The Bill Simmons Podcast - NBA Lottery Winners, GSW’s Next Move, Philly’s Slide, Cam Newton and Taylor Swift with Raja Bell, Kevin O’Connor, Ryen Russillo and Nora Princiotti
Episode Date: August 21, 2020The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Raja Bell, Ryen Russillo, and Kevin O’Connor discuss Tuesday first few days of NBA playoff basketball, and some of the top draft prospects, before reacting ...to the 2021 NBA Draft Lottery (4:35). Then talks with The Ringer’s Nora Princiotti about the approaching 2021 NFL season, how empty NFL stadiums could affect on field play, the “battle” for the Patriots starting QB position, the live music void in the pandemic, music documentaries and more (1:34:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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And,
uh,
and that's it,
uh,
coming up.
We taped a lottery show today,
earlier today.
It was me, Roger Bell,
Kevin O'Connor,
and Ryan Rosillo.
And we went on about an hour before the lottery.
We broke down all the playoff stuff
and then went right to the lottery
as it was happening
and tried to decipher what it meant,
what it meant for Golden State, Chicago and things like that.
So that is happening.
And then the ringers,
Nora Princey Adi comes on just to talk about the upcoming NFL season,
a couple of things to watch.
And then somehow it ended up into a Taylor Swift conversation because she is
a major Taylor file.
So that is the podcast for today.
I left a little bit open here at the top.
Cause just in case this Lakers Blazers game was going to be exciting, but as you probably know by now, not that excited. The Lakers showed up. They took care of business.
It's a sweep. We're heading back to Portland for game three. Oh no, we're not heading back
anywhere. It's just in the bubble. The things to watch, I guess, for this weekend, we have Utah, Denver. I think Utah's
better. Vegas doesn't seem to agree. Denver is favored by one and a half points against Utah
in game three. And I just think at gunpoint, I think Utah just has a better team. The Celtics
are only favored by five against Philly. I think that series is over. I thought Philly rolled over.
Clippers Dallas is the magical
series for Friday and just every two days from this point on because Dallas is for real. They
at least have a really good strategy to go against the Clippers, in my opinion. They're going to bomb
threes. They're going to keep shooters out there as much as they can. And they're hoping that this
is a best player in the series series,
that Luca is the best player.
I think they caught a lot of people's attention in game two.
And to be honest, the Clippers just don't totally look like the Clippers yet.
Harrell's just coming back.
Their guards, you know, Beverly missed game two.
Lou Williams doesn't seem like he's Lou Williams yet.
And they just, this is the perfect round to catch them.
You know, and if they did catch them,
they'd be playing the winner of Utah-Denver next round.
Obviously, that'd be a massive upset if Dallas won.
But whoever wins this series gets Utah-Denver next round.
I think whoever wins this Clippers-Mavs series
is making the Western Finals.
So, and then on the other end, you have Houston,
who's going to beat OKC, it looks like.
It just looks like they're peaking at the right time suddenly.
And then they're going to have one of the most bizarre series of all time
if that plays out that way against the Lakers,
assuming the Lakers win,
where you have these small ball, crazy,
shooting 60% of threes of all their shots, rockets,
going against this big, clumsy Laker team.
And it's a classic weirdo series.
I have no idea what to expect.
The East seems like we kind of know where we're headed.
We're headed for Boston and Toronto,
and we're headed for Miami, Milwaukee,
which is going to be a barn burner.
I think these round two series are going to be really, really great,
but we got to get through round one once.
So stay tuned for that.
Russell and I'll be talking about all that stuff on Sunday night,
coming up our lottery show.
And then Nora Princey out in the NFL.
First,
our friends from Pearl jam. All right.
Here we go.
It's the lottery show.
This is, I think, the fourth year we've done it.
And if you need to know anything about 2020,
I think you could just see how we're doing it this year.
It's all on Zoom.
We have Raja Bell here.
We have Ryan Rosillo here.
And from Laffey's, it's Kevin O'Connor with a brick background behind him.
I don't know.
What time is your set tonight?
8.30.
Okay, great.
Well, we were supposed to go on at 5 o'clock PT, I don't know. What time is your set tonight? 8.30. Okay, great.
Well, we were supposed to go on at 5 o'clock PT,
but then Milwaukee decided to just kill Orlando.
So we just said, screw it. We'll go up early.
There's nothing to watch here.
Let's talk playoffs first.
Raja, biggest thing that's jumped out to you here the first four days?
How much better, I think, the Dallas looks than I thought they were going to look.
You know, I said on Monday that I didn't think defensively they were going to be able to get enough stops. But I had discounted the fact that no one's actually playing defense in the bubble except for maybe Houston.
So, like, in an offense-only type of environment, they're perfect. Rusillo, why aren't people playing defense in the bubble except for maybe Houston. So like in an, in an offense only type of
environment, they're, they're perfect. We're still a, why aren't people playing defense in the bubble?
Well, I would add Toronto to that group that was playing defense. I think, I think what we've seen
is that, you know, we, it does remind me of teams in the past have done nothing who have talent and
then go, don't worry about it. We got this. They're like, what are we giving you the benefit of the doubt for like i don't mind giving the
warriors the benefit of the doubt when the defense slips a little i don't mind giving
the bulls the benefit of the doubt when it's the third season they're trying to get this done but
the clippers as a group hadn't done anything and you know what we didn't know what the roster we
didn't know what the rotation was going to look like we just really liked their two best players
and that hasn't looked right the lakers are the worst shooting team in the bubble other than the Wizards,
and they told us, don't worry about it. We're fine, and I think you're already going to see
some changes to that rotation, and you could even say for Milwaukee, Bud tried a bunch of
different lineups, and I think that bit him in the ass a bit in game one, not game two,
but what I liked was that there were certain teams that felt like they were taking the lineup
and rotation and effort level seriously, and I think some of the best there were certain teams that felt like they were taking the lineup and rotation and effort level seriously.
And I think some of the best teams were the ones that were already over it before they got there.
I'm wounded you didn't throw the Celtics into the good defense group.
I thought we had some moments there.
I figured you would shake Milton and I just expected that you would bring it up at some point.
So I was just going to let you do that one there are certain well
there are certain teams that are defending but i also feel like every team's just shoot the ball
at a high level i mean i'm curious raja like playing in the nba how much do you feel like
being in a neutral site without any travel you know without fans as actually helping all these
corner three three-point shooting percentages skyrocket yeah no all jokes aside i mean it is
definitely um easier to shoot the ball
when you don't have all the distractions
of being in a gym with all the distractions
that can be in an NBA gym.
Like, you're just in there grooving it.
All your teammates,
you can hear all the encouragement and stuff.
You know, it's just a different vibe
than being in a gym with all the distractions,
let alone the travel and all the other things
that go into NBA, day. But being in a relatively sterile gym is what you do. That's what you grow up doing.
It's where you get all your practice reps. And so you're naturally going to shoot it better
in that kind of environment. Do you think at least part of it is
these guys can't do anything other than focus on basketball and take care of themselves and get a
good night's sleep not deal with the media they're not out till five in the morning like they we're
getting the best versions of them i would say from a mental standpoint potentially right or no
yeah wait nba guys go out till five in the morning yeah you know you know they're right there what um yeah i mean
there's something to all of that like when you you know when when you have nothing to focus on
except hoop um and you eliminate distraction yeah there's a case to be made for you getting a
better product and i kind of felt like going into the bubble plus you know the other thing is is a
lot of guys had a lot of
rest and when you're talking about shooting a ball and scoring a ball um fatigue plays a role when
you get 60 70 games in and yeah you know i think you see some fresher legs and it's you're it's
it's it's kind of manifesting itself in in better scoring better offensive play at least
the no travel about rosilla i feel like the break's been good for you.
I feel like you're at a high level lately too.
I don't know.
I've been in self-isolation for six months.
Nobody's taking this more seriously.
Yeah, you're just focused on basketball.
People know the deal.
I mean, Postmates is thinking about just sending me clothing.
But what I kind of can't wait for though is that, and we know, and Raja knows this better than any of us,
but it's also a human nature thing is that if you give people excuses, they're going to use them.
And whoever gets eliminated is going to blame the time off.
Whoever gets eliminated early is going to say it's because of the bubble.
And, I mean, it's impossible to be as prepared as you could be for this.
It's impossible to be as rested as you guys have all mentioned.
You're not on a flight for over three plus months
all you're doing is basketball with that break and i still i know what's going to happen i can't wait
to see who the person is that writes it but whatever good team goes out earlier and then
their beat writer who's also the pr person which is a huge problem that i have as i make these
little remarks but it's going to be like you know know, they got real tired there around game six,
game seven. And you're like, if you got tired that time, then what's your point of even being a pro athlete? Because it's never been, as you guys have said, you've never been in a better
situation for this. So, um, it'll be funny. Cause I haven't disagreed with anything you said. I just
know that that storyline is going to come for a team that goes at a lot earlier than they thought
they would. Well, it's almost like the quarantine we've talked about this says if your relationship isn't good, you know, I'm sure all of us know people in the, in,
in our circles who like, Oh, they broke up. Yeah. Quarantine got them where you're just,
you're together all day. And I think, I think the Sixers are going to be the, the, uh,
basketball example. Yeah, man. Quarantine got him.
KOC, take the floor there at Laffey's.
Give us your super disappointed,
can't believe it Sixers take.
Just sucks, man.
It just sucks.
You got Joel Embiid who,
you know, for all his faults,
you know, he's tired at the end of the games.
It still feels like when you're playing around this guy and some of the talent that they have,
the product should be way better than it is tobias harris somebody they're
paying 30 million dollars putting up the low numbers that he is al horford falling off a cliff
it's just disappointing man and then brett brown's inability to adjust game to game just season after
season continues just to disappoint and and you know I ranted about this yesterday on Twitter.
I just feel bad for Sixers fans.
Cause it's like, what do you do next after, after you lose the Boston, they're going to lose.
What do you do after this?
Like who's taken on that Harris deal or that Horford deal?
Nobody reading a beater Simmons.
What do you do?
Yeah.
Let's ask Raja.
The only guy who worked for a team out of the four of this, although Brazil and I feel
like we're, we're both like, we could have done this. It's just, nobody's asked us yet. Raja actually worked for a team out of the four of us. Although Brazil and I feel like we're, we're both like, we could have done this.
It's just, nobody's asked us yet.
Roger actually worked for it.
So you have, you have two of the five most untradable contracts.
In my opinion, Harris is in year one of $180 million deal.
Horford has three years left, I think for almost 28, 29 million a year. And just over the last two years,
cause this started last year in Boston athletically, it looks like he's moving into a
different phase of his career. And I don't know how you dump either of those guys, unless you're
taking somebody else's problems back. What would you do? Where would you start? Um, you know, I,
I wouldn't even start with those two. I would start with like really
trying to figure out if I'm sure that Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid can work together. Like I have to
sort that out. And if I'm in the Sixers front office, personally, the answer is no. Like I
don't think that that's a good marriage. I don think that's a good way to to build um a team for both of those guys individually like i think that you have to
pick one and and then tie your tie your horse to to that player so from there um and only from there
can i start to try to figure out like if i can package something and get off of one of those
contracts which you know you just alluded to the fact it's going to be almost impossible. But I think I start a step before that.
I have to figure out if Embiid and Simmons
can play together going forward
and if that's the way I want to build my team
around the duo.
And I really don't think I would if I were the Sixers.
I think, is there anybody on this four-person Zoom right now
who thinks that those guys should stay together long-term?
Because I am in the no camp.
There are at least some numbers. If you track like the two man offensive per 100 possessions,
it used to be atrocious and then it was bad. And then it was like almost acceptable,
but I still felt like whenever I would track kind of the closing minutes of a, of a very tight game.
And it's not even a criticism of either one of those guys. They're just the worst pairing.
Be like, Hey, what's a perfect center?
Okay, well, it's this guy Embiid.
All right, well, what's this unbelievably modern guy
that could play all five positions defensively
but probably shouldn't initiate in space off a big
because he can't shoot,
but maybe could drive like Giannis
and kick out to other people?
Oh, this guy Ben Simmons.
All right, well, how would they fit together?
Oh, that wouldn't really work.
They kind of duplicate some of the stuff that they both do. You know, it's, it's not look,
they're probably going to stay together because they're going to give a new chance, a coach to
try to figure this thing out. And the other part of it is what do you trade that you actually like
that you think makes you better, which you always have to worry about with this stuff.
But you know, the Brett, the Brett's, I don't know if KOC was tracking this. I think when Boston
went zone a couple of times, just to mess with Philly, which is a really good thing to do against Philly. Whenever you want to get him thrown off,
they're terrible against zone. Miami did it to him a ton. I think Brett was like,
hey, do you guys want to try zone two? I forgot. And they ran some zone stuff. And I was like,
are they only doing this because the Celtics did it a couple of minutes before?
And that's just kind of what it felt like. I don't you know I don't get mad at Brett
for not ripping the guy's effort but their effort
was really bad yesterday and they had
two specific plays and I'll end the rant here
but they go full court press
the start of the fourth quarter be like all right guys
let's go and they gave up two offensive
rebounds back-to-back possessions a canter
and you go all right cool cool full current press
you didn't box out the big
it was so bizarre to watch the putting shake Milton on Kemba, just keeping them on
them.
Not when you have like Josh Richardson, the teams that have really succeeded against Kemba
usually put like the taller athletic guy on them so they can at least challenge a shot.
Philly's like, we're not doing that.
And they were like, uh, Hey, Joel, um, just hang out under
the basket. Just pretend this is like a pickup game, but it's the third hour of the pickup game
where you're just trying to try to get through the rest of the day. Don't come out. Don't jump
out on anybody. It was bizarre to watch KOC. What would you do if you, if, if, uh, if you're running
Philly? I mean, I'm with you. I'm with Raja that that Embiid Simmons core is probably what you need to break up. The toughest decision is probably the right decision for Philly because you can also get the greatest return for Embiid or Simmons to reshuffle the deck however you want to. guys up like ryan said uh they're probably going to give this next coach an opportunity and see how
things work out and i think it can work with the beating simmons they just took toronto the
champions last year to game seven and lost on a four-bounce shot by kauai they've had success
with those two guys despite their overlapping weaknesses they can still work together but i'm
not so sure to raj's point that they can reach the heights that they should with those
types of talents and the best best ideal scenario for those guys is probably some type of trade like
whether it's a bead or Simmons is finding some type of ball handling weapon at wing or guard
who can actually run high pick and roll with you and for I give you a trade yeah give it to me
been thinking about this one I'm sure it's been on the internet. I'm saying I invented it. If there's a trade with Beal and Simmons in it,
it does a lot of things for each team for the kind of point that each team is in, right?
The Beal thing is just going to be a better fit with Embiid for a variety of reasons,
but he's also somebody who can initiate and at least create shots for other people
off of his offense.
And then if you're Washington,
you're rebooting anyway.
You're a couple years away.
You're putting somebody that I think we all think
is one of the best 15 guys in the league
in a situation to kind of, quote unquote,
have his own team.
Raj, a yes or no on that one?
I'm not going to say no.
I like it.
I think if you're going to go from
Philly's perspective, though, you're still going to need
the primary ball handler
to tie those two guys together. They're both guys
while Bradley Beal gets his own.
I think he's in more of a comfortable
space when you have someone
that can create a little bit, too, and
can kind of facilitate offense. So I think
you need to pair them with a good guard.
But I like it because I think Ben needs –
Ben specifically needs to be on a team where they can explore everything
that he can do.
Like, let's really get into who he is.
Ryan kind of talked about, like, this new wave of player
that can do a lot of things.
Well, I don't think you've seen all that he can do.
Like, I think if you just put it in his hands and let him go,
and then you build around it once you figure out what he is you have more chance for success so i like it you just gotta give me a point guard to go with him in philly how about
mike conley little mike conley al horford that's probably not enough for simmons big contract for
big contract oh you mean you mean get conley just in for horford yeah you're just like hey man he's making a lot of
money i don't know he's making a lot of money what do you think swap maybe if utah also decided
to flip gobert elsewhere and they totally reshuffled what they want to do they could
bring it now you know i love this let's let's bring more dudes into this i love it i would
think utah would say we had cheaper younger horfordford. His name was Derek Favors, and we finally had to move on.
Yeah, we couldn't figure out what to do with him.
Yeah.
I mean, look, peak Horford was a hell of a lot better than peak Derek Favors ever was.
But the Horford stuff is so bad now.
I think if there's one positive from all of this, which Sixers fans have to deal with this,
and I'm sure they've been really annoyed.
When I think of Embiid's start to his story, you don't play play two years he's been healthier than i thought he would be oh yeah which is which
is a huge plus so there's value there even though i would imagine more front offices are probably
still a little worried of is this guy ever conditioned right am i am i staring at some
sort of problem whereas simmons i I'm telling you, teams were
done with him about a year and a half ago, maybe. It felt like teams had just totally given up on
him. Those playoff games where he'd had four shot attempts. I had heard some rumors about different
offers that were out there where you thought at the time, my gosh, Philly should have just said
yes to that. And whatever the issues are, I think his value around the league is a lot higher because of some of the
stuff that we've seen from him.
And just the way that I think teams have more of an open mind of him
initiating more of their stuff.
If he ever ends up getting traded to be kind of the guy.
Simmons has gotten better too.
I mean,
this season,
I feel like he made a leap as an at-rim finisher on assisted around the
basket.
I believe he shot around 67% on unassisted shots around the rim in the half court.
And that's an elite number for a guy who previously, both in college and early in his
career, struggled around the rim because he's so right-hand dominant around the basket.
So he got better there, not to mention he's become an all-defensive team player.
He's one of the best defenders in all of basketball.
And you put a guy like that on a team where it's built around him, you know, with a partner in crime, who's running the offense,
handling the ball, whether it's a Bradley Beal or Chris Paul or Mike Conley, it could be special
there when you have spacing with Simmons. So I feel like I used to be on the side of wanting to
build around and beat if it's only one of the two, but I've transitioned to, to more preferring to build around Simmons because of what he does for you with this
versatility on defense and what he can be. If you actually have space on the offensive end of the
floor, I totally agree. And I would pick Simmons if I had the choice only because I think he's a
safer pick. I don't, I don't know what the next seven to eight years of Embiid look like physically.
I mean, it might be great, but I know at least with Simmons, especially from what was, I voted
for him for 13 mile NBA. I was so impressed with the D with him. And I was, I was staying
Van Gundy. I think during the game yesterday was talking about just raving about what an
awesome defender he was. And I do think that slipped through the cracks a little bit with him publicly.
I don't think people realize that he's way up there.
Raja, you are our defensive guru expert.
Is he top level for you?
Would you put him in your five best?
Five best for sure.
Yeah.
I mean, I heard the broadcast too,
and Van Gundy was saying he's the best defender in the league.
I mean, you're splitting hairs there.
I don't know that I'm ready to say he's the best in the league,
but top five, certainly.
Look, versatility and length defensively are just things that you can't recreate.
So you get a guy that size who can move his feet and stay in front of things,
but it's big enough to handle, um, you know, bigs that's, that's, that's valuable. Like I was a good
defender. I could only guard one through three and that's a small three because I was six, five,
200 pounds, right? There was a limit to what I could do. Sean Marion was more valuable because
he was six, eight and could guard one through four. So, you know, Ben Simmons is a,
it's a great defender and that length and ability to move his feet, make him really, really versatile.
Hey, Raj, can I ask you a follow-up on those two guys? Cause this is something I complimented
Bill on and whenever I compliment Bill too much, then everybody just thinks I'm kissing his ass,
but it's, it's, it's a great point about tanking and that the writers love tanking because the
writers feel like I could be a gm so
i could just tank to the hinky worship he loves it the hinky worship is like beyond you know and
something that build said years ago was because you know one of the dangers of it is when you
just decide hey let's be total losers here for three years and then we'll just turn it on and
be winners that's it's a really overlooked part of it. And I had heard, you know, Jimmy Butler was like,
get me out of here. I had heard Tobias Harris was like, all right, I'll stick around for 180
million. What do you know about maybe the bad habits and the poor foundation, despite the
talent of Simmons and MB that maybe lead to some of their struggles because of what they were
allowed to kind of get away with. And basically it's like, we don't even want you to play for a
few years, do whatever you want, get bad habits, lose a million games,
be around this, but then you're going to turn this on. Yeah, that's a, it's a good question.
I can't speak to Philly specifically because I'm not in that building. Like, I don't know, but
I too, when they started with the whole, we're just going to tank and I like you, I coach youth
teams. Right. And, and I really believe you learn to lose and you learn how to be a loser
the same way you learn how to be a winner. You put stock in things as a winner that become
important and they're foundations and cornerstones to the beliefs that make you a championship level
organization. And then on the flip side, you develop terrible habits. I mean, even eating
habits, you're, even eating habits.
You're talking about sleeping habits.
We're talking about being in that bubble and people being out to all hours at night.
Having good vets in gyms that teach you how to stay in gyms and stay dedicated to honing a craft. I got to play with the Michael Finleys of the world.
I had Terry Porters and Avery
Johnsons and Aaron McKees and Steve... Those guys were all winners and champions who taught me
how to be a pro. And so a lack of that in your gym and you're losing and you're promoting it
out in everybody's face, it's going to teach people how to lose. And the risk you run
is when you want to win that you've conditioned a whole lot of really talented players to be losers and i know that this
is an nba pod but i was worried about that last year with the dolphins they just wound up with a
really good coach and brian flores who who was even though they tried to tank he was creating a
culture where they were competing every night but philly didn't do that and and that's what you wind
up with not all the time but you certainly run the risk of winding up
with that. Look at Raja
pulling some NFL in here.
I wasn't expecting that. Jesus, that
wasn't on your scouting report.
Go ahead, KOC.
No, I mean, I don't
totally buy this, though, with Philly, though, because
the last time they had a losing season, 16-17,
the only players from that team
still on the current team are Embiid and Simmons.
And we've seen Simmons, who was really bad on defense at LSU, a guy that was criticized
as somebody who maybe doesn't care about winning.
We have seen him turn into a guy who impacts winning.
Joel Embiid, a guy who did have conditioning issues, has continuously got better as a post
player.
I mean, he's tried to get better as a jump shooter. It hasn't happened. He's also gotten better as a post player. I mean, he's tried to get better as a, as a jump shooter.
It hasn't happened.
He's also gotten better as a defensive player.
I feel like, and be even Simmons, the only guys from those tanking teams, the end of
the process have become great players.
They just don't fit together.
I think the mistakes were like drafting Okafor.
The mistake was Colangelo trading, trading up and getting faults.
I feel like Philly is in this position because of personnel errors, not process errors. I think
he was on the right track with what he did. There was just a couple of mistakes along the way that
totally screwed this whole thing up. Right. But you had said before, they've shown this,
just said they play, they've won one playoff series. If they don't win this one.
Yeah. I'm more in the Rajah camp. Well well the thing is the other thing with simmons and i don't know i
just noticed this this year i felt like he was the most competitive person on the team other than
thibault like when i watched them those were the two guys that you could count on if you're just
flicking league pass like oh those two guys give a shit but the ko c's you watch the game yesterday
yeah we didn't see that with sim early on, I don't think.
This season, I felt like we saw it, though.
Yeah, I'm not disagreeing. I did feel like there was a competitive misdemeanor.
And thigh ball, and that was it.
And, you know, what we saw yesterday in that Boston game,
I thought that was really kind of illuminating,
like to the point where it's like, man, it's almost like they,
what was that story?
This was, I think in your era, Raj, I know it was, might've been a little, the one, two, three
Cancun with Nick Van Exel in the huddle when they were down three nothing. Yeah. It was before you,
the Lakers about to get swept. And he famously was like one, two, three Cancun.
And then they got swept. It became a big thing. Like you can Google this story,
but sometimes teams look like they checked out.
And to me, the Sixers look like a team that's done.
And then you hear Embiid after the game talking about,
you know, the old way we would be coming back home
for game three with our fans.
It's like, yeah, well, there is no old way.
You're playing in a neutral gym
and you had to win one of those first two games
and you completely rolled over the second game.
So, um, I don't know the answer with them, but I know that the, the Harris, to me, the Harris thing is actually the worst thing that they did.
Cause they gave up all their remaining assets in that trade.
I don't think he was the greatest fit with last year's team.
And then they compounded the era by giving him 180 million,
which is just bonkers.
It was,
we said it at the time it was,
especially when there's like four other teams that had decided when they
had them for a little while.
And it's,
it's kind of like some of these 18 point a game guys that are like,
man,
18 hits some corner threes.
The efficiency is nice.
Okay.
There's been four teams that are like,
we don't want to pay him because they had him in the building every night.
You did this on Logan Murdoch with him on ring around base show, but do it again quickly
when you're in the calves, the tears.
Oh yeah.
That you guys had for like how you, how you rated the players.
Cause I think in my opinion, when teams really get into trouble with contracts, it's always
when you're giving the Nick Batum contract, the Tobias Harris contract, 29 million for Andre Drummond. That's I don't mind overpaying
superstars. It's when you overpay that guy below, but tell them, tell them about the tears that you
guys had. Yeah, it was, uh, you know, you sat down and you took every NBA player and you were
ranked like one through, I don't know, six or seven, something like that. And then you were ranked like one through i don't know six or seven something like that and
then you were attached like an abc or a d after that and then a 1a is you know i don't know 10
guys in the league they can be the best player on a championship level team undoubtedly right and then
you know it would you would fall you'd slot accordingly so if you were number two like
let's use gordon hayward who was a really good player but i never thought he was a 1a because i didn't think he could be your best
player on a championship level team you wind up at like 1b or 1c so you're still you know a really
good player but tobias harris is probably like a 2a great character guy he could be like your second
or third option on a good team,
but he's never going to be like a one.
You know what I mean?
So they slotted and they were really, Griff was really smart.
Probably not a 2A for Tobias, maybe like a 3A,
but they weren't going to pay you if you were substantially out of the slot that they had you.
They just wouldn't do it.
So Hayward is probably a 1 1c but because of the market you talk yourself
into him being kind of somewhere between a 1a and a 1b yeah but really he's a 1c i i like the
way you do that koc should we should we start adopting that for all of our basketball what
do you think you like i'm all about it i'm all about it you love tears i do love rashes at your
tears corner yeah i like that from griff i
wouldn't say hayward's a one c anymore though that's for sure he's he's fallen down a couple
a couple tears probably down to three unfortunately right hey guys espn has workout footage of lebron
pregame oh did you guys miss it what they somehow they're able to get access to him working out with
a trainer before the game started.
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simply safe.com slash BS back to the lottery show.
All right,
let's talk about this lottery.
Cause it's coming up in a little bit.
Um,
it's starting at five 30.
It's five Oh five right now.
Is this the worst lottery of the 21st century?
KFC.
It's the worst lottery since I've been doing this.
Um,
but I don't think that makes it a bad draft.
I think there's a lot of good potential role players that can be had in the
middle of the lottery,
late lottery and throughout the first round and guys who impact winning.
Like we saw with Matisse Stiebel this year,
like we saw with Brennan Clark on Memphis,
like we're seeing with Dorton on OKC who went on drafted. There's those types of guys. But the top of the draft, whoever wins these top
four picks, you know, I've had conversations with execs and GMs and people who have potential
lottery picks, and they're like, we're fine staying where we are. We don't love the guys
up top. And maybe that's just them talking it down. But I don't I don't think so. It's pretty
consistent that the top players have so much risk that maybe for a lot of teams,
you'd rather have a quote-unquote safer option elsewhere in the draft
where you're not paying nearly as much money for the player either with a rookie-scale contract.
Rusillo, good thing or bad thing that we didn't have March Madness to overreact to with some of these guys?
It was a bad thing for the class because someone
would have had a great story. Somebody would have put together a nice run here and we would
have talked ourselves in. So it's probably better that we didn't have it. So we didn't trick
ourselves into thinking the top of this draft is really special. Whenever I've done, I've done like
my own 20. I can't believe some of the guys I have to put down as like the fourth or fifth best
prospect. I just, I can't, I can't believe it. And, you know, like every draft, the closer we get to it,
um, people, people will talk themselves into some guys, you know, once the slots are figured out
tonight and those teams are going to start saying, Hey, you know, they'll have the fourth pick. We
go, this is really a four person draft. We see it as like four people, you know, and then hoping
that we repeat it over and over again um but i
know in in talking to some people they're like if there was ever a draft i didn't want to have to
evaluate more it's this one like we kind of knew what it was in june like we normally would have
and now we're just doing a ton of extra work on guys that we're not that excited about i i just
wonder if new people in charge,
some teams that have probably felt stale, if they'll talk themselves into trading any of the players that still have some value around the league. We can kind of go over some of the rumors
of some of the team stuff like that. Will they actually want to trade into this lottery? I mean,
I don't know. I don't know why you would, but it's a hard group to really figure out who are
the guys in the top 10 you think can really help a franchise.
And I don't know, man.
KOC is top five.
We have an awesome, uh, ringer draft guide, NBA draft.
The ringer.com KOC has Killian Hayes as his number one person.
You compared him to D'Angelo Russell and menu Ginobili, a dynamic left-handed shot maker
from France. who's 18.
Raja, knowing nothing, just hearing that,
does that excite you?
I mean.
Dynamic French Manu Ginobili?
I mean, you paired like the two best guards
possibly in Spurs history.
I mean.
So you got that.
We have Anthony Edwards at the second spot.
Roger, you're not going to like this in the minuses.
Inconsistent effort.
At times he plays hard by cutting, running up the floor,
and crashing the boards, but then he'll disappear.
I don't know.
See, that's always that. You knew that.
That's my trigger.
The not consistent energy is a trigger for me.
Raja and I, we see this stuff very similarly, I think.
I am out on all inconsistent effort guys and all skinny guys.
I'm just out.
I'm blind out.
I have to like either of those.
Yeah, I'm just out.
When it comes to effort, how do you assess that at the college level, though?
Because the reason why I bring it up is because we just mentioned Ben Simmons earlier, a guy
who was horrible at LSU, has become a great defensive player.
We're seeing in the playoffs right now, Gary Trent, a guy who at Duke was always ball-watching,
missed rotations, allowed backdoor cuts, and now he's a really good defender.
So with these types of guys who don't put in effort in college
or it's inconsistent effort, it's really hard to assess that for me.
I'd miss on them because I agree with you 100%.
They're guys that are exceptions to the rule.
For me, when I scouted, I told Bill this a week or so ago,
talent, I was always going to write a fair evaluation.
So like, if you're talented there, you can overcome a whole lot of stuff. Like, but I always
have to know if you're low motor and you don't play hard. Cause I just think it means something,
especially when you're talking about like lottery, because that's a guy that you would hope turns
into a one a and to be a one a, I mean, you have to have a whole lot of motor there. There's you're
responsible for a franchise, you know?
So I just miss on a guy like that.
It's not saying they can't get it figured out.
Yeah.
Let some of us take the risk, right?
I don't know, man.
I mean, you're basically saying that we should have an open mind
about everybody that doesn't have any energy
or doesn't put in effort.
Like, that's great.
But the thing about Ben Simmons is even though there was a lot of not,
that team was a mess.
The coach was bad. They had four perimeter players that all wanted to score and he still pulled down like 11 rebounds a game in the sec so when you pull down that many boards
and everybody's like knocking you it's almost like a dad saying like who do you want your
daughter to date and it's like well we should rule out these guys their head cases you're like i
don't know you know my my middle daughter married a guy who crashed his car every other week. And you know what?
That worked out fine.
So have an open mind.
Unbelievable analogy.
Yeah, I think here's the real issue.
We're evaluating these dudes and they're 18, 19, and 20.
He took eight threes a game and made 29% of them.
That's the argument against Anthony Edwards.
He takes a million bad shots and they're all bad shots.
Seriously.
Like his shot selection.
He thinks he's Steph Curry and he's, I don't know, Trenton Hassel. I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what,
he's not, he's not, he's not my cup of tea, but you know, I was telling my son, the ladder is
tonight. My son plays NBA two K and they have these galaxy Opal cards where all of these guys
and a lot of the guys from the ladder in the, in the thing. So he's like, is Anthony Edwards
going to be in it? He's awesome in two K. And I'm like, yeah, cause they souped up all of these guys. And a lot of the guys from the lottery in the, in the thing. So he's like, is Anthony Edwards going to be in it? He's awesome in two K. And I'm like, yeah, cause
they souped up all of his skills to 99 out of a hundred. Like in real life, he might be out of it.
He might be Anthony Bennett, who knows lamella ball at number three on KSC's list. This is the one.
This is the one, anybody who says, I know what's going to happen with the middle ball.
They are lying to us and to themselves because it could go in 90 different directions. Raja,
just from what you've heard peripherally from a maturity, being able to handle it,
what happens if he goes to a city and he's now the savior of, I don't know, Sacramento or whatever.
What's your gut tell you?
I like him as a player, but I think emotionally there's a lot there.
There's a lot of stuff that he's dealt with. Just being on the peripheral of the stuff with Lonzo and his brother
and traversing the globe playing.
I don't know, man.
Again, good player, but I don't know that again i don't i don't good player but i don't
know that i'm trusting a franchise to be carried by him that's just me personally but i don't know
him i've done no homework on this draft and and quite frankly i haven't even seen him play a lot
i heard he's kind of special talent with the ball he's long like he's a gifted guard but
there's a lot there's a lot of baggage there i'm sure man that's that there's a lot of stuff going
on over there in that family.
It was a shit show.
It was a total shit show.
He shows up, they let him do whatever he wanted.
The team sucked.
They went five and nine with him.
He took a million threes.
He made 25% of them.
And I can't believe he didn't get jumped by the adults
on that Australian basketball team
because it was gross to watch.
And I love the australian basketball league
and that new zealand and these guys are like hey let's bring over some of these high school kids
with big names and get recognition it worked for new zealand with rj hampton uh it feels a little
temporary but the rj hampton thing didn't exactly work out either but for lamello it's look he's six
seven his handle the pick and roll the awareness some of the stuff he does it's really
like i can see a team going i'm into it but when you watch the australian games uh it was just
ugly it was just ugly and and wherever he goes if that's the way he thinks he's gonna play as a
rookie a year or two out of high school they're gonna going to laugh at him. And in Australia, like he didn't even,
he just bounced after a little while anyway.
And I'm sure the team was like, good,
because I can't imagine being a guy that's been a vet in that league a long
time, having to play with that,
where you completely disrupt everything you're doing.
He lacks, he lacks discipline for sure.
And that's something that's because he's been allowed to play any way he
wants to play since he was a kid.
And, but with the mellow,
it's the type of thing where this is the same types of conversations execs
are having now with why they're not super high on these top three, four picks.
All these flaws that we're rightfully talking about.
But the people who love LaMelo, and I only kind of sort of like him, but the people who
love him look at the fact that he is a dynamic ball handler who can create space, who can
make passes that so few guys in the league even today
can because of his height and his vision and his accuracy as a passer and they're like if that shot
clicks he's going to be hard to stop on the offensive end of the floor he's going to be a
dynamic weapon for you so like it depends so much with the draft this year about your philosophy or
how much risk are you willing to take on with some of these guys who definitely have downside, whether it's Edwards or LaMelo ball or James Wiseman, who we'll talk
about later. No, it's, I want to talk about him now, actually, because he dropped to seven on
your list and this was somebody heading into the season was the consensus. Number one, what
happened with Wiseman? It's the type of thing where the lack of an outside jump shot, at least from what he's proven so far, he obviously has the measurables,
uh, they don't set over seven foot seven, six wingspan, two 40 pounds, super strong,
but he doesn't seem to have feel to me when it comes to reading the floor on defense
and on the offensive end of the floor, if the shot's not there, if the decision making's not there, I feel like if I'm drafting a big man high in the draft, I need him to be a guy that I feel
confident can be worth that second max contract when that comes up. Because Wiseman would be on
that trajectory if you're taking him number one, you're making a big long-term investment.
And for me, I'm kind of factoring in that second deal. Would I rather have take a risk on one of these guards or wings, or do I want to take
a risk with a center?
So it's not as much a debt, a knock on Wiseman exactly where I have him ranked.
It's more so just my own philosophy when it comes to how I would want to build a team.
So if let's say Jackson Hayes, what did he go?
10th last year, eighth, eighth, ninth, 10th, somewhere in there.
If he was in this draft this year,
would he be ahead of James Wiseman?
No.
Okay.
So,
so this draft isn't like as big of a catastrophe as people are making it
seem.
Cause as you said,
it's,
it's deep with solid guys who have a chance.
It's not a catastrophe because like,
you know,
guys that maybe we won't discuss tonight, that could be good role players. Aaron Naismith from Vanderbilt, knockdown shooter,
who's really good on defense. There's risks that you might want to take later too.
This draft isn't weak on role players. It's just all the top guys have major,
major question marks. I mean, Brian, if you ever got back to doing your NBA draft confidential,
you'd have a lot of goodies this year about these top guys.
I know it just took me hours to transcribe it,
to keep all my sources private.
So much.
No,
I'm not done with Wiseman because he shouldn't be.
Okay.
He can't,
he can't look,
I get what you're saying,
but he just can't be seven in this draft.
And I understand what you're saying about the second contract,
but if he pulls a Mo Bamba on me, somebody else can pay him.
He is too skilled as far as like the minimal version of him,
his ability to run, he catches everything.
There are some moments where you can see that it's not as fluid in the catch
and processing exactly what he wants to do,
where you'd like that to be a little bit more instinctual,
but it isn't always that way
but like i feel like there's a a five-man rim to rim version of him that still should put him ahead
of i mean when we start doing an ob top in i know denny a lot of teams do like him uh halliburton
i just see can't see collectively having six guys or killing in a head of Wiseman, I actually still would have him one
here. And I do think that there's, there's another version of him. I'm not sure if it exists where I
think we don't have a lot to go on. I'm sure you watch him more in high school than I did, but
there's, there's some small forward skills that I think he wants to show you every now and then
where he has a little bit of a handle, a little bit of touch. There's a turnaround that he has.
He showed this jump hook, but in the three games he played, he played no one that could guard him,
and he put on a pretty impressive show on just roll, catch, roll,
and finish at the rim.
But I just think with the uncertainty with the other guys at the top,
I think seven is low.
It might be, and he is somebody that I want to learn more about
because there's sort of like a bit of a Jalen Brown factor here
where Jalen Brown at Cal was also a guy who didn't make good decisions,
who was also slow to read what's happening on the floor.
Yeah.
And so with Wiseman, how much of that is that just him being a teenager?
And then he's still trying to get things to catch up.
Here's the other thing.
Raj, I want your take on this.
I think it's so easy to get guards.
And we see over and over again, even this year, right? Like Trey Burke was bouncing around on the scrap heap and he's,
you know, one of the key guys in game two Dallas clips or like Cameron Payne, who three teams gave
up on and all of a sudden he's coming off the bench for Phoenix. I do feel like you can always
find the Jalen Brunson, whoever. Um, and then if they,
if they end up being better than that, great. Um, what you can't find the two things are like the
six, seven, six, eight wing three and D guy. And then the guy who could be the five and potentially
protect the rim for you. I would much rather roll the dice with Wiseman and especially in this draft and
hope he worked versus just taking a guard. Where do you stand on that, Roger? Cause there's so
many good guards. Like if I, if I'm taking, let's say I take Caliburn, let's say he turns out he's
pretty good. Well, there's still going to always be 10 to 12 point guards who are just better than
him, you know? And it's like, all right, so now I'm taking a guy that never has a chance to make it all NBA team. Whereas at least with Wiseman, there there's a real value.
If it pans out, what do you think on that Raja? Um, that's a good question. Cause I mean,
initially I was going to say I would err on the side of taking a guard because so much of what
you're doing is, is predicated on guard play now. Everything is
spread out. And so having good guards, people who can make plays off the bounce are critical,
but that's provided I felt really good about the guard and his trajectory. So if you're telling me
I'm rolling the dice on one or the other, I think guys have always kind of erred on the big right just because
you don't have a lot of 610 run and jump athletes walking around like you see a lot of guys
6-5 i saw him at publics when i was at this grocery earlier today you know but you don't
see the 610 guy walking through the door so if he can if he can run up and down the court and
do some things yeah i'd probably err on the side of the big just because, you know, to your point,
guard position, if you have good ones already,
can be plug and play.
Like, your guys like me, you know,
I was able to catch on and have a good career,
but, like, honestly, there are probably a lot of guys out there
that could do what I did, you know?
Not a lot of 6'10s walking around.
Well, I would err,
if I had to rank my err on the side of caution positions,
I just think your,
your safest bet is probably the six,
six to six,
eight guy who can play multiple positions.
And you just kind of hope,
all right,
they're going to have one sort of flaw,
especially in this draft.
It's like,
is maybe they don't have a great motor.
Maybe they can't shoot yet.
Maybe they were playing out of position in college and they were, you know, in college,
they're playing as a four, but they're really a three, but it's, it seems like over and over
again, teams have struck oil on, on those guys. Russillo, what would have to happen for you to
take a point guard with like the fourth pick in the lottery? I'd have to love my coach and we
have to all be on the same page. And I would have to say, look, the stuff KOC says about Lamello
that teams like, it is very real.
It's 6'7", maybe 6'8", at some point,
seeing over the top of people running high pick and roll with him
and trying to trap him and having a passable shot.
I mean, if that happens, he ends up being great.
I'm just telling you, if you watch all the Australian games,
it's disgusting.
I mean, it's hard to make it through those.
You're really scarred by those.
You're not a fan
you're not a fan of his floaters from the elbow i'm not a fan of like four guys that look like
all they want is a fosters and a white dart looking at him pull up from half court going
are you serious what is what is this uh i would i would have to be, I would have to have like a great relationship with my coach to go.
How can we bring them along? If, if golden state ends up like, say there's a version where golden
state ends up at three and say, Wiseman goes in the top two. I, you know, again, I'm just talking
out of my ass here because I would imagine Edwards or Lamello or somebody, depending on how the order
goes, but say like golden state's sitting at three and wiseman and toppin are gone all right some weird version of this and you have edwards lamello
halliburton i that's probably their worst case scenario right as they sketch this out they're
like man let's hope we're not in the spot where there's guards up yeah ball dominant guard who
doesn't make shots so you know They kind of had that already.
Yeah, and you would think that that situation with Myers being so good and Kerr being so good is that maybe you're bringing this guy along slowly,
but we're talking about the second part of the window here.
So for certain teams, and then you worry about the bad teams,
where you go, are we giving the keys to the castle to this kid?
And now we get a Zach Levine situation where i think zach has come
along he's become a better player oh you don't like zach no but if he's your one you you know
what are we doing you know like don't don't print the playoff tickets yet no we know what we know
what we're doing we're gonna be at the lottery yeah that's what we're doing we're gonna be
hoping for pickpockets to take one of these guards, we'd have to like,
we would spend,
my coach would be sick of me the amount of time I would be talking about
like how can we get this,
how can we set this kid up to succeed
instead of letting him do everything
and having bad habits
versus not needing him at some point.
KOC, who's the most Rajah Bell guy in this draft?
Most Rajah Bell guy,
maybe Devin Vassell.
Oh, you have him in the top 10 second year player uh you have him ranked fifth rajah this is huge for you this is huge
compared to the number five guy on his list this is awesome vasel is one of those guys that i would
feel better about taking ahead of weisman just because of what he could bring to the floor for
you as a versatile defender who just plays so freaking hard on the end of the floor and on offense right great spot up shooter
who's shown some stuff on off the dribble that he didn't show his freshman year he got dramatically
better as a shooter off the dribble and and that at least suggests there's a chance that he has
some untapped upside off the dribble so he's a high floor and maybe a higher ceiling
than some people might expect.
I have him third on my list.
Because just from what you said,
shades of Chris Middleton, Robert Covington, and Matisse Dybul.
I'm in.
That's all I need.
One of the best defenders this year's class
with a developing offensive game.
Okay.
So like to me, I looked offensive game. Okay. So like,
to me, I looked at this list and I'm like,
you know,
we have to be focused here on golden state,
golden state.
This is the all time ridiculous situation.
They make five straight finals.
They still have Curry and clay and Draymond.
They still have an awesome organization and great.
Don't forget Wiggins.
Well,
we're going to get to Wiggins in a second because you know, if, if they were able to get this kid at like three or two or whatever,
they still have the card of Wiggins with that Minnesota pick to try to trade for a veteran
or potentially they could package this pick with that Minnesota pick next year,
which is top three protected and Wiggins is contract. And now I'm in the Bradley Beal conversation.
If we think that in the off season, Bradley Beal is like, look, you need to trade me.
I am leaving.
He's not getting traded.
You think no way he's not getting traded.
Beal and we're going to give it a chance together.
And, and that team is going to give it a chance as well.
I'd be shocked if Beal got traded.
I think the team wants to give it a chance more than those two guys want to give it a chance as well. I'd be shocked if Beal got traded this summer. I think the team wants to give it a chance
more than those two guys want to give it a chance.
I agree with you.
They want to give it a chance.
I've talked to both of them in recent months
for stories that I've reported,
and maybe they're BSing me,
but I buy when I'm hearing from those guys.
I don't have a problem with the team.
I don't have a problem with the team saying,
let's see what we got here,
one more chance with a healthy wall in Beal.
I don't.
I just, I don't know. They want to give it more time koc if golden state got the third pick
you wouldn't trade beo for wiggins the third pick in that minnesota we just talked about how
shitty so sorry i don't know if i'm allowed to say that some of the top prospects are
no i would not do that if i'm the Wizards. Bradley Beal is only 26 years old
and he's turned into an all-NBA caliber player.
I want to keep that guy.
That's a guy I want to build around.
I actually agree with KOC on this.
If I was the GM, I would be the
I'm going down in flames with this guy
and if he leaves me at the altar,
I'm getting fired anyway,
but I'll definitely get fired
if I trade him for 50 cents on the dollar.
So now if Ben Simmons is on the table, I think that's a different conversation.
That's why I wish this draft were better.
I wish Golden State got the number one pick and that there was a, maybe a Carl Anthony Towns type at one.
And you go, all right, contract.
Because the thing is, you can't do Draymond to Philly.
But having Ben Simmons would mess up Draymond.
But I just,
I wish I could see, remember how forever and Roger remembers this. Every time there was some guy that
we'd want to see leave the team, we spent five years going, I'd love to see him on Phoenix.
It was just, it was just every time I feel like there's these bigs. I just want to see run with
a golden state and whatever version we see of them coming up.
Roger, when, what year did the
trade stuff start with that team that was the the year you made the shack marion trade that was when
you guys were in the hole yeah what are they gonna do who's going what do you remember being
hyper aware that that was a conversation with all basketball people um no i what i do remember is right before that domino fell i was sitting
with leandro barbosa pre-game watching a telecast of a of a heat game and they panned the shack up
in the stands and and lb said like you know in his brazilian accent like who who who trades for him
now man and i was like lb i could not tell you who would trade for shack at this point i don't
know what they'd have to give up robert sartor and like two weeks later shack was there and then
that you know like we we talked about that was the domino but i listen we also had this conversation
logan and i about it goes into tampering a little bit um everyone wanted to play in phoenix at that
time like i when i was in utah halfway through
that season i was letting people know look i want i want to play in phoenix if i if i can play in
phoenix i'd like to play there so i wasn't really acutely aware of it but i mean the trade rumors
but i knew everyone wanted to play there because it was just the style that that you know was like
pickup do you think houston has that now um yeah i mean i think a lot of people
have that now right like a lot of people play more of a wide open style so i don't think it's
unique to houston um but i do i do think a lot of guys could see themselves if they're really
you know gifted on the ball or like me houston would appeal to me a lot now because i know i
could just sit in the corner and shoot threes, right?
You would have loved it.
I'd love it.
You should come back.
Yeah, I know.
If you come back,
you got to stay with the ringer.
Yeah, I think part of the Phoenix thing
was just this magical training staff
we always heard of.
When they fixed Grand Hill,
it was like the greatest achievement
of the 2000s. That guy was done the, it was like the greatest achievement of the two thousands.
Yeah.
That guy was done.
He did.
He'd lost like three years to injuries.
And then all of a sudden he was, you know, reinventing himself as kind of pipping light
for a couple of years there.
But yeah, that was, I wonder what other teams are like that.
KFC, what other teams are like that, that the players in the league are like, oh man,
I want to be on that team.
I think it's like Rajah said, a lot of teams are playing that style.
Now there's just a lot of, a lot of ball movement.
A lot of Boston.
I set you up just to say Boston.
I gave you the bait.
There you go.
You can bring it up.
All right.
So here's what we have for the lottery odds.
Cause this Milwaukee game is about to end.
So golden States in the pole position, the lowest golden state can go is five.
They have a 48% chance of being fifth.
Uh,
Cleveland is second.
We should probably talk about them for a second.
The hell do you do if you're Cleveland?
What do you need?
You need everything and nothing.
You have guards.
You have,
you have, uh, the, the weird You have guards, you have, you have,
uh,
the,
the weird drum and love backcourt,
which I,
uh,
our front court,
which I guess they're going to keep maybe,
but like,
what,
what would you do if,
if they asked you,
Hey,
Roger,
what do I do with Cleveland?
Oh man.
I figure out how you want to play.
Like,
cause the way you're setting it up
looks like you're throwing it back to like 96.
And I mean, I don't know that that's going to work in the NBA.
Yeah, I just, there were Phoenix was for me three years ago
where Kobe's my guy, but like, what are you doing?
What's the end game here?
Do we have a blueprint?
Like, can you tell me what the vision is
and how you're going to get me there?
I don't know because there's what is in the draft
that's going to help them.
You just named and we talked about a bunch of guys
that I don't think they really help Cleveland.
What would you do, Rosillo?
Well, first of all,
I wouldn't make any positional mistakes in the draft i wouldn't go
well i can't take a guard because i really like uh sexton and garland you know i think it's too
early to write off garland uh who i did like a lot because of his you know we had a very limited
i think four game sample of him at vandy but as far as his kind of in-out start, stop, dribble, and then
the three-point shooting numbers, I thought there was something there. And I kind of go, look, I
think most of these backcourts now, you're better off with two scores, especially if one guy's small
because they trap them. Hey, just kick it to somebody else. You can see the times when you
really extend and try to trap Lillard. It's like, okay, well now McCollum's going four on three.
So is that a great situation? I don't think you have to worry about playoff stuff like that right now, if you're Cleveland, but you know, love is 28.9 million two years
from now, that contract was stupid. That contract was, Hey, we're mad that LeBron left. And now
we're going to buy into one of our guys and look at our positive headlines. And it was, it was,
it was stupid. Um, I would, he wants to stay. It's like, i would he wants to stay it's like yeah he wants
to stay because you're overpaying him drummond is a 28.75 uh million dollar option i mean you
gotta be kidding me and he can't he has a hard time staying on the floor in today's game so
i don't i think i would i would also tell you that cleveland's probably one of the more
owner influence teams as far as some of the stuff that they do uh most of these owners call the shots more than I think a lot of us even
realize it's always good to remind ourselves of it but they have terrible contracts across the
board I mean Larry Nance Jr. do you guys remember him he still owed another 20 something million
the next two years so uh yeah that's it that's another type of contract where you get in trouble where you're paying like the
Larry Nance Jr.
type
pretty good
this year in Cleveland
pretty solid
individually as defense played some three
for them with all their bigs you know I like this
I like the correction on Larry Nance
that's good input
I like the Larry Nance defense
they just the lottery started and they just showed the board it looks like Golden State played the my correction on Larry Nance. I like it too. I like Larry Nance. So that's, that's good input. I like the Larry Nance defense.
They just,
the lottery started and they just showed the board.
It looks like Golden State
played the Steph Curry card
for,
for the,
for the representative.
Brad Dory's wearing his tux
from the 86 draft.
Minnesota
is going to be
the third team
with the, with the most ping pong balls.
To me, it's a little more clear what they need, right?
They just need whoever the best wing is.
I mean, or a point guard.
They kind of can't lose in this draft.
There's multiple guys that would probably play for them, I would assume.
Right, KLC?
Yeah, I think Minnesota right here, they win either direction they
go. You can pair another guard with D'Angelo
Russell if you want to. He can play off the ball
or he can be the guy handling it for you.
So whether it's a, well, Mello
or Anthony Edwards or whoever it might be
up top, you can feel good about
that potential fit there. Or maybe you can
pair a big with Towns, considering he's such a
potent three-point shooter. So for Minnesota,
I mean, regardless of what position they go here or what the philosophy is if they nail this suddenly they
have a pretty appealing young big three with russell cat and whoever the pick might be yeah
i don't that's a tough one because i don't know what they do with that sexton garland thing and
you get in a situation where you're like, well,
we can't take another guide.
We have these two guys,
but maybe the guy who's on the board is actually better than either of the
guys they have.
Uh,
Atlanta is for Atlanta's.
I was surprised they were this high.
Cause I,
I think I had the impression in my head that,
things were going a little bit better for them maybe,
um,
did that record,
but you know, they at least had the foundation. The Luca trade is a generational disaster.
They'll never recover from, but pandemic was good for them nationally is what you're telling us.
Well, I, it did, it did move the, uh, Luca focus off, but, uh, what would you do for them? Raja
you're Atlanta. What do you need? I need some vets in there. I need to get some good, solid guys that can help that young core understand.
Not unlike what we talked about in Philadelphia with all that losing.
We need some people in the building that know what it's like to win,
that have been in the foxholes and the battles.
Honestly, I don't know what in the draft is really going to help me further
Atlanta's winning percentage next year. You're going to be
retreading the same path you were on this year, which was we're too young to win.
So I don't know what it looks like for them package and stuff to figure out how to go out
and get a substantial vet, someone who could help. But I would be looking to do that if I was
Atlanta. Enough with the accumulation of really young talent. Let's try to start winning. Let me
get somebody in here who can help with that now.
Yeah, I was wondering,
because it seems like Buddy Heald is a guy,
you know, he's not super young,
but he's still in his mid-20s at this point.
But Buddy Heald seems like a guy
who's probably going to be available
in the offseason.
And I was wondering, like, if I'm Atlanta,
I think I want more shooting.
I want to be like the, we're the crazy shooting team.
And he seemed like somebody.
But I don't know.
Like, what is Buddy Heald's value, KFC, compared to a top five pick in this draft?
Probably a bit lower because of the fact that he's going to be getting paid, you know, around $20 million and, you know, don't have as much long-term security.
But with Buddy Heald, that would be a really, really intriguing fit
next to Trey Young.
With their shooting ability,
Buddy can do a little bit on the ball with you too.
I feel like with Atlanta,
the idea of bringing in veterans,
I think is smart for them
because Trey Young has already become the level of player
where he's ready to win individually as a player.
And normally when it comes to team building,
you don't want to do anything short-sighted or stupid
that hurts you long-term.
But with Atlanta or even, you know, Dallas with Luka
or some of these young teams,
I feel like it's like in the NFL with a good young quarterback.
You want to take advantage of that when they're on their rookie deal
and try to add as much talent as you can
before they come up with their next deal
and you don't have as much flexibility.
And with Trey, I mean, the level of of player he is even though you said it's a
disastrous deal for them to get rid of luca i mean that very well may be the case considering
luca legend you know is on that track uh but trey's a great player himself too in his own right
it's that's it's a tough it's perpetually a tough one for them for as long as luca is
playing professional basketball.
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With it, back to the lottery show.
Priscilla,
would you rather have the fourth pick of this draft or buddy healed?
I'll take buddy.
I mean,
you got to pay somebody anyway.
Um,
and,
and I,
I get the point of, uh,
how much I can mess you up,
but I,
you know,
look,
man,
I,
I like the transactions where it's it's not
about hope sometimes and if it's a player I like I go okay who cares about waiting on cap space
are you telling me I can trade for this guy who I kind of like and he may not be as good as
is closing my eyes and swing as hard as I can and you know if it were a different draft I I think it
would be it would be probably a different answer you. If there was four or five guys I liked in this.
Really, the reason why this draft is so frustrating is that you plan for years to land somewhere where you get your chance at a star.
That's the whole job.
Can you find a way to get your hands on one of these stars?
That's why you'll see people draft certain times.
They go, yeah, we knew this was way bigger risk, but we were due to try to do this.
The same time when Milwaukee was like, yeah yeah we weren't really sure about janice we go is he the best
guy of the group now that's still star potential it's what denver did with michael porter jr and
it's certainly working for milwaukee it may not work to the same level for denver and it doesn't
feel like you have any of those options here so if you're giving me somebody like buddy who can
shoot and space the floor but uh i think the biggest thing for Atlanta is as good as Trey has become
as an offensive player, he's got to be better than the worst defensive player
in the league if he's going to play this many minutes.
And I don't know how you hide it other than hoping you have, what,
a nice two-way player.
Like, do you think Buddy's good enough defensively to make up for all the stuff?
Or, I mean, maybe, Raja, you could speak to this,
just how often you guys
search out those switches to try to abuse somebody you don't do it every single play
but is there a way to hide trey enough to start winning some more games defensively um not not
if you have another guard you need to pair him with the defense like they did it with alan iverson
a lot like they paired him with the defensive two. Yeah, Eric Snow.
Yeah, or a defensive one.
Like Derek Snow.
Yeah, so you're looking for that.
Look, Buddy Heald,
I don't want to take anything away from his defense.
He's serviceable, but I don't know if he's good enough
to really mask what Trey's doing.
I think Buddy Heald fits with him offensively.
I have concerns.
I say Allen Iverson
because I almost feel like
the way Trey Young plays,
you kind of have to really commit.
That's the way you're playing.
He's got to have the ball in his hands
and it's got to be high pick and roll.
You got to play like that.
So you got to build
to play like that
because that's what you've decided
you're going to do, right? And maybe and maybe you know to be fair to cam reddish and and hunter
and you know we probably i think we'd all sit here and agree that it's still a very to be nice like
i don't know um but we got to give them more than a year to see if somebody one of these guys
develops into somebody that can maybe guard some smaller players because there's certainly you
would think with the way uh hunter was at virginia and the athleticism of reddish that there's at
least something to build on there even if you know as rookies it was very inconsistent but run by a
second year player with with trey i hope he's willing to sacrifice and share the ball more
often because if he does that opens up what they can do on the offensive end. Trae Young this year only shot 103 three-pointers off the catch
and hit 47% of them.
I mean, he is a knockdown shooter off the catch.
The things you could do with him off handoffs and screens,
it's pretty exciting if he's willing to sacrifice,
but that's the big question a lot of guys don't want to.
He doesn't want to yet.
We got Golden State, Cleveland, Minnesota, Atlanta.
Detroit has the fifth most ping pong balls i don't think we need to even have a detroit conversation
talk to a front office guy i was going over the lottery real quick and he was like worst
roster in the league and oh it's brutal yeah i mean by far if you're if you're the gm of that
team you're just looking in america and what did i do to myself? Knicks at six new, uh, new administration for them.
I don't, I guess if you were ranking their best assets,
their assistant coach, I guess Barrett's first,
but they don't really have the moves.
Like if they want to make a big splash and be like, Oh,
and bead might be on the table. Here's a bunch of stuff.
They don't even really have the bunch of stuff.
So God only knows with them.
I just want to talk about Chicago really quickly.
They're, they're seventh in this mix.
They just had a coaching train wreck.
There was some good stuff written about that this week.
I don't think they were run particularly well by particularly well.
I mean, they were run fucking terribly.
And I like some of their pieces.
Like I like Carter.
I like marketing. I like marketing.
I think marketing was in a worst case scenario.
If I was a GM,
I would be trying to cherry pick him right now because I,
I don't,
I think there's a whole different world in which that guy is like really an
asset.
If he's playing on the right team,
um,
Roger,
if you,
if you had the Chicago GM job,
are you keeping the team you have
or are you blowing it up a little bit?
I'm keeping the team I have for now.
I need – so Ryan was talking about having like real frank conversations
with your coach.
Like we got to get in a room and really hash this out, right?
Like stylistically, how are we going to play?
What are your plans for Laurie Markk gonna play what are your what are your
plans for laurie mark and what are your plans for carter how are you going to use zach levine so
he's not just going like crazy and and shooting us you know while he's scoring 27 a game but we're
shot out of everything like what are we going to do there and if if any piece doesn't fit with his
vision like i wouldn't be afraid to move something um but i don't think i'd move off of
it just to move off of it like i'd i'd want to give that a year with some stability just to see
what i actually had rosillo would you try to cherry pick carter or marketing who do you like
more i love your marketing call best thing you've said in an hour thanks stepping it up as we get
closer lottery i know you do warm up as closer we get to the ball. I do. I take a while. I need a lot of foreplay.
I think Mark and I had some moments before the injuries,
and then it's tough on these young rosters where you go,
hey, we're rebuilding. Okay, everybody's young.
And it's like, okay, cool.
One through 12 is all first, second, or third-year players,
and the third guys are pissed off at the first-year guys
because they're taking their minutes,
and they think they're due for a contract that they probably don't deserve because we've been this bad and
we're still rebuilding like what do we actually have but i thought marketing had moments where
you go whoa this might be the part of the jimmy butler trade where it completely works out and
you know kobe white had moments last year and i would just move on from zach levine
marketing's one of those guys he's going to end up on Dallas.
Some good team that'll be like,
oh, we figured out all the ways to use him and all of a sudden, wow, Marketed, he's awesome.
I don't know.
KOC, what do you think? Who would you pick?
With Marketed and Carter for that team,
they're keepers to me for now. At least see
how you can work that out. Marketed can do
more off the dribble than he was able to show
under Boylan and Carter. With the injuries
he had over his first two seasons, I don't
feel like he's gotten a fair opportunity
to do what he can do.
He hasn't been able to show what he can be on defense
either, for that matter, as a real anchor
and with some versatility.
I think that's such a good job.
I was really jealous of the
dude with a lot of letters in both of his
names.
Arturus?
Arturus.
How do you say his last name?
He's the K-Man.
The K-Man.
I was jealous of that dude because you have a great fan base that, you know, has a lot of good memories. And even up until a few years ago had teams and players that they really liked.
You're at a huge market. You have money to spend allegedly who knows if the owner's going to
actually spend it. But, um, you know, the pieces are there. You're in the third biggest city in
America. Um, Roger compare and contrast Reinsdorf and, uh, Robert Sarver. sarver i've got no experience with ryan's door if i like if i started with my robert star i almost
told a robert sarver story um the other day it's an interaction with my wife after she had a
uh a dnc like she was our first pregnancy like i had to leave the all-star weekend to like come
home and check on her and
like I'm not going to repeat like Kyle Woody said
to her but it was just one of those things where you're like
you know if you can't
if you can't figure out something to say
in a situation like that that's just like hey
you know sorry to hear about
it keep it moving you if you can
offend her in that situation like you
probably don't have a great touch
it doesn't seem like it's getting
better with him.
Even though, despite the team,
you know, I've never
seen anybody celebrate 8-0
in the bubble that ultimately
led to nothing. But they had reason to celebrate
because it was the first time
they felt like, oh man, we actually might have
the foundation of something. Oh,
the lottery's about to happen.
As we watch these first few, the Celtics from the Memphis Grizzlies.
So there you go.
The Celtics are going to have the 14th pick.
Back-to-back years of thinking they were going to get a top five pick
from Sacramento or Memphis, and they turned out to be what, KFC?
14 and 14?
Not great, Bob.
Um, before we get to the rest of the lottery, no one expected me to do this.
If 2020 taught us anything, it's that things don't always go as planned with
State Farm.
You can be ready for the unplanned moments in your life.
Like life, the NBA draft is filled of surprises and unexpected moments.
Roger Bell,
not even drafted,
right?
Not even drafted.
No,
that was,
was that expected or unexpected?
Uh,
it was expected that there was a chance.
I went to Atlanta with their last pick,
but it was expected.
Well,
there's a lot of unexpected moments too.
I was doing the draft when Anthony Bennett got taken.
I almost had a seizure on air.
Um,
with state farm,
you get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected events in your life and savings was surprisingly great rates when you want
the real deal, like a good neighbor state farm is there.
All right.
So we went Celtics.
It's all chalk so far.
I'll chalk Celtics, um, new Orleans, Sacramento, Spurs, Phoenix Suns.
Oh, so everything's chalk.
Wait, somebody jumped the Knicks.
No, yep.
Charlotte jumped the Knicks.
So the Knicks.
Charlotte jumped the Knicks.
The Knicks ended up.
Eighth?
Yeah, they ended up eighth and they were sixth.
Wait, two teams jumped because Detroit was fifth.
So did Washington jump?
No, Washington's nine.
You did this last year and it just turned
to a train wreck i did i'm sorry i don't have a tv on in this room so i can't see it at the moment
now charlotte seven atlanta six charlotte and chicago jumped oh wow cleveland five wow jamie
hurts so chicago that's i kind of liked their team. I like if they could
get the top three, which they just did. That's pretty good. So we have, it looks like it looks
like it's golden state, Chicago and Charlotte and Charlotte. Yeah. So you think this was the last payment for the last dance?
You do the doc.
Here's a check for 10 mil.
And you get into the number one pick in the draft.
Curry's rocking like,
uh,
he's got a Shamar Moore SWAT look going on.
He looks great. I really like it.
Yeah.
He looks awesome.
He looks like he's going to be in an action movie.
Oh,
it's the top four picks revealed.
So golden state cleveland
oh no minnesota chicago no no golden state minnesota charlotte chicago those are the top
four that's a fun top four so that means cleveland falls to five atlanta falls to six detroit to
seven new york to eight and then the rest is chalk. Yeah. So New York still only had the six best odds to get to number one,
but it's just,
you know,
it's just unbelievable before the lottery last year,
you're like,
all right,
Kyrie Durant and Zion,
how will they fit in the next team?
She's like,
or,
or KOC quickly.
Who's who? I, Chicago is the most interesting team in the top four to me. Or, or... KOC, quickly, who's...
Chicago is the most interesting team in the top four to me.
Who would be the most fun guy for them to get?
I think it's like we talked about earlier with Cleveland.
Depends on how you want to play,
but it's got to be LaMelo if you're talking fun.
Straight up fun, it's LaMelo.
So you'd put LaMelo and Kobe White together? I'm not saying it's lamello so you put lamello and kobe white together i'm not saying
it's a winning combination it's a fun combination you know what wouldn't work though is zach levine
and lamello that might be the only way that you could break lamello in where you go hey you see
all the stuff you do right that's as annoyed as you are when you watch Zach do stuff.
That's how the rest of the team feels about you, your rookie year.
So what you're doing is, I learned it by watching you, Dad.
It's like galaxy brain team building right here.
There you go.
So those two together could be the only thing that gets Russillo through another year of
the pandemic.
Being able to criticize LaMelo and Zach Levine as a backcourt,
but that would send you into an absolute frenzy.
Maybe some of the worst shot selection of all time.
The Mello and Trey young would be fun to probably fight to the death.
Zach did get better than his,
his,
the ones that really bothered me were those T wolves pull-ups from 30 feet
with 21 seconds left in the shot clock.
Those,
those are the ones kind of like when Marcus smart feels like,
all right,
time to get this team out of it.
Marcus had some tough ones.
These first two games.
Yes,
he has.
It reminded me again,
but he's,
he's been better with it.
So,
you know,
it's funny.
You want to,
you want to enable them and you want them to be full Marcus smart at all
times.
You want them to,
you know what it is?
Always embrace his inner Marcus smart,
but it's like the amount of times that I'm sure Rogeraja can speak to this you would waste a post possession on a
big who couldn't finish just to make him feel good about all the screens he was going to set
the rest of the night that's what you do with marcus you let him take those three or four
i just don't like it when it's with less than two minutes left in a close game that's all
i'm with bill though you got and you know who was great with that mike d'antoni
it he was not going to tell you bad shot.
He just wasn't going to do it.
Ever.
Because you just have to be free to be you.
Whether your value is on the defensive end or rebounding or even scoring.
Going to let you shoot, bud, because I want you to feel good about that.
Yeah, when Stevens expresses mild upsetness at a Marcus three,
you know it was like an absolute travesty of a
three because I think he subscribes to that theory.
He wants Marcus to
cook and do his thing.
KFC most fun team to win the lottery right now.
Golden State, not
even close. Golden State
for all the reasons we talked about earlier with the
fact they're already going to be back in championship
contention with all the things that they could do
with trade potential there or just taking a young guy and having
turning him into something special and having him on a rookie deal with steph and clay and draymond
and wiggins it's golden state if you're picking the funnest team for the number one pick and most
intriguing from a competition standpoint in the west question for the group was charlotte too good
where you don't want to take a rookie to upset what
they could build on from last year.
Yeah.
Do you,
you know how to infringe that on Graham?
They were fun.
They,
they competed like crazy.
And I thought that team had a chance to win like 12 games.
I like some of the guys in that team.
I do too. They look, Bergo got that team we had him on
the pod pj washington yeah yeah but i mean graham graham was supposed to take a back seat to rogier
and graham i thought was kind of the guy for them and you know even though bridges probably isn't as
good as maybe we thought we first saw him at Michigan State. I still like his attitude. All right, so Golden State, Minnesota, Chicago, Charlotte.
Oh, Chicago got four.
That's still nice, though.
So they moved up four spots.
Charlotte third.
Wow.
Holy shit.
Golden State's going to win the lottery.
This is unbelievable.
Thank God we don't have an actual awesome superstar.
Golden State's second.
Minnesota,
you know what this smells like. Minnesota is number
one. You know what this smells like to me?
What? A little present for
the new owner that's about to take over
Minnesota. Throw in
a couple hundred extra million. Here's your
present. You've been number one pick.
DeAngelo is sitting
here celebrating. You're like, yeah, but you're going to be playing off the ball
with LaMelo. Are you excited about that?
KOC,
Minnesota on the clock. Who's your prediction?
James Wiseman.
Go two bigs. Build with some skill.
You like that, Raja? Yeah, I'm with that.
I like it.
You like the
Wiseman
Towns, Twin Towers?
Mmm.
Or so he can't talk himself into it.
No, and I'm the one who has... I think I have
Wiseman 1. I still would like to do
a little bit more work on everybody.
That's kind of funny. I get on
KOC's case for having him 7th, and now Minnesota
wins the lottery.
You're like, no.
I wouldn't rule
out edwards because i think edwards is gonna blow people away with his body his on zoom whatever
yeah on zoom with a filter especially incredible zoom guy so far kind of like andrew wiggins did
he's a big womb uh anyway zoom guy uh could could russell and uh edwards is that a matchup that makes sense
to you guys raja's in raja's like bullish right now no i think that's better i think it's better
than lamello and and and russell for sure if edwards starts defending and he can actually
hit shots then that could be a great combination edwards is probably the ideal if you're talking
about what he can be in a best case scenario with his body.
He's already got an NBA ready
body, but he doesn't have an NBA
ready brain on the defensive end
or as a shooter with a shot selection either.
But Edwards ideally,
but I do wonder if maybe
they zig when everybody's zagging and go with
two bigs with Cat
and Wiseman. That's really intriguing to me.
And Charlotte's at three and they have Terry Regier for 20 million a year.
They have Graham who was a most improved candidate of the year,
dude.
Um,
they kind of need everything and nothing.
It's one of those teams.
I'm not even going to predict what they're going to do,
but Chicago at four there.
I mean, according to your draft guide, it would seem like you just kind of want to be
in the top five and then all hell might break loose after.
But even if they got vassal for Chicago, that would be a good one for them.
I would see, I wonder if golden state just takes him.
That's like exactly what they need. They need a wing guy who's can play 30 minutes game guard people.
Not expensive.
It's it just seems like a Golden State pick.
It's going to be fascinating because now that we actually know the order.
I mean, you talk to people who have the cell rank 16th or 17th.
You talk to people who haven't ranked fifth.
So that's true for Wiseman.
LaMelo rankings are everywhere all over the place.
So we're talking about like Wiseman, Edwards and ball as the likely guys for the top three.
But I do wonder if maybe one of those guys or two of them end up possibly falling and we get some surprises in the top three of the guys.
We're really not focusing on here, especially a team like Golden State, who might be more likely to draft for need, to your point.
Yeah, you know, the Wiseman thought that Minnesota,
I mean, because you can't,
I don't know if Culver plays into the equation here,
and then they think like, okay, is Culver and Russell a great fit?
Probably not.
I mean, you know, whatever, man.
It's about putting as many scorers out there as you possibly can so if they feel like hey edwards fits in this and there's that's
our small ford small guard point guard then we go with that but would wiseman make more sense
because they don't have to commit to them as much offensively i mean it's going to come down to just
like hey i like this guy better than that guy i'm not going to get too worked up about it but if
wiseman were to go one i i think that really kind of impacts what Golden State's
going to do but I don't know what the trade market is going to be like I don't know Philadelphia I
would imagine they're going to try it again with a coach I don't know what the pace is going to
look like next year you hear some rumors about Sabonis wanting out I think the Atlanta Hawks
would probably move some of the younger pieces around as Roger was talking about for some depth
or maybe some veteran guys.
But Golden State might get stuck with a guard if Wiseman goes one.
Well, if KOC is right on Killian Hayes,
that's a good consolation prize for them. But I still think they go for Vassell because of just –
I know how – Kurs talked about it on my podcast like he's envious of the
teams like the celtics that just have multiple wings the ability to switch and like he's pretty
open like we think that's where basketball is going so my guess would be they would have somebody
that could play into that over could we see a trade down you know we've seen three consecutive
years of the trade downs of top five picks folds for tatz for Tatum, Luca for Trey Young, then the DeAndre Hunter for multiple firsts last year.
I feel like this is another year, especially if you're talking about one with Minnesota or two with Golden State, that I look at those teams and maybe I'm like, oh, you know, Chicago, you wanted to trade up here.
Cleveland, you want to get Wiseman?
Let's make a deal.
I feel like some of those teams that fell could use the one.
Minnesota's got top three protected pick next year.
It goes to Golden State.
We've seen this because the Celtics were in this situation two years in a row
where the team that knows they're probably losing their pick,
they kind of go all in and they'll make a couple moves
to try to get in the middle of the pack.
So maybe that is something they would do.
You try to trade down down pick up another asset take
a salary i think they have cap space this year and next year's drafts like that the eighth pick
could be better than the first pick this year it's that type of draft next year um we should by the
way just mention avdia here because i just don't think we've talked about him enough um some teams
some teams just like him uh enough to have him in the
conversation with this top group and at six nine i i gotta tell you like he's it's not luca ish
because i actually think he has a bit of a quicker first step but you know how like luca drives and
he just keeps driving on everybody the whole night and you're like all right i guess it kind of works
like i think denny has that same kind of thing, and he might end up being bigger.
The shooting numbers weren't great.
You'd like those to be a little bit better,
but I think there's a physical part of his game.
The drives are consistent.
I've seen him post and then kind of get shut off,
kick it out, and then get deeper and repost,
and I was like, oh, my God.
Like, this is 30-year-old shit,
and he's reposting after a kickout
and getting better position and ceiling.
I just,
I just feel like he's at least worth mentioning with some of these other
names,
because I think there's a high end for him KOC where we could see him going
at least higher than we've mentioned,
at least tonight.
I'm with you.
100% Avdia,
you know,
only 19 years old with his versatility on the offensive end.
He can run a little bit of offense for you.
He's so smart off ball on defense.
He always seems to be in the passing lanes.
He's a smart player.
I mean,
he checks a lot of those boxes that Raja was saying that he likes to see
in prospects and young players that you want to have.
The question with Avdia is the fact that he shot low 30% throughout his
career overseas,
around 50% from the free throw line,
and his shot looks good.
It seems like he has good touch around the rim
on layups and floaters,
but for some reason,
the shot just hasn't developed
from the perimeter or from the line,
and that's the big question for me.
I mean, can he answer that question
for teams ahead of the draft?
Because if that shot ends up developing for him,
I mean, there's no doubt
he can end up becoming the best player in the draft.
Yeah, you just described the golden state draft need
until you went to the no shooting.
Or there could be a teacher better shoot.
Raja, I'm going to leave you with this.
KOC has this guy ranked 15th.
I'm just going to give you some information.
You have to decide in or out right now.
Just for fun games. He's from Serbia. I'm just going to give you some information. You have to decide in or out right now.
He's from Serbia.
Alexey Pukasevsky.
KSC writes a lanky seven footer who moves like a wing passes like a guard needs to grow into his thin frame to thrive in the NBA.
Shades of debt,
left shrimp,
Lamar,
and I'm dragging Bender.
I'm just going to give you these.
I'm going to give you these stats.
Seven feet tall,
201 pounds out long.
I'm out.
Seven,
three wingspan.
Come on.
Seven,
three wingspan.
Hey,
listen,
Chris Bird and I were texting KFC.
I'm like,
KFC,
what are you doing?
Skinny guys.
No,
never get this guy out of your top 15.
Seven feet, 201.
That's light.
That's light.
Well, I mean, look, I've never seen him.
So like all jokes aside,
the NBA, you're talking length and versatility, right?
Like that's what we're talking about now.
So if he's skilled and he can play,
but if you're seven foot 201 pounds,
I don't know how much more weight you're putting on.
It just sounds like you're really, really thin.
He is lean.
That's for damn sure.
KOC isn't old enough to remember Brad Sellers and the Bulls.
I sent him a card of Brad Sellers, but that's, to me, that was when I was just out on the
skinny seven footers.
Like these guys are out of my life.
Um, Hey, this was fun.
Thanks to State Farm. Thanks to, uh, Rajabelle. Thanks. Hey, this was fun. Thanks to State Farm.
Thanks to Raja Bell.
Thanks, Kevin O'Connor.
Thanks to Rosillo.
You can hear Raja on Mondays on Ringer NBA show with Logan Murdoch.
You can hear KOC on Tuesdays and Thursday nights on Ringer NBA show.
And Rosillo will be doing our thing on Sunday night.
Well, it could be a what the hell is wrong with the Lakers podcast.
Who knows?
See you guys soon. Thank you. All right. We're bringing Nora Princey on in one second. First,
wanted to mention the rewatchables we put up to this week, Caddyshack 40 year anniversary,
and then pump up the volume. The greatest movie we've ever done on the rewatchables that is not
available for streaming. Hopefully that podcast will change that reality. Check out both of those.
And we have 40-Year-Old Virgin coming on Monday.
Stay tuned for that.
Wanted to mention Miller.
During this time in social distancing,
connecting with friends over beer.
Maybe it looks a little different.
Maybe it looks like that lottery show
we just had four different people on a Zoom
just looking at each other.
But hey, that's fine.
As the original Light Beer,
Miller Lite has always been there
to bring people together through Miller time.
And in a world where you can't always be with your people,
Miller time might be a moment on a Zoom call,
a quick porch beer with your neighbors,
maybe masking up for a socially distant hangout outside.
Whether you're toasting to friends near or far,
great taste is always close by.
It's been great taste of my life since I was in college.
As Joe House mentioned
a couple weeks ago, probably the best
golf course beer I have at
number one, Soda's House. Right now,
enjoying Miller Lite with friends, it might look different for
everyone, but we
know that staying connected is just as
important, whether you do
with your family, your roommates, your partners, maybe
you're doing it digitally.
It's always a good excuse to have Miller time.
From online happy hours to socially distanced picnics
and every 500-piece puzzle in between.
We're enjoying new ways of spending time with our friends.
Miller Lite.
Great taste with only 96 calories and 3.2 carbs.
You can have the original Lite beer delivered.
Forgot to mention this.
By going to MillerLite.com forward slash BS,
find the delivery options near you.
Celebrate responsibly.
Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.
Without further ado, Nora Princey out of here.
Here she is.
All right.
This is Nora Week on The Ringer
because we did the rewatchables,
pump up the volume.
We talked about Nora De Niro, one of the great characters ever. And now Nora Princey out of here from The Ringer because we did the rewatchables, Pump Up the Volume. We talked about Nora De Niro, one of the
great characters ever.
And now Nora Prizziotti from The Ringer is going to talk
NFL with us. How are you?
I've been doing pretty well, even though apparently
I've not seen that movie, but apparently
I have very big shoes to fill.
It's tough. I was telling you the pantheon
of Nora's. So Nora
Efron. Yeah, I used
to tell people at bars that I was named
after Norah Efron, which I was not, but that was a lie. I liked to tell in college.
Were they impressed or unimpressed? I mean, neither. It's like a very niche.
It was a good way for me to know if I was going to get along with someone.
Yeah. True. Like, Oh yeah. Norah Ef Nora Ephron. Right. Let's talk NFL first.
So I've been following the Pats.
I don't know if you know this,
but I like the Patriots.
For some reason,
they're pretending there's a QB battle
with Cam Newton and Jared Stidham and Brian Hoyer.
And then the reports every day are like,
oh, Cam Newton's way better than these other guys.
Why are they doing this?
Why can't they just give him the job? So I think just for, for, it's more fun this way,
right? Like make a little suspense, but no, it's just ridiculous. And I think the thing that I
think is silly about it is that it's probably going to go on for all of camp. Like one,
we really only have a couple of weeks and two, there's going to be this thing. This is my theory.
This isn't like inside info, but all of camp Stidham and Hoyer, because they know the system
a little bit better.
They've been around the block once they're going to look a little bit more competent.
Yeah.
And everybody's going to be like, oh, I don't know.
Newton doesn't know the system.
He doesn't know the Patriots.
He doesn't know. Is Bill Belichick really going to have a quarterback who can't change the play at
the line of scrimmage who can audible who doesn't know it well enough. And then they're going to
have to have a starting quarterback and it's going to be Cam Newton. And we're all going to feel
really silly because only one of these people actually knows how to be a high level NFL
quarterback. And it's Cam Newton. Well, also Belichick has more to prove than anybody.
Totally. It's not like he wants to mess around he would love to go 12 and 4 or however many games we end up playing this
year what do you what do you think the total number of games will be this year you think
we'll get to 16 i kind of do i'm starting to i don't know if i have like stockholm syndrome but
i'm starting to be like ah they can do it do it. They'll be fine. And meanwhile, it's like anytime anything starts to go wrong,
like Matt Stafford has a false positive and they're like,
oh, well, that was annoying.
So let's change the protocol.
And it's, I mean, I get it.
That was a, that wasn't fun if you're Matt Stafford,
but there's part of me that does feel like,
no guys, this is going to be annoying.
And the fact that you had to deal with an inconvenience
means that it's actually kind of working.
So we can't just make these little adjustments
when things start to go wrong.
So I don't know, but I'm starting to feel like,
you know, they're talking about a playoff bubble.
I'm picturing a month somewhere in Florida
with me and Kevin Clark
just getting really sick of each other.
And a month, it'd be take two days to get sick of Kevin Clark. The, uh, I, I have not let my
guard down yet. And here's how I know it. Cause I haven't done any fantasy football homework yet.
Other than listen to our excellent fantasy football show a couple of times. I have not
crossed that line where I'm like, all right, I'm actually going to do my whole
thing.
I'm going to spend a week.
I'm going to figure out the over-unders.
I'm going to figure out my bets.
I'm going to figure out my fantasy football.
I've been holding it off.
Like it's a term paper in college.
Cause I just want to make sure we're gonna have a season, but now it's like, we're heading
into the last 10 days of August here.
There's no preseason. So everything's out of whack. So it's like all of the little mental
checkpoints you have as football gets closer and closer and you get the hall of fame game.
And then the first couple of shitty weeks of preseason and somebody gets hurt. Everybody
complains about whether we're missing all these checkpoints, except for hard knocks.
Hard knocks is the only thing that has made this feel like this is
about to be real, but I, how much longer can I wait? Like I, in the next week I have to break
down and officially admit this is happening. Right? Yeah, I think so. It's funny. It's like
hard knocks. Like they used to use sundials to know what time it is. Now we just like,
we have a hard knocks based calendar. Yeah, totally. You've got to do it.
I think you can wait
until 10 days,
10 days, 15 days.
That's kind of your range.
The thing that's interesting
about it though,
is that, I mean,
I think you can get away
with that for fantasy purposes.
I do think one of the most
interesting things
about this season
for the teams
is going to be who does the team building and the planning version of that and who doesn't.
Because I've been paying a lot of attention to the Saints.
One super relevant team, super great roster, Drew Brees, Sean Payton, no brainer.
But the thing that's interesting about them, and I don't know if it has anything to do with the fact that Sean Payton had COVID in
March, but he's been really aggressive about being like, I don't care that we're not allowed to force
the players to stay in a hotel this year. I'm going to get a hotel and have as many of them
as we'll do it. Do it. Yeah. I don't care that we haven't figured out, you know, if we're even
going to make it to the playoffs, I'm going to suggest that we do a playoff bubble. He's very like, he doesn't seem to need all these perfect
dancers, which we're just not going to get to come up with a plan to do something that he thinks is
going to help. And I think that's, you know, you think about the teams like the Seahawks
taking a big swing and making a trade for someone that can help their secondary and Jamal Adams.
I think those teams are going to be in a much better place this year than the
teams that are kind of like,
ah,
what's going on?
I'm,
I'm,
I don't have complete information,
so let's wait and see.
Yeah.
Because there's no,
like you're,
you're not going to know,
like you are not going to know when you draft your fantasy team if there's going
to be a full season you're not going to know
if you should pick guys that have an earlier
you know hard games early in the schedule or
late and I
think there's some real value in just
kind of going for it
because unless the season's like an abject disaster
those are
the teams that are going to have a plan
and come out of this with a plan.
Well, I was talking to your Boston neighbor, my dad, and trying to figure out like, well,
first of all, if he could ever come out here again, but if he did, would there be a fun weekend to
come out the U S open for golf? It culminates Sunday, September 17th, which will also be, will be in the NBA
conference finals at that point. Right. We also have a Sunday night Patriots Seahawks game.
Right. And I'm thinking like, no pandemic. This is the dream weekend for my dad to come out. We'll
just watch TV all weekend and go nuts for the Boston team and the whole
thing. And that was the first time I was like, Oh, football. And there's going to be basketball
at the same time. And we're going to have, like, I can barely handle all the basketball now it's
four a day. I'm trying to watch as much as I possibly can. And we're going to get to the
conference finals. And then we're going to have this football wrinkle, not to mention,
do you think that they're going to play the Saturday football card? Cause it seems like that might be a belated in play,
right? It's in play. It's harder than people think it is because, um, the government is involved.
Oh, there's some weird laws. I've heard bad things about the government. Yeah. The government gets a
little hairy when we deal with those guys. There's, I'm not even going to try to, to nail this, but there's like an
antitrust element to when they can do the games. And so it's harder than, you know,
the NFL will always go for a money grab, but it's a little bit more complicated than that.
Can you talk about, uh, give us your empty stadium theory?
Okay.
So it's going to be really wild because it seems like they're going to do some form of pumping in sound, which they kind of have to do because it's actually already really
easy for defensive players to just watch the TV copy and pick up a lot of the signals because
they, they Mike the lineman and you know, we've all watched football games.
You can hear some of the stuff that they're saying. And if you're Vaughn Miller, you actually
understand what it means. Well, especially with Tom Brady that I always felt like that was a huge
disadvantage because the pats were on TV all the time and you could hear half of his calls at the
line. Rita, Rita, Rita. Yeah. All that stuff. Yeah. Um, the thing that's interesting is that NFL stadiums actually really
differ in where the speakers are around them.
So if you have,
um,
most of the dome stadiums have,
you know,
it's,
it's coming from the roof.
Um,
most of the open air ones,
it's all the speakers are sort of interspersed,
uh,
all the way around it.
Some of them are just on one side.
And that makes a huge difference in what it sounds like if you pump noise,
whether it's you're doing a Led Zeppelin concert or doing an NFL game,
into those speakers.
So I just think there's going to be one,
I would mark in your calendar,
probably weeks two and three,
some A-plus coach griping, I would expect.
Oh, yeah.
Because they're going to be all upset about their signals.
And then it's going to be this whole new layer
of which stadiums are good to play in,
just a wrinkle depending on where teams are, because the sound is going to travel in these
really, really, really different ways based on the configuration of the stadium.
One of the teams that'll be really interesting for it, the 49ers, there's only a couple stadiums
where all of the sound comes from one side of the
stadium and they're one of them. So beyond just, you know, we're going to hear guys swearing and
stuff. It could actually be like a, a, a real competitive advantage or disadvantage to some
people. So do you think they're going to have to litigate exactly how far you can take the noise,
depending on the stadium? And the follow-up
question that is, this sounds like a new way for Bill Belichick to lose a draft pick. I'm just
going to start preparing emotionally. Kyle, we already lost our fourth round pick. He's going
to do something to screw this up. That's illegal. I'm bummed. So the good news is that Gillette is
one of the stadiums where, where the speakers are really evenly spaced out. Oh, great.
That's good.
That's bad news for monkey business,
which tends to be good news for the Patriots.
I think they're just going to have to live with it.
Yeah.
But, you know, that's easier said than done.
Well, there's some teams that are going to take a huge hit
because we've seen this in the NBA.
The biggest thing we've learned in round one is
it's really changed kind of what we were used to with a structure of a series where
home team game one, you got the crowd, especially the high seeds. They always win game one.
And this time around the bucks lost and the Lakers lost. They were the one seeds.
And it was like, Oh, they just lost that advantage. Then you also see
Philly's down to nothing.
Normally they would be coming back to Philly for game three.
The crowd would try to rally them back.
No, it's they're in a bubble.
It's going to be the same situation as the game before.
And I wonder with football, you would think Seattle and Kansas city, um, Indianapolis,
maybe like five teams that the home thing was a huge, huge advantage for them.
I don't know how you replicate that with just fake sound. And then on the flip side,
places that didn't have a great advantage with crowd noise and stuff like the chargers now can
just pump in whatever the fuck they want. Right. For the first time they can have fake fans. That'll
be better than the fans they had. Yeah.
Yeah.
No,
I mean,
Seattle,
I feel like has got to have it the worst just because they already have,
they always had the travel disadvantage sometimes when they would have to go
West to East,
but then they had such an advantage at home.
So you take away the,
the home field,
the 12th man,
and then you still have,
you know,
they're still going to have to travel and,
and do the bad body clock situation. So I think it'll be different. I mean,
I always think the travel thing is, is the bigger deal than just the crowd, but
it changed some stuff. Yeah. I mean, that'll be for the Seahawks if they have to either,
I don't know, I guess teams are going to travel probably the same,
right?
Or if,
if you think by the time we get to the playoffs,
there's a bubble,
maybe then travels gone.
And that's easier for certain teams.
I don't know.
It's a great.
It's well,
right.
And that's the thing is,
is they're just going to have to say,
okay,
when there's some competitive imbalance,
which again, is just not in the DNA of a lot of these people that are going to have to say okay when there's some competitive imbalance, which, again, is just
not in the DNA of a lot of these people that are going to have to take a deep breath and say,
okay, maybe it's not fair. Maybe I don't like it, but this is how we're going to
have to do it to get it done. So it's going to be a great season for gripes is one of my predictions.
Well, speaking of gripes, we're going to get some media gripes.
We're going to get some reporters upset that they don't have the same access.
And we're already starting to feel that this week with people are complaining about, I
think it was the Packers.
They were telling the reporters not to say who is first string, second string.
Are you excited for the reporter grapes about lack of access,
all of those different things? So as a, as a former Patriots beat writer,
I got a side with my brethren here. I will say, I thought that was always the case. I thought that
was just a rule that everybody broke. Oh, wow. Okay. If you read the back of there's, you know,
there's a sheet that they hand out and it's got all sorts of rules. And I used to get that thing every year.
And, and, you know, with my sincere apologies to Patriots PR, who does a very good job,
I would always look at that thing and go, okay, well, they can get that anyway.
That's nice.
Does access, how much does it actually matter for covering an NFL team, the league, the whole thing?
You know, I think that the access to people at big events is more important than the every
single day thing.
But you do, you build up a certain kind of, you know, does it make Bill Belichick's answers 2% better to people if he sees them in
the second row at his press conferences every single morning?
Like,
yeah,
maybe it's,
I don't know where I totally fall on that because I think sometimes you can
get a lot out of it.
And other times it just makes people sort of susceptible to group think and,
and everybody swims in the same direction.
But relationships are important. And sometimes it gives you a foundation of, you know,
stuff to talk to people about when you're an indie at the combine or you're seeing people
Super Bowl week. I mean, I always found that stuff much more important.
Even training camp stuff that Clark
always goes on those training camp tours and can sidle up to people and do the whole thing. And
then now that's gone. Yeah. So it's, it's kind of, it's been interesting because the people that,
you know, the people that we already know, they're sitting at home too. So what I found
the last few months is that some people are really accessible,
but to actually,
well, because what else are they going to do besides take my phone call or whatever?
But it is,
if you really want to make a new contact
or like, oh, that person's cool,
that person's got an interesting story,
I kind of want to get to know them.
That's the part that I think
we haven't quite figured out yet. I'm going to combine two of your favorite passions, football
and pop music with the following question. If Aaron Rodgers was a pop star,
which pop star would he be and why? This is literally okay. aaron rogers it it's not because she's my favorite aaron rogers is
taylor swift i figured that's right that's what i was going for with the answer okay home run
so i have i have some friends who i ran into on the street in boston a few weeks ago they
were walking their dog and uh my friend and her boyfriend and her boyfriend says, Nora, a few days ago,
I made a list of which NFL players were which Taylor Swift songs, but then I deleted it
because I didn't think you'd want to see it.
And I've like never been more angry at a person in my entire life.
And I forced these people to just like stand on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue with
me for like half an hour going, no, forever and always is Aaron Rodgers.
It's totally Aaron Rodgers.
But the thing is, is that the more you think about it, every single one is Aaron Rodgers because there's that combination of bravado and vulnerability, which is just such a slam dunk Rodgers combo that I mean, I'd always,
so when I was covering the Patriots,
it was always like my deepest desire that Taylor Swift would start dating a
Patriot.
Yeah.
She lives,
she's got a place in Rhode Island.
It always felt like it was in play.
Never happened.
Rogers would be the next best thing.
Although if you want to talk about just like a combination of that kind of
energy that could not possibly end well, like he would win a super bowl. She would win a Grammy,
but it would take so much messiness in the meantime that it's best that we just avoid it.
But it's totally, it's Aaron Rogers. There are a lot of, there are a lot of similarities,
even down to whenever they're dating somebody, how it gets dissected and how it gets introduced to the public and all that.
It's almost like they have the same kind of advisor for how to tell people who they're dating.
And then people are always like, really?
You're dating that person?
And then how it evolves.
Totally.
It's like you can't totally typecast it, which always makes...
No.
Like there's an eyebrow raise that happens there.
A lot of a lot of sort of flirting with drama.
But then, oh, I don't care about this.
This isn't me.
It's totally it's like the most slam dunk comparison ever.
Were you excited that Taylor was one of the only winners of 2020 so far?
Um, I'm trying not to gloat about this bill. So it's her and juice world. Who's dead.
Those are the two biggest music winners we've had so far. Can you talk about what, uh, what it's
like to be in your mid twenties and love music, but not be able to go to see live music. Cause
this is kind of your, I don't want to spoil the rest of your life
For you, but you're never going to
Care more than you do right now about
Going to see this stuff. Every year
2% less you want to
Leave the house, go and deal with the crowd
All that. This is it
This is your prime right now
And it's not happening. You can't see anything
Wow, I feel great Yeah this is your prime right now and it's not happening. You can't see anything.
Um,
wow.
I feel great.
Uh,
yeah,
I was,
so it's funny.
Um,
speaking of,
you know,
the love of my life,
Taylor Swift,
uh,
whole big concert festival lover fest plan this summer.
And the two places that she was going to do shows in the U S were Gillette stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts place. I know very well. And in Los Angeles,
and I was going to go to both. It was going to be great. Um, first time that she'd planned to
do kind of like a festival style thing instead of, you know, a traipse all across the country kind of tour.
I'm very sad that it's not happening.
I think I've attempted to fill that that hole by just I spend a lot of time watching old
Taylor Swift and and others concert videos like on YouTube.
Yeah.
So it really is though. I mean, there's like a,
so one of her first big stadium shows was at Gillette. It was the speak now tour.
And it's, it's a little bit of a famous show because now looking back, there are all these famous Taylor Swift concerts where just
like a downpour opened up, which is kind of funny because the pouring rain is such a recurring
trope in her songs that there's like nothing more fitting than just the skies opening up
on top of a Taylor Swift concert.
And it does seem to-
So she's making this happen?
Does she, what does she do?
She calls God?
I think she has her own weather patterns.
Got it.
That would be my feeling.
There's a Taylor lyric that's,
and it rains in your bedroom.
So apparently she can also make it rain inside.
Interesting.
Didn't know that.
Yeah, no, it's like a little known fact,
but first time this happened was at the show at Gillette. And I was watching a video of this the
other day and it's, it really is incredible because it starts to pour and it's one of the
first times that she's ever done a football stadium. And you know, she's like 19 or something and is looking around and you can sort of
see her as she's doing this song, a song called Long Live, which is like a very, it's like
Taylor doing Springsteen.
It's like anthemic and it's, you know, the crowd's super into it.
And you can see her looking around and realizing that people aren't going to leave.
Oh, and this is totally it's like lost to history, except for like really grainy YouTube footage.
But it is the coolest thing because she's so young and you can just see on her face.
Oh, my gosh, they're actually going to stay and see me keep doing this.
And it is genuinely so cool to watch.
So I think I've been filling the losing lover fest void
by just like watching that over and over again.
And you know, she's done the Netflix stuff
and that all helps.
But yeah, it would be nice to have some shows.
Are you talking about the infomercial she had on Netflix?
I'm talking about they did a concert.
The Reputation Tour also had its own Netflix special.
The documentary.
I was fascinated by the docu-mercial.
So mean.
There was a couple pieces there where I'm like,
oh man, we're getting somewhere.
And then it was like, no, that door is going to close now.
But the takeaway, the stealth
takeaway from that documentary was like, this is a person who just really, really wants our affection.
It's really important. And when it got flipped on her a couple of times, those were the most
honest parts of the whole documentary. Like when she didn't get nominated for a Grammy and you could
see her kind of processing it in her crazy Taylor brain. And then within 10 seconds, she's like,
all right, I just got to make a better album. And she was on, it was like Belichick was like
on the Cincinnati. She was, but for 10 seconds, she was completely devastated. And then she
snapped out of it. And I look, I don't know if they rehearsed that or whether how authentic that was, whether that was actually what happened. But I, to me,
that was the most fascinating part. For sure. Yeah. And I was, that's, I mean, I have a list
of questions that I would love to ask her if I could ever like give her true serum. And that's
absolutely one of them is, is does she think that reputation, which is the album that she learned didn't get nominated was a failure
because commercially it was not at her normal level of success.
Critically,
it ended up doing pretty well.
I really like that album.
I think it's cool.
I get that.
It's not for everybody.
It's not something you turn on in the middle of the afternoon when you're,
you know,
trying to get some work done or whatever, but it's experimental. It's really interesting.
She tries on a lot of styles, not all of them fit, but she just does stuff. And it's actually
been interesting to me to see how people have responded to the new album Folklore, because
I think there's a little bit of unpacking to do
about our collective relationship with genre
just because of the seriousness
that we confer on anything that's kind of like indie vibes.
Yeah.
And people woke up that morning
and they saw a grayscale photograph on Instagram
and lowercase
track titles and, you know, the national and Bonnie there.
And I think decided, oh, this is going to be Taylor Swift doing sophisticated music.
And I really like the album.
I think it's really good, but I don't think that's right.
I think she's made more interesting and sophisticated choices on songs you know like I knew you were trouble which like in you know it was not the
first big mainstream pop song to incorporate dubstep by any means but it was in a really big
place and it was still pretty early in that being what we heard on the radio.
Yeah.
And stuff like that, that, you know, it's poppy, it's girly, it's silly, it's campy.
I think there's a little bit of a weird thing that happens where it feels like that can't
be sophisticated by definition, but something like this, where it's derived from folk music and it's singer-songwriter-y has to be.
And that's always been a little bit strange to me because, again, I just think there are some
really considered and interesting choices on those songs that are silly or campy or just
fall in a different... They're for a different purpose. They're for a party. They're not for an afternoon drive. But I don't, to me, that doesn't match up.
That doesn't mean that they're less serious. So that's been an interesting journey,
just seeing how people reacted to folklore because I really like it. But I just don't
think it's the most sophisticated music she's ever made. But it had a gray photo.
The Springsteen thing, it's interesting you brought him up's ever made but it had a gray photo the springsteen thing
it's it's interesting you brought him up because i mean i think he was the best at this specific
thing which was at least for the first 20 years where he'd put an album out and there was always
a specific reason he did it and you you got it right away and it always had a vibe and like when
he put out nebraska it was like oh my god it was
so depressing and in just all the lyrics and all that but it was very intentional because the next
album that he put out was born in the usa which is this big huge patriotic album and then it goes
the other way with tunnel of love which was the next album which was basically about him falling
in love with somebody and getting his heart broken. And the three albums are so different, but I, you know, it was intentional and it does seem like she
has a little bit of that where each album she's doing, there's a specific reason she wants to do
it. Now. I never know with her, how calculated all of it is. Cause I don't think with Springsteen,
I don't think he was thinking of it from a marketing perception standpoint.
It was just whatever kind of mood he was in.
And with her, it seems like a combo of mood plus what she's probably learned from Madonna
and some of these other people who have to constantly reinvent themselves.
So she's like trying to tweak the public character and whatever point of her career she's at
musically with the choice. But I think she's
navigated that as well as probably anybody in the internet era. She's always been able to
stay interesting, which most people can't do it. They can't do it for more than five years.
Yeah. I mean, this is always what it comes down to for me with taylor is that this is her eighth
album and i think they've all been really good and there's not a lot of people in my lifetime
that have done that like eight huge albums that all made a big impact all did different things
all have songs that people still remember and still play like that's some people don't even
get to eight albums some people don't get to four albums right yeah she's impressive i gotta say
it's been interesting watching my daughter's relationship with her too because my daughter
obviously loves this stuff and she's been out like two different times over the last five years but
then back in which i i think that's a lot of people's experience, but you mentioned the YouTube thing.
I do think that's something with like your generation and below where with concerts and
stuff really for the last 14 years. So it's probably one generation above you, maybe everyone
35 and under where they're able to see their favorite bands, all this awesome footage of them performing.
Like when I was in college,
when the band was in town, you went to see it.
If you didn't see it,
maybe they played on a late night show.
Maybe they played on 120 minutes on MTV
or like one of those types of things.
But for the most part,
we didn't really get to see them perform at all. And that was such a huge appeal of going to the concert. It was like,
oh wow, we get to see these, these, these people play. And now it's like, there's so much footage.
Like I can't even imagine how many Taylor Swift songs are probably on YouTube, right? There's
probably tens of thousands that you can just digest. So I think that's different. I don't know if that's better
or worse. Yeah. Cause there's no mystery. Yeah. It's all accessible. And it's interesting because
I think there's a lot of, um, there's bands that were either like a little bit before my time.
Like I, I love the, the chicks formerly known as the Dixie Chicks um and I was I was too young
for them the the prime of the first time around but you know there's a great documentary about
them yeah and you can feel like you were there and that was kind of, you know, I already listened. I listened to the albums, but I didn't have the,
where does this group fit kind of in culture reference points with them
until the documentary.
Even like, I love Oasis, which is totally weird.
Like I'm not that demo.
First of all, that's not weird at all.
They had really good songs.
Like they were really good songwriters.
I'm not surprised you like them.
There are so...
Right.
And the reason that I feel that way
is because there's a good Oasis doc.
And you can see how people respond to them.
You can see how wacky they are.
You can see them fighting.
And you can see them performing.
And I do think that...
I don't think that we're going to see really
anybody who's reached a certain level, not think about how do I get this on video? How do I get
this on some sort of platform so that people can consume it in that way? Because even though,
yeah, like people my age, probably most of us go to a lot of concerts, have some form of
opportunity to, you know, in normal times, see a band or a singer that we love when they come into
town. But it's getting even easier, right? Because if you're in a place where Netflix wants that,
then you can put it there and everybody can see it. You know who Oasis was
as a football player?
I'm trying to think.
Antonio Brown.
That's terrible.
No, like super talented
own worst enemy.
Couldn't stay out of their own way.
The relationship of those two brothers,
they just couldn't get past it.
It was so
volatile. Yeah. It prevented them from having this, you know, 25 year career because ultimately
they were great songwriters and they were great together and it just couldn't last.
They just couldn't pull it off. Like Antonio Brown. I mean, for a variety of reasons, it's not going to happen, but this was a guy who is on pace to be the third best
receiver of all time. It was Jerry Rice. It was Moss. And then it was going to be Antonio Brown
and he's not that old and he's done. He's out. He is too many baggage. Too many things have
happened. Oasis was done within, I don't know, six years that they should have been around for 20. It's a bummer. Similar Twitter habits too. Similar, like just people in their lives
being like, Oh my God. What? I mean, the Gallagher brothers are all time. Believe me, it was just as
crazy in the nineties watching it happen. Be like, Oh no, these no these guys um there's an interesting go-go's documentary on
showtime that you should check out oh i haven't seen a music music documentaries yeah they're
they you know obviously we're working on one for hbo right now a series but i think in general like
the uh the bar for music docs is starting to climb a little bit and there's we're hitting a point
where i think most people who did anything at least have one at this point, there's mostly bad, but then there'll be some good
ones out there too. So it really depends. That's the thing is that there's, I think there was a
whole wave of just let's get something out. Always super infomercially. Like there, you know,
there's something about, yeahstreet Boys or whatever.
And that happened really quickly.
But I hope that people start kind of revisiting those
and doing them for real.
Because there's a whole...
I think there's a whole wave of, you know,
the pop stuff that I grew up with,
which is sort of late boy bands, Britney era into the Avril Lavigne,
Ashley Simpson kind of like female driven pop that there is a lot there.
And I think at the time it was just as just such like a sort of us weekly
era. Who are they dating? What's going on?
What's the drama?
Who's having a falling out?
Who's dating Wilmer Valderrama this week?
That no one really ever asked the questions of like,
okay, where are these people being placed within pop music?
Like, who are the influences?
What's the goal here?
Like, what, you know,
there were people sitting in rooms thinking about what
they wanted out of those careers for those people and those people themselves had their own goals
and and their own musical interests and own things that they wanted to accomplish and i just think
it's super i mean i i think it's starting to happen but it's totally wide open there's so
many forces in play to prevent somebody from doing
a documentary, which is something we've been dealing with the last couple of years. But
you know, you have the company that owns the music. Sometimes it's a different person that
owns some of the IP, but then you have the actual artists and the people protecting them.
So, you know, like the, an unbelievable documentary would be Britney Spears, right?
You could do a whole documentary built around Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake and her
at the peak.
And then when it unravels and it would be an unbelievable two hours of somebody did
it correctly.
Guess what?
It will never happen.
Nobody will ever see that documentary because he's not going to be in it.
He's not getting interviewed for it. She's not getting interviewed period. And then the people
around her will be like, yeah, we're not doing this. So it's just this idea that's just kind of
over here and in the ether that will just never happen. And meanwhile, it'd be amazing.
I wonder if maybe people do books. Maybe that's a little easier.
Or maybe it'll be us doing an audio podcast about it.
Who knows?
Someday.
Nora, this is a pleasure.
I hope your first BS podcast experience went well.
We can hear you on Sunday nights with Clark
and then popping up a couple other times
on a couple different Ringer feeds, right?
And plus we can read you on the website, ringer.com.
Absolutely. Bingo. All right. Good to see you. Thank you.
All right. Thanks to Spotify. Thanks to FanDuel. Thanks to SimpliSafe. Remember,
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See you this weekend.
We'll be back Sunday night, me and Rosillo.
Until then. I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them.
On the wayside, on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them.