The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: NBA Draft Winners, Losers, and More Losers With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

In Part 2 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to react to Round 1 of the NBA draft, including the Frenchmen leading the draft, Reed Sheppard to Houston, the Timberwolves moving up for Rob Dillingham, Dalton Knecht falling to the Lakers at no. 17, Zach Edey making the lottery, the Spurs getting their guard, questionable moves from the Pistons and Trail Blazers, a steal for the 76ers, telecast notes, Bill getting his guy at no. 30, and much more! 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 Draftapalooza pod with Ryan Rosillo. We're going to cover round one of the NBA draft next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going

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Put up a new Rewatchables on Monday night. We did Bad News Bears. Have another one coming from the Rewatchables 1999 feed that we're going to run on the Rewatchables on Thursday night. It is Big Daddy. You can watch at least one of those on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. We had an action-packed week here on the bs podcast i did a podcast on sunday night with uh rossillo i did one on tuesday

we did a draft preview with kevin o'connor and jay kyle man and then era hawani came on and we broke down all ufc 303 and had a really fun MMA conversation. So if you missed that, you might want to listen to it before you watch UFC 303, if you're into that kind of thing. And then last but not least, Russell and I did a podcast earlier today, part one, where we talked about the Mikhail Bridges trade, what the Rockets and Suns were up to and all of the NBA machinations from that. And then this podcast you're about to listen to, which we did live on YouTube. Both of the ones we did today were live on YouTube. This one covered round one of the NBA draft. We started drafting around pick 20 and we were still, I'm sorry, we started potting around

pick 20 and then we were still potting when the Celtics were on the clock at number 30 and there was a guy I really wanted them to take. And, um, for once they actually took the guy I wanted them to take and we were recording. So that was super exciting. Anyway, you can listen to it right now. First, our're doing this live. It is 7-18 Pacific time. We are midway through the first round draft, and then some. Pick 21 is up.

We've gone through 20 picks. Ryan Rosillo is here. This is part two of the BS podcast. Rosillo, let's do a draft. Your single favorite thing that happened in the first 20 picks. Go. I hope it's not too many rounds. I like Minnesota getting back in and taking Dillingham.

Okay, explain. I'm about scores, throwing as many scores as you can out there. And with, granted, Kat and I making shots doesn't help, and the Gobert stuff we've talked about for years, but it became pretty clear to me, I almost feel like everybody needs another score. But when Ant's running into the Berlin Wall, reference for the middle-aged listeners

uh that's what i saw that's what i saw not 52 but um look i i just think if dillingham the best version of him is somebody that gets free on his own off the dribble uh and if he's not that then maybe it's somebody develops into like a Jordan Clarkson type. So anybody trying to compete for a championship, I love anyone looking at scoring talent and saying, let's add another one of those guys because they're hard to combine free agency. My first pick actually ties into what you just said. There was a moment there when it seemed like the Spurs were going to get Steph Castle and Dillingham. And I was so excited. I was frantically taking notes.

And I was like, let's go. Defense with Wemby. And then Dillingham, just this incredibly fun offensive player who could just be like their crunch time, end of the game guy, irrational confidence. I was like, this is perfect. I love it. And then all of a sudden it's like, we have a trade.

Minnesota's trading into the spot. And then it was like, oh, I think I love it. And then all of a sudden it's like, we have a trade. Minnesota's trading into the spot. And then it was like, oh, I think I love this too. Because this is kind of the guy Minnesota was missing last year. Like you said, things would slow down. And then Towns had five fouls on him or was doing his careening into five guys routine. And I was like, man, it'd be fun if they had one more guy who was just a weird heat check guy. Him with Edwards, I think that combo from a swag standpoint, from a chest bump, from a yelling at each other after big three standpoint is going to be incredible. I could see him playing for them next year. Couldn't you? Couldn't you see him being like an eighth man for them next year?

Am I crazy? No, I don't think you're crazy now he's gonna keep the shot going you know there's probably gonna be moments where it's like hey dude you can pass to other people um and some of these heat check guys just don't always have that in them i mean clarkson's assist numbers in the beginning of his career it was just it's really funny when you look at like his assist percentage not just total number of assists like single digits it gets like scary but um i But, um, I'm saying Antonio didn't want them or they thinking, okay, do we need another small perimeter guy that's already behind the cell? And then however, they're going to use castle and then so hands minutes and they still have Kelton's contract. I mean, like whenever you're not very good, I don't want to get too into somebody being in the way and a depth chart

of a team that isn't that good. But if, if they're looking at Dillingham and here's the thing, like despite what we've said about the Rudy trade over the years, like Conley and Lloyd are really good at this. Yeah. Really. So for them to be motivated to get back in and trade another first, by the way, a first and a half,

because there's a swap too. Yeah. So who knows the 20, 30 ones with that that with that trade in there it's like we really don't want these picks but i i like that because if you're going to try to find scoring and guys that can get buckets it's really hard to find a free agency well and also they're way over every sort of threshold that makes it hard to get extra guys so they're probably looking at this like this is probably our one chance over the next three years

to add one more talented scorer. We're not going to be able to get this guy in free agency. It's going to be really hard to trade. When it came through that Minnesota was getting the eighth pick, walk me through that next 45 to 60 seconds when you're wondering what they gave up. Because I got to say,

there was 20 of those 45 seconds for me where I was like, holy shit, did they trade Towns? No. Is this happening? Is this like Towns at number eight for Vassell? I was just trying to figure out because I forgot that they had any first-round picks left to even trade. I forgot about the 2031 thing.

So I was like, what else could it be? They're not trading McDaniels. Edwards obviously not trading. Spurs don't need to go. I'm just going through thing. So I was like, what else could it be? They're not trading McDaniels. Edwards, obviously not trading. Spurs don't need to go. I'm just going through the roster and I'm like, did the Spurs just trade for Towns? And I almost had a conniption. But then the trade was actually a first and a swap,

which leads to the second thing that I was so confused by is like, why would you want to, if you're the Spurs, why do you want swap rights with Minnesota when you have Wemba Nyama on your team, who we would assume by the year 2030 is going to be the best player in the world unless something horrible happened? I mean, he'd be a minus 300 favorite to be the best player in the world in 2030. So why do I care about a swap? It's probably just the asset math. Bad draft. We just took a guy at four.

We all know it's bad. Let's not fall in love with it. I'm sure the Knicks are probably sitting there thinking there'll be one team that'll want somebody that they can't believe that dropped to 24 and 25. So maybe we can just wait this out and the urgency of the moment will turn to it. And it feels like that's what San Antonio did there a little bit.

And even when I think about Belichick almost going out of his way whenever they had picks, I just think the patient people that are really secure about their job position, which is basically everybody in San Antonio, go, hey, the asset math tells us this is a really good pick. And they probably just had lower grades than all the other guys available. Well, I wonder if they looked at this draft the same way we did, where it's like, all right, slice out the top six. The first pick of this draft is actually seventh, the normal draft. So once we get to our eighth pick, that's really the 15th pick. And if we could turn that into a Minnesota pick down the road,

who knows go barrel being as late thirties by that point, who the hell knows what's going to happen. Who knows? Yeah, who knows? Whenever we're looking at like, oh, okay, in three years, can you imagine how different things will actually look?

Like, go back three years ago. Yeah. Oh, that team would be good or whatever. So to know that you have a chance at it, even though Ant's likely going to be there in six years, but I don't... I wouldn't bet on anything.

Yeah, I think front offices that are really secure are more likely to do something like this. And I think your point is good, though. It's like, well, why not just take two swings of the lottery of four and eight if you have Wembley right now? Like, why would you care about moving the assets six, seven years from now?

I wonder, do you think, so Klingon falls to seven, but there was a split second there where it was like, well, Portland's not going to take them. They have two centers. And I was wondering like, oh my God, San Antonio got both UConn guys and they're just like, come try to score on us. We're going to put out Wemby, Klingon.

We're going to put out Castle, put out Sohan. Like, good luck. Come at us. But then Portland took him and blew it which we're getting off track oh with the San Antonio one other thing slightly stealth tank move right you have the two swings at the apple and if you take Dillingham at eight maybe he swings five wins for you next year in this draft. That's going to be awesome. And it just,

I I'm just flagging it. It made me wonder, are the Spurs just going to wait one more year before they start making their moves? I can't, whatever they, we talked about this in part one, like,

listen, if you don't have a chance to win the title or come close, I don't know why you would get crazy. The only thing with Wemby is we just wanted him to have good, good teammates that he could play with, like a point guard who would know how to run an offense and people to throw him an entry pass and just simple things you need if you're about to be the next best player in the world. So I hope they at least gave him that this summer, but I'm okay with them kind of punting it toward 25. And it really seems like there's a lot of jockeying

already for that 25 draft, which is a little bit of an unprecedented draft, right? There's only been a couple of these this century where you just see teams already shifting their focus toward it. Well, that's probably the second thing I liked the most is that if you look at the potential tank teams for next year, because even with San Antonio, I get what you're saying, but Wemby's probably too good to even really think that.

But the way the odds have been flattened, where it gives you a 14% chance, Detroit's probably still sitting there. We just went through all that, then 860 million, and Monte Williams ended up with the fifth pick. So maybe that led to something we were talking about in part one with teams just maybe not tearing it down and tanking the way that we've seen in the past.

But if you're looking at the tank suspects, I like what Washington did. And they made, because Denny Abadie is a good player. He's not awesome, but he's a nice player, makes Portland better. And that's somebody that Washington is probably competing with in the tanking part of it. So if you're getting picks from them. They got the 14th pick, which turned out to be Bob Carrington. They got a 2029 pick. That's like a second best pick. It's probably in the middle of the draft.

And then they got Brogdon, who they're going to be able to spin for something. Both of us like Avdija, though. I think he's a winning player on a good team. Unfortunately, he's going to Portland. But that trade made sense to me, I guess. I was okay with it. I actually had Washington as one of my favorite things. Washington loading up on first in the worst draft in 11 years, I just thought was hilarious.

I was making fun of House for hours. Like, of course, this is the draft. Washington's like going back for seconds. Can we get more picks here for this awful draft that nobody wants to be in? I thought that was pretty funny. And then they took Alex Saar with the second pick who you could, it's funny. And I got to work with Billis twice.

So I got, I get to, I feel like I have a pretty good Jay Billis decoder. And you could tell when he's just hedging his words, cause he doesn't love the player, which was the case for both Reese O'Shea and then Saar. And then when it got to Shepard, it was like Jay Billis had chugged like 20 ounces of Red Bull. He's like, Reed Shepard, best shooter in the draft.

And he goes into Billis mode, but with Saar and Reese O'Shea, it was just like, well, you know, good athlete, not great. It was a lot of like backhand and compliment stuff. But anyway, what'd you think of that? Yeah, I did notice that. But I think anybody that's like their life is in college basketball. I watched a couple of different preview shows today. And anybody that's making a living in college basketball is telling you how amazing Zach Eaddy is, which I know we're going to get to a little bit later. Yeah. But Billis is a college basketball guy first.

So he's going to be more excited about Reed because he's a Kentucky guy as opposed to two French dudes, one that was playing in Australia. I did see a tweet. it was making the rounds. I don't know if it was a Wizards media member or something. I don't even remember what it was, but it was just like a lot of intriguing players for the Wizards this upcoming year. And they just started listing all of them. And you go, dude, when people say intriguing, it's actually such an insult. Like whenever somebody would say, oh yeah, I met with ESPN about a potential job what did they say oh they said they were intrigued by my tape like oh that's a no yeah i spent two hours talking to this girl last night how'd it go she said she was intrigued

it's the nicest possible way to say it's not happening i think i discovered discovered that. I knew that before because I'd met a couple of people. Like, oh, you met with talent? Yeah. What'd they say? Oh, they were intrigued with my demo. So you think Washington was intrigued by Saar's defensive prowess? I think they were intrigued by a lot of stuff with Saar. But to have somebody list all of those names, and it was Jordan Poole in there and Koulibaly.

I would say Koulibaly. Let's not even use the word intriguing. I'm excited about what Koulibaly could potentially know, I would say Kulibaly, let's not even use the word intriguing. I'm excited about what Kulibaly could potentially be. Um, Kisper. And then it was like, Johnny Davis was still in the tweet. Like I thought they were going to run Johnny Davis like night highlights. I, uh, I have for, I'm going to draft, um draft one more piece of the Minnesota thing. A lot of T-wolves here. I like it. No, with the Dillingham part.

You mentioned the Irrational Confidence guys. Sometimes it takes a while to figure it out. It's a fun rollercoaster ride to go on. Sometimes the first team that drafts them ends up not being the team. Right? Like we saw this with Dion Waiters. We saw this with Malik Monk. Was there ever a team for Dion Waiters?

Really? We saw it with, well, there was when he went to Miami, remember? He had that nice little run on Miami. Jordan Crawford bounced around. Like sometimes these guys take a little while to find themselves. And it's just going to be interesting. I already wanted to watch Minnesota anyway because they ain't. But now it's like this extra guy that they added to the movie.

This is basically like Fast and Furious 5. And it's like The Rock's in this one. Like, whoa, that could do better than The Rock. But it's just a movie cast that's more interesting. Because I just thought they were bringing back the same team. And I do think they're going to need him. I think they're going to need his scoring. What else did you have for favorite things? I just want to share this though, too, because Dillingham's size, because

it's not just the 6'1", it's that he's weighed in at 164 and the wingspan isn't necessarily that much bigger, but maybe they're thinking about whether defensive numbers, especially with the regular season, they can hide him a little bit better. I also think it's a backup plan to Conley who just look, I think he was hurt and was a little worn down. But when you look at his synergy numbers on catch and shoot,

it's 1.42 points per shot. He was in the 98th percentile. So it's not just his creation off the dribble and getting into his shot and some drives that you're like, man, he really got creative on that.

But at that size, finishing in the NBA is a whole different challenge. But then when you factor in that catch and shoot number, where he's essentially based on this number, one of the best guys in college basketball this past season, that tells you that Minnesota probably looked at him and said, even if we don't have him on the ball with all the attention that Ant gets with the spacing that Cat and Nas provide, that maybe he can just be somebody else at spacing. we don't even need to just hand him the keys as much as you probably wouldn't want to

a kid a year out of high school. Yeah, Kyle Mann has been really good on this with all of our draft stuff the last month, talking about the two Kentucky guards and how they just weren't like spot-up shooters or guys that had to come off screens. Like they'd make all kinds of threes and all kinds of shots, you know?

Reed makes all of them. Reed makes all of them. It's, it's scary. He makes those little, that little Mark Price, one-legged 12 footer in traffic, you know, going sideways. He has all, he has all of those. And if you run Reed Shepard off a high screen and you're not there to meet him immediately, it's, it's over. And I've, I don't know that there's been a kid I've watched in years where his misses were all awesome. Yeah.

Just, you know, rattling around soft on the rim. It's like, oh, I can't believe that didn't even go in. That's how good of a shooter Reed Shepard is. I was like, we didn't hear a ton about Dillingham. It was interesting because Rich Paul was his agent and Rich Paul was on the Bronny or Clutch was his agent. And they were on the Bronny James PR tour and I felt I actually felt like

Dillingham became a little underrated by the time the draft started what else do you have for big picture draft night stuff that you loved what's your next thing

I just think it's the the concept of right and wrong with this and ultimately what you're tasked with doing and how hard it is to predict who's going to be

better and who's going to buy in i mean there's automatics it's not just the number one picks in the previous years but all the time that i spent watching the guys in the lottery i'm like find find the guy that's going to be an all-star there's going to be like two of these guys into being all-stars and all of us are going to look stupid and i just had the hardest time with it. Like Risa Shea going one. I get what the high side of it is, but I imagine there's, there's teammates of him in France being like, I cannot believe that guy was the number one pick in the NBA draft. And maybe he turns out to be great, but based on

what he is right now, it's, it's also the story of this draft. You just think, okay, he's huge. He can shoot. He's not a crazy athlete. And there's just not very much on the ball that he's doing. Now, I don't know if that was the team because I went back and watched his team play Salon's team. So it was like his team against Chalet. And for the first half, Risa Shea doesn't even do anything. He's in the corner the entire time. And then he had this incredible baseline floater drive, and then he had another drive where it looked like something had clicked for him, being like, I need to get us back into this game. So I thought that was a positive.

But whenever you're thinking about him as the number one player, you're going like, what is he going to do in Atlanta this first year? And for Hawks fans, you probably have to prepare yourself for a number one pick that may be an afterthought offensively the first season. And that's why it's such a dangerous pick. And we've been talking about this for the last couple weeks on different ringer pods.

The baggage that comes with being the number one pick for better and worse, if you're not good right away, I think especially in the culture we live in now, that's so much more 24-7 day-to-day than it used to be back in the Michael Olo Candy era, where it'd be like, man, Olo Candy kind of sucks, and he's 24. Why didn't they take him over Paul Pierce? But there wasn't a vehicle to just discuss this constantly. And now you look at this, like I had it marked down the first time Castle plays him, right? The first Spurs Hawks game we have, what do you think is going to happen with Castle in that game? Like, do you think he'll have that one marked? It'd be like, oh, finally I get to play. I get to play the French guy. I'm just

going to try to ruin his life for two and a half hours. So I do think you have to factor that in a tiny bit. Like they showed in the beginning of the draft, they had those two Hawks fans wearing berets. And you just think like, man, this franchise can't buy breaks. They have fans drinking beer and wearing berets in the stands. And I don't know, this is two Billis quotes I wrote down. He's not a spectacular athlete, but he's athletic. Actual quote from Jay. I missed the diary, man. I missed the diary.

I wrote down this one too. And he's not really a creator. All right, so let's just unpack those two. Not really a creator, good athlete, not great. So what am I getting with the number one pick? I would either want somebody that's a good creator, an incredible defensive player, or a spectacular athlete. And I went over three. So I don't know. I just, that pick, it set off a lot of bus signals. I'm always hesitant to be like, it's going to be a bust or that guy's going to be great. Cause with draft you never know but it just it checked a lot of bust red flags that we've just seen over the last 30 years it really concerned me yeah very concerned but to the original point like what if he went seventh we'd all like him

right good it would be like the guy charlotte took oh good value number six if salon's just a completely different player i mean i said in part one they didn't even know how to show highlights of them do you see the highlight package they had it was like what is this i was waiting for somebody to talk about his handle because i was like i want to see if somebody's going to lie up there i want to see if somebody's going to say like oh he's pretty good off the dribble it's like no he isn't but yeah he i i cannot tell you how many clips i'd be like wait what did he what did he just do to that guy yeah he got mad at somebody and then decided i go i'm gonna i'm gonna ram my shoulder into you on this drive and i'm gonna get called for an offensive foul and i

don't care and it's exactly what he did he just murdered this guy because he was mad about some other thing. So I'm not talking about him like as a Draymond or like a Kenneth Farid thing because he's kind of clumsy, but he's going to be a lot of fun for Charlotte fans. What kind of football player would you compare him to? Like, what is he? I'd say like when Gronk has his MCL or ACL blown out, but gets another 10 yards. I think I go, is he just, is his feet enormous? He's just huge. And is he clumsy? No, he's not clumsy. He had one play where he was on the other

side of the hoop and he read it perfectly and he came over and pinned it on the glass in help and then grabbed it. And then he wanted to take it help. Yeah. And then grabbed it. And then he wanted to take it coast to coast. And then he was like, wait a minute. And then he kind of just a pirouette and stops himself and gets it to someone else. Uh,

what he'll do likely, and this is where Lamella is going to be really good with him is we'll stick them in the corner. Hopefully he makes enough threes that you have to feel. But at the minute you turn away from him, he was just living on these baseline cut lobs and trying to rip the rim off the backboard. So I would imagine there's going to be other young players on the Hornets going, why are you taking this so seriously?

And it's probably somebody you need to wake everybody up, all these other young guys. I don't know if he's going to be good, good, but I can't wait to see him play. You got me excited about him because you were so excited about him that I watched some of the highlights and it reminded me of like an eighth grade game when there's the kid who's bigger than everybody in the eighth grade game. And the parents are like, how old's that kid? And he just doesn't, hasn't really fit into his body yet. He's wearing the wrong sneakers and he's just kind of flying around doing stuff. And you're like, what's going on with this guy? That was his vibe as like a 19 year old i kind of i remember reading um fall river dreams the first time yeah and then lee montville is essentially like quoted because chris heron's team his older

brother michael heron was playing for fall river and they were playing in the garden because it's like the state championship and basically lee who's decades in the NBA going, I cannot keep my eyes off Michael Heron. It's what I kept thinking about when I was talking to you, when I was watching salon. Yeah. Let's, uh, we'll take a break for the podcast. 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 gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer.

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age. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November.

Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, I'm going to draft the next thing. We had three French guys drafted in the top six. Can you imagine how pissed off Gilbert Arenas' podcast is this week? Well, it's a red flag because they list all the French guys ever, and they start with Wemby. It was like, oh, Wemby, that might end up being one of the greatest picks of all time for what we know.

But then, uh-oh, the Wizards are trading up as we're talking. But then they show some of the other French guys and you're like, when was the last time a white guy was the first American drafted in the NBA draft? What year do you think it was? First? White guy, first American in the NBA draft. Sean Bradley was two. I'm going to say like late 70s. Kent Benson, 1977.

I was going through all the drafts of basketball reference, and I'm like, come on. There had to have been one. I keep going back. Like, oh my God. Just going back for a half hour, going through these drafts, and that was it.

Kent Benson, 1977. You know, the only reason I came close is I just went through the internal Rolodex, the up top here going through every single number one pick of the last 40 plus years. 2013 draft with Bennett going first and all the other things. And it's like, man, what happened that year? That draft was crazy. And then Giannis ends up getting picked and becomes the superstar from it. I do wonder if this draft is going to be exactly like that. We're like, what was that draft? What was the name of that French guy who went first?

Rizashe. And then he just went back to France five years later and then became awesome in France. I could see, to me, all bets are off with this one. What else do you have for things you loved? Let's see here. Give me another one. I have more if you need. No, no, no.

Yeah, go ahead. Why don't you go ahead now and I'll make sure I do one that I really want to do. Well, I have a tie because we had two teams triple down on something that wasn't really working to begin with, Portland and Detroit. Portland had DeAndre Ayton and Rob Williams at center, two guys they traded for last year. And then at number seven, they took a center. They took Klingon. I thought that was just weird because I don't think Aiton's really, I don't think there's a ton of trade value for him.

I can't imagine he's happy. I remember there was some weird Aiton quotes during the end of the season where he's like, finally, people are getting to see what I can do. Because he's putting up big stats. So now it's like, oh, by the way, we just drafted a center instead of a wing that can get you the ball. Aiton quotes, by the way, never make me feel good. Yeah, they're rough.

Yeah, great point. It'd be a good Twitter account. Just like somebody just tweeting DeAndre Aiton quotes. But I thought the worst one was Detroit. Now, I actually kind of liked Ron Holland. But if you're going to do a draft of teams that shouldn't take yet another non-shooter, Detroit would have been the runaway first team. And they just said, fuck it. And now they have Holland, they have Asar Thompson, and they have Ivy, who we both really like, but I wouldn't say he's a dead eye. And I don't know how you played two of those guys together, much less three. The Knicks just took George, by the way, from Miami. What'd you think of that, though?

What was more egregious, Detroit or Portland tripling down? Probably Detroit, even though I probably like Holland more than other people seem to. And I'm not saying I put the best effort in this year, but he's just so good downhill. He's so aggressive. He's young. Everybody that's been around him. I mean, depending on the recruiting services you want to look at,

it was either he or Collier. USC's point guard is the number one player coming out of their high school class, which I do like that move. I'm not saying it always bears fruit, but looking at some of these guys that were huge high school guys and then maybe have a bad year, and the G League Ignite team was a disaster this year, but his shot looks

like it's actually broken, but they brought in Vincent, the shooting coach, so that's probably part of it. I like the pick, but you're right because I'm still holding out hope for Ivy and Cade needs spacing for Cade Cunningham to be the

best that he can be. But then at the same time, like I say, what are they supposed to do? Just take Dalton connect. Who's his own story with him falling tonight. So I'm not going to, when you're not good, don't, don't draft on need, even though it would have been nice if they could have gotten some spacing there, but I still, I still like the pick. So I I'm saying I'm being critical of it. You like the pick, not the team. Yeah. Yeah, you know what? I'm fine with it.

I'm fine. I'm not outraged by it. When you're not any good, I'm not going to sit there and be like, oh my God, you guys need a power forward that can stretch you forward. It's like, you know what? Win 20 games before we start worrying about this stuff.

To me, it speaks more of the decade they've had where now you have this other, you just had these four lottery picks that make no sense together. Right. If Cade, Ivy Thompson and, and now,

well, yeah, Dern, I guess they traded for, but then, then you take Holland today and it's like, well, that's not your foundation for a winning team.

What would you have done though? Would you have looked at the roster and said, even though we completely agree on the Cade thing, needing spacing, do you, do you go, okay, well,

cool. Now I have to take a shooter way higher. I would have traded back. Cause I think Klingon had more value than anybody at five or six. And I would have tried to trade back. And the, what's weird is once they get on the clock, these teams always seem like,

wow, you know, it's so fast. And pretty, we pretty much knew. I thought there was a chance Klingon could go to three with Houston because just from a trade possibility, but we pretty much knew

the top four was the heavy favorite to be the top four, like on FanDuel, the way it went with Rizashe, Saar, Shepard, Castle. So they had to know that was the most likely scenario and at five. So they must have just loved Ron Holland.

But to me, it's... I don't really understand how that helps Cade. No, but you never know with Charlotte. Now Cade's in just purgatory. I don't know if Charlotte would have taken another wing with Miller and the fact that LaMelo's going to have the ball as much as he is.

And then it's Holland, not enough spacing. And then to Charlotte think, well, we can't move down because we like salon so much. And they're worried that San Antonio is going to take them at eight. So maybe San Antonio is more willing to move the pick because they wanted to draft him just to have,

but I don't know. I don't know. So Memphis takes Edie at nine. Why can't they move up from nine to five and get clinging and give Detroit stuff? See, this is a great question. I love that you asked this because there was a team this week that was like, Edie at nine. Why can't they move up from nine to five and get clinging and give Detroit stuff? See, this is a great question. I love that you asked this because there was a team this week that was like,

Memphis is just going to look at the Excel spreadsheet and they're going to take Edie. I was like, come on, dude. And I sent the guy a text. See, they had it marked down. I was like, wow, you kind of nailed that one. Um, I have to imagine as much as everybody talks about Memphis being involved in all these different things, what was really the price to get in front of Portland where that had to be Klingon's floor? What was the price to get up to sixth there? Or was Charlotte so in love with Salon?

But if you're Detroit, don't you feel like Ron Holland's probably there at nine? You have to love him so much that you can't risk it. That over the next four picks, he's not going to be there. I just, I would have traded him back in that set. All right. But say they have Holland rated like the third best player. Obviously they did. Right.

Can you imagine how sick you would feel? Then somebody else is moving up and then they say Chicago goes like, let's move up two spots. Yeah, but come on. We both know this draft, at least from the standpoint of nobody could have had Holland. This draft wasn't good enough to be that attached to really anybody,

I don't think. It's like, oh, we didn't get Ron Holland. We're fine. We'll get somebody else. This isn't the 2003 draft where it's like wade to cayman massive drop off we can't risk it you know this is like we'll be fine you're right but i don't think that's human nature i think they spent the entire year they fall in love about this they fall you fall in love with somebody and then you start everybody

started agreeing in the room and it's going to be exciting. Like you would have thought the Atlanta Hawks front office drafted Wemby. Like they had that shot of them freaking out, grabbing each other. And I was like, I was like, I hope this works out for her. This video is going to live in infamy. What would your strategy be for the draft room if you ran a team? How many people would be in there? Would you allow the video of everybody celebrating?

Would it just be like three people? You're a pretty private guy. You're not like a big numbers guy. It's just like it'd just be you, Cerruti, and Kyle, and that's it. I mean, me being by myself would be pretty on brand. Maybe one of the Kings. Maybe the fourth defenseman on the LA Kings,

just the four of you guys chris long shows up halfway through yeah i'd be like oh you guys already picked my bad dude what would you do it'd be you and your dad i would not have the giant room because if if the pick sucks then that video lives on forever right everybody high-fiving it's like remember remember we took that guy who we took Johnny Davis, who's now out of the league, and there I am high-fiving Ted Leonsis' son?

This sucks. Now I'm just thinking of how funny it would have been if there was just general indifference, like the Wizards draft room. It's Winger just going like, eh. Just awkward.

Just people looking at each other. Don't celebrate. What should we do? Can you go get me a coffee? The Portland, other don't celebrate what should we do can you go get me a coffee um at the portland what happens with their center position now because they're gonna have eight and rob williams and and well rob is always hurt so that problem so maybe they just factored that in they're like rob's a bonus if he could play 20 games see I thought that was a weird pick. I think the motivation behind the Rob acquisition tells you that they still wanted to pair a big defensive anchor to make it easier for Aiton.

Or now look, if somebody's going to go small, now Aiton has something. The great thing about Aiton when he first came out was that he could switch onto these smaller players. And you were thinking like, this is going to be one of those guys. Like, we were talking about him in 21. You're thinking, this is a big that you don't have to take off the floor. Like, there's a bunch of these bigs you get worried about and he's picking roles and he's not going to be that. But I just don't know that he's as motivated to be the player that he should be considering his physical gifts.

But it might... The Knicks just took your French guy. Oh, dude, Dadier. I don't know. Do they trade bridges? That's it. Do they cancel the bridges trade? They don't need them.

Is it too late? Have they done the paperwork on that one? You know, ESPN tried this new thing this year with the positions where they put W for wing next to the guys. Yeah. I would have liked to have at least been consulted and maybe have them run it by us. It's too confusing to me.

I see the W and I don't know what it is. It's always been guard, forward, center. Maybe they should make it wing. I don't know. I don't love it. Do you like that pick for them? They got him and they got the Miami three-point shooter, the Knicks on 24 and 25.

I really like Daddy A. I couldn't believe that he was... I thought we would on 24 and 25. I really liked Adier. I couldn't believe that he was... I thought we would be surprised and see him go a little bit higher. The competition for him wasn't as good considering the league that he was playing in. And there's not a huge

sample size on these numbers because he's playing 15 minutes a game. But when you look at the possessions and the way synergy does it it's one of the biggest things that i do before every draft is like look at his tendencies and then look at his points per shot and then look at like where he is percent wise amongst other players right that you're comparing him to and he spots up 37 of the time transition 14 of the time off ball cuts 11 of the time pick and roll ball handling eight percent of the time, transition 14% of the time, off-ball cuts 11% of the time, pick-and-roll ball handling 8% of the time, offensive rebound 7% of the time, ice only 6% of the time.

But every one of those basically graded out as very good or excellent, except for transition, which is a little surprising considering how athletic he is. You can kind of do, well, I'm not saying with the Knicks next year, he's probably barely, like Tibbs isn't going to exactly run him out there and play him a ton. But the foundation of what you saw, you went, there's not this glaring weakness. It seems like they used him in a bunch of different ways and he excelled in all of them.

And the fact that he was that good in the pick and roll ball handling stuff, which was still a small part of his offense, just shows you like, because you keep watching him going, all right. Like these shots are going in towards the end of the season. Oh wait. Now he's, now he's running some high ball screen and he's seeing some things. So I was, people were talking about him a lot the last few weeks. You love the French. You're the most pro French you've ever been. Hey man, the PR has been bad on the French for about. You might have to bang out some French history books

this summer. I don't know. Who's left? Look, without them, we're all eating black gravy and crumpets. Kyle says the Knicks are trading the Miami three-point shooter to Washington. Washington's

loading up. I have two more things I really liked. Johnny Furphy's still available. The Sixers got Jared McCain, who, as you know, is my favorite outside the top 10 guy in the draft and somebody I watched for a couple years here in LA. And I just love that kid.

I know he's going to be good. It's just like, it's a home run pick. I'm just telling you now. Feel free to cut this clip out and try to haunt it with me forever. Sell us on it. The guy went to Centennial in LA and all he did was play in big games and his team just always beat the other teams. Really until last year's senior year at Harbor West, like finally beat them.

But just your classic, incredible like charisma, leader, personality, better in the last four minutes of games, makes the biggest shot with a minute left, just like a fucking gamer and a great guy. And then he went to Duke, struggled for a month. And then as the season went on,

became the best part of the team by the end of the year. And I just think that's like the perfect guy for Philly. Like that guy would definitely play for them next year. And there'll be one out of every 10 games that he'll look like shit. But I'm telling you that guy, he has,

and then you have him and Maxie as your backcourt. It's like the all time feel good personality backcourt. Those are like two great guys. So we'll see what else happens. There's a lot of Paul George buzz, which we didn't even talk about yet. With the, it just seems like he's leaving the Clippers now. We did a lot on this on Sunday, but it really seems like it's headed that way now.

And if you're Philly, like they got a rotation guy, they're going to spend a bunch of cap on Paul George, potentially OGs out the window, even since we did part one, the next signed OG. Um, but this is somebody that I think could play for them. So did you study him at all or no? Yeah, I did. And I think it's beyond the numbers with him. It's this composure, this trust, and you watch him and he's so comfortable in the biggest moments. And I think the best part is that you can play him on and off the ball. I don't know though, they're going to be closing games with he and Maxie right away.

No, I'm not, that won't be next year, but that he'll be in the mix for them. He's a, the Trent Dilfer grabbed the car keys thing. I think he's a grab the car keys guy. He's just the kind of guy that,

you know, I thought they needed a guy who could play right away. I thought Miami did. And I thought the Knicks did. And it was interesting all All in a row, McCain and Connects were available there for basically 13 on.

13, Sacramento got Carter. So they're basically, even though it didn't work out with Mitchell, I guess he just slides into that Mitchell spot as like that energy defensive, just kind of throw him out

and have him go nuts. He looks like a kid that I think I already said this, so I'll just so many tricks nuts he he looks like a kid that i think i already said this so i'll just say it again but he looks like somebody whose dad was in the nba and spent years in the driveway trying to figure out how to score on his dad yeah and that has molded him into this now i don't know with sacramento if he's going to get the offensive opportunities but i feel like the complete version of him is still more offensively advanced than what mitchell was fun guy to have on a team that already has a bunch of scoring right yeah because i don't think you ever have to worry because the biggest reason why a lot of this stuff doesn't work out is the guy shows up and you're like oh this guy isn't even

that into it like he was just 6 10 yeah and now we have a problem. And Devin Carter is the complete opposite of that. They call them a great athlete. I know he tested really well and it's absurd that he averaged nine boards a game because of his standing reach and the wingspan is like 6'9 for a 6'3 guy. But I don't even know if it's his athleticism as much as it's just his want to. If you're under 6'4 and you average 9 rebounds a game in college and it's Division 1, I'm just impressed. I don't need to really know anything else about

what happened. It's just a lot of rebounds. We have big guys in the NBA who can't get to 8 rebounds a game. I like that pick. I thought at 15, Miami gets this year's possible Derek Lively, rim protector lob guy. And then at 16, Philly gets McCain.

And then at 17, Connect falls to the Lakers. And it's like, I can't think of a better pick for them. They had to have been. They showed the war room. And it was one of the war room videos where it was like, oh, those guys are actually euphoric. They can't believe this guy fell to them at number 17. He's going to immediately be able to play for them. He's kind of exactly what they needed from the draft,

like another shooter and a little bit of a heat check guy, and he's going to have a chip on his shoulder now because he had to sit there for an hour as all these other guys got taken. But I thought that was incredible by them. The teams hate old guys. They just do. And I know I remember all the years of Vytel on the draft.

He just losing his mind being like, how is Keith Bogan still there? And the numbers do back it up. Like if you want to search for this stuff and I've looked at it when you start projecting out yeah you really don't want to be drafting guys 23 24 years old despite what the wesley johnson corollary but but if yeah but if you're sitting there at at the lakers pick and you have a better chance especially with this window with lebron and you need somebody to play next year and not be scared with LeBron and AD. Because they basically, they missed this a year ago with Jaquez, where he's somebody that I think could have played for them. And they went with the young point guard instead. So this year,

they got somebody who could play right away. And I think he's going to play. Why do you think he fell? I mean, people were thinking he could go to Charlotte at six. It was the most dramatic fall of the draft. Yeah. There was a lot of people telling me the range was probably seven to 10 and that like his, his gap was very narrow. Giovanni brought it up and I thought it was great on the broadcast. He, he's, it was funny because he was like this emotional sort of story moment in the draft and Giovanni's going on TV and you could tell like none of it was scripted. He's going, I have GMs texting me being like, what's wrong? What's wrong? And remember

now too, like teams have way more Paul Pierce 1998. What's wrong? What happened? What's right? What's this guy hiding? Yeah. And Giovanni was like, there isn't anything. And there is more access to the medicals now with the new rules that they have. Now they don't just blindly give every medical to

every single team. So it might have been kind of funny for some of the teams, maybe still thinking about connect. Maybe they didn't have access to it because I think they do it kind of in a tiered way, but I'd still say overall, the access is just better with some of the new rules that they've implemented. So when I think about connect,

I don't think you can look at his background, his story, but he's another one of those guys who just grew really late. He grew five inches since his senior year in high school. So that's why I didn't have offers out of high school. That's why in JUCO, you're like, okay. And then you go to Northern Colorado. It's like, all right, now you're in the SEC and he wins player of the year.

And he was a force. I thought he was awesome. Some of those big games built at the end of the year. And we're not talking about just some white guy you're going to stick in the corner either. He's a shot creator. It would have been fun if the Spurs took him. Great pick for

the Lakers. I thought it would have been hilarious if they took Bronny at 17 over Connect. It just would have been amazing. Imagine if they asked LeBron, like, hey, you want to just do this? We were thinking about just taking your kid. He'd be like, Connect's still on the board. Are you nuts?

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Okay, some notes I had from the telecast. Gavoni called Alex Saar a unicorn big man? I'm just going to gently push back on that. Gently tell me how. I just think going to gently push back on that. Gently tell me how. I just think unicorn to me, it's like, I've never seen anything like this before. And we should just be a little more careful with the phrase. I'll do respect to Gaboni. I think he does a good job and I read everything he writes.

But I just don't want us to get too comfortable with the word unicorn. To me, unicorn is like Christaps Porzingis, Ricky Ayer. What the fuck is this? It's Giannis as a point guard, you know, growing from six, nine to seven feet with like his giant fucking plastic man body and hands being like, what the fuck is this? You know, let's just, let's not, let's not go crazy with a seven foot one guy who can protect the rim and shoot threes. I've seen that before. He's not a unicorn. I would agree that unicorns at that size, it's usually something where you, like Durant's a unicorn. Wemba Nyama's a unicorn. Durant is a unicorn. Yeah. I saw. I've never seen a scoring forward like Kevin Durant in my life before. This is a unicorn. And by the way,

I haven't seen it since he was in the draft. Right. If there's any glimpses where you're like, did we just take a bigger Bismack Biambo? Like you can't be called a unicorn. Wemba Nyama. Unicorn. Totally good. Totally good with throwing a unicorn for Wemba Nyama.

All right. Next thing I had written down. That Houston team is just fun on paper. I just wrote down all the names. I just stared at it. Van Vliet, Jalen Green, Shepard, Dylan Brooks, Thompson, Eason, who comes back, Whitmore, Jabari,

Shangoon, and Steven Adams. What a fun roster. Like, why are they so desperate to try to trade for Kevin Durant? Like, just ride this roster out. Let these guys get good together. I think they're in a great spot to settle down Houston. Like this, this worked out really,

really nice for you. And Shepard will be really fun for them. Great Van Vliet insurance. They'll have a nice, if Shepard's really ready right away, they can, don't they have that team option on Van Vliet, right?

They can, can't they get out of that after a second year? I think they can, or they can double down on it thought that's what it was yeah i just want to double check too because it's like 125 for three years oh yeah jock landau i forgot about him four-year deal so yeah i'll look up van blee but i think you're right about that that there's an earlier option because it was one of those deals with the way it was reported you're like what they had to pay him that much, and they don't have any control over it.

The only thing I don't love for Shepard is there's a lot of clear-out guys on this team. And I wonder if he'll get, like if he had gone to the Spurs, I thought that would have been an amazing fit for him. Houston, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure there's just a slew of shots there.

Would you say? Yeah, there's an out after the second year for Van Cleet. Club option, $45 million. You know what it might mean, though? It might mean that Shepard's going to have a lot of open looks. Oh. Minnesota just took Terrence Shannon Jr. 27th.

That's another old guy. My guy's still on the board, Shireman, who I know the Celtics won't actually take. But the same thing with Connect. You talk to teams about Terrence Shannon and they go, well, he's... What does he turn? 24. He turns 24 in July. Yeah.

He's going to be a 24-year-old summer leaguer. Next thing I wrote down, Bill is calling Steph Castle a bigger Drew Holiday. Because Bill doesn't say stuff like that. So if he says it, like he really means it and he put thought into it. And when he said that, first of all, I was like, I'm super jealous. I wish I thought of that. And then he said that, I thought, first of all,

I was like, I'm super jealous. I wish I thought of that. And then second, it's like, if he's a bigger Drew Holiday, that's going to be the best pick in the draft. And I really wonder if we're just going to look back at this draft and be like, Atlanta should have just taken Castle.

What were they doing? Same way, like we looked at that Oladipo draft in 2013. It's like, nah, you can't go for it. And then it's like, you know what I mean? You should just take an Oladipo. He's the safest bet on the board. I think Castle was the safest bet

out of the top seven guys to be good. Yeah, I think other teams would argue Reed, but I can understand the arguments against it for it. Well, but Atlanta didn't need Reed is the problem. I have no issue with that. I have no issue with that, you saying about Castle. It's totally possible.

And Hurley, whether he was on the broadcast tonight or on the podcast with me or wherever he's been, cause he's been in a lot of places, just look, you're going to sell your guys a little bit for the lottery, but just raving about him. And the stuff that I saw, especially when I went in person and watching it up close,

I just, I couldn't believe how invested, how competitive he was. He still cared about off ball defense up 40 against Stetson. Like I said, it's great times because I just couldn't believe watching it. Like I'm a few rows back going, look at this guy. Like he's this into it the whole time.

I would say, though, based on when Drew was coming out at UCLA, the pace and understanding of running an offense where Drew was at at this stage versus where Castle is, I wouldn't say those are close. Yeah, but I think Castle ends up being a wing, right? Drew, we always felt like he's a guard. Maybe he could be a point guard, but he'll be a guard. Castle, I would assume, is a wing. Next thing I wrote down, Gavone said Saloon was, quote,

his skill level is a work in progress. I thought that was accurate, and you probably agreed. That was like the version probably agreed. That was the version of intriguing. How's the skill level? It's a work in progress. It sounded super positive. If anyone ever asked you about me, how's your

solo been with you guys? He's a work in progress. That's worse than intriguing. I guess that I have the job. That means it's better than I'm intriguing. OKC trades five second rounders to the Knicks for the 26th pick, Dylan Jones. That's fun. Oh, God. Denver took Ryan Dunn.

Oh, my Lord. We should have predicted that pick. So just so you're aware the way people talk about Ryan Dunn's defense is like just they cannot believe how good he is defensively and maybe

the impressive defense is matched only by how bad his offense is yeah but six foot six is matched only by... How bad his offense is? Yeah. But 6'6", and basically American thigh ball would be what you hope for with this? As you know, I love when...

If I'm in the late 20s and I can get somebody who has an elite skill, I'm pumped. Wait, what's the OKC trade? It's five second round picks for the number 26 pick. Oh, so that's to Washington, right? Yeah.

Okay, sure. We had like 23 of them. Another thing I wrote down. Oh, did we talk about E.D. on Memphis enough? No, not at all. Go. Oh, did we talk about Edie on Memphis enough? No, not at all. Go.

Yeah, I'm sure Ja's not doing backflips because it's just this big guy that's going to be in his way. But it goes back to what we've been saying all week. It's like, I still, that guy's a rotation player to me.

You can bring him in for two eight-minute stretches in both halves and the other team's like, fuck, they brought Edie in. It's just a pain in both halves. And the other teams like fuck, they brought Edie in. It's just a pain in the ass. There's going to be nights and teams that he just torches. And I'm a huge fan.

And I've been talking about it all week, but I just think he's worst case scenario, a 15 to 20 minutes a game guy. Who's, you know, almost like in football where it's like, Oh, we already have a tight end.

Why didn't you have another tight end? It's good. Cause now we can do this three tight end shit and it'll be super cool can't do it all the time but sometimes and uh now it says done is going to the suns not denver too bad but yeah i just big wing is durant on the move now maybe this was the gateway to a Durant trade. But anyway, I just like the Memphis team that I think we both think is going to be pretty good. He's definitely a rotation guy, and I like everybody else in the rotation,

and I'm going to be like him. Maybe they just got so sick of all their bigs being hurt, they were like, let's get one that'll never get hurt. I think he will clearly play in the league a long time yeah i actually think that he will but look at post-up numbers and nobody does it anymore and i remember i went back and looked at like the last guy that had huge number i think al jefferson led the league with like 19 post-ups yeah like you made all all NBA one year. Yeah, you can sort through all that stuff and then look at like how many players

are averaging more than six post-ups a game in today's NBA. And it's not even, I don't even think it's 10 players. So even if he's really good at it and he gets the other team in a foul trouble, that means you're taking the ball out of all these other guys' hands

in the three-point part of it. And the other part with Ja, I don't really understand why you'd want ed in there like dragging more defense in i'd like a five out option for for jaw and i i but look they didn't want to keep valentine's even though he was the better player they wanted a defensive anchor like adams and then he gets hurt and they flip that to Houston. I like the idea of him and Triple J together. I want to see it. Maybe it'll be a disaster. By the way, the USC kid just went to Utah. Danny. That was the next thing I had written down.

Danny with pedigree guys. He took Cody Williams at 10 who some people thought was the best high school player last year and then gets Collier at 29 who was the thought was the best high school player last year and then gets collier 29 who was the number one ranked guy heading into uh his senior year in high school so a couple more pedigree guys for danny unless they move them but i don't know why you would take like this specialty player like ed9 even in a bad draft who knows could end up being wrong but there was something that i was watching one of the previous shows and I couldn't believe it when it was said. It was like ZD had, excuse me, Zach Eadie,

had zero transition points all season long. And I went, there's no way, there's no way that's true, considering all the minutes that he's played. And it was almost like presenting him as somebody who can't keep running. I'm like, the best thing about Eadie is that his energy doesn't really fall off. And he plays that many minutes.

He takes that kind of a beating and he's still playing the entire time and putting up these kinds of numbers. I looked it up on synergies. It's not true. He has, I'm not telling you he's got a ton of transition buckets, but he has, there are,

he has some in there. So that was making the rounds. Cause I, as soon as I saw it, I went, there's no way there's no way. And Chicago gets Bezelis who is

from the Chicago area. So it was an emotional time for the family. How confused are people about that? Lithuanian GM. This guy's from Lake Forest? Huh? Right. His name was like Mike Bays. If you watch Bezelis for Bulls fans, if you just watch the clips, you will not believe that he landed there.

It's a good value at 11. I have no idea if he's going to be good. We've seen versions of this guy fail in different drafts, right? Like the 6'8", 6'9", 6'10", forward, who's like, he can't shoot yet, but he's a crafty offensive player, and it just never happens. I was thinking that Korolev on the Clippers was one of my favorites of those. It's like, oh man, when you see him, he's got size, he's a slasher, he can shoot. And then you watch him, you're like, this guy sucks. Yeah, a lot of times this guy fails. Franz was the opposite. Franz made it. And then the only other one was OKC took Topic at 12, which passing on Connect, which I got to say I was surprised. I thought Connect seemed very Sam Presti-ish to me,

but I'm never shooting on a Presti pick. No, I just thought like, because they're pretty close to winning a title and that's somebody you can stick in a corner and make some threes or run some plays for. But it just feels like they were pushing this draft off and they didn't, you know, they didn't want to use cap space on it, basically.

Topic is good, okay? Some are calling him the Serbian giddy. He's 19 in August. So he's another really young guy, which I think would be more along the lines of what Presti wants to do. If he doesn't suffer the ACL tear in May, he's probably going up a few spots higher. He's in the seven and nine ranch probably.

But the more you watch him, the more you like him. He's just good. And the shooting is clearly an issue because he's had 28 games in the last three years in the EuroLeague and the Adriatic League where it's also called the Admiral

Bet ABA. He's 25% from three in those 28 games, but with Mega, he shot it a lot better. He's 87% in all these games from the free throw line, but his passing really is that good. And the cool thing, again, kind of in that Presti mold, the multiple guys, can you have the ball in your hands and you can play off of the ball. And despite his passing and running the pick

and roll and all this stuff, that's really good with him and all the numbers for him, like it's basically 40% of the possessions were out of pick and roll ball handler and they were off the charts numbers. He was really good off the ball and wasn't running back to it. Like when I watched Collier play, like when he didn't have the ball, he was almost annoyed. Right?

And that makes sense based on Presti's multiple guys. That's your least favorite basketball quality, I think. Off-ball disinterest? I hate think. Off-ball disinterest? I hate it. Off-ball disdain. And I also hated playing with those guys back in the day. It's like, you know, some of us can have the ball too in this position, yeah.

Well, I don't even care if you... But if you're not ever doing anything off of the ball... Yeah, do stuff. Move around. Switch the corners. Yeah. Do stuff. Move around. Make the team think shit's going to happen. One other thing with Topich. It was one of those things that never occurred to me. OKC was going to take him and then it made so much sense when they did take him.

He's also 6'7". He's one of those like they just love. They love those dudes with size who have like these multi-skilled whatever. It just made a ton of sense. Well, the Celtics pick. You got it? You got any guesses? I mean, I was hoping for either Shireman or the Marquette Center.

Is it either of those? We don't know yet. This is it. This is the last pick. So the Bronny 10- one going in the first round, uh, everyone lost that bet. I lost,

I had, I had, uh, I recommended some bets. I hit one, I hit a McCain one, but I, one of the ones that I really liked was clinging to go top five with Edie to go top 15.

It was like plus one 25 and then clinging. I'm shocked. He fell out of the top five. I thought for sure somebody was going to trade up and grab him because of the value. I mean, there was a stretch where we thought he might go number one, but that was clearly not the case.

How'd you feel about Adam Silver's performance tonight? I think as I get older, I just enjoy it because he just seems like excited. He really does. He just loves it. He really seems like he's into it. They took my guy.

Furphy? No, they took Shireman. I've been calling for him for two months. I'm so excited. Wing, W. Lefty, crazy, Sam Houser, basically. This is great. I'm so glad we got this live on YouTube.

This is the guy I wanted. Look, he's got a mustache. They're showing the video now. He is a lights-out shooter. First team on Big East last year? No, he's a freaking shooter. The thing is, all they want are shooters, right? That's why it made sense because the whole concept of the team is we want everybody to be able to shoot from three.

That's Missoula's life goal. It's just to have all shooters. Well, great stuff. What a way to end the pod. I'm really just delighted. I might have to have a beer. I might have to have a Michelob Ultra. Is it too early to order one? You better make sure because I think the tax hit on this is

significant. Kyle's Drake May jersey showed up. The real one? Yeah, he got one on Fanatics, right? Kyle, was it... What'd you get? Was it a triple figures spending or did you get

the replica? It was a t-shirt jersey. I'm not... Well, you know what happened? You know what this is? This is... There's been some trauma from the Mac Jones experience. Or the Josh Gordon jersey? Well, you know what happened? You know what this is? This is... There's been some trauma from the Mac Jones experience. Or the Josh Gordon jersey.

And Cam Newton and Josh Gordon. Order the real one with stitching. Summer bonus. I'll Venmo you the money. We can't have you walking around. Can I split? I'm going to split that with you, Rosilla. Let's get him...

Some should say you should pay 60-40. Yeah, get the fancy one. It should be north of $200. We can't have you if Drake May is going to be the face of the franchise walking around in a t-shirt jersey. You can't be at the mall smoking cigarettes outside. But listen, Kyle was hurt. Kyle had some misfires.

I think there might be an Antonio Brown jersey in his closet somewhere. I want to be a part of this investment. Let's of this investment. Let's make this investment right because Drake May deserves it. The only problem with the real, the real, real jerseys is they're pretty like thick and heavy

and they're kind of like fire retardant suits. You know, like some of the cheaper jerseys are actually more fun to watch. What was the last jersey you bought? Do you remember? Wow. Now, there was a thing known a long, long time ago that if you showed up to my place late night gathering of the dudes, that there were enough jerseys for everybody to throw a jersey on. And there was all these crazy obscure ones. Oh, you had like a pile of jerseys? Yeah.

So there's been this pile of jerseys I've moved since Vermont. There's a Moses ABA one. A Moses ABA one? Yeah, St. Louis Spirits one. Oh, my God. And the armpit cut out of it is like down to your waist. So it's not the hottest thing you could ever wear. I have a UMass Camby one that I did buy

when they made the Final Four run in 96. I think I got it from the Sports Authority. It's a great one. Yeah. So that one doesn't fit, but it doesn't stop me from putting it on. I think the last thing I grabbed was, I did grab an LSU one a couple years ago

just because it was so, but I haven't, you know, what am I going to do? Wear it out? Although I could. I had a lot of jerseys back in the day, and it's funny, every time you move, they just end up in a box.

I gave a couple to Kyle. I gave Kyle my Irving Fryer $250 Pats jersey. Thought that was a good one. I loved Irving Fryer. It was like one of those, the first batches. It's a good one to love. Yeah. The worst, I think I've told you this, but my worst one, the one that really burned me was when the Pats got Tony Simmons at receiver. They drafted him in the second round. And I was so

excited that they had a receiver named Simmons. And I was like in my 20s. I was like, this is it, me and Tony. And I drove to Foxborough, went to the pro shop and spent like $190 on the Tony Simmons real jersey. And by the way, I did not have money at the time. You didn't have to be in Foxborough and you drove there? I drove to the Patriots pro shop to buy a Tony Simmons jersey. No, I soloed. And I probably listened to WEI and I probably wasn't working. I probably didn't have that many hours going on from a work standpoint.

Yeah, drove all the way down. Tony Simmons. And then his career just could not have gone worse. I think he was out of the league in two or three years. But think how great, because there's these different things. I have a cowboy up long sleeve tee from 04 it's 20 years old now and i kept almost throwing it away almost throwing it away and i'm like i'm gonna break this out one night now it's probably too old for the joke to even be relevant

like it would have been funny or seven to ten years later but there's a bunch of jerseys that i just can't i think i had an ed coda one one that I saw at Marshalls when I was like 23. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, I went, I'm just going to get this. But it wasn't like I would ever really, I might wear it at the pool or something. And I knew I looked like an asshole. But you were more of like probably a basketball jersey guy, right? Because you could show off the guns.

I was more like a football hockey jersey guy. Like I had a Neely jersey. I didn't even know how long i had it it had to have been at least 12 years like dating back to like 87 88 range and had that all the way through you know until there were like cigarette burns on it and all kinds of awful shit just because you were going to pats games like you were going and you're putting on your uniform like i i totally understand it's a very normal thing to do for NFL games, especially just throw everybody.

Going to Pat's games and not having a good time. Almost every time going to Pat's games, the worst stadium, you know, in America. Um, and just, they would probably lose,

you know, most of the games you went to. It wasn't great. No, but everybody was friendly. At least everybody's drinking. I remember, you know, most of the games you went to wasn't great. But everybody was friendly at least. Everybody's drinking. I remember, I think I wrote about this once.

My buddy Jeff and I went to a Pats Denver game during the LA era, during when it was early Parcells, but the Pats hadn't really turned it around yet. And like right before the game started, the kid right behind us threw up like exorcist style and just leaned over and threw up. But so it was like a spilled soda, but it was puke. And then it just slowly dripped down underneath our feet during the next three hours as the game

was going on, as the Pats were getting killed by the Broncos. It was one of those, like that, those are the people's memories of the old Foxborough Stadium. Everybody has stories like that. I went one time, I went to a Jets game and it was awful. It was just awful because everybody was just yelling

and we had somebody else's tickets and then there's just never enough room. The bench seating doesn't work. Somebody shows up and they have the seat but everybody's already kind of cozied up then everybody gets mad and then some lady started yelling at me and my friend she's like you're not even season ticket holders like i know whose tickets you have and you're like well what are you paid for eight fucking games like congrats you want to name a street

after you oh charles barkley i have an auburn charles barkley jersey that i have been known to wear in the past that That's a really good one. It's great. I ordered that, I think, when I was like 30. Well, we're getting Kyle a really nice Drake May jersey. Yeah, 60-40 split. What's the toughest item that a member of the opposite sex stole from your room and wore home and said they were going to give it back to you and never did? There's a couple things, but I would say there's one in particular. It was a UVM lax zip up and the girl was like, I'm stealing this.

She's like, I'm stealing this. And I was like, ah, good one. She's like, no, I'm stealing this. I was like, no, that's hilarious. And then she stole it. And I actually never saw her again. I had a Red Sox double XL sweatshirt that I bought my sophomore year in college

because it was freezing and I needed a sweatshirt and they didn't have an XL and I was just like, just give me that one. And I had it for years and it was my favorite sweatshirt. And then in the mid-90s,

somebody wore it and I was like, I know I'm not getting this back, but it was, you know, you'd be chivalrous and it's just, everyone has one of those. I don't know that I've got away. Hey, that blouse. I'm going to just throw this over the top of what I'm wearing now. The walk home, the sweatpants. Can I have those? Uh, all right. And it's officially time to end this, uh, this YouTube trip. Thanks to, uh to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti, as always. Thanks to a pretty weird and goofy NBA draft.

So we're not doing a Sunday pod. The next time you and I all pod is well after free agency. It'll be like a week from now. But you're doing your pod Friday morning. Yeah. The Russillo podcast. And then I'm going to come back on my podcast on Sunday. Russillo, enjoy the rest of the week.

Great podding with you. Yeah, today was a lot of fun. Thanks. Feel it twipping On the wayside I'm a bruised soul I never was And I don't have to Ever say