at maker at the, when he sees like that first read, when the defense is loaded to one side or another, he's not a hog, he'll get off the ball and he did lead a competent team in the toughest, you know, if you're going to apologize ball. And he did lead a competent team in the toughest, you know, if you're going to apologize for him, he did lead a team to the tournament and had a good showing in, in gaming at UConn on the first round, um, as, as a young player.

So, but the guys that I kind of pulled that statistically flagged as similar to him were, uh, Keontae George, um, Hold your nose, Killian Hayes, um, Jaylen Green and other, his G, his G league sample was similar and then Jayden Ivy, if you want to feel good, if you want to say, but you know, Jayden Ivy was different size, just more the same type. Yeah. So it's just kind of, I'm with you. It's I'm, I'm, I'm a little concerned about him being like a heavy,

heavy decision maker for me. I, once we got out of the top six, which I thought was pretty established. That was the tier. And then I thought fears was, was below. The guy I liked the most was Malawatch. I just feel like he's, I'm just not worried about him being in a, a competent NBA center who might actually be a lot better than that. And that was the guy house wanted at six.

If ace Bailey didn't drop there and he ends up falling all the way to 10. And, uh, you know, I, and I'm writing down on my notes, not to skip over Brooklyn and Toronto and eight and nine, but I'm writing down on my notes. These are my notes in as it's happening. Ishby a exclamation point. He's back green Brooks and Mallyage for KD isn't bad. Ishbia exclamation point. He's back. Green Brooks and Mallyage for KD isn't bad. That was my next note.

Um, Oh wait, they're also trading for Mark Williams. Why? It all happened in like three minutes house. I understand. It's like, Oh, wait, what are you guys doing? And they traded, uh, the 29th pick, which they actually needed this year. Cause it's not like they have a shitload of depth and then a 29 first that is not, uh, not their own pick. But, uh, I don't, I just don't understand why you would have Mark Williams and Malawatch.

What's the point of having both of those guys? I, I don't know. They are different. I mean, they're both lob threats. They're both limited offensive players. The scheme versatility is the one thing that you can kind of twist because for now, Mollowatch is a little heavier on drop coverage and, you know, Williams will give you a little bit more of that.

Get out, sit down, switch a little bit. And he's a little older and he'll be a little more ready in the short term because Mollowatch is just so young. You know, I mean, like he's, he's a basketball. So maybe he doesn't play for two years. So that might be the thinking. That'd be great. Devin Booker will be 30 by that point.

Makes sense. We got years to burn, right? He's fine. It's not going anywhere. He's committed to the team. Um, we had a weird thing with that pick where they just can't get this right. And I thought of a great suggestion when, cause Houston trades that pick to Phoenix in the Durant trade.

We all know that's the trade. They have to do the draft and then have Houston pick him because the trade can't be official until July 6th. House. Why can't they just say, Houston has traded the number 10 pick to Phoenix for future considerations. Phoenix is now on the clock at 10 and just say way afterwards, here's what the trade is instead of doing this fucking charade with the Houston hat and, and

then you're watching the draft and it's like Brooklyn's picking, but it's actually Memphis and now it's Memphis pick. No, this is Portland's pick, but like, what are they doing? How is this where we landed with the NBA draft? One of our favorite nights. Well, I want to go backwards one step, which is to complain in this direction. Why is the draft tonight? What possible explanation after the season ends on Sunday night, it, why

isn't it at a minimum Thursday at a minimum I don't know like as as we go into the weekend as folks, you know have Discharged their weekly obligations and are ready to focus on the sporting world scared there for a second charge. Yeah, I know That we're headed turn a nerve aside our first nerve That we're gonna turn a neuromassage our first neuromassage No, no, don't even ready for a draft party ready for a draft party on a Thursday night. Let us catch our breath Yeah, I'm exhausted. I mean, I'm not just I expect I wanted to be drunk. I told Simmons JKM that if we got either East Bailey or

Malawatch that I was going to pop the bottle and be ready. Uh, but since that didn't happen, I'm honestly drunk on exhaustion because of, you know, going straight from the finals Sunday evening into Monday, trying to process it. But you're, of course. The Halliburton injury. Couldn't even crack open a light lager for Trey Johnson. He doesn't what level of buzz Great, that's at least like a nice heavy alcohol high

That's a high noon. That's a high noon. It's like a pineapple high noon house Is he the best? shooter you've had Since you became the Wizards You've had since you became the Wizards better one Bradley Beals a much better shooter Bradley could could shoot his ass off. He led the league in scoring is this is there was some I'm not talking score. I'm talking. Let me tell you sure

Yeah shooter go back and look at the comps for Bradley Beale early in his career. He was on a Ray Allen arc. I'm not kidding. Yeah, you're right. Look at that. Seventeen playoffs. He was really good. Yeah, you're right. Early, early. He didn't get, he didn't get to the Ray Allen, but I'm just saying like the comps were there

for the quality of shooter that before he racked up a body count of murdered sons. Vance that's before he killed the fan base of a million, uh, million Phoenix sons lovers. Um, okay. The eighth and ninth pick. So the drafts going great. It's going chalk. Basically. I didn't really have a problem with any pick and I'm like, whoa, this is going to be a pretty boring

podcast tonight. Nobody's going to do anything stupid. And then the dumb teams just come flying in. It's like they arrived late. It was like, wait, what's that? I hear a horn. Is that, Oh, somebody's pulling the parking lot. Oh, it's the dumb teams.

Hey, it's Brooklyn. Hey, New Orleans. We're here. Sean Marx is like, Oh, hold on. Hold on. Hold the, you go. It's definitely a trick horn of some kind. Yeah.

And they take the BYU kid number eight, who I thought was more likely he fell into the 20s. Um, I, Kyle, like try to make the case here why you would take him at eight. I'll say the positives. Um, he is probably the most talented ball screen reader, like reader of reads, he, he, and creative passer manipulation wise, like he can see, he could see the first help defender. He can see the second, the interchiary, whatever it is. He can manipulate those things really, really, really well.

Can make any pass with either hand. And he's big. Um, I mean, I think he's the most creative passer in this draft. Um, he's a smart kid. I interviewed him on our show. I was very impressed with how aware he was of his challenges, which are, um, he has a high center of gravity. He's very skinny.

Um, at this point, he is not a threat to hit dribble play. He back rimmed a huge percentage of his, of his threes. Um, I don't know if that's some kind of mechanical thing that they can figure out. I'm not a shot doctor. I know they work with a really smart shot doctor. We'll see. But then I guess the other thing is that he wasn't great in the paint either. And he's going to get attacked defensively.

People are going to play through his chest. But I mean, the nets are interesting. So you're saying can't really shoot. He's going to get attacked defensively and also not really that good in the paint. Oh, that's N2 skinny. He is skinny. I don't know how much stronger he'll get. Sounds like a win.

But look, here's the thing. The, the comps and JKM, you did the writeup for the ringer draft. These, these comps belong in the top 10up for the ringer draft these these comps belong In the top 10 of a draft of a draft Sean Livingston and Josh Giddy Those are those are like those are competent basketball players shades of those guys Sean Livingston, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, was drafted by Washington. You put Denny in this mix. Denny was a top 10 pick.

Bite your tongue on Sean Livingston. Pre-injury Sean, Sean Livingston was awesome. He's outrageous. More late stage, like reform point guard. I can't be the primary guy. Okay. Can I give you my comp? I didn't release my player comps, but mine was Yaroslav Korolev.

The Clippers 2012 first rounder. I didn't release my player comps, but mine was Yaroslav Korolev, the Quippers, 2012 first render. Had to watch him for a couple of years. See, you guys didn't remember who it was. Number 12 pick in the draft. Yeah. It's like, oh, he does all that. It's like, what does he do?

Yeah. I didn't like the pick at all. Listen, I'm happy to be wrong. I'm happy to, I'm sure if he's awesome, this Quipper get cut out and be like, Oh, you got one wrong. I just, I, number eight sure if he's awesome, this could get cut out and be like, oh, you got one wrong. I just, I, number eight, I just know. It's a pure no. It was high.

I mean, it's an interesting theme. I wrote about this in our grades that we put up that the nets clearly were following a theme of rolling the dice on creators. I don't think they expected Wolf to be there where he was, but they took Seraph, who has a similar profile, you know, a big, but he's a little different. He's a different side of the coin there where he was, but they took Seraf who has a similar profile, you know, a big, but he's a little different. He's a different side of the coin there where he's very, I put this in the, in

the grades also he's, he's one of the main guys in the, in this class that fall under the, one of my favorite distinctions, which is he has some shit to him, um, he is, he's just an aggressive player, um, that might make, give him a better chance to succeed than Yegor. I don't know. I doubt it. I d I just think if you shift Yegor to an off, because 46% of his touches were picking roles this past year.

That is insanely high. He had a huge demand on him to create for BYU. And I think if you put him with other creators and he's shooting off the catch a little more roaming in the seams of an offense with that passing ability, there are paths for it to work, I think. Yeah, but it's an identity team. They took three guards because we didn't talk about the French kid at number 19, but they took three guards plus Danny Wolf, who everybody's like, he's a point

center. He needs the ball to, he needs the ball to thrive. So it's like, cool. You took a bunch of guys who need the ball to have any sort of success at all. Sounds like you did a, I just, I don't get the nets and I don't get the Sean Marks thing at all and I think he's probably a nice guy, but he's kept that job for a long time and I just don't, I don't get it. I don't see it. I don't understand why you would want five first round picks in the same draft.

We see teams do this all the, how many, how's, we're fucking old now. How many times have we've seen a team put too many young guys together? And then a year later, they're like, Hey, last year we had too many young guys. We got to get some vets. It was so stupid to have all those young guys. I mean, I'm living through it right now. We drafted three, uh, in the, in the 2020 fordra. You ain't got Marcus smart and Chris Middleton.

You've got some adults to be near them. Okay. All right. Well, and, and, uh, crucially, um, bit of due to Jordan pool, which I wish the best of luck to Jordan pool. Uh, who actually had a fine season last year? You like Jordan pool. Don't you? I, I, the guy in college is pretending he doesn't like the girl at the party

that he keeps leaving. No, no, no. You like Jordan pool. I intensely disliked him when he arrived. But you ended up liking him. He found, they found a role for him. He found a role for himself, but we're not here to talk about the Washington list. I didn't like what the Nets did at all. Toronto took Colin Murray Boyles, leading Kendrick Perkins.

I didn't know which telecast to watch. It was like, do I take this samurai sword and jam it into my temple? Or do I take this chainsaw and saw my leg off? I just, I just, I couldn't figure it out. Um, Perk, they took Colin Murray Boyles and Perk said they have the pieces. And they're top six team in the East. And at that point I started looking for a third ESPN channel, but there were only two covering the draft. There wasn't a third ESPN channel, but there were only two

covering the draft. There wasn't a third one, at least one that I couldn't find. But I didn't mind that pick. And then Malawatch at 10. And then we had a trade and then the draft started getting really weird. Cedric Howard, Memphis moves up with Portland. Malika calls him Colin Coward, which was exciting. I thought Colin Coward got drafted for a second.

They basically traded the 16 and Orlando's 28 first to move up five spots. Kyle, I didn't like this guy. This was one of my guys that I was kind of out on. Cause I felt like I had the zag. I like, I have to, I can't go through the draft and just like every guy, there's this one I just didn't get, but now Memphis traded up to get them. And now I'm just going to assume I'm wrong because Memphis is usually right with these guys and that with these, these dudes, they find they just have too high of a

success rate. So I'm going to take the loss. He hasn't even put an NBA game left. And I think I'm wrong. Don't, uh, don't give up that easily. Dig in a little bit at least. No, I'm not digging in. Memphis has the way better track record. They like something. I don't see it, but they see something. What don't you, what are you worried about? I mean, can we just go itemized line by line here?

What do you, what's your concern? The, so first of all, he's, well, starts out. What was he, where did he go freshman year? I'm trying, I'm blanking. I'm trying to remember. D3 Willamette. Yeah. And kind of worked his way up, right?

And peak this year, I just didn't feel like the athleticism was there in a way that would translate to the NBA, even though in college it looked fine. Um, the stuff that like those types of guys who succeed, I still feel like there you have to be at a certain really high level athletically to do all that stuff. And he was like, you could even see in college, it felt like he was pushing it. So, I don't know, I might be wrong. Maybe Memphis see some things that I didn't see. What did you see?

Uh, the positivity that I would mix in is that I think his frame, which is like six, five is like six, five and a half, you know, we've said this over and over again, cause it's so damn impressive, but seven, two wingspan, huge hands. Um, he's built like a, like he's built. He's got a just capital T frame. He's enormous shoulders, but I think that can lead people to think that he is, and he's some kind of nuclear incendiary fly around Pogo stick kind of athlete when really he's more of a, he is a good

athlete, you know, I think he had like a 38 inch vert, um, but he has more like punish you with, with physicality in his game. Uh, he's not as much of a, he's, I wouldn't worry about that because I think he's going to be a lot more of a punish you with technique and physique type player because if you watch the way he developed, um, he's not like an, like, he's not an off the dribble creator quite yet, but he's a pretty decent passer, but he would just punish dudes. Um, back to the basket, like put the shoulder into the guy. I don't know if that works in the same way in the pros.

I don't think it works full time, but I think you're just kind of looking for creases and wrinkles in your game that you can exploit in different situations. And I think he has a lot of them. I mean, he was a catch and shoot player. Um, I have this, uh, my ledger here. Uh, he shot. We'll just say a gigantic amount of catch and shoot threes across. He was getting ready to ramp up and take a ton during this

past year before he got hurt. But he shot about 40% catch and shoot. So if he punishes mismatches, don't put a smaller guard on him. He's got a great mid-range game. He's long and athletic around the rim. I don't know. I like him. I think he's going to be great with Javin Wells there in that offense.

I want to take all those things and put them on Trey Johnson. Then I would be so psyched with that. Those attributes on Trey Johnson at the sixth pick. That's I mean the Combination first of all will am it amazing Pino but going from from from there To him landing in Memphis, yeah, you know what I'm saying BS It shows that he's going to be competent on both ends because they don't, they don't typically draft, you know, um, yeah, they have Mufasa type. Yep.

And, and he's their type and that three point shooting plus the physicality. That's that's the recipe for, for a top 10 guy. So where you see him, you know, going 11 here, that's why he gets the nice B plus grade from JKM. I won't say what Joe House's type was back in the day, pre-marriage, but Joe House had a type too. He was much like Memphis. Um, a lot of Joe House dating and drinking. Somebody breaks to the table.

Late night. We're live late night. I'm admitting defeat. I think, how about this? I think Cedric Howard's's going to be great on Memphis. I don't want to take the loss on this. This next pick, the bull, the bulls took the 18 year old. Say his name. I'm going to mess it up.

I'm not even going to attempt it. It rhymes with dengue. Asenge is what I've heard. I was cracking up. Dengue fever. Frishella was like dumping on him right before he got big and he walked out on his team. Oh my, Frishella was killing him. He said he quit on his, uh, on his Euro team, but, uh, Chicago, it's a weird one.

They, this is the kind of draft pick like Sam Presti is allowed to do. It's like, we're, we're taking this kid, he's 18. He's a million years away from being anything. He's two years away from being two years away. And I'm going to be here as the GM still, when this happens. I can't say the Chicago Bulls GM has been like crushing it. So by the time, even if this pick hits, I don't even know if he'll be the GM at that point. But, uh, I thought this was really weird because we officially hit the point in this draft when I couldn't believe nobody

had taken Derek Queen. It just felt like, okay, he shouldn't have fallen out of the top 11. Time like he's not going to go 12. Now we're going to fall to 13. Hold that thought on Derek Queen, but I just like, I just would've taken Derek Queen if I'm Chicago. I kind of liked their team. Like they, like they have Vucovic on an expiring.

They don't really have any other big guys centers. Like he's this gifted offensive player that kind of fits in with the weird offense they have. I think they need somebody like him. I just would have taken him. But what'd you think about that pick Kyle? Well, speaking to what you're talking about there, when you think of like an OKC,

I mean, I think you're kind of implying that, and OKC has been great at this with their success. They've been able to slow roll these guys in a way that makes sense. It's sort of like, this comes to mind just because my son is doing it right now, like swimming lessons. There are a lot of ways to approach this. It's like you could take it slow and get an instructor and, you know, move at their pace or you can just be one of those people who's just like throws your kid in the pool and

says, fucking figure it out, buddy. That's kind of what I feel like is going to happen here. Um, but he's, he's somebody that I had a hard time grading that one just because I'm like, mock boards always inform grades. And I'm like, I've been skeptical of a Sengue, you know, I feel like he's an energy big who is sort of wearing a, uh, I'm a big unrefined wing mask. And I'm like, I don't really know that he's ever going to be efficient enough to justify being that type of player. I would be a lot, I would feel a lot better if he were like,

I'm dedicated to, of course then you'd flip it and I'd say, oh, we can't shoot. So it's kind of a, it's kind of a catch 22, but I don't know, man, that, that was one that I, I'm with you. I didn't really understand. I would have, I would probably reach for Queen there. That was a look how smart we are.

This 12 pick who might, might not make it. Who has Queen is a DMV guy. So the only thing, and we'll get to Queen soon enough that I guess I could see if I'm looking at it, trying to be glass half full for Chicago, if they are going to be a rim running team, right? If Booze Ellis and Giddy and Giddy is, is playmaking and this kid, yeah. And this kid's just singularly good. Get to the rim, get to the rim, get to the rim.

Then there's a kind of logic to it. Okay. I'll accept that. He fits in with their identity. I just don't like the pick. Okay. I'll accept that. He fits in with their identity. I just don't like the pick.

So I did like Derek Queen going to New Orleans in a trade at number 13. And then we found out what the trade was. This was when I lost my mind. I think I blacked out. I'm so glad the NBA can still give us these. New Orleans trades up 10 spots so they can take Derek Queen and they give up their unprotected 2026 first round pick swap that they have with Milwaukee, where they have the favorable, whatever the better pick is they keep.

They send that to Atlanta who had to be deliriously happy. Like we only have to move down 10 spots and we get an unprotected. This was one of the five dumbest trades of this decade. I was speechless. I just can't believe it. And who is it? It's our guy, Joe Dumars, who was so bad in the first half of the 2010s. He, I got so much column mileage from him.

He finally got bounced from the pistons, never got another job. And then moved into the NBA and everybody in the NBA loved him. And he's a great guy by all accounts and enough time passed that everybody forgot how bad of a GM he was down in it. And now he just traded away their unprotected 2026 pick house. They're in the West. What the fuck does he think's going to happen next year? Do you think they're going to be a five seed?

What is he doing the hilarious thing and this is what what? We get to relish coming going forward is there he they're doing some kind of their version of 3d chess here Because I think Zion is moving on I think the point of Zion Leaving CAA going over to build Duffy. There's a trade demand coming. Dara Queen is fits a specific needs, plays a specific role for them. Um, and they were just like, this is, this is our plan. We have a plan. We're going to acquire him and we can't, you know, let, let the possibility, uh,

they would go that, that, um, we don't get him for, for this, for this role. Okay. So you're saying they're trading their best player, which will inevitably make next year's team worse and they're not going to have a pick after they trade that player that makes sense to you. And a perceivably better draft from what we understand. I would anticipate that any kind of Zion trade would include picks. I mean, is that reasonable?

So your only defense of that trade is the hypothetical that Zion might get traded, which by the way, would also then make them worse and they wouldn't have their pick. I said it's their version of 3D chess. It doesn't make any sense. It's just the Dumars world. It's Dumars chess.

This is one of those that Adam Silver, like you could have talked me into him vetoing, like they vetoed the Chris Paul trade. That's how bad that trade was. Kyle, would Atlanta have done that trade if it was a top four protected pick? I'm going to say yes. Top four protected. Atlanta is like, we're still doing it.

Top seven protected. I think they do that. Probably, probably. They, but they, I can't even imagine they're showing all these war rooms. They should have shown the Hawks war room as guys are taking their shirts off and doing this and fucking popping champagne on each other. It was, it was probably like, this is the end scene. We followed them to Magic City on the bus.

Yeah. It was like the mushroom scene and this is the end where they're just like, go nuts. And, um, I can't even imagine how deliriously happy they were. And I really like where Atlanta was sitting before tonight. And now they have this New Orleans pick. They have a $25 million trade exception. They added poor Zingas. Jaylen Johnson's coming back.

They got Dyson Daniels and Trey Young and Reese Shea and a Kangu. House. It's, it's time to look at the conference odds. Don't think that I haven't already, but please. You already did? You cheated on me. Of course. What the hell, house?

They're not in the top six. 33 to one to win the East. Yes. That's a ticket. That's in my portfolio. I might be doing that later. Bandle sports book. Yes, sir.

33 to one. What if they get DiMarco Rosen with that trade exception? All they have to do is make it to the Eastern conference. They don't have to win for that ticket to have value. You have an amazing head with that 33 to one sitting in your pocket. That team, that's the, I still can't imagine one stop that they make. And like Dyson Daniels is incredible. I can't name one other player. I mean, Johnson's

plays both ways for sure as well. No, Johnson and Daniels is their two defenders. And then they'll be able to do some other stuff. We were texting a lot about Derek Queen during the season because he brings some things to the table that I love. There's some defensive stuff with him that is about as bad as it gets. And it's going to be, he's going to be one of those guys where I, I, I do think it's a, he's a ceiling basement guy, but there's some really good offensive stuff. The problem is some of the ways you would use him on offense are very similar to how like you would use, say a Zion Williamson, who's also in the yeah. No idea how those two guys would play together.

Makes no sense at all. No, they don't. They are, they have mirroring issues for sure, but he's, he's, he, you're right. I mean, he's got a lot of things that you like. I mean, the connectivity of his passing, I was saying on our, on the draft show that in that 18 feet to the rim area, uh, he, he roasts other bigs with his foot speed, with his balance. He can contort.

Uh, he just does some things that are odd for a player of his body type. He's not super explosive, but you mentioned the defensive stuff. I think a lot of that's controllable for him. I mean, if you're banking on him ever being, if you're banking on him being your rim protector, then you should just have to take a breathalyzer before you even are qualified to run a team because that was so obvious. He doesn't have the size to be a rim protector. He's more of a help defender.

And the big thing for him too is he has great hands. He does have mobile hips, even though he's not super fast. And he's a great defensive rebounder. It's more of a play to play. Is he going to mature to the point where he starts taking that personally? Because people have just said this about him relentlessly. And I know this stuff's gotten back to him about, uh, on the defensive glass or just on the glass period, it's like, oh, where's my man?

Oh, he just ran by me cause I didn't touch him and he got an easy basket. That happened over and over again. And just consistency of effort because, um, he can be, I think, at least a neutral defender, it's just, it's going to be up to him whether or not he takes that personally and cuts out the taking plays off and stuff like that. He triggers a lot of my boxes. Cause I like the creativity and offense is really special. I don't like the work ethic part and the taking plays off and

the defensive ethic part and the taking plays off and the defensive liability part. Sam Vassini said something on Rosso's pod about how he's just been playing against men for the last couple of years as a big guy and just seasoned with, and that he thought he was actually a pretty good bet to be able to play faster than you think. Um, I, to me, it's amazing. The Hawks fleeced them two summers in a row, two different front offices.

The Dejante Murray trade was, was a fleecing. And then this happens that is house. They might have the championship belt now. A biggest mess of a team. I think this is it. I think giving away next year's first round pick and making it unprotected. I think they grabbed the belt. Wow.

I think Sacramento was like, we just got it back. What do you mean? We just, and they just took it back. Like without blinking. I, mention they're putting Jeremiah Fears and Jordan Poole together. Oh boy. I thought that the Wizards traded Jeremiah Poole away so that Fears would fit better. And then when they picked Fears, I was like, oh, I'm way off with my logic with this guy. I thought that's what they were doing, Alice. And Trey Murphy's got to be like, why am I here?

What is the Steve? That's exactly right. This, this is the most confounding team I, I, I was trying to come up with. I mean, even Charlotte feels like it has a point. It feels like it has a direction. Phoenix is like in this conversation, got to keep Phoenix through, you know, there, there's still, gotta keep Phoenix. You know, there's still. I guess Phoenix does have, Phoenix. So I thought Sacramento took it back from Phoenix,

but you're right, Phoenix still has it. Sacramento made a good pick tonight when we get to it. They did. Maybe Sacramento's right in the ship a little bit. But I mean, Sacramento turning Fox and Halliburton into Zach Levine. That's like an all-timer. Not to mention the Sabonis extension on that stuff.

But yeah, you're right. I think, so Phoenix probably had it. And then New Orleans just took it. And New Orleans has had this belt. I mean, they're basically like the Russell Celtics with this belt. They've had it nine different times over the course of, since the mid-70s. You have to remember how close the Pelicans were those to turning the corner.

They've been close a couple of times for five seconds. Yeah. But, but I mean, they had a playing game against LeBron and then that, and then the moment was over, they were on a pace for over 50 wins just a year ago. They got 40 first round picks for Anthony Davis. I get it. I'm just saying they were, they won the lottery. The problem I have with, uh, with Derek, with, with, with my, with my guy,

Queen, the DMV thing. Yeah. It's just a, it's, it's this, um, maturity is, is still under development. under development and you can eyeball, you can use your own eyeballs and look at his body type and reach a conclusion that maybe he hasn't maximized all that's available to him to turn himself into the kind of beast that he might be in terms of physical specimen. It would be one thing if he was- Well, but the good news is he's going to New Orleans where this is the point.

That's the point. There's so much healthy food there and clean living. Well, they just lived through a guy who had a maturity issue and maybe an issue where he didn't maximize. Yeah, so, and Derek is not 18 years old. This is like, it would be one thing to say, yeah, he's pudgy. He's 18 or he's 19 or whatever.

He's pushing up. He's closer to 21 than he is to 18. So you don't think he's on the VersaClimber at five in the morning, like LeBron? Here's the thing he can do that. It's there. They have VersaClimbers. They can get one down to New Orleans and he could become the beast that we're talking about.

He could make that commitment. You know, he can get that challenge on the defensive end and become that guy. I hope he does. He was, it was great to have Maryland viable for a, for a, for a basketball season here most recently and it makes some noise in the tournament. I want the kid to succeed. It feels like it's up to the kid. Joe Dumars was so bad in Detroit that I once wrote in a column that I wanted to

sell Joe Dumars cap space cologne. You only have to spray it once and then you can't get away from the smell for three to five years. Remember when he was handing out all those terrible contracts? Everyone forgets how bad Joe Dumas was. It's been 11 years, right? Yeah, fortunately he has Sean Marks and some others. I feel like we're almost like atrocious GM summit territory.

Oh no, you're going to fire it back up. We're getting close. Yeah, we almost have enough teams again. House is giddy. Yeah, I'm trying to think of all the teams. We got Vivek. We got, we got Ishbia. We have New Orleans.

You got a lot of character voices to write to as well. I think this is prime. Yeah, I feel like. It could be Chicago could be in the running. Chicago, Jerry Rinsdorf never paid the luxury tax. Um, I will say, I will say on Queen one thing. He, one apologetic thing I would say is that he, considering where he was, like a couple of years ago, he has made progress.

He has worked on his body. So I, I hope he continues that. By the way, I like the value at 13. Oh yeah. That pick was top 10, that pick was top 10 protected. I would have liked the trade, but it's unprotected in a draft that everybody is saying is awesome. It's insane. There's no counter argument.

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San Antonio and OKC at 14 and 15. It's like, all right, here we go. San Antonio's gonna take Carter Bryant. He's supposed to go like in the nine, 10 range. He'll go 14. Nice pick. They just hang out as everybody else fucks up. OKC, they take Sorber from Georgetown.

Cool. He won't play for a year. They'll let Hartenstein go. All of a sudden he'll be playing 20 minutes a game. Know how that's gonna go. Did you watch him at Georgetown house? Decent amount. He's big.

He moves fine. Um, yeah, exactly. He's a arms up guy. Yeah. He's in footwork. He'll play for them. And then Portland takes Rossellos guy.

Yang Hansen. That's Rossellos guy. Yeah. Rossellos loved him at the combine. That was his guy. Okay. And he was our first guy from the stands. And then just a couple more really quick,

Utah taking. Hold on, are we not gonna acknowledge that they massively reached for Hanson Yang? I mean. Did they massively reach or was it the steel of the draft? It's all in the eye of the beholder. Time will tell, right?

I may live to be the fool on that. Seven foot two Chinese guy who can throw backdoor cuts, doesn't speak English. I loved it. Did he, did he work out against the chair? No, he was in, he went to the NBA combine and played everybody and, and, and really impressed everybody and actually increased his stock. Who knows? We're at the point of the draft where it's dumb, but, um, Yaka Shunaseness who's just dropping now.

And I'm watching going like, I I'm rooting for the Celtics maybe to trade out because he was one of my favorite guys and I know he can't go by anybody, but as a pick and roll using the pick and roll and I just, that guy's an NBA player and he think the nets are going to take them because they took Yegor. And it's like, well, man, as I'll take that guy too, maybe you'll go one for two, but they take Traore. I don't like the French guys in this draft. I think we'd had a nice little French run and now we're due for one of those

like off years for French guys. And then Miami as usual classic, just like Danny Granger, Karam Butler, Tyler Hara, you just go on through all the- Kaleo where? Kaleo where, it just always happens for them. And it happens again. And Yakashina is false to them. And I tweeted that I thought Sean Mark should be arrested.

Which I still kind of feel. It's just bothering. Like you shouldn't get that guy at 20. How did they do it, Kyle? Honestly, I don't have the Intel on that yet, but I mean, it is crazy that he fell. I mean, I think our final ranking was seven. Um, just because he's somebody that.

I think seven. He's a very smart player. He's very young. Uh, he's got great size. He's got a frame. He's going to be big and strong. I don't, I don't think that he doesn't, he played a lot of, on a lot on ball at Illinois and it got a little Yakety sacks at times cause he had a wrist injury

and people started blitzing him and he was on like not a super physical team. So you just, you started seeing him get a little wasteful, but I think when you compress him and scale him down, which I think is what's going to happen, he's not going to scale up. I think if you put him in that supportive role, he shoots it pretty decently well off the catch. And then, uh, he's one of those guys that I always say are just like a comma in a sentence on offense.

It's just like, he's, he's not a stopper. He's not a period. He's just like, here's, here's a comma that we keep moving. Like we're going towards getting a basket. And I think that he's, he's just going to be a nice bolstering secondary creator for them. Yeah. It's a great pick. He's a Darrell Maury model guy.

I figured out Darrell Moore is model in like the early 2010s. And he's a model guy. He just put, he fills the box score. He'll play for Miami. He'll play 23 minutes a game next year and he'll get like 12 points, five assists, five rebounds, one steal. Like he just, he's just going to be good. It really is annoying to me.

And they're going to sign Kaminga or do some sort of sign and trade with him. And guess what? He'll be good for them too. And then all of a sudden I'll be like, Jesus Christ, we're back with the heat. We thought we killed them. We thought they were dead. We thought we cut their head off house. They're back.

I took a look at their odds for the Eastern conference. Just because we're, we're sleeping. Don't sleep. It's an insane number in view of, you know, they don't have a lot of talent. They don't. They don't at the moment, but that's what I'm saying. Right. It's Miami somehow.

They keep showing up in the Eastern conference finals once every three years over the last, you know, 12 years or so. I was wondering if, uh, cause they have Duncan Robinson, he makes 19 million next year, but you can waive it and it only paid nine. And I was wondering if there was some sort of Celtics, Anthony Simon's Robinson coming back and then they waived the thing and that enables them to create more cash and then they could pay Horford and Cornett. But I feel like that Robinson contract is tradable and they could actually get somebody for him

from a team that needs to cut money. That really made me mad. for him from a team that needs to cut money. I have my eye on it. That really made me mad. Kyle, give me your favorite pick in the last 15. Oh, honestly, it probably is Clifford. Um, honest, like, uh, yes, he's, I like to fit with Jace Richardson in, in, in Orlando as well. Um, he's, he was lower on my board because of the issues, the size issues and things like that.

But in that spot. So Clifford went to Sacramento, who lost the championship belt and made a good pick. I had a Clifford stat that I really liked. Hold on, I pulled this up. Cause I was charting out, he's a guy who was in college. Some of these guys, it's a newer phenomenon, but they're getting the opportunity to stay around

and make money and get better. And then it's that same concept again of scaling down. Um, this is a dude who I always just kind of keep an eye out on guys who see a huge uptick in responsibility and keep the boat steady. Not only did he do that, picking roll reps from his first senior year to his second senior year, uh, he had 48 in the first year and 139 in the following year. And he upped his efficiency from 0.56 to 1.0 86. So huge uptick.

And he like vastly improved his efficiency, which says to me that, um, this is a guy who can, he just has a skill building skill and, and he's somebody that shoots the ball really well. He added a little bit of post game. He's not going to be used to the extent that he was at Colorado state on some good teams, but he's going to be a very capable catch and shoot spacer for them. I love that pick.

I think it's going to work. I didn't allow myself to root for him to fall into the self picks because I knew it wasn't realistic. It was like Yaka Shunas. But it was like in the back of my head as we went to the twenties and some of the teams did some stupid stuff. I was like, could that? And then it was just not going to happen.

I liked that one as well. Danny Wolf. House, did you crunch any Danny Wolf tape getting ready for the draft or not really? This is somebody who became a, who became a, a cult figure of this draft. Jay Kyle recommended that I get into some, some Danny. I didn't do it. I can assure you that, that a guy that I did not have on my radar or pay any attention to was Riley.

I certainly didn't spend any time looking into Will Riley as a potential guy that was gonna land in Washington. You ended up with him at 21. I know, I'm aware. But I honestly don't think that's a terrible pick again by the Nets. I actually think for 6, for six, 10 to 50, the, the playmaking 20s, who cares?

Yeah, that's right. I'm sorry. In the late 20s. I don't think it's that bad of a pick. I, um, uh, I'm glass half, half empty on him. I just don't see it cause I can't see the comp. Like when we get into the 20s, I need you to have one elite skill. That's even why like Newell go into the Hawks.

Newell can't shoot, but he tries really hard and we've seen versions of him succeed. These six foot eight long, my whole life depends on this quarter. The coach put me in for five minutes. I'm just going to lose my mind. I've seen that work. Right. And sometimes it doesn't work like Jordan Walsh on the Celtics. It hasn't worked. There's guys where it doesn't work, but there's a prototype for him.

And I sold Walsh to you. So I regret that I'm still pulling. I'm crossing my fingers that that one's going to come through. Cause he can't shoot at all. It's he takes a thousand corner threes a day and they're still not going in. So I guess the Danny Wolf thing, if you're going to say that's going to work, that would be okay. It's, it's a tall, he's little Lori marketish marketinish with the ball.

And he, he's good. He can send him some picks and he could be a mismatch, but I just, I don't, I don't see how on a winning team that is somebody who could be out there. He's a role player on a winning team. I mean, Right, could he be like the ninth, tenth man maybe? I don't know. Is there anybody that didn't get drafted

that you were shocked by, Kyle? Oh geez, in the first round. Cause I really liked the St. Joe's kid and he didn't get drafted. Yeah, that was, I'm under consensus on him, just cause I don't totally trust the shooting to translate. He had a pretty good year this past year with prior years that didn't, that I thought more reflected on who he is as a shooter. He kind of, he shoots on the way down in a way that's really, in a really flat ball that I just worry about it going in.

And then you combine that with the fact that, um, he is very Yakety sacks, a close attacking closeouts. Like the dribble is high. Um, I don't trust in that, you know, it was going to limit him as a division. Yeah. It is the, I don't have to give the full report, but I'm not big on him. All right. So how's, how will you remember this draft? Um, so close once again for the Washington team.

I will say my favorite pick of all, not even, uh, no joke, uh, was Walter Clayton Jr. Going to Utah at that 18 pick, because I think the combination of Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton Jr. I might, let me ask if I can have permission to do this. Um, I'm not going to pay attention to my team this, this upcoming season, other than to check in sometimes to see how some of the rotations with the kids work out. They're not going to win at all.

Utah might be on a different trajectory. They might actually try a little bit this upcoming season because those two kids they acquired are so dynamic. Am I permitted to have a Western conference team that I pay attention to? That would be your team? No, no, no. I only have one team. It's these guys.

No, but I mean, your league, your league past team. This is from my past team. Yeah, my league past. Yeah. Do I have permission for that? Utah? Listen, both Rossella and I jumped on the Portland situation last year. It was fun.

Yeah. It's like having an affair. They were good too. Just, you just sit in a hotel, in a CD hotel room. You're in a Motel 6 with a West Coast League. What did, what did, what did, what did the camera do to you? It's a West Coast League pass team. But we, League Pass affair.

Camera and scoop. It was fun. And then now they have Drew Holliday. Now they have some better leadership. Uh, I don't know what, I mean, Utah has so many guys, I can't figure out what that team is. Like they, they're going to have ace Bailey and market in and sexton and Clarkson and can't take your, you go through. It's like all of these dudes want to take some shots and have the ball and.

You know, asset, asset, asset. Yeah. It's all these assets that they're collecting, but for what? For Zion Williamson? Like what, like what, what's the end game? I don't, I don't think they know either, but I think they're just collecting assets. Uh, I think my favorite thing was Danny H taking Ace Bailey and just, just showing everybody that, guess what?

It's called the draft. You don't get to decide where to go. If you don't like it, go back in college. Right? And that's it. What was your favorite thing, Kyle? My favorite pick? Your favorite, anything from this draft?

I enjoy that there was somebody close enough to one of the broadcast cameras to very audibly yell rigged as the night started. I thought that was pretty funny. I wish it'd been me. Ace. Well, it might've been house, right? Uh, ace. I'm not laughing at this, but I mean, he will look like he wanted to cry when, when they were talking to him.

Like a normally you saw him earlier in the broadcast and he's, uh, he's laughing and cutting up and you have funny kid. And then he's very obvious somber shift, uh, to him. And I, you kept waiting for maybe the other, the other shoe to drop on that. But, um, yeah, the best one ever for that was Steve Francis. That was when we peaked. I don't remember that broadcast.

It was at that draft. That was in Washington. Being Vancouver took him and he was so upset and he walked up on the stage and he did the handshake and then at one point he just like looked up like just completely devastated and then I think he, he never played a game for them. I think he forced a trade out of there. Like he was that, and then they did the interview and he was just, could not have been less happy.

Well, Steph made the, made a face when the Warriors took him. People forget about that. He wanted to go to the Knicks. Steph made a, like, he looked down and grimaced because he did not want to go to golden state, but not quite on that level of drama, but yeah. How's, did anything in this draft change from a gambling standpoint? Any decisions you're going to make when you're bored this summer? Now that we don't have basketball and we don't have football for two more months?

Not really. I mean, we just went through a couple of the ones where there's sort of interesting futures where you might want to just have a ticket to your pocket. Atlanta 33 to one and then the thunder plus 130. I guess the last thing I'll say is, I was worried all day that there was going to be like a blockbuster mega self-extraded and all the people that cover the draft and you fall on Twitter. People do this every year. It's like when, uh, when there's like some sort of big weather event coming and all the weather people on the TV are like, don't leave your house. This is going to be one of the worst hurricanes we've ever, and then it turns

out it's fine. We do this with the NBA draft every year. It was like, it's going to be crazy. So many trades. Oh my God, buckle up. It's going to be, and it never is. And I did feel like, uh, I did, I did feel deep down that that's how it was going to play out, but I was worried with the Celtics that there was going to be some

Jalen Brown trade out of nowhere. Um, there was enough smoke coming from different corners that I was, I was on guard. Like I didn't do a path. I didn't do like a long power walk today. House. I stayed around the house. I just didn't know what was going to happen. I was on call. It was like a doctor. You had to be tethered. Yeah.

I just kind of walked around my liver. And my dog, my dog stared at me. Yeah. I don't think they're doing anything. Uh, so I don't know. I don't know for getting another mega trade unless you're right about Zion. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I me. Yeah, I don't think they're doing anything. Uh, so I don't know. I don't know, forgetting another mega trade unless you're right about Zion. Zion jazz thing. You really put something in my mind spinning with that one. I mean, of course they'd taken going for Zion and, and, and adding an unhappy ace.

I don't think that works. So I don't know. I don't know that one. Zion with ace. Yeah. We'll see what happens. All right, we're gonna wrap it up here unless House, you have any last thoughts?

I do not, no, no. House, you seem tired. You seem emotionally spent. I told you, I'm drunk on exhaustion because the NBA just won't stop. Let me have a break, NBA. House. Enjoy yourself a little, House.

Your team is making good picks. I think Trey Johnson's a good pick. You seem resigned in a way that you should be happy. I like it too. I like where the wizards are. You haven't messed up in like two years. Put that on a banner, put that, hang that over my shoulder. The wizards haven't messed up in two years.

Listen, if I told you two years ago, two years from now, the wizards will not have messed up for two years. You would have taken that. Sure. That was not an exciting board in the arena that says this many days since we screwed up and they should have like a scoreboard, like a thing on the clock, 867 days since our last stupid move. New Orleans would be zero days. Um, all right.

Comment. Great to see you. How's great to see you. Thanks to Gahal days. Um, all right. Comment. Great to see you. How's great to see you. Thanks to Gahal and Eswarda as well. Thanks to everybody who's on our YouTube stream. I'm going to be back Sunday with, uh, Rossello. Enjoy the rest of the week, everybody. I don't have to live with him. Must be 21 plus in President's Select States for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star

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