The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: The NBA Trade Deadline Was a Dud With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

In Part 2 of our NBA trade deadline special, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo as the deadline closed to discuss some of the other small moves that went down, like P.J. Washington to the Mavs and Jaden Springer to the Celtics (1:09). There's also talk of some of the teams that did nothing, like the Warriors (20:40), Lakers (26:54), and Magic (42:02). Plus, they address this deadline being a dud and how to fix it (56:10). Finally, he closes it out with Million-Dollar Picks for the Super Bowl (1:09:58). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, part two of the trade deadline extravaganza. It was kind of a dud. Spoiler alert. 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 at all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year.

I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff. It's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly.

Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS to download America's number one sports book. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-Help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus

and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have

beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that are when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired, your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer

with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. We launched a couple of YouTube channels that has a lot of content from our podcast. We have a Ringer NBA channel now.

We have a Ringer NFL channel now. And you can check out youtube.com slash Bill Simmons if you want clips, full podcast from this video, some walk and talk shorts. I might do one later today, actually. If you missed part one, Ryan Russo and I broke down all the trades leading up to about two hours for the deadline. And part two, we did as the deadline was happening. And boy, was it not exciting.

But we actually spent more time talking about the teams that didn't do anything and why did they not do anything. So that's next. First, our friends from ProJet. All right, we're taping this. It is 11.58 Pacific time. The trade deadline ends in 10 minutes. Ryan Rosillo is here. We did part one a little earlier today.

Part two is right now. No big trades yet, Rosillo. We were on call. A little disappointing, but Wojnarowski is tweeting that Atlanta is keeping DeJounte Murray. It makes no sense for me that they're just not going to do anything. I don't really fully understand that. It doesn't make sense to me that Golden State wouldn't do anything. The Lakers feels like they have to

do something. It's a little minor, but what would be the most shocking team for you not to do something? Unless this is done, the Thunder not adding a big guy to the rotation because even though, you know, as we talked about in part one, it's hard for me to buy in if I've never really seen anything with that group playoff

success, we can be surprised. So it's not an automatic dismissal, but it just felt like, you know, this is a really good team that maybe has a chance. Ball breaks their way and injury in the playoffs. Usually we get two or three significant ones and I just think that they're really good and it would be awesome to have just another big option, depending on a matchup in the West and considering all the resources they

have, the, the surplus of things, but it felt like there weren't as many big men. Like for years, we've always felt like, Oh, you can just go grab a big man.

And you know what? Look, it could be a buyout thing. I can't give you the perfect name that, that solves all their problems. You've mentioned Pearl there a little bit, but I just felt like, you know, why not just be in control of it unless they already know something on the buyout market? Well, the Bucks just traded Robin Lopez to the Kings, who is waiving him to save some luxury tax money for the Bucks. That might be who you're looking at. It's

like the Robin Lopez type of guys, which to me is not what I was expecting in OKC. Was there anything that made you want to run down? You're in Vegas. Anything that made you want to run down to the sports book and put down bets? Nothing yet, right? Do you want to sprinkle a little on the Knicks? Nothing?

Did you get any urges? I just had a hard time sleeping last night. I was like, I'm so excited. What tax move will happen? Which guy will be traded for two future seconds that don't convey in 2027 that'll save somebody tax money? I thought we might get just a barrage of 10 deals where they pop up and you're like, what? What is that? And then you have to kind of dig through and be like, okay, they're underneath the tax thing. And as we see the more punitive steps moving forward

with the new structure of how teams are penalized for going over the tax aprons. I thought there might be some maneuvering for that. This is a dud. This is as big of a dud as I can remember. You? Yeah. Well, you even think like the Warriors, if they're not going to try to make the team better, try to get off the tax because you're going to have like a $400 million roster this year. Your two games under 500. So at least try to do some deal to save you some money. And they're just not doing anything. Yeah, I thought for sure we'd have a couple wildcard trades. For instance, there was a little buzz that I didn't see reported.

But I do think teams were trying to pry Marcus Smart away from the Grizzlies, especially as they really go down the road of possibly being like a top six, top eight lottery team. And that was what I thought the Lakers non-Murray move would be, that there might be a Marcus Smart out of nowhere. And that's how they would use that 2029 first. And whether it's like D-low for Smart, but even that didn't happen.

So, you know, if you're the Grizzlies, I guess you hang on to smart and you think we'll come back next year with that lottery pick. But I do feel, I do wonder if somebody could have pried them away. The big trade that we had so far was the Mavericks getting P.J. Washington.

The thing is, you said the big trade we have, and I have no idea what you were going to say. Well, this is a big trade for us because Grant Williams lasted a solid 50 games with Luka Doncic and Dallas, and he gets moved to Charlotte with our guy, Seth Curry, who is married to beloved ringer podcast host, Callie Curry, who has to move again. I might have to have her back on the podcast. Yet another move.

They were super happy in Texas. But Seth's from Charlotte. They also got a 2027 first rounder. Here's what's interesting, Rosillo. They had to do a 2030 pick swap with San Antonio to get Grant Williams in the first place. So now they have traded Seth Curry, who was their kind of mid-level,

lower mid-level exception guy signing from last year, from last summer. Grant, who was their big kind of move for some money that they did the pick swap with, and a 27 first rounder for PJ Washington. So the question for me is, is PJ Washington worth all of your summer cap space, a 2030 first round pick swap and an unprotected 2027 first? Because I think that picks unprotected. That seems like a lot for somebody who's like never played an important game in his life. Yeah, I like PJ Washington.

But when you look at the profile of him, it's been getting worse. And it's been about a three or four year decline. The three point shooting has gone down four straight seasons. The metrics have gone down three straight seasons, like where he was from kind of his peak of three years ago. If you just want to look at the advanced stuff, you can make an argument. He's like half as productive as that,

but I've just always kind of liked him. Charlotte has been a mess. The 27 picks top two protected. So that's like, that's a real pick, you know, and who knows, you know,

these teams that don't want to protect these picks further out the receiving team basically looks at it like hey this is a chance of like we at least know on paper we have a chance of maybe getting this absurd pick say like a scenario where luca and 26 goes i've had it i want to go somewhere else um or a scenario like what happened with the grizzlies this year where it seemed like they were going to at least be a playoff team and now all of a sudden team's's a disaster. So top two means, hey, you're one disaster away from you might have a top five pick. Yeah, that's why you have like Brooklyn, you go, well, what are you supposed to do? And they go, even though we'd

love to try to figure this thing out on the fly, we're not in control of our own picks. We can't rebuild the way another team would do. The same way you look at those Clippers picks is they move those out. You know, I'm sure Presti and that group were hoping that Kawhi wasn't going to resign or that they don't add Harden or they wonder what's going to happen with this Paul George player option. Although it still feels like that's a deal that's more likely to get done because Clippers are like, we might as well just pay all of these guys because we don't own any of these picks moving forward. Yeah, they don't have 24. They don't have 26. They have a swap and there's a swap in there.

Right. So Casey was feeling great about that, but we're running out of time. Yeah. There's a lot of roulette to all this, but the simple answer on the PJ thing is, you know, his money isn't bad for,

for what he is. And you'd imagine he's a little bit more engaged. His life is going to be a lot easier with Luca. Although I think there's a Luca topic that we could spend an hour on, which I'm not even sure what the answer is. He's 15 and a half million. Then he's 14 million and 26 grants, a fully guaranteed 41 million remaining.

And here's the deal. Like, I don't know that grant vibe with everybody down there, which I know is shocking to you. Uh, I don't think that Grant vibed with everybody down there, which I know is shocking to you. I don't think it went awesome. I do not think it did either. And unfortunately for him, I think he lost his confidence a little bit.

And if Grant's playing without confidence, you're in trouble because confidence was two-thirds of the package. A little like Jordan Poole in Washington. A no confidence Jordan Poole is not the Jordan Poole you want. I still feel like Grant could be a valuable playoff guy on the right team. I just don't know how many of the right teams there are and who the match is for that. I can't believe he beat this bad for the rest. I just think it didn't work out.

It was a long stretch of not working out. But if he's not hitting those threes, like when he was hitting those threes with Boston, you're like, wow, this is great. And then you felt like he kind of played a couple different roles defensively. But I don't know if that diminished a bit. But I just can't find this.

I mean, his offense went sideways last year in the playoffs. So I just feel like Dallas gave up a lot. And I don't think there's a scenario where they're a top five team in the West. I mean, do you feel like, like they, they're a borderline playing team and they've spent a lot of capital to try to improve the team. And, you know, like right now they're eighth, they're 28 and 23. Um, they have a chance maybe to get to the fifth or sixth seed. I don't know if I see it.

And then there's the hammer of Luka might decide one day, eh, I want to go to LA. I want to go to Miami. I want to go to New York. Who knows? And then they're pretty strapped with those picks. I'll say this. Those late 2020s Dallas picks are picks I would want.

If you were going to say oh you know Denver Milwaukee Boston all the teams that have kind of traded picks way down the road Dallas would be

the most intriguing situation maybe because I think it's going to be really hard to put a good team around him Kyrie's had a normal season right this has been real quiet no drama from him

at all in their 28 and 23 but I don't mind some of this Charlotte has. But I don't mind some of this. Charlotte has new owners. I don't mind some of the stuff they did today. Dare I say like a fairly competent Charlotte run we're having? Because Brandon Miller versus Scoot, we were both team Scoot.

But Brandon Miller, you're doing that over again. We were wrong. Brandon Miller was the right pick. He's really good. And the trades they made today, they end up with Trey Mann. They end up with Curry, who is at least like a fun guy to have on the team.

He's a good chemistry guy. Maybe you can flip him in the next five minutes. They end up with Grant. They get some picks. So at least it's starting to make sense what they're doing. I think long-term, the question is, what is LaMelo Ball? Is this a stable franchise guy? Is this somebody on and off the court that can be the face of a

franchise? I think they have to figure that piece out. And I don't know the answers to that. Yeah. And they'll have a Miles Bridges decision where he could veto the trade with the way the contract worked. You knew that his trade market was going to be diminished just based on, I'd imagine there's a good chunk of teams that would go, hey, he's been a really good player, but we're not taking this dude on. Yeah, it's a crossover. Which is totally understandable, but it's not like he's not going to play in the league again. So I don't know what happens there because he's been really productive. He had 45 points, what, last night or two nights ago? I know everybody can score

in the league, the league we have now, especially with some of the defense stuff that you and I, most of our texting now is about terrible defensive calls and terrible refereeing situations and people lurching into somebody and somehow drawing fouls just seems to be like 80% of our correspondences. I don't know. I don't know. It sounds like you want to go on a rant here. The floor is yours. Well, I put something at the top of my trade value thing

because we ran the list on the ringer and I wrote like a few paragraphs at the top. And I just value defensive guys more than ever before. When I'm making that list, I really care about the ability to be able to defend and be a two-way person versus scoring. I think it's super easy to find scoring now. Miles Bridges getting 45 points in a game,

10 years ago, I'd be like, shit, Miles Bridges. But now it's like, all right, I feel like 50 guys in the league could have 45 points in there. I don't even know how to put it in a context anymore, especially with the rule stuff. So I just care way more about guys that can defend than I think I ever have. Because I don't know how you're supposed to defend anymore. And I know that a lot of people have done the deep dive on the free throw rate and the free throw rate tells you that your eyes are lying to you. And I would suggest that the free throw rate maybe not be the thing to look at

because it reminds me a bit of the block shot paper that came out at Sloan over a decade ago. And I don't know if you remember that when they had the Sloan conference and somebody came up with a paper that was basically like block shots, the most overrated thing, because if you look at block shots and the numbers and how many times the possession changes hands, it doesn't really change hands enough. So basically they keep the possession and all many times the possession changes hands, it doesn't really change hands enough. So basically they keep the possession and all you did was block. And my first instinct was, yeah, but it's not about the number of blocked shots as possessions. It's about the offensive player thinking about somebody who's blocking this many shots.

Like Wambayama right now. Right. Yeah. You just see players attack some of these shot blockers where they just give up on the attack. And so that's a defensive win because now you've basically discouraged the player from taking a high percentage shot because he knows I can't even get a clean look at it. And I think there's some, this is just me talking, some correlation between it's not the free throw rate spike. It's that you have a ton of terrible

fouls called where the offensive player initiates all of the contact. And we can get in debates about legal guarding position. And I know a lot of people that were just true to the rules of putting yourself in a compromising position on the Pat Bev, Steph Curry play that I tweeted out. And I was like, look, you've got me on Steph's positioning. But clearly the intent was Pat Bev to go into him and not really care about any kind of shot. So I don't want to debate that call all over again. But if you're asking the defensive player to avoid those, then you may not see it in a spike in free throws. You may just see it in guys turning into matadors out there going like, I just maybe have to hope to stay on his side, get out of his way as he lunges at me, get out of the way of his arms, and maybe get some sort of contest on the release.

We have a league now where I don't know what happened with creating all this extra space the last few years on the three-point shot where there's this gather and extra step that's legal. You have a league where you can't really contest three straight on anymore because if the other player lands forward on purpose, by the way, then you're reviewed for a flagrant when you didn't even do anything wrong, but the offensive player can rig it enough to make it look like that. You have the Damian Lillard play, which more and more players are doing, where you come around the screen at the top, and as the defensive player is working his way around the screen and trailing you,

you can just stop on the ball movement, and then he slams into you only because he's trying to catch up. He's not even trying to foul you. And then all the other stuff where you have these, I think, parallel drives of the paint. They're not even at the rim where if you're with him on his side and they veer into you and then get the shot up, it's always going to be free throws. So I don't know how much of this will carry over into the playoffs. I think, unfortunately, it's a different game in the playoffs,

but it just happens so much that you're right. To your point on the scoring numbers, there's nights where it's like all sorts of guys can get their buckets because everything is favoring the offense in a way that I don't know that we've ever seen collectively on all those things we've talked about. I compared it to a mosh pit. It's the mosh pit era of offense where you can just just like, if you watch people in a mosh pit, they'll just jump into somebody. They'll just jump sideways.

Like when you least expect it. And that is now being rewarded with offensive play and basketball. I can drive, I can drive. You could be next to me defending me and doing all the right things. And then I can mosh pit right into you. And so foul on you. And it's just not basketball.

It's not, you can't, you wouldn't be able to do this if we're playing in a playground in a high school gym. You wouldn't be able to do this at the elementary school level. Anything that's just not basketball, they got to figure out how to get rid of. But anyway, that's, you know, when I think about, yeah, that's it. We did it.

Oh, all right. So we have some trade stuff. The Mavericks. Oh my God. So the Mavericks, they pulled off the Rashawn Holmes, Daniel Gafford trade. They got Daniel Gafford,

who's better than Rashawn Holmes. I like that for them. Yeah. I've always liked Gafford. They have agreed, according to Mark Stein, to swap their own 2028 first round pick with Oklahoma City's own 2028 first round pick in order to attain a28 first round pick with Oklahoma City's own 2028 first round pick

in order to attain a 2024 first round pick from the Thunder. So basically, I guess they're sending that 2024 pick to the Thunder, from the Thunder to Washington. So now the Mavs have swaps in 28 and 30, and they don't have their picks in 27 and 29. So they are almost gutted. And they did it all for Daniel Gafford and PJ Washington. I don't know if I love it. I don't know if that's winning you the title. They may have had competition for PJ Washington though, because he was a name that was on the radar for other teams there. But the fact that you could only get that to be a top two protection. And as you mentioned, like Charlotte, hey, some nice things here. You still feel like with ownership, specifically that owner,

they're probably going to clean house again. Yeah. And just go, hey, let's do all of this over. Oh, the Celtics got somebody. Jaden Springer. Right? Is that who you're talking about? Whoa.

Does that mean the Sixers are tanking? I think they wanted one more young wing that potentially they could see what's going on. But they got, Tillman was the guy that they wanted. Let's take a break because we got to talk about the Lakers not doing anything.

So we're going to do that next. So Rossello, FanDuel and Rob Gronkowski are back with Kick of Destiny 2 as Rob looks to redeem himself after missing last year. He'll be kicking live right before kickoff. Fans will be able to pick whether he will make or miss

in the FanDuel Sportsbook app for their chance at a share of $10 million in bonus bets. Before we make our picks, what is your single favorite Rob Gronkowski playing moment? What's the one that jumps to your head? I think it was a Super Bowl where somehow he got lined up on the outside

against a linebacker one-on-one, and he and Brady already started celebrating for the snap. I loved he had, I thought, the best throw of Brady's career in the Denver game, which he ended up losing 2018 because

they didn't get the safety. It was like fourth and 17 and it was like, we only have one play here. It's got to be Gronk straight down the middle. And it was like the old video gameplay. And Brady just chucked it. It was perfect. Gronk had two guys on him, got popped, still made the catch,

kept the drive alive. They end up scoring, but they don't get the two-point. But I love that he got the touchdown, or he set up the touchdown drive for that last Rams game, too. Anyway, he's, I think, my second favorite Patriot of all time. Who's first? Brady. Brady Gronk.

I know. Brady's not a cool pick. It's like my favorite band's the Beatles, but Brady won six Super Bowls. He was the first good quarterback we ever had. Bledsoe was good, I guess. I'm not going to get in your case for picking Brady one. I mean, into your case for picking Brady one.

I mean, if you're not picking Brady one. Gronk's second. Anyway, I am going to pick that he makes this one. I think he's been practicing. I think he missed last year, so it's a make for me. What do you got? He told me he's staying in all week. Really?

To get ready? Yeah. Yeah, because of this kick. He told all of his brothers, all 17 of them, he's like, don't come to Vegas. It's about the kick.

It's not about us. We've had our run. And he said he worked on a lot of core stability this year because he felt like his plant foot was off.

So he's told me he's staying in. He's getting to bed early. A lot of leafy greens. I think he makes it. Inside info from Russillo.

Head to the FanDuel Sportsbook app to make your pick now. Watch the kick before kickoff live on Super Bowl Sunday. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me. I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right.

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

the NHL's best. They're all on Prime. Prime Monday night hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. 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. So now it is like 10 after 12. The Warriors, no trades for them, nothing. So you sound surprised by this. Like, what do you think, like, what would you have done? And I know I'm putting you on the spot here a little bit, but to say, hey, they should have done something, the follow-up is always, okay, like, what would you have kicked the tires on? Because I'm not telling you I have, like, a perfect answer.

I just think they have a very challenging set of assets. I don't have a perfect answer either, but think they have a very challenging set of assets. I don't have a perfect answer either. But I think if you're not going to do anything, and you're also not going to shed money for the tax, well, I guess they shed a little bit with the Corey Joseph trade. But that seems strange to me. Because there's under 500 at the 50 game mark.

And they have the Chris expiring and the Clay expiring. You would have thought that might have been some way to improve with those two expiring contracts or one of them. And they didn't do anything. So basically what they're telling us is we kind of like where we are. Chris Paul's coming back. Gary Payton's coming back. Kaminga's made a big jump over the last four or five weeks.

And we actually don't have to do anything. We're good. But I'm still a little surprised. I would have thought they would have done something. Maybe there was no trade. Maybe they tried. When I started thinking about it a couple of weeks ago, there was a rumor about Wiggins potentially to Dallas, but that meant Grant might be coming back. So then you go, all right, well, is there any way to get Josh Green in a deal? Okay. But it's like, well, not for Wiggins contract. So the Wiggins market was going to be limited because I just think more of the teams would go, Hey, even though Wiggins had that really nice run in 22, that's just not who he's been. He was disappointed in Minnesota. He's been a disappointment since then. I mean,

he completely looks out of it this season, you know it this season. So he came back the last couple of games, he had some good games. And I wonder if that maybe convinced them. I don't think it convinces them. I think the salary makes it really hard for him. Look at the Chris Paul thing. Okay. All right. It's this massive number, right? It's a $30 million trade chip. But if you're trading Chris Paul, if another team is trading for him, that's likely a good team because're trading Chris Paul, if another team is trading for him, that's likely a good team because we want Chris Paul in our rotation. Probably not our starting point guard, but what a great option to have. We could even close with him in a big playoff moment if he's back and healthy, right? Totally fair. But which team is then giving you something that

you want? If they're already good, they're not going to move another piece that they like for Chris Paul. Or you're just trying to cut Chris Paul for money. If they traded in Orlando and gotten Fultz's contract back and one more contract, so they're shipping out 30 and they're getting back 24 and they save 6 million, which leads to they save 50 million in luck stacks. But they didn't want to do stuff like that, which makes me think they might be good. The trade that I thought they might do, you asked me like, all right, what should they have done? If it had just been Wiggins straight up for Bruce Brown,

and Bruce Brown is an expiring with a team option, Toronto kept Bruce Brown today. And if I'm Toronto, would I have rolled the dice on Wiggins, change the scenery, put him in Canada? I got a Linick. I've got a little Canadian thing going. Maybe I pick up Corey Joseph on waivers from the Pacers if they waive him. But if you're Toronto and you had the chance to turn Bruce Brown into Wiggins, would you have done it? No. Okay. No. Look, the finals run was a fluke. You know, that, that season he made an all-star team, you know, he was, he was really good. And you thought, Hey, this makes sense. You know, he's decent enough to size guy to give you some options on the perimeter defensively. His life is going to be a lot easier with Steph and Clay and Draymond having the ball all the time. And it looked like that was maybe the turning point of his career. It's clearly the best he's been. But I know not everyone loves PER, but he was still a 15 that year. He's a 10.9 this year.

So you're like, okay, now he's going to figure it out with all this remaining money. So I just can't imagine there were many teams that were going to talk themselves into him making $27, $28, and $30.1 million the next three years. And that last one being a player option when he's, what, 31, 32 years old? So there's just not... If we're sitting here talking about it, you would have had to have taken back something if you were Golden State that probably... Maybe you stay within the 25% to lessen the tax bill a little bit, but it does feel like they're going, hey, get Chris Paul back. Last run with Clay, even though that's been bad, Kaminga's been better, Draymond's back. Although it was funny seeing Draymond when Pajemski got thrown to the ground by Claxton.

Draymond was the first player. He was like of those two players in the altercation. The third player on the scene was Draymond. And all Draymond did was kind of put his arm on Claxton and then go over to check on Pajemski. And I went, okay, all right. That's interesting. Anger management classes. Two months ago, you think he goes at Claxton a little bit harder.

You know, they keep talking about being a prideful group and all this stuff. It can seem stale and hey, this team isn't good. Like, what are you doing? I just felt like so many traits for them are really complicated and that was before kaminga turned into this this last month where so maybe that's the asset but maybe that was what changed it i think i would have i would have if i was toronto i think i would have done something with wiggins and bruce brown maybe tried to get

moody out of it or a protected pick or something but i i would have gambled on wiggins because at least with Wiggins, we've seen him do it. Now he hasn't done it. I don't know what happened to him last year. He sucked for most of this year, but it's not like he's 35. And I,

if you're a team like Toronto, I feel like you have to take swings like that. You know, otherwise you're paying Bruce Brown $25 million next year, which I'm not nuts about. And then the difference after that is one extra year with Wiggins. So I would have thought about it, but yeah. So Golden State does nothing. They may make a look at the Bruce Brown thing as like a one year, you know, the Bruce Brown thing

for the Pacers looking back on it. I was like, look, with a team option in the second year, they just say, let's use our cap space. And it ends up becoming an asset. The Pacers are really smart about it, but you know, maybe that's just the way Toronto looks at it for that one year, and they feel like he doesn't need the ball. He becomes an expiring. Yeah. I like Bruce Brown. I thought he was going to be a fun trade deadline guy.

Lakers did nothing. Chris Mannix tweeted, they were buffed all efforts to pry loose Austin Reeves. And D'Angelo Russell's recent revival had them reconsidering the value gained by packaging Russell on a 29 number one. I totally agree with that by the way. So they do nothing. And I actually think that's the right move. I'll be interested to see what LeBron thinks about it, but I actually, you know, they made the Western finals last year. They've had some injuries to at least some of

their role players, but the way Davis has played this year. They've had some injuries to at least some of their role players, but the way Davis has played this year, I don't think you need to go nuts and do some Hail Mary trade. But on the other hand, Davis has been so good. Maybe bet on some of the guys you drafted and you got in free agency. Gabe Benson will come back. I'm not against it.

Definitely, I like them not doing anything because I don't think anything was presented where you go, wait a minute, why would you turn that down? I think it was about flipping Austin Reeves for say Levine if Levine were healthy, but I think that's a LeBron motivated thing. I think LeBron wanting DeJounte Murray would have been a LeBron motivated thing, even though I think Murray is better. And, you know, Murray's owed a lot of money, but it's not like a gross contract, especially with the new landscape of the cap continuing to go up. Do you like what you've seen from Murray this season? No, I like him. I know he's not perfect.

You know, I can understand the warts, but it's not an ideal situation because Trey's so talented. He's going to have a ton of possessions. You can just see I finally dawn on me. As much as they've tried to stagger those two of the minutes and stuff, and it feels like they're playing more together now this year, especially in the fourth quarter, they just don't really play with each other. It feels like, hey,

if it's a gigante possession, then Trey's kind of over here, and then when it's a trade possession... It's a little like the Mitchell Garland thing that we had issues with, I'm with you. I agree. They don't mesh very well. It is what it is.

So the market for Murray, I don't know if it was the money. I don't know if it's what people have seen in Atlanta, but it felt like it wasn't really that competitive. And clearly Atlanta not moving him tells you, hey, we just come back this summer. And that circles it back around to the Lakers here, is that it didn't really make a ton of sense until they figure out what kind of draft capital they have, which is when New Orleans has to make a decision on whether they want the 24 or the 25 pick.

And once that decision is made, then the Lakers have more assets to then kind of look at it this summer, even though it's not on LeBron's timeline. You know, LeBron's got the juice when he's 25, when he's 30, when he's 35, and you're freaked out as a front office and ownership. As a guy who's 39 next year with a player option where he'll turn 40, I don't know that you're as beholden to go, well, we've got to do whatever

this guy wants, which in this case, I think moving another pick in 29, moving a cheap player who's their third best player in Reeves, despite what Russell's done this last month. Plus I think it's the right move to stand pat unless there was an option that, that you or I don't know about, which is totally, you know, reasonable that there could have been something else, but clearly they didn't want to do anything until they figure out, because they're going to have more picks come this June to go, wait a minute. You know, what, what do we do?

Like we might have that other piece that we've been looking for here this summer. Somebody demands, they demand to come here, and then the other team can be like, okay, well now you have access to more picks as opposed to the 129 that they have now. I'd love to know from the Lakers' side how fed up they were with LeBron.

And we'll never know because they're really good about not leaking stuff out. It's basically team bus and point gun. That's it. But I don't understand his week, Bill. I just don't understand it. You? No, I said something about it on Sunday's pod.

I talked a lot about it on Tuesday. You know, they've done so much for the dude over the last six years, and they've traded so much stuff away. They've traded so many players, acquired so many players back and forth. And, you know, he so many players back and forth. He's not the same guy anymore. He's 39 years old. I don't think he's one of the eight to 10 best guys in the league. I don't think he can do it regularly like he used to. Unfortunately, I think this is what happens when the greatest players get older in the NBA. This is usually when they start getting grumpy. It even happened to Bert.

Go read Jack McCallum's book, Unfinished Business. It's about Bert's second to last year with Boston. He was super grumpy in his third to last year, his second to last year, and was battling people and was mad all the time. And it's really tough for these guys when they go from, I used to be able to dominate and I was the best player in the league. And I walked on the moon basically as a basketball player. And now I'm getting older and it's not coming as easily. And maybe when I snap my fingers, they're not getting me whatever I want. And it does feel like there's some of that. If I'm the Lakers, the best thing he did for us was, I'm saying us like I'm with the Lakers, but Davis re-signed and Davis has been awesome this year. They got Reeves to get in

on a pretty cheap contract, right? And they still have some flexibility. They have some picks down the road. And if LeBron doesn't want to stay, I'm not going nuts if I'm the Lakers. I'm like, you know what? We're okay. We still have Davis. He's one of the best 12 players in the league and we have some pieces. We're still in a big city and we'll be fine. What do you think? As far as his decision

on the player option, I mean, it's a massive, massive number. I don't know if he would just decide, you know what, I'm going to go chase it somewhere else for like a completely reduced salary for one year and an option or two years. A lot of teams have cap space though. I mean, is it the right teams? Yeah. Right. So when you go through the lot of teams have cap space though. I mean, is it the right teams? Yeah. Right. So when you go through the teams that have the cap space, Philadelphia is the only one that you would say, and Moore even said it recently in an interview, he's like, there's not going to be any teams that are as good as we are this summer with their projected 50 plus million in cap space, depending on where the cap lands at like 141, 142 million.

But I just didn't really,, well, LeBron is very simple and we're all this way. You do what you can get away with. And for his entire career, he has delivered on the promise of when you have me, you are in contention. Okay. Probably better than any basketball player since Jordan. Yeah. No, that's a very short list of guys. It's like, as soon as I'm on your team, you have a chance. And he's extended that window beyond anything was even imaginable. So anytime I'm critical of him, I almost feel guilty because I feel like it has to be talked about like in two lanes. One is what he is doing at his age and that it's just, it's so absurd. There's nothing even left to say because you can't believe it. But as far as who he is as a player now and what his demands are and how it was always met in the past because you were always on this LeBron clock of him having all this power

and these shorter deals that he used to do before he got to Los Angeles where you're constantly worried about, is he happy? And he wants you to move every single pick for him and for that season, even if he's probably like a long-term bad partner because he's not worried about

any of that other stuff. He's completely about him and his own quest, which is fine. He was that kind of player. But he's 39 years old heading into 40. And it's like, okay, what kind of player are we likely going to have? And by the way, normally he misses like 20 plus games and he's not missing any time this year. So that's another part of this. Like when you look at the Lakers, you go, wait, LeBron's putting up these numbers and he hasn't missed any time ad's played all season he's been great d'angelo russell's

hitting every single shot now reese after the slump wasn't very good but like what's wrong with him i felt like you know the next towel thing was stupid the the tweet he can't help emoji yeah right and he had a quote where it was like hey hey, do you think after they'd beaten Charlotte, I think somebody asked him like, does this prove, you know, with this little uptick lately, like this team has a chance, I'm paraphrasing, right? Has a chance. Does this win streak kind of prove that thing? You know, classic like end of game question.

And LeBron was like, basically, hey, this is who we have. So whatever. And instead, you think somebody would go, who's a little more polished, would just go, a lot of the guys from last year that made a run that nobody thought we could make are all here. We know what it takes. Just let us get in because of what we did last year. Right.

We won the in-season tournament. We have a good team. Right. Western Conference Finals. And instead of doing that, which most every guy would do who's been around long enough, he basically was like, we're not that good. So unless these guys do something. And I thought if I were a teammate and you start yelling that your son is good enough to start for the team right now, I'd be like, are you serious, dude? Are you serious? And I know he's hyping up his son, which is cool,

and it's a proud dad. So like a part of it, but if I'm another player, so to my original point, when he's 25, 30, 35, you're freaked out this whole week. Yeah, it's 2014 LeBron. It's different. But right now you're kind of like, hey, I know you wanted us to do something, but

what was on the table didn't make a lot of sense for us. And now we have more options this summer. The thing that really kills them is the Westbrook trade. Yeah, that was 27th first. That was kind of his get out of jail free card with we got to do this, and it worked out so badly.

I don't know if they have to listen the same way. I'm not even sure. I know they got to the Western finals last year, but in retrospect, do you think a Western final sweep was worth giving up the 27 first and just getting Vanderbilt and DLO basically? No. Yeah.

It's tough. It's tough in retrospect. Now, when they were making a run last year, it seemed better, but then you go back, you look at that run, they're playing Memphis.

They catch Memphis banged up at the perfect time. But then you go back, you look at that run. They're playing Memphis. They catch Memphis banged up at the perfect time. But you liked Golden State. I did. After that series for a team that got swept, too. And it was fair to like. I felt like they were close. You said you thought they were the third best team in the NBA.

Yeah. So was that worth the 27 pick that they could finish last season as the third best team in the NBA, basically. Well, it's an unfair answer. I think you could argue yes. Well, if you say, hey, if you make this move, you get Westbrook out of here because it became untenable both ways. Because it is weird, like reading some of this Westbrook stuff where he's happy with the Clippers and everything

and you're like, oh, you know, he's embraced it and there's a lot of anti-Laker stuff that'll happen with the coverage of that.'s like you know what westbrook at that point needed to probably go through that to then understand right he needed a nut kick right it was it was too early for him to it may not even be a clippers lakers thing maybe it's lebron who knows but that first wake-up call usually isn't smooth for anybody. And he may have needed to actually go through that to be happy and understand everything he needs here. But if you had said, hey, if you move this 27 first-round pick

and you're going to have a chance in the Western Conference Finals, you go, okay, wait, what's the point? Let's do it. But then looking back and saying and phrasing it as, oh, they got swept and they had no chance against Denver, and now that pick is still due. I think you can make an argument actually for an answer on both of them, but to me it doesn't feel worth it because you're just moving off of somebody and you're bringing in a role guy in Vando who I do like in D'Angelo

where I know what the numbers are for Russell, but you also know that that other stretch is coming. Yeah, it's true. He's a craps table. It's like the craps table is hot. I'm going to keep winning all day. I think the Westbrook thing is hilarious that he's actually become one of my favorite bench guys.

Yeah, you were mad at me the other day for not including him in my Clippers breakdown. You love Westbrook now. Yeah, I know. Well, no, I like him. I think it's nice to have a guy on your team that can change the energy of a game, which he can do. He can come in if the team's kind of dead, they're down 12, he comes in, he's flying around, he's getting rebounds and he can shift the energy, which I think is a skill that I don't, he was not able to do on the Lakers for whatever reason.

What other teams didn't make a move? So with the Lakers, the Warriors, is there anybody else that we thought might do something? They're kind of handcuffed though because they had those weird picks with the different protected pick stuff. It also feels like they're betting on their young guys and maybe getting a bad guy

because everyone wants to play with Jokic. Yeah, they brought in some guys and I felt like when Mike Malone, I was like, how much are these young guys going to play? But you've seen some of them get opportunities. I don't know if they're playoff rotation guys. It would seem like Watson is the one that, that gets more of a chance than the other guys,

but they didn't necessarily need to do anything. You just ask like, who else? Like, do you think Phoenix, I mean, Phoenix is the same thing. Like they're pretty stuck. Although they added Royce O'Neal actually. You just ask, like, who else? Like, do you think Phoenix... I mean, Phoenix is the same thing. Like, they're pretty stuck.

Although they added Royce O'Neal, actually, so let me make sure I cover that part of it. Royce O'Neal makes sense for that team because he can... You know exactly what he's supposed to look like. Play defense,

take a couple of these shots. It gives us another rotation guy as opposed to some of the guys they play, which they probably don't want to play in the playoffs. I'm going to say this nicely because I don't like really criticizing players because they're all way better at basketball than I am. I'm just not a Royce O'Neal fan.

I don't get it. That's the player that makes you realize you're not good at basketball? No. Look, he's a zero offensively, right? It's like, oh, he's 38% from three. All the threes are wide open. He averages eight points a game. right it's like oh he's 38 percent from three all the threes are wide open he averages like eight points a game and then it's like oh the defense are we sure he's even that good at defense because i remember like when he was in the jazz they played the clippers

that one year and paul george like just destroyed the jazz for that whole series and then i remember the nets traded for him after remember the nets gaveets gave up a first-round pick? Like, oh, intangible glue guy, defense, wing. And I'm like, I just watched him get torched by Paul George. Like, how good of a wing defender is he? I just feel like you can find those guys all around the league. I'm not sure you have to trade second-round picks and pay them $9 million a year. That's my take.

It's funny you bring up his offense because if you look at the box score stuff for his career, he's a net negative offensively, but he's always been a positive on the defensive side. I liked him when he was in Utah. I think this next collection of guys, it's just been kind of a rudderless group

where it's a bunch of interchangeable dudes other than Bridges and Cam's obviously gone off on some of these games. And then there was a klaxon decision because he's an actual unrestricted free agent with the way his contract worked. They had too many wings. And it was stupid.

And they should have traded some of them in the last deadline. And they didn't. And they passed that. They could have gotten the two firsts for Finney Smith. And I just don't know what kind of team they're trying to put together. I don't understand these GMs sometimes. It's like, ah, it's too late to make it.

They made the Durant deal, and it's like, ah, it's too late to do anything else. Yeah, but they made the Royce deal thinking that they were going to have a real team last year. No, but I'm saying after they traded Durant, when they traded Durant, they had Royce, they had Finney Smith, they had Bridges, they had Cam Johnson. What the fuck are you going to do? Only two of those guys can play at the same time, maybe three. I don't know. I didn't get it. Let's take a break and then I'm going to throw the one team that I was really disappointed didn't do anything. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special.

Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high-intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions, and that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. So I said how there was a team I was super disappointed in that just had no gonads at the trade deadline

that just decided to have a Aperol spritzer instead of just having, just throwing a shot down and having a cocktail and fucking going for it. The Orlando Magic. What are you doing, Saruti? What do you want us to do?

Saruti, what are you doing? What's happening here? I don't understand. What did people expect? This team, they don't, they're pretty methodical. How about get another good player and try to win a playoff series?

You have Paolo. He's great. I would have liked, I would have liked, I would have liked Rogan. I'll tell you that, They don't get another good player and try to try to like win a playoff series. You have Palo. He's great. I would have liked I would have liked I would like Rogan. I'll tell you that. But I wouldn't going to give up a ton for him. I would like Tyus Jones wasn't going to give up a ton for him. Somebody told me they offered like a million second round picks for him.

So I guess that didn't get it done. I just I don't I'd rather just get to the offseason and then reassess there. Yes, you have, you know have Fultz's contract. Wendell Carter Jr. was kind of like floated out there for a while because Goga played well, but I didn't think it made any sense to trade Wendell Carter Jr. when his stock was probably

the lowest it's been in years. Yeah, sure. If you can get like a Darius Garland, we talked about this on text. I'd do that in a heartbeat. I'd give up a lot of assets to get him, but clearly that wasn't on the table for them. Well, you had Fultz's expiring.

How about this? Could you have topped the Buddy Heald deal and gotten one more shoot? That one, I'm pretty sure you could have. You probably could have, but I don't know. Maybe Buddy was just like, hey, I'd rather go to Philly. Because I think he's an expiring contract too, right? This is the last year of his deal. Yeah, he's expiring.

So maybe Orlando didn't want to give anything up for him. Does Heald stunt Jet Howard's development? That's also a great point. You guys are going to laugh at me, but I'm in team play Anthony Blackmore minutes. Like I'd rather, we're not winning anything this year. Like I said before the season,

getting into the play-in is a win. If they can get to the 60s, that'd be great. But like this isn't the year where I'm going to push all the chips in. This is like a trophy to everyone on our third place team. Our 10th grade basketball team, our JV team, just won third place. OK, we got to all chip in and get everybody trophies. Let me ask you this. OK, everyone was all excited when the Cavs traded for Donovan Mitchell, right?

Oh, man, they're pushing all the chips in. This is great. And I think there's an argument to be made that like maybe that sort of started the growth of a guy like Mobley and his offensive game. Cause now that all they asked him to do is be a good defender. He can't, he's not a three point shooter at this point in his career. And we're talking about now, like his, his stock on down,

should they try to trade him? If the magic trade for somebody like that right now, you still have Franz and, and Paulo. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to take any development away from those guys. And I don't care.

I don't care if we win a playoff series this year, next year, I probably will. So yeah. Would I have liked to seen something on the margins? Abrogdon? Yeah, I would have liked to have seen Buddy Heald, Tyus Jones. Sure.

But if there's not a trade out there, I'm disappointed. I'm just not mad about it. Priscilla? I'm with Steve on this. And the thing, Fultz is like one of the most misunderstood players ever. They kind of need Fultz still. So even though he's an expiring, you know, if you're saying

he just let Suggs and Anthony Black, I've liked some of the Anthony Black minutes. I've also seen some games where he doesn't look like he's totally comfortable being out there making decisions or he gets the ball. It's like, alright, somebody else take this away from me here. And Paolo initiates so much of the offense and that you don't want like a ball dominant guy to turn franz and palo into spectators and now they have this closing lineup with isaac

which is just absurd when you watch that minnesota game oh look how happy saruti is that was that was isaac isaac renaissance i have that's the happiest moment of 2024 for me i mean i know we're only a month in but my god that was that was awesome. It's always, it's always two things. Okay. You wish they had done something. Okay. What did you want them to do specifically?

Like who was that player? And if it's healed, how about Malcolm Bragdon? Or how about Buddy Heald? How about one more good guy? You know what? I wouldn't hate it actually. And this would actually work for both teams.

Cause I do, I do think you talk about Foltz. Foltz though, he's, he's kind of the odd man out. They paid Cole. Suggs is obviously there. Cole's been better now, too, this year. I went from not

liking him to going, you know what? He's been just smarter about decisions and everything, so go ahead. No, so what I was going to say is I wouldn't have hated a situation where maybe you send him to San Antonio where you actually get a point guard for Wemby and then we take Doug McDermott back and get shooting.

But I don't, I don't know that they were willing to trade volts. Like I still think you're right. Faults like does have a decent role for the team. Maybe not long-term and we'll see what happens this summer, but there probably just wasn't anything there. Like I, I'm okay with just seeing how the rest of the season pans out with this

young team. It's been 15 years since the finals and the Magic fans are just completely beaten down. No, the good news is we've got a guy. I just want to be in the play-in. We've got a guy who's untouchable in your trade rankings. I'm cool, man. We are very happy with where we're at right now. He was. Palo was number

eight, Rusillo. They've got to spend that money, though, this summer before the extensions kick in for those guys. That's another thing. But you could make a trade this summer. Can't you just make though, this summer before the extensions kick in for those guys. Well, that's another thing. That's why I like... But you could make a trade this summer. Can't you just make a trade this summer? You still have your picks.

You don't have to just sign somebody in free agency. You could take on salary that way. I'll tell you what I was rooting for was the Warriors tax dump with Chris Paul where they traded Chris to Orlando. And then you guys were aligned. It was like the mega powers when Macho Man and Hulk got together in the late 80s. It was like, this is great. These guys are now in the same team.

Priscilla gets to chase the title with Chris Paul in Orlando. You get Chris Paul. It would have been great. I would have moved there for the season. I would have done my podcast and then a magic Chris Paul hybrid special ringer edition. That would have been amazing. Prestige NBA pod.

Just break it down high screens. Can I leave you with this? Stay with us with this. This is a huge if. I don't know. You can count on one hand and maybe a couple fingers how many guys are more talented defensively than Jonathan Isaac.

It's like Giannis and that might be it. You mean for taller guys or just anybody? Just anybody in the league. Guys are shooting 27% when he's guarding them. What he did against Minnesota, and again, he's going to get hurt probably next week and none of this is going to matter, but holy crap.

He is insane. Think about him in a playoff series where you just go, hey, guard Jason Tatum for seven games. That's going to be a nightmare for any team that they have to play. He's playing Wemby tonight. Yep. That'll be fun if he gets thrown on Wemby because you know Wemby will try to test him,

but they don't play the Celtics again. That might not be until April that you don't play. Eastern Conference Finals. No, you already played them already. Yeah, all those games are over. Yeah, so I did think about that because he is the type of guy that Tatum would not know what to do against him. It would just be a slew of terrible step-back threes

as my dad is texting me every five minutes. Right now, they're the eighth seed. It does look like there could be Miami Orlando 7-8 play-in is in play. Right? Because they don't... Even if you win your division, you stay in the same seed. We learned that last year. But Miami Orlando

would be fun. Throwing Isaac on Jimmy Butler. Their game and a half back is six. There's nothing to be ruled out here. They could still get out of the play-in, too. Well, you know how every year after the trade deadline, one young guy makes a jump? I do wonder if

it's Palo this year, where Palo just goes like 30 and 10 for like five straight weeks. I could see it. I've been impressed. All right. Thanks, Rudy. Yeah. Thanks, guys. I mean, we have the world's number one Orlando Magic expert here. We got to bring him in every once in a while. The Bucs traded for Patrick Beverly.

They got rid of campaign. Can't believe campaign didn't work out on the Bucs. I really had my fingers crossed. Hey, by the way, the second statement has to be the motivation behind that. Because I was watching Windhorse on the special and he goes, if you're the Bucks and you're going, wait, we're kind of around each other and you're willing to give us Pat Bev. What does that mean? I think it's getting rid of campaign. I'm not a huge fan necessarily of either of them.

I have a really hard time with campaign possessions. Me too. Well, I think part of that was Doc and, and Pat Bev had that Clippers history. He loves Pat Bev. Yeah. So he wanted to bring one of his guys in.

But does that happen though? Where it's like, Oh, you want one of those guys now? Who knows? It could be, we don't want to give, you know, with the way you have batum and uber making shots maybe mori and nurse are looking at it being like hey pat bev's minutes

are going to get swallowed up here with healed so that way we get off of pat bev and then i don't i don't know like i would i'd rather have Pat Bev than campaign, that's for sure. Pacers got Doug McDermott for Marcus Morris in a second. Be fun to see him basically in the buddy-heeled spot launching threes. Pacers are kind of operating around the fringes in the trade deadline, but I didn't mind that one. And then, forgot to mention with the Mavs trade, how Seth Curry ended up on Charlotte.

He's an intriguing buyout guy to me. I still feel like on the right team, especially a team that had a center, like if he was on Denver, playing with Jokic, because we've seen like the best Seth Curry ever looked was playing off of Embiid that time. Like he's,

I think with the Celtics too, it'd be another team playing off Porzingis. But I still feel like as a buyout guy, he'd be pretty intriguing. I don't think he's washed up by any means. I just think it's like situational with him. You like him at all? I've always liked him. Me too.

The Philly part of it is a great call because you look at Seth and you think, okay, well, where are his limitations? And it's like, you know what? He could, even with Brooklyn at times, he's like, you know, he can actually put it on the floor a little bit and kind of reset himself and get a little bit of space. But it's clear the NBA doesn't like him as much as we do, man. He's a $4 million non-guaranteed for next year. So when he signed with Dallas, you were like, that's all he costs, you know, with this just obsession with finding as much shooting

as you can or is there so much shooting now with everything that we talked about earlier that he doesn't stand out as much or is it just because you feel like hey in a playoff series you know can you really survive with him defensively and some of this stuff i i think there's more to him than just the catch and shoot stuff but it seems like the nba again is is cooler on him than you and I have been the last couple of years. I'm still high. I'll buy everyone else's stock.

Okay. How'd you feel about Monty Morris going to the T-Wolves? I really liked it because they need another option with Conley and McLaughlin, who I kind of like in some reserve stuff. But I liked Monty back when he was in Denver. You're not going to get a ton of offense, but the guy makes shots.

And you could do worse than him being one of your three kind of rotational backup point guards. And I wonder, Shake Milton's another possible buyout guy with Detroit where some teams that would, I think, kick the tires on him too. Killian Hayes got released. That's going to be an agent thing.

That seemed like a fuck you. Yeah. But that's, hey, what's done, it didn't work out. It's over. I think there was a divide on Killian on the front office anyway. So that usually is somebody where it's like, let him go get minutes somewhere else and see what kind of contract he can get this summer

because it's not going to work here anymore in Detroit. So I think that's probably a favor. Can we go through the 2020 NBA draft just for fun? Yeah. The weirdest draft of all time. Because it was COVID and nobody could work out anybody. And it just, and the interviews are on Zoom. Edwards goes one to Minnesota.

Somehow they nail it. Wiseman two to Golden State. Lamella goes three to Charlotte. Then we have the Patrick Williams, Isaac Okoro four or five to Chicago, Cleveland. Okongwu goes six to Atlanta. Killian seven to Detroit. Obie Topp an eight to the Knicks.

Nine is Abdiah to Washington. Phoenix takes Jalen Smith, 10th, and within two years, he's off the team. Devin Vassell goes 11th to San Antonio. And by the way, Jalen, they don't pick up his first option and get rid of him after spending the 10th pick on him.

And he's still good enough to be on a team. Like, it'd be one thing if you're like, hey, Patrick Bradley, like, we just screwed it up. It's not going to work. You know, let's move on from this thing. And instead, it's like, we just completely gave up on the asset. I don't know. Devin Vassell goes 11th and then Halliburton goes 12th to Sacramento,

which we were outraged by at the time. It seemed too high. Neesmith goes 14 to Boston. Cole Anthony goes 15 to Orlando. Tyrese Maxey goes 21st to Philadelphia. Quickly goes 25th to OKC. Jaden McDaniels goes 28th to the Lakers against Traded. And then

Desmond Bain went 30th eventually to Memphis. That is one of the weirdest drafts I've ever... We haven't done a redraft of that one yet. We did a bunch of redrafts during the COVID year. But it might be time to do a 2020 redraft. Maybe we could plan that because we're going to start doing Sunday nights again in a couple

weeks. But that is I think the single weirdest draft of the last 10 years. Yeah. And for whatever reason, I struggled with Patrick O'Brien remembering his name. What'd you call him? I called him Patrick Bradley. He's not, he went to Bradley and he was the ninth pick. When you said Patrick Bradley, I thought, wow, I don't even remember Patrick Bradley. He really had a short career. No, Patrick O'Brien with like the new structure of the first round stuff.

It was, he was the ninth pick and he was like two years. See ya. Yeah. Tough one. Anything else? That's it. Anything else you want to cover? Pretty weak trade deadline.

Brutal. Here's what I would cover. I know that it's a lot like signing day. I've used this analogy in the past. So no matter what decision you land on, you can find people who complain about it. In college football, signing day, no matter what the day is, a reporter can have five coaches saying, hey, this is the dumbest day ever for all these reasons. They all could be valid reasons. And then you could change it.

And then you get five different coaches to tell you why that day is now the dumbest day to have it. So it's kind of this unsolvable problem. I feel like the NBA trade deadline is a tad more solvable. The Thursday shouldn't be before the Super Bowl. It's... Well, I mean, God damn it. Where would you put it? Would you have done it next Wednesday? Well, they don't want it to interfere with all-star stuff, which is totally understandable. So whatever day I would theoretically pick here, I know you could find problems with it. This can't be the way you'd want to do it if you're the NBA and you want to maximize the attention. You can't have it a couple days before. We're watching some of the stuff on TV and you're going like, look, it's Super Bowl

week. It's Thursday. A lot of the TV stuff, as soon as this deadline special is over, that's going to be it. And this one was such a dud, you're never going to hear about it the rest of the week anyway, but you could either just wait until March 1st, which with the play in tournament now keeping teams alive, maybe further into the season. And the teams at that point with a few more weeks go, Hey, who are we kidding here? We've got no chance. Like this should be about activity. Like I'm not using 24 as a dud because we kind of knew this coming in the last week of conversations. You're like, man, this one might suck. But either move it in front of all of this stuff or put it the week, the first bye week of the Super Bowl, put it a week ago on Thursday or put it later because of the play-in. Of all the problem scenarios that you could come up with,

stuff I'm not even thinking about, I still would imagine that makes more sense for just the attention part of this on the sports calendar for the entire year than the Thursday before the biggest game in the country. Especially after how they figured out that June 30th, July 1st, free HC stuff and really turned that into like this massive two-day event. To me, it should either be, you know, they got fucked because the Super Bowl moved a week because they added a week to the season, right? And so now it was like head to head with when the trade deadline usually is, but they should just make the trade deadline whenever that dead week is. So you're saying a week ago?

Yeah, it should have been last Thursday. I don't want to mess with the Super Bowl at all if I'm the NBA. And the people listening to this are like, well, when do I care when the trade deadline is? Well, I woke up early today and I made coffee and I was watching Get Up for like 80 minutes waiting for them to bring on like anyone that they had in the NBA standpoint. And they did Super Bowl for 80 straight minutes. And Greenberg is out there.

He's like starting arguments with himself. He's doing the, for the people who say they're tired of watching Patrick Mahomes. Who are these people? How could you be tired? How are these guys the villains? And he's having these straw man arguments.

So I'm like, oh my God, can you guys just tell me if DeJounte Murray's going to get going to get traded can anyone come on guys now is Brock Purdy what's at stake for him and they're doing all that stuff I'm like Jesus Christ any trades going to happen

but that's the problem with Super Bowl week yeah I don't blame them necessarily for going hardcore Super Bowl with the names that were flying around for this deadline but you would just avoid it. You would just avoid any of that happening. And look, the deadline used to be later. Yeah, because football is way more popular than basketball.

I get it. You're going to talk football on a show over the freaking whether DeJounte Murray is going to get traded. But I was starving for information today. I wanted it. I bet they'd change it. Because I don't know what the argument is to keep it today like no no we like this we we like having it was gonna be three days before

the biggest thing anybody like the thing that there's no even close second to what people are paying attention to in the sports world so well your idea of moving it to after All-Star break is kind of interesting too, because the play-in tournament does keep teams hanging around in a different way. And we arbitrarily decided the trade deadline should be around the 50 game mark, right? That was just something they decided 35 years ago for whatever reason. Now it's 2024. Maybe it should be later. Maybe the buyout guys should be like March 10th and you do it that way. They should definitely reconsider a lot of this. At least they've been willing to rethink this stuff. Suns, Knicks, Oklahoma City, 20 to one, Cavs, 22 to one, Minnesota, 24 to one, and Philly is now 30 to one. And then everybody else are long shots. New Orleans at 46 to one. Now there's a team where I would have said, oh, they got to do something. And I literally can't tell you what

they should do. They have guys at every position. I don't even know what the trade is. There were rumors they were trying to go after Mikael Bridges and got shut down. I don't know if that's true. But there's certain teams where I just, I don't even know

what the move was. Yeah, I always like the best version of New Orleans. You know, when it looks really good, it looks really good. It just doesn't look

like that long enough for you to feel like you can get a real sense of them. They never feel like they get into that rhythm for a really long stretch. You go back to last year when I was looking at the Nuggets record before when this week got started and I did a pod. I was like, hey, they were 35-16 last year. They're 35-16 now. But it feels different because last year the West was just a very weird conference.

And now this year, it's like, man, that's four really good teams. And then you've got Phoenix lurking there as well. So it feels deeper at the top. And yet Denver's got the exact same record. Almost all the stats line up to be pretty identical to where they were last year, but they're sitting there in the fourth seed. And you're kind of like, you know, they deserve the benefit of the doubt. If somebody said they're winning the West again, I'm not going to tell anybody that they're wrong. And if the Clippers aren't healthy, I'm probably picking Denver anyway. But I look at New Orleans and go last year when Denver was 35 and 16,

Memphis, to your point, part one, was three games behind at what, 32 and 19? Okay. That was like an awesome. And then the Pelicans, the Pelicans were the two seed all the way until December 31st.

And we're watching them. I'm going, look how deep they are. And every night you can kind of attack a different way offensively. And I see certain matchups where it feels like New Orleans is so much bigger than the opponent or Sacramento that's ahead of them in standings. And I go, how's Sacramento going to defend these guys and get four out of seven from them with the way that they're doing? Clippers felt that way last night a little bit. They just felt bigger. There's certain nights with them where I'm like, man, that could be a real problem. I've enjoyed watching them play against Minnesota and Oklahoma City too. So if you're talking about value on just

the gambling part of it, I'm with you there. The only thing I could think of is they said, okay, we have all of these pieces. Do we really think like Dyson Daniels ceiling is this maybe, and I still really like him, but you go, if he's really going to be special, maybe he's just stuck with the log jam of shot opportunities everywhere else. And CJ run things. Maybe there's something there. I'm sure somebody else would like them. You know, do we say, Hey, instead of having Herb Jones and this Trey Murphy thing, like let's consolidate what we have for one piece. Yeah. But teams just seem to reluctant.

It's almost like, hey, we'll only trade this guy if we're completely over it. And I doubt they're over any of those guys because I, like them, have a lot of hope for some of the guys that I still like coming out of the draft. Yeah, there was a Nets trade where it's like Daniels, a couple of New

Orleans picks that they got in the different trades, like that Lakers pick they have that could either be 24 or 25. And they just four firsts, Daniels, one more piece. And we're overpaying from Mikael Bridges. We're giving you like 130 cents a dollar for him. But now we at least have a better idea of who our five is. I look at the West and I don't remember the top seed being this up for grabs. We have four teams that have the same amount of losses that are one through four right now. Okay, say Minnesota, Denver, the Clippers, they'll have 16 losses. And the team that falls fourth has to play Phoenix in round one, which we'll see if Nurkic is still healthy at

that point, but you're still going against these two incredible scorers for two weeks. That's not a fun round one. And then the prize probably for the three seed is to play that New Orleans team we're talking about. If you're, I don't know, Oklahoma City, you're like, oh, we got the three seed. And it's like, oh shit, we'll playing New Orleans. They're bigger than us at literally every position. Not awesome. I do wonder if people will be kind of seed hunting and looking for Sacramento. Like, okay, it comes down to the night. And it feels a little insulting the way Sacramento has played the last couple of years.

But defensively, I just think they're going to have a really hard time with the other good teams in the West. And I just wonder if there'll be a team that goes, hey, we don't have the tiebreaker and we lose tonight. We lock in Sacramento instead of Phoenix or New Orleans. Sacramento is my West Coast Milwaukee. I know they're 29 and 21. I just don't trust it. I don't believe. I don't think they have it this year.

I've seen them just get waxed a couple times in ways that just, I thought were alarming. Dallas is the most, you know, Dallas is the eight seed right now. They're,

I want to watch them over the next couple weeks with PJ and with Gafford and just kind of see what's going on with them. Because Luka's played really well, you know, obviously about as well as he can play and they've gotten the normal Kyrie here. So what, like, what is this going to look like four weeks from now? Probably the same. Probably. I mean, I'm with you. Cause I look at Luca as somebody in one series. Yeah. You don't want to see him. He did. And you go, man, I know we're favored,

but if that guy goes crazy. That's the thing. If you're saying what eight seed could be to one seed this year and I gave you like Miami, Orlando, Indiana, Chicago, the Lakers, Utah, Golden State, Dallas, you'd be like Dallas, that's the one. Yeah. Because Luca could just win four games. You'd be like, whoa, that's the one. Yeah. Because Luka could just win four games.

You'd be like, whoa, holy shit, we just lost. What happened? All right. I'm going to... And also, Philly on the Pat Bev thing, real quick too, that could just strictly be like, hey, we know we're getting Lowry in the buyout market. Now that solves it. You get Pat Bev. We don't have to worry about it.

We've opened up the Lowry minutes too, as well as Healds. I don't know if I'd want this version of Kyle Lowry. we don't have to worry about it. We've opened up the Lowry minutes too as well as yields. I don't know if I'd want this version of Kyle Lowry. I don't know if I'd be doing high-fiving in the office about it. It wasn't very good. As bad of a five-week stretch in Miami as anybody had this year. He was terrible.

You know how many times though, like, is Gordon Hayward going to be good to close the season? There's a lot of guys that I write off because I'm only seeing them play poorly for extended stretches and they're older i go okay look the eye test the numbers ever tells you like it's kind of over and then there'll be so many of these players that have this like last lap resurgence that doesn't make any sense other than you realized oh this guy didn't care. Like Boris Diaw's entire career. You're like, wow, you were that,

like you're such a non-competitor that you didn't care until you were in a place where you're like, okay, I guess I'll play now. So Milwaukee's the three seed and Philly's the five seed and Indiana is now three games behind Philly and NB's not coming back a while. I'm still holding out hope for the Milwaukee-Philly first round. A lot of subplots

on that one. Plus, Philly obviously isn't too afraid of Milwaukee if they traded Pat Beverly to him. I thought that was weird too. I was like, yeah, take him. Here you go. All right, are you doing a Super Bowl pick on your podcast tomorrow? Yeah, Super Bowl pick on your podcast tomorrow?

Yeah, Super Bowl pick. We got Troy Aikman, and we'll throw in a life advice for you, so we got it covered. Who do I want the Pats to get at number three? Jane Daniels was incredible this year, and I didn't think he had it in him. And two years ago, I was kind of over him.

But it's also, there's some similarities there with Burrow, where Burrow was like, hey, he's all right. And then it was like, oh, wow, he's had the greatest season of all time. And Burrow's a stud, and he's wired. He's got all that stuff with him. So I want Jaden Daniels. That's where I've landed mentally already.

I had a cup of coffee with thinking, maybe we just take Marvin Harrison. Maybe he'll be one of the best receivers. You're going to take a quarterback. It doesn't seem like Marvin Harrison ceiling is high enough to justify that, even though it's a very high ceiling. Well, I think it's pretty high.

I mean, it's no, but I'm saying like, you would have to think he's, he has to be Calvin Johnson basically to justify that. I still don't even think I take a receiver over because then you have to go, okay, so then what's wrong?

It's up with, you know know next year say the turnover turnover ratio works in your favor and then you you've won seven or nine games and then now you're picking and you still don't have a quarterback I think you keep taking quarterbacks until you get it right you just keep drafting them and there's there's no there's no real plan that works any better than you just got to keep doing it. I think it'd be really fun to have a Jaden Daniels type Patriots fan experience for the first time in my life. We've always had like quarterbacks that couldn't really move around.

Fun to root for him. Rusillo, listen to his podcast tomorrow. Good to see you. At some point at the end of this month, we're picking up Sundays again and we'll be off the rest of the way. Good to see you. Thanks for the time.

Thanks, man. Million dollar picks, Super Bowl edition. Normally, we blow this out on the Thursday before the Super Bowl, but the trade deadline took it over. And plus, I did a lot with Sal on Sunday. You kind of know where I'm leaning on this game. I don't know why the Chiefs are underdogs. I don't really understand it,

especially when you look at what the Niners looked like defensively, really since Hefango went out. Even the last three weeks against Detroit and Green Bay and then that Baltimore game near the end of the year, Detroit put huge yards on them.

They gave up 28 first downs, 21st downs to Green Bay, 23 to Baltimore, and then the 28th to Detroit. Everybody yards on them. They gave up 28 first downs, 21st downs to Green Bay, 23 to Baltimore, and then the 28th to Detroit. Everybody ran on them. I thought they easily could have lost the Green Bay game and probably should have. They obviously should have lost

the Detroit game. We'll look back at the interception bouncing off the guy's helmet and then Gibbs fumbling. That stretch was just absolutely bizarre and weird. And look, they made it. It's great. Congratulations.

But I think the Chiefs are better. I think the Chiefs figured out what their identity was after that weird Christmas game. And they just have long drives. They know what they can do and they can't do. They're going to try to come out of the gate, grab the lead. That's why one of the bets I like is Chiefs first half, Chiefs game. But we're going to go into million dollar picks right now.

Million dollar picks, Super Bowl edition. I am up 2.293 million for the season. Last week, didn't do well. Lost $845,000. I didn't feel great about it heading into the week, but now I look back and it's like, I thought San Francisco was going to beat Detroit. They did.

They didn't cover. Baltimore, should they have beaten Kansas City? Kansas City only scored 17 points. Baltimore scored 10 and could not have played a worse game and shot themselves in the foot over and over again and had the worst strategy and still was kind of in the game. Joe House has a theory that the AFC is just much better

than the NFC was this year. And I kind of like it. Like Casey beating Baltimore and Buffalo, I think is meaningful because maybe Baltimore and Buffalo were better than anyone in the NFC. I love this game too. At least the Chiefs keeping it close, which is why we're going to bet $500,000 on the Chiefs plus two and a half. And we're also going to bet another $500,000 on the Chiefs plus eight and a half,

teased with the under up to 53 and a half. So that means 54 points would beat the under. And I don't see that happening because I think we're going to have long, long drives. There's some field goals. I think we'll have a missed field goal from Moody, which we can bet on. I just think this is like a Chiefs 24 to 20,

Chiefs 23 to 20, something there. Chiefs 24 to 17. I don't see a crap load of points. So those are my two big bets. Also putting 50K in the following props. Brock Purdy, over three and a half rushing attempts, plus 124. We've seen him, especially against good teams,

use his legs for first downs. It'll happen three times. Also a nice little tiny hedge in case the Niners actually win the game. It'll have a kneel. Kelsey, most receptions is plus 170, grabbing that.

And 50K as well on Casey to have the first interception at minus 110. For $25,000 bets, this is a 13-1 parlay that I've mentioned a couple times.

Casey wins first half in the game. Mahomes under 206, 2.5 yards. Gray, two plus catches. I love Gray. And Pacheco to rush for

70 plus yards. That is plus 13, 21 right now in FanDuel. I also like Noah Gray for the first TD, which is 43 to one, or at least it was

when we did this on Sunday. Just could see two, three tight ends and it seems like it's going to go to Kelsey. Oh my God, they faked us. That's Noah Gray. Valdez Scantling longest reception.

I love it. What a story for this guy. Chiefs fans hated him. He blew a couple of games with some drops earlier in the year, redeemed himself a little in the playoffs. Um, there's some good stats that we covered on Sunday's podcast about, uh, there's not really like a reliable long ball threat in this game. So there's guys that have had big long catch games,

but for the most part, there's no like, oh my God, that guy's definitely going to have a 50 yarder in this game. So why not grab Valdez Gantling at plus 800? We're putting 25K in that. We're going to bet on no successful fourth down conversion, three to one odds, because weirdly, the Chiefs and the Niners are very conservative. And then last but not least, we'll take a flyer on Kelsey to win MVP. So that was 17 to one when I did this on Sunday, and now it is 14 to one. I'm still taking it. Kelsey 14-1. He hugs and kisses Taylor Swift midfield. And then all of the weirdos on the internet say the Super Bowl was scripted because the Chiefs

won and Travis Kelsey was the MVP and he's hugging Taylor Swift and it's just going to make people mad. Seems logical. I think that's how it plays out. Chiefs to win. Those are my million dollar picks. Super Bowl edition. Peter Schrager, by the way, also thinks the Chiefs are going to win as well. So that made me feel good. Anyway, million dollar picks in the books. Enjoy the Super Bowl. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing. And thanks to Ryan Rosillo. I will see you on this podcast after the Super Bowl with the Cuss on Sunday night. Don't forget about our FanDuel show with the Wise Guys on Sunday, Super Bowl edition. And don't forget to go on youtube.com slash Bill Simmons.

And we launched a Ringer NFL YouTube channel and a Ringer NBA YouTube channel. So check those out as well. Have a great weekend. See you Sunday. I want to see them on the way. So I don't have. Must be 21 plus and president select States. Fando is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC.

Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fandle.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. You can call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona. Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9WITHIT in Indiana. 1-800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 1-877-770-STOP in Louisiana, mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland, 1-800-GAMBLER.NET in West Virginia, or 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050

for 24-7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York.