The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: Booker’s Brilliance, Jokic vs. Ishbia, and Best Playoff Guys Right Now With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

In Part 2 of a two-part podcast The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo discuss an awesome Suns Game 4 win over the Nuggets including Nikola Jokic’s 53 points, Devin Booker’s consistent playoff production, and the incident between Jokic and Suns owner Matt Ishbia (0:45), before talking Lakers-Warriors and Knicks-Heat (40:53), they rank the stars left in the playoffs, discuss Bronny James committing to USC and more (57:04). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, part two of the two-part Sunday extravaganza with Priscilla. What's next? This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this. It's game day. All the

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we broke down Sixers Celtics game four, as well as some LeBron stuff, some sports media stuff. It was a good one. This is part two. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Rosillo, it is 8.35 p.m. Sunday night.

Just watched Denver Phoenix. Ended about 45 minutes ago. Took a little break, regrouped. Thought of some storylines, some things we could talk about. I'm going to start here. I think that was the best game in the playoffs. It wasn't the most dramatic. I don't think it was, it didn't have like the memorable kind of, oh my God, oh, it's that game.

But just start to finish entertainment, the shot making the talent on the floor, your guys sham it coming in that Ishbia versus Jokic thing. Jokic has 51 and 11 and loses 53 and 11. Uh, that's everything I want from a playoff game. I loved it. Two thumbs up. So you're saying you enjoyed that one more than the earlier one today? Yeah, I did. A lot more.

That third quarter is all-time stuff. All-time stuff. I don't know if anything will ever, it depends on how young you are and those different moments and Jordan games, Bird, Dominique. But the idea that I could even suggest that third quarter being in the Bird Dominique showdown thing of the 80s, that was special. That was special stuff, and there's a much bigger Booker conversation

I can't wait to get into, but to see Katie and Booker on one side go against Jokic, where nobody's missing, everybody's making the right play, there's some defensive stuff I want to ask, because I don't even know if I know the missing, everybody's making the right play. There's some defensive stuff I want to ask because I don't even know if I know the answer, but that third quarter was special. Booker was so hot that at one point

they double teamed him and he measured it. And he's like, there's two guys on me. I'm shooting the three anyway. And just drained like a 26 footer with four arms kind of facing him. Booker is so special that- Can we start there? We have a whole little mini segment.

No, I think we have to start with just the Jokic piece of... One of the things that makes him special for me, I know he lost, but he can do these different things depending on the game that I think is a quality that the greatest players of all time have. Where he could, oh, we're going to do this game? All right. I guess I'll have to score 50 points. Or they could be like, oh, you're playing me this way? Oh, I guess this will be the game where I have 13 assists and then 10 other passes that lead to free throws. I just love the shots that they get over and over and over and over

again with him. I thought he was just exceptional in this game because in any normal circumstance, it's a home game for Phoenix. Their two best guys have 72 points. They get this crazy bench performance. They shoot almost 60%. Denver shouldn't have even been in the game. This should have been a 20-point blowout. And Jokic was so good. He just kept the nuggets hanging around.

It's just, Saruti and I were talking before you hopped on the Zoom or so. I was just like, yeah, look, it's a regular season award. Embiid, I'm okay with the fact that I voted for him, but I just think Jokic is the best player in the league. I don't think it's really arguable at this point. Yeah, I knew, I mean, this is obviously coming because I have those moments too where I'm at home. I'm like, you don't actually think Embiid's better than this guy, do you?

And I don't know how you watch, you know, like know like I don't know it just kind of sucks that it turns into this all all of a sudden so maybe I'm going to stop myself from doing it but yeah I didn't even mean to bring up the comparison thing I just think night to night this guy's the best player in the league now he just is yeah and he didn't win the MVP um because he didn't care the last month you know and who knows you know Embiid went on an absolute tear so i don't i don't watch this game like we were joking about the pvsd segment in the past but i'm like hey this is this these are two different things these are two different things yeah you know it's like watching deshaun watson in a title game for clemson and it's like oh i can't believe this

guy didn't win the heisman you're like that's not that's not the point that's not the point of the award like hey i wonder if this guy in the last game when everybody else is at home will have an awesome game. So anyway. Or like Mahomes in the playoffs where it's the same thing. Where it's like, oh yeah, Mahomes is the best guy in the league. And we kind of have to remind ourselves. Right, right. So when I watch Jokic in this spot, because I mean, you're right.

The part of him that's so amazing is controlling the game without shooting. Like you'll see games that he's absolutely dominating. You're like, wait, he went two for three that quarter. You're like, how, what, what did I like? Did I miss a play? Do I have to go back? What's going on? And then you see certain games rarely from him like this, where it's like, I think I got to go. And then if you're Phoenix and you're thinking it's this awful quandary, it's like Steve Nash, you know, on a, on a transition possession where you go, do I close out to him or do I help to him? Do I come off to help? Like, what do I do? And Nash at some point made a living on these open

layups because nobody wanted to help off anybody. So it was like his vision made his drives easier because everybody was afraid to get burned. And there's a lot of that. And Jokic has that kind of running, like 10 foot floater coming off the foul line toward the basket that he just makes from every angle. So if you're, if you're just guarding everybody's like, cool, I'm just going to make this eight footer right here. Right. So if you, if you send help the same way with LeBron, like LeBron figures out your help, the great ones do this all the time if you're going to be leaving people with yokich you know you're going to get burned at some point at some point too the only thing that i would wonder and i don't say this because i think i know the answer because i don't know what the team's help rules

are different stuff is that tonight specifically i thought they did make it way too easy for him. He made all the shots. He was incredible. I'm not going, ah, it was an easy 53. But Phoenix, when they watch this, despite evening the series at 2-2, they have to think there's more stuff that they could do. Like if Gordon's in the corner, you've got to show some help. If you're playing in between, take a step at him. Like think about it. Now granted, he's so big and his hands are so good

that it's really not going to change all that much. How about the end one jumper he hit on Booker when Booker got him in his switch and he just chucked it up and fell forward. With the one hand.

Yeah, and it went in and he gets the free throw. So he's incredible. There's no real slowing him down. And I totally understand a coaching staff going, hey, we want to stay home everywhere. We want to stay home everywhere. But I noticed specific possessions tonight

where it's like, look, if he's going to be driving and he's clean on one side, like that can't happen. There was one time where it was Durant and Aiton both on him, double teaming him on the drive, but they were both on the same side. So it didn't really matter. So his left hand was clean. He can finish with either hand.

It's so impressive, you know, knowing too that like LeBron at his peak, if he wanted to get 40 a game, he could, but he knows that's probably not the best way to go about it. And clearly the results

for their regular season back it up. There's not a lot of players in the history of the league who could have gone toe-to-toe with the Suns combo tonight and kept their team in the game. Just period. The list of guys who could have kept their team in the game is probably less than, I don't know, 12 or 15. And on the flip side, the Durant-Booker thing where Denver tonight is, they basically say, you know what? You guys can't get 86 again. They basically make that decision somewhere around the tail end of the third quarter

heading into the fourth quarter. All right, everybody else is going to have to beat us. And Phoenix gets, you know, this crazy shammy game. Ross hits a couple shots and just nobody in the team misses. I always wonder, is it infectious when Booker and KD are playing at the level they're playing at?

Does that just transfer to the other guys where it's like this flame that's just kind of going around? That was the bench performance that they'd been waiting for. With that said, those guys still had 72 points and those guys still shot over 60%. Durant was 11 for 19. They made 25 shots. They're 25 for 37 combined. And they were 17 for 19 for the free throw line. And they had 18 assists. So you have that, that I wanted. And then you have Jokic with 53 and 11 assists on the other. And this is like, I, I'm hard pressed to remember like a more high quality offensive performance on both sides. And I don't know what the answers are defensively for either

team. Yeah. They could take away Jokic's points, but then all that does is open everything else up. We also had an iconic shot for Michael Porter Jr. It was like watching one of the best concerts you've ever been to. And then somebody crashed from the second drummer came in. The second drummer came in and was like, here's a song from my solo album. Porter just pulls up. I think they were down three. And Porter, maybe it was five or three. I can't remember.

Porter, with like a minute left, just pulls up on a fast break steal situation. And Ayton seemed like he deflected it. But it was just like, not now, dude. It was one of those moments. He was bad. Four for 13 in 41 minutes. He did have 10 rebounds. But I do feel like this Denver team, if you're looking for reasons why

it's not going to happen for them, the bench on the road would be one thing. And then that Porter piece, which we've talked about on multiple podcasts, right? What are you getting from this guy? Can he really be like the third guy? Or is this just like a hit or miss role player basically that like somebody who could hit 25 in the right game but then other times has games like today they might be a half guy short i guess is my point yeah all fair about porter jr i put him on a list of 10 players that can make the most impossible shots in the nba and at his size to be able to do some of the stuff that he does when it's right you're like this is incredible and he had games against Minnesota where I felt like I looked up and went wait Porter's out there uh yeah he would have like three threes and a

dunk in the fourth quarter and you're like okay that's why it happened because when it's bad he's the most expensive spot-up role player in the entire league you're like what is going on I don't think he's always locked in on some of the basketball stuff. It's certainly not as bad as it used to be. But the Denver road thing is the thing that always made me wonder. Like, I think you and I are both guilty of this, where when it's right, you're like, man, maybe they are really good. You know, tape to tape pretty much one seed the whole time. And I was like, yeah, but how many teams that are really, really good are below 500 on the road. And, you know, I don't, you get an all-timer in game three from those two guys, and then it's basically Jokic trying to duel two top 10 players in Durant and Booker,

and who knows what we're going to do with Booker when this is all said and done with this playoff run. It might just go seven and Denver will win that seventh game at home. You know, that's almost... Could be an old school, the home team wins all seven maybe i mean unless you're gonna lock into 17 from shamit i mean the bench part of this is crazy because monty williams is like oh you're on the team okay uh he was a dnp now granted i obviously i'm kidding but i just it's so crazy to watch him try to figure out this rotation stuff on the fly still. Look at bench points here for Phoenix.

24, 4 points. Phoenix's bench in the Game 2 loss played 71 minutes and had 4 points. 22 points in Game 3, 40 points in Game 4. Shamit was a DNP in Game 2. So I don't know if I'm missing an injury there or what. Torrey Craig, who had some really nice games. he was a dmp like shamit just wasn't playing because he didn't play well this season yeah and look i'm not saying like he was awesome and he was deserved to go like think about tory craig was like one of the most solid non-star guys for this team in the first round and now he's dmp twice i think so yeah phoenix still trying to figure all these things out

the eight and story was interesting tonight because he brought him back in. What time? I don't always love plus minus, but the Aiton versus Landell plus minus was pretty fascinating. What was it? Plus 16 for Landell in 21 minutes. Aiton was minus 13 in 27. Now some of that has to do with Landau was out there when Jokic wasn't

and things like that. But it was kind of backed up the eye test. It just felt like they played better when he was out there. Yeah, Aiton came back at 455, which is almost exactly when he was taken out for Landau the second time around. I'll give Aiton this.

The two plays on the challenge out of bounds by Denver where they reversed it and Denver got the ball back, Aiton looked like, I am not going to watch this ball. I'm going after it. It was days of comments running through his head with the way he went after a loose ball, which is not as – and then on the oddity of the entire game,

Jokic kind of fumbles that right side little pass to Murray, and then Aiton gets down on it, ends up being the jump ball. So Aiton had a couple hustle plays there for a guy that deservedly show, look, I think it's deserved the criticism of Aiton when it isn't good, but it was just kind of nice to see

if you're a Suns fan that, you know, it almost like he, it was almost all of these things were bowling up and he's like, all right, I at least have to make sure I make plays on these loose balls. And they were huge. One other thing with Phoenix and their banking playoff games with Durant, the new guy energy seems to be dissipating a little bit.

Don't you think? It's not still 100% assimilation, but they just look a little more comfortable with the Durant Booker. They're running some high screens with them today that I like. Durant played 44 minutes. Booker played 40. I guess that's just how it's going to go. He's going to keep those guys out as much as he possibly can. But the longer this goes, that can bank some reps and kind of figure out who they are. One of the things I think they're figuring out slowly is that the Landau thing is actually, seems like he's a better fit with those guys. Just because he cuts

and he moves and things can happen versus Aiton. I just don't think he's figured out how to play with them. It's going to be a work in progress. It's going to be different on the road. I don't see Landry Schammett going 5-4-8 from 3 again. You don't know the last time he made this many 3s? You have to go back like 4 years, right? I don't know the last time he made this many threes? You have to go back

like four years, right? No. I don't even know. When was the last time he had a good game in a playoff game? He took 17 threes against Denver on Christmas.

Oh, Jesus. Let's do the Booker combo. Because we had a little segment. MVP? Well, I asked you to make a list of if you were in a playoff series, the guys you would want right now. 2023, that's it.

Just who you would feel the most comfortable with. And the reason for this exercise was, for me, I knew Booker was in the top five in my head and I just wanted to write down everybody's name and see where I wanted to put them. And one of the things was, I think I have him over Tatum because I think he's more consistent. That's it. I don't think he's necessarily more talented, but I think when you get to the playoffs, I kind of want to know what I'm getting every game. And this is why we get so frustrated with people like Anthony Davis and Harding. Cause you just,

they're like cats. They can jump on your lap or you might not see them for two days. Booker's consistency, I think, really makes it special. I think people jump on Harden's lap, but anyway. Yeah, true. Booker's consistency at a position that can be notoriously erratic, even for the greatest players like Kobe. I just know that guy's showing up game to game. For me, I have Jokic and Curry. I think Jimmy Butler has to be third and maybe even second if you wanted to have a Curry versus Butler argument.

Curry's going to be second for me. But I think after those three, I think Booker's the fourth guy who'd want a playoff series right now. He can create any shot he wants. He can create shots for his teammates. He can play 40 minutes a night. He's been really durable in these games.

I love his competitive fire. And I have him over anybody else. So anyway, that was my top four. So your top four. So you went in order. Bills four. Bills Mount Rushmore, would you dare? order bills for bills, Mount Rushmore. Would you dare?

Yeah. Cause it's like, just right. It's 2023 right now. Specific. No, but I have Yoke, Curry,

Butler, and Booker, I think are the four guys right now. And I think there's a slight drop off after that to Tatum and Durant and AD, um, to rant just because I just don't know if I'm getting eight straight weeks out of him from a durability standpoint at this point, Tatum, I just don't know if I'm getting eight straight weeks out of him from a durability standpoint at this point. Tatum, I just don't think has been consistent enough, period.

And AD is AD. Okay. A lot of different ways to go here. Let's do them all because I'm fired up to do this because Booker, if they were to lose this series, you know how hard it is to have everybody watch you lose in the second round and then go into next year going, hey, is Booker a top five guy? That's what I think Booker's already accomplished, even if this team doesn't beat Denver. Yeah, he's been that good. You're right. Yeah, that's hard to do. You'd also have to have some more playoff flame outs, but they were all mostly like Chris Paul took the brunt of most of those anyway. So, you know, Booker. No, but seriously, like Booker kind of little DRS behind Chris Paul stuff there.

The Booker Tatum thing is something I've been thinking about now for a while. I wouldn't have to think very long about that one. And it's because of that aggression. We want perimeter players to attack even when they should. Right. Like, it is kind of annoying that when a guy is taking more jumpers or whatever, like, how can we not go to the hoop? How can we not go to the hoop? And a lot of times, you know what?

That player gets it. Like the end of the Atlanta games where Tatum was getting double teamed at the top, initiating the offense. Tatum could have driven. You know what I mean? He took, I think, one shot in that last six minutes. And if they had lost that game, Tatum gets killed for being passive

when in fact he was doing the exact right thing because Atlanta actually, I thought, made it easy on Boston because their defense was so predictable. They made the right plays. And importantly, they hit the shot, so they win. So we never have to hear, at least for that game, that Tatum didn't have it, even though there's other games. I think it's totally fair because it looks like Tatum's off a little bit. Booker somehow finds a way to be the guy that everyone on their couch at home is yelling at their star to do. Think about that. He is like, how come they're not going to the hoop?

How come they're not going to the hoop? That double team that he split was nuts that he split that thing. I mean, guys can split double teams, some of the best players, but his aggressiveness and the efficiency. This is somebody now who in the last two games, Bill, is 34 of his last 43. He's 79% essentially in two must-win games down 2-0 in the playoffs. 79%. So this is special stuff, and I'd put him on that list.

I think there's an argument to even have him ahead of Butler because Butler, I think a big part of it is, one, I wouldn't trust his shooting as much as Booker. I think his aggressiveness actually is at Butler's level. And Butler can, look, he knows the free throw game. Like Butler has the free throw shit down where if you're not paying attention, he's going to get you and make you pay.

Booker doesn't even have to do that. Booker can drop 30 on you without having to live at the free throw line for the night. And look, I know it's crazy after what Butler did against Milwaukee, but I think I just like Booker night. And, you know, look, I know it's crazy after what Butler did against Milwaukee, but I think I just like Booker better. Two words you used, aggressiveness and efficiency. I would also throw in the word patience.

Like that play when he got double teamed and shot the three anyway was a good example, right? He's just so comfortable all the time. He's got two guys on him, and most people are like, shit, I got two guys on me. And he's just like, I got two guys on me. And he just kind of solves it. There's been a lot of high level solving from him. The consistency though is incredible. First of all, he's averaging 37 a game now in nine playoff games. And even when I was doing my book, 12 playoff games to me is the cutoff for, that's not just the sample size. If you're doing anything for 12 12 playoff games to me is the cutoff for, that's not just the sample size.

If you're doing anything for 12 plus playoff games, like LeBron in 2009, I think he averaged like 35 a game and it felt like it. He was like 35, 10, and 9 when they lost to Orlando that year. It was just night after night, he was bringing it. Booker's nine games down, 37 a game, but he's gone 26, 38, 45, 30, 47, 27, 35, 47, 36. So his low number is 26. He shot 60% in round one against the Clippers. He's shooting 63.7% in this series. You mentioned the free throws. It feels like he goes to the free throw line a lot more than he actually does it's like I don't know six but they're always in the right spots and then the three point shooting he was 46.7 last round

57 this round this is like now becoming historical stuff this is like if he finishes the series like this, whether it goes six, seven, whatever... He's not going to be 79% two more games. But I'm saying if he's like around

35 to 37 points a game, I don't see him going cold, I guess is my point. And if he's somewhere in the vicinity of these numbers by the time this series ends, this will be on like the handful of playoff performances.

It really will. It'll be like whatever list they'll go, they'll be like, and then Devin Booker in 2023. But the thing to me is I don't feel like he's like smoking hot. I don't feel like it's fluky. He gets awesome shots, right? I never like, ooh, bad one. Tatum will just take bad shots sometimes. I'm like, ooh, what was that? Ah, pull up. Or, you know, the drive into the lane where he lurches. Like, everything Booker does

is so in control. Anyway, he's been, I think, the breakout kind of superstar of these playoffs where I think he's gone up a level, at least in my head. And I think you think that. I think most people would say,

like, yeah, I feel a little differently about Devin Booker right now. Yeah, the Tatum stuff started happening, I would say, a month ago because I'd asked two different guests in the podcast and i was like you know what i think i'd i think i'd rather him which you know we're talking about slotting guys in six seven or eight or five six seven but what i love about his development is

that you know we already know the draft pick story taking 13th you're like oh wait they might have something here you know it's rookie year he gets a game. The weird thing is he didn't really shoot lights out from three. Like it wasn't it wasn't at the level of some of the other guys you think of as like a big time three point shooter. He's only 36 for his career. He lit it up last year. He's 35 percent. But the more important thing, I think, to him developing this game that's really important now, Chris Paul not being there, is there were stretches where he initiated all the offense based on what the roster was around him when it wasn't very good. And I'll admit, even back then, I was like, hey, if this guy's so nice, he's never even

getting to the playoffs. Well, now all that part of it is irrelevant, even though at the time I thought it was kind of true about his standing in the league. But he had to basically play point guard. He's had to play the number one option. He has moments here where if they do a hard double on Durant, which seems weird when they're running Booker and Durant on the same side and they'll double off a Booker on a Durant catch, you're like, hey, you guys got to figure out something else there. There was one play where they had a hard double.

It wasn't a hard double. Durant was on the right side. They doubled him. He kind of got away from it. And then Gordon went to show to Durant was on the right side they doubled him he kind of got away from it and then Gordon like went to show to Durant a little bit and you know we were talking about some of the yoke controls I'm like if you want to show off Eric or Aaron Gordon fine if you want to show off of you know KCP that might be a little dicier but if you're Aaron Gordon like right now with Booker what he's done for two games can you can you show at him? And so there's parts of

his game that you can just see how well-rounded it is. And a lot of that, I think, has to do with the massive ups and downs of who he's been because of what's been around him as well. And look, like I said, there was a stretch there where he was the number one guy. Guys were like, oh, he's better than this guy. He's better than that guy. I wasn't sure there was a top 10 push for him because that those are the stupid rules that we have when they're making the finals run two years ago you know people trying to compare him to kobe and all that kind of stuff which is blasphemy but what he is doing right now uh and i do think he's the rare case of if they were to lose this series which is a very real possibility still it's only two two uh he would he would have have gained cred in a world that doesn't

want to give it out to anybody that loses. Can I read you the 2015 top 15 draft really quick? Yeah. Towns, Russell, Jaleel Okafor, Porzingis, Mario Hazonia, Willie Cauley-Stein, Emmanuel Moutier. That was our top seven. I never liked Moutier. Didn't like Moutier. Stanley Johnson, Frank Kaminsky, Justice Winslow, Miles Turner, Trey Lyles, Devin Booker, 13, Cameron Payne, Kelly Oubre Jr. That was our top 15 that year.

And Booker goes 13, which yet again goes to show you, we go nuts about the lottery and who's going to win the lottery. And oh my God. And year after year, it's like a guy like Devin Booker ends up being the best guy in the draft. And he went 13. Over Lyles? I don't know if he closed the book on that chapter yet.

Look, he played 20 minutes a game for Kentucky. He didn't start. You know, he got 10 points a game. Didn't he fit your Golden State profile of the, his rivals top 100 was pretty high. Wasn't he like a top five or six guy that year? Then his college season wasn't that great? That team was loaded.

I'm not... Your thing about how the pedigree thing... I'm looking it up right now. We'll look it up and we'll take a break. Four star rivals. They had him 29th overall. So that's still pretty high.

Not as high as I thought. Let's take a break. I have some more stuff for you. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer.

Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers,

host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. So we didn't talk about the Matt Ishbia-Jokic thing. Never has new owner syndrome been hammered home faster. Matt Ishbia, he trades for Durant like an hour after he got the team. He comes on my podcast and

just throws grenades at Dan Gilbert. And then he gets in this kind of altercation with Jokic that I felt like he provoked. Like just point blank, he acted incorrectly. He held onto the ball and tried to keep Jokic away from getting it. What was going on? I think he thought he was playing. I almost feel like he snapped. Then Jokic shoves him. Some guy behind Ishbia, some big bearded guy, kind of tries to shove Jokic. And for a second, it looked like Jokic was going to fight everybody in the corner of the arena, which FYI, seemed relatively realistic because it's Jokic. Jokic is the only guy who's ever gone after the Morris brothers and really not been afraid

of just feuding with those guys. All of it was incredible. We don't think Jokic is going to get suspended for Game 5 or anything, right? Because that would be insane. Look, I never know anymore with the punishment stuff. I always kind of lean towards whatever I think is reasonable

then add more to it. So would I be 100%? Do I think there's a 0% chance of it happening? No. The way I saw the play, because there's a couple elements to this. First of all, one of my least favorite things that we see in basketball, I call it the pat-beth. There's a whistle.

The player on the team that's about to lose possession still has the basketball and pat bev runs over grabs it away and then everybody that's a fan of the team of the guy that does the pat bev will say oh well he's just trying to get the ball in bounds like first of all when they're when it's a dead ball and they're sorting through stuff uh matt ishby was not present uh preventing a fast break okay a kogi's wrapped up in the chairs the refs ed mulloy's at the base like they're going to wait they're not going to let Matt Ishby was not preventing a fast break. Okay, Okoge's wrapped up in the chairs. The refs, Ed Malloy's at the base. They're going to wait.

They're not going to let Jokic just inbound the basketball. It's going to be checked. And in that spot, they're going to let the player get back in out of the crowd for a whole safety thing. So I've seen that out there already, that Ishby was wrong for hanging on to the basketball because Jokic was just trying to start their fast break, which is total bullshit. Okay, that's just not true.

But he was wrong to hang on to the basketball because Jokic was just trying to start their fast break, which is total bullshit. That's just not true. But he was wrong to hang on to the basketball. I don't know that Ishby was hanging on to the basketball because I don't know if he was doing it to gain some kind of advantage or to be prickly back to Jokic or to just Denver in general because I think he's looking down at Okoge going like, oh, and the basketball is just

in his hands. So I felt like Jokic went for the Pat Bev. He pulled it away, though. After Jokic was like, you're right. I mean, I guess you're supposed to just... Let's say it's the Knicks game. Let's say like, I don't know, Jerry

Ferrara has the ball and tries to keep it away from Jimmy Butler in the same situation. You're going to send a double team to Jerry. If Jerry Farrar did that, would people be piling on Jerry Farrar like, dude, you're not on the Knicks. What the fuck was that? He'd be getting killed.

He'd be getting killed. Ishbia, it's like, oh, owner. I just thought, I thought it was a really weird move I've been in situations where the ball has kind of come toward me sitting on the floor that's been nice

thanks and your instinct is just to throw the ball back like you don't want it it's like hot potato you don't grab it and hold it and be like hey oh wait a second

I gotta get my time my team a chance to reset that was crazy and then he stood up and he kind of got in Jokic's personal space. I felt like that was why Jokic shoved him. Like, why was he standing up? What was he trying to do?

I thought the whole thing was incredibly bizarre. And I love that Jokic shoved him. I just love Jokic. I'm watching it again, man. The ball bounces towards him. They're looking at a Kogi. He just gets up. I don't look at this as ishby is

trying to keep the ball away from anybody i really don't i think yokich goes over and pat bevs him then he gets the shoulder into him which you know i think ishby also flops the part that's going completely unreported is that isaiah thomas is in there going like look if i punch yokich can i run your draft room this summer? Isaiah. Isaiah until like the ninth time. Isaiah was a fucking badass, man. He punched Bill Cartwright. Isaiah's grabbing his jersey.

Yeah. Isaiah grabs Jokic's jersey while Bam Bam Bigelow tries to come over the top. Yeah. And look, I think Jokic made it way more than it had to be. And I thought Ishbia flopped and I hope he doesn't get suspended. Is this a Jokic was asking for it? Defensive Matt Ishbia. I have,

I never defend the player that decides to go grab the basket. Now I know everybody's going to say, Oh, it's a fan. It's whatever. I'm not even doing the fan owner thing. I don't think Ishbia is trying to keep the basketball. I think he's looking at his player on the ground in the corner the ball happens to bounce to him he's holding on to it and yokich is going over to grab it for him to then

what check ball and wait so it was like a pointless thing that yokich was doing that wasn't he's trying to set the tone with the sun's on that's all. Yeah, yeah. He recognized them. He saw them on my podcast. Every time I put this guy. But this is a pent up thing of all the nights of watching going. Oh, so the player runs over and every player knows they're doing it. Look, if Pat Bev is the poster child for it, then it's only a bad sign. It's only an irritant to go ahead and do it.

So I know part of the argument would be, again, especially you're just going to say like oh, Jokic is trying to get the ball inbounds. It was after a whistle and a player was in the seats. They were going to stop. They didn't deny them a five on four because of this. Incredible stuff. Do you think it was a flop? Ishby 100% flopped.

Remember, he's a smart guy. He's rich for a reason. He also stood up because that was also a smart thing to do what happens if Jokic gets really mad at him like who knows do you think he was actually doing that listen did you research what kind of player he was in college yeah he was like the super

frisky like backup walk on point guard who was like the energy guy taking charges and he was like an irritant. That's who he was. So I think that got unleashed. He's sitting on the bench or sitting on the court sides and he kind of feels like he's on the

team and the ball comes, there's Jokic and all of a sudden he's kind of mixing it up. When you watch the video, you think Ishby is holding onto the basketball on purpose. Yeah. I thought he was trying to be a little bit of a dick. I did. Yeah, I think he's looking at Okoge

and all this is happening immediately, and he's a basketball player in the vault. He's not thinking, how quickly can I get rid of this basketball so that Ed Malloy can check it in? I don't think he's thinking that. Can I give you one more piece to this? I want 10 more pieces. If this escalates and Jokic

ends up in a fight with Matt Ishbia and Isaiah Thomas, the former Detroit Pistons Hall of Famer, is that the weirdest thing that's happened since the Artest melee? Yeah. It has to be, right? That's the weirdest thing since 2004. By the way, speaking of Artest,

I hope someone goes on first take tomorrow. I have their Fandu odds. Of some candidates? Yeah, most likely the guy to say, so you get mad at our test, but you're cool with Jokic? Be like, eh, might be different. Or they do the, maybe there's a pattern.

They show the Markeith Morris hit, and then Ishpia. It's like, is Jokic out of control? I don't blame Jokic for like even him going for the ball bothers me more than whatever that elbow is. I'm serious. I don't expect that to be a large group of us. I like, in fairness to you, it's on brand. You've always hated the grab the ball,

even though there's no way the play could start. It's driven you crazy since I've known you. Because it's a point. There's weight. It's effort and energy into doing something. Like, imagine if before a sprint, you sprinted, and they were like, okay, cool. We haven't started yet.

This, for you, is the equivalent of me when people try to block shots after the play is dead. Like Kevin Garnett, I don't know how many jumps he wasted in his career that just could have gone toward his NBA career, but then he finally blew out his knee in 2009. And I wish he had taken back those 1200 times he jumped for no reason to block some shot after the whistle to, I guess, not give somebody the mental memory of a shot going in. I just never understood the logic of that.

The idea is that. Oh, man, that'll screw them up. If they don't feel like it's going through, you know what I mean? It's like, oh, hey, one went down. Then they can never go on a streak. I, too, hate it. Didn't somebody blow out his ACL doing it, too, once? No, but Tony Allen got hurt doing the dunk after the whistle

when he followed through. There was a foul and he just decided, I'm going to follow through and do this dunk. And he blew out his knee in the Celtics. I love when a team's down 30 and a guy does it. And you're like, oh, so you're going to be energized now. Yeah. Now you're going to play with some effort.

It's like the first down point when you're down 28-3 with four minutes left. The guy gets the 12-yarder for the first down. Can we bring in Saruti? Saruti, are you still awake? What up, what up? All right, be the tiebreaker. Was that Ishby's fault or Jokic's fault?

I leaned towards you, Bill. I thought Ishby knew what he was doing. And listen, he was great on the pod. Seemed like an awesome dude. The ratings are very high after he went on with you. But I think, I don't know. I don't think he's completely innocent in this scenario. If we're doing like Blame Pie,

you know, I don't think Yoko's playing with... Yeah, I know Rossello loves Blame Pie. But I was a 60-40 Ishbia. Blame Pie. Yeah, I'm 1640 Ishbia. Blame Pie. Yeah, I'm going to go 70-30 Ishbia. I'm not sure Jokic needed to put that much into the elbow, but I also think he thought it was just some fan that was trying to fuck with the game and it made him mad.

You guys are out of your mind. I'm watching again right now. Ishbia is totally turned. The ball lands on him. He's an athlete, so now the ball's in his hands. It's a comfort feeling for him, and he's checking on his player.

Oh, my God. Ishbia excuses. Yeah, but here's the thing. I think Ishbia flopped, and I think we got a little plumber's crack from him on one of the angles. Oh, wow.

Okay, how about this? Is this better or worse than when Mark Cuban, during a dust-up on the court court ran on to see if the refs needed help breaking up the fight that was still that was the lowest odor moment remember and then he

realized he did the wrong thing and he like scurried back that was great he did like the refs turn and look at him and they're like what the fuck are you doing? And Cuban kind of goes like, hey, I was just checking, see if you guys needed any backup or anything like that. I do think that these owners feel like they're on the team in the game,

especially if they're relatively new. It takes them a while to realize they're not actually playing there needs to be some calmness I think they lose their mind for the most part that would be my take Cerini loves Ishpia now he came on the pod, he was great he almost got in a fight with Nikola Jokic

yeah I guess Mike Malone after the game too he was like yeah some fan he didn't even realize he was the owner yeah, some fan was messing with him. He didn't even realize he was the owner, which is incredible. And then I think a reporter told him, he's like, I don't give a, I don't care.

I don't care. So Rudy, where do you have Booker in the top playoff guys rankings? See in the top four, or was that too high? No, I think that's legit. I think the conversation was that he or Tatum, I think, you know, I think you have to give it to Booker right now.

He's what everybody, like, if you're like, hey, I'm shooting my driveway, you want to be Devin Booker. That's who you want to give it to Booker right now. He's what everybody, if you're like, hey, I'm shooting my driveway, you want to be Devin Booker. That's who you want to model your game after. He's so smooth. He's top driveway guy for you? I think so, yeah. Top driveway guy, is that a list? What a great list that is.

Oh, yeah. You're driving by? Jokic is top YMCA guy. He has the YMCA game and body and Booker's top driveway guy. What's Marcus Smart? Top you like him guy? You're flopping in the pickup game guy?

Yeah. That guy that's like, we don't have a ref. There's no reason to flop. There's no cause. Hey there's no calls hey that call on everyone forward you're not getting any so Rudy have you emotionally reconciled the

DeAndre Ayton to Orlando trade that's going to happen this summer when it's Wendell Carter and like a pick swap and something like some other thing you okay with that this is year two of me telling you this trade is not going to happen Wendell Carter, given the contract, is a better

asset than Aiton. Isaac will be healthy. I just saw somebody sent me an Isaac trade. People love sending me Isaac trades. I'm still not selling my stock. I want him back next year. Can he opt out? No, they haven't out, I believe.

They have the opt out. Yeah. But no, I'm Wendell Carter Jr. number one fan. I honestly think the Suns would be better if they had Wendell Carter Jr. than DeAndre Ayton. I actually don't disagree with that. We still probably get more rebounds. All right, thanks, Rudy.

Should we do two minutes on the Chris Paul part of this? The Ewing Theory piece? The fact that he's an absolute Ewing Theory candidate and has never won a title and fits every definition of it and they're playing better without him? That part? Yeah, maybe we'll do it next week. What do you have?

I submit, once again, four bench points in Game 2, 40 in game four. The defense rests. Isaac partially guaranteed for next year. The only thing I would say with the Chris Paul thing is they seem like they're playing a little faster without him. Again, bench points. And if Shamit's going to hit open threes

when Chris Paul was kind of hit or miss from those threes and the ball is in the hands of Booker and KD all the time, maybe not the worst thing in the world. Yeah. A little too early for the Ewing theory with it, but the committee is kind of monitoring. Yeah, no, that's fair. On the radar.

I get it. Might send him to game six. Okay. Okay. Where's Lakers game four? Monday night. Have we talked about game four of a playoff series?

Why it's my favorite game? I can't remember if I ever did this bit. I don't know. I think it's the last game of a series where it's not like a must-must win for either team, but it's a must win and there's no sphincter clenching. There's no, like, there's not a weight of, oh my God, if I miss this shot, we might be out of the playoffs.

So there's a little bit of freedom with how it's played. And I just think in general, I love Game Force. And this Warriors-Lakers game, this hasn't really been a good series as interesting as it's been. And we've had moments of brilliance from both sides. And the fourth quarter

of the Warriors-Lakers I thought was really good. But for the most part, they haven't really been able to sink when both of them are playing well at the same time

like we saw with that Suns-Nuggets game today. And I just feel like this is going to be a great game. And I know that's a weird thing to say. I have no proof.

It's like, it's just like a gut instinct for these two teams should play a good game and it hasn't happened yet. There's going to be a real vibe in place. There's enough urgency, but not too much. If you're the Warriors, you need it, but you still have five and seven at home. It's not like a death blow if you lose. If you're the Lakers, it would be great to win, but it's not completely devastating if you don't win. I just think these two teams are going to bring the best out of each other on Monday night.

We're due for it. It's such a strange series to me. I know we touched on it in the first part, but you have two teams, as we've established, do completely different things, and they're going to do the same different things, and one team looks helpless against the other, and then it just reverses, even though they're not doing anything

really that different. I mean, we can get into some of the substitution stuff, and Vanderbilt playing off of Curry, so they can't switch into somebody else. There's little things there. Obviously, the Jermichael Green-Looney decision. But for the most part, who they are,

when Golden State's rolling, you're like, oh, the Lakers are not going to be able to hang with them. They can't hang with them. I don't know that anybody looks all that great when Golden State is rolling. But then on the other side, like in game three, I felt like that was way worse than game one for Golden State because it was like you guys just once AD. AD's never thinking about anybody going to just once AD AD's never thinking about anybody going to the rim. He's never thinking about anybody and Golden State's always thinking about AD when they're going at the rim. He makes those guys look bad.

Yeah, that's a good point. I think it would be really tough to beat the Lakers three times in a row if those two guys are healthy because they're so hard to officiate. You're really taking a big risk. Those guys, I would say those are two

of the four hardest guys to officiate in the league. And Philly probably has the other two. I guess we'll see. The other game for Nick's Heat. A Nick's friend asked me this. This is the biggest Nick's game since when? And I was like,

2013, Knicks-Indiana, round two? Went through the one seed that year? Yeah, but he was like, no, the Knicks were never really totally in that series. Indiana just kind of outplayed us. Hibbert, that was like the Hibbert apex mountain. Um, then it was like, is there, was there a, I don't know, like a two, that early two, that like, I literally couldn't come up with an answer. And the answer is probably that Indiana

2013 series. If you want to go back further, maybe you're talking 2001 range with the Vince Carter series that the Knicks had. There haven't been a lot of big games for them. They could, if they somehow swung this game tomorrow, they have five and seven at home. And yet I look at the stats

and offensively, you know, I was looking at the playoff stats, like the Knicks have played eight games. They're the only team out of all the remaining playoff teams that's under 100 points a game. They're shooting 28% from three.

They're shooting 43% just total. And meanwhile, you have Miami who's shooting 48% just total. And meanwhile, you have Miami who shoot 48% just for the playoffs. They're averaging 117 points a game. They shoot 39% from three. And if you just took a computer and you just spat those numbers out, you're like, who's going to win game four?

I'd be like, oh, probably the team that's averaging 18 points a game more than the other team in the playoffs. So it feels like, like Joe House thinks the Knicks are done. Like he thinks this is a wrap. Miami's better. And I just don't know if I trust Miami to that degree yet. So what are your feelings?

Speaking of Miami, Miami was the one seed, but the Knicks were the higher seed than the Pacers in that series. I just remember that kind of being a disappointing thing because I used to defend Mello all the time where I was like, look how often, when he lost in the playoffs, he was always losing to the better team and then that was like

a moment where you go hey then even as you're right as it was playing out you didn't look at it going I can't believe the Knicks are blowing this you know the Pacers had that nice little run there where they felt like they were the only thing I don't even know challenging you know some of the series there with Miami were entertaining but it reminded me a little bit of those Cleveland Toronto things like I look I know DeMar DeRoz. He's not going to go on a podcast and say, yeah, we really weren't that good. Like, I don't think we are ever going to win there. So DeRozan says if I had stayed, we wouldn't have won a title.

Not that Toronto team that I watched. That, you know, at one point DeRozan and Lowry were on the bench watching the Cavs stomp them. So that was a circuitous route back to the Knicks part of this. When it's bad, I think a bunch of things and i don't know which ones are accurate and which ones are just recency bias i think randall's a mess and i don't think that's recency bias i think he's a pretty talented player but when it doesn't go well for him he completely fucking checks out and you know it was a really nice run two years ago and then

things got sour last year and he went to this funk and now he does it on the court and then is he is he first team i don't like the look on his face all nba for you he's yeah i think he's he's you know i don't know that he was ever on the radar enough for me to be like okay but when it's going south like there's no hints with him it's awful and it's And it's a lot of like, he's just good enough. And I mean, this is like a talented thing. It's kind of like my D'Angelo Russell thing. D'Angelo Russell is just talented enough to get away with doing his own thing in games. And it'll work some nights.

The problem is he thinks it's going to work more than it's going to. And I think Randall kind of fits that profile where Randall has some nights where he's dominating in the glass. He's putting the ball on the deck. He's going past guys. He's physical. He's hitting a bunch of threes. And you're like, man, this guy's really pretty good.

But in the playoffs, especially against a really smart Miami team where at all times all five guys know what the other guys are supposed to be doing. That's the strength that I completely overlooked because, again, they just weren't that good this regular season. And it's kind of the selling point of them as a team. But Randall specifically, I don't think it's recency bias. I think he's one of those really talented players that when it's bad, you're like, dude, who are you playing for right now?

What's going on? Reminds me uh Antoine early 2000 same thing that's a really good call when it's bad talented yeah when it's bad you're like oh like those Kmart series that he had against the Nets like oh my god this is awful like I'm gonna do this right like it's still my team even though it's Brunson's team but you know I got this i got this and it's like yeah but you don't got it and yeah it's a false bravado you're you're forcing it and then you don't do all the like hey if you're not going to be hitting shots do all the other stuff well and he doesn't uh the quick you know it's bad for them yeah quick well you know it's bad for them there's a story about whether fournier or rose would get dusted off for game four it's like whoa that point in the series already quickly has been bad the whole playoffs. Like, just bad. And he was somebody bad shape 10 years ago, talent-wise.

You could feel it in the moment, but this was that Pacers team that went on to play Miami and beat the Knicks. Paul George, David West, George Hill, Roy Hibbert, Lance Stevenson, DJ Augustine, Tyler Hansborough, and Gerald Green was the top eight. Would that team make the playoffs now? Honestly, is that an eight seed?

Paul George was that good, but he still had his playoff stuff, which I think he's, I don't know if it's cured. Is that team better than the 2023 Bulls? I don't think so. Is that team better than the 2023 Bulls? I don't think so. Is that team better than the Hawks? Talent-wise, one through eight. Hansborough, like... I mean, those guys weren't rotation guys.

Here's who the Knicks had. These are by minutes in that playoff series. Carmelo, J.R. Smith, Raymond Felton, Amon Shumpert, pretty washed up Kenya Martin, about to be washed up Tyson Chandler, Chris Copeland, Pablo Prigioni, and the ghost of Amari Stoudemire. That was their top nine that year, 2013.

I think they won like 50 plus games that year. I mean, talk about a talent swoon. And that's why one of the reasons basketball is so fun this year. Like every team is entertaining guys. Like you take like the Celtics, Malcolm Brogdon's like what the sixth man of the Celtics, Malcolm Brogdon would be the second best guy at that next team. He really would. Right. If you took 23, Malcolm Brogdon and put him in 2013, he's the second best Nick. I agree with you. Thank you.

I think the Knicks are done, but I've been wrong for five straight days on everything. I was wrong about the Nuggets. I was wrong about the Sixers today. I was wrong last night. I thought the Warriors would win game three, the Lakers would win game four. I am on a slump of figuring out what's going to happen. I just, to me, I think

it's too hard for the Knicks to score. And I think the Heat are a better coach. I think they've just figured them out. And if they lose, it'll be because they just miss all their threes, the Heat. If it's like one of those, they're eight for 45 from three, something like that. Otherwise, they're going to beat them. I mean, look, the only game

they got here is the one Butler didn't play. So who knows what this series would actually be. They almost didn't get that. I know. And the only real difference I thought with that one was, okay, this is why one of those special max contract ball in his hands just creates something out of nothing.

He had no one. At that point, what are they going to do? I think we're also seeing some of the limitations with Bam offensively in some of the big spots. Like, he could have a nice 20-point game and beating people up at the rim or getting some lobs and that kind of stuff.

But I don't know that you can pencil him in. Like, hey, can you carry us at another level offensively? And that hasn't been the case for him in these playoffs. But, like, I've started to think all sorts of things. Like, oh, the quickly thing.

And he's doubtful for tomorrow, by the way. So, who knows what's going to happen there. But all sorts of things like, oh, the quickly thing. And he's doubtful for tomorrow, by the way. So who knows what's going to happen there? But I started doing like a list of all the bad Knicks thoughts I had that were again, the Randall part of it I thought was fair. But I was like, oh, maybe this is the small guard rule that teams have in the playoffs. Like, hey, that guard's awesome. He's too small for us in the playoffs. Is that fair for Brunson?

Probably not. Josh Hart. Maybe this is why he's on a million teams already. And I'm like, okay, that doesn't seem fair because I think I like Josh Hart. He does seem a little less excited to shoot threes these days. Yeah. And then you're like, oh, is this why the Mitchell

Robinson thing, if you're covering the Knicks locally, we were like, what's going to happen with this guy? Despite the fact he looked like a Hall of Famer against the Cavs. So during the Cleveland series, what's going to happen with this guy? Despite the fact he looked like a Hall of Famer against the Cavs. You know, so like during the Cleveland series, you're going Mitchell Robinson and Hardenstein. You're like, what a great two-headed monster. They both beat everybody up. And then you're like, how are you guys not altering the game

on the glass against Miami? Like they don't even have a, I mean, Zeller's their backup big. And Zeller looks pretty good in this series. He actually does look okay. What took 60 games for him to get signed? You know what else I like about... I know we keep talking about Kevin Love and it's become a running joke, but

I do like... I do like that there's shades of the much older version of the Minnesota Kevin Love that was like one of my favorite players in the league they have him around the basket a little bit more they're like taking advantage of his outlet passes I just wish he never

went to Cleveland I wish we could just do Love's career over again and he could just be on have a different arc never play in those LeBron teams and just been this power forward that just grabbed 14 rebounds a game and threw outlets and made some threes.

And maybe he was even on bad teams, like a Vucevic type. But I just, I really like watching him throwing outlets. I think it was one of my single favorite, like bizarre NBA skills. He's the best at it. The only one that's close to him is Jokic. That's it.

They're like residing in a world on their own. I didn't think I saw him throw an outlet pass for five years. Did you? He was just like this dude trapped in the corner. You know? Just like fucking Sam Houser. And this guy has really

unique skills that Miami was like, oh, cool. This guy can do this and he can do this and they've rejuvenated him. He's like, oh, cool. This guy can do this and he can do this. And they've like rejuvenated him. He's like a playoff guy. I love that too much. No, no, no, no. You know what you just came up with?

Sounds like a summer segment. Career do-overs. Rank them. Oh, Love's way up there for me. I wish he never got, wish he never got traded. Or if he'd been traded, gotten traded to the Clippers. Remember there was that Warriors trade for a while? It was Clay and David Lee.

Although that would have broken up Clay and Curry. But there were so many more fun places for him to go. And he just became the whipping boy of that Cavs team the entire time he was there. And seemed to almost have Stockholm syndrome with LeBron. Like LeBron, he would do those tweets at him and he was just constantly trying to win his approval. And then he started to have issues off the court. Is that the fit out tweet? Time to fit out or like, I'm not waiting. God, that was a lot of time. I just think Love is so talented. It's just a bummer. Sometimes guys end up on the wrong team. Like Westbrook was on the wrong team for two years. The Lakers goes to the Clippers and it's like, whoa, look at Westbrook. I think

the Knicks are done. By the way, the playoff rankings which we kind of abandoned after we started doing it. I have one sliver of Miami that I have to mention Caleb Martin and how much I love watching Caleb Martin play. I do think this is the thing. Look, it's real easy to play the storyline

after the fact. I would have loved to see what would have happened against Milwaukee if Giannis didn't miss half the minutes of that series. I don't think Miami wins that series still, despite the zombie heat that you love so much, reviving everything and maybe playing for a chance to be in the NBA Finals. That's the way it feels today. but Caleb Martin minutes always seem like they're a good thing. And it's, it's just funny to me that like the last year he was in Charlotte, they played his brother more than they played him. It's marginal, but it's like, if you're Charlotte, you should be like,

wait, did we confuse him? Playoff guy. You think they had the wrong Martin? They're like, yeah, Martin's leaving. It's like,

yeah, that's fine. They didn't realize. Actually, let's take a break and then we'll hit the other stuff I wanted to hit. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit.

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It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinx. So, playoff rankings, just quickly,

because I don't know if you ever did your top 10. Best playoff players right now. This is just what I jotted down. Jokic, Curry, Butler, Booker, Tatum, Durant, AD, slight drop off, LeBron, Embiid, Harden. And that was my top 10. And the reason I didn't have Embiid in that top seven is just, I just don't trust him physically for three straight rounds.

Even today, there were multiple times when it just looked like he was running out of gas, when he just looked like his tank was empty. He looked like he might get hurt. And Harden's two up and down. And LeBron, who we talked about extensively in part one, is in the 20th year of his career. Okay, so we're not ranking the tiers here? We're not going to the gimmicks?

You're just going one through ten? I had one through ten, but I have a top seven and then a drop off and then LeBron and Beaten Harden. So what were your top seven? Jokic, Curry, Butler, Booker, Tatum, Durant. And AD, you could

talk me into putting him in the second tier because he's so unreliable, but I still feel like even if he's half asleep, his teams are still afraid of his shot blocking. They just are. And even if he's so unreliable, but I still feel like even if he's half asleep, his teams are still afraid of his shot blocking. They just are. And even if he's in a coma, they're still thinking about him when they're driving him to basket, and I think that matters. I mean, this is all silly, right, which we understand, but I feel like there's been a gap so far that stops after the five guys, and that's Jokic, Curry,

Booker, Butlerler and i think you still put kd in there so you'd put kd over tatum i would yeah because i wasn't sure about that one i'm certainly not i had tatum a notch over kd but i'm not going to defend it and you could probably talk me out of it if I had one beer. If we were tiering it, I would stop this tier at five. Yeah. But since you're ranking it, I kind of went through different tiers. Tier's fine.

I tiered it too. So your tier is five. My tier's seven. Yeah. And then it drops to, I have a three-person tier. Then the tier I have after LeBron and Beaton Harden drops again. And I have Jalen. I have Bam. I have a three-person tier. Then the tier I have after LeBron and Bede and Harden drops again. And I have Jalen, I have Bam, I have Murray, I have Draymond, Brunson, and Klay. Those six.

You wouldn't put Jalen on a second tier with Tatum, Embiid, AD, LeBron, Jamal Murray? I wouldn't because of stuff like today where he took like zero shots in the overtime. And I can't tell if he's an afterthought or what's going on with him. I also think he's incredibly sloppy with the ball.

And ever since the great Jackie McMullen pointed this out to me like four months ago, I can't unsee it. You didn't see it against the Heat or Warriors last year? No, no. It's not that. There's some turnovers and just like the most frustrating

dopey turnovers where you're just dribbling and you just, the ball hits your foot and just rolls to the other team and stuff. But it just seems like he has two a game. And I don't understand. This is a guy who I think is one of the best 15 guys in the league. I don't understand why he doesn't want to be more involved at the end of these games. Like, why is he an afterthought in the last three minutes of regulation and the entire overtime today? Why is it Marcus Smart and Tatum? Where's Jalen Brown? Smart was an outlet to the two drives, right?

So Smart was kind of an afterthought in those two plays. But he had the ball, and he was doing dribble penetration stuff. I'm talking those two plays. I'm talking the missed three in regulation, and I'm talking the one that didn't count at the end of overtime. Why isn't their play at the end of these games Tatum and Brown like a high screen?

I guess they feel like they need Jalen for the spacing, but Jalen's just in the corner for pretty much all of these crunch time plays, which I don't understand. Well, it also could be his handle. Which is why I have him at the top of the third tier. I just think the production's enough to put him in the second tier with guys. Like, if you're putting Harden in the second tier, then... No, I... Yeah, but, I mean, Harden had...

He single-handedly won two of the four games in this series. You know? That's right. Jalen's a tough call. So is Jamal Murray, because... I think Harden's a tough call. You know? Like, if you show up to work and have a great day,

it's like, you didn't even up to work and have a great day, it's like you didn't even call in sick and no-showed on Tuesday and Thursday and you smell like rumplements. You know? Not saying Harden does, but... This goes back to the Suns team. Booker and Durant. I had Booker four and Durant six out of all the playoff players we have left. So if their supporting cast can just be okay,

maybe that is enough for them to come back. I do wonder like if you're the Lakers, let's say you're the Lakers, you think you're going to be golden state, which I think if I had to bet my life, I would probably bet on the Lakers, but I don't, I think either team could win that series.

But if you're the Lakers, who would you rather play, Phoenix or Denver? I'd probably rather play Denver. I think I would too if I'm the Lakers. If I'm the Warriors, I think I'd rather play Phoenix. The Lakers can look at the Jokic thing and just say, we have big Davis and LeBron, and we have big bodies.

We can at least make it hard on him. Wenyon Gabriel. You think that's a Wen you answer is possibly probably get some minutes. I mean, I have, look, everybody's going to look bad against Jokic first. So it's not like, oh, Hey, I mean, the only two guys that I've seen all season long, Plumlee looked like somebody said, Hey, we're going to kill one of the other brothers. If you don't defend like crazy against Jokic.

And then I saw Miles Turner in a regular season game where I thought it was one of the best I've ever seen defending. I saw him at the golf course on Friday, and I almost went up to comment on how well he played him defensively. And I was like, you know what? Fuck off, Ursulo. Just don't say that. He probably would have appreciated it, but I thought, you know what? Now's not the time. All right alright last thing we have on the list would you have said that to Miles Turner

I wouldn't say anything to anybody who's 6'10 and higher yeah but it was a compliment although he might have said hey are you the guy that said my trade value around the league was shit for like a year and a half it was just being honest just stating facts bro 100

summer movement watch oh no Just being honest. Yeah. Just stating facts, bro. 100. Summer Movement Watch. Oh, no. Windhorse had that weird... Yes, he did. Anytime he says anything, I just... I stand at attention because Windhorse...

Speaking to what we talked about in the first part of this podcast, Windhorse is not a I'm going to throw shit out there just to see what the reaction is. I don't think anyone, the possible exception is Zach Lowe, hates getting aggregated more than Windhorst. He's very careful and very deliberate. So if you put something out there, there's real shit behind it. And he talked about how the Knicks are monitoring this Giannis situation.

I've heard some, I never know what to believe when, especially when it's a prize like Giannis and teams, it's in their vested interest to get stuff out there and tell people like you and me, hey man, you're in Giannis. You just never know what to believe. With that said, he does only have two years left on his deal. And if you're going to trade somebody like that and cash in on the asset, if you feel like he's leaving, it's better to do that with a year and a half left than it is to just ride it out and then the guy leaves. What's interesting, the Knicks don't have enough to trade for him. The teams that have the most assets are the Pelicans and Utah and OKC, three teams that make no sense whatsoever for him. You would say Miami or Dallas or the Lakers would be the

traditional teams that make the most sense. Dallas, he could play with Luka, Miami and the Lakers for obvious reasons, but none of those teams can trade anything for him. So I feel like this is going to become a summer story, but there's no story. And I think the teams want there to be a story. But if I'm Milwaukee, why would I trade Giannis? I'm going to write out these next two years, hope he's going to be happy. There's no reason to think he's not going to be happy. We rarely see the foreign guys, you know, kind of demand trades. That's a point you've always made on these pods. The history says,

doesn't mean it's not going to happen, but so far historically. Yeah, maybe it'll happen at some point. But I do feel like it's going to be a story. And I guess the question for you, Rosillo, is, is there a little smoke here? Or is this just something that the teams are trying to get going because they want us to think there's smoke.

Well, Windhorse is definitely a first-round pick for trust, right? Yes. I feel like after the Gobert stuff, I mean, if you go back COVID historically, if we'd had Windhorse say, hey, hearing some things out of China, people may have taken it more seriously in the beginning right you know um if we needed updates on procedure like you know outside the six feet not sure not sure it really does anything wind horse is like not sure about mass right like seriously the government could hire wind horse being like look i'm hearing things about a 10th planet i know you didn't take it seriously when

it was on another news outlet but i here's what i'm hearing about this extra planet i think people would listen to those stories more closely so uh it doesn't come out of nowhere i don't know anything he knows far better than i do um i'm sure there's a little bit of this because it always feels like you know i mean how many years the miami stuff that's why the lebron thing was so funny because all those other years it's like oh miami they're clearing the decks they're clearing they're gonna get they're gonna get this guy and they never got it and then they ended up getting um you know that group together and winning a couple titles so it actually did work but they were they're always a team new york's

always all these new york guys they were supposed to get from kentucky and why um johnny bryant's the assistant and he was like oh they're gonna you know down the road booker and cat and mitchell all these guys are gonna want to go there and it's like all right're going to, you know, down the road, Booker and Cat and Mitchell, all these guys are going to want to go there. And it's like, all right, well, that didn't, you know, more often than not, a lot of this planning leads to nothing. So I don't know. I know far less than one horse does. So let me just admit that. The part about the value, it's irrelevant to Milwaukee because they're never going to do that.

They're never going to go, hey, you know what? There is a little smoke. He's making some hints. Even if you were doing these things, which I don't know that he is. I doubt he is at this stage. You're going to sell him on rebuilding it around him.

Okay? And based on how he's carried himself, I think that's a much safer bet with him and his personality in the front office. So what he's worth and the timing of it all, I still think is so irrelevant that I don't even know that I would sit here and

pretend trade a guy that they would never want to trade. There's the team. I deliberately didn't mention them. Okay, I love it. What do you got? Cerruti, can you come back? Uh-oh. Aiton goes to Orlando in a three-way. We always say Miami when we talk about the Florida team and the no state tax thing, right?

Well, what about the Orlando Magic? They're going to have... What are your picks going to be this year Cerruti they have their own pick and they've got the Bulls pick which is top four protected so they're likely two lottery picks

so realistically it could be like number four number eight yeah number five and I think it's eleven

something like that yeah okay so you you could offer them two firsts Yeah, number five, and I think it's 11, something like that. Yeah. Okay. So you could offer them two firsts. Paolo, I think, has to be in the trade. He has to be. Sorry.

You're getting Giannis back. Paolo's in the trade. Not going to argue. Rossello, what else needs to be in the trade? Let's say it's Paolo, number four, and number 10. And I'm trying to get Giannis. It can't be four. It can be five.

Well, let's say it's Orlando. It's Orlando's pick and then the Bulls pick. So it's like four, 10, something like that. Sorry, my bad. Taylor Hendricks and Palo? Would you give that to Hendricks? No, I didn't. How many more first-round picks are in that trade?

What if it's like four first-round picks versus Paolo plus five plus eight? At what point does Milwaukee have to have a meeting? They don't. Because they lose the trade. So Milwaukee never has a meeting. They just hang up. No, there's no trade. There's no trade.

It doesn't exist. There's no fucking put on all swaps, all the shit you want to do, man. You can have it all. You couldn't trade the Magic's entire roster for Giannis. I think I agree with Rosillo, but there's 10% of me that

feels like I would still, as a responsible owner, have to have a meeting with my staff just to make sure. I would still have to whiteboard it out and really take a look at it and be like, all right, guys, so we have no picks. We have Chris Middleton at $40 million next year. You own the bucks.

You turn into John Horst going like, and hey, Fultz was sneaky way better in the second half, right? Middleton, who's, I think, like 43 million this year. What is his option here? He's going to opt in. Be crazy not to. It's over 40. They still have RJ Hampton.

He kind of, he gets end to end. No, no. No, I know they don't. I'm playing Bill, the owner of the Bucks, asking about Magic. Holiday has been like 33. Lopez, I think they bring back obviously, but other than that, I don't know. The move for the Bucks

is to hire a coach that Giannis is super excited about and can't wait to play for and then you nip in the bud any sort of insinuation that he might be unhappy. But my point is, if we're going to talk about Giannis trades and possible teams, he's not going to go to OKC and he's not going to like he's not doing any of those teams.

But Orlando becomes kind of interesting if he's like, I want out. And the only reason I bring this up is... His Euro brethren, Franz Wagner, just two elite Euros on one team. I love that. Giannis, Franz, Jalen Suggs. It might be enough. The only reason I mention this is because, Russillo, when we were talking about the pod today,

what did you say to me about player movement this summer? You said there's always two guys we never expect. We never saw coming. We can't believe that they're suddenly available. That list isn't as long as it usually would be this year. I'm sure Trey Young's on it, Towns is on it, maybe even Jalen Brown is on it, for all we know. But for the surprise, I can't believe that guy's available.

Giannis is at least, he's got to be mentioned, right? If we had to do a draft, right, 10 players each of who's the surprise, because you're right. I feel like I bait and switch Bill a little bit just so the audience can understand he called me this morning we were going over some thoughts i like our new prep routine and then i go you know i always love reminding the audience that you know just when it gets quiet like there's two things that are going to happen this summer at least with players you're like oh my god like it happens somebody wants out and then it's on and i'm taping some episode with bill like the beginning of august right like when hard like hard and deciding

suddenly that he didn't like brooklyn anymore yeah right or when he signed off on uh like when when everybody geared up with steven silas for that year with houston yeah it's like, wait, what's going on? Westbrook's gone now? And then Harden was like, I too chose to leave. I brought it up to Bill, and then as we were talking it out, we talked about Deanna's stuff a little bit, and then I was like,

yeah, but the problem is I don't really have any of the surprises. So if you have the surprise draft, fine. As far as the guys that get mentioned all the time, I think it's still too new for Minnesota to do anything drastic. That feels like at the earliest a deadline thing if things weren't really working out. I think the Trey thing is a full season with Quinn Snyder. And I think in a weird way, Trey probably feels pretty good about himself.

I think that's another thing we always have to gauge. If you look at Luka going into this year, hopefully the disappointment of this season stings him in an offseason in a way that it hasn't stung him yet before. Because he's coming off last year, he's feeling like, hey, what's your conference finals? We're good. Yeah, but you didn't come into this year as a top-four team.

And that's what that finish pretends to tell you. But the reality is, any of us that are watching any of this stuff, none of us were like, hey, Dallas is one of the four best teams in the NBA in a weird, you know, light top of the season. So I think Trey having some of those games for Atlanta, like he's probably like, I'm good. I'm good. I just need DeAndre Hunter to be this a couple more nights.

I need John Collins to hit threes like this. I need Clint to do this more often, all these different things. So the guys that are mentioned is like, oh, I wonder what the market would be for this. And then on top of this, the part that's always ignored is okay. What is the actual trade? And if you told the fan base what you'd be getting back for the disgruntled dude,

that it may be not even be disgruntled yet. Right. You could be like, wait, this is all we're getting. He's pre-gruntled. Yes. Right.

If he's pre-gruntled and you don't need to trade him i don't think people like the packages that are coming back that much and i think the quinn thing at least for trey's uh i'd be shocked if they didn't zion's on this list but it wouldn't be that much of a surprise and you know indeed if the if the philly thing ends terribly and harden goes to houston all of a sudden, it's him and Tyrese Maxey. Can't be ruled out. I also can't rule out Chandler Brown. And then Davis, who knows?

What if the Lakers flame out and Davis becomes the fall guy? And Dame, I guess, would be the other one. I don't even think Dame would be that much of a surprise. But if Dame, you know, let's say Portland gets like the third pick in the draft, you know, and they can get one of those three guys. Dame's like, cool, I'm 34. Who do you want to be available, Cerruti?

Who are you looking at at the Magic? Who are you scouting? I just feel like I have this nightmare that it's going to be Zach Levine. It's literally terrifying to me because they're just like, yeah, I don't know. Let's just be relevant. Let's be better. Let's get a guy. Because I mean, on paper, it's going to be Zach Levine. It's literally terrifying to me because they're just like, yeah, I don't know. Let's just be relevant.

Let's be better. Let's get a guy. Because I mean, on paper, it's like, yeah, all right. Do they need a guy who could, you know, step up and take shots and hit threes? Sure.

But I wouldn't. I just, that's not, I'd shoot higher than that. I'd shoot higher than that. As I turned down your Donovan Mitchell trade last summer. You did. I don't know if you regret that or not.

What was it? I don't think I you regret that or not. What was it? I don't think I do right now. Maybe in a couple years when they just flame out and don't get anybody, but I'm good with the organic build. I'm good with the organic. It was like the Bulls pick.

What was it? It was Suggs. It was the Bulls pick. It was their pick this year and like two other firsts, something like that. Yeah, yeah. I think that was what we made up.

Would you do Franz? Would you do Franz for marketing right now? Certainly. I would not. I. Yeah. I think that was what we made up. Would you do Franz for marketing right now, Suri? I would not. I love my guy, Larry, but no, I would not. Franz is untouchable in a Giannis trade, right? Even straight up?

That's why I was kind of surprised that I understand why Milwaukee would want to get Paulo because he's the better asset. Hey, my connection's going bad, guys. I'm going to leave. But I mean, I'm trying to be humble here. What's enticing to Giannis? You can't.

It's too late. You hesitated on it. Fran's inclusion to do a Giannis deal. It's on that debate. I'm just asking. I'm just asking, what just asking what would Giannis like what does he get out of that other than state tax

that it doesn't make sense for him they're not waiting what if he loves Disney yeah he loves Disneyland he does seem like a happy guy yeah Disney World

is it land or world there I can't remember it's world that's world yeah yeah Disney World he loves Disney World Florida no state taxes

gets a little condo in celebration. Wait, I had one more thing on this. Oh, can I throw one more thing I wrote down for you guys before we go? New theory for the NBA and the NHL. The one seeds get five of seven games at home.

Against the eight seeds. You really have to beat the one seed. Like you, you have to, you only get two home games in the round one. I'm still mad about the Bruins series. I just can't believe. Yeah.

I can't believe that you're doing this after the Bruins lost in the first round. Well, and the Bucks lost too. And I'm just like, what's the point of a one seed anymore? It seems like the easiest thing ever for a one seed to lose.

So what are we doing wrong? Why aren't we rewarding the one seed better? I don't hate it in hockey because hockey's so random all the time. Why not just reward the regular season a little bit more when there's just chaos in the playoffs? I'm not trying to help out any one seeds in the NBA.

If you can't beat an eight seed and you're a one seed in the NBA, that's on you, man. I'm not trying to help you out anymore. 2-2- If you can't beat an eight seed and you're a one seed in the NBA, that's on you, man. I'm not trying to help you out anymore. 2-2-3? You don't like it, Rosillo? Hate it. Hate it?

Hate it. Because you're only doing this because of the Bruins. And the Bucs. Like, the Heat, they fucking lost a playing game, won a second playing game, and then they beat... What will be lost historically is Giannis played half the minutes of this series. No one's going to remember that in a couple years because you're going to go, man, another 1-8.

How'd that happen? I'm not telling you it was awesome when he was back for those other games that they blew on top of everything else. I will, to my death, if Giannis had played throughout every minute, Milwaukee gets through that series. I would say if you want to do something that helps the one seed, I like the idea of them being able to pick their opponent. The top one through three gets to pick,

and then four just plays whoever's left over. I think that'd be awesome. I think it'd be awesome. Television. I mean, if the college football playoff rankings can get ratings, if that can pull a number, why not go ahead and do that? I'm kind of in a phase. So the Bucs are to pick Brooklyn?

Yeah. I think. Look, here's the deal, though. It's easy to forget with Miami they may have picked Miami they may have picked Miami going like this team can't score yeah I think I think you don't stay away from the zombies I think Miami's succeed in that scenario you think Atlanta gets picked you think Atlanta gets picked after Miami I I think Atlanta goes. Brooklyn's the number one pick. Brooklyn's the number one.

Atlanta. You guys are right. And then I think, does Philly want to take Miami? Would Philly rather play the Knicks? I don't even know. I mean, it's obviously this is where you're going. No, they would take Miami. Look at some regular season stats.

Yeah, they would take Miami. What happens in the West, though? Denver just says, we don't want to leave Colorado. We don't care. We'll play the two seed. But Denver wouldn't have taken the Lakers. No. So they probably would have taken...

Memphis? Could they have picked Memphis? It would be funny if Denver was like, we'll take the two seed. We're ready for Memphis right now. That's what I mean. Like, imagine going, oh, actually, we want to for Memphis right now that's what I mean like imagine going oh actually we want to play them and then the league would be like are you serious but yeah we're we're good in the west now Denver would have been like which what's the team that has towns

that Minnesota yeah we'll take that we're good yep so yeah that but yeah you're right in the east it would have made a bigger thing before we go we gotta talk about Bronny picked USC which was the worst kept

secret in LA for a month and I think the timing is interesting because it LeBron has to

stay in the Lakers next year because the contract he signs Bronny's in USC for a

year and then if Bronny could potentially be an NBA draft pick in a year, which I'm doubtful, but if he was, LeBron could try to time it a year from now for potentially leaving the Lakers and trying to match up with Bronny if that's what he wants to do. But that was one of the reasons I always thought he was going to go to USC. This was a weird story because he was a top 25 recruit and there were only three teams after him

and it really only seemed like two even knew what he was thinking. And he picked like three, four days after the signing deadline. But yet everybody knew he was going to USC. I didn't understand any of it, but I care about the LA high school scene more than you, Rosillo. What did you think just kind of watching this whole thing unfold? Well, you knew it was always going to be a Nike school.

That wasn't a hard one to figure out. I really defer to you on this one because you know way more about LA high school hoops than I do. I'll add some thoughts after you fill in more of the gaps. He definitely didn't have a good high school season. What do you mean by that?

The team or him? The team didn't. The team, I think, went 6-8 in their last 14 games. The two best teams in LA were Notre Dame and Harbor Westlake and then Centennial, which is outside of LA. And they never beat any of those teams. And then the Notre Dame had Caleb Foster, who was, I think, a top 20 guy who's going to Duke. Centennial had a guy, Jared McCain, who's also going to Duke, who I think is in the top 15.

And then Harvard Westlake's point guard, Trent Perry, who's a junior, who's also really good. And all those guys had better high school years than Bronny did. And I don't really know what that means because apparently in the AAU and in the camps and stuff, Bronny shows really well. So it's hard to separate.

Like what's the hype is? Should the high school season even matter? I kind of feel like the high school season should matter, especially if you're playing in a competitive city. And it didn't seem like he had a good high school season. And his team didn't either. His team really kind of petered out as the year went along they were one of the favorites um and now it doesn't matter maybe it shouldn't i'll admit i haven't watched him enough because you know he's not in the draft until next year um from what i've seen

i thought he got better this year just some of the just watching him move around three point shooting got definitely better no yeah and i thought he was a little year. Just watching him move around a little bit. Three-point shooting got definitely better. No question. And I thought he was a little... He's not like some crazy jump out of the... He's not... Look, nobody's LeBron, right? But I thought he improved.

I thought he improved physically. I thought he improved movement thing. I know that we've talked about this in the past. It was kind of like, oh, I don't know how much of a rush I am to criticize a high school player. But the problem is like we do it with everybody else we do it literally everybody else is getting ready for the draft nobody was holding back in one menyama although there wasn't really much to criticize there so this is part of the

deal like when you're on the radar and you're projected to be a lottery pick like espn.com had with brony james in an article that came out like two months ago which was insane because i don't know that they've ever done a lottery article, but they clearly did it because of the clicks for LeBron's kid. And then they put them in the lottery on top of everything else. And I had multiple teams reach out to me because again, they forget where I work. And they were like, what the fuck's wrong with you guys? And I was like, what? What are you? I was like, I don't want, I don't work there. I didn't write it. And I was like, look, just, you got to understand how business works. Like just throw them at the end of the lottery.

Right. And that's going to get clicks even if there was not one team. There wasn't one team that was like, yeah, good call. They were mad about it because they're like, he's not that player. He doesn't project to be that player. He'd have to get a lot better real quick in a freshman year or wherever he goes to be on that radar. Then you enter the LeBron part of this. And this is the thing that I know it, but I can't understand it.

When LeBron started complimenting Presti and all of this stuff at the All-Star Game two years ago, it was pretty clear he was doing that because he felt like if he was really complimentary of Presti, a team that has a million draft picks, that maybe Presti would be sitting around going like, man, I'm on the fence about this dude, but I'll take him at 28 because Bron was really nice about me two and a half years ago. If you know anything about Presti, that is the opposite of the way that he would work.

But I do think that LeBron thought a little chessboard stuff here or down the road. So then you're thinking, okay, well, if I take his son higher, then he should go, that means I get LeBron. Okay. In 24-25 season? His year 22. Right. What are you actually getting? And I'd even offer this.

Would LeBron actually leave a situation? Say the Lakers figure out a way to Laker this thing. You know what I mean? Like land on somebody. You're like, here we go again. they found a way to get somebody in there and LeBron felt like he had one more season in the championship window would he be in a hurry then to join up with the sun or is he hinting at the teams that he would come play for them and that's the motivation to take him and the LeBron Shabazz Napier is you and it's like maybe

I'll sign with you and then plays with his son when he doesn't even want to play anymore so there's a lot of moving parts where I think history tells us we have no idea what's going to happen but as far as the player that article on dot com about him being a lottery pick in 2024 there wasn't one NBA not that I talked to every team but there wasn't one team that was like yeah I could see that they were like what are you guys doing over there? I was like, again, not my department. USC seems like a decent choice for him. They have Collier, who is one of the best kids in the class, who's also coming in in that year. But I do think there's a misconception of what kind of player is, because I like LA high school basketball, and I watched a lot of games and my son goes to Harvard Westlake. So I was really invested in their season. And he is like a

Davion Mitchell type of player. That's, that would be like, if you were asking me, what's the best case scenario for him from what I've seen so far. And he owes his chance to get better. Um, really good defensive player, fun to play with good three point shooter, really good three point shooter actually can shoot them, come on off, pick stuff like that. But he's not a beat people off the dribble kind of offensive player. He's just not. So he would be, in my mind, in the NBA, at least from what I've seen so far, a really awesome role player. And he's 6'2", right? I don't think that's how this is being sold. He's 6'2", 200, but he's strong.

He's fast'2", 600, 6'2", 200, but he's strong. He's fast for 600 pounds. Yeah. 600 would be, would be big. Yeah. He's 6'2", 200, but he's 6'2", which, you know, you go down the list of NBA guys who are 6'2", who aren't, you know, point guards, which I don't think he is. I think he's an off guard. Um, and there are guys who have succeeded in that, but they've been, they've more been

on that Mitchell kind of Melton thing. So either there's one more level he has to go offensively, or that's kind of what the, what the ceiling is. And that's why this college thing is going to be so fascinating. What's it going to look like at the next level? That team has a lot of guards. Collier is going to have the ball a lot.

I'm just really, I think it's going to be a fascinating story on top of LeBron being a free agent after the year. That's what we will see. Are you sure? Are you sure he's one and done too, though?

Couldn't he stay for two years? I don't think he should be. Yeah, what if he hasn't? There's two things in my head. If he has an average year at USC and he wants to stay and LeBron still feels like maybe he can compete for a title, maybe he reads up with the Lakers again.

I don't know. Maybe they get something figured out and they just kind of push the brawny thing off for a year, but then you're getting even more diminished LeBron if you're going to draft his son in a year. Or does he just come out no matter what after his first year and the Lakers just pick him with their second round pick? I think there's a couple scenarios

where that could happen because I don't know. What if there's just no team that wants to take him with their second round pick. I think there's a couple scenarios where that could happen. Because, I don't know. What if there's just no team that wants to take him in the first round? LeBron's going to know that. His team clutch is going to know that his son's going to get embarrassed and not go in the first round. So what do they tell him? The LA Times, the all-star team for the Hoops for 2023

was Marcus Adams from Narbonne, Jason Crowe, Linwood. I never saw either of those kids. Brady Dunlap, who's the Harvard-Westlake kid, who's 6'8", who's going to St. John's. Caleb Foster, the kid I mentioned, was 6'5", went to Duke, had 33 in the state final, was fucking awesome, and beat Sierra Canyon a bunch of times the last couple years.

There's a St. John Bosco kid. in the state final was fucking awesome and beat Sierra Canyon a bunch of times the last couple of years. There's a St. John Bosco kid. Aaron McBride from Corona Centennial is going to LMU 6'7". Jared McCain, I mentioned, from Centennial 6'2". He's also going to Duke. Trent Perry is the junior at Harbor Westlake. There's another junior from San Juan Capistrano. And then Dusty Stromer, who went to Notre Dame,

6'6", Gonzaga. Great shooter. So there's two great swingman shooters that are coming in. But Bronny didn't make the LA Times all-star team, which is kind of crazy because he was like,

I think he's like the 19th top 100 king. So I'm really interested to see how it plays out with him because he's clearly talented, but I can't get past, like he did not have an awesome high school year. And for some reason that doesn't seem to matter. And it feels like it should a little bit, right? Well, he's in a tough spot, man. Like this is the part where I actually have sympathy for him. You know, I know everybody can, it's weird how like success is a turnoff now, but you know, his father busts his ass.

He sets up this great life for everyone in his immediate family. This is a true American story here. This is an incredible story about what this family has been able to do here. But there's going to be a lot of people tuning in going like, wait, what? And then the weird thing about does he stay or does he go? You'd think the agents would have the line on that but they don't always know they don't always know there's plenty of teams that don't love clutch just like any agency that you know may not be in the business of wanting to do

any favors there may be some teams that are in the business and want to do some favors too because that happens as well so the longer you stay in college usually the worse your draft stock is and i i don't know i don't know how weird i don't know if that's going to be a celebrated thing if he's on a team with his father and he doesn't look like a first rounder and look he can still be a second rounder he look there's plenty undrafted free agents just miami's loaded with them but i have no idea on how that will play years from now if they end up on the same team right and will it be a celebrated thing or will he be the level as a player where people are upset about it i don't know and what if the best thing for him what if the best thing for him as a

player is to stay in college three years to really develop. Mitchell, how old was he by the time he had that breakout year in Baylor? Because he had transferred too. Was he like 22 at that point? I think it's really hard to come in the league. Rarely does the guy who sticks around that much later

then it was like, oh, he got way better and now he's a much better pro because of it. Because the other argument is, hey, get him in the NBA. Work on being a professional basketball player instead of pretending you're still in school. You know, look, I'm not saying that's the same for every athlete. So I shouldn't say pretend. But you get my point where you're like this hybrid thing where you still have responsibilities that may be beginning in the way of what you're really supposed to be doing at an earlier age. If I had a kid who was really good and was a borderline

first rounder, I would be like, go back to work on your handle. You're leaving. Here's a laptop. You can take some courses online. The reasons, the things in his favor is he's been in the spotlight for a while. By all accounts, he's a great kid. Everybody loves him and like really handles himself like a pro and has always been in the spotlight. And just, I think that that could go either way. And for him, it seems like it's been a good thing. So he's not going to have any fear at the next level. And I think, you know, having your dad be one of the great players of all time, but also like a basketball genius and being able to help

you in these different ways with what you're doing with your teammate, that's got to be an asset. I think it's gonna be really fascinating to watch, but it'll be, you know, it's going to be totally different because at USC next year with the, with how people treat college basketball, he's just going to be dissected differently, you know,, he's just going to be dissected differently. And there's not going to be a lot of free passes. You don't get like, there's no AU anymore. There's no summer camp anymore. It's like all about what happens

during the college basketball season. And that's it. That's how you're measured. I do think Andy Anfield's perfect for this though. Like perfect personality for it. Like he's not going to be this coach he's like i want to old school this guy and prove some fucking point that i've been here i don't care who you are okay who your dad is like to me enfield right is perfect because he already gets all of it he's a

mover and a shaker yeah it's just like i'm not i'm not out here to prove some point. I'm going to coach you well. I'm going to coach you hard. They're putting pros in the league. I just can't imagine his son with some other guys that would go out of their way, like Hardo, college basketball coach, to prove some kind of point about this. I think Andy's the perfect personality for this.

You're going to love Caleb Foster. The kid who's going to Duke. 6'5 and can beat people either hand. He's just a really good basketball player. The L.A. basketball scene was awesome this year. We're going to wrap it up. Cerruti's barely awake. He's just

dreaming Giannis. We're going to say goodbye to him. Thank you to Cerruti. Thank you to Kyle Crate for producing. Thanks to you, Rosillo. It was good to see you. No thanks to the Boston Celtics. I'm too old for games like this. You know, I forgot to mention this in the pod earlier.

I was talking to Chris Ryan today and he did the Philly special and he was saying how the tone of the special was almost like they lost even though they won. Because it was like one of those, they won, but there was like, whoa, there were some bad things that happened. We were lucky, etc.

And I was thinking the Celtics fans and the Sixers fans both know something's wrong with their teams whereas like if you're a Denver fan or you're a Phoenix fan you're just like I love watching this team this is great I can't believe we have Jokic I can't believe we have you know what I they're just all in on the teams I think the Laker fans really enjoy this Lakers team because it's so unexpected the Celtics Sixers fans fans, it's like this is like a root canal series. We're like, nobody's even that happy. I don't think the Philly fans are

like, we got this. Now we're making the finals. I don't think they feel that way. And I don't feel like the Celtics fans really feel that way either. So very strange. Any last thoughts, Rudy? No, we started a Luka to Orlando rumor and now we have started a Luca to Orlando rumor and now we have a Giannis to Orlando rumor so our job is done here alright Rossello good to see you I'll be back on this podcast on Tuesday

don't forget new Rewatchables coming on Monday I did Rewatchables with David Chang we did the movie Chef so that is coming on Monday a movie that has grown on me a great deal over the last you've run it on our movies?

No, I love that movie. You should watch it. It's really good. I have. It's really good. I stand by it. All right. We'll see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them On the wayside, on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them