The Bill Simmons Podcast - NBA Summer Winners and Losers With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 393)

Episode Date: July 27, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the NBA roster changes this summer. They decide which teams got better, which teams got worse, and which teams are just treading water Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The Watch. It's a quiet week, quiet content week. Thank God for the NBA. Thank God for our man Ryan Rosillo, who's going to be on the podcast. But first, Pearl Jam. podcast but first pearl jam all right in studio la ryanA. Ryan. Ryan Rosillo. You can feel he's been here a couple months. He just has a different vibe. He's tan.

Yeah. He looks like he's fit. Yeah, everybody keeps saying you look like you're in good shape now. It's just because you're tan. Yeah, I don't really get it. It's East Coast. You're either sunburned or you're white, and there's no in between. But yeah, I can tell the L.A.

You're wearing an LAFC shirt. Huge fan. My last night. Yeah, terrible. Unbelievable crowd, right? I can't believe how great that LAFC thing is. And, you know, I remember going to my first USC game like 10 years ago and, you know, it was all RVs and whatever.

I'm like, you guys put a stadium right here. Yeah. And then you go in and they've been there. This is their first season. Okay. And you go in and that whole section where it's like their, their crew. The trained fans. Yeah.

In the one end. Yeah. They brought them over to Germany to like learn how to do it. And I, Tom Penn, who we both know, who's, who's the guy. And I was like, I, I, I can't believe you already have this. Like chanting for hours before the thing even starts and then non-stop the whole time and i and they get rid of the seat so you have to stand and you can't go there so like i was like can i go check that out and they go well unless you're gonna sing you're like

trained assassins i got season tickets like a year ago and i and i have two and my friend nathan hubbard has two next to me and we and we just kind of pass them back i think i'm gonna get them they're phenomenal my son hates soccer never wanted to play never wanted to watch we brought him he's like i don't want to go this sucks and then we went he had a great time the food was great so he's like i'm in yeah everybody who goes loves it i would say they have the best crowd in la right now just game to game like the intensity excitement atmosphere i couldn't believe like I felt a little bad because I was asking some people with the club. I go, that's what they call them out here. Yeah, the club.

Yeah, I go, I don't want to sound like a jerk because, you know, too late. I go, how do they already care this much? It's one of the great business stories. They've created history out of thin air in the span of five months. Nephew Kyle went, they had had to like the police had to pull him out he went he wanted to stay for like three hours after smoking drinking that's the other thing too is they go all right well after the game they're like sunset and i go what are you talking about they're like we stay open yeah you're watching the sun go down behind the coliseum

i mean you're right there in usc and And then I ended up making a real rookie mistake where I had a long day and then I did a 10 East deal in the middle of the day. You still got to figure out the highway. Well, because I was going to take the train. So I was in Santa Monica working out. Shout out to the Equinox. Huge celebrity siding there, by the way.

And we may do it. I feel like I'm selling a guy out a little bit, but if you want to do that later, I'd love to. No, sell him out now. It's early. You a huge office fan or are you one of those guys? I'm not, I'm not an office fan. You're not? I'm not against it. I just never got caught into it. My whole staff is though. I have a quiet theory that'll relate to that later separately.

I'm hot today, morning, ready to go. Yeah. You miss coffee? You guys, not even drink coffee. I got a kombucha. Oh, you have a kombucha? Yeah. Yeah. It's home brewed, small batch. So when you guys know Toby, right?by flenderson yeah like i've heard the name yeah it's his nemesis okay and so i'm at the equinox and you know you see some celebrity guys in there and i i do a double take and like i'm sure you notice like if somebody's checking you out you're like okay these guys are looking at me so i was like don't do that don't be that guy but it was i i don't even know if kyle if we can look up who the actor is so it's toby it's toby yeah and imagine if like you were at the beach and tom cruise showed up shirtless dog tags ready to play beach volleyball yeah daisy dukes and starts talking to your girl at the blankets like

you want to play a little beach volleyball yeah and you'd be like holy shit you really like this like this is who you are that's what toby was like at equinox brown shirt dad shorts a6 no offense to the gel you know technology yeah dark socks and he goes to the incline so i was like wow toby's gonna go incline bench free weights like what do we got here tens on each side not not a deep you know like just kind of it's a light workout yeah he's coming back from an injury i could have caught him on a high rep day to be fair and he was looking around and it was toby it was actually toby from the office doing chest you love la and i couldn't paul lieberstein by the way paul yeah shout out. Yeah. Shout out to Paul Lieberstein. And he did get up.

He did put a 25 and a 10 and got a little deeper, I noticed. You spent so much time in middle Connecticut, your celebrity sightings were basically like, hey, there's Bob Lee. Anybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Shelly Smith. Shelly Smith was in the salad bar. Hey, haven't seen you in a while. And now it's like you're in LA and you're seeing Toby from The Office. And he worked out just like you would expect Toby to work out. And potentially, you'll get to see Rayjean

Rondo. Why are you checking your phone? You need your undivided attention. No, no, no. This is my NBA free agency. I don't want to miss a thing. I didn't bring any notes. I don't know where to start. I made a couple notes just so we didn't forget anything. Okay, alright. You got the notes. Well, I wanted to hit, cause now it's been a month, right? It's the end of July,

pretty much done at this point. Really fascinating for agency. And I didn't want to really wait in big picture wise until the end of the month. I feel like most of the teams have gotten worse. Is that possible? Wow. I only like what a couple teams have done. And I either felt like everyone else either treaded water or I dislike what they did. Give me like the ones that jump out to you that you go, what's the point? I mean, you can't- The treading water teams?

No, because I do think there were a lot of- Well, we'll get to them. Explanations where a team, like I do think there were a lot of explanations where a team, like if you were talking to a team, they'd be like, no, no, you're missing the point. We did it because of this, this, and there's always times where I'm like, I wasn't thinking about that. And then sometimes I'm just like, why bother? What's the Jabari Parker deal about? Yeah, we could

go playoff teams first. I'd rather you just go with what's... I was the most disappointed with Philly. I don't know what they did. They had Wilson Chandler? They had all this cap space. They had cap space to get somebody who was an impact to anything. What about JJ?

Well, they just brought him back. They basically have last year's team with Wilson Chandler. You know what's weird about that deal is how they were never in on the LeBron thing. Okay. Well, I think LeBron needed the stunt team, the placebo team, because his Lakers thing had been done. I posted on Twitter today. I went on Coward's show like 14 months ago

when Coward, for some reason, thought LeBron was going to the Clippers. And I just surgically picked him apart with LeBron going to the Lakers. Honestly, it was like a Tom Brady second half against the Falcons type of performance. And he has not invited me back since. Because it's like, I don't blame him. It's almost, I'm amazed he still has the show.

It was that bad. You're amazed, Cal? He just, what are you? Well, just like when you get demolished like that, how do you get back on your feet and do another show? Have you paid attention to how talk radio works? You're right. But yeah. We'll get you back on your feet and do another show? Have you paid attention to how talk radio works? You're right. But yeah. We'll get you back on the show.

We're neighbors. No, I don't want to go back on that. It's my walk-off homer. There's no point. It's like Gibson Eckersley. There's no reason to ever have another at-bat against them. All right. But yeah, I've been so...

What's that with the Lakers? I don't get it. I don't. I mean, congrats to them. And yes, you've been on it. And, you know, there's all sorts of things that we can revisit. Because if you look at the LeBron part of this, right? We did this in February.

Yeah. My thing was that I didn't think he was going to come here by himself. And he did it. And what I would say is, I don't think he thought he was going to come here by himself. Okay. The Paul George thing. So you think till the tail end, he was like, well, at least we'll get Paul George. Yeah.

And then once that didn't happen, which surprised everybody, I think it was like, okay, well, you can just move these pieces for Kawhi. My thing, I would ask anybody this. Like living out here now and that LeBron came here and he came here by himself, right? Because I never thought Philly was real once Cleveland knew they weren't going to get anybody else for whatever kind of assets they thought they had he was going to bounce it's turned to this thing like LeBron's like just ready to retire like people are talking about him out here like he's 40 I'm not saying you are but it's oh he wants to make tv shows and he's yeah he's over I'm like man he's 33 34 this year like the dude still wants to win. He played 82 games last year, plus how many playoff games?

Like 20 plus? Right, eight straight years of this stuff. Never missed a game last season. I know. And I think he did that because he gets sick about hearing how he's taking time off. So I think the simplest way

I can kind of put this all together is that once they knew the Cleveland thing wasn't going to work, Philly wasn't real. I don't care what those guys say out there. Houston was never real. Houston didn't fit. I didn't even think from a basketball standpoint,

you know, he can like Chris Paul, but it's like man three of us yeah so then he goes all right well we'll figure some other stuff out in la do you think when magic showed up to lebron's house when free agency started that night that his pitch was okay here's what we're gonna do we're not gonna trade for kawaii and we're gonna get rondo who i know lebron likes rondo and we're gonna get rondo lance javel you redoron likes Rondo and we're going to get Rondo Lance JaVale you redo Pope because he's a clutch guy um like it's it's a collection of dudes it's a collection of personalities that you would never really like no one would ever say separate of LeBron that putting these five personalities together on one basketball team makes any sense so I'm I'm really

surprised how this has played out since he agreed to come to LA. I look at it and I agree with the mindset. I just don't agree with the players they got. Because if they were smart, LeBron and Magic have an honest conversation and everybody's making it seem like it happened on July 1st at midnight. It probably happened over the course of the season multiple times with texts that couldn't, you know, I'm sure they've been talking the whole year about what to do. I think LeBron was like, no matter what we do, we're not beating the Warriors this year. And we're probably not beating the Celtics with all their guys that are coming back. I don't know if it was him saying this or Magic, but I think they probably looked at it and said, why are we giving away assets so we can just lose to the 2019 Warriors anyway? Let's have this weird year. We'll get

all these one-year dudes. We can pounce on Kawhi in February. And if it doesn't work out, we're positioned for the next year and the cap space, all these people, you'll win 50 games by yourself anyway. We'll be relevant again. You'll be in LA. You'll get settled and we'll figure it out. And they left themselves flexibility, which I really respect because looking back in 2014, I never thought, I went back and I read it to make sure I felt this way. I thought they should have tested out the Wiggins thing for a couple months before they did the love trade. The love trade was going to be there anyway. They could have made that trade in February. But I just don't think LeBron wanted to play with young guys, which is what makes this LA thing.

Because I think he learned from 14, like don't make your team in July, which I really agree with. So you think he'd rather wait it out, the Lakers would rather wait it out than giving up an Ingram and another piece for, because what I'd heard it was Ingram is the starter and then it was other things.

I wouldn't have done it. I would want to play with those guys. I think the biggest mistake these teams make, and this would be the case for actually wait on Philly. Don't judge what they did yet. The biggest mistake these teams make is they try to make their team in July and August. And we know as the league goes, everybody loves their team after summer league. Nobody wants to make a trade. You get to our training camp. Nobody wants to do anything. And then by Thanksgiving, everyone's like, fuck this guy. I hate this guy. We're getting him out of here. I mean have a cell he's nasty now but yeah right the

celtic summer team when i was out there and by the way the summer league thing like if you haven't gone it's spectacular it's it's so much better like granted you're like oh it's nba it's vegas get there go a couple days if you like basketball it's inexcusable if you don't go bring your kid you know what i mean summer league takeover it It was so much fun. We loved it. I can't believe how great it is. Like I drove out there through Barstow. I stopped in Baker. I was in it. It was fun to see you finally embrace the Barstow Baker, that whole drive. Right. And also like that one stretch where it's like, should I get gas now or should I risk it? I stopped in Baker at that Greek place to eat the mad Greek. I, yeah. I mean, you don't hear about Eastern California much.

That job's really fun because now that we have podcasts and things, like in the old days, the radio would go out. Yeah. And you'd either have your CDs or you were screwed. But now in 2018, you have all these different devices and stuff. But so do you agree that with the Lakers that, why do you have to have your team in July? Why can't you wait?

Why can't you figure it out in December, January, February? Maybe Kawhi is miserable in Toronto and you can get him for like Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart in a first round pick in February. Maybe. Okay. Maybe. But would you have done the number two pick

for Paul George two years ago? Or excuse me, last offseason, 2017? No. Okay. You'd do it now. I don't know. You don't know? You wouldn't trade Lonzo for George?

The Lonzo pick. Yeah, the Lonzo pick. I mean, you don't get to take Tatum retroactively. I have a confession. What? I'm still in on Lonzo. I don't think that's... It's a minority.

There's not a lot of us. I still- It's okay. It's okay. I think it's okay. He's a good kid. Yeah. It's his dad who's the problem.

I just think it's heading for a divorce with him and his dad. It's like a Mary Pierce situation where we're going to- Remember Mary Pierce and she had to like, her dad had to be banned from coming to the games. I think that's where we're heading with this. Wasn't that like the kid from different strokes that sued his parents? Yeah. I think all these stories, I think that's where this is going. Eventually he's going to realize like my dad is making me persona non grata in the NBA. Nobody will even trade for me because

of my dad. I have to separate from this guy. Yeah. That is kind of nuts that this actually happened. Cause I remember when it was all going down before the draft, I'm like, Oh, who cares? You know? And especially in LA, like it's magic. It's the Lakers. Like nobody's going to care. And then you,

you hear about stuff a season later and you'll hear some people be like, you know what? It kind of sucks. Yeah. It kind of sucks. It kind of wears on you. It's kind of crazy father just saying everything. Every week,

you don't know what's going to happen. And then when does something does, you know, if it's a quiet week and something doesn't happen. And then when it does, it's like, Hey everybody. And,

and I've heard, you know, I mean, people can do whatever they want with it, but like, I think it's common sense that it starts to grind at you a little bit. And that's too bad. Cause I do like the kid, the kid, you know, I would give LeVar a lot of credit for this. Like every time I've seen his kids, they all seem to be like really enjoying being around him. You know, like I think that part of the fatherhood thing is pretty cool. And I don't want to turn this into a massive ball rant here, but the team itself, Bill, the one year thing, yep.

Not giving up the assets. I just didn't like all the one year deals they gave out. I think KCP for one for 12 is obviously a clutch thing. Yeah, but you just gave him

a ton the year before. So you already paid him. You already overpaid him on the one year deal. But it's, they're trying to make it back for him because they screwed up his pistons contract okay so the agency thing to me and i don't know why this became more of a thing this year but i feel like it was kind of the secret sauce of this whole free agency ca versus clutch like paul george

not going to the lakers that seemed to be a total agent it felt like a whole like weird i've heard i don't know what's true or not but i think what you've heard is the same thing i've heard and i believe in it and like them letting go julius randall and i like george's agent a lot would you rather have julius randall for nine million or kcp for 12 like who the fuck would want kcp for more money than julius randall where are all these julius randall was 18 and 10 last year for like three months no julius is there's a version of him there's a version of him in like a small ball league where you go okay he can handle he can drive on you like a little too one-dimensional probably starting his career and but he plays hard but he does and you know the other thing that's was really cool and i think luke deserves a lot of

credit for this like that was always my philly thing is that new young teams have never played together. Usually stink on defense and Philly was incredible, but the Lakers were kind of sneaky, good on defense. The second half of the season. Absolutely. So, so I didn't, I didn't love all the actual signings, but I think the mindset I agreed with, if you can't get anybody, keep your flexibility and you have a ton of assets. I really hated the KCP thing though. I just don't think he's good. Let me ask you this though.

Okay. And a GM told me this a long time ago and it's still true today. Yeah. Your roster kind of has to have eight guys that know they're going to play, 10 that maybe think they're going to play. And then three or four guys that know they're not ever going to play. And you hope that they're veterans. Yeah.

Everybody that's on this Lakers roster is either a young guy that thinks he's awesome or an old guy that thinks he's awesome and is waiting for the next contract of the one year deal. Like this isn't easy. And that's kind of my whole point. Like if you think that this was the roster that was pitched and this is what closed LeBron, you know, I would imagine at some point if, you know, I don't know what happens with Kawhi in Toronto, we can get into that whole thing. On paper of lebron no one would go i really like what this team did they never would but it's glossed over by getting the best player in the league which i totally get lebron ingram lonzo josh hart kuzma rondo i like that six lance then it goes then it goes kcp javel lance and javel has to play because they don't have a center. Or it's Mo.

And then- I like that six. I really like Josh Hart. And I just feel like you don't need KCP. Last year, all the Laker fans I knew were like, it's crazy that he plays KCP over Josh Hart. It's fucking drives me nuts. Like every Lakers fan kind of felt that way.

But the thing is they could, by December, they can package KCP and Lance, the one-year deals for that with whatever. And they can get to basically any salary. One of those guys will have to work. I think it's just one of those deals where on paper, it makes a lot of sense to be greedy and go, whatever, we'll just get them for free or whatever. We'll just get them for less. But it just happened to you that a whole approach, we'll just get them for free. And Paul George, I mean, was partly responsible for this because he's the one that told everybody two years ago when this whole odyssey started, when he was with the Pacers, like, hey, I'm

going to go to the Lakers in 2018. And then he doesn't. It just happened to you. So if you could have had a piece that grabs a top five player in Kawhi who's still really young and awesome, I'm of the belief of instead of being cute about it, just give me the guy. Coming up, I'm going to get your take on my favorite NBA conspiracy theory of 2018. Let's talk about Starbucks double shot. Starts with bold Starbucks coffee blended with milk for a smooth, creamy, delicious flavor.

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shot. Makes your brain, gets your brain start going again. It's energy to do things you actually do. You can find it in your local convenience store, put it in your fridge, just pop one. The Starbucks double shot, check it out. All right, so I've said this on my pod. I don't know if you heard it. What if Adam Silver and OKC,

there were phone calls back and forth. Uh-oh, this is going to be good. And OKC was like, LA's tampering with Paul George. They're telling everybody he's coming to the team. We have evidence A, evidence B, and evidence C. We could either make a big stink about this publicly, or you can handle this. And Adam's like, I got this.

And he calls the Lakers. He's like, I love you guys. I want you guys to succeed. I know LeBron's coming. This is great for the league. Hands off Paul George. I'm not going to come down on you guys. You cannot sign him.

And then goes to the Paul George side and was like, Paul George, you've talked to the Lakers. It's inappropriate. I'm going to let it go. You cannot sign with them. Neither of you sides are allowed to talk to one another. It's not inconceivable, right? I love when people throw out stuff and it's like,

you know, it's a 1% chance. I don't think it's a 1%. I think it's like you know it's a 1% chance I don't think it's a 1% I think it's like a 40% chance you're so much bigger on the conspiracy things and I just

I shoot them all down but like that doesn't mean they're all wrong right this is for a year everyone on the Lakers

side is like whoa we're getting Paul George he didn't even take a meeting with him didn't even take a meeting

what is that didn't take a meeting and by the way is the okc that's the red flag is that party like should everyone be doing that for mid-tier free agents from now on like have a clam bake if if like if baines wants to leave next year the first night of free agency marcus smart and rosier throw a clam bake in weymouth or something i think the purina factory would be probably a little too inland. The Purina factory really, it makes everybody a little crazy.

Okay, see. Last thing on the Lakers, because I want to- I don't, do you want me to say that, I can't tell you what's wrong. No, it's just a fun theory. I'm sure there's way more businesses handled that way because that's how it works in court. Why wouldn't, why wouldn't there be,

like, I don't believe in, like when Stern shot down the Paul trade, okay, we know what happened there. The frozen envelopes thing. Some of these conspiracy theories, they've been around so long. Do you think Stern suspended MJ for gambling? I've heard it a million times,

but how come no one... How are we what? Almost 25 years removed from it? Or almost? If one of the- How could no one ever do the 60 minutes version of like, here's what happened? Because maybe only like two or three people know.

If one of the seven best players in the league failed the PED test, would the NBA kick it under the table and pretend it didn't happen? Well, tennis did it with Agassi. If you read his book. So after I read that, or actually, you know what? Read all the USADA stuff that happened with the US team.

Like we're sitting there ripping all these other foreign athletes. MVP candidate fails a PD test. Yeah. Other leagues, other sports entities have done it. Goodell's like, we're getting this guy. I don't, I'll be, I'd be interested to know what would happen if that ever happened in the NBA. I want to audible to OKC because this drove me crazy as a basketball fan.

I hate when teams are stupid. And this is a two-part thing. Well, actually we'll start with Atlanta. Atlanta could just take Doncic at three and keep Dennis Schroeder. Instead, they trade Doncic for Trae Young, who I like him. I didn't like him at five.

Really has major bust potential. Really could be out of the league in six years. They get Trae Young, Dallas' 2019 first, a shit first from OKC, and they eat $20 million of dennis schroeder's contract would you rather have donchich and schroeder or young the dallas pick okc shit pick and you eat 20 million dollars who the fuck would want that with want that strategy yeah when you add it all up it's pretty tough now you could argue with the salary floor like i'm surprised

more teams just can go hey you know what we're going to do instead of paying the floor with something? We're just going to give everybody bonus, you know? Because that's what you have to do. You can have a 60 million payroll and just everybody gets paid more. Hey, everybody gets paid a little bit more. Apparently there was a story, I think it was out of Portland,

where Portland pulled a move and brought their salary up to the floor and no one on the team knew it except for one vet who came in and was like, we're all going to get checks for like 1.7 mil to get to the floor and no one on the team knew it except for one vet who came in and was like we were all going to get checks for like 1.7 mil oh the one vet who checked his checking account it's like whoa no but he checked it was like after we made i think it was portland's like after we made this deal we got to the floor so now this thing that we're going to get like hinky had a few when they did the juveil deal yeah like everybody on the sixers, like was it Hollis Thompson was going to get a quadruple

his salary if they didn't get to the salary floor. And that ended up not happening. Never a problem at ESPN. The Atlanta thing. I hate what Atlanta did. I hate it more passionately than anything I've hated any NBA team has done in the last two years. I think that trade is going to be historically bad. I have no idea why they just punted on Dennis Schroeder, who's actually a good basketball player. I don't like him. He's put up 19 a game. He can create his own shot.

Yeah, but that's his own. You have to pay $20 million to get rid of him. It's not like he's like an albatross. It just makes no sense. How great was OKC? Nobody wants Dennis Schroeder? How great were they, though, that they were just like, OK, we're going to do all these other things.

We already know we're dumping Mellow. Like, they knew it. But didn't you know it? Well, that was what was so crazy. I tweeted it like four weeks ago, and people were like, it like picked up traction. People were like, oh, they might dump Mellow. I was like, what the fuck do you think?

You think they were paid $300 million in luxury tax? So you don't enjoy all the touchscreens that we did at ESPN? No, I didn't enjoy that. I did enjoy the luxury tax touch. Their salary might be 300 million. I'm really scared of the Atlanta thing because of stuff that I'd heard about the Trey Young thing.

Like Travis, their GM comes from Golden State, which is really funny too because they were like, you'll read stuff. And I don't think Travis ever said this, but- Oh, it's about he wants his own career. Yeah, he wants his own Golden State. And you're like, well, was it that easy? Like, hey, do you want to be gm of the knicks yeah what i want to do here is get two sick shooting guards i want to have two of the best four shooters in the history

of basketball and then i want a five who can play all five positions who's in the second round so let's do that so so hired five-year deal what do you think they're like this guy's awesome he's going to create his own his golden state east is what we're doing. But the Atlanta thing, as you mentioned, the Curry deal, is I'd heard that depending on who's influencing who and the decision-making there, and this always scares me when I hear this about teams, is that, okay, we have no buzz, right? We're a boring ass team.

We need a little buzz. How about Luka Doncic? Yeah, or change your uniforms. He may be able to have some buzz. He's going to be fucking awesome. Short-term wins, winning the press conference, college football does this crap all the time. I almost feel like that's what Cleveland did a bit

with the Kevin Love extension. They're like, let's have something positive and put him in front of some sheet rock and put some hats on people. And yeah, we got Kevin Love back. Like, I feel like Atlanta, unless they just love Trey Young, but I'll never, like that thing,

not only could it be Trey Young being the problem, but if Doncic turns out to be a stud, that's going to go down as one of those things. Like you'll be doing this podcast years from now. I'm already here. I'm saying it right now. I think that's one of the worst trades of the decade and potentially is going to be one of the worst trades

of the 21st century. And what really bothers me is there's going to be some revisionist history because we're in the era of puff piece journalism with giving the puff piece feature about what the GM was really thinking. And it would be floated out there that, well, actually Atlanta, one of the reasons they had to get rid of Schroeder

is they wanted to make sure they were bad to make sure that their 2019 first was going to be terrible too. And now they'll have that in Dallas and they're rebuilding and you got to like what they're doing here. It's like, you know what I would have liked to have in Luka Doncic.

And by the way, if you have Trae Young and Dennis Schroeder together, you're still going to stink. You don't have to pay $20 million to get rid of a guy who is the best backup point guard in the league now. So if I'm on another team, I'm like, wow, OKC just shed $100 million in luxury tax and got rid of Melo, who was fucking awful for them. And now they have a point guard

who if they could figure it out, could actually like win game three of a playoff series for them. For OKC getting Schroeder, I think it makes sense. I don't necessarily like him. And their argument would be, hey, if we're trying to develop Trey

and then that guy can create his own shot, never passes to him and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, you could play him off. I mean, I always felt like he was a late game, kind of all or nothing guy. Like not exactly as bad as like the worst version of Reggie Jackson, but kind of some of those tendencies a little bit.

But that's in a playoff series, you need that. Like you're in Utah game four and you're threatening to go down 3-1 and he comes in and gets hot and scores 27 points. Like I want those guys in a playoff series. I think he'll be good for them. Look, I like him for the Thunder. I just don't necessarily like him overall.

But our general, like we're in agreement here. Well, I didn't like him as a starting point guard. I thought he was below average as a starting point guard. I think he's one of the best two or three backup point guards in the league. Like coming off the bench, it's like him and Rozier. And I don't know, Josh. Josh Harden is not even a point guard.

Was the Exum contract one of the most surprising of the off season? Yeah, that felt like a guilt contract. Yeah. But anyway, OKC, I like what they did. They brought Paul George back. Kudos to them. The unfinished business stuff I thought was hilarious

because they won two playoff games. At the same time, they got rid of Melo. They overpaid to bring jeremy grant back but at least he's on the team i thought i went from hating his game to starting to appreciate where he's at i don't know who is who is bidding 27 million for him oh actually i think there were some teams that were going to come out i heard i heard from two teams that were like bummed they were like really yeah oh that's good for them no no yeah i like the noel flyer even though i i have major questions about him

in 19 different areas. Schroeder, like, I think that's a real deep playoff team though. I would argue that I think Houston got worse. They definitely did. The reason was huge for them. 100% they got worse. Right.

The Lakers, who the hell knows, but there are 50 wins with LeBron, but you could make a case that OKC is the second best team in the West now yeah I went from like last year looking at the Thunder going I'm not sure I'm not sure and then you'd watch him and depend on the week that you would catch him but overall you know we've done the Russ topic at nauseam so I'm not going to do that again but it was it is this thing where I wasn't as high on him and then they lose the jazz and yeah like there's two versions of it you're watching them celebrate unfinished business and be like, didn't you guys lose

to the jazz in the first round? Like, what are you celebrating? In six. Right. But what you're doing here is you're forgetting what has gone on emotionally with this fan base. Okay. And I would, I would put, like, I was going to do this with, with Van Pelt at some point

on one of the podcasts. Thanks a lot. Yeah. But you're not a college football guy. Oh, no, I'm not. I would like to, over the course of your career, the fan bases that were just the most insufferable. It doesn't mean you hate this team or hate this city or hate this fan base, but which fan base have you gone, you at peak, terrible? Jazz fans at times, back in the Darren Williams things,s things are pretty rough it was brutal it's not as bad now but it was real bad back then twitter has kind of mitigated them a

little bit yeah i guess not as into you know maybe more of like pinterest well when they do when they do bad shit it's actually on twitter now when they yell inappropriate things or whatever so i would put thunder fans the last couple years years up there, but it's still a post-breakup freakout. So that celebration was about, hey, no one thought Russ was going to stay here, and he did. And no one thought George was going to stay here, and he did.

So you guys can make all the jazz jokes that you want. So I do appreciate, I think I understand what that excitement is for Thunder fans being like, all you guys, you said all these things are going to happen. No one, our sushi sucks, all this stuff. And guess what? You've been against us since we stole the Sonics. Yeah, exactly said all these things are going to happen. No one, our sushi sucks, all this stuff. And guess what?

You've been against us since we stole the Sonics. Yeah, exactly. Screw you. We needed a team. So I get that they're super, super triggered on everything, but they are. That fan base currently for me for the last year plus has been pretty brutal. Western Conference odds. Golden State minus 220.

Rockets 5-1. Lakers 8-1. OKC five to one. Lakers eight to one. OKC 30 to one. You're right. It doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make sense. That's just a LeBron betting. That's them setting a number against LeBron action.

It has to be. That eight to one is basically we're banking on LeBron trading for another guy before March. Yeah, but don't you also think it's just because- He can't win the West with the team he has. Yeah, but being in Vegas, don't you think they would just get more action on the Lakers than they would the Thunder? Yeah, they might, but the OKC

at 30-1 is stupid because the big thing for me is, and you hear this now, it's like, and we wrote it back, Kevin O'Connor wrote it back on The Ringer, if Westbrook can play off the ball. Now, every moment he's had playing off the ball has been a disaster. how many words was that was it seven words

that piece yeah but he's older when's what you know what's crazy but you're gonna we're gonna read this can you envision him setting a screen in your head think about him think about all the times you've watched him and go do i ever ever remember him sitting a screen? This was the thing with Oladipo two years ago. I wrote about it when I wrote about Russ. It was like Russ would have, would decide seven plays in a row. And then the eighth play, it would be like, all right, Oladipo, it's your turn.

And then he would just stand 35 feet away. His guy wouldn't have to guard him. And Oladipo would be like, oh good, I get to shoot this time. We're going to hear this September, early October. OKC is really committed to teaching Russ how to play off the ball. And Russ is, oh, he's been setting screens. Set two screens in scrimmage.

His screen rate per 40 is spiked. But if he becomes a two guard, I think that team is much more dangerous. If Schroeder can handle the ball enough. Sure, but it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Schroeder, Westbrook, Paul George, Adams, and Grant in crunch time. And Russ playing off the ball, running around screens and shit like that, I think is the most dangerous lineup they have.

I know people love Robert Simbit. Wasn't there the four man last year with George Adams, Westbrook, and was it Grant? Not including Melo, I forget. Or was it with Melo? It was every lineup without Melo was- Their pro 100 was sick, but- I just think, I think those odds are skewed.

And after we finish this podcast, I think I'm going to bet them. Houston, they lose Ariza, they lose Mbamute, who was great for them in the regular season. Carmelo, who doesn't play defense. Ryan Anderson, who doesn't play defense. I think, did they bring Gerald Green back? They did. Yeah. Yeah. Short term. He doesn't really play defense either. I do kind of feel like they missed their window. I think we're going to look back at that Chris Paul pulling his hamstring as like this seminal moment in Rockets history.

I agree. I don't see them being better this year. I think Capella, even if they bring him back, he's going to be pissed off. It's going to be different. That's his fault then if he's pissed off. I mean, restricted free agency should be renamed. Go get an offer. No, no.

It should be called I don't understand how this works because none of these restricted free agents get it. It's pretty simple. Like Houston, it should be called, I don't understand how this works. Because none of these restricted free agents get it. It's pretty simple. Like Houston, it'd be wrong for them. I mean, unless you're Devin Booker, unless you're one of those guys. And I don't blame Houston for being like, all right, go ahead. And they want him to sign an offer sheet now. So the Celtics did it smart. Yeah.

Knock yourself out. Who's giving you 70 million? This isn't personal. It's called restricted free agency. Yeah. It's really simple. And I don't, I guess when it's happening to you, it's a little bit different,

but the Capella thing, him coming back pissed off. I mean, that's, that's his own fault if he's pissed off because that means he just doesn't understand it. And he's been really good for them. He's been a lot better than I thought he would be. I told nephew Kyle, go get another offer. You can leave the ringer and be out of our family. I could see him being difficult like every nine months.

No, he's, he's, nephew Kyle's the best. I love him. We just worry about his personal life. Oh's nephew kyle's the best i love him we just worry about his personal life oh jesus what's going on is a lot of on again off again what's going on he's in his mid-20s it's the classic on again off again relationship a lot of waitresses hostesses obstitutes uh so you you agree that houston missed the window i totally agree because i think that there's emotional things. They get mad when you bring that up. Yeah, well, all right.

I think emotionally you have to really factor that stuff in and to be that close. And they kind of caught Golden State off guard because Golden State without Iguodala all of a sudden for two games in a row. And it blew my mind when it happened in four and five where you go, all right, I can understand a game, but how for two games do you guys look like

you don't have any spacing? and it's easy to clog you guys up and you're playing loony and bell together. Like what the hell is going on? I went nuts about on my podcast about how good the rockets were in that series and how they completely. They missed 20. Think about the three point stats and the misses for Harden and the team combined.

Like that doesn't like, you can say all that'll never happen again. That's not supposed to happen once what happened there so I think there's an emotional like hey this is new we're doing it we've got them we're good enough defensively we're switching everything we have this depth we have more depth than Golden State Golden State's a little off they were bored all year long like this is a real thing I think it's really hard to duplicate that emotional peak and I think what you have is a real thing. I think it's really hard to duplicate that emotional peak. And I think what you have is a scared golden state that still want it. And maybe the most important part-

That was off chemistry wise for reasons we still don't totally know. But the boogie thing, as much as I would never do it, okay? I get why they did it. They got to use a mid-level that I'm not sure they could use on just anybody. And I think there's a real, and this is a Simmons thing thing here but this is real

it's something to look forward to it's for them to not be bored it's let's see how this is gonna work character right it's absolutely the crossover and cheers hey it's frazier who he's a new character so it almost feels like emotionally last year was the year to get golden state and i don't know i still don't think the thunder will have enough shooting i don't know if they'll be good enough defensively this lakers team is just a big shrug i know cj's still tweeting about portland they just don't have it um portland went from being like a dark horse in the west because the way they shot threes to everyone's just completely out of them yeah everybody wants to break up the back course it's like just break these dudes up bob myers i talked to him at the finals

about this, about whether it was... Must be nice. Whether it was a mistake to just run it back last year. Because I do, this was a red R-back thing. When the Celtics, when they kept winning titles in the 60s, every year became,

oh, it's for this guy. Koozie's retiring. We got to win it for Koozie. KC's retiring. We got to win it for KC. I'm retiring. We got to win one more for me. And there was always like a mission.

The Warriors didn't have that guy. And now this year with Boogie, unless he's a complete cancer who ruins their locker room, it's at least like, oh, Boogie's never been here before. And you get energized from the new guy. And I think you need that every year to make it a little fresh. I think it's one of the most challenging things about being great is that you still need to be a little different. Like you're talking about sort of a legacy motivating factor, but I think there's a roster. Like I think you need to be in there with 12, 14 guys and it can't be the same guys all the time. It's like being married for a while.

Sometimes your wife just has to dress up like a cop. Right, or Kirilenko. Remember the Kirilenko thing? Like that was incredible. You get one freebie a year. Right. Imagine the night you would go out and it'd be like, this is the night.

But here's the thing with Golden State. Oh, we're back on that? Nevermind. From October to February, same team. Boogie comes back probably after the all-star break. He might come back before that. I think that's a mistake. Well, I'm just saying.

That's a horrible injury. If it happens, you heard it here first. Are you giving inside info right now? I don't know what we're doing anymore. Is this the sources say? Yeah. Because the problem is- Sources are saying stuff to you?

I blocked Slam Magazine because they screwed me on the Paul George thing. What'd they do? They said, I reported he was gone. They just totally took something in the podcast and lost it. And then I got killed. Although I will give Sam Presti credit for this. I ran into him and I was like, Hey, I'm like, sorry, I had that wrong. And he started laughing. And he's like, I heard what you said. He's like, don't even worry about it. But he made a great point. He goes, I don't think he'll be upset that I'm sharing this, but he said, we used to worry in front offices and players about you guys taking us out of context. He's like, now you guys just do it to each other left and right. Yeah. He's like, you guys don't even care anymore. And I was like, that's a great point. It's not you guys. It's only a couple

parts of the internet that do that. Really? I feel like everybody does it now. Did Sam Presti then give you his favorite Tribe Called Quest song to capture the moment or no? He just was like, you're from Massachusetts, right? And I went, yeah. Yeah, he is too. He's a secret mass hole.

Yeah, Concord. He went to Emerson. Yeah, but he's a Concord mass. Shout out to the Lacks. It's not really a mass holes. It's too nice there. It's too nice. And Concord and Lexington is too nice.

Yeah, but where are you from? No, but those are the two nicest places in Massachusetts. I was Chestnut Hill, which was pretty nice. You went, you were like raised in Chestnut Hill? Yeah, the first 13 years. Flutie must've been, that must've, you must've lost your mind. My dad had, we had season tickets.

I had moved to Connecticut that, but I used to come back on the weekends and we had Flutie season tickets the last two years. Oh, see, I didn't know that you were that close. That's awesome. My mom went to BC and my dad went to Holy Cross. How about that? Huge Holy Cross guy.

You knew that, right? For me, Gordy Lockbaum, my dad and my grandfather. Right before I got there. Yeah, we used to drive up and go to cross games all the time. Two-way Gordy. It was unbelievable. We got derailed.

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back. We said Houston is worse. We think Portland's either worse or trading water. The Houston thing, I don't know how you argue that they're better. Ariza was super, super important for all of these things they did. Well, and on top of that, like the mental toughness, and there was a couple of games last year

where it was like, you had him out there and Mabamute and Tucker and whether it was two, three, three, they were just all tough. Tucker's Garden centers and the centers can't, you know, like you can't get deep on them. And look, they're still going to be really good. And I love what they did with Paul and Harden,

but it's just hard for me to say, yeah, okay, they'll win it this year. We're also in the area with Chris Paul where there's going to be a drop-off. And how bad of it is year to year, I'm not sure. But the history of point guards, he's not somebody who's like, I'm in crazy shape heading into the season guy.

He plays himself into shape. The history of those guys as they get old, he's, what is he, year 14 now? I'm so bummed out for him. I really am. Like as much as I like Golden State, I've defended Chris Paul forever. I hate the whole, you know,

it's one thing to not win. It's another thing to be incapable. And he's been put in the incapable group by everybody. They fast and furious him. Explain that. He was all of a sudden in 40 plus minutes for game four and game five and his hamstring popped. They revved furious him. Explain that. He was all of a sudden in 40 plus minutes for game four and game five and his hamstring popped. They revved the car.

Oh. It's like the Vindees when the- I watched one again the other day. When the RPMs are like at seven and a half and he's just gunning it. That's what they did to Chris Paul. Do you like two? I'm in on every one of them.

Because I know a lot of people are always down on two. I think five, you could make a case as one of the best i know a lot of people are always down on two i think five you could make a case is one of the best five movies of the century so 18 years in the brazil fast five that whole movie from start to finish is just spectacular i love tokyo it's spectacular tokyo drift you know one time on the radio show and i think it was with van pelt i explained the plot of tokyo drift how it was ahead it was in the future and you now you're going backwards no he'd asked me if i've ever been to japan and i said well no but i said i had a buddy that actually his mom got kind of sick of his shit yeah and she sent him out there and lived with his dad military

background and it was like real estate there's brutal like everything's on top of each other and he was going to a local school there and he didn't fit in and then he's got a drift racing and he fucking was crashing cars all the time i was like and he started dating a local girl he's like your friend did that i was like yep and i just massachusetts kid so i used no it's a joke it's it's what i started doing did it just work again where i just started like i there was a weird stretch on the radio show where i started describing plots of movies and then saying oh i know a guy who actually used to like camp out and he'd hike by himself and then these wolves were tracking him and he was in this weird fitness mode he's taking different supplements and then he blew up a wolf they thought he was dead

they're like what dude radio for three hours a day makes pretty much everybody i'm surprised They thought he was dead. And I'm like, what? Dude, radio for three hours a day makes pretty much everybody insane. I'm surprised I didn't do it more. So anyway, go ahead. What was the most you effed with Van Pelt on your show? Not much, man. He's a very serious guy. Yeah, but we were both hotheads, you know? So we kind of knew.

Why'd you sell me out? I think the thing that Van Pelt, he definitely didn't like it, but he had to take it, is that when he first got onto Twitter and he hated it. He like, he was, there's no one I've ever met that hates something as much as he does without experiencing it. And then once he does it, he's like, this is awesome. Yeah. So he was like, Twitter's the, he's like, what am I going to tweet? I just had a sandwich. He's like, loser fest, you know?

And then once he got into it, he would, he would engage with anybody. Okay. And I remember like before he got married, I looked at his feed and he was arguing with this kid and I sent him a text. I go, do you realize you've been arguing about Penn state with a high school kid for four hours? Like, what are you doing over there? And he's like, you're right. I got to go to Chipotle. Like, this is thank you he was arguing with like fraterno lover 25 i mean it was even before all that stuff right so we started doing this deal where we would print out his twitter fights yeah and we'd have our board op read like the role of the guy that was the troll and then i would read van pelt's part and we would do it on the air.

We wouldn't tell him like a thing would just go off and be like, now another reenactment of a Scott Van Pelt Twitter fight. And he would sit there and he, there was no poker face and he would just, he would, he would look at you like, you know that they wanted another guy for this show, right?

I had to fight for your name to be in the title. Let's talk Toronto. Kawhi Toronto? Yeah. Okay, all right. Let's do it. I've contradicted myself. Every time I go down one road

and I'm convinced, I can contradict it immediately. That team, no one likes, right? No one likes their toughness to not get through the East or at least compete, compete with Cleveland

this year in the playoffs is embarrassing. All right. So I can say, Hey, if Kawhi is not going to resign, I don't think you can give up that many assets. Ultimately though, when you look at it and the fact that you'd have to resign to Rosen in two

years anyway, like how many assets did they really give up? And the fact that the Spurs even kicked in money on that deal too. Like there's some smaller details. The worst thing in the world to have either. He's a ninth man. Yeah. So tradable contract. You didn't have to give up og who i really am starting to like yeah uh as much as i just don't like the idea of trading any kind of assets for the uncertainty

because one year is really quick right i mean that was the old red thing when they drafted bird like one year is not very long time like i believe i'm into that i agree with that but as much as i say don't give stuff away. What was the point of bringing that Toronto team back again? Do you just say because LeBron's not in the East? And then for San Antonio, it's once LA was out of it, you know, and once other teams were less willing, like, I think that's a Messiah move where he's like, screw it, whatever. I'll bring a top five player here.

I can say I brought Kawhi Leonard to Toronto. We'll see if we can do this. I also think there's some people that are looking at this as the post-Paul George thing of like, hey, no one thought he was going to stay there, which I think is a completely flawed approach, but I can also see how stuff works because I've already seen people say it where they go,

well, you know, they never thought they were going to keep this guy here. So I don't- The recency bias of a certain situation working out and then comparing it to another situation is always scary to me. Yeah. One situation.

There might be 10 versions of that and it only works out twice. I, my stance really hasn't changed. I like the trade for both teams. I liked it more for San Antonio. I will say this. I was listening. I like listen to the NBA channel on serious. I realized that I just

want to listen to basketball. I don't care about listening to NFL until like two weeks before the season. But they were making the point, like, is Kawhi the best player in the East? And I was like, no, Giannis is the best player in the East. And I was thinking about it. I was like, no, Kawhi is the best player in the East. Giannis is going to be the best player in the East, and he's either this will be this season or it'll be next season. But Kawhi's ceiling is better. I don't know if Kawhi's going to be healthy. But they traded for a guy. They weren't going anywhere, as you said.

I think they had run their course with that team. And now they have Kawhi Leonard. And if they can get his head straight, even if it's for a year, it still gives them a better chance to win the title than they had anyway. I think you make a case that they might have the best team in the East. A healthy Boston is still better than that. If they have a shit together. Boston has some red flags for me.

Lack of depth? Not lack of depth. No, I mean lack of depth up front. Or a million perimeter guys they have to figure out minutes for? not lack of depth. No, I mean, lack of depth up front. No, I- Or a million perimeter guys they have to figure out minutes for. My concern with Boston is the, how is everybody going to be happy at the same time thing,

which we talked a little bit about earlier. You have all these guys who think they should be playing the last six minutes of a game. And this is going to be Stevens' hardest team to coach by far. Jalen's going to sit. How do you, well, and he's, how's he going to handle that? How has Jalen handled the whole summer of hearing how great Tatum's going to be Stevens' hardest team to coach by far. Jalen's going to sit. Well, and how's he going to handle that? How has Jalen handled the whole summer of hearing how great Tatum's going to be and Tatum's working out with Kobe and Tatum's a future MVP?

And Jalen's like, I'm right here. I was as good as him in the playoffs. How is Kyrie going to handle the Tatum thing? How good is Tatum going to be in year two? How does Hayward fit into this? How worried are you about Kyrie? About him leaving? Yeah.

I'm very focused on Anthony Davis. I want to get to a world where the Celtics have Tatum and Anthony Davis. And then we'll figure it out, right? We'll just figure out the rest of the guys on the team. I want those two guys in the same team. I still think they can make the finals with this team. But if Kyrie's going to- Why couldn't they? They could. I would in the same team. I still think they can make the finals with this team. But if Kyrie's going to-

Why couldn't they? Why couldn't they? They could. I would say the most talent. But the Toronto, the Kawhi thing is, they basically just exchanged a Rosen for a Kawhi. But see, here's the other thing too. Like you knew Pop,

depending on whatever the Ingram package was and all the stuff they wanted from the Lakers. And I'd heard it was a lot. And so maybe that gets us back to the original start of the podcast. And like, all right, that's why the Lakers took a pass on it and say a lot. And so maybe that gets us back to the original start of the podcast and like, all right, that's why the Lakers took a pass on it

and say, we're just getting for free for 2019. Or we get Clay Thompson in a year. Maybe, yeah. Yeah. But I think Pop was like, you know, all right, I got DeRozan, LaMarcus, DeJounte is going to be good.

I like it. I want to compete. I want to make the playoffs. I want to be a top eight team. What Pop did last year and winning 47 games. 48. 48. That team sucked.

Nine shitty games out of Kawhi and a bunch of crap. And it was unbelievable what Pop did. So I think Pop was like, give me DeRozan. He's pretty good. And, you know, we'll make this work. We'll be competitive. Well, wait a second. DeRozan's better than pretty good.

And I was taking shit from Toronto fans. You never liked DeRozan. It's like, yeah, I didn't like DeRozan's better than pretty good. And I was taking shit from Toronto fans. He's like, you never liked DeRozan. It's like, yeah, I didn't like DeRozan as a superstar, but I think he was one of the best 15 players in the league last year. You think he's top 15? I voted for him for all NBA. Yeah, but I mean, do you think of him

as one of the 15, like consistently? I think that list drops really fast. After eight? Yeah. Yeah. I looked at his stats last three years. He's basically 25 a game, three straight years. And the percentages are good. I thought he was good at crunch time. And I think rightfully people held the playoff performance against him. They should have.

He sucked in the playoffs. He was on the bench in game three. I mean, there's- He was terrible. This isn't just one sample of that. So that's why I expanded out. If you want to argue top 20, fine. Top 30, whatever. I do like DeRozan. Oh, he's 100% in the top 20. But yeah, to suck that many times in the playoffs, we have multiple years of evidence

of whatever it is, man, you just miss shots. And once it's time- And when your argument, I thought his interview that he did this week was lame. I thought it was terrible. It's just like, first of all, get over it. Every NBA player gets traded. Well, how about when he's like, hey, Cleveland.

Second of all, you're making $30 million a year. Like, shut up. You signed the contract. They can do whatever they want. This is basketball. That didn't even bother me. Yeah, that didn't bother me. You're right, because it's like, oh, I signed a contract.

Well, no, you signed the awesome contract. Yeah. That's why you stayed. OK, so and then you got traded. But when he says. And I thought they overpaid him when they signed him. Yeah. But that's kind of one of those, if you're arguing he's a top 15 guy, like where's the leeway? Like, you know, like that's-

That's the argument for Kevin Love. I didn't mind the Kevin Love contract. He's one of the 30 best players in the league. There's 30 teams. I think you could have waited though. There's 30 teams. That felt more like, let's do something positive. As I said before, I think you could have waited on the Kevin Love thing. What was he going to get? What was he going to get in the open market?

He wasn't going to get that other version of that ridiculous max. You have to spend $30 million on somebody. That's why I don't mind it as much. If you're Cleveland, like you're spending money on. Yeah, but he's 30, injury history. Actually, the Love thing to me is different than DeRozan. The concussion history is what worries me with Love.

Right, he's like the only guy we're worried about. He knows he's had at least three. He might've had four. If that dude has one more, he might have to retire. DeRozan, to me, he's durable. He's an all-star. He played in crunch time in the all-star game, even though I thought he was the one that stood out.

I was like, wow, he's out there in crunch time? But he's still out there in crunch time. And now they have him and Aldridge. It's a 30-team league league and they have two all NBA guys. I think you make case the Spurs are now like you figure the Rockets lose 12 wins. The Lakers gain 10 to 12, 12 losses, 12 more losses. I'm just saying 10 to 12. Maybe they dip into the fifties, mid fifties. It's not going to be 65. They're not going to get the injury luck they had last year either in the regular season. But see, the DeRozan thing that bothered me in the interview, though, when he was like,

hey, the only guy we lost to was LeBron. And you're like- Every year. Yeah, but he owned you. He destroyed your team. And for anybody that thinks that Eastern Conference thing a couple years ago when it was a six-game series, it wasn't. I mean, it was.

That wasn't being competitive. There was no moment whatsoever in that series where you're going, you know, Toronto could do something here. And you got swept. Can I say one thing about that series, though? Sure. They should have won game one, and it had a catastrophic impact on that series.

But if they win game one. It was a total fluke with Purtle missed a layup and like all that dumb shit happened. Yaka Purtle? Yeah, Purtle. He missed the layup, goes to OT, they lose. And you knew that series was over. It was one of those games.

It was like, oh, they can't win now. Right, but if they won one, you're getting, this is always an argument that I make. And it's the 2017 NBA finals argument, okay? Because when Cleveland lost game three and it was close. They should have won game three. They should have won game three. They should have won game three. And then everybody just gives them four.

And then everybody goes, oh, well, it was almost 2-2. And you go, okay, but if three goes Cleveland's way, you're getting a different Golden State in game four. The same way. You know what you're not getting? Different refs. You track that stuff better than I do. Game four, Golden State was at a rough spot in 2017.

That was one of those crews you're like oh okay who's that guy who was it was it your boy the game one are we are we gonna say the i think i know who you're talking about the game one 2018 refs was another one it was like oh ed malloy and tony brothers like they i'm not saying they skewed it one way or the other it's just like when you have incompetent refs in a home game it's good for the home team you're not an Ed Malloy guy no I asked somebody about it he's not bad I know what's the story with Ed Malloy and they were like he's actually really he grades out whenever I think I think I know a ref and I'll ask somebody I'd'd be like, how does this guy grade out?

They just don't have a lot of good refs is the problem. Okay, but is that maybe- They don't even have 10 good refs. Okay, but this is a little bit like the NFL GMs, right? Everybody thinks these guys are all morons because they whiff on 50% of their first round quarterbacks. And it just is. Like I went back and tracked it for 25 years or whatever.

It's at least 50% bust rate. And that's being nice. For quarterbacks so then we have this thing where we just go not saying you and I but in general fans your buddies other media people dude I just say we're smarter than everybody else sorry um they'll be like these guys are idiots like are they all idiots are they all idiots are there are there 32 people incapable like tell me where the other group of really smart people if they were nfl gms would hit on quarterbacks at a higher rate or should we just say that's the position and that's

the reality of it so when people shit on the refs all the time i'm always like okay so does that mean that there's another version of this or a group of people that would be better at this or is it just it's that tough 12 to 13 years ago i just think there were more good refs i think some guys retired a couple guys got injured and had to. You don't hear about ref injuries a lot. No, but it's tough, man. They're running up and down. I feel the same way about NBA head coaches. People think that half of them are just stupid. People think all of them are bad. And it actually, the second tier of coaches is probably a little underrated because you have your three or four that everybody talks about all the time, but then you get to like the Luke Walton level.

I thought Luke Walton did a good job last year. Totally agree. Are you kidding me? That was, he did a great job last year. One of the things I'm really interested to see is whether LeBron embraces him or whether they battle. I know for a fact from watching the Laker games and, and what my friends who went to the games and stuff, like he hated KCP. He was like, they, they clearly did not get along that whole season.

So for him to come back is kind of an FU to Luke Walton. Cause he was clearly somebody he didn't like and he didn't want to play. So I'm, I'm monitoring that. I think Luke's in a tough spot. LeBron is a guy that has undermined every coach he's had. He's just the force of the person. He's one of the three best players

of all time. And there's never going to be a coach that he's going to see as an equal. It's never going to happen. No, he's never going to see anyone as an equal. I'm not even saying that as a dig. It's just that once you get to the top three, it's you can't be coached. I wonder if LeBron would actually say you'd gotten Riley in his prime, right?

Or say pop now. I'm just trying to think. The Brad wouldn't want to be different because there's just an age thing that you're just going to consume things differently from a guy as great as Stevens is, despite his questioning his usage of Tatum at one point in his podcast history,

which felt weird. Remember when we did that? We were right. We were. They win that series if they... Overrated, Stevens? Tatev has the three and the dunk over LeBron and doesn't touch the ball again in the last six minutes. I'm glad I didn't watch this game like three days ago. How about Rozier at the end of that? Like every time, like I was happy they brought back Marcus

Smart because I think that he's a value to them. Like a part of me wanted to see the Sacramento Kings just go crazy and pay Marcus Smart a ton of money just to see what would happen. Because him on a team where he's actually asked to be like a guy, that would have been a lot of fun to watch. And probably- Bob Ryan made this point on Twitter.

He's a guy who should be on good teams. Was it all caps when he made it? He's one of my favorite Twitter feeds. Bob Ryan's Twitter feed. Like I don't know. Right. Like out of nowhere. Comes in hot updates us on people who just died and then gets into it with,

with Twitter trolls. Dickie Betts was the better Allman brothers guitarist. I won't hear Dwayne again. Nothing like watching Tony C and Fenway and 66. The love boat was a rip off of a show out of Madrid written by, you know, and you're just like, I can't wait to get there in 20 years.

That's what my entire Twitter feed is going to be like, Ralph Macchio was underrated. The cast can fly. I said something the other day. I, this is actually during the playoff season where I just, I'm very anti everybody bitching about the refs all the time. I just go, this is like, I think people work this way.

This is the worst thing Van Gundy has done to the league in the last six or seven years is the constant ref bitching. I really, I think it's a real problem for ESPN. They have to figure out, he is so smart and has such a great mind. I don't want to hear him talk about the refs. Just stop. Yeah, I mean,

but when it's late in the game and he wants to go back and watch Chicago PD and then there's a review and he wants to get back to the hotel, I know he's pissed off. I like that

they have adapted this thing, though. Like, think about it. When it's a bad ESPN game, I enjoy the fact that people make jokes about it, that these guys have a podcast going on during the broadcast.

And sure, but I'd rather have that. I'd rather have a little bit more discussion. I think you could actually broadcast these games in that way. I actually liked when they used you on a couple of broadcasts. I had such a good time. Let's make this a little different.

I don't know why they don't do that more often. They should definitely do it, especially like- Especially these January, February games. Yeah, some of these games earlier in the week, you could do that. We're both available if they want to use us. But when they complain about the refs

and it turns this whole thing, but I feel like it's almost like more of an examination of culture in that it's just so much easier to make excuses about stuff, right? So like all those Golden State Houston games that everybody was turning into, you can point to game one, but every single night it was, oh, refs,s refs and i'm like don't miss 27 threes in a row

and that that was tough when houston was blaming the fans are blaming the refs a little bit in game seven yeah you did not deserve to win game seven kyle's blames the refs with his relationship god damn it kyle who you seeing now seeing now? Is Kyle single after this weekend? Minus 150, yes. Kyle, how about this game? We have to DM five girls on Instagram for you. Let's take a break. Let's talk about propercloth.com.

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We're in summer league. A lot of people wearing the t-shirts. I was shocked. The blog boy one seems to be the t-shirts. I was shocked. The blog boy one seems to be the most popular one. Just there you go. I don't know if you want to follow the crowd or whether you want to forge your own way with a Claytheism t-shirt, whatever you want to do.

The ringer.com slash shop. Hey, coming back. One thing I forgot to mention with LeBron that I wanted to throw at you. Everyone went nuts about how this specific nucleus that he had around him, he didn't have shooters. LeBron needs shooters in this whole thing. Are we sure that's true?

Why have we decided that LeBron just needs to be surrounded by these guys who can just stand in one spot and don't do anything else. And then he has to do everything. The one thing I liked about what they did, and I don't think they found the right guys, but the mentality of it was they're going to be much better defensively, or at least that's the intent. And Rondo can take some of the playmaking off him

and he'll play down in the low post more. I was kind of in on all of that. I was like, yeah, you should have a second playmaker. I liked when Kyrie took the pressure off him offensively and LeBron was able to not have to every single time. I don't know why we decided he should just be surrounded by shooters. How about he's surrounded by basketball players? I don't think he has the right basketball players, but I think that was an important kind of point they're trying to hammer home probably because i think going back to that detroit series win in 07 yeah and we started seeing flaws like i still think when

people were trying to say this year's cleveland team was worse than that 2000 that was 17 that's such recency bias that team was terrible and i always joke that lebron deserves like a necklace or something not a ring but something just for bringing that team against the Spurs. Who's it? It was Delonte West, Eric Snow, Ogascus, Daniel Marshall. Ben Wallace's dead body. Was he on that team? Well, they did the Wally, Ben Wallace.

Yeah. That team was awful. They did a bunch of things where they kept bringing in a bad contract for the next bad contract just to show that they were committed. That was an awesome game. I actually remember where I watched that game it was unbelievable i remember where i was like wow lebron he's here he's arrived yeah this is happening this is great okay so i think when we saw some of the flaws in that team maybe that's when it started hey more shooters more shooters

and then it was it was booby gibson i think hughes was there for a bit i think it's a false narrative i don't think it should be shooters do you think it should be such non-shooters to the level of Alonzo and Arando, who you clearly can't play together? I think it's stymied some of the things that makes him such a great basketball player. He has these one-dimensional dudes like J.R. Smith, who they just do one thing, or Tristan Thompson.

And now he has these dudes that might actually unleash him. You know who he's never played with? Somebody who gets above the rim. You know, like Brandon Ingram, he might throw a couple alley-oops to and things in traffic. Like Lonzo's going to have fast breaks where Lonzo's running the fast break

and LeBron's on the wing. So you're not counting Larry Nance Jr. from last year? No. No, no, no. Well, I just, you know, was that a, should I have not done that? They, no,

they too short. Did they really play together? No, that was actually kind of one of the things with last year's team where I'm like, how come they don't play this guy? He was there in the headlights in the finals. I would have rather had him be dear and be active.

He had no idea what he was doing defensively. It was another guy, but we fit right in. There's yeah, true. There's pieces of LeBron that we have not seen unleashed except for the first two years of Miami. Like him and Wade in transition,

when Wade really had the athleticism, especially the first year. And there were moments where like, oh my God, what is this? It was like magic and worthy and these iconic like fast break duos. That was LeBron and Wade got there and then it was gone. And then he hasn't had it since.

Even Kyrie is not one of those like transition. Let's go. Boom, boom, boom. I want to see him play with Lonzo. I think it's going to be really fun. I think Lonzo is actually the perfect guy to play with him.

He doesn't need the ball. Great passer, great instincts, great vision. And I think there'll be good together yeah the unfortunate thing about he tries hard the lonzo stuff yeah he plays lonzo gives a shit lonzo's team defense is incredible how smart he is where he knows where help is where he knows your help is supposed to be like when you really watch lonzo there's so many impressive things about him and i think lost in

all the fact that he couldn't shoot forever even even though, you know, it got okay. He still wasn't healthy. We know the free throw issues. We know all the, he got hurt right when he was starting to play well, right. The knee thing. And then it happened again.

And then it ended up being a more significant injury. I think that people realized as it's carried through into the off season, but his vision at UCLA, like when you watched him and it was right, you're talking about somebody, as soon as he came into the league, the guy that we saw in college, that's already one of the best vision guys in the NBA so maybe that works but I just it goes back to the whole thing of how are you splitting these minutes up how is

Rondo going to feel on a one-year deal if he's not closing games when he maybe is the smarter guy to close games and what's that mean for Lonzo like there's just some duplication with the roster where I go you're inviting a lot of headaches here LeBron and Rondo I would say minus 150 to absolutely love each other and brainstorm together and minus plus 130 it's over in like November and they're just waving so you think it's one of those because he's always loved it's one of the other but then you're like oh we're living together now yeah oh but i do think like i don't think lebron has been around a lot of brain surgeons from a basketball standpoint these last 15 years i think wade was not jordan clarkson wait no wade was incredibly smart i think bosh was a really sophisticated basketball player yeah totally uh nobody really during his cleveland

days i think was on his level i think rondo i was i was really impressed by him in the new orleans playoff run i loved how he was incredible but i mean you know there's a reason why we have the nickname playoff rondo is because the regular season guy exists and that's the thing that i can't like rondo towards the end of the boston thing was a disaster and then he even admitted it this isn't narrative this is rondo going yeah i don't really care at the end can i give you i'm sorry to sound so laker centric can i give you one other wrinkle that we didn't mention didn't you get mad at countdown for doing this no i did well because they were terrible did you can the lakers make the playoffs i was like no they can't they suck did you in the middle of a countdown show complain

and say on the air like does anybody even want to do this anymore i did did you have a total like take me through that breakdown i had two meltdowns. One was, we were doing a countdown against a playoff game. We were on ABC and it was the fourth quarter of a playoff game at ESPN. And we started and I was, and Sage set it up, blah, blah, blah. And then it went to me and I was just like, nobody's watching us. What are we doing? And everybody kind of tanced. And I was like, we might as well be FS1 right now.

Wow. And then we went to commercial and they were laughing. Like Jalen loved it. We went to commercial and they were like, oh God, that's going to be a thing on viral. It wasn't. You know why? Because nobody was watching. We were going to get to the playoff game.

There wasn't one person watching our show. So that was one of the times. Then the other time was the Laker thing. We did every, it was always like Lakers-Knicks. It was like, hey, I have this idea. What about like Anthony Davis is blossoming into a superstar. We'll leave the show with that, with the package. They're like, what about, can the Lakers make the playoffs?

It was like, they can't. They're 15 and 30. Who can the Lakers trade for? Yeah, who can? The deadline was last week. Should the Lakers make the playoffs? It was like, they can't, they're 15 and 30. Who can the Lakers trade for? Yeah, who can- The deadline was last week. Should the Lakers extend Kobe? It's like, none of us want to talk about this. Yeah, that's kind of the thing though.

It was that Bristol mentality in the mid- But sometimes it's right. Like I always kind of, like when I started doing more sports centers, really the first time I started doing them regularly was last year. And you get an email the night before and I used to write out these like elaborate,

like here's something I'd want and here's the screen, give me a full screen of this. And then I'd show up and they go, okay, we're gonna ask you Warriors and how do you beat them? And I remember somebody got pissed at me because I pulled somebody pulled me aside. You use a two by four and you hit start hitting them. And then it would be the off season,

be like what moves can these five teams make to compete with Warriors? And I was like, well, the segment's going to suck because it's zero. Yeah. And they were like, we'll just come up with something. I'm like, so come up with something that's wrong and stupid.

Yeah. And I had to tell somebody, I was like, hey, you've asked me 30 Warriors, like 30 days in a row that I've been in SportsCenter. It's Warriors every time. But that's the thing is like, as on-air guys, I think we can always make the mistake of thinking that because we're tired of something.

And this definitely happens to radio all the time. Like the Brady stuff. I was like, I don't want to do this today. My producer's like, and it's one of the few times where I ever went to the producer and went, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do it. I can't do it again today. And he's like, well, it's new breaking news. He's like, you got to do it.

And I did three hours on deflategate. And that's the thing. I was always ready to do three hours on deflategate. I'll never get over deflate gate. Are you a truther or a non-believer? What would you be described as? What are you talking about? He didn't deflate footballs and we lost the first round pick.

You thought he did nothing though, right? Like you think there's no malfeasance whatsoever. I think he did nothing. What about the two trainers? I think he told them. Brassy Knoll? I think he told them, keep the footballs, keep them a little loose. I don't like them too tight.

And that was it. And they were probably practices where the footballs were too tight. And he was like, the footballs are too tight. I fucking told you guys. I don't like the footballs this tight. And that was it. Something happened. And I remember thinking like, you guys don't think anything happened but

the excessive nature of the punishment he got suspended for four games i know no it's nuts that part is nuts four games ray rice got two yeah but if that's what's in the cba that's what's in the cba it was absurd yeah but i don't like that when people make the weed jokes we're like oh martavis bryant we're like, but how many times he lost the season? You know what I mean? Like people do that. Like I'm not sitting here going, hey, Goodell's my guy. But people are really, I think, annoyingly inconsistent about making fun of the NFL and some of this punishment stuff.

When you go like, if this is what it is, then this is what it is. The one thing that's been really hypocritical. Look, I will pass up no chance to rag on the NFL, this national anthem thing, which was an obvious clusterfuck from the get-go. You knew this was just going to go on and on and be poorly handled. But today we're doing this podcast. I was driving in.

Jerry Jones has told his players they cannot stay in the locker room. They have to stand on the field for the anthem. It's like, whoa, the NBA did this all last season. You're going to stand in the anthem for the games. That's it. They just got taken care of and they did it. It's no different than what the NFL is doing.

So if you're going to get mad at the NFL for this, you also have to then get mad at Adam Silver, I think. Yeah, but we didn't have like the NBA didn't nothing. You know what I mean? You're so right. You're so right. You're so right. All these guys are on the same page. The point is the NFL is not on the same page ever with anything with their players, ever.

But even with the owners, like any of those, like the Seth Wickersham pieces, when you go behind the curtain with these owners fighting with each other and they have a much harder time, like most of their issues are their own issues and not being able to get on the same page with stuff. Well, and they're all old, rich, white guys

who are used to having their ways. The NBA, I think one of the many advantages they have right now is the ownership group is just younger and smarter and a little more- Just as a guy that hopes to be an old, rich, white guy one day. Yeah. Do old, rich people of other walks of life act differently? Good point.

I don't have an answer. I just want to meet the super rich, built myself from the ground up, non-white guy that's super agreeable to shit. Maybe it's shit. Yeah, we never hear this with Shad Khan. Shad Khan is the old pain in the ass. Yeah, you're right. No, because there's this real like men in power push and i'm like i don't know i've worked with some girls out there that can be a little tough to deal with you know like what like i think it's pretty consistent

that if you have a ton of cash and you have a lot of power you're gonna see things your way it just happens to be there's more white guys that have that role than others it's a great point uh bob craft old rich white guy old rich white guy was at some sort of meek mill event there was a there's more white guys that have that role than others. That's a great point. Bob Kraft. Old rich white guy. Old rich white guy was at some sort of Meek Mill event. And there was a picture. He loves Meek Mill. Every picture now, he looks like the Weekend at Bernie's guy.

He's just kind of propped up, facing the wrong way in the picture. Do you know him well? I'm really worried about Bob Kraft. Do you know him well? How about your relationship? I've met him a few times. I know his son more. Jonathan?

Bob's a good hang. Like you run into him at a cocktail party. He'll have the ring on. Yeah. You get to thank him for saving the Patriots and not moving him to Hartford. I have the same conversation with him every two years. Ruined Hartford though.

Hasn't been the same. Hartford's been in a tough spot. It's a tough spot. You left. New England's rising star. Do you still have your buddy that lives there? Jacko. He was all excited.

They might have an MLS team. I told you that the building- Everyone's getting an MLS team. When I moved to Hartford, I think it was 10, yeah, it was almost 10 years ago. A lot of hot dog trucks. And a lot of parking available still. It's the one city that doesn't complain

about parking options. Right, or traffic. Just if you want an easy spot, you want to get in a city, you want to be in the hub. Parking and traffic, not a problem in Hartford. We got it. Although the traffic on the 84 sucks. Right. Or traffic. Just if you want an easy spot, you want to get in a city, you want to be in the hub. Parking and traffic, not a problem in Hartford. Yeah, we got it. Although the traffic on the 84 sucks. Yeah. But I moved in. I had to have told you the story before, but the listing agent in this building, it was going to go, it was going to not work out. It was like a luxury building in downtown Hartford. And they like just redid the sidewalk as if everything else was awesome. Yeah. And if you woke up on like a sunday morning you needed a gatorade you had to get on the highway um but when the lady was like okay here's

the deal here's the lease and she like had the it was like this whole maze and then the lease is waiting for you at the end like it's almost like a casino like i'm just gonna go oh i can't leave unless i sign it she goes and just to let you know we are getting the whalers back i went what she's like yeah so these things are gonna fly we're connected to the xl center 10 years ago yeah and i went ah no they're not you're not getting the whalers yeah i was like there's she goes i go you just asked me what i did for a living i said i work at espn that's why i'm moving here i literally work in sports the whalers aren't coming back here and she's like ah they are and you should get this too better. I signed the lease anyway.

Yeah. Hartford, you go in and you tell the realtor what you're paying. Yeah, right. I want my first nine months free. They don't have vacancy signs on anything. They just assumed. I thought ESPN, one of their many mistakes this century, was not buying a hockey team.

Just putting it there? I would have bought a hockey team. I would have put it there in the ESPN arena. And then even if NBC Sports has the rights to hockey, they have to show like the ESPN Whalers or the Hartford Whalers at the ESPN Dome. And it's just like a giant FU from ESPN to everybody else. This is at the height of the ESPN power

and they're just spending money left and right on everything like drunken sailors. That'd be great. And then you could just put people like, you could just have in arena promos. Yeah, and you give like, Stu Gatz in like just a green sweater. We re-sign Levitard.

You also get two season tickets to the Hartford Whalers. And you have to go. You have to go. You have to go, Ted. He's just sitting there miserable in the stands, the hot dog. I'm trying to think of like, and here's, remember when they did the ESPN Hollywood thing?

Oh God, I was in the meetings for that. Yeah. That was the first time they'd brought me in creative meetings. And there was this three hour brainstorm for it. And I didn't say much the first two hours and I was listening to everybody and John Walsh had brought me.

And about two hours in, I was like, I gotta say, I don't understand the show. And they're like, it's ESPN, it's Hollywood. I'm like, I know, but why would I watch this? And it was like record scratch. And they're like, well, what would you want on it? And I was like, I just want to watch sports. I don't understand this. So it's going to be Derek Jeter at a red carpet premiere that's going to be your lead story? You do a red carpet at the hockey games. I was like, the way to make this work

is you do the gossip stuff. And at the time, I think Kobe's trial had either happened or was about to happen. It was like, your lead story would be Kobe's trial. And they're like, well, we can't do that. I'm like, well, what's't do that. I'm like, well, what's the show?

And they, I still don't understand it. We got Scott Erickson's wife. It was one of those shows that had the title and they're like, ESPN Hollywood, it's a great title.

It is a good title. Great title. They did the website, page two had a part that ESPN Hollywood. So they had all that, but they didn't know what it was

and they still don't. It's a great title. And even now in 2018, what is it? ESPN Hollywood? Yeah, what all that, but they didn't know what it was. And they still don't. It's a great title. And even now in 2018, what is it? ESPN Hollywood? Yeah, what is it? Not around anymore. But what,

I don't know what that would even be now. I guess it would be TNC Sports? Now it would be easy. No, no, no. Actually, I think they should revamp the whole thing, retro it.

They could do the NBA alley deal, the little catwalk through the tunnel. I would, if I ran ESPN, i would make the jump like three hours you know i did the jump yesterday for the first time did you did you talk about uh did you talk about the lakers no though what was the story this week yeah it was duran duran versus mccollum mccollum when when he drops the i did your fucking podcast

like i understand as somebody that has to do analogies all the time what cj mccollum was doing but when somebody then deciphers it and goes as literal as possible where you're like you think i would join a gang plot against them in my own house and kill my brother you're like he went you like really i was kind of team kd on that one though it it showed yet again that people love the nba much that it became a two day news story. Two days. That KD went on that podcast, told CJ McCollum they had no chance to win the title, which by the way, he doesn't. Who thinks Portland can win the title?

He's like, I was so mad. And KD's like, why were you mad? Yeah. Because we were close. KD's, I mean, obviously I'm not friends with KD, but I've gotten to know him just for doing these podcasts and stuff. Does he return your texts? Has he ever, have you ever texted him not returning? not friends with KD, but I've gotten to know him just for doing these podcasts and stuff. Does he return your texts? Has he ever tech?

Have you ever texted him? Not return texted with KD, but he's one of those genuinely curious guys. So I can totally see McCollum being like, I was so mad when you got it. And KD going there, like, why?

I don't understand. Why were you mad? Not even like being a dick. Like why? Because if you had gotten boogie cousins, you were going to win the West. Like why? I don't was i liked it i mean you know hell i mean what's i actually liked the whole moment we finally got a conversation with two guys that weren't trying to cover anything can i ask you because i know you're probably rapping here in a bit can we talk

about denzel yeah let's do it i listen to the denzel pod yeah it was like riding a rodeo bull it's like a huge get and you know one of my favorite things about doing the radio show is every now and then when you get like somebody really famous, the pitch from the people would be that this super famous guy loves you. Yeah. And so that happened with Van Pelt and I a couple of times. McConaughey legitimately liked Van Pelt and I. And he even when we said goodbye to him, he stopped us from saying goodbye and said, hey hey i want to compliment you guys on something you did here and i was like holy shit like mcconaughey really listened to it and then we got him again because of it and they were like vape with him after no it was on it was on the phone i'm not a huge jewel guy okay kyle you vape guy you just

straight i can't do it okay killers kyle's in kinds of a guy. So we get Denzel and. Oh, you had Denzel. Yeah, we got Denzel. I mean, but it's like a seven minute phoner or whatever. Yeah, it's tough. And it's so tough. And it's Scott and I, and you know, that's one of those things looking back, like we should have just had different interviews or one guy just laid out the whole time.

Probably management, preferably me. Yeah. Laying out. Go to the cafeteria. Come back in 20. Yeah. Hey, we're going to not tape something. Grab some nachos for everybody. Like, wait a minute. We got Paul McCartney. Yeah. playing out and go to the cafeteria come back in 20 yeah hey we're gonna not tape something grab

some nachos for everybody um like wait a minute we got paul mccartney when yeah so they're like denzel's a huge fan huge fan so he talks it up he's great he's denzel and then i see him like really shortly afterwards usc sideline and it was such a rookie move by me it's like me yeah and i was like hey man he's like what and some guy comes over like what the like what are you doing going up to denzel how dare you i was like that was i had a heart like one of those things that i've always checked myself with at times i've gotten older like you're not as close with this guy as you think you are so anyway does he not know how much you know about basketball that's what like the first half of the podcast felt like like he's asking you stuff and he was testing me yeah but beyond testing you i don't think denzel knows anything i think his his uh

his pr person was probably like this guy loves sports he used to be at espn and denzel's like oh i remember probably saw him on countdown or the draft oh yeah well i'll talk basketball with him and then was testing me to see what i knew what was weird about him was he and I get it he was just like I don't go backwards that's what I wanted to bring that movie he's like I don't know I don't care okay but do you think he talks about he got game though yeah that's the thing is like do you think that he when I hear people do like I think some people do that like hey man never regret any decisions like if you actually have a life where you've never regretted anything you've done like shut up you know right and and people are like oh i just turned the page on life man everything's in the rearview mirror you know or who's the player like

i don't have a rearview mirror because i never want to look backwards and all this shit and then he said you know like next one on to the next one like you never sit back and think about appreciating like playing malcolm x, you know, like, I think that was, it felt like maybe it's totally true. Maybe artists are just a little different, but I felt that was, that was weird.

And I guess that maybe he just got me off on the wrong foot because he was a Yankees, Lakers and Knicks fan. And apparently a Cowboys fan, which I didn't realize till after. And a Cowboys fan. So he likes Duke and Alabama. Yeah.

A lot of bandwagons for Denzel. But when he started testing you on that stuff, like'll happen to me like i'm going to lsu bam again this year that's my favorite game love baton rouge and then you know i'll be there and they'll be like how many games i'm like oh i've been to like 12 of them and then some guy be like you know renee dang a yo and i'll be like no i don't be like left guard 62 and i'm like okay fucking congratulations man you named a guard from 62 let's play another game of cornhole and shut up right like i don't i always find it like interesting that when you're a guy like you or you know with a big sports background that people

will like test you and you'll be like what do you think i do every day yeah probably with basketball i'm not a great i don't need to be really tested alright that's my Denzel rant yeah that was was that weird? no I think it's weird when like I had the opposite experience with Ethan Hawke Ethan Hawke was not only ready to go backwards Obi-Wan Kenobi

had a 2018 perspective on all of the movies he made in the 90s and 2000s that was my favorite podcast I've done this, this year was Ethan Hawk. Cause he was like, I'm ready to re-examine all of these movies I did under the lens I have now. And it was just cool. And Denzel was the opposite Denzel, but he got game. My thing is I want to have at least one moment where I learned something about

some movie he did and he got game was what he was great with and then finding out that tracy mcgrady almost had that role it's like oh my god it's a good what if he really really downplayed ray allen's acting there's this little moment in there i was like ray i was good actor for basketball and he just started laughing i don't think ray's very good i've gone back and watched it i didn't think i mean look it's tough he I think all these guys are bad he was to be an actor you know

and he had a million lines so it wasn't like you could hide him but there's some moments in there you're like okay he's not an actor the best acting performances in a sports movie ever by an NBA player number one Bernard King

Fast Break actually could have been nominated for an Oscar that year was a weak supporting actor. Really good. You're not. You're just looking at me like... Kareem Airplane? Great role. I'm not sure

the acting was that great. Great comeback, though, to that kid. Eddie has a couple kind of good acting performances. What about Juana Man? Is anybody... Were we missing anyone in Juana Man? Juana Man. I don't remember. John Sally's good in Eddie. Rick Fox is good in Eddie. Rick Fox is good.

Rick Fox might be a good actor. Yeah, when he was at Oz, he was good. Yeah. Well, now the podcast is ground to a halt. Did we hit all the NBA free agency stuff? Zach Levine? We hit everything, right? I'm trying to think

uh Lakers Toronto what's the next let's oh I my Toronto question for you is

is Kawhi on the team in March because if he is I think that's gonna be a good team yeah yeah I mean it's gonna be I would think

if he's back to being peak Kawhi it's it's what one of the three best players, four best players? He was the second best player 15 months ago. I got to see what happens with Nick Nurse. I got to see if, you know, with Siakam and Ananobi,

you know, how they look a year later. Because I really started, and you've been like really locking into OG towards the end of the year. I was like, man, this is a guy that was hurt at Indiana. Had he not been hurt? You know, he's a dude that goes a lot higher in the draft. And I talked to Kreen who'd had him

and it was like, this guy's really, really good. And so maybe that's, you know, part of the problem. And then, you know, you think about Jonas not having Purtle with the depth, like you probably can't play Jonas in certain matchups. Like he'll be watching the end of some playoff games. So I think the thing, the lesson that I've learned is like, how many times have you had an opinion about something you've had zero

experience with being from Boston? I hated New York city had never been started going after my buddies graduated from college was like, actually this place is awesome. I grew up thinking LA sucked. Okay. Cause I was just a shelter. You're wearing a fucking LFC shirt.

You're tan XL. You're working out with, with Toby Flenderson. You're working out with that Toby. What's his name again, Kyle? Paul Lieberstein. You're staying at Chris Thompson's house. Paul Lieberstein, fighting off stalkers.

Is that happening? Yeah, you didn't hear about that? No, I don't hear about anything. The second night I stayed out in Malibu at Chris's house. So the first night she was there, she left for a work trip the next day. I'm watching Pelicans Warriors. I drive down to Mastro'sro's grab a steak a little live music great on tuesday cruise back flip it around where she lives and unfortunately there's pretty easy access to the front part of

all those areas and she doesn't live there anymore by the way and i walk in and there's motion lights and as soon as i'm walking to the gate to like open the gate to then get into her front door it's not like some gated community it's just a gate and then the door there's a dude 5 10 white late 30s hoodie uh like a dad hat on jeans dad shoes and a huge red suitcase and the light goes on was it chris ryan he was he was in he was thicker i knew immediately it wasn't chris it was close but he was too big and i went hey and he's like hi i go who are you he's like i'm here to stay with carissa and i'm like oh no now here's the thing was she and i very close but i don't know everybody in her life and you never know like hey yeah look me up sometime if you're in L.A. or like maybe she has some cousin that's all messed up or something. I don't. So you start from because all my friends, I told the story,

they're like, why don't you just kick his ass immediately? You're like, well, life doesn't work that way. Like until you're in the moment, you're deciphering, you're trying to figure this out, trying to get through it. So I'm like, you're staying with Carissa. And he goes, yep. And I went, remind me of Wade Boggs a little bit. Like very matter of fact. Full sentences, you know. And he didn't look like it. No, it wasn't Wade Boggs.

So sorry, Wade. I'm not. Yeah. So I go, well, I'm staying with Carissa. And he's like, okay. I go, she didn't tell me anything about you. I was like, what's your name? He's like, my name's Todd.

Todd Poole. And I went, all right. Well, he's like, call her up. I'm like, well, the stone's He's like, my name's Todd, Todd Poole. And I went, all right, well, he's like, call her up. I'm like, well, the stone's on this guy, right? So I call her. She doesn't answer. I text her. She doesn't get back to me because I know she's flying. I go, how do you, like, how did you, he goes, yeah, I'm here for her birthday. I'm here to surprise her. I'm here to stay. And I was like, is that your suitcase? He's like, yep. And I saw like a fresh baggage claim tag on it. So it looked like he just got off a plane. So I go, how are you talking to her? I go, do you talk to her on the phone? He goes, well, no, we just

message a lot on Instagram. And I go, oh, this poor sucker got catfished. You know, he got catfished. I go, okay, well, let me, I was like, you don't have her contact in your phone. He's like, no, I go, well, let me see your Instagram account and I'll look at the DMs and help you out here. And he's like, well, we don't actually DM. And I went, what are you talking about, man? Like what messages? He's like, well, I can just tell the messages as you post that she's talking to me. And I was like, okay. Oh, here we go.

I go, well, look, man. I was like, the bad news for you is, and I got to admit, maybe watching a little too many movies, I started like positioning myself to the side, trying to pretend I had like a gun on me. And I also like didn't want, that was like kind of had this little ledge walkway.

I go, if this slob charges me, like just make sure I'm not, you know, backed into something I'm going to fall down on. This is where growing up in Massachusetts really helps. I actually, half of me wanted him to charge me, right? But then I was afraid like- If you're in a bar, you're holding the beer bottle now. I know.

Just in case. Did you have friends that used to hit people with bottles? I never had one friend ever even think about doing any of that stuff I got hit with one on the back of my head my beloved buddy J-Bug

we were at Sully's in Charlestown one night and there's this guy I'm like naive guy I know nothing and bugged it and liked the vibe

from this guy and at one point I just saw him grab the bottle which I knew was empty like he was drinking it and I was like oh we're in a bad situation

right now I was like naive stupid guy but yeah that was bottle grab yeah that's the mass old DNA that's that's another level he saw something he didn't like so you so I said like pivoting I start pivoting and I'm off to my side I go well hey man here's the bad news I'm like I'm her boyfriend and I'm a cop and he's like wow and he's like okay you know and like the thing is every answer he's like i'm supposed to stay here call her up he's like i instagrammed you and i go what are you doing here he's like man total shot in the dark i knew it was her birthday he's like you know i i recognized

the car so i got off on the bus i go there's no bus up to malibu from lax where you just like pull a string and like let me off here i, you got to get out of here. And if you ever come back here, like it's going to go a lot worse. And I actually, a couple of times I was like, I need to see your hands. I don't want to arrest you. Need to see your hands. Cause he kept stuffing his hands in the front of his hoodie. And I was like, maybe he has mace or some sort of stuff. Like maybe the whole plan was to mace me. So then he walks down. I called the cops, but the cops are like, well, he doesn't want to deal with you. And I was like, well, no, but they're like, you know, whatever then.

And I was like, yeah, but don't you think like a guy's walking down the street and with a suitcase like you should at least like, can I file any kind of report? And they're like, nope, we don't care. And I get where they're coming from. No crime happens. The guy was like, this is a crime line. The scariest thing, the part that sucks. And it also reminded me a little bit of like you know we we take a lot of stuff for granted as guys yeah like in that situation to be a woman it put me in a situation

that had you know look i have mom and i have sisters and this kind of stuff right it just it really pissed me off and then i kind of regretted like not doing something about it but then i was like if i hit him and did stuff then he could have just said oh i was walking down the street and this guy got out of his car and started beating the shit out of me so I was like yeah I'm glad that didn't happen um but we saw the video footage of the guy who got there before I came home and he was there for like an hour and he was pulling on the doors he was pulling up the windows he was pulling up flower pots looking for keys oh shit so that part sucked and uh she she's told the story before so I don't I don't not saying anything that hasn't been told.

But she doesn't live there anymore. I stayed with her for about a month or so, and that's it. And it sucks because this guy, this guy, you know, made somebody who I'm very close with feel uncomfortable every day she was there. So she's out.

She doesn't live there. I think you should have killed him. Could you have thrown him could you could you have thrown him off the cliff how far how deep was the cliff when people ask me like how do you feel i was gonna win the fight right so i didn't you know unless it was like some sort of farley like fat ninja guy that i wasn't wasn't aware of he wasn't't scary. He was, you know, the scariest thing about him was how matter of fact he was and how stone cold, like convinced.

The messages were talking to me is really strange. Yeah, at that point I was like. That's kind of chilling. It is. And, you know, I, as I've argued with some of my friends about it, like, why don't you, you know, and I go, you don't get it.

You don't get until you're in that moment. You don't understand like, okay, have an open mind. Like you will kind of, I think human nature is like you give people the benefit of the doubt because you think most of us aren't wired that way, right? And so I don't know if there's any kind of lesson in it, but it's just that it made me feel, you know, here's somebody I care a lot about.

And it made me feel like a completely different, like a different kind of compassion, you know, in the, in the stuff that, that girls, especially public figures, you know, have to deal with. Action-packed first few months for you in LA. I've got all sorts of stuff, but I don't, I don't want to use it all here. You say you save it. Maybe who knows. What are you doing for college football season?

I don't know yet. Uh, are they using you doing for college football season? I don't know yet. Are they using you for SportsCenter and stuff? How many months left on the deal? Five weeks. Five weeks? Yeah. So what's the day? I think I got to go back and look at the contract.

Should we do a free agency special? Maybe we should do another free agency special. Jesus. 1201 AM? I know. The we should do another free agency special. Jesus. 1201 AM. I know. The thing is, is I already bought, so I can only go to the Clippers or Lakers, I guess. Ryan Russillo, a pleasure as always. Thanks, man.

Thanks again to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Starbucks. Starbucks double shot. It starts with bold Starbucks coffee blended with milk for a smooth, creamy, delicious flavor. It's enhanced with ginseng, guarana, jarana, guarana, jarana, guarana, and B vitamins. I love these things. I put them in my fridge.

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Perfect fit, guaranteed. For premium quality, perfect fitting shirts, visit properclout.com slash BS and use gift code BS to get $20 off your first custom shirt today. Back next week on the BS podcast with three, including the dramatic return of the talented Mr. Roto, Matthew Barry. We're going to do an old school fantasy football preview middle of next week.

We have not done one, I don't think in like four years, but, uh, it's going to be emotional until then. Have a good weekend. I want to see them on the way. So I don't have. I feel it's working On the wayside I'm a bruised soul

I never was And I don't have to