The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: The Perfect LeBron Trade With Chris Ryan, Kevin O’Connor, Wosny Lambre

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

In Part 2 of the NBA Trade Deadline podcast, The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Chris Ryan, Kevin O'Connor, and Wosny Lambre for more Nets-Sixers trade talk, including paying James Harden going forward, everyone’s bad behavior getting rewarded, and why Harden can return to his top form. Then, they break down the Mavericks sending Kristaps Porzingis and a second-round pick to the Wizards for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans, the Lakers standing pat, and the Celtics shipping Dennis Schröder to the Rockets after acquiring Derrick White. Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Chris Ryan, Kevin O'Connor, and Wosny Lambre Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. All right. Part two of the Trade Deadline Palooza pod. You can check out part one on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Rob Mahoney has left us. Big Waz has joined us. KOC, we were talking right before we started taping about the Derek White trade, which turned out to be Josh Richardson, who's playing well.

Romeo Langford, who's not playing well, and a protected 20-22 first for Derek White, a defensive, good teammate, combo guard guy. The Celtics already have a guy like that, Marcus Smart. My instinct, and we only have 33 minutes here until they did that, my instinct was like, wait a second, is this paving the way for a Marcus Smart trade? You felt the same way.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I mean, we heard the Minnesota rumblings that they really, really like Marcus Smart. So maybe there could be something there before the deadline. But ultimately here, even if you're keeping those guys, having Derek White, he brings those similar qualities as Marcus Smart with his

defensive ability. He's just a more reliable shooter over the duration of his career, even though he's not shooting well so far this season. I like Derek White. I don't love Derek White, but I think for Boston, this is a nice addition. But giving up the pick, though, I mean, the 2022 draft might not necessarily be deep, but giving that up when Josh Richardson has been playing so well, that does sting a little bit. But White's a good player. You guys have Stockholm syndrome. You know the Celtics are allowed to have more than one good guard, right?

Well, I find it hard to believe Derek. So if we get one guy, we have to trade this other guy, right? You only play one guard, right? I think Derek White and Marcus Smart together is kind of a weird fit to me, I guess would be my counter. But I think Derek White is a guy

who could absolutely be one of your three guards in a round two playoff series. And he's by all accounts a beloved Spurs culture guy. We've seen him play some USA stuff and things like that. So we'll see. Right now it is 11-28. 32 minutes to go at the deadline. We'll see what

happens. All right, Waz. Give us your Harden-Simmons take. Of course. First, I want to know, though, will Derek White put Jalen Brown in the headlock in the locker room? Because that's important. If he's going to be Marcus Smart's replacement,

that's a big deal to know. Well, you know, my Sixers-Simmons-Harden-Morey take is that all three of their hubris was rewarded, right? Ben Simmons demands a trade with four years left on his deal after stinking up the joint. He gets what he wants in a bigger market with less noise media-wise, less scrutiny, with two guys that absolutely will do all of the heavy lifting for him when it comes to Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. So I think he's in an ideal spot. He's only going to be asked to do the things that he's already good at, which is all Ben Simmons wants to do anyway, right? Like, you know, he doesn't want to improve his game. He doesn't want to get better.

He wants to be Ben Simmons, get paid the max to do what he already does. Of course, Darryl held on to this asset that we all thought was extremely distressed. And he ends up with a guy who won an MVP just a few years ago. Isn't obviously an all-star level player even still. And of course, James Harden gets to blame everybody else for his problems and ends up back on another good team ready for playoff success. Like everybody won while being completely kind of ridiculous throughout this entire ordeal. Do you feel like James Harden is Chris's spirit animal now? Is Chris going to grow a beard? What happens?

If I grow a beard, it's disturbing. Yeah. Is Chris going to fly to the Bahamas the next time The Ringer has a four-day break then come back and be completely trash and podcast for the next 10 days? Yeah.

I don't know. Then maybe he will be channeling the spirit of one of his new guys. Greenwald's going to be like, we did an MRI on Chris's larynx and there was some tightness, so we're going to give him a week off

so he works it out. Yeah. When do we get an update on James Harden's hamstrings? I'm so worried about them. Yeah, in his strained hand. And did you know that

the hamstring that he said was hurt this time was different than the hamstring from last year? I looked this up. I was Googling James Harden right hamstring and James Harden left hamstring.

He was probably favoring the other hamstring too much. You know, Bill, you got to know about like isometrics and the way kinetics work in the body. If you're going to weigh in on something like this, at least have the facts, man. It's fair. How dare you insult James Harden? This guy, it's quite a run for his hamstrings.

I remember. Chris has perfected the angry sports Twitter person to a T. That's amazing. I love it. Twitter CR is the best. I remember in the, so I started playing fantasy basketball mid late 80s,

but in the 90s, Kevin Johnson, who when he played would get like 23 and 10 and was like a borderline first round pick, but he would always have hamstring stuff. And it got to the point where if you drafted him, the other people in the room would just start making hamstring jokes. I don't know with Harden, is this a one-time thing? Is this just who he is now? Is he in shape or, you know, like the, the irony of all of this is we do the month after month, the trade watch, and it finally happens.

And then Harden ends up not being healthy when he's on the Sixers. I don't know, feel for it. We were talking about part one. There's a scenario where Harden just shows up and he's fucking awesome, like immediately. Because we've seen him do that. There's also a scenario where it's like

we watch him for a few games and we go, Oh man, maybe, maybe he wasn't kind of taking it as much as we thought. Maybe he's at a different point in his career. He's going to be 33 this year. You know, I, so I don't know what to me between him and Simmons, there are more possibilities with both guys, how they're going to play, then I can remember from a trade like this. Yeah. I mean, it's all of that. Of course, I was racking my brain for the last time James Harden came through for a team in the playoffs and it was 2012 against the Spurs. Like he was incredible when they won those four straight games against the San Antonio Spurs. Of course, people famously remember him, you know, not showing up in the finals. But whatever.

In the conference finals against the Spurs, he was dope. But it's been playoff disappointment after playoff disappointment besides that. And then, of course, you have to consider that he opted into his $47 million, which we all know there's a wink wink. He's going to get paid the max after that deal. Like there's no way he opts into that without an agreement that Philadelphia is going to hand him a five year deal or whatever it is for the maximum allowable money after that. So I think that's something to consider, but whatever they have two seasons to figure out well really it's gonna be three to figure out if Harden um is the guy to lead them to the promised land but again

like I don't know like he was clearly hurt in the playoffs last year but elite in the regular season um there's been like flashes of elite play this year with Harden, um, an overly over reliance on a step back. I don't think he's, you know, straight up blowing by guys and creating the creases in the defense as much as he used to, but who knows, maybe he has been sandbagging it the whole time and he was tired of Kyrie's, um, third eye routine and you know, now he's going to be dope again. Yeah. There's also like, I,, there's also a world in which I think

the Sixers and Harden get exactly what they need from each other. Because Harden does not have to take a lot of the usage. He doesn't have to bear a lot of the weight in the first three quarters of a game. Embiid can do that. Tobias Harris is a completely adequate scorer on a night-to-night basis. Maxie is kind of surging right now.

I'm so glad he wasn't in this deal. You can get buckets from Korkmaz. You can get buckets from this team. It's a good, deep team. But the thing that has always haunted this team, and I've seen it throughout this regular season too, they're up 18, they're up 11, they're up 9, whatever it is, and the buckets just dry up.

The hoop just gets small for this team down the stretch, whether it's in bead flags at the end of games or whatever. So a perfect version of this is James Harden playmaker scorer at the end of games for the Sixers solving the biggest problem that this team had. And if they get that, maybe they just compliment one another just perfectly like that's my that's my ideal

version of this I don't know if I'm just like high on my own supply right now though I forget if it was you Chris or you Bill but in part one you mentioned how like an OKC Harden was like this Manu Ginobili type he could grow into that and I think with Philadelphia there's going to be some nights where he resembles

that and Embiid is the one carrying the load. But there will be nights James Harden looks like the James Harden we've always known. I think to your point, Chris, that speaks to it like in an individual game. I mean, in game situations, it's going to be Harden a lot. And we're going to see a lot more pick and roll between him and Embiid. They've just never had that guy who could force those switches and create mismatches for your offense. I think this is going to aid their offense significantly down the stretch of

those games. Yeah, it's funny. Is anybody happier than Chris besides Tobias Harris about this trade, by the way? Tobias Harris is almost the hook again. So when the Sixers make the second round or the conference finals but lose, Tobias Harris is the latest recipient of the Oklahoma city

maximum cap space room. And like, and then that will give the Sixers a slot and Daryl. It's a lounge. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lounge. You're talking about Embiid and Harden.

So we see like, like think about Shaq and Kobe with those guys were perfect because Shaq, in the last four minutes of the game, you just didn't want to go to him because you were so afraid he was going to get fouled. And then he became afraid that he was going to get fouled. And Kobe was able to grab those last four minutes. And that was one of the reasons, you know, especially the 2001 team, I think is one of the best teams I've ever seen. Embiid's not like that.

Embiid is the rare center. And I know the stats about how they've blown leads and stuff like that. To me, that's more a function of that they don't have a real point guard. The thing that's been striking to me about Embiid, especially this season, is how easily he's been able to get good shots in the last few minutes because he can do that face-up thing. He's got that weird one-legged thing now. He can, like, bulldoze people.

And I do wonder like, what's the best outcome if you're up one with 50 seconds left? Who gets the ball? Like all this stuff that people like us love to talk about. But Harden's been kind of used to having the ball in that situation

over the years. And Bede has proven this year, like, give me the ball. This is my team. I'm the guy. And Iid has proven this year, like, give me the ball. This is my team. I'm the guy. And I think how Harden integrates into that is the thing I'm going to be watching because we saw him last year in Brooklyn. He's like, okay, we have a ton of scoring. I'm going to be point guard James. I feel like we're going to see point guard James this time, KOC. Yeah, I think we are going to see that. And he wouldn't want to go here and the Sixers

wouldn't necessarily give as much up as they did unless they felt some level of confidence in him embracing that role that you're describing. It's one of the reasons why I'm so high on this team and what they can be. Oh, we have some breaking news. You knew what was going to happen, Was. Oh, Lord have mercy.

What do we got? Oh, boy. We have A Chris Stapps Porzingis trade Woo Woj has said Oh my god We're gonna have to get house

Porzingis to the wizards For a package centered on Spencer Dinwiddie Dinwiddie and Cuban Is too perfect. I'm kind of shocked that they're trading Porzingis. I'd like to know how the Mavs are playing. KFC is stunned. It just hasn't worked, Bill.

It hasn't worked. But they were playing well the last couple weeks. No? Him and Luka don't like each other. We know that. It was reported and it was like oh they figured out bygones be bygones they don't like each other so kp has probably been sulking over there and doesn't want to be there and like just on the court this it hasn't actually worked the way that they assumed that it would for various reasons injuries and just kp's just generally they're just cutting

cutting bait cutting bait and but i do remember man when they traded for kp it was like oh my god the the mavericks are penciled into you know 50 wins no matter what every single season forever because they have these two young guys um and it's crazy to see that abruptly come to an end already. KFC, what's your guess for who's in this trade? Well, so what I was told last night was the Raptors and Mavs were talking with Dragic in a first, which somebody else did report earlier today. And the logic,

what I was told from people around the league about that was Dallas would be kind of starting their free agency clock earlier, essentially a salary dump with KP to be able to get to free agency earlier. Nothing ever goes wrong when Dallas is planning for free agency. Oh, my God. Fucking groundhog day. Well, that's the way it was spun to me when I heard about the Dragic KP version last night.

In this case... Oh, Davis Bertans is in this deal. Bertans is in it. What a night for house oh my god but but like but like with this deal though i don't think dallas is necessarily done though because like we can't forget there's been so many reports about them going after jeremy grant getting drogich would have or now getting dinwiddie does kind of sort of free up jalen brunson a little bit now that you have another secondary ball handler.

So maybe you flip Brunson and Hardaway Jr. to get Jeremy Grant. I mean, something. There's got to be more here for Dallas is my feeling from conversations I had last night. We'll see. Chris, do you want to pour out a 40 for the day

when Kristaps Porzingis was a trade asset? Because he just got traded for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davos Bertons. I can't believe there's no cryptocurrency involved in this trade somehow. This is the crypto trade. This is the like, here, you take my imaginary currency for your imaginary currency. What a quick romance with Dinwiddie in DC. That was like a 10-day

hot and heavy. We're made for each other. Beal talked you into coming. We're off to the races at the beginning of the regular season. Now House is just excited to get off money here. I have a BS pod from the first two weeks of the season where House basically has

an orgasm about Dinwiddie and the Wizards for a while. And Dinwiddie, he's a calming presence. It just didn't last for us. They were playing with so much enthusiasm. The continuity was there on offense. The ball was moving. I was like, wow. They were letting Trez do his thing with the bench units. He had a few

20-point outbursts very early on in the season. I was like, wow, this roster is nicely constructed. They probably on their way to a 6-7 seed, this team, man. This is pretty cool to see. And then it's all just falling apart within the last six weeks. And now Bradley Peel's having surgery and his season is over. This is just a terrible turn of events for the Wizards, man. KFC, can we I think we can officially start Tank Watch for the Wizards? Oh, yeah. Oh, hell yeah.

It's time. Hey, Porzingis, we think your knees need some rest. We're going to give you the last 30 games off and you're going to be hanging out in this hotel suite with Bradley Beal. That's my guess. It's a strange move. But if you do plan on signing Bradley

Beal to the five-year Supermax, at least for as long as KP's playing, it'd be fun to watch those guys together next year, if it even comes to that. We'll see. Do you guys feel like coming into this, and I think it was mostly because of that Kings deal, even though obviously they looked pretty good

against the Timberwolves. And I know that they were trying to shore up enough to get into the play-in. But I was kind of feeling like going into this trade deadline that the NBA was starting to feel a little bit more like the MLB with these very distinct buyers and sellers. And that we might start to see Portland-style teardowns every year

or it's just like ah fuck it let's just start over again next year maybe we keep our one franchise player who mysteriously is going to be absent for the rest of the season and then rebuild in the summer with whatever we can and it's just this constant turnover but weirdly like the Dallas's the Sacramento's

like now you kind of see like these mid-tier teams getting not Dallas's mid-tier but getting a a little bit more pugnacious, getting a little bit more aggressive in the trade market. So I wonder whether it still has its own kind of logic to it and it's not as binary as buying and selling. What do you guys think of that? Well, KFC's been on the blow it up. He's been on the blow it up mountain for years. This is one of his ringer things. Not as much anymore though bill because

you know when i was first hired here the rules were different with the lottery and like you had a 25 chance to get the number one pick at the time it's 14 flat now and the play-in tournament is a factor that's i mean i i mean i think it's the play-in chris that that is really what's creating this situation where teams are both buyers and sellers. Yeah. Like there's more of a hybrid. The Kings had 21 wins or whatever it was. And they went out big game hunting so that they could get a 10th seed.

That never was the case before. They saw the 10th seed as something that was worth pursuing. And they gave up real stuff to try to achieve that. That's just unheard of. And I think more teams would be willing to do that. So my take, thinking about this for five minutes, it's so much fun to get these traits thrown at you. I'm assuming Dallas is just like, Porzingis is a sunk cost. He can't stand on the floor. Because even if you look at his game log this year, he plays 19 games. He's healthy from basically the beginning of November

all the way through mid-December. And he's giving them a 20 and eight. And he looked pretty good, right? Then he missed two games. Then he played four more and put up 27, 34, 24, 24. Then he missed seven games. Then he came back. And then the stats go down.

The knees weren't as healthy. And now he's missed the last five. So I guess Dallas is just going, we don't trust this guy. We don't think he's going to be able to stay on the court. We can get out now. Dean Witte can help us as a bench guard. Bertans, maybe we can salvage him as a shooter,

but more importantly, cap space. The problem with the cap space thing is those guys are under contract next year. I don't know, unless I'm missing something, I don't know how that helps them this summer. Well, it's one year sooner. It's not about this summer. It's about the fact that KB has multiple more years than those guys.

It's setting themselves up for 2023 rather than waiting until 2024 or 2025. They're just getting to it sooner by dumping KP. That's grim. I have a hard time buying that. That's why it's not all about that. It's also, I think, we'll see in the

next 15 minutes here if something else happens. But even if it's this offseason, Jalen Brunson, now that you have Dragic, and if you hoped in what he can get back to the guy we saw pre-torn ACL, it does free up Jalen Brunson as a guy you're more comfortable trading. And that's a very, very valuable piece.

So I think that's a component of it, whether it happens in the next 15 minutes or whether it happens this offseason. Yeah, so Porzingis was 33.8 next year and then 36 in 24 and then was a free agent after that a steal that's a steal um for any team that could get it and then the wizards we have burtons which i thought he had this year and next year at the least right is it more than that is it longer i'm downloading the spot track spot track a little slow today i think oh the gateway time out from spot track spot checks like porzingis in a big spot oh here we go um yeah so we have dinwiddie is 17 and 18 and some sort of non-guaranteed thing after next season.

Bertans, 16, 16, 17 in 23-24. But still way less than Porzingis. Sure. Does feel like that's another one. Now we have 13 minutes left till the deadline. That's another one where it feels like Dallas has one more trade now. Yeah, unless Dallas is trying to recreate Clippers South or something where they're just going to have like a ton of shooting and a ton of playmaking

around. I'm not, not that I would call Bertans a playmaker, but they're just going to do this perimeter oriented thing. Like that's the, that's the most favorable read I can make for this other than getting off of Porzingis. I'm a Dinwiddie guy.

He's had just a tough season. I've always thought he was pretty underrated in what he was doing in Brooklyn. Just manning offenses and his pick and roll operation. But, you know, you wonder how healthy he is at this point coming off of that injury where it's like his second injury to that same knee uh but you know i think luka ball it feels like jay kidd except from the beginning he doesn't want to play luka ball and getting somebody like dim witty who can be an on ball type of threat to take like legitimately do that even though I thought Jalen Brunson was doing a good job of that too, seems to be in a direction of that because J-Kid feels uneasy about just like, all right, let's let our main guy have a 40% usage every single game and just see where the chips fall.

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Just search Movember. So Bobby Marks had some info on the Dinwiddie contract. He, it's 17, 18, and then 18.9 in the third year. 10 million guaranteed. And there's a bunch of bonuses that can be triggered. So they have the 10 million buyout. I just get nervous when Dallas, Chris made that point earlier, when Dallas is paving the way for cap space for free agents because we haven't seen people go there.

All right, 10 minutes to go. KFC, give me one prediction that's going to happen in the next 10 minutes. We'll see another Dallas trade. Was? The Jeremy Grant thing has domino, has to fall. I feel like there's so many suitors out there detroit has to bite on one of them at some point here and i'll be very interested to see where he ultimately lands and hopefully it's on a team with some real aspirations this year because i'm a fan of what he brings to

a playoff situation chris uh after watching last night's lakers-Blazers game, I can't believe Palenka's phone's not melting in his hand right now. But the other one would just be... I thought Eric Gordon was going to be the thing that got done the easiest and the earliest, and he's still on Houston. So Gordon and Wood and Houston not using any of that to get more draft capital

or whatever they want there. It's pretty interesting that we're 10 minutes out and Eric Gordon's still on Houston. I'm so glad Chris brought up the Lakers. We somehow haven't talked about them yet. I thought you might want to spend an hour on it, like the third hour, but just be dedicated to the Lakers.

I'm just picturing the room right now, right? Their war room. It's like Curt and Linda Rambis, Jeannie Buss, Rob Palenka, and maybe Magic on Zoom because he's probably giving a speech in Miami or Dallas or something. And that is our brain trust. And maybe LeBron sending some texts. But last night, it seemed like they got broken. And I actually think the outcome is going to be they're just

going to tell Westbrook to go away until the summer. Like, just leave. Stay away from the team? Yeah. Like, you're not happy. We're not happy. Maybe this is... You think that's more likely than a coaching change during the All-Star break?

I don't see how a coaching change saves any of this Westbrook stuff. What's a coaching change? It's not going to do anything. It's not Frank Vogel's fault. But is there an... Go ahead, Cassie. Is there an alternate universe somewhere where LeBron James woke up

this morning and demanded a trade? I saw some of that floating around Twitter. LeBron demanding a trade back to Miami. I saw some of that. Go back to Cleveland, man. Come on. Go play with

Mobley and Garland. And I just I actually I just can't. I almost did a tweet today and I didn't want to start shit because people everyone on Twitter

is just so uptight during the trade deadline. But like, what would have been the most fun, realistic LeBron trade today? Like, Affiliate just said we can't get James Harden.

Fuck it. How about Simmons? Simmons and Curry for LeBron trade today. Like, affiliate just said, we can't get James Harden. Fuck it. How about Simmons? LeBron for Simmons. Simmons and Curry for LeBron. And just like, what people, what their reactions would have been to that.

That would be incredible. Yeah. But like, what other fun LeBron dream? Because it would have to be a team that's a contender, right? Honestly, like if there was some way

to get LeBron to Cleveland for like the Sexton love, like, and whatever else that you need to make weight, it would just be so awesome to see him go back. He goes from AD in Westbrook to Garland and Mobley and just gets completely rejuvenated by going home again. I know it would never happen, but it is very, very, very intoxicating. Are we sure Cleveland would want to do that? It's like I'm in incredible chemistry right now. very intoxicating. Are we sure Cleveland want to do that? It's incredible chemistry right now. Dan Gilbert

wants no parts of that. He's finally put together his first ever winner without LeBron James. I don't think he would sign off on that. He wants his credit for this team at this point. I've always wondered like, you know, when, when things were going sideways, when magic

was quitting and like, it was looking bleak for the Lakers there. And at the end of that first LeBron year, I was wondering what would happen if the Lakers were just like, you know what, we're done with this whole thing. We're're just gonna trade lebron and just be a regular team and start with young guys and i just wondered like what if they did like a charlie like what if they trade lebron to like a crappy market that wasn't cleveland right like he he had he didn't want any parts of and i was you know i was just thinking about stuff like sac or possibly Memphis or New Orleans. That's what I was thinking at the end of that season. I wonder if a team got spiteful, like the Lakers, and was just like, we're going to trade you to the highest bidder.

And we're not going to take any of your opinions into account what that would be like for LeBron to just be powerless in a situation, just be shipped off. Like if he went to like Atlanta, he's like, Oh yeah. I mean, Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta of 2019 though,

this Atlanta, like that would be a freaking good situation for him right now. Yeah. I guess I'm thinking like, what would be a trade that he would kind of talk himself into even though he'd be mad they traded him? Oh, a team that he would definitely not talk himself into is the Orlando Magic.

Could you imagine? Oh my God. But, you know, even though he had his grumbles about them the other night, it would be like, LeBron on Memphis would be amazing. I can't believe we're actually doing

like five minutes on this. I think this is, I'm having such a good time. But LeBron on Memphis would be like, do I need to move to Memphis? What if Brooklyn called and said,

we'll give you Kyrie and the two first round picks we've gotten for LeBron? I think the Lakers say no. KOC kind of was. Well, no. What if the Nets just said, we'll flip you Ben Simmons?

For LeBron? Wow. Right now. Wow. Wow. What if they call a couple minutes before the deadline? They call Palenka. We'll give you Ben Simmons and two firsts for LeBron James.

How do you feel about trading the king? Wow. That would be amazing. Would that be the new greatest moment in Twitter history? Ever. Ever, ever, ever, ever. LeBron has been trading for Ben Simmons. Ever.

And a second round pick in 2027. That's the trade. Yeah. If you're the Lakers, I don't know what happened to Davis last night I don't know Where his head's at I also don't really know why he's that unhappy

Like you chose to come to the Lakers You're playing with LeBron he's healthy he's right there Why can't the two of you Kick ass against this shit Portland team Who cares who your other three teammates are I feel like they're taking a hit legacy-wise. I just can't believe that they're this overmatched. It's not like they're

playing with three guys they picked out of the first row. They're playing with NBA players. Here's what I think about AD. I think to him, he doesn't want to lift a finger unless it actually matters. That's just my opinion. That's what it seems like. Who the fuck is he?

Bill Russell? What are we doing? What is happening? I have no idea, bro. He's just wired that way. It just feels like AD is not, you know, he's the antithesis

of whatever Kevin Garnett has inside of him. That's what AD is. You know, he's a supremely talented guy. Obviously, he's a good dude or whatever but like as far as like fire and passion and motor and like this this idea that he's gonna come out and rip people's heads off every single night that's not him it's also never been him

it's weird because you'd think by at least ad and lebron because they've been on the lakers for a few years now they would know this but like teams are now they smell the blood in the water and it's like portland didn't quit on that game last night portland wasn't like oh we'll lay down the whole point here is to get nuked so that we get good we get high draft they were like we're getting after these guys like nurkic wanted ad last night just same same way janice wanted ad the other night like there's there's a little bit of like, the king is weak, let's go after him happening with the Lakers. And I don't know how they dig themselves out of this,

especially not if they don't make any frigging trades in the next 120 seconds. I was trying to figure out a Miami trade just now. Duncan Robinson and Kyle Lowry for LeBron? I mean, the fact that we're spending so much time on like just the theoretical possibility speaks to how realistic superstar trades have become I mean Harden says I want to go to

Brooklyn, Philly, Milwaukee or Miami he gets to go to Brooklyn then he says he wants to go to Philly he gets to go to Philly LeBron this offseason we misheard him he said he wanted to go to all of those teams. So he's just going to have a carousel. He's on

a world tour. Next Christmas, he's going to be like, Wisconsin! I'm here! Here's the real reason that he would never want to get traded. For the same reason I wouldn't want to get traded. He gets to watch his kids play sports. There's nothing more fun than that he likes his life no he doesn't i don't think he's fine and genie genie would not sign off on that like to to stab lebron in the back it goes

against her one like coherent thing which is we take care of superstars when they come here and that's like one of the biggest things about the Lakers is like, if you a superstar, then you come here, we're going to take care of you. We're going to cater to your needs. And to do that to LeBron, that's like goes against all of the equity she's built in that marketing campaign. All right, we just had to redo the last three minutes because there was a fake Chris Haynes tweet that made the circles

with the Toronto-Houston trade. But we do have a trade. We have the Celtics trading Dennis Schroeder to the Houston Rockets in a package for Daniel Tice. Sing it, Waz. I'm coming home. Coming home.

Tell the world that I'm coming. Sully's going to be really happy about this, Bill. Tell Bill's dad I'm coming home. Tell the world that I'm coming. Sully's going to be really happy about this, Bill. Tell Bill's dad I'm coming home. Tell Bill's dad get ready to watch me get elbowed in the mouth by something that's not called a flick or foul. Stevens loved him. I always thought they

traded him because Stevens played him too much, but now Stevens is the GM. So Stevens is like, I still love him. He's back. So now the Derek Wade trade makes a Stevens is like, I still love him. He's back. So now the Derek Wade trade makes a little more sense, KOC. Yeah, it does. I mean, that answers our question here. It wasn't Marcus Martha got freed up. It was Dennis

Schroeder. Tice is okay. He's all right. Makes some sense for Boston to shuffle the deck here. I, for one, cannot wait to watch the Kevin Porter Jr., Jalen Green, Dennis Schroeder in the back.

So is that our first all-German, all-German trade? Two German guys traded for each other? We might have made NBA history with that. We need a lot of sports

on that. Yeah. Bro, Dennis Schroeder was locked in to something like 90 million or something crazy like that with the Lakers.

He turned it down because he was so sure they were going to have a deep playoff run and he was going to get like $100 something. And now he's in Houston on just a tank-a-thon that's probably going to be a tank-a-thon for the foreseeable future. Oh, man. Well, my guess is he gets bought out, right? And then he becomes a potential buyout guy for

Milwaukee. Would be how I think this would play out. So this could... Or the Lakers. Or the Lakers. The Lakers can use him, man. The Lakers can use him, dude. You think Dennis would go back to the Lakers? Yeah.

Yeah? I believe somebody, I mean, I saw something this morning about Schroeder as an option for the Lakers. Yeah, there's... Even outside of not getting the deal that he wanted and they were just like, you know, whatever. Oh, Ennis Freedom and Bruno Fernando were in that deal as well. I got to say, I kind of like Bruno Fernando. I thought he had some pretty good moments

in garbage time where you're like, wait, this guy seems like an NBA player. So it's tough break for Ennis Freedom, Tea Party legend. Tough break for him. At 12-0-4. Texas could be a good fit. Jeremy Grant's still a piston.

Yeah. The Lakers Grant's still a piston. Yep. The Lakers have not made a deal. We haven't heard about any faxes coming in. Yep. That's pretty shocking, man. We're going to wrap up part two right now. Chris Ryan, you're leaving us. Any farewell words?

We're going to come back and hopefully there'll be some more trades. Any farewell words to your fans? To the Sixers Nation? To James Harden, to Ben Simmons? Fear the beard. Fear the beard. I've long since, you know, everybody knows how much I love Harden and it's just an amazing union of city and player. And it's just, I can't wait for the Harden era to get started. Do you love him more or less than Gordon Willis? Famous cinematographer, 70s and 80s. A little bit, a little bit less. All right.

Well, good luck with the beard. I can't wait to get to text complaining. KSA and Waz are sticking around. We're going to bring in Kyle Mann. We are coming back. That was the end of part two. And we'll be back in a couple of minutes, hopefully with some trades. I want to see them on the wayside never run

Say I don't have feelings with them On the wayside On the wayside never run Say I don't have feelings with them