The Bill Simmons Podcast - NBA Playoff Chaos, the Positionless Awards Problem, Caitlin Clark vs. LSU, and Inexplicable NBA Stories With Ryen Russillo and Van Lathan

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Bucks' decisive win over the 76ers, the Warriors coming up short vs. a Nuggets team without Nikola Jokic, the Mavericks playing themselves out of the playoffs, and the updated NBA playoff picture (3:13), before discussing the upcoming shift to positionless All-NBA teams and 2022-23 All-NBA arguments (33:19). Finally Bill and Ryen are joined by Van Lathan to discuss LSU beating Iowa in the NCAAW championship game, Caitlin Clark’s impact on women’s basketball, the strangest NBA story lines leading up to the playoffs, and more (1:06:42)! Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Ryen Russillo and Van Lathan Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, Sunday NBA chaos, women's basketball? Yeah, we're talking about that too. It's next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right.

There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday Night Hockey deliver unreal plays, the biggest goals, can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best. They're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey.

It's on Monday. It's on Prime. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season

because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong.

You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff,

it's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit fanduel.com slash BS to download America's number one sportsbook.

The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Put up a new Prestige TV podcast tonight.

Me and Sean Fantasy and Joanna Robinson broke down episode two of Succession. Another good one. So that is up. Have a new Rewatchables episode coming on Monday night. As always, check out the ringer wrestling show for all of the WrestleMania 39 reactions. It was a two day event.

It was in Los Angeles. I went last night with my son. It was our fourth WrestleMania. I hope he'll keep going with me. He's going to be 16 next year. It's probably 50-50. I mean, the 30 secret is your kids want to hang out with you

until they hit about 15, 16 range. And then you kind of have to talk to them and hang out with you. That's one of my parenting tips for you. It's a little emergency parent corner for you. But we went last night. We had a great time. We missed tonight. We did not go. Cody Rhodes, everybody thought he was going to win the WWE title. He did not. Roman Reigns kept it. Still putting together the longest bad guy wrestling run for the title champ that I can remember. Amazing stuff. But it was a really good two-day event for them. And we've talked about this on this podcast,

but we were wondering when the WWE was going to get sold. Got announced today. They're getting sold to Endeavor. If you remember on this podcast, I predicted that was the favorite to get them. It made the most sense because they have UFC and now you put UFC, WWE together. You're in the live event business with both of them.

You can send out whatever for the IP. You can rent it out to streamers, however you want to do it. That's a one plus one equals three. I always thought they made the most sense. We'll see how much they paid for it. But pretty dramatic couple of years for WWE. I assume Vince McMahon is out.

I assume Nick Khan and Triple H will be running it a la Dana White as a combo. And that would be my guess, but who knows? The WWE continues to surprise us. Anyway, that's it for my little WWE interjection other than I still love going to WrestleMania. 80,000 people in a football stadium watching guys jump off of things

and beat the hell out of each other. Still works. 2023, still a good recipe. Speaking of good recipes, I have Rosillo coming on this podcast. We're going to talk about Sunday Night Chaos. We're going to talk about the crazy all-NBA changes that they just made, started next season.

We brought in Van Lathan to talk about Kaitlyn Clark and women's basketball. Is that having a moment right now? And then a bunch of NBA storylines. So this is a big, action-packed, meaty, juicy podcast. Let's get to it. Let's bring in Pearl Jen. All right, we're taping just this top part of the podcast. It was almost 8.45 Pacific time.

Russell and I wanted to wait until a bunch of basketball stuff shook out tonight. And then my son kidnapped me for the end of WrestleMania as well. Let's start with the Bucks. They handed it to Philly. Philly was playing. Philly seemed to have, I don't know, some incentive. And Milwaukee just looked really good.

And I think you and I are seeing this Philly thing the same way where it looks like it looks like the arrow is pointing in the wrong direction for them. What are you seeing? We could probably do that snapshot with any of the contenders, right? And the reason we do this is we have expectations for him.

But, you know, I'm a broken record on this one. I just think there's a level that Harden needs to be at intensity-wise that he doesn't understand or he's incapable of. Like, Drew Holiday's on you. So guess what? You're going to have to lock in a little bit. The around-the-back pass where Drew figures it out. You know, these pocket passes where they get kicked.

Again, you get to keep the ball. Second second half there was back-to-back possessions where one he got stripped that led to a three and then he threw a pass out to the wing and that got picked off because they knew it like all right let's go you know like there's there's an intensity uh a locked in this that you need to have and i think the most important thing in the four games that philly and milwaukee have split uh so far this season again a couple of them are so early. One of the first one was the first game of the season. They do a better job with Embiid and not let him get to the free throw line. Six and a half free throw

attempts per game in those four. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, the one that the Sixers won, 133 to 130, the Bucks had that game, and then the Sixers basically played, what what 10 good minutes in the fourth quarter

and they kind of stole it but if you just did this like who's won every quarter piece of this it does feel like the Bucks have a little bit of advantage

it's funny later in the podcast we talk about MVP and I was saying how I thought Giannis blew it on Thursday night and then you watch

Giannis tonight it was 33-14-6 he was easily unquestionably, the most impactful player in the game. And you start thinking, oh, fuck him. We're just overthinking this.

He's the best player. They have the best record. Why are we talking ourselves out of Giannis for the MVP? I did have a couple of those moments. How about you? I've never wavered. And honestly, I'm shocked every time you wrote them off, even earlier in this podcast.

You're like, oh, that's done. I don't know what FanDuel's doing. I don't know why the odds are doing that. Maybe the straw poll that came out that had Embiid in the lead, which was good news for the Embiid part of it, but like the Embiid people always argue, I test. You're not going to want to argue that after today's game

because there's never a time where you're like, let me switch into Giannis. You guys want to switch into him and attack him? Never. So I've had moments where I thought he was going to be my vote. I've had moments where I thought he was going to have my vote. There was two months there where I did think it was Jokic, although sometimes when I watch Denver without him,

I'm like, is this team any good? But then we'll get to the Golden State win, which was really impressive for them. I don't know why you or anyone else would just rule Giannis ineligible for this. He's missed 16 games. He's played 32 minutes a day, a game. I think for in terms of his other two MVP seasons, this feels, I don't know, from an impact standpoint of people talking about him during the season,

of big signature games and big moments. It doesn't have a lot of that, which I think really helps. It is a narrative award to some degree, and he's won twice. There's never been a sense like, oh, this is the Giannis season. It's always really been about him beating Jokic for a few months now, oh, this is the Giannis season. It's always really been about him beating Jokic for a few months now.

And those are really the reasons. But if we're just talking about, I think everybody, we said this to talking to Rob the other day on the pod about, if you're just saying who's the best player in the league, it's Giannis. Oh, it was with Kevin Wilds. What player do you fear the most in the playoffs? It's Giannis. Is Giannis having a good enough season to win the award?

Sure. It does seem like a little bit of an overthink. To me, I still haven't decided what I'm doing with a week left and we're running out of games. I'm not sure if Denver really has even that much of an incentive to give a shit about this last week of the season at this point.

This is going to hurt Jokic. Look, people can't get past it because if Jokic, or excuse me, if Embiid had gone for 48 against Denver in the game he didn't play, that would have been it. And I do think that momentum leaks into our heads

a little. And I'm talking about collectively everybody that's voting. When I was reading the straw poll piece on ESPN.com, I couldn't believe how many voters admitted to Tim that they felt like yokich really had to do something spectacular to warrant being the fourth guy ever to win his third in a row you're like wait you admitted it like maybe subconsciously it's hanging around and i do think that that's part of the yannis thing is that we get bored i'm not saying saying you and me, but I don't know. Sometimes I think it's human nature and they can't avoid it. It's three great candidacies and yet you can

poke holes in all that. Remember we were talking about, do we do pretend we're in high school debate and you just argue for three minutes, the candidacy for each guy. Maybe we should do that next week. You can make really good cases for each guy. And just in a nutshell, it's Giannis, best player in the league. He's on the best team. Done. Jokic, best offensive player in the league. Has the worst supporting cast that he's lifted the best. And they're the number one seed. Embiid has had the most dominant kind of stretches moments of anybody where you just watch and go, wow, that guy is completely overpowering. I can't believe how good he is.

That would be the case for him. His team's the weakest, I think, out of the three. Denver's only one win above them. But the Milwaukee versus Philly, I thought Philly might match, especially after that 1-30, the 33-1-30 game. I thought, okay, this is good for Philly. Like, there's a certain pace they can play

against Milwaukee and, you know. But after watching today, I'm with you. Some stuff alarmed me, especially on the Harden side, where I do feel like if Holiday really wants to not take Harden out, but at least limit what he does. And as you said, they can really pull away and bead from going to the line 14 times, 18 times, whatever. Then that just puts a lot on Maxie and Harris and guys that I don't really trust, right? Maxie I have no concern with because I think that dude is fearless and he has been so important to them.

And I think even tonight he was terrific. I just can't believe it. In a playoff series down 2-1 at home where Harden doesn't have it and you need like a 30-point game from Maxie, you trust him that level yet? I mean, it's hard to say when it's not on his resume, but I guess for the same reason that you're doubting him because he hasn't done it,

I don't know that I would be like, I don't expect it to happen. I think that guy can just go off, man. I really do. I understand what you're saying. I guess I just watched with Harden. If Drew Holiday is your primary defender, and granted they switched it later on, wouldn't you be like hey i

can't dick around as much i mean you're never true is not going to take hard now hard is too good for that you're never going to take a dude like this i think out of a temper unless yeah certain certainly but this is you know there's other times too in this game where it was still a game where i thought okay brooke has dropped so low and there's no cutters. What are you cheating at? Embiid would get it going from the free throw line a little bit. When he gets that free throw line catch, it's

fucking over. He's just going to make it every time. It's so good. I thought, does Brooke need to cheat up a little bit? Is that something he needs to do? Then I thought maybe they're happy with this. They're still okay giving him up that shot, which feels like a layup for Embiid

because they're not exposing themselves to getting into that foul trouble. Like, you know, again, I don't know the answer as I'm watching it. I also thought Bud tonight, man, he subbed Giannis in when Embiid went out at the end of the third quarter. And I was going through how they sub out Giannis

and it depends a lot too on the game and like, do they need him? Like those times they'll sub them out in the third they'll close with them in the third they'll start them with the fourth they'll start them later in the fourth but he put him back in with 147 to go when Embiid came out and Giannis went on a 7-0 run and it was just like those little things where these coaches are so married to their fucking substitution patterns that it was like no this is going to be wide open for him. Giannis goes off and you could argue

that's when they won the game. There's still the question of the best five guys for Philly that I think they, you know, deep down, they're probably hoping McDaniels was going to sneak in there because of what he brings to the table.

Yeah, I think that one's done. He was 0 for 4 tonight. And he just makes dumb plays. He makes dumb plays. Remember when they traded for him, we questioned at the deadline. We were like, alright, here's a guy. I get it. He's talented. But here's a guy who's never been in a big game in his

life, right? And you're just throwing him into this and hoping that he's going to be your win guy. So, you know, Yang can have it sometimes. He was 0 for 2 today. They got, they got a weird, weird boost from House. And Reed, as usual, had his like 12 minutes where he goes nine for nine with nine rebounds. And then you don't see him again. But in general, the Melton's the only sub I feel like that I, I, I trust that all those guys so that's another thing when they

like once you get past the top three like what else am I getting who do I trust in a series when you need like even like Miami I don't know if Miami is hot garbage or not but they still have those random like Strussel look really good one night you know like they'll have random

dudes where in a series I'm not sure Boston's a great example of this. Boston has so many of these guys that on the right night, I'd be like, oh, cool. It's a Brogdon game. You know, there's just variance to them from game to game that I'm not sure Philly has.

So I don't know. I mean, on the other hand, Philly's kind of locked into the three seed. It's not like this was a do or die game. It's very similar to the Denver situation where they didn't really need the game today. And they're like, cool, let's try to win one without Jokic, get him some rest.

And that was probably the best I've ever seen them play without Jokic, right? Man, they were good tonight. No, I mean, Porter Jr. They were awesome. When Porter Jr. has it going on, it changes your thought of what Denver should be. Man, they were good tonight. No, I mean, Porter Jr. They were awesome. When Porter Jr. has it going on, it changes your thought of what Denver should be.

If Porter Jr. were going to be like that all the time and not have the inexplicable defensive lapses where it's just him not paying attention, it's one thing to get beat or a guy to hit a shot in your face. It's another one to just... I mean, he used to be super lost, obviously, when he started. But then I think the best part of this is just having Murray carry you like he's your substitute one. And even though they lost that Milwaukee game,

he went for 18 in the first quarter against that one. So any of this stuff where Murray is having kind of what looked like confirmations or reconfirmation of who he's been at times in some playoff games, I think is a huge positive. And Braun has been really good. And then Watson, the rookie, he just went out there and wreaked havoc everywhere. So

that was a really impressive win, I thought. Just because, considering Golden State, you know, they were looking for their first, what, three-game winning streak on the road all season, and that streak has not happened yet. They played with... I don't know, there was a real joy and an intensity with them.

Murray was, he finished the game 10 for 21. So if you didn't watch it, you hear us talking about it. I'm like, ah, it's 26 points, 10 for 21. It couldn't have been that great. But that fourth quarter really looked like Murray. Like the guy that we haven't seen since the bubble or the season when he got hurt. I thought that was an important win for them because Golden State really really went for it. I think they really

wanted it. And on the flip side, it was an alarming Golden State game. Now, Curry didn't have it. It's going to be hard for them to win on the road when he's 2-14 from 3. But in general, my fears with the Warriors are always can they rebound?

Especially without Wiggins. Well, they out-rebounded Denver by 10. That wasn't a problem. It was that they couldn't get stops again. And the glaring thing for me with them, you think like, oh, without Wiggins, who's going to guard the Tatum guy and stuff like that? The other issue they've had is guarding the Murray kind of creator point guard guys. And that's where you need Gary Payton. Payton, he played 11 minutes today.

He was a minus 12. But at least he's starting to look healthy. But without him, who guards those guys in that team? Murray was doing whatever he wanted down the stretch. So they have multiple holes defensively. And everybody they play in the playoffs has one of those guys. They have the creator point guard, or they have the Tatum type. There isn't a team that doesn't have one of those guys.

I kind of like Gary Payton's minutes tonight. They're a little Rob Williams-esque, where you're just out there, and you notice somebody's wreaking havoc, and he's making it hard, and other things. And one of those jumpers Porter hit. It was a turnaround jumper, and Payton played awesome defenses by giving up the size. So of those jumpers Porter hit. It was a turnaround jumper and Peyton played awesome defenses by giving up the size. I could have been missing it.

Maybe there was some other stuff. This is such a weird West because... I'm going to ask you this right now. Do you know how many teams are above 500 on the road in the West? I used to know the answer to this question when it was just Sacramento. Is that still the case?

You still know the answer to it. Sacramento is the only team in the West with a winning record. Denver's 500. The Clippers are 500. And everybody else is below 500. Because good offense travels. I guess that's the only thing I can think of. I'm not 100% crossing off the words in my head yet.

But with no resolution in this Wiggins thing, which you and me and Van talk about later in the podcast, I don't see it. I don't see a path. I haven't seen it all year. It really scares me when teams suck on the road this violently. It's a terrible, terrible sign for the playoffs. It's a terrible sign when a team can't just put together like a little six gamer, right?

Just look good for two weeks. Like Philly's season turned around, even though they'd already been playing well when they had that West Coast trip. And they just kind of ran the West Coast trip and made us think, oh, got to take that team seriously. Milwaukee won the, what, 16, 17 straight, whatever that was. The Celtics started out the season 24 and five. You got to show something for at least like a week and a half.

And they've just never showed it at any point. So now we're a week away from the season started. There's a real chance that they could end up in the, in the play-in if they don't get their shit together this last week. And we have no idea what the Wiggins thing, and I just don't see it. I think they have too many young guys and too much uncertainty and Peyton coming off an injury. I don't see it. And it, it hurts me to say to say, but I think they're going to, I think they would, to me, they would be an underdog in the Sacramento series. Vegas will have them as a favorite, but I think Sacramento would just outscore them. I don't think they'll have any

matchup in that series that where they're not going to be, they're going to be able to guard the Aaron Fox in that series. Who's going to be guarding them? I'm just not as down on them as you are. I think it's been like timing of the pod. They would have won six in a row if they hadn't turned it over twice and Towns hits the three. That's the only loss in the previous six games. So that would have been six in a row and then lose by two points at Denver.

Hold on. Hold on. Super sloppy down the stretch. Why did they lose that game? Because Draymond didn't want to get fouled. To me, that was Draymond's offensive, whatever the hell's going on with that dude. He didn't want to just hold on the ball and get fouled. He panicked past it and they got a steal

and they got a turnover. But the fact that he's just an offensive zero from a scoring standpoint, I think does hurt them. You don't think so? The road record thing that you point out, there's no other team that would have that road record where I'd be like, no, no, no, keep an open mind. I would never, ever do it.

I would never, ever do it about any other team. So you're right. You got me. I just, you know, I wouldn't be writing a line in ink across most of these teams in the West. And I think that's kind of the lesson of these last few weeks. I mean, there's a couple times you looked at the Clippers going, all right, I can't doubt that. And like the other night, I was sitting at home

and I'm watching the Lakers beat Minnesota, and the Clippers were up 20 on Memphis in the rematch, and then Memphis put it on them. But like there was this moment where I went, what would be funnier than the L.A. teams finding a way to make all the noise in the Western Conference, where on paper we were wondering if it could happen before the season started, maybe not so much with the Lakers,

but certainly the Clippers and all the doubts, all the ups and downs. And then they both just kind of figured it out at the end. So you got me on gold. If you want to cross them off, you're probably right. I just can't do it. I 98% want to cross them off.

I know you do. There's 2%. It's just like where Wiggins comes back and all of a sudden they look fine. And then they have the chip on their shoulder because everyone crossed them off. I just, I want to see them do well. I want to see them try to defend the title.

You know, I keep waiting for it to happen. And it's just now we're in game 79, you know. And them against Phoenix with the team that they have right now, I think is not a good matchup in any way, shape or form. And then Sacramento, as I said earlier, I think if I'm Sacramento, I'm dying to play Golden State. Let's do it. Let's, let's do it right now. Wow. You don't know what you're getting with Wiggins yet. And we're just going to try to put it on you and get crowds. And, you know, we have a good home crowd against this team that can't

win on the road. Let's go. Let's do this right now. Um, versus Clippers. I, you know, there's been a lot of rumors about the Clippers trying to move into that matchup. I think the clear thing is that Phoenix is sitting there at four in a really good spot where they might get the Clippers. Who knows with Paul George, I'm going to guess he's not going to be ready for most of that round. Or you get Golden State, who's been in a lot of flux. And meanwhile, there are the Lakers, which we talk about later in the podcast, but the Lakers are now tied in the lost column

with the Clippers and Golden State. You could see the Lakers could jump all the way up to five at some point. If you're Phoenix, who are you rooting for out of those three to not play? That you don't want to play? Yeah. I'm giving you the Clippers. I'm giving you Golden State.

I'm giving you this weird Lakers team. Golden State with Wiggins? Listen, I'm saying right now. I don't know if I have Wiggins or not. It's 50-50. Wiggins might be there, might not. Yeah, I'd probably, if everything as it is right now,

the Lakers are the easy pick that you would not want to play, right? I think you're right. Well, we talk about them later. A team that they might not be able to pick is the Dallas Mavericks because Dallas might not be in the playoffs. They lost the fucked up 2023 team championship game to Atlanta.

Both of them brought an incredible amount to the table. Dallas had four, three free throws down to it, made two of them, send it to overtime and then lost. Anyway, it was one of the dumbest fourth quarters and overtimes I've watched in a while. Dallas is now 37 and 42 on the season and give up 130 points every game now. It seems that if you can't score 130 points on Dallas, maybe you shouldn't be in the league.

It doesn't seem like Dallas is going to make the playoffs and that you watch OKC, who just seems to be running on the fumes of their fumes at this point. They're only a game up on them. So who knows how it's going to play out? Do you even think Dallas wants to make the playoffs? Like deep down? Like if you're Mark Cuban, are you like, oh man, if we could just get in?

Or are you thinking, oh, if we don't get in, we got, like right now they have the 10th pick. If we don't make it, we got like right now they have the 10th pick. We don't make it. 10th pick is pretty nice. Yeah, that's a look. Kid wants to make it. The staff wants to make it. I'm sure Luca wants to make it.

Maybe they want to make it so that Luca can't say that we didn't make it. Cuban, I feel like is the kind of guy sometimes be like, let's just lace him up and then see what happens. But I also think he's so analytic about everything. And I don't mean just numbers him going, we're not beating anybody. So let's keep the pick. Yeah. They, if they're,

you know, if there's a chance to keep it as opposed to being in the playoffs, then it's gone. Well, there's an amazing scenario where they could make the plan, lose the nine, 10 game, and then give the Knicks the 11th pick,

which is not a nothing pick. Although the Knicks gave away the 13th pick last year for reasons that are made unclear. But the 11th pick, we've seen teams hit in a big, big way. Atlanta, I don't... Do you know what to say? Did you see this stat? This is Cousin Sal's

favorite NBA stat of all time. Atlanta has been within one game of 500 for 31 straight games. So is that thing still going? Because I think it was what? It was 13 games, so they were 13-13 in their last 26 then all the way down to like 1-1.

So that's still good? I saw it the other day. It's 31 straight. If Dallas had beaten them today, it would have ended, but now they're back to 39-39. You know what I'm learning through this is I still like their talent. And I think DeJounte Murray has some moments where it is fucking nice. It is really nice to watch.

And it's kind of clear that they're trying to get Trey off the ball a little bit more with Quinn. And if you look at the game logs, it was something like, because I was watching a bunch of these games, Trey's had some duds because he's clearly not super into it. But when you look at his total shot attempts, he was kind of chilling out a little bit. I know we touched on this a few weeks ago.

And then it was like, now I want to start taking my shots. What I'm noticing now is he reminds me a bit of some of my buddies that do sober Januaryuary and then the first weekend in february it's like is this really worth it if you're gonna go this hard and so when i know you're talking to kyle right now or one of your buddies who who is that directed trust me a couple of my buddies like you know uh far worse than kyle but like i didn't want to say it that way like kyle's bad so let's just cut that out. No, keep it in, Kyle.

Kyle's great. I don't want to even make it say that as if Kyle needs to be compared to me. My point is, as soon as Trey gets the ball back after these experimental times where DeJounte initiates the offense, he's like, fucking Jägermeister, you know? He's upside down in the corner with two people holding his legs. Put the beer tap in my mouth. They're just a mess. I got to say, I think that was a huge mistake by Quinn Snyder.

I just been waiting. Just waiting for a better job. It's like, here's your five-year deal and it's a lot of money. I just have been waiting. Just waiting for a better job. It's like, here's your five-year deal and it's a lot of money. I'm like, cool. I bet I can get this elsewhere.

I'm just going to wait it out. Like, he could be coaching Toronto and, you know, this Nick Nurse thing, which we didn't even talk about. Super weird.

I've never heard so many whispers in so many different corners for everybody being like, yeah, he's out of here. It's been going on all season. It's been going on all season. It's going on all season. Now we have a team. There's already a team that he might be going to. It's like, yeah, he's going to Houston.

He is? How can he go to Houston? Houston's getting rid of literally everybody that works for them at the end of the season. So is somebody coming in to hire him? I don't know what to believe, but it does seem like he's out. But if I'm Quinn Snyder, I'd rather coach what to believe, but it does seem like he's out. But if I'm Quinn Snyder, I'd rather coach Toronto than Atlanta, wouldn't you? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the size track.

It's not even, not even thinking twice about it. Or what about, what happens if the Philly job becomes available? Because, you know, they stink at the, in the playoffs or there's all kinds of,

I just would have waited. But like, oh, the Atlanta job's open. Cool. Yeah. At first I thought it was because you got so many extra years. And I was like, well, he's probably going to do a good job wherever he waited. Oh, the Atlanta job's open? Cool. At first I thought it was because he got so many extra years. I was like, well, he's probably going to do a good

job wherever he goes. Yeah. I don't know. Unless they're talking about you're going to have way more of a role here than just as a coach or whatever. It's probably kind of unfair to think that they were a completely different team.

I'm with you. It trades like a house you're trying to sell. Like, what happened when the basement flooded that time? No, it's fine. It's fine. Did somebody die here? Yeah, it was like, well, wow. No, you died on the way.

Like, 1944, a while ago? Well, it was five years ago, but it's fine. It's fine. You should move in. Nurse, $8 million a year. Did you know that? What do you mean, now? Oh, yeah.

They leaked the salary. Well, yeah. It might have been out, though, because it was an extension done in 2020, September of 20. And it was four years and i guess it was 32 million so i was like damn he is on the high side of things and i would expect if nick doesn't come back to coach toronto you know what he should do is you go on tv for a year he'd be fucking awesome and then he'll have his pick of anywhere because he's going to be so good on tv which is where owners go to find new head coaches, television.

And so, you know, if it's not working in Toronto because the team is tuned to Matt, he's been with the organization for 10 years, five as assistant, five as the head coach. Even though I think we all think he's a terrific coach, maybe the message is just stale and everybody just wants to move on. And usually these guys want to coach right away again, but he'll be so good on TV if he ever decides to do it. It could actually increase his juice. It's also tough when the guy wins the title. Tough to get notes from the

front office at that point. You're like, hey, what about Ken Burch? Maybe a little more minutes for him? Shut's like, shut up. I won the title four years ago. No, thanks. You think that's their downfall?

Send your notes this way. I don't know. Not enough Ken Birch. Maybe he's not near the team anymore. Playoff picture really quick before we get a break. Milwaukee against whatever comes out of this Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago combo, unless one of them beats Miami. Boston.

So we got the, we haven't, I haven't said this to you yet, we got the playoff seedings wrong, or I did. Winning a division doesn't matter at all it turns out. I still don't know even why we have divisions, but it's going to be Boston, Miami right now unless the 8 seed beats Miami. Philly, Brooklyn, 3-6. Cleveland, New York,

4-5. So that stuff hasn't changed. The only thing that's really changed is that Brooklyn every week that goes by and the Bridges piece of it too, where the ceiling of him offensively, I don't think anybody thought that this was in there. I certainly didn't. But you think of them in a series where they have rim protection, they have a bunch of guards, they have a million wings that they can throw at scorers.

And then Bridges kind of is a crunch time guy for them. Whether he can do that in playoffs, I don't know. Anyway, they would be the sixth seed against Philly. But the West gets more complicated. Denver against the four teams, who the hell knows. Memphis would be against the Lakers right now, which has to suck if you're Memphis. Where you're like, what? I thought we were playing like the Pelicans. We have to play

Anthony Davis and LeBron James. And we're going to have, Jesus, Sacramento Clippers and then Phoenix Golden State would be the matchups right now. So the Memphis has to be like Jesus, right? I know. And you know, the weird thing weird thing is we've just penciled Denver in here and the odds now with, you know, what are we at? 72, 78, four games to go for those teams at the top. If Denver had lost to Golden State tonight and Memphis had held on to the lead against Chicago,

it'd be 27, 20. They'd be one back in the loss. One back. I think they'd play Jokic if Memphis wins, probably, would be my guess. Maybe. The other lesson, though, quick before we go to the West here, is Chicago winning that game by 21 after being down

20 and putting it on them. They're just playing a different way right now. When you stack them up against all the other 7, 8, 9, 10 teams, granted, I don't like Miami's offense, which more speaks to Dallas, the fact that they'd have 76 points in the first half

against Dallas. What's the final score? Oh, we held the heat to 76. No, no, no. That was the half. My dream scenario as a Celtic fan is that Atlanta gets to 76. No, no, no. That was the half. My dream scenario as a Celtic fan is that Atlanta gets to 70. That's such a huge win for the Celts. If it's

Hawks 7 and then Miami or Chicago in that 8 spot, either of them at least make Milwaukee sweat for I don't think either of them is a sweep. Atlanta, Boston just matches up great against and has played really well. So I think for Miami, if Chicago can somehow get in that eight seed and it's Miami, Chicago, I think I would pick Chicago in that game.

I just think they're playing way better than Miami. It really seems like they've found something and it's not, you know, not just a couple of weeks now. It's, it's been, I don't know. I think they're seven and four in their last 11, but they've had some good wins in the last, I would say month. Um, so we'll see. Anyway, uh, when we do this a week from now, we will know all the matchups. Let's take a break. We'll come back. We want to talk about the all NBA stuff. We're going to bring in Van to talk about Caitlin Clark, women's basketball, what happened

to Andrew Wiggins, a whole bunch of things. So that's next. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this.

It's game day. All the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them.

Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer

with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey.

Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research.

And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, we're taping this part of the pod. It's four o'clock Pacific time. So if anything changes in the next couple hours, don't blame us. Let's talk about the CBA seven-year deal. A lot of stuff was announced. Most of it was good. I don't understand the in-season tournament and I don't understand the positionless All-NBA teams. And I think I'm more upset about

the positionless All-NBA teams, but I think I'm more upset about the positionless all-NBA teams. But the in-season tournaments seem to be a bigger deal. You pick. What do you want to start with? Let's do the awards first. Because I think one part of everybody likes with a 65 game minimum. Yeah. So, I think if they had asked me pick a number, what do you think the right number is?

I think I would have been 64 or 65. That feels right. Maybe even 64. But 65, same ballpark where you got to play basically three-fourths of the season. It opens the door a little bit for teams to just bring a guy out for one minute, do the AC green, where it's like you play 62 games, but there's three games you were, you basically rested, but you came on the court to knock down the one, one minute and came back out. But for the most part, I think their heart was in the right place with it. And

if you look at, I was doing all the all NBA homework this morning. Um, and so many guys are in the fifties and the low sixties, like it it that 65 game thing really will come into play next year and in i think mostly a good way right yeah i like it i think their heart is in the right place i think that's well said uh and i think it's going to be up to us as voters if somebody has five or six games where they came in for the ac green which was a joke by the way when it happened it was so lame it's the worst it's the worst. It's the worst streak of all the streaks. It's the worst. Watch the video of how lame it is. Other players are watching it going,

this is so lame, which I enjoy watching other people think it was lame. If that happens, then it's going to be up to the voters to be like, okay, he's qualified for the 65 games, but it felt like they rigged it a little bit. Maybe it won't be an issue. The top players,

you know, we just would like to see them play more. This year has been better than some of the previous years. But then there's like a Steph Curry part of me where I'm looking at what he means to this team and how good he's been when he's actually played and was he going to get to 55 or 56 games?

Like I may put him on one of the three teams. I'm probably leaning that way right now. When I start debating who I'd have fifth for thevp he's somebody i'm kind of like thinking about not sure i would do it but i'm thinking about it and it's going to be weird that in a year it's like no you're you're not allowed to but i do like i know you hate the position list thing i don't know if it's totally to test it okay we. Okay, well, go ahead then, because I'm not sure. I feel like it's unfair, but there's also parts of me in certain results of other years,

I'm like, why does this guy get to be at all NBA when he's clearly not one of the 15 best players in the NBA? But go ahead. First of all, we have an MVP ballot that basically decides who the most valuable five guys were in the year, and that's positionless, right? So if we're looking... My whole goal with this award stuff is it should be a snapshot of

the season, right? No, no different than how the Oscars should work on paper, how the Emmys, like why that's one of the reasons the Oscars has so many flaws. It's not a good snapshot. It doesn't pay attention to popcorn and comedy and, you know, action. It just is only this one specific type of movie making. Emmys does a little bit of a better job, but for the most part, if we're trying to do a snapshot, and I always go back to when I was doing my book, and I don't know what's going on in 1962, and you can patch together and you can watch different tapes.

One of the things I really liked was they all had to decide, all right, who was the best center? Who were the best two guards? Back in the day, there were only two teams. Who are the best four guards in the season? Now we're throwing that away and I'm not really sure why other than it was because Embiid finished second team last year and people got upset about it. this seems to be the most reactive to Twitter and Reddit of anything the NBA has ever done. I think there were easy solutions to it too. I wish somebody had asked me, like, why can't you just have, you can have a semi-positionless, you make sure you have one big and one pure guard and leave the other three spots open. At least that's more of a reflection. My thing with these teams is it should at least somewhat look like a basketball team. That was the whole reason they did that in the first place

was two guards, two forwards and a center, right? And that's how basketball was played a million years ago. And it's changed a little bit, but for the most part, everybody's got a big and a guard. And then you might have a Celtics situation where you might have Tatum and Brown and Brogdon and Derek White are all playing together with a center. Maybe they might even go small. But for the most part, there's a guard and a big, and then the other three can kind of come and go. Now it's like, all right, so we're going to have a first team NBA and it's going to be five guards because those were the five best players. That's idiotic. I don't get it.

I don't know. It's not, it's not like our all-star ballots where you have to pick two back court and three front court. Even if they had done some version of that two back court, two front court wild card, even that, but I don't know, man,

we, we did this for 75 years. We talked about this last year. Every year it was like Russell or Chamberlain, pick one. Who is the best player? Who's the first team center? In the early 2000s, KG, Duncan, Dirk, C-Web, who were the best two forwards? And people figured it out. And then you can go back and you can look at 01, you can look at 02, 03. And if you were one of the best two forwards in 01, 02, 03, you were fucking really good because it was a forward dominated league.

Now you would have 01, it would be Shaq, Kobe and three forwards. Is that good? I just, I don't like it. I really feel like they overreacted to the Embiid-Jokic thing. Shit happens. You're going to have years where you got to pick one or the other that's the whole point of having a hundred voters and having a choice you know do you think it's about the mb thing because look the mb campaigning has been going on now for two straight years there was another guy who called us out again by you know it's like this idea that anybody that voted for yokich last year is a fucking idiot with all these biases and then when Daryl called all of us out for not voting Embiid in the All-Star game, when all of us from Boston actually did vote him to be a starter, Daryl was like fucking 0 for 6 on his argument. And I don't know. I don't know if people felt so bad for Embiid about the whole thing.

I don't know if that's what happened. I don't know if that's what happened. I don't know, man. It feels a lot like... I think I've made the point, too, where I would get to the third team and I'd be like, why am I putting this guy at center when he's so not a top 15 player in the NBA? And that's why... So that's the argument against it,

that year where it's like the... Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears.

Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears.

Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears.

Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears.

Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears.

Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears.

Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But maybe you could get a little more expansive

with the concept of a big, but I also feel like we have so many good centers now. Like, look at the ballot this year. We already know who the three all-NBA centers are going to be. Sabonis is going to be third team. Like, if he's not, it's a crime. But Lopez and Bam would have been good backup choices for the center spot.

I don't know. Like this year, there's more good guards than forwards for whatever reason. So does that mean we're going to have nine guys? If we had done this system this year, there'd be nine guards this year and like three, four forwards, you know, Jalen Brown and Markkinen and guys like that are just out because people want to put in Dame Lillard and Curry. I wanted to at least look like a basketball team to some degree. And I just feel like they punted it. It's not just about feeling bad for Embiid. It was about the whole concept of people

didn't like that the number one and number two MVP choices couldn't both be on the first team of the NBA. That was the root of all this. But that's why we have the MVP ballot. And that's why we can look every year and you can look at who the best five guys in the league were, really the top 10 based on the MVP voting. And it's a really good snapshot of who mattered. And the All-NBA teams were a snapshot of like, it was a little more position centric. So I don't know.

I agree that the concept of positions have changed a little bit. And maybe there's some new way to think about them, but this wasn't it, in my opinion. I'm okay with it. But you make a good point about the center depth this year, as opposed to other years where when we would look at it, we would go over it. Again, I didn't have a vote back then, but I would just be like,

I just don't feel comfortable like writing this person down as one of the 15 best players. But traditionally with the position stuff, it is kind of cool to go back and look at it. But I mean, imagine if football decided, all right, we're just going to do the top 11 guys in the AFC

for All-Pro. That's what this is. We've got one tackle, seven receivers, three quarterbacks. So if you argue it that way it makes it look worse but you know i'm sure the pushback would be well that's ridiculous but i don't know like if we end up having four guards and a forward five guards or something because that's like that's the little thing i don't blame him for saying hey i should be all

nba this year he's not going to play enough games, and the team stunk. And just as an aside, I'm fucking good for about a year on Lillard updates. All right? I'm good. I'm good. I've gotten about 30 different Lillard updates on stories in about two weeks. Like, we got it. He's

awesome. He's definitely overcoming. He's had an awesome year. And by the way, it's not going to go away for a year because it's going to happen all summer. And who knows, something big could happen with it. But yeah, I don't know. The football argument makes the basketball one. But I guess when I looked at it, I wasn't like,

oh my God, I can't believe we're doing this. But you take this way, I don't want to say more seriously, but you're a steward of the history of it. I admittedly stupidly care about this. I actually wish I didn't care about it as much, but I do think the history of the game is one of the things that makes it special and the way the generations can be measured against each other in all these cool ways. I think it's what we lost in baseball to a big degree. It was one of the things we all loved about baseball. And in this case, I still don't understand the positionless argument because I do think

the sport does have positions, right? Jokic is a little positionless. We have a couple of players that we've never really seen people like them. Jokic is technically a center, but he also brings the ball up for them as a point guard, right? Magic, way back in the day, Magic wasn't really a point guard because on the other end, he always just guarded who the worst guy on the other team was, right? If he was guarding Isaiah Thomas, you were in trouble, right? They would go out of their way for that not to happen. So we've had positionless versions of what we're seeing now, really for the last 40 years. I don't really feel like it's that different this year. Some of the stuff the Raptors are

doing, Siakam's not a center, right? But they spent the first 50 games going super small and playing him at center. He technically could have been eligible at center for all NBA. None of us feel like he's a center. So I get it. There's some tweaks and maybe that's where you could have done the bigs and a guard and you could have made like small ball centers like Siakam or other centers. And that's all one spot and really categorize it better for the voters. But they just got lazy with it. And now we're going to be in a situation where we're going to have some first team all NBA that's got one forward and four guards, which I just think is

fundamentally dumb. If I'm the NBA though, I'm like, didn't everybody want this? Because it felt like this is what everybody wanted. Who's everybody? I don't know. I haven't kept track of it. I got to write that list down. I got to update the everybody list.

I'm still waiting to meet somebody who was super upset about the first team all NBA. Like somebody in my life like, oh man, I still can't get over what happened to Embiid. The ignominy of him being on the second team all NBA. Actually, you can text him right now. You do have somebody in your life. Well, he was the runner-up MVP. I would say that's more important than first team all NBA. I don't know. It just feels very trophy culture to me.

Hey, while we're talking about all NBA, so the big arguments left, we have the Embiid versus Jokic for that, for that, uh, center spot. I'll just, I'm going to quickly throw some of these.

I, is Luca, let's say they finish 38 and 44 or 39 and 43, and they don't even make the playing game. Would that change how you feel about Luca as a first team on BA guy, or you just have pencil then still, um, Would that change how you feel about Luka as a first-team OMBA guy, or are you just having pencil dents still? It's Luka versus what are my other options. If it were a tiebreaker, then yes.

But I don't think it's going to be a tiebreaker, and then it seems kind of stupid to me to go, oh, they finished a game out, and I would have had a first- them first team and now I won't. So that's why the standings thing, like sometimes I think it's important, but it's important in the comparison. It's not a rule. So I know you're a little more strict about it than I am. And I know for other voters, when I see that, they'll probably just say, no way.

You can't be first team if you're not even eligible for the play. You're an 11 seed. But there's also some other challenges with the other guards as well. Right? What were you going to do? Is SGA first team for you if Oklahoma City finishes 10 and then Doncic and Dallas is 11th? With a week left, again, we talk about this as a snapshot.

I have Luka and SGA as my two first team guards. And neither of them have a winning record, which betrays... Basically, one of my major rules with all of this was always, you got to have a winning record. You got to be in the playoffs. I guess the reason I'm tweaking it at least a little is this has been such a weird season from a record standpoint where we have, I don't know, 18 teams that are all within five games of each other. And at that point, it's just such an unusual season. I feel myself wanting to bend on

that a little bit. The SGA stuff, when you throw in his defense, which I think is really important, like if we're going to compare SGA and Luka, like SGA is a good defensive player who gets his hand on a lot of balls and is a big part of that weird defensive identity that they have, even though they have no rim protector at all. And there will be

games when you can light them up for 140, but that team at least gives a shit. But I probably have them dead even for the two guard spots. And if Luka does this thing where they're out of the playoffs and he just skips the last two games of the season, I don't know. I'm

monitoring it. But those are my two. Do you have Mitchell with Luka? Who do you have? I had Mitchell with Luka. Boy, that Knicks win in Brunson the other night. That was something else. No Randall. But I can map it out where I'm like, am I giving Mitchell too much credit for being a higher seed in the East

and a better conference this year over an SGA? And his team's good. He has a really good supporting cast. Mitchell. Wait, so you're using that as an anti-Mitchell argument because the team is good? I'm just saying his team's really good.

I think his team's way better than Luka's team. I'm flirting with Curry if he closes out the season strong like this. Uh, I mean, they're the five seed right now. I mean,

is Curry still alive for you for any of the guard positions? Or is it, is it too? He is. Okay. He is. I, right now I have Fox and Mitchell's second team.

And I have draw jaw third team. And I have Ja third team. And then that second, third team guard spot, I have Drew and I have Brunson and I have Curry. And I think if Curry gets to the 55 games and they get a four or five seed, I think he has to get it. I also am really, I know this isn't Brunson's fault, but it's just really weird to have two Knicks

in the all NBANBA teams. They're going to be like a five seed. I don't feel like they have two of the best 15 players in the league. In some ways, they've just been really healthy. But in the back of my head, if I was going to have two from a team, I want it to be from the Bucks or the Celtics or teams

or the Nuggets don't have a second choice. Drew's his advanced stuff is really good. The on off stuff with him, his net. We know how great of a defensive player he is. I think offensively,

this has been probably the most I've enjoyed watching him as an offensive player, even though it gets a little choppy at times. I don't know. He's been pretty durable. I had him locked in, but then the Brunson push, where Brunson's now at 24 a game, his clutch stats are

great. He's really had some best guy on the floor games and big moments against good teams. He's still alive for me too. I think Dame's out. Um, I, when you start shutting guys down with,

they weren't that far out of the playoff race either. It wasn't like they were 10 back, right? You look at that. I looked at the standings. They won today actually without him, but, um,

they were like four back in the loss column, even after they started tanking. So I, I just, that didn't sit right with me. So that's a, that's a tough one for minnesota because you know edwards has been sick like and apparently he was really sick the other night if you've been watching anthony edwards the last week although it started kind of late against golden state we were like what's going on with you

um didn't the team have a team bug like the whole team was sick yeah absolutely so you know that lakers game they get up 10 and then the lakers part of it where you know, that Lakers game, they get up 10, and then the Lakers part of it where, you know, when Anthony Davis is right, I actually have a Lakers question for you here in a second, but let me just kind of finish this point of that Portland win today doesn't make, Simon's didn't even play today, and Minnesota lost that game.

It was like some Kevin Knox stuff going on. Kyle Anderson kicked it through the... Kevin Knox, Shaden Sharp. Sharp was good. was so they were so confused that they got sharp got towns on him in a switch and eubanks came to set a pick and sharp's like i have towns on me we've already accomplished what we need like i don't i don't need my favorite least favorite things the nba is having the advantage and then switching out of the advantage uh but you know Memphis jaw is totally in it for me at this point I mean that was a really weird game it was like a 37 point turnaround at one point in that one they were down 20 uh or Chicago was down 20 to them and Memphis came back but Memphis has been playing a lot better lately so

the jaw one isn't even really there's no dilemma with that i'm with you on dame uh i have a bigger question for you though yeah because after that lakers memphis game a few weeks back when anthony davis fell down a million times and i couldn't handle it anymore i was like he's just gonna get hurt again since that broke up yeah since that point he's been incredible which is kind of what happens with me. Are you prepared? Because I think when people say the Lakers, if they have everybody look out, I'm open to that.

I'm also open to that they wouldn't get out of the play on weekend. I don't know necessarily what to do with them, but when they have this version of Anthony Davis, even though I like what they've done with a lot of the rotational stuff, not all of it, but I like it. Are you ready for what is possible? Because this might be one of your least favorite. If the Lakers were to win the West, I'm not saying it's up there with Buckner

and the 86 Mets, but I have to imagine that outcome of being one of your least favorite developments in recent history. No, I just don't like Laker fans. I mean, if they were like you though which is weird yeah I know we love each other deep down no I just don't think it's

realistic I don't think there's a world where they get through the playing games and then six straight weeks of the actual playoffs without Davis or LeBron going down I just don't see it if it happens, I'm sure it could happen,

but I would say it's like three to one, four to one odds that those two guys, LeBron gets hurt all the time now. He's old. Davis can get hurt twice in a game where you feel like his season's over. I just don't trust it.

But with that said, they're lurking as one of the more dangerous seven slash eight seeds that we've had because the playoff experience, we've seen what happens with refs and LeBron, how hard he is to officiate at this point of his career, the home crowds. It's a really dangerous, especially like if you're down three, two in a series, you got to go there for game six. If you're Denver, right? You're one eight. You're like, whoa, things are going great. Uh-oh. Now we're going to LA. It's game six. Jokic gets two fouls early. Who's carrying them? You know, that now it's like, all right, we're really going to find out what we got in Michael

Porter and Jamal Murray, because we have to now win this game on the road. So from that vantage point, wait, there's so much more dangerous than new Orleans or the Clippers, Minnesota, any of those teams. I see it. I just don't see them for three straight rounds. Yeah.

I think that's, I don't really think there's much to add to that. Cause I look, I don't think there's any Anthony Davis or any basketball person that thought Anthony Davis was just going to be bad at basketball all of a sudden. But when he puts together for a stretch like this, you're like, okay, wait. This shouldn't be a surprise

that they're really good on top of everything else when he's back and playing. Because when he's himself, he's easily a top 10 player in the league. One thing with them is the trades, this weird season they had, they do league. One thing with them is the trades, this weird season

they had, they do seem to have an identity now where they're big and physical. They have a bunch of guys who can get to the line. I really like Reeves. I don't know if we've ever talked about Reeves. Reeves is the classic, like if you don't

really watch basketball, you just think he's stereotypical white guy who shoots, right? He's like Herter. Or, you know, he's the shooter guy. And he's not. He's not like, well, Herter has now turned into

a complete basketball player. But you know what I mean? You just think like, oh, here comes the white guy and he makes corner threes. And he's actually the opposite. You know, he's really kind of a physical offensive player he bounces into dudes he's hard to officiate he gets to the line well i don't know that he's

hard to officiate he never gets any fucking calls he gets i should have phrased murdered he gets murdered especially especially when he's playing defense i know he he um i think he actually gets some free throws but there's just sometimes like if there's a collision and it's a tie, he seems to lose that tie all the time with the refs. Like there's times

where I'm just, I'm not even talking about like him going to the rim and getting fouled or whatever. I'm talking about those other plays where it's the collision and you're like, what are they going to give it to?

And I feel like he loses those all the time. I like when they have him with, with LeBron and Davis. Vando. And then. And then you put a point guard out there and Vanderbilt. And it's just like, it's an aggressive team.

Like it's a hard team to play. If you're soft, you know, that's a team that could overpower you a little bit at home. If you're not getting calls, you're on your heels with those guys. And then Davis, LeBron knows how to play. LeBron and Davis have been together now for four years and he really knows how to maximize some of the stuff he has.

So I definitely think they're a threat in round one, even round two. But man, to three straight doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So there's some guys that as the moment gets bigger, I'll be really interested to see who shows up. Like now you're counting on Rui Hachimar off the bench and people like that have never been

in any sort of meaningful game in their life. They have a few of those guys. The biggest thing is that getting rid of Westbrook unleashed them, which we were joking that it was going to happen for a while. Right. Just like removing that weird element. It's not even like he had a bad season.

He was just wrong for that team. You know, once they pulled that, just putting this eclectic group of dudes and not having those 28 to 30 minutes going to him really helped them. And then they made the key point with Davis, like Davis looks like Davis. So who are you more scared of, the Warriors or Clippers?

Warriors. Kawhi's on another level. He's been awesome now for a long time. Westbrook, like we mentioned before, was kind of needed. I do think it's kind of funny, like Clippers people doing victory laps about Westbrook. After he had 34 and he made all of his threes and he was in this great mood and he's high five everybody. And then it was like, well, who scores 30 and makes all their shots is in a bad fucking mood.

No, of course, he's happy. He just was awesome for two plus hours, which doesn't mean that he wasn't a pretty miserable. Like you went to some of those Lakers games. I went to a couple when he felt like he wasn't part of it. He wanted to be known. I mean, the record breaking night was fucking weird, man, where he was over it. So I think some of the criticisms about the vibes he was putting off can be accurate. Them.

It also can be completely accurate that he's way happier now and the stuff that was happening with the lakers isn't happening now because he feels like i don't know it's just tough to play off at davis and lebron if you can't shoot where if you're allowed to initiate a little bit more of the offense with the clippers and again with george being out now i don't know how lou was going to close if everybody was healthy it seemed like he was kind of over the westbrook thing closing that he started doing. And then it was an Eric Gordon thing. They've got a big option where they can be big or small, but the Clippers, anytime I start to buy in, something happens with them. And the Lakers feel a little bit like that, but the Lakers

have been really good now for about a month and their defense is, I think, fourth in the league in the last 15 games. So they, to your point, it feels like they have an identity with a lot of size, and if Davis is healthy, you have to take them seriously. I just think you're going to hate it way worse than you're telling us right now. I think them winning the West would really fuck you up. I don't like the Lakers.

Yeah, but it's more than you rooting against the Lakers. I just think to be so under the radar, off the radar, hey, they stink and look how bad the rotation is and they're not beating anybody to like, if they take care of business and knock somebody off in a higher seat in the first round, you're going to be like, what? Is this really going to happen? But for three straight series with their health concerns, not to say you're dismissive, but to just pencil them in to be healthy would also be the wrong assumption.

Yeah, but I would start getting excited about Celtics-Lakers too. Don't forget that part. Celtics-Lakers is at least not dead now and we would be the favorites in that series. We'd be like, wow, we can grab the championship belt back from the Lakers-Celtics rivalry. Take it back.

Wait. Let's ask you this then. Would you root for the Lakers to win the West knowing that you would get a chance to go up? Now, I'm not picking Boston against Milwaukee. Hey, you know what? I already know the answer to this, so I'm not going to ask it. I would never root for the Lakers. All right.

Okay. All right. We haven't talked since the Milwaukee game. I went to bed, was like, huh. And then I woke up the next day and also was like, huh. It's not nothing to go into Milwaukee and win by 40 points and they're playing everybody. But how much of something

do you allow that game result to be for you? We did. Rob and I went on, Rob Mahoney and I went on right after that game to do the top of my pod. It didn't mean nothing was where I landed because the point I made that night was

they're just really comfortable against Milwaukee. I think that matters. Like they feel like they can beat that team. They don't care where they play in Milwaukee or Boston. They have a real plan against Giannis and they feel like they have real advantages with the wings, which they do, you know, and it's just a nice matchup. Do I trust them to beat Milwaukee four out of seven times? No, but I think they are comfortable against them. And I think that, I think sometimes that matters. Sometimes you have teams that you've just,

they've seen Giannis like Tatum and Brown. Some of these guys, they've been playing Giannis now for six, seven years. Nobody's going to do well against him, but they at least have a real familiarity with how he plays, which I think matters. Um,

I, the big, the big thing for me for that game was it just, it definitely knocked Giannis out of the MVP thing. We said it that night and you could see it the next day, like his MVP odds went sideways. But the Celtics team, at least they have a ceiling that's as good as anybody else's ceiling.

So I'd rather have that than a team that's like overachieving like Sacramento. Whereas like deep down, you kind of know the ceiling isn't going to be there. Where you're going against Durant and Booker in a series, you're probably going to lose. Ceiling wise, the Celtics are sitting there. I just don't know if they can reach it. What was your takeaway? Because you didn't do a pod the next day.

So you haven't given your thoughts. It's not nothing, but it's closer to nothing for me than something. The weird thing is, if it had been like an overtime win by the Celtics on the road, then I might have thought it meant more than being up 20 immediately

and then going, all right, they're going to make their run, and now they're up 40. By the way, the Giannis odds take- Wait a second. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, it wasn't immediately, though. That's what was interesting about the game. There was about 25 minutes there where it really felt like, holy shit, this feels like a playoff game. These guys are trading haymakers. The refs were kind of letting them go. It was physical. And then the Celtics pulled away. That was the most exciting part to me because I felt like Milwaukee gave a shit about the game. Now, they were tired. They were five and seven nights, all that stuff. I get it.

But I do feel like Milwaukee wanted to send some sort of statement and the Celtics kind of sent it back. You didn't feel that way? No. I mean, they were up 10 at the first quarter. It felt like they were the much better team. You're right. There was some back and forth, so immediately is the wrong word there. But it was

when they got up 20, it felt quick in the game. But in real time, you're right. I mean, the game had gone on for a while. I think the Giannis MVP thing is going sideways is bullshit because I saw Giannis in that game be the one dude who was like, all right, if this is how it's going to go, I'm going to press it now and try. And I feel like that gets lost in all of it. The schedule thing's a real issue.

I thought some of the stuff, though, that got said about it was kind of stupid. Bud didn't want to show his hand. He's the most predictable coach going. There wasn't all these secrets that he was hiding from everybody. The schedule stuff's a valid point. We learned that Joe Engels couldn't guard Jason Tatum anymore. I'm pretty sure I knew that before the game. But you're not tipping your hand.

The schedule thing is right, but I kind of hate how people will just default to it. No one's ever won the fucking second on a back-to-back. When you look at back-to-backs, I think the last time I looked at it, it was like 13 or 14 teams had winning records on the second night. And the bottom five teams

dragged down the overall average so much because those teams just stink, and then on back-to-backs, they stink too. So it didn't make me go, wow, Boston hasn't figured out. It's awesome. But maybe Boston, maybe it was like one of those things where I remember Mike Timlin

once blew a save, and he was like, Jesus knew that team needed it more than me. And you're like, okay. A little Timlin quote. Okay, Mike Timlin. That's a really good point though. The Celtics really needed it. I think they needed something to happen at this point in the season.

Just the way things were going, especially after that Washington. They had six awful losses in March. They were just awful. And I think they needed one to be like, hey, we're still good at this. We're all still good when we get going and Rob's playing and we still have something. So I felt like it meant something. I don't think it really meant anything to Milwaukee

other than in the back of their heads, they're like, oh, these guys are pretty comfortable coming in and playing us. Just file that one away. All right. We're going to take a break and we'll come back with our friend Van Lathan and talk some college basketball, some women's college basketball and some other NBA storylines. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit,

more cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days and the ability to reach further with access to over 1400 airport lounges worldwide redefine possible with business platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. When you ride

transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming.

See? Safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really.

This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. All right, we're taping this part of the pod. It's 3.05 on a Sunday. We just watched the women's basketball championship game. LSU got its first title ever in men's or women's basketball. Priscilla's here, as always, on Sunday. We have a special guest, Van Lathan, LSU fan. Your first basketball title, Van.

You did it. We did it! We finally got over the hump. This is for Glenn Davis. This is for Stromile Swift. Yeah. I mean, this is for all of the Tigers. Dale Brown.

Dale Brown, John Brady, Garrett Temple. Ben Simmons. Ben Simmons. No. Not Ben Simmons. Hot Rod Williams. Hot Rod Williams. Hot Rod Williams? Did not go to LSU.

Oh. Screwed that one up. He's from Louisiana, but I think he went to Arizona or something like that. So the women's Final Four felt as big, as important from a conversational standpoint as the men's for the first time I can remember. A big reason of it was Caitlin Clark, but also like we're still with the style of play, which,

you know, the Curry influence, which I know we're going to talk about Curry a bunch in this top thing, but the, the slashing kick game, at least he had 102 points in the title game. And it was just really fun to watch. I'd let,

I w I watched both games on Friday. I watched this game today. Um, stylistically, all the predictions people made our whole lives are like, well, I watched both games on Friday. I watched this game today. Stylistically, all the predictions people made our whole lives are like, well, you forget it's the ground floor. It's going to take a while. What I watched today was really entertaining. And we'll get into the Caleb Clark part in a second.

But just as a basketball fan, when you're watching a game like that, what are you thinking? We touched on this, I remember, I don't know, a year and a and a half ago i forget or maybe over a year ago with jack mcmullen and just when you watch the women's game just the evolution of like you know kind of how it's it's catching up now you know again there's there's still an obvious gap here besides the athleticism but whether it's caitlin clark like into her dribble and then shooting off of the dribble just the shot confidence you know where steph curry in a, you kind of watch this and think, should everybody have been doing this? Shouldn't people have been doing this and expanding the

floor and taking more ridiculous shots? But back then, you get benched if you ever took any of those shots. So to see it translate to the women's game, I mean, Ella, she was on fire. I mean, the one player who comes off the bench, was it Carson? Carson, yes. So I just think there's something to be said

of when you're allowed to play the game a certain way after decades of never being allowed to play it this way. And that's where I think the biggest evolution of the women's game has gone. What do you see there? So there's a captivating style of play. I mean, most people that are watching these games, they're just watching them with their eyes.

Like the thing that separates a casual from the average fan, from a more enlightened fan, should I say, or a hardcore fan is that people watch the games with their eyes, their brains and everything and they're analyzing stuff. And sometimes the thing with the women's game for a lot of people was that

if you didn't have an appreciation for pure basketball, it was hard to be inspired by some of the play. Now, that was never been a problem for me because I watched the games and these are high level athletes competing at a high level. But when you see someone doing the things that Caitlin can do, you can't help but be wowed by them. And I'll say something else that a lot of people probably don't want to say. Right? If she's doing stuff that men that watch the games

know that they can't do. And that's a thing. As fucked up as that is, it's a thing. When she's back there and she's that deep in a game and she's rocking left to right and she's shooting, they're going, oh shit, it's an aspirational style of play. And maybe they didn't feel that way about women's players in the past.

Maybe they should have, but they didn't. Yeah, that's fair. Because, I mean, there was a lot of good shot making in this game today. Morris in the second half was doing like the little bit of the Chris Paul. Like they were spreading her out. She was just using the high screen and over and over again was it 18 footers. So there were different elements of men's basketball stuff that I love. The Caitlin Clark piece was the most fun, obviously. And one of the reasons I wouldn't have been on was because we were texting about it

Friday night. Just, I never thought the next Curry would be a woman. We knew there would be those sons of Curry. We knew those were coming, all the kids who grew up as his career started to take off in 2013. And he started to change how we thought of basketball, what we thought a good shot was, how he used teammates in these little slightly different ways, coming off picks, little handoffs, things like that. And it's interesting how much she reminds me of Curry watching her in all these games during the tournament. A lot of the same playbook. And honestly, I think she has a chance to be the biggest female athlete down the road. Because who's the competition? If you're talking under 25 females or males,

who is the competition to just stand out in the way that she stands out as a basketball player? Because I'm watching and thinking, this is like watching the O'Maravich highlights from 50 years ago. Stuff like that. There's nobody doing the stuff she's doing. And there are a lot of great players in this game,

but I think the reason the rating is whatever it is is nobody doing the stuff she's doing. And there are a lot of great players in this game. But I think the reason the rating is whatever it is, is because of the stuff she can do. It's like what Van said. It's the first time you're watching a player in college in a while where you're just like, oh my God. And men or women, who is, Rasella, who was the last star we had in college basketball that was like, was it Zion, would you say, like four years ago? Yeah. Zion did the impossible. he got people to root for duke right so then pre-zion who is it curry davidson no i think we're i think we're kind of forgetting stuff here uh anthony davis was a big deal i mean yeah there are other players that were nobody was like hey let me grab other members of my family anthony davis is on tv zion was definitely that there. Nobody was like, hey, let me grab other members of my family.

Anthony Davis is on TV. Zion was definitely that guy. Zion was that guy. Yeah, Zion was that guy. I think Carmelo had a little bit of it during the Syracuse run. Yeah, that's 20 years ago now, though. I mean, Carmelo absolutely did because back then it was still, you know, the buildup to it was because LeBron jumped

and Melo went for the one year. You're like, okay. And then they had an incredible run. They played some really good teams. Ohio State, Florida that year was a thing. It wasn't for individual players as much as how many lottery picks and great players were just in that game. No, that's what

this game, the way it was officiated between LSU and Iowa. And look, LSU was just better. I don't think there was much debate about any of this stuff. They had way more options offensively. But the way this was officiated, it reminded me of the Ohio State-Georgetown game where all of us wanted to watch Odin and Hibbert, and the rest were like, nah. Yeah, no thanks. Nope, nope.

We're not interested in you seeing that part of it. But do you know how much it means that everybody's complaining about the officiating in the women's championship game? Yeah. The stakes are so high that everyone, as much as of the women's game as I've watched and as we've watched,

because remember, LSU's always had a good team. I went to Louisiana Tech for a time when it was a huge, huge so it's different so to see people this invested to where i'm doing what i do talking about lsu shit as i always will on twitter and people are mad they're mad that caitlin lost This is exactly the passion, you know what I mean, and the interest that the women's game

has been looking for and trying to get for like a while. And they've been able to, the WNBA and women's college basketball, women's college basketball is kind of always a thing, but the WNBA has been making strides. But this is like,

what Kaitlyn's been able to do, the interest in this tournament has been like a watershed moment to me in this entire deal um lsu was going to win this game uh they're a better coach team um they're uh better top to bottom to me than iowa is so they were going to win this game but still it was it was it was a big a big deal. I'm glad we won, but you know, Kaitlin did her thing. She got a lot of those viewers over the hump. It made me think. Rossella, we always look for reasons.

I'm sorry. I just think we're being a little too recency biased, and I'm not known as a women's college basketball historian, but we're forgetting some very, very intense Tennessee-UConn stuff. The Notre Dame runs.

The last second shot by Notre Dame. We have had some awesome moments. So if you're asking me who was that defining star of women's college basketball, I'm not the go-to on that. But I feel like the three of us are being a little guilty of the recency thing, which I think Van should be guilty of it right now by acting like Caitlin Clark is the first because there were some of those games

in the tournament with Notre Dame in that run where I was like, holy shit. Those games were incredible. I don't know. I feel like we're being a little dismissive of other years where people were actually talking about it, or at least it had its moment where, unfortunately because the game wasn't close, it was defined by the officiating.

Here's who would be my soft counter. Not a hard counter, a soft counter. This is the first time my son and his friend Jackson, who slept over all weekend, where they wanted to watch the game. Because if you think of the Twitter social media era,

some of the... The Ben Simmons metric? Listen, from a casual fan standpoint, in the social media era, some of the shots and plays that Caitlyn makes, this was the first time this was like... She was the number one trending thing on Friday night. Just in general, some of the shot making

and some of the decision making was just so unusual that I think people just wanted to see it. So I've been thinking about, you know, like when we saw, and not to compare her to, just bear with me as I try to land the point on this, but like when Tiger showed up pre-97 when he was in the amateur stuff. And there was a feeling like, oh, this is different.

I haven't seen this before, right? Or Mahomes comes in, that first Chiefs here, and like, whoa, this guy, I haven't seen this before. And it doesn't really matter what the sport is. When you have that I haven't seen this before quality, it usually plays big. It usually hits, and it usually becomes a thing. And I think with Kaitlyn,

the interesting thing is that she can't go into the WNBA. I didn't even realize they had this rule that she's got to wait one more year before she goes. To me, like they should be trying to change the rules and figure out where for her to go in because I do think she's going to be the biggest star that they've ever had because of the Curry thing. It's for the same reason Curry has been the most popular player of the last 10 years of all the newer players. I think people just love 35 footers.

They love shooting and they love this shit that when nobody else can do it, they fucking love it. I include myself. So this is what I'll say to what Ryan's saying. And he's right i whether it's tamika ketchings uh holds claw meyer more super rebecca lobo this goes back a long time with it being huge huge terasi terasi is the best part i've ever seen for like amazing right amazing i think part of this is because it's not just that Kaitlin Clark is a different sort of player. I think we consume basketball in a different way than we used to. And a lot of the players that we're talking about were these really great players on these really historic teams.

If we're talking about Tennessee or Notre Dame or UConn or Stanford, or these are teams, these are big deals, and these players kind of fall under that. This is kind of the classic college basketball flamethrower situation. I mean, she plays at Iowa, which is a good team, but not a traditional power. You know what I mean? And she's dragging the team by herself to the championship and doing it in just singularly and specifically amazing way.

That's kind of the Curry Davidson thing. It's like, you know, you don't care about Davidson, but he just can't miss any shots. Like, who is this kid? And I think that is kind of how she caught lightning in the bottle in this particular situation. Well, it's the sports movie thing, right? Where you feel like this is the sports movie scenario of the one great player dragging

the decent supporting cast pretty good and pulling them in where, like, the fact that they beat South Carolina on Friday night was insane. They're 11.5 point underdogs in that game. Yeah, I don't even, I'm not even positive they had a money line on it. If they did, it was like they were at least five to one underdogs, but, um, I'm always in on that scenario. I love the Curry on Davidson was fantastic. It's not fair to really say Carmelo

and Syracuse fit the mold, but he kind of did cause he was so amazing in that whole tournament. And then that's what I really wanted for Duran in 07. And they just couldn't finish. But just in general, I'm always in. It's my favorite scenario. I wonder, like, Rossello, is men's basketball ever going to have that again? It feels like, why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't there be another version of that for men's basketball?

And why haven't we had it? Well, like I like to say, never is a really long time. So of course we're going to have it again. Um, this is not the year to think it was going to happen, you know, because you know,

anybody true, right. Anybody that like once the final four was set and you're like, this is a great story, but everybody loves Cinderella's until, you know, Florida Atlantic is playing San Diego state in the first game. And then, you know florida atlantic is playing san diego state in the first game and then you know i went to matt matt liner name drop had uh had a little gathering

and i went to it and then people thought i was in a bad mood and i was like well i know i look like i'm always in a bad mood but i'm watching a game it's the fucking final four and they were like oh nobody was watching a game 100 100 people right fucking final four. And they were like, Oh, nobody was watching a game. A hundred, a hundred people. Right. Nobody watched the first game. And I'm like, what's, what's wrong with you people?

Like it's the final four. And then I ended up leaving so I could come home and watch Yukon. Cause I was like, this is not a final four party. Um, so yeah, this is not the year to argue that it's going, you know,

that we saw it because when I'm looking at, at Miller for Alabama, I would have loved to have seen the guy that we're all wondering what he's going to look like in the pros play another weekend. Um, but not only this tournament, but you're right. The recent run of college basketball, but to sit here and say, because we haven't had it for a few years, like, again, I'm getting back to the Zion point of it. It may not be Curry-esque. I think Curry, the other thing that always worked is that it felt obtainable what he did, where when you watch Zion, it doesn't feel obtainable. You're like, nope, nobody can do that

kind of stuff. And that's maybe the attraction for Kaitlyn Clark now. And then both when she's in the WNBA. But as far as that singular player that everybody's kind of eyeing and watching, we haven't had it recently, but we're certainly going to have it again. You know why we haven't had it, Van? Why? Because they just jumped to the pros. I mean, the one advantage women's college basketball has was keeping star.

I watched Kate and Clark last year. I bet on that game when they got killed in the tournament and it was the same like, oh, she's going to do the sports movie thing and then it didn't happen and they got annihilated. And if it was a men's basketball situation, that would have been it. We would never have seen her again in college. With the women,

they stick around and it feels like the women, and I think you could say they've done this, have a better chance to develop stars than men's college basketball does at this point because of the, you know, they're around for a few years. When you think about the sheer number of absolute studs that were playing college basketball in the nineties and even into the two thousands, when you think about the guys just over and over and over again, that were dominating college basketball, it was like this never ending list. I mean, they had to be right. Everyone from every single day and then that just kind of changed right and it it changed in a bunch of different ways it changed because you lost some of the legendary coaches that have been around for a long time and a lot of those programs were in flux but also changed and it's changing more so

because there are more avenues for these players to get seen to get marketing dollars and to go play basketball than just going to college, right? That's the reason why college football remains a place where you can be captivated and where you see this high-level competition from future NFL studs. And college basketball is not as much that way. And even with Zion, Zion can't miss TV, right? You couldn't miss Zion when he was on.

And then he's gone. He was out. He's out of here. He goes to the league to play 13 games a year. So, you know, he's done. It's a very short time that you have with him. And you know that going in. There's absolutely zero suspense to it.

These guys are a one and done. So you're not going to see the sophomore run from these guys. They're gone. So you don't get as initiated to them, like when initiated with them when they're in college. Priscilla, do you think that women's college basketball can match the popularity and scale of men's college basketball over the next 15 years with, as

the audience keeps growing and their ability to keep stars versus what we have seen just really since Carmelo. Carmelo to me is, that is the fork in the road for college basketball, where you have this guy who wins as a freshman at Syracuse and then he's gone and he should have been gone because he ended up being, what was he, third pick in the draft? He should have gone. But 15 years earlier, he's staying and trying to win two in a row. Maybe he stays for three years and tries to get the three-peat and now that guy's gone. Whereas in women's college, you're there at least three years and we get a feel for these players. And I don't know,

it just felt to me, it felt like the women's final four was as big as the men's final four this year. Just anecdotally people in my life. Um, it just felt like we cared more about the women's, which I think is just bizarre. I would have given that 101 odds 10 years ago.

I don't know if it's the next step because you're right about this year, but I think it has a lot to do with the field's the next step because you're right about this year but i think it has a lot to do with the field for the men's because just a year ago when it was all the blue bloods again yeah you had these incredible games you got north carolina you got kansas winning the whole thing um i don't remember we wouldn't have done 30 40 minutes to start a podcast on the women's final four so the retention fact is indisputable you're right and i always kind of argue like i don't care about anything until i know the drama behind it i don't care about anything until i know the stories it's why i like started to like f1 because i watched the netflix show it was like okay now i know what all these guys deals are i know who hates who and

who's pissed and who's happy and who's awesome and who's a fraud and and all of this stuff and once i knew that then i was like i want to see how this plays out and you know whether it's baseball where i didn't do anything on opening day for a podcast which i probably would have never ever done or if you told me 20 years ago hey you'll do a podcast and you'll release it well again podcast in itself but you understand the point like do a radio show nationally where you don't really touch on opening day you don't even do predictions anymore i didn't even do it you know i did i've done nothing normally we would do the brackets for the tournament i didn't even do it this year so i'm gonna one-up you i did wrestlemania instead of baseball on thursday like seriously yeah i mean that i i can't believe that's what i did but i also know that like even

though there's some people that probably are pissed that i didn't do any baseball for opening day we're doing a lot on tuesday this week but i was like i'll probably do a little bit of an open on the men's final after monday for tuesday morning but if the podcast didn't land on that day i'm not sure i would have done any of the men's. So I'm saying specific to this year, the women's tournament, you're right. I don't know if in 15 years we're going, they're on equal footing because I think it was a down year for the men's for the major storylines. Because like I say, everybody loves the upsets until it's the last weekend. And they're kind of like, why am I watching this again? And I'll admit too, look, when I was in my twenties, I would be the eye roll kind of like why am i watching this again and i'll admit too look when i was in

my 20s i would be the eye roll guy of like oh you know you're gonna watch a woman's game you know and i don't even know why i would think that way and i'm admitting it okay and you know i was immature and and whatever and then you get a little bit older and you're like who fucking cares like why why would you make fun of your friend or something like that and then i think and again this had a lot to do with the radio days. Like part of the audience is just so misogynistic that they're never even going to give it a chance. And I wonder how long it takes to break down that barrier

where if you actually gave yourself a chance to know more about the stories, invest more time into it, and then watch some of the games, you might go like, hey, this is a lot of fun. A lot like what you're saying for this weekend. You know, there's something else. I think there's a

personality shift that's happening overall because it's not just Caitlin, right? Because it's Haley Van Leeth from Louisville and I remember there's like the players, it's Angel Reese who is the big deal player on LSU

who actually won. She was awesome. It's Angel Reese. You're starting to get a better sense, to the point we were making before, and a better... You're more tethered to who these players are. Haley's like, I'm not honorable mention. I'm not this. I'm not that.

You see her going back and forth. I think it was from Virginia Tech. I can't remember what the school was. Maybe it wasn't Virginia Tech, but she's going back and forth in the think it was from Virginia Tech. I can't remember what the school was. Maybe it wasn't Virginia Tech, but she's going back and forth in the final line with the girl. Everybody's like, what was said, what was said, what was said, because they know Haley is a killer

and all of that stuff. I think there is sort of, we're sort of at a turning point where there's an opportunity. I don't know if it's to catch the men, but for the women's game, particularly in college, to become something that's been become something that's a lot more compelling for people now than maybe it was four or five years ago. The players are different. The game is different. And I think that's all

happening kind of at the same time. Yeah. I will fully admit I did not like women's basketball for a long time. And part of it was the style of it. It just, you know, it was way bigger. It was very similar to like that nineties NBA style that we all didn't like that much, you know, like just big guys and, um, the spacing was in there and all that. When you look back and you watch some of the old NBA games from that decade, it's like, oof, man, what were we doing? Playing Anthony Mason at small forward? What is this? And I've thought that way a long time about women's hoop. But Taurasi was the first one that I remember watching going, Jesus. I went to a couple of

her games and was just kind of amazed by how good she was. And then more and more came in, like Maya Moore is amazing. But the spacing, slashing, kicking the threes, like LSU today, LSU was 11 for 17 from three, right? They made 54% of their shots. It's just like, and then I was 14 for 30. So they scored 187 points combined in a 40 minute game. Like that's just entertaining. I would enjoy that in high school, the AAU game, any level. So, you know entertaining. I would enjoy that in high school, the AU game, any level. So, you know,

I think the fact that, uh, I, that just the game, all the, all the courage generation stuff has trickled in the right ways. I don't know. I like watching it.

Let's, uh, let's take a break and then I have a couple more things to throw you guys. Van, did we victory lap enough your LSU basketball title? You feel like you're having a moment? Any shit talking you want to do before we move on to NBA?

This title is for Shaquille O'Neal. It's for Abdul Raouf. It's for Randy Livingston. And a career that should have been. It's for all of those guys. Shout out to you guys, man. Hot Rod was too lame, so you were close. Yeah, I don't know.

I feel like this is too lame. If I'm Van right now, I'm going, talking a lot about the team that lost, Bill. Yeah. That's the way it was going to be. Look, I didn't know what was going to happen in this game in terms of, because I have to admit, if LSU would have been up against South Carolina,

that's a much, much different matchup for us. A much different matchup. That's a tough team for LSU to beat the way that we play. But this was a bad matchup for Iowa. So, you know, sometimes it just happens. And when it happens to the Tigers, I'm always

grateful. That South Carolina team, I'm always grateful. That South Carolina team, I've never seen a game in my entire life where a team had 26 of the 31 offensive rebounds and lost. I didn't know

that was possible. At a certain point, it's just like, run a pick and roll, throw the ball up to the goal, get the rebound, and then like, but just,

Kaitlin would not allow them to lose. She just, they could not lose. She was doing too much, man. It was not a great coaching effort. I actually had a problem with LSU's approach. I'm sorry.

I'm just going to jump in and throw a little basketball. Every time you ran a high pick and roll with a ball handler in the mid-range, there was no help from Iowa. Their bigs are so slow, and there was no recovery, and they weren't even bothering. Every time you got to that point like i think lsu could have just done that for two hours and they would have won by 30 points i was like look every time you get to the spot where you're expecting help

like it's not even drop coverage it's don't ever move from where you started coverage all right yeah a little. A little breakdown. Well, on Friday night, I was doing that thing where they just packed the paint and they were basically daring anybody to shoot and Caitlin Clark's like kind of talking shit. Go ahead, take it.

We're giving it to you. That was fun. That was stylistically was really enjoyable. All right. From a star power standpoint, as we head into these basketball playoffs and the storylines continue to evolve, Van, we rarely get to talk NBA with you on this podcast.

What storyline are you the most excited about as we head to the stretch line here? Well, it's been rotating. I've been really interested in the failure of the Mavericks. It's just, it's so nuts that this was a team that people were talking about because the West is so packed that it seems like every team has a storyline.

It was one point where every team had a path to be a contender or everyone. You could believe it about everyone. And they make a trade and then it just all goes to hell. a contender or everyone you could believe it about everyone and they make a trade uh and then it just all goes to hell and they just have fallen completely off of the map other storylines i just gotta be honest like what's going on with that uh with andrew wiggins like what's the like what's the as i watch the warriors uh kind of get their shit together a

little bit more and i see gary payton starting to get back into the flow and i see you know the team actually being poised to be if not a tremendous spoiler maybe a legitimately dangerous team in the west since nobody is playing really really well the West. I wonder just how much better they would be if he was on the floor. And I understand that it's a personal issue and people don't really want to speculate too much as to what's going on with him. But I just feel like if he was in a different market, there would be different reporting on why he's missed so much time. Because it is, as you don't want to get into the guy's business or get into the team's business

if they're handling something very serious in a very sensitive way. But it's a relevant basketball story as to why the second best player on their squad hasn't been on the team in such a long time. And it's just no way to get around it. You also had the

John Morant story, which there was a little more reporting on that, but it was a similar thing, where it was like, what's going on here? How long is he going to be out? And then he went away for counseling for a week and came back, and they're like we're good it's gonna be back soon i that was obviously by the way the jaw thing was like pr playbook

right let's go on with jay and rose it'll be way friendlier than going on with somebody else um you know we'll tell everybody what they want to hear which is also stupid because we do this like somebody will happen and be like okay show that you're sorry and i don't i honestly i don't i'm not like upset that jaw wasn't gone for longer i don't know what's true or what isn't so if he wants to come back and play great but it was very like 101 pr of we'll do this this this this and this and then you'll come back and start dunking on everybody again and and he's probably less affected by it than all of us were. Yeah.

What's, what's changed. And I think this season is a good example of that is people are so careful when anything from a, from a personal standpoint seems dicey in any way. Now everybody kind of backs off. And I think social media has a big responsibility to this because nobody wants to be the asshole who was like, Hey, where the fuck is Andrew Wiggins? And then people pile on you for

three days. But at the same time, these were two huge basketball stories that I didn't feel like I had enough information on as a fan. And it's like, what am I entitled to as a fan? Probably nothing. But at the same time, Golden State's the defending champs. Wiggins was this, other than Curry, the number two reason they won the title last year. I don't see them getting out of the first round without him. And we have no idea why he's not playing. And the Jha thing, I still don't know what happened. So does he have a drinking problem or he doesn't?

Or was he having issues with fame? And then he talked to some people and now he doesn't? Or was he having issues with fame and then he talked to some people and now he's good? It just seems like we just kind of went back to normal with him really fast. And I still don't know what happened to him. Do you know what happened to him, Van? I don't. I talked to a couple of people around him and in talking to those people, I think that there were some decisions that were made in his life because I was, look, here's the thing. When it first started to happen to him, there was a part of me just from a cultural standpoint that was actually concerned. Yeah. The thing about Ja is that Bill and I would have these conversations is that where I'm from and how I grew up, Jai is always going to be the type

of player that we're going to gravitate to. Like seeing him, the way he plays, the exuberance he plays the game with, how he plays it, the high flying, like all of his story is so relatable. And I think when you saw people react to what was going on with him, particularly black people, it was like, damn, come on, Ja. It was almost like for me, a guy of my age watching the AI thing over again or hoping that it wouldn't be that. So I was legitimately like, yo man, like what's going on? Is it, I don't know him or know it, but I know people close to him. And they were like, Hey, just to let you know, there are some actual things that are happening here. Nobody would tell me what his inner circle is very tight

or even the people around him, they're very tight and they all love him and care about him and want the best from him. But they were like, you know, we need to hit the brakes for a little while and everything is going to be okay. And so that's cool. That's a fair thing for me. Same thing with Andrew Wiggins. I don't want people to misconstrue what I'm saying. What I'm saying here is it's okay if people do not want to discuss it. It's okay if nobody wants to talk about it, but it's also okay to say that it is a question. And sometimes I think that's the line. The line is you shouldn't even be asking. Like, no, it's okay to admit that this is a question and this is a relevant NBA storyline,

like what's going on here? What's going on there? We talk about everything else. And if they don't want to discuss it, they haven't handled, that's fine. But going into the playoffs when I think they're the sixth seed now, having him would really help them. And nobody knows why he's not playing. So I think asking, hey, or just saying, where's Andrew Wiggins?

I think that's okay. Russo, how's that story play out in Boston? Way different. It just does. You know, I think part of it's Wiggins' profile as a player. You know, he's not the main guy. And the Warriors, you know, week to week, depending on when you watch him, when you have the good Warriors week, you're like, all right.

And by the way, I think Klay maybe now has surpassed what wiggins would even be um coming back as far as second best player so yeah that's fair but you're both right about wiggins being the second best player for him last year on that finals run i think it becomes kind of this impossible thing to debate right because if i say something to you like van and i are in an argument right and then van says something to me and i'm like well hey i hey, I'm dealing with some family stuff. And Van loses the argument. He can't win. It's impossible for him to win the argument.

Your hand's off. Right. I might be wrong. Van might be crushing me with point after point after point about like if we were that tight on a personal level, like I'm doing stuff Van doesn't like.

And then I go, hey, I got some family issues. Van, he just can't. He just, there's nothing you can do. So whatever's going on with Wiggins, I don't know. But I think the problem is, and you're never going to hear it on a show, would be like it's almost, and again, I'm asking this as like the Warriors fan would be asking, being like,

does this mean because there's something going on that you're just never going to play this year when that fan's thinking about his team's chances. I'm not saying that fan is right. I'm just being realistic about the kind of the inner math that you do. It always reminds me of when a player has a wife that's pregnant, and if that player were to miss a couple of playoff games, then everybody kind of goes in a circle and argues like you can't miss the playoffs. And then it's like, no, this is about family. And I don't want to even really get involved, even though I know how everybody kind of goes in a circle and argues like you can't miss the playoffs and then it's like no this is about family and i don't want to even really get involved even though

i know how i kind of feel then it's like if we ever had like a main main guy with his wife do the night before the super bowl i would then love to see how that debate would play out because and again this is wins' thing is different as far as like what's impacting him. We're not just talking about like, you know, whatever. So the point that I'm trying to make is it never serves anybody all that well

for us to speculate on all this stuff. But from just a pure basketball standpoint, it changes how you feel about them, even though when you watch them in the right week and considering how open the West is, like I'm up for I'm kind of up for anything with the West right now based

on watching these teams every week my favorite of these with with what you just laid out was Vince Carter flying back before the game seven people lost their fucking minds that'd be such a different story in 2023 than it was in

2000 2001 right because than it was in 2000, 2001. Right. Cause remember it was like, what's he doing? Right. Oh my God. Does he care about winning? He just,

you're, you're in a giant football stadium. Your whole section stands up to get the diploma. I remember specifically being really bad about that. Cause I was so excited for that game seven. And then of course, as it went, as it came around,

he missed the game time shot at the end as well. Yeah. Shouldn't have gone to his graduation. If he hadn't flown back and forth, it's like, you can't tell me it didn't affect him a tiny bit, but now in 2023, that story is so different.

It is. You know what I remember? I remember me and my dad were sitting down and we were watching this Cal Ripken thing. And there's this story that, you know, Cal Ripken, one of his kids was born like on an off day or something like that. And Cal Ripken was saying, hey, if my wife would have gone into labor at a specific time and this kid would have been born while my streak was going was going i would have missed the game of course to be there at the birth of my child uh and my dad was like that's the stupidest fucking thing i ever heard of before in my life and i was like what do you mean he was like yeah look i love you i love your sister but if i'm going to get the record y'all gonna have to cry to your mama for a little while i just remember being able to kind of like remember thinking whoa

but right now the best thing he could do a player like that would be to miss the game to go to the birth oh because you're a hero forever forget about the baseball or you're a hero forever and this we understand that people have lives off of the court and off of the field. And I think that people just want to see us honor that. And we do, but not every single game going, Jesus Christ, is somebody going to tell us what's going on with Andrew Wiggins? I think it's okay to say it once or twice. You know what I mean? Well, see, here's what I like, though, because it's all connected.

It gets back to the Vince Carter stuff. Because I remember the debates at the time and it was like education's more important than this and you're like you're like it's he's just getting a piece of fucking paper man and this is this is a huge playoff game so then it becomes this thing where it's like people will contradict themselves be like okay you're the education is more important thing okay fine what if i have a test tomorrow and i'm the power forward for a team in the playoffs? What if I'm taking online courses and I go to my coach and be like, I'm just way behind and I'm going to miss the game. When's the test?

Well, it's tomorrow, but I got to study. With people that are like, this is, you know, again, I'm just sort of making up stuff, but I see it play out where it's like people will tear the like this is more important than this and this is more important than this and this would be like okay well if this falls under this umbrella like if i went to bill and said hey i'm having some problems with with my significant other and you'd be like your girlfriend because i'm not married so if i were if my wife were leaving me bill might give me a week off. If my girlfriend of six months dumped me in Cabo and I was like, Hey, can I get a week off? That's not going to go over as well. Even though some would argue, it kind of falls into the same thing.

No, it's funny though. Well, a couple of things. It, I think the graduation part of it is that's a once in a lifetime. that's a once in a lifetime situation i actually think that they should have moved the graduation because he had a playoff game that's what i think they should have done i think they should have everybody been like everyone everyone all 50 000 people you don't care about north carolina if guys like vince carter don't go there they owe him anyway um but. Anyway. But here's the thing. You know, there have been times here, and just to be transparent, in my ringer career, early on, during the pandemic, I called Bill up.

I was like, yo, I need a little time. I was really going through it. I need a little time. And he was like, okay. You know, he was like, you know he was like alright cool and then we came back to it whenever we came back to it so I get that that's there but

I think everyone expected and we're just human everyone expected some resolution to it at some point and nobody knows one day it feels like you're going to turn on the Warriors game and he's just going to be out there and there's not going to be any discussion

as to what happened. They'll talk about it when they're ready and you just kind of move on to the next NBA storyline. I think another NBA storyline that I care about is, we talked about it earlier, Zion. I am just fascinated with what's, with the lack of Zion.

Zion's out there on the bench every night dressed horribly i've never seen anything like it before give me give us some scouting report which mall oh yeah i'm not following what's going on i have no idea it's like a foreign language right now Yo, like Zion Williamson is by far the worst dressed player I've seen ever. He does weird things like neon Tims with distressed jeans and then like a leather jacket and a fedora. Like, it's just weird. He comes through and everybody on the internet, we are consistently amazed with his ability to put together the most terrible fits. And the only reason why we're even looking at this is because we have so many opportunities

to look at his wardrobe. He's running out of fits. running yeah he's running out of fits and so he needs like a personal stylist at this point it's bad for his brand not to have one because we're obviously going to see him sitting down a lot so man go hire law roach or kalika could do it hire somebody to put these outfits together because he's never playing and he is making our eyes bleed with some of these combinations. I'm not a good dresser,

but I know what's bad. This whole situation, man. Priscilla, what would be your outfits as you're getting scratched for seven straight weeks? What would you go with? No, it's tough, man. I got dress shirts that I could donate.

Because when you're on TV every day, if you're rocking the same, if you're wearing the same shirt within a three week span, then everybody's like wondering what your problem is, you know, because you're dressed and you're on TV. So I have so many pieces of clothing that I don't wear that I'm like, what are you doing with all of these dress shirts? And I've even groomed some out of the way, but there's other ones that just these Robert Talbots. I got a vintage Versace one. I'm like, I never wear it anymore, but I can't just give this stuff away. So with Zion, I think we have an opportunity to just kind of

cross-pollinate here. It's in a good space. Exciting numbers kind of rent the runway for guys that are getting DNP'd all the time. That's a fantastic idea. There you go rip the one dnp that like a like a fashion thing that is a amazing idea because you know it's funny luca uh a couple of days ago didn't he didn't play a couple of nights ago we were watching well he was her yeah she had a stretcher he was her

we're watching it at trayayvon's house. And when we first saw him, we were like, damn, Luka can't dress either. You know what I mean? And then when we got a different view of the suit, I was like, nah, bro, that's nicely tailored, man. Luka actually could think about Luka. This is a big guy.

Not Luka. I'm thinking I'm confusing my white boys. Jokic. Oh. Yeah, yeah. I'm confusing my white boys. I like uh oh yeah yeah i'm confusing my white boys i'm sorry uh not great man that was so racist i'm sorry to the naacp like it like it was yokich yokich was on the side he was on the sideline and i'm like yo actually he looks nice

when you look at the suit from a different he looks nice i think this is a great idea right if they're gonna miss this many games yeah now with the new with the new rules maybe it won't happen because i know like even though it's the teams for the most part i think we'd all agree that the top guys love being able to just wear whatever gear they've put together and it's like fashion show fashion show at lunch and you're just you know you're walking out of the tunnel you get to hang out for a little bit i think there's some of the higher level tier players that kind of enjoy that night off but yeah yeah, I guess back to the original question, I think I'd do the opposite. Was it Joseph Forte who wore a magic jersey

while he was on the Celtics? That's tough. Iverson did that too, though. Didn't Iverson come in the throwback? Iverson can do whatever he wants. Iverson's fine. We're not judging Iverson. Van, I got to take issue with one thing.

You said, Zion, these were the worst outfits you've ever seen a player wear. I don't blame you for not knowing this. You were in Louisiana. It was the late 80s, early 90s. But Larry Bird wore some of the most hideous sweaters in the history of mankind during that stretch when he was missing games with his back and stuff like

things you would get for christmas from like your 70 year old aunt you'd be like oh thanks aunt whoever and then you would you know basically bury the like this was over and over again so i just i just want to shout out the legend well because i don't want i don't want people to sleep on how bad some of his clothes were this is what i'll say about that i've seen larry all dressed up and there was a certain, it works for Larry. Larry can pull off looking terrible. Like everything about Larry looked terrible except for the box score.

And you're like, this guy is killing everybody. So he can pull it off. He did not care about style. Back to the Zion thing though, I will say one thing before I go. Just from a basketball perspective, you two basketball mind head dudes,

is Zion Williamson's lack of availability right now? It's shocking. And I know a lot of the people back in back at home who were really into the Pelicans this year when they were a part in the pun flying high. Yeah. Are just destroyed by what's happened to the team. And it's almost as if, like in Louisiana, they're not used to having sports stars that you can't rely on. That's never really kind of been a thing.

Most of the guys play super hard in college. They play super hard if they're playing for the Saints. And just the back and forth with that fan base is really, really affecting a lot of people. Huge pro Zion guys now are just like, I hate the dude, he never plays. Yeah, that's tough. There's two separate things going on.

One is the people around you and the conditioning thing is all fixable stuff that obviously he has not been able to fix. But to me, I not been able to fix. But to me, I've been talking to a lot of different people about just the direction basketball is going. Just curious, just people in my life, people who are involved in the game in some way or people who still work in the game, things like that.

And I really do feel like the AAU culture is the biggest reason why he's in the shape he's in because of all the games that he had to play. And think of all the jumps, all the jumps in traffic, you're playing four days. The AAU thing, I don't think people understand how damaging it is in so many different ways for these guys, these younger guys, where you're playing four in a day, you're playing eight a weekend, you're just bouncing from team to team. And you're just putting these miles on yourself. Like Silver's talked about it publicly. He's talked about like, this is the biggest, one of the biggest threats that the sport has. And I think it is. I know people who have kids

that are in the AU stuff and the travel schedule is way crazier. The game schedule is way crazier than I think people realize. So I look at him and I just wonder like this generation of Zion generation people coming in combined with when we see all these people missing games with all these injuries, like, I don't think it's because the NBA is that much harder to play. I just think it's, it's the miles they're putting on before they get to the league. I really believe that's part of the issue. What do you think, Priscilla? It might be part of the issue with Zion, but he's got a weird body. Okay?

He does. And he has a weird gait. And despite his athleticism, which is insane, he's basically a defensive end who can just dunk on everybody. There's always been kind of a weird deal. Remember when he first got hurt years ago they were saying we're teaching him how to run again and land differently on his feet you're like oh this sounds like it's going to be a great idea what was it he's like his walking structure had to

be shifted and all that shit but curry had some of the same stuff remember yeah but it was ankle we teach him yeah but then you can kind of strengthen your ankles there's a lot of stuff you can do if you have like weak ankles you can step on those foam things and you turn it and you, you strengthen it. You actually feel it. Zion pulled his hamstring, like an innocuous play against the Sixers. That was January 2nd.

The guy hasn't played since we always knew that he was going to be hurt. I don't know if it's the AU thing. I'm not dismissing it. I think there's like, sometimes guys just get hurt. They have weird bodies. I don't know what his work ethic is now, but he has been known some as somebody who was younger.

Again, he's 23 in July, so it's not like we're talking about an older player who, a lot like Luka, Luka's diet guys laughed at. All right? Yeah. Sweet tea. Luka's another one.

He would come in fat, but he never paid the price. And I think, you know, as he works himself into shape over the course of the season, he can kind of get away with it a little bit more zion i don't know if it's changed but i wasn't hearing like great shit in the beginning and that's because here he is i mean he doesn't even know how to play yet and when he plays he's one of the 10 most dominant players in the league and

that's back to vance point is what's so frustrating. It's like, you hope when you get the number one pick, it's the right year. And you have this franchise put changing, but like, I believe he is all of those things. You can't stop the fucking guy. You can't stop him.

And he can pass. He doesn't even know how to shoot yet. There's certain things he still doesn't know how to do. And it didn't matter. And that's how special he was. And by the way, shout out to the Pelicans and Ingram for putting together this win streak. They've turned it around.

They've turned it around defensively because I felt like after a while, it's like, you guys are still too good to be this bad post-Zion. Now adapt. He's been gone for three months. But I am very, very worried about what Zion becomes now. Although, I think the Embiid storyline is the exception. If 31 games your first three years in, and then you become a future Hall of Famer and maybe an MVP, like normally your career starts that way.

You're like, oh, I remember that guy. And Embiid found a way to not be that guy. But I'm afraid Zion is in that kind of lane right now of like, what's this really going to be? Because that was a hamstring pull, guys. A hamstring pull, and it's April. Is he the same player if he plays at 260? If Zion says, fuck it, I'm shaving off 25, 30 pounds, and he just plays his career between 255 and 260,

there are some people that say, well, he's not going to be the same guy because he can't move guys in the same way. It doesn't matter. I think he'd be even quicker, man. I think it's his quickness. I think it's his second jump. I think it's his hands.

That's what's so frustrating is I actually believe it's not just like an empty stat guy. He is that fucking dominant. To see the Milwaukee Bucks set up their defense in that regular season game that I love so much, to set up their entire defense to stop him on the catch with the second guy

and it was the same. And the thing is, is he gets that little handoff curl in and everybody's ready for it and you still can't do anything with it. There's nothing you can do. Right. So I know your point. We've talked about this in the past, but the work ethic piece is the thing that separates

these guys from once we get in the stratosphere that his talent is at least, right? And that's going to be even somebody like Luca who has been pretty durable, you know? But at some point, he's going to take the other stuff seriously. We've been talking about that for two years. I always felt like Embiid put in the work.

Anything I'd heard from him, like he, you know, partly because he had to, because he missed so many games and there were so many injury concerns with him. He really had to put a process in place to be durable. And I think it worked, but for the most part, the guys who ended up being special, at least a piece of it is the work. And none of us have ever heard stories about his insane work ethic for Zion. No, no, no. It's been a natural ability thing. And that's the issue. No. And a lot of this is like everybody, how much better do you eat now than when you were younger? Okay. I mean, I think it's pretty normal for all of us i remember the first buddy of mine that bought fish oil like what are you a fucking loser you know like what's

what's wrong with you but the difference is is most of us talking about changing our diets and and paying attention to more than like we're not making hundreds of millions of dollars and we're not the face of franchise with millions of people worried about what our work ethic is. Yeah, I just picked this up from this Metamucil capitalist that just got the three-in-one fibers that I just picked up from Rite Aid. So, yeah, it's different. Just enjoy it now, Zion. Your boy's giving you a hard time for it.

Are they supportive? About the Metamucil? Yeah. No, I am the laughingstock, but I swear by this. I mean, the results are whatever. Okay. You know, we never talked about Ben Simmons in the context of some of these other people we're mentioning, like with the reporting and the work ethic.

He's kind of the Venn diagram of all these topics because I never felt like the reporting was there for really the last two years with why isn't Ben Simmons playing? He's, he's mad. I have no clue what's going on. No, he's actually physically,

he's feeling bad. No, he's going to be great. Then they trade for him. He's going to be awesome. He just needs two weeks to ramp up. No, he's had this back issue the whole time.

Then this year, Oh, he's back. He's going to be great. Oh, did you see him last night? He looked like the old Ben Simmons. Nope. His back hurts again. And now it it's now you read the reporting and well it's an 18 month injury

when you anytime you have nerve damage it takes 18 months for the nerves to regenerate that was what i read this weekend are there are there nba examples of like a chuck knoblock situation to where you know it just for some reason goes because when you look people are talking about what ben simmons trying to think that's what ben simmons can't do is have has always been the stuff that ben simmons couldn't do but he found a way to be a particularly good nba player right now it's now that stuff's overwhelmed him first yeah before he learned to coexist with it yeah but has there ever been, has there ever been an NBA equivalent to where a guy just can't throw the ball to,

to, to first base anymore? It's not where somebody lost their confidence like this. And again, physically there's some stuff that seems to be, it seems, seems to be true to a degree. I still don't a hundred percent know what to believe and not to believe. And I think when

you saw the Jacques Vaughn, Russo and I were chronicling at the different excuses that they were using for a couple of weeks there. It was like knee soreness and impingement. And there were just these kind of large nouns being thrown around to excuse whatever was going on. I just don't know how much he likes playing basketball. Seems to be the big fundamental issue. And the fact that he went away like he did. I've yet to hear an

adequate explanation for it. That the Atlanta series was that traumatizing that he just had to stop playing basketball. Yeah, that's the thing. I don't know. I mean, I want to be sensitive to the idea that it's a back issue that's the thing it's like i don't know i mean i want to uh be sensitive to the idea that it's a back issue that's lingering but you have wide open layups and you don't want to take them you know and jock vaughn did what you're supposed to do back your guy keep feeding him the royal

jelly tell him everything's going to be great back him with the media because you're just you're not going to sit up there as a head coach today's game being like he's fucking toast i can't play this guy anymore but then you start i just pay attention to fourth quarter sub patterns like oh so he's yanking him out of the game remember that game against the celtics where he was incredible he was going to transition in the first half they're plus 13 and he was getting all these assists he ended up getting benched in that exact same game because once the stakes were raised he wasn't comfortable and i don't know if it changed from the Atlanta thing. You know, I think there are certain players, you know, we could go to the Nick Anderson free throws

to Vance Point, but that's not the same thing. That's an element of the game. That's close. That's a good example. Yeah, he was good. He talked about it, too. He's never been the same since that. You know what? I would kind of like, because, you know, the Westbrook thing has kind of picked up a bunch of

because he has a huge night against Memphis, then the next night he doesn't play as well, whatever. It's been a nice pickup for them, and they've actually needed him with the Paul George stuff, so win Clippers. But if you watched him with the Lakers against Boston, as soon as a couple threes didn't go down, all of a sudden he was done. He was done for the game.

That's an in-game thing where Westbrook is never going to be down on himself enough to ever let that happen to him. But you could see it within the times game to game with the Lakers where you're like, oh, he's pissed. And now he totally doesn't trust himself. And now everybody else like Draymond, I think in a weird way, became a very apprehensive offensive player. Because if you look at his three-point shooting when he first started playing, and'm forgetting like the mark jackson year where he wanted him as like an on ball small forward which didn't make any fucking sense and dream on himself said if i kept doing that i'd be out of the league but draymond was well he almost had a 40 three-point shoot in one year

yeah yeah and and when it went weird on him i do think he's a different guy confidence-wise on certain shot attempts. Like, I've never been tight. You could say, oh, well, he's always a great ball handler. He's got these great shooters. He's deferring. He was a more confident offensive player the first half of his career than he has been in the second half. I don't think there's any dispute when you watch that.

But I don't think it's the Ben Simmons thing. I thought of another example, guys. Russo, you'll love this one because you were there for it. We watched it happen with Antoine Walker because he didn't want to get fouled anymore. Because Antoine Walker's free throw shooting went sideways and it completely changed how he played. He was afraid.

He used to be really nice around the basket. He had like a really crafty around the basket, like banging into guys, herky-jerky, even though he was a little undersized game. And once his free throw shooting went south, he didn't want to go down there anymore. And he would quick, he would quick shoot, or he would try, he would have a, have a shot where he would go in for a layup and he would just kind of get rid of it to like Tony Batty in the corner for, you know, no reason. It was like, Oh, Tony Batty is 20 feet away. Great. Um, but it,

it totally changed how he plays. So it has happened. Not like this Ben Simmons thing, though. This is... Yeah, but this is... You're right. The Simmons thing is so different, too. And I think the part that I find particularly offensive, and I'll bring it up again,

was he was delusional for like 90 minutes with J.J. Redick and Tommy Alter on that podcast. And it was like, you want to criticize me? Like how, like, here's what you don't understand. And nothing has changed. And it's like,

when you heard him talk, I thought it was awful. It was great interview, but it was like, oh man, like you don't think any of this is on you. You think everybody's making all this stuff up and that you're still awesome. Like that's like

you need to be a little down on yourself to turn this around we're you know we always want guys to be confident i was like you're like you're a little too confident for me right now van before you go you want to give us your uh mvp with a week to go it's mb well you know i but let me tell you something. I've lost all my fire for the MVP thing. I came on here and I had some fun about the MVP thing and then everything went too far.

Okay? There's so many things in my life I have to worry about other than the fucking NBA MVP. I don't give a fuck. All right? Embiid's great. Jokic has been great.

I like Jason Tatum. He's my favorite current player. It vacillates. It goes back and forth. Favorite current player. I love Tatum. I think that Embiid probably has. I will say this.

When Perk got a little bit of criticism, when he seemed to try to get back on the Jokic good side of things, when he said that Embiid should have played in that game. And I know as a casual, as a casual, I've been, I'm King Casual. That's my new name, hashtag King Casual. I think he should have played too. A lot of people have been doing a lot of people been doing a lot of work to make sure he gets his first mvp and then he doesn't go down there and really and play

it look bad but you know whatever it's a wide open uh it's a wide open nba to me you could give the mvp to any of those guys and they would be deserved yeah we're still and i were split on that one we're so it didn't bother us. It bothered me a little bit. I just would have... If my calf was bothering me a tiny bit, I would have skipped the Saturday game to be ready for the Monday game. I don't know. The fans wanted it.

They were circling each other. He worked them in the Philly game. That was the other thing. It's like, all right, here's the rematch. You decidedly won the Philly game. Now let's see what happens in Denver. And then it just didn't happen. Can I say one last thing?

This is the difference to me between the NBA now and the NBA I grew up on. I remember there being big, huge games. I remember when the Magic played the Suns in like 94. And those guys were up for the game. I remember Penny reverse dunk into the game. Like it was for,

it was to decide who the best team in the league at that time was. And they were up for the game. Nobody wasn't going to play. And it was a, it was a thing. And the fact that he didn't play, I understand if you're hurt, but it doesn't seem like he was

hurt enough to miss what every single basketball fan wanted. It's a little disappointing. Ryan, you didn't think so? Yeah, Timmy protected his lead a little bit. I hate it in general. This entire thing of having these marquee nights. We've had

three or four this year where the whole day all I'm thinking about is that game and then we've missed it. We had a Giannis one early where I was like, come on man, especially him where I think Giannis is more up for it night to night than anybody but the reason I wasn't

as down on the Embiid part of it is I felt like he looked like he needed a rest after that last two stretches in Golden State and Phoenix. I thought specifically to the Phoenix game where he tried to get them back into it and it just wasn't going to happen. They were kind of spent. I watched him going like

if it wasn't Denver, he was probably going to rest against anybody because he looked like the guy was due for arrest after carrying that fucking team on his back for like two straight months. That's fair. That's why I wasn't upset. All right, Van. Thanks for joining us. It was good to see you. I'm fair. That's why I wasn't upset. Alright. Van, thanks for joining us. It was good to see you.

I'm out. Thank you guys for having me. Go Tigers! We did it! We did it, guys! We did it for Ricky Blanton! We did it! Where is it ranked between

that and the Clemson title game? Come on, Ryan. Come on. Ryan. Come on. This is what you do. This is what you do. I'm throwing water on him.

This is what you do. Now, no. I'm not entertaining it. Bill ranks stuff on this pod. It's bigger. How about that? How about that? I like to rank.

How about that? It's bigger. It's bigger. History is bigger. Okay. How about that? How about that? I like to rank. How about that? It's bigger. It's bigger. It's history. It's bigger. How about that? Yeah. Bye, Vin.

Peace. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rosillo and Van Lathan. Thanks to Kyle Crane for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerruti as well. Don't forget, Prestige TV Podcast Succession. If you want to hear our breakdown episode 2, go listen to that. Get ready

for the rewatchables on Monday. Listen to the Ringer Wrestling Show if you want to hear all the reactions to WrestleMania over the weekend. And I will see you on this feed on Tuesday from The Masters. I want to see them on a way so I can say I don't have

feelings with them on the wayside I don't have