The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: Looming Bucks-Suns, Dame’s Next Move, and a Special Two-Man Combo Draft

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

In Part 2 of the two-part Sunday podcast, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Bucks’ Game 3 win over the Hawks, Khris Middleton’s fourth quarter, Trae Young’s injury, series predictions, and more (2:00). They then wonder how this year's NBA champions will be remembered, before discussing news that Damian Lillard may be looking to move on from the Portland Trail Blazers (20:00). Finally Ryen and Bill draft the best two-man combos to build a team around in the NBA (48:00). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Took four people to do this podcast. It's an anniversary podcast. So stay tuned for that. If you missed part one, me and Rosillo, we did it before the Bucks-Hawks game and covered the West and a whole bunch of other storylines. This is part two. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

All right. Taping this. It is 8.05 Pacific time on Sunday night. Just watch Bucks-Hawks game three. Well, that sucked. Whoa, which part? Did it? It had the potential for an awesome game,

and then Trey stepped on the referee's foot, and then you could just kind of feel where it was going with about six minutes left. I was really ready for Trey versus the Bucs, crowd going nuts, Trey potentially getting 50 points. Everything was on the table.

Then all of a sudden, it turned into a really impressive Chris Middleton show. But now the Bucs are up 2-1 and in control of the series. Middleton's the headline of this 20 points in the fourth quarter he did everything I mean he got Bogdanovich they were looking

for Herter I think there was even a Gallo there's a couple Gallos yeah Gallos had him a couple times so he got he got kind of everybody he was a lot that people lost him a few times I mean that's that version of Milwaukee is really, really scary

because Giannis carried him with his drives offensively for such a long time. Atlanta was still in this. I mean, they were up, I think, 98-96 after trade. Come in a couple minutes later, we've talked about all the different people that helped Atlanta there, but Middleton's the headline. It was 95-88 Hawks, and then the wheels came off, and Middleton torched everybody.

So, you know, this is the recurring theme of these playoffs. If they had this guy, if this guy wasn't hurt, if that guy wasn't hurt, I'm pretty sure DeAndre Hunter would have been guarding Middleton down the stretch there. He's nowhere to be seen. He's hurt. Reddish, this was another guy, another 3 and D guy.

They spent a top 10 lottery pick on. He's not out there either. He's hurt. He came back for like a... You can't put him in, I don't think. Can't put him in. Right. So you got Bogdanovich is on one leg. You have Solomon Hill who

you just get zero offense if he's out there and then Gallo and Herter. It's not a good matchup. It's starting to look like we might have two series done after five games unless

Trey, they do whatever. I didn't like how his ankle looked. I didn't like how he was moving. I didn't like his body language. It felt like he was legit hurt. I think he's a tough guy. So when he went back to the locker room, I was like, oh no. And it seemed kind of fluky. Did you see the replay of when he stepped on it? It's a weird way for your foot to go.

It was almost like a backwards sprain. Yeah, the ref was behind him. And when you start, you'll kind of go backwards first. And so when you go to step and you're expecting to be flat service, and all of a sudden it isn't, it's like an awful feeling. And then when he was down, I didn't know if he was just mad or complaining because he was that. But then it's like, okay, so now he's in the back. When he came back, though, I mean, he hit one three when he got Middleton and a switch.

Because there's something else I want to talk about Trey and the Giannis switches a little bit later. And then he had a full court deal where he actually went pretty quick, I thought, end to end. So I think he's going to be back for game four. I don't know how much it limited him. I don't know that you could just sit there and say, hey, if Trey's fine, then they go ahead and win the game. They did stick him in the corner a few times, and then he had that other attempt at the rim where he didn't get a foul.

I mean, his body language, I would say, is not exactly great, even at the best of times. Like he's he's an ornery player. A lot of the best players are most of the time, but based on him, the way he ran, but it's going to feel worse probably tomorrow. So we'll see. Bucks seem like they've not discovered because I think they knew this, but now they have full command of it. The Middleton matchup.

He's a little streaky. It's a little Paul George. We talked about Paul George's 1B superstar. Middleton is probably a 1C superstar, but can look really good on the right night. But the more important thing for me is how easy Giannis is scoring. And I think he tapped into this in the Brooklyn series, but there's some low post stuff going on with him now

and some confidence with that little step back fall away. And then when he, when he kind of backs dudes down for like the jump hook or the spin move that I thought he found during that Brooklyn series, I know he was doing it during the regular season, but in the playoffs, we weren't seeing it that much. It was all face up,

face up, face up. I think he's devastating when he's posting up. I really think teams panic. They don't know what to do. They don't know really how to stop it and they don't want him to do it. And if anything, he should be doing it more. But that little, uh, that little one-legged fall away that he's developed, um, where he could just shoot over whoever he wants. And it's just like, it's just like a 10 foot shot that he makes every time

he's got like four or five options. And it was making me think watching tonight, you know, we would talk about whatever the ceiling of him is as a player. Like there is going to be stuff over these next couple of years that I feel like he's going to add a lot like LeBron did, Kobe did, stuff like that. But I just think he's really tough to guard down there. And when you get to the Phoenix series next round, assuming that's the matchup, he's going to be a really hard guy to guard unless it's Aiden. I don't really know who else could even handle him on the low post, right? That's where Phoenix, you know, going back to the first Lakers thing is where you worry about it.

And even in part one, we were talking about Aiton staying on the floor even if the Clippers wanted to go small, but the Clippers kept, you know, Zubac in because they didn't want to go small against Aiton because he's not exposed like other bigs. But, you know, I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself. Like I'm not ready to completely write off Atlanta here, by the way,

you seem like it's done. I think they're too. They're, they're just too depleted. I don't think it's realistic. And even if you think about game one, they probably shouldn't have won game one. There was Milwaukee had four different plays in that game where if they just

make a hoop, the game's over and it just kept, they kind of kept letting Atlanta hang around. And then all of a sudden Atlanta was leading, but I'd feel like they let that one slip away. They were obviously completely in control of game two. And then game three, it just seemed like they had two really easy matchups to score.

And I didn't think McMillan coached a good game, by the way. I thought he kept Collins. No way. No, yeah. I've liked what McMillan's done this year, but I just think when somebody gets a fourth foul, that doesn't mean you have to send them to Siberia for the rest of the game until there's six minutes left. They needed him out there. I also really like Okongwu. And I just don't know if they were playing their best five guys the last six minutes. Bogdanovich couldn't do anything. You know, I think he was like three for 16, three for 17. I just don't think he looks right. I would have tried different lineups. I would have played Capella and Okongwu together. I, you know, I would have tried every

sort of everything with the emphasis being who can stop Middleton. Like, could a Kongu have guarded him? A Kongu? I still can't say his name. Could he have guarded him? Could you have tried Capella on him? Like, what? Could you have done a Twin Towers thing? What could you have done to try to switch it?

Because it was really clear with four minutes left, even though it was a close game, I was like, this is over. They don't have the right lineup out there. They're not going to be able to match baskets with them. So I don't know. I just thought he was asleep in the fourth. The Collins part, I'll agree with you because you were looking and you're like, wow, you really, you sent them off there. I think sometimes the bigs, you're more worried about them with the

fourth foul than the wings because like wings kind of do a better job of managing their own fouls. I mean, the biggest thing of this entire series is the Lopez part of it because Lopez, I'm going to use an example here. I remember talking to an SEC coach and their team played against Johnny Manziel and all week the coach was telling me in the lead up because they played him and Manziel had a really good game. And I asked him, I'm like, Hey, what happened this week against Manziel? He goes, we told these fucking guys, we told them all week, like you think you're going to have them and you're not going to have them. You're not going to have them. And they just weren't ready. They just weren't ready. Like we told them and they weren't ready. Now, you could also add in that there's nothing easier than a coach saying, hey, we had them coached up than a college football game. We're only playing the guy one time. But it felt like in the first game where you go and let's face it, a lot of protect the rim. I mean, it's just a really hard thing to do for centers. So everybody becomes a drop coverage expert overnight.

But when I went back and watched it, it's like, well, if you're going to ask him to play this coverage this deep, can you really play him all the time? But then if you take Lopez out, you know, is he a big that's spreading the other big further away? Because Atlanta's core five is they want to play Capella and they want to play Collins at the same time. All right. So now we go to game two. Trust me, I'll make this as quick as I can. Game two, Lopez busted his ass. All right. But they also

made every shot. The Hawks turned it over a ton. And that game was like over within a half an hour sitting on your couch. So I still didn't quite know. And as we've learned throughout years of playoff games with this newer NBA is that there can be a center who looks unplayable in game two and then there's a huge part of the victory and story in game three I mean it just happens Lopez didn't come back at 9 25 of the fourth he only played 25 minutes tonight so at 9 25 they never brought him back in so it was the PGA Pat Connaughton, Middleton, Drew, and Giannis closing five. There might be a time where Lopez looks terrific and stays out there to close,

but that's where there's still kind of this unknown where Lopez almost looked unplayable in game one, was a huge part of the success early of game two. And by the way, in game one, they didn't play in the last 14 minutes as they were trying to figure that game out. So that Lopez part of it is still something where I don't know what bundenholzer is going to try to do i also don't know if atlanta with your twin towers approach if they say hey this is us beating them up on the boards it's more bodies against janice i agree okongu had a couple terrific possessions against janice maybe it prevents him from getting deeper catches but there's all stuff that's connected

where if you're doing this on this end thinking you have some advantage because you tried a different lineup you might feel like hell we're way too slow um offensively we don't have enough spacing and now our own driving lanes are cut off because we're going with two big guys all the time so i just i want to point out that lopez thing because we're still through three games through and i'm not quite sure like i think it's going to be a game-to-game situation how how it's playing out. I hate plus minus, but he was minus 17 today and it felt like it. But you made the key point. Nine and a half minutes left. That lineup they put in, the Hawks just had a lot of trouble with. And if Trey is making 30-footers and doing Trey stuff, we're probably not having this conversation. But what would concern me if I'm Atlanta is when they go small like that, the Milwaukee, they just had to,

they were getting great shots. It wasn't just that Middleton was hot. Those shots were good shots or they were open or, you know, I liked every shot they took. I liked all the shots. Giannis took Milwaukee's had these stretches where, you know, they don't necessarily, I don't necessarily love their shots, but I just think it's a lot to ask with Atlanta to not have Hunter and Reddish and some of the dudes they're playing.

Hunter's a huge, because he was so much fun, and it was like, wow, this guy feels like he's taking a big step. But look, they've been through the playoffs for the most part without him. Yeah, but now we're going up levels, though, and this is the series where they actually, I think, really, really needed him compared to like Philly. You don't need to defend like Tybalt. This is what

I'm hearing. You sound bummed out because you're a Trae Young fan now and you want them to be up 2-1 to lead to the, oh my god story. I was ready for an awesome game. Like I really thought all the ingredients, the chef was in the kitchen. Hey, what are you making? Oh, no, hold on. It's going to be, I have something really good

for you today. I'm like, great. It smells awesome. Is that saffron? That's expensive. Oh man. Are you making a salad too? This is a fantastic meal. And then Trey stepped on the ref's foot and the game went sideways. And even though Middleton was awesome. And if you're a Bucks fan, you're super delighted by it. I just, how many times do we have to see this monkey wrench injury? And by the way, LeBron, if you're going to do the tweet about no, their injury, this is what I told everybody would happen this season. It's like Trey's getting hurt in any season scenario, stepping backwards on a ref's foot. So let's not blame the season on that injury, but it's just really Milwaukee is going to benefit from this again. There's no way they would have beaten Brooklyn.

Even if Kyrie didn't get hurt, they're losing to Brooklyn. Now they're now with Atlanta who I think they probably would have beaten anyway. I don't know, but this was the pivotal game and they get it because Trey steps on somebody's foot. It just bummed me out.

We've already said it on the pod, right? That if we thought if it just, if they had me out. We've already said it on the pod, right? That if we thought just if they had had Harden full strength. We said it last week. Yeah, if they had all three guys, the series goes five games. If Kyrie never gets hurt, I don't

think it goes more than six. And even it went seven and it took OT and they had one and a half guys. Honestly, i think of all three of those guys played it would have been lucky for any team to get them to the six games in a series and uh you know that's oh here let me let me wait can i give you two more facts of this game yeah but i just need to point out one other thing after that yeah all right

bucks only played seven guys, basically. Forbes played seven minutes. Hustle and Forbes? But it's basically like, I trust these seven, that's it. Then you look at the Hawks. They play nine. Solomon Hill plays 15 minutes, doesn't take a shot. Almost puts up a Mark Titus club trillion.

Lou Williams played 18 minutes. It was one for three. And Okonkwo played nine minutes. So they're basically down to like six and a half guys too. And sometimes this happens in the NBA playoffs because you're like, all right,

it's our best against your best. In this case, I don't think either team wants to play six and a half, seven guys, but there's really no other option. And Milwaukee's bench is basically cratered, except for Portis was pretty good today. Portis has been good. Yeah, Portis gave them some energy and some minutes. And then with the Hawks, you look at that bench,

and it's basically like Gallo, Okongwu, and I don't trust anyone else. I'd have to look at the second spectrum stuff, like like gallo a kongwoo and i don't trust anyone else i'd have to look at the second spectrum stuff like per possession and who was defending who and how and then even sometimes the tracking for like hey this guy went four for eight against him so that means you didn't defend him as well as a guy against two for eight and you look at the two for eight guy and you're like he was way more open than the two for eight guy and just a matter of making or missing but portis plays trerey completely differently. He doesn't drop at all. He was talking about this after game two. He comes right up and tries to

stay in front of him. Another thing that I've noticed throughout the series too... Has a little sass too. Yeah, yeah. A lot of sass. There's definitely a Portis-Jay Crowder some sort of big incident that will take five minutes to untangle in game three of the finals we're

headed for. The other thing is, you know, Trey, when he gets Giannis in a switch, he doesn't want to go. He got him on a three. Yeah. He may have got him one other time or something like that, but you can see that they'll do something where they'll be like, okay, wait, you know, this is not the switch. They even try to do a couple of things where they ran him through stuff and then he ended up with Giannis again. So that's something that you're noticing more and more three games in is that Trey is, I wouldn't even call it apprehensive. He's just less likely to, to want to screw. He got Giannis on the foul in the first half. They didn't give him the free throws. Um, but it's just, it's just something I noticed where he's

not in attack mode off the dribble when he gets Giannis in the switch. Do you also notice as soon as he was a little compromised, Drew Holiday is like, oh, cool. I'm now going to be right next to you in your jersey on every move. You couldn't get by him after that. The other thing I noticed is that the biggest complaint with Coach Budd against the Nets is that Harden comes back in and they never attack him. They had scored points, but they never attack him. When you have Lou Williams and Trey Young in there at the same time, even when Trey wasn't dealing with the ankle thing,

you're looking at it going, you want to figure out ways to do it. But it's just not really what they do. It's just not really what they do. They're not going to run ISO high screen and roll for Drew Holiday the whole time. I mean, Giannis worked, and Middleton was unstoppable. If Ben Simmons were funnier, though,

shouldn't he tweet out, like, Solomon Hill, I see you? My Ben Simmons or Philly's Ben Simmons? If his career were in peril. I could have my Ben Simmons do it, just to mess with people. We're taking a break. When we come back,

I want to have a serious conversation about whoever wins this year, whether this will be the worst NBA champ of people. We're taking a break. When we come back, I want to have a serious conversation about whoever wins this year, whether this will be the worst NBA champ of our lifetime. 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

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Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right. So I say this without shade. I say this without any vindictiveness at all. And I don't even like the word worst because worst insinuates that something bad has happened. It's a great thing to win the NBA title. It's not Milwaukee's fault that everybody got hurt. It's not Milwaukee's fault that everybody got hurt. It's not Phoenix's fault that everybody got hurt. Somebody's got to win. So I will use the word least impressive. I made a list of my least impressive NBA champs since the merger.

The list is 06 Heat, 2011 Mavs, 03 Spurs, 98 Bullss 94 Rockets 78 Bullets and I will exclaim by least impressive where you can look at how they won the title and either say like wow they only had Dirk

that was their only A-lister and they won they beat all these teams won the title now I happen to love that 2011 Mavs team they totally deserved it I'm just saying, historically,

when we parachute down and we look at this stuff, when we go, wow, that team won the title? I think those are the six. And the 06 Heat, they had Young Wade and Shaq. 94 Rockets had Akeem, who's the top 13 guy ever. 98 Bulls

had the greatest player of all time. Scotty couldn't move. Rodman was basically almost an alcoholic at that point and a bunch of role players. Spurs was just Duncan. And the 78 Bullets, I'll talk about in a second. But just in general, we are going to emerge from the playoffs with a team that I think is going to leave everyone even more confused than everyone on that list. My fear is how much will we remember? Um, because you and I are pretty

into basketball. We're pretty into the NBA and the history of it all, but you know, nobody remembers the history better than that fan base. So whenever you're looking through all these titles, like I'll remember that toronto played golden state without durant and then clay blown out as acl and i don't think it's disrespectful to say hey you probably weren't that's another one yeah i thought about including them too but at least like kawaii was incredible that year but yeah you're right they should probably be on there too but then it becomes well what what's the standard? Who you went through or who you have

on that team? Because even Toronto, it's Kawhi and Lowry's going to be a Hall of Famer. I don't know what the rest of that roster is going to be, but it's not like say Siakam. Gasol. Gasol, Ibaka. Those are all like both of those guys might make

the Hall of Fame too. I mean, considering the standards for foreign players and stuff, I'm telling you he's going to make it. Dino Raja made it. You think Abaka's going to make the Hall of Fame? Yeah, I think foreign players, it's an easier it's basically like the easy pass on the highway. Gasol definitely will. Both of them are going to make it.

I'm telling you. Okay, but when you look at that team will you go, wow, that was four Hall of Famers? Because it didn't feel like four Hall of Famers when Toronto was playing. The same thing for Milwaukee. If Milwaukee wins it all this year,

Giannis Hall of Famer, Middleton Hall of Famer. I know this sounds insane, but I'm with you. Whenever there's a kind of, do you think Drew Holiday is really a Hall of Famer? When it's all said and done, all these guys get in. gets into the basketball hall of fame so i mean maybe the parallel is that 11 maps because dirk was awesome dirk went through every good player in the league that year basically beat them in a playoff series and janice like look i know he takes 15 seconds to shoot a free throw but the dude's putting up 35 and 13

basically every night in the playoffs now, and he's pretty unstoppable. And he went toe-to-toe with Durant. He's logging huge minutes, and everything he's doing in these playoffs, I think he's passed a lot of checkpoints, don't you think? So maybe that's how I'll remember it as like,

wow, Giannis, yeah, A couple other guys were on there. They had no bench. They got really lucky that Brooklyn got her. Giannis has been terrific, but he also had those moments against the nets where you were also, if you were doing a talk show the day after one of those bad Giannis offensive games, you were saying,

Hey, how come we put this guy with Kawhi and Kevin Durant and LeBron James? And it seemed totally reasonable to even question why you were doing it. When you look at that Mavs 11 team, going through that Heat team probably saves them from least impressive. But when you look at the resume of it, kids 37 at that point, Marion is good. That was Marion's last impact here.

I think, and Jason Terry, but all these guys, you look at what happens to them in the two, three years after. The same thing with the 06 Heat, right? Where you look at like Walker on the 06 Heat, Payton. There's a couple other ones. Even Shaq goes kind of in a tailspin after that, but it was. The Miami 06 team was always my pick, you know? And again, nobody likes to hear it

because if you're a heat fan you're like hey you assholes but you know if you went through i used to say on the radio depending on whatever the the bookmarks were of it you say like a post jordan what's the worst title and i always thought it was the 06 heat they got swept in four games the next year by Chicago. Yeah. So, you know, again, you won the title. Title defenses matter, in my opinion. That means something. And you still had Haslam. You still had Wade.

Wade wasn't healthy that season, but he played all four playoff games. Peyton only played like two of them. Antoine was in that series. There was a lot of team dissension too that year too. Alonzo was on the team. So I don't know. I just always was like, hey, look, somebody has to, if you're ranking the 20 title winners over a 20 year span, somebody has to be ranked 20. And the underrated one, the underrated one is the 98 bulls, which we broke down when we were doing all those last dance pods with how compromised that team was by the time we got to the finals where Pippen's

basically in a back brace and Rodman's done at that point. And just, it's the only way they can win is if it's like a, you know, a big game is if it's a slow paced game where Jordan has to really, really, really take care of his gas tank. Um,

and it just wasn't a very good team he was great i mean do you do you struggle with it though do you do you sit there and go because we know whoever wins it this year we've already brought this up but whoever wins this this year is just going to get dissed and there's also part of me that wants to be respectful of who wins it this year um knowing that because everybody get her, oh, cool. But if it's a football season, part of that's your toughness. It's not just, hey, we got lucky or unlikely. How tough are you? How tough are your players? How tough is that group of guys? And to survive this playoffs with everybody going down, there's a case to be made like,

that was easy for you. But at the same time, you got to give the team that's actually still healthy enough to win this whole thing a lot of credit. Yeah, I guess what I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is, I do feel like the Lakers, Clippers, and Nets were all better than whoever's going to win

this. Healthy versions of those three teams are all kind of better than whoever we're going to end up with. You're right. You're right. If I was a fan of the Bucks or the Suns, I'd be like, fuck you. This is why.

Let's not play the games. And I get all the arguments. I've been in situations. The 2001 Pats is a great example. That was not the best team. They won the Super Bowl. And then we got to hear about, you shouldn't have beaten the Steelers. You shouldn't be the Rams.

This is why we play the games. I just think in this case, I keep going back to that game three when that box score, just go look at that Clipper Suns box score from, I mean, I'm sorry, Lakers Suns box score from game three this year.

Oh, game three. And go look at like, just at Davis, LeBron, like they just waxed them. They out rebounded them by 17. I think they had too much size for the Suns, and I think they would have figured out a way to win the series,

especially with Chris with the banged-up shoulder. Now, you could argue if Chris never got hurt, maybe it would have been seven, and then the Suns and Booker gets hot. I get it. But the 78 Bullets, they went 44-38 in

the regular season. They beat San Antonio and Philly, where they were not favored in either series. The Sonics took them to seven. They won on the road in Seattle. Elvin Hayes was their best player, but it was kind of at the tail end of whatever he was. Wes Unseld getting old.

Bobby Dandridge, who was great. I don't know if he's in the Hall of Fame yet, but he should be. They had no point guard. And you kind of go through that team, and you're like, wow, how did they win? And the reason they won is because Bill Walton got hurt. And the Lakers had a really fucked up season.

The Blazers and the Lakers were the two best teams. And then the Sixers choked and had some dissension stuff. And they just kind of won. And guess what? All these years later, nobody remembers all that stuff. And they just kind of won. And guess what? All these years later, nobody remembers all that stuff. It was a Bullets title. And that's what it's going to be with this title.

The Bucs win, it's going to be, hey, we won. Plus, Bucs haven't won in 50 years. Suns have never won. You think they'd give a shit if there were injuries? So I don't want to dismiss it. It's just weird to play this whole season and we're going to have a champion

and I'm just not going to be convinced that that was the best team. I'll get there. I just need to wrap my head around it. No, it's going to be nasty. And I'm telling you right now, I think the most fitting thing would be for Milwaukee to win it all because that fan base doesn't get nearly enough credit for how nasty they can be. And just get everybody that's a national talk show guy. If you're dismissive of the box, I'm just telling you to like strap the vest on and get ready. I really respect how they came back

in that net series after losing game five. I really think that was impressive and how they pulled off the OT win on the road, all that stuff. Granted, it was Durant and, you know, a bunch of role players basically, but you still get credit for that. Like they came through, they could have rolled over. They didn't.

Everyone thought their coach was getting fired. They didn't roll over. You just spent 10 minutes talking about they're not. So I'm, all I'm saying is it's not like they didn't have real challenges that they overcame. I just think the road was really easy with even this Atlanta team. I just wish this Atlanta team was healthy. I think it would have been if Hunter

was playing and Bogdanovich was healthy. This would have been a really fun matchup. It would have been small ball and then the Bucks would have had to figure out how to counter it. All that stuff. I hate complaining about shit like this. I don't want to be that guy. I just think Bucs-Suns, Bucs-Suns as a finals,

it's just bizarre to me. Like, I'm not convinced either team can even score down the stretch sometimes. We saw that Nets defense completely shut down the Bucs in some of those playoff games. We saw Phoenix yesterday couldn't make a shot for the entire fourth quarter in a must-win game. And I guess I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that

because scoring is so easy these days. We're going to end up with this finals team where I'm not convinced either team can really get a basket when they need to. Although Milwaukee certainly did today. All right. That's it. We take that as far as we could.

I think you're a little dismissive of the best version of a healthy Phoenix Chris Paul not being away from NBA games for a week I think their offense is a little better than you're giving it credit I think you're right it was horrible last night I really think the Lakers would have beaten them if

Anthony Davis did a good hurt as weird as that Lakers team was I just think they were winning the series. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. Three sport movie club. Guys who have made three

sports movies that were all good movies. Costner, Stallone. Where was this on the rundown? Costner Stallone Quaid Omar Epps Adam Sandler

Denzel Washington Gene Hackman Robert De Niro Wesley Snipes Will Ferrell Woody Harrelson The three sports movie club I'm not counting Jamie Foxx

I'm not counting Bill Murray I'm not counting Mark Wahlberg And I'm not counting The Rock Even though technically you could argue they made three sports movies what are The Rock's three? it's two kids movies and then Gridiron Gang

okay Jamie Foxx is Any Given Sunday Any Given Sunday he does Ali he's the trainer and then he's in that boxing movie

he's a boxer in some movie too he's gonna be in the Tyson movie isn't he? yeah so maybe Tyson movie. He's a boxer in some movie too. He's going to be in the Tyson movie, isn't he? Yeah. So maybe Tyson movie would be his official entry in there. What about Billy Zabka? No, because he can't count sequels.

It's got to be three different franchises because that's why Stallone, Stallone gets in for victory over the top in Rocky Balboa. Over the top counts? the time oh fuck yeah arm wrestling it's a sports movie i've been to live arm wrestling chelsea pier it's the best arm wrestling divorce movie anyone's ever made i've said that for 20 years nobody's ever done a better version others have tried have they though wait isn't there an arm wrestling series out right

now on like i don't know a premium channel i keep waiting for arm wrestling to catch on and it's just that it just hasn't happened there used to be a guy that would show up at one of the dive bars i worked at and he'd be like hey and they were not college students and be like any of you guys want to put put a couple beers on beating my buddy here and we'd be like you guys showed up to the bar it's like eight we're not even really open but we are yeah and the first thing you asked was the staff if we want to arm wrestle you guys like you're one guy like no then a couple guys would do it get smoked and you pour them natural light be like you, yeah, you kind of actually lost. It always leads to violence or the potential of violence.

It was so early. You get drunk guys arm wrestling? Nobody was drunk enough. It was like the staff. And you just were like, so what? You're a mechanic and you're 28 and you showed up to a college dive bar to challenge door guys to arm wrestle for free beer? Like, yeah.

What are you guys doing tomorrow? I have the night off if you guys want to meet up. I follow an account on Instagram that I think is called Drunk People Doing Things. It's always stuff like that. It's always

somebody falling through a table, somebody falling off a balcony, somebody thinking they can do something that they end up not being able to do. It's a like, you know, somebody falling through a table, somebody falling off a balcony, somebody thinking they can do something that they end up not being able to do. It's a really good account. I highly recommend it. There was a show called Game of Arms, and the first Google result is, did it get canceled? So, check that one out. Can we talk about this Dame Lillard situation, which is still developing?

We didn't do it in part one because we wanted to find out if anything else was going to happen. Billups got a five-year deal tonight and just going backwards. I, I heard a week and a half ago, somebody who knows things told me, watch out for the Portland situation. It's going to get weird.

I'm like, okay, nothing happened. So I was like, ah, all right, bad tip. Now it's getting weird. I'm like, okay. Nothing happens. So I was like, all right, bad tip. Now it's getting weird. And it seems like the root of this is Dame Lillard being upset

that he's getting blamed for the backlash to the Chauncey Billups hiring because of the sexual assault allegation civil suit settlement in the late nineties. And I don't know if Lillard was online reading all the tweets or what was going on or whether this was brewing for the last couple of weeks, but we are now at the point where Chris Haynes,

who has broken a lot of blazer stuff and broken a lot of Dame stuff is like, Dame is unhappy. And it's just reading the tea leaves and how it goes with superstars it seems like we're headed for our first unhappy superstar trade with this what do you think there's some language in the Chris Haynes tweet that I think is a real problem if you're a Trailblazers fan all right um let's go over a little bit more of the timeline too because we heard that Jason Kidd was going to be interviewed and then he decided not to interview.

And I think it's probably because he figured out he was going to get the Dallas job. Right? Right. Because now that we put this all together, like, wait a minute, Portland would have interviewed Jason Kidd.

And if that's who Dame wanted, but then Kidd wanted to go coach Luka, then Dame can't really be mad at the front office there. Lillard wanted Kidd. If you go back and you actually read the stories, he was like, Jason Kidd is my guy. And Kidd backed out. And it seemed weird, but now it doesn't seem as weird because he got the Dallas job.

Right. Okay. So then you've got the tweet from Chris Haynes, who you were right, is absolutely plugged in to Dame Lillard. None of us should pretend that this is not a very very close star media relationship right we're on the same page there so yeah it doesn't mean that dame fed him the information but he certainly has enough sources in and around dame that if chris haynes is tweeting about dame i take it seriously. Right. That's what I'm saying. So the most recent, the pinned tweet on Haynes' profile, excuse me, the backlash in Portland

Trailblazer coaching search and his concerns over whether a championship contender could be built had become major factors that could force Damian Lillard to request out league sources tell Yahoo Sports. So then you read the article, and I promise I'm not going to read the entire thing. I just, I've looked at it a couple of times here, Bill, and I think there's some, I think so then you read the article and i promise i'm not going to read the entire thing i just i've looked at it a couple times here bill and i think there's some i think what we're seeing here is the tracks are being laid for dame to be able to angle it because like when guys want out some guys really care about i mean back to the old kevin garnett thing guys are telling the forces way

out of minnesota for years but he back then people didn't really do it certainly not like they do it now and not like no one had ever done it, but Garnett was like, you know, I love these T-Wolves fans. I love what they've done with me. So I don't want to tell Timberwolves fans, like I'm out. So the weird thing was, is that Lillard felt like because social media was critical of the Billups hire because of what you'd mentioned that then that bothered Dame.

So you're like, well, people were, people were coming at Dame, I think, because he was being accused of this was his candidate. Why didn't he care about the story? However social media works. And these guys are online all the time. They see stuff or they hear stuff. And it seems like a catalyst for something that was probably brewing anyway with him,

where he clearly wasn't that happy after the season to begin with. And maybe he didn't have input in the coach. Maybe he wanted Jason Kidd. Maybe he wasn't happy with the explanation. Maybe they weren't cluing him in. Maybe this was going to be Billups all along. Maybe he felt like he wasn't being consulted. Here's the paragraph that scares me.

If you're a Blazers fan. Right. Quote, Lillard has remained loyal to Portland in large part due to the tremendous fan base. All right. So already you're complimenting these guys being like, I'm about to ask out,

but I just want to let you know how special you are. Okay. But over the last few days, he's seen some of the same fans attacking him on social media, pending for pending coaching hire he played no part in consummating sources said so the fact that there's a compliment to the fans feels very red flag r-ish yeah that's that's just me over here rossillo 101 pr pr 101 is that you're like okay so what you're doing is you're telling the fans, like, I love

you guys, but here we go. And then it's also titled like could force his way out. Haynes knows right now if Damian Lillard wants to stay or wants out, maybe Damian Lillard hasn't made the decision. So if he hasn't, then Haynes can't possibly know. But if Lillard has made a decision that I think Haynes is leading us in a direction here where this is the start of it. It's all putting together stuff, secondhand guesswork or direction here where this is the start of it. It's all putting together stuff secondhand, guesswork or whatever. But I thought the part where it's almost like, hey, if you're going to print the story,

make sure that there's something in there that recognizes how great the fans have been to me over the years. That scares me. And then you have the New York Post story that goes up two and a half hours ago about how the Knicks are waiting patiently. Well, they're going to be waiting a while.

What do they have to offer? I mean, people can make fun of Olshay all they want. What do the Knicks have? It's basically RJ and a million picks. It's a better offer than whatever Houston got for Harden.

I agree with you. I think Portland can do better. You have a situation where Dame is going to want to go where he can win, which is the old conundrum. I have to trade all this stuff for you. Now I don't have enough left so you can win. That's a problem, which leads us back to the Philly

conversation we were having before, where if it's like Simmons and Maxey and Thibel and four first-round picks, like whatever, you just put together a mega package and get Dame back. Dame and Bede, try some buyout guys,

you try to get your version of Blake Griffin, batch it together. There's also a new owner in Portland because Paul Allen died. I think it's his sister is kind of running the show for now. I had always

heard that they were selling. I'm sure from a stability standpoint, this isn't great if you're looking to sell the team. So you got that piece too. I mean, unless Dame absolutely needs to be in New York City, but every time everybody's rolled that storyline out, no one's gone there.

You know who would actually make more sense is the Bulls, except that they just traded all their picks for Vucevic. But, you know, they could give Zach back and a couple other things, but they're kind of down on picks.

I'm just trying to think of major markets. And then I was thinking, Boston? No, there's a fun Warriors situation. Go ahead. Wiggins, Wiseman, 7, 14, and two more number ones. And then they basically just

have Dame, Dame, Curry, and Klay on the same team. Two more number ones, it'll be 29 and 30. Right. I was trying to think. I got excited for a second thinking like, Dame, Klay, and Curry. It would be like when Dame and Curry

played together in the All-Star game and it just becomes like pop a shot. I just would love like these other stars that score a ton of points to go into Golden State's system and then like the first practice, five minutes in, they'd be like, what are you guys doing off the ball?

What are you? That's called a screen? That's, why do you guys, you guys set screens? Does new Orleans call? Well, everyone calls first of all, but there's new Orleans call with like a real offer where it's like, here's Brandon Ingram and we have a lot of picks. He's not going to go to new Orleans. I wouldn't think. I mean, but here's the deal. I mean, if you want to get weird, I would imagine somebody is getting involved here because the four-year extension that's worth,

what, 196 kicks in here? He's 31. Four-year extension kicks in. So the weird thing is you'd be trading for somebody. I mean, this is kind of the new stuff that we always knew was going to happen. Like, we're going to have a draft pick again and say, I'm not playing there. We were going to have a rookie extension eligible guy say,

even though I could be losing the 40 million, I'm not going to sign the extension here. All of these things are going to happen. The evolution of the power will continue in this direction. So if a guy has four years left on his deal, this would be new territory for somebody demanding to ask for a trade. So that might, that might change it a little bit. You know, that might change it a little bit where Portland's like, well, look, you're the one asking out. I don't have to do any favors. So, but that's where the agent part of it comes in where you go, okay, well, how much juice does the agent have to make sure that everybody's on the same page of a deal like this happens?

Because it's not like you're trading somebody who's up in a year. You know what I mean? Like the teams that wanted to trade for Anthony Davis, if Anthony Davis had shown up, he might've played for a year and a half, but at some point he was probably going to end up in LA. Um, or you could go the Oklahoma city route where you're like, everybody's telling us don't trade for Paul George. Cause he's going to bounce. Then he signs and then he bounces anyway. So, um, again, this is, we could, I'd have to know what's important to him. I have a hard time believing he'd want to go to the Knicks for everything that they'd have to give up, and I don't really know that there's enough there.

You could probably do a lot better, and he's under contract. It's probably the Sixers. If I'm running a New York newspaper, of course I'm running that story tonight. So, whatever. I have a really, really serious question for you. Okay. Is smart Tristan Thompson and Time Lord enough to get Dame or do I have to also throw in picks?

Maybe some pick swaps in the second round just to even it out a little bit. How many first round picks do I have to throw in? No, I don't want to trade Jalen. I don't want to trade Jalen or Tatum. Can I just root for those guys for the rest of the decade? I love those guys. You'd rather have Jalen than Damian Lillard.

I didn't say that. Well, kind of you did. I just don't think they're getting Damian Lillard with a Jalen package. Do you? Sounds a lot better than any of the Knicks package stuff that we'd be talking about. I love Jalen, Brad.

I don't want to trade Tatum or Jalen. Let's take a break. We got to do two-man draft. How can you be sure your child is making the right decision when choosing a university? The smart approach is to look at the facts, like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare students for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. What does possible sound like for your business?

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I tweaked my Boston package a little bit. Does Romeo Lankford entice you? I liked Romeo Lankford's defensive effort in certain bursts.

What about the Blazers edge post about Simon's Lankford dot dot dot backcourt of the future? Question mark. No? Two-man draft. So here's the deal. Russell and I,

it's a two-man league now. For next year, for next season, you could have any two guys to try to win the title. Two-man draft. Two-man combos that are on the same team.

Who are you picking? Russillo, I'll give you the first pick. By the way, for this, you can, for Phoenix, you can do Aiton and Booker. You can do Chris Paul and Aiton. You can do Chris Paul and Booker.

Any two guys on the same team. All right, just so the listeners and also your co-host understand the assignment, because I think I have it right. What we're essentially doing is picking two-man units, one through 30. Like, so we'll say... Yes, that's what we're essentially doing is picking two-man units, one through 30.

Yes. That's what we're doing. Right. So if I pick a team, I'm saying these are their two best players. And I think this two-man unit for next season is the best two-man unit I can go with. Is no lottery picks eligible in this? You can't pick like Cade Cunningham and Jeremy Grant. No, you can't. And by the way, who do you think you are, Jerry West? You should start projecting lottery picks here. Although, there's a couple teams where the lottery pick may be a better option,

even as an unknown, than who their second best player is. So, all right, here we go. I know immediately as soon as I say it, what's going to happen, but I don't care. I'm taking the Lakers with LeBron and AD for one more year. Okay. LeBron Davis. I'm taking Durant and Harden.

That's who I had. I would have taken them first. You would have taken them first? I think Durant's the best player in the league. All right. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. I will then happily take Steph and Klay. Wow, Klay coming off the Achilles at the ACL.

You're undaunted. Not even remotely worried about it. He's due. He's due for some good luck. Holy shit. I also got Steph Curry. You heard him? Steph Curry.

You did. It's a good pick. Oh, man. I can't believe I'm about to do this. Curry and Claire out. I'm going to take Giannis and Middleton. Yeah. Now, here's the thing.

As I take LeBron and AD, the listeners are going, are you kidding me? Those two guys just both ended up hurt. That's the whole point. Everybody at the top, the best two-man units, all have injury questions except for Milwaukee. Yep. That's why Milwaukee's a good pick there.

All right. So with the fourth pick, you take Milwaukee. I will then take, I mean, I can't believe I'm doing this, but if I'm talking like peak performance, best player still, I'll still take the Clippers, too, guys. Okay. Kawhi and Reggie Jackson. I think that was

a really good pick. I would tell anybody that's like, I can't believe you're taking it on the... It's just like the all NBA voting this year. Like, alright, cool. That guy's hurt. You're mad about that guy. Pick somebody who isn't because they've all been hurt. I'm going to take Yoko, Yoko,

Jim Murray. Figure Murray comes back in March in time for the playoffs. And I get the MVP, Nicole, the Yoko, a fine young lad who invited his coach to drink with him in Serbia. And said you're not, you can go to Serbia, but I'm not

going to be, I'm not going to. You won't be able to find me. Yeah. Have you seen my brothers? Did you read that at all? Did Bill's team chemistry sensors go off at all when you saw that quote? I liked it. I like that him and Malone are close. I think, I actually think that's a good thing. there's some pop Duncan vibes with him

not with I don't think Malone is as good of a coach as pop alright so first six picks LeBron Davis, Duran Harden, Steph Clay Giannis Middleton, Kawhi PG Jokic Murray you have the seventh pick just for the people listening

it's going to get the most fun when we get to pick 23 were you telling me it hasn't been really fun now okay Just for the people listening, it's going to get the most fun when we get to pick 23. Were you telling me it hasn't been really fun now? Okay. I'm just going to go ahead and do it. Give me Chris Paul and Booker for another year. Wow. Okay.

Poor DeAndre Ayton. He he's like what did I have to do some guys just don't have a second guy which leads me to Tatum and Jalen three conference finals four years just for the record for everybody ready to bitch about that one I had the ninth on my board so well they went eighth Three conference finals, four years, just for the record, for everybody ready to bitch about that one.

I had the ninth on my board. Well, they went eighth. I'm just wondering how much higher Embiid and Simmons would have gone a month ago. Oh, much higher. I'm wondering if Simmons is the second guy you're going to have with Embiid. This is where it gets a little dicier because it's like, i just take because the the problem with the game can be i can't believe that second guy sucks it's like yeah but did you pay attention to who the first guy was yeah all right i can't just do it just do it i don't think i can do it yet. Do it. Bring in that 7'3 Latvian.

Come on. Pull the trigger. It's in so bad. I'll take Luka, though, because I can still get Luka. And I have to write Przingis down, too. I almost took him with the last pick. I mean, you're getting Luka, all right? I'm getting Luka.

I'm saying it out loud. I'm talking myself into it after I did it. So I think that's a great pick. I looked at it for a while. I'm going to take... Oh my God. I can't believe I'm doing this. That's how I feel about the next five or six. At the end, it's so bad. I'm going to take Embiid and Seth Curry. You like that one? Yeah, I guess, but it's not.

I feel like that's the first Danny Connell move of the night where we used to have all these games. I'm just getting Embiid. I don't even care who my second guy is. We would have all these games in the radio show. And then once we'd figure out what we wanted to do, then we'd bring it back the next week. And he'd already just cheat. So should I do Embiid-Simmons?

I don't want to cheat. No, no. I just don't feel like Simmons is going to be in the team. Oh, let me do this. Can I tweak it? Can I tweak this? It is your game and your podcast. I'm going to do Embiid

and whatever the Simmons asset is next season. Embiid and Simmons asset TBD. That's fair, right? Because they're going to have Simmons or some version of some asset that will be better than Seth Curry. And you're still getting Embiid in the 10th pick. Yeah.

With Simmons or Simmons trade piece TBD. Right. All right. Then I'll go ahead and take Dame and CJ. Good one. I almost took him. Oh, now it's getting really...

Now it's getting good. I'm going to go Butler and Bam really good one good value solid balance there yeah good value I'm excited about it I'm going to go Zion Ingram post Stan Van Gundy with who's his

running mate Zion and Brandon Ingram post Stan Van Gundy. Got it. Do it. Do what? Man, the board's really dropping. Jesus.

It's just a question of who I want to put with Trey Young. I'll say Trey Young and DeAndre Hunter. How about that? That seems like a stretch. It's not McDonavich or Collins. Trey Young and Collins. I'll do that. And even if I don't love Collins,

he's been so big in the playoffs. He's had some really big. Trey and Collins. That's good. I feel good about that. I just don't think we've seen enough from Hunter yet to be able to put him ahead of those other guys. I do love Hunter.

All right. Go ahead and give me Mitchell and Gobert. We'll figure it out. Tough, tough times for Mitchell and Gobert. That's lower than you would have thought. Five, ten. They're the 15th pick. They're the heart of a one seed.

That's too low. That's too low, That's too low. But, you know, current events. I'm going to go with Vooch and Zach Levine. Yeah, I'm telling you right now. Great pick. Now it gets weird telling you right now, great pick. Now it gets weird.

You thought it got weird before. We're now in the bottom half of the draft. That was the 16th pick. Okay, I'm going to take Sabonis and Brogdon. I looked at them. What'd you see? What'd your people say? I was thinking about them with Rick Carlisle

coaching those two guys that I thought that was a good upside pick. I like it. Now, if Karis LeVert's playing, I don't want them. I'm going to blow your mind. Can't wait. I'm going to take DeAndre Ayton and Mikael Bridges.

Wait, all right, now you're cheating. No, I'm not cheating. Phoenix 2? Yeah, I'm taking Phoenix's 3 and 4 over everyone else left on the board that's ridiculous maybe Phoenix should win the title why is that ridiculous look who's left

that's yeah that's too much Aiton and Bridges yeah go ahead your next pick I'm not going to like as much as Aiton and Bridges I'm. Go ahead. Your next pick is, I'm not going to like as much as Aiton and Bridges. I'm watching them win their third playoff series together. Give me. I care about titles.

So wait, that means I can take Caruso and Schroeder. You can do whatever you want. I can take Kemba and Shaco. Just Alex. Poku. Yeah. All right. I can take Kemba and Shaco. Poku, yeah. All right. I didn't do the game this way, but that's all right.

So Phoenix times two. Backup unit there. Let me go ahead and take... I'll take Ja. And honestly, I have to put Dylan Brooks down. Yeah. I think you're right. I thought about John Triple J,

but we just haven't seen him healthy. I guarantee Chris Vernon is A, furious that he didn't have this idea, and B, furious that Ja went that low. Oh, man. This is... Now it gets weird. It's really, really dark now. Do it.

I know what you're looking at right now. Because they can't be much lower than they are right now. No, I'm not doing that. I know what you're thinking. Do it. No, I'm not doing that. You won't do it if it's the 30th pick. You won't do it.

God, I can't believe I'm doing this, but Towns and Edwards. Wow. I didn't think you would ever take Towns. I just feel like the upside of Edwards in year two when we have all these year two leaps, I just like that. There's a lot of talent with those two

compared to who I'm looking at. Fair. All right, I'll take the leading scorer in Westbrook. Beal and Russ. Yeah. They still should be in a healthy East with everybody healthy. Those two guys should still get into the playoffs. I just couldn't get there.

Oh, man. This is getting dark. I can't wait for the end. Those last couple teams. I'm going to take Fox and Halbert. I knew that was coming. Thanks. Okay, now it's...

I think the only thing left that makes sense that you go, okay, give me Gordon, Haywardward and LaMelo. I wish I had taken them. Three picks ago. My last pick. Yeah, that's a good one. All right, I'll do Randall and Quickly.

You don't have Barrett second? Oh, I'll do Randall and Barrett. Sorry. I just like Quickly. All right, Randall and Barrett sorry i just like quickly all right apparently you do okay i forgot about barrett i should have taken them instead of fox and hal burton well you got them and you got both now you got yeah right no one likes hal burton more naturally than you do i hope he understands that yeah i did i did take him two picks too high it's like that guy in the fantasy league that's like, you know, I love to kill Harry this year.

I'm just going to grab him. 19 bucks. All right. Okay. This, even though I'm not to be caught, I end up with a bunch of people that I think I talk, I make arguments against, but Siakam and Fred Van Vliet. Because with Lowry's uncertainty of where he's going to be,

and look, Siakam, I don't love that I think Semi Ojale locked him up in a playoff series, but Van Vliet's been a terrific player, and that's great value this late in the draft for the two-man. I'm going to take Kyrie and Joe Harris. All right, you suck.

Are you sure you want Joe Harris over Blake right. You suck. Are you sure you want Joe Harris over Blake? Blake's not. We don't know if he's on the team next year. Oh, that's right. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

But we have to draft two from every team. That's the rule. Then the draft's over once we have the 30th team. There's some good teams left. Just for the people listening. Cleveland's left. Detroit. Good teams

left. Or just from a comedy standpoint. Orlando. Houston. I might take Draymond and Wiseman. Go ahead. No, I'm not going to break the rules here. Okay, give me Darius

Garland and Jarrett Allen. We just really bottomed out. I love the despair every time you have to make a pick. It's just... I mean, now you're just looking for one good guy.

I'll take... I'll take SGA and Kemba. Yeah, yeah. That actually I should have taken SGA because he's just better than Garland and Allen. If the exercise is for next year, that was a mistake. I should have taken him. I had SGA and Dort. I had SGA and Poku just for the comedy,

but I didn't have the courage to say Poku's name. All right. So now that leaves us with... This is amazing how many times I land on guys. Although I think I've been more pro-John Wall than anti. I'll take Houston

with John Wall and Christian Wood. Yeah. I think that's good value. It's better than what's left. I had Wood and Tate as my two for that team. Cleveland's off the board. There's three teams left?

Yeah. Here's who we have so far. LeBron Davis, Durant Harden, Steph Clay, Giannis Middleton, Kawhi Paul George, Jokic Murray, Chris Paul Booker, Tatum Jalen, Luca Porzingis, Embiid and Simmons or Simmons Trade Asset to be named later, Damon CJ, Butler and Bam, Zion and Ingram,

Trey and Collins, Mitchell and Gobert, 15th, Vooch Levine, Sabonis Brogdon, Aiton Bridges, Ja Brooks, Towns Edwards, Beal Russ, Fox Halberton, Hayward Lamello, Randall Barrett, great value, Siakam FVV, Kyrie Harris, Garland Allend, SGA Kemba, Wall Wood. I should have taken. Yeah, that's my only mistake. I felt like I was really locked in here, but I think I regret having the two Cleveland

guys over Shea Gildress, Alexander, because he's just better. Like it's not even close right now. I'm going to take. Is there a bet? Who's the best second banana on Detroit? Can I,

is it weird if I took Killian Hayes and just hoped he was good? Yeah, because you'd be making a mistake. Who's, who would you take with Jeremy Grant Sadiq Bae is their second best player that's still on the team yeah I'm gonna take

I'm gonna take Hayes and hope he's good Grant and Hayes I'm just gonna trust KFC I'm gonna trust the KFC process he believes in killing his two teams left this this is unbelievable He believes in killing his two teams left.

This, this, this is unbelievable, but I still think I'm going to take Orlando because of Jonathan Isaac. Jonathan Isaac is the best remaining asset of any of the combinations of anything. Now you can say Jonathan Isaac and faults. You could say Wendell Carter jr. Who we touched on and having faith earlier, you can say Cole Anthony. I don't know. Um, but I'll still go with Jonathan Isaac and Fultz. You could say Wendell Carter Jr., who we touched on and having faith earlier. You could

say Cole Anthony. I don't know. But I'll still go with Jonathan Isaac because San Antonio's options right now for who is actually part of the future of this team. If DeRozan doesn't count. DeRozan doesn't count. So it's DeJounte and or Kelton Johnson. Yeah.

Kelton Johnson, Derek White. So who do you have with Isaac? I'll just say Fultz, but I'm like, eh. What about Cole Anthony? Fine. Okay. I'll take him 29 still. Or I guess this case 30.

No, this is down 31st. Yeah, hit 31st. I'm going to take Drew Holiday and Brooke Lopez. I don't want the San Antonio guys. This is a brutal podcast for San Antonio fans. They had no idea.

They're just listening for fun, having a good time, and it's a drive-by shooting. Okay, but is it wrong? Like, when you add up your top two guys and what your hopes are for who your top two guys are, and it's DeJounte Murray,

who I like, DeJounte Murray, and then dot, dot, dot, they might keep the Rosen. I think you have to take, I think it has to be... Keldon? Draymond Green and Wiseman here. Yeah.

Well, I didn't know we were doing this when I mapped it out this morning at 10 AM. I'm giving it to you right now. Yeah. But you know, you know me, I'd like to, I'd like to put it all together. I mean, this is where you start saying I'd rather have Capella and Herder. Is that your pick? You want a Kongu and Herder?

I'd take a KonguWoon Herder right now. I would take Herder over half the league. All right, so you have a Kong-Woon Herder. Kayvon? You kidding me? That kid, they might start Freak Nick again because of Kayvon Herder. I'm taking Holiday and Lopez.

And then you can, I'm just not taking San Antonio. I'm going to keep coming up with two guys so I don't have a San Antonio combo okay rough times for San Antonio alright let's see how it looks I'll take Draymond and Wiseman

then that's great I think that's great value I want to see how long you can go before you feel like somebody has to take San Antonio I'm trying to figure out who to team Marcus Smart with I'll take Murray and Kelden Johnson okay be honest would you rather have Marcus Smart and Rob I'll take Murray and Kelton Johnson.

Okay, be honest. Would you rather have Marcus Smart and Rob Williams for next year and then build around it than DeJounte Murray and Kelton? No, I like both of those guys. I'm happy with my team. That's it. That ended the draft. San Antonio was 30th.

What about Lonzo and Steven Adams? Lonzo's not on a team. We don't know where he is. Yeah, I'm just saying. I'm trying to see how far we can go here. What about Lonzo and Steven Adams? Lonzo's not on a team. We don't know where he is. I'm just saying. I'm trying to see how far we can go here. What about Bagley? You want to do worse two-man combos? Bledsoe and Steven Adams? Bagley. Would you rather have Bledsoe and Steven Adams

to start a team or DeJounte Murray and Kelvin Johnson? I'd much rather have DeJounte Murray and Kelvin Johnson. It's a no-brainer. What about Maxie and Tobias Harris? Nah. I'm out on Tobias after that playoff series.

How many six-footers did he short arm in that series? Like at least 25, right? Tobias Harris is just rent-free in my head all the time. Because whenever I'm like, hey, he's pretty good. You know, he can really, and then it's like, nope. No, this is why you doubt him.

And then when I start doubting him, he'll go for like 20 and a half. And I go, oh, no, he's pretty good. You know what? He's pretty steady. And then he disappears again. So, I mean, he's a good player. We all know the deal. So, top five was LeBron Davis, Durant Harden, Steph Clay,

Giannis Middleton, Kawhi, and Paul George. How low did you have Golden State on yours? I actually, I didn't, I jotted down everybody, but didn't officially rank it. I wanted to draft in the moment. This is what Bill Belichick does, I'm convinced. No rankings? I think he has a list of guys

and I think he's just all feel once he gets to draft day. He's like, ah, Kyle Duggar's looking good. Grab him. It's the right spot. Any wrestlers? Is there any stout wrestlers?

Did he play Australian Rules football once? Any wrestlers? Is there any stout wrestlers? Played a little edge? Did you play Australian rules football once? All right, Rossella. We did it again. I hope the Milwaukee fans aren't mad at us. It's our job to wonder, you know, if this was... Well, it's too late. Not one of our most impressive playoff seasons.

Don't even bother. Listen, we praise Giannis profusely. I think he's... I'm really in on Giannis right now. I'm buying all the Giannis stock. You wait until minute 15, 1.15. The Bucks fans are already done. I'm just telling you.

They're out. It's a very... It's a tough group at times. They're going to win the title and they'll be fine. Russillo, we'll see you on your podcast twice this week. And then next week we are not going to be back on Sunday night.

That is July 4th. We'll be running our rewatchables that day and you and I are going to figure out, depending on what the final schedule is, we will still be once a week doing a combo pod, but we don't know what day it is because we want to see the final schedule. The way it's shaping up, there's no finals

games on Sunday this year. There might just be one. That's it. Yeah, I thought there would be one. No? I don't know. I don't look at that stuff. There's a version of the schedule if the final starts July 6th, where we're just not getting Sunday finals games. So, we will see. Good to see you. Be safe.

Alright, that's it for this special two-part Sunday extravaganza. Thanks to Rossella. Thanks to producer Kyle Creighton. We'll be back on this feed at least on Tuesday. I think I'll do two more pods this week. Who knows? We'll do at least one as we head toward July 4th weekend.

Don't forget about a new Rewatchables coming Monday night. See you on that feed. See you on this feed in two days. On the wayside, I'm a bruised soul, I never lost it. I don't have to ever forget.