The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: Trade Deadline Reactions With Ryen Russillo and Rob Mahoney. Plus, SB LVII Million-Dollar Picks.

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

In the second part of our series on 2023 NBA trade deadline reactions, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo and Rob Mahoney minutes after the deadline passes to discuss the Warriors bringing back Gary Payton II, the Clippers shuffling their roster, Russell Westbrook to the Jazz, the strange Nets roster, Josh Hart to the Knicks, questionable trades, best and worst trades, the Lakers' new players, and much more (1:04). Then Bill makes the Million-Dollar Picks for Super Bowl LVII (1:21:41). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Ryen Russillo and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. This is part two of our big trade deadline podcast. Ryan Russillo and Rob Mahoney are going to join us in a second. Tape this right after the trade deadline ended. And then on top of that, I have million dollar picks

and a whole bunch of props that I liked and all kinds of things. My pick for the big game is last in this podcast. Up next, Russillo and Mahoney. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. It's part two of the Trade Deadline Podcast. We're taping this. It is 1222 Pacific Time.

Ryan Vassilis here again, joined by Rob Mahoney from The Ringer. Guys, I really thought we were going to have some sort of second awesome trade to talk about. A lot of smaller stuff. Rob, this is kind of your kind of trade deadline. A lot of like little stealth moves, some character actors, no big stars. It's like one of those Apple shows with just a bunch of actors you like, but no, no, like round picks. I have a count for you. Do you guys have a guess at how many second round picks were moved today and yesterday? Between the ultimate deadline action. How many

total second round picks? Raheem was saying, Raheem Palmer on Twitter was saying that it would have been a good Super Bowl prop. The over of the game versus second round picks. I would say, yeah. I would go higher than Marcelo. I'd say like 35. 38 versus second round picks. I would say, yeah, I would go higher than Marcelo. I'd say like 35. 38 total second round picks moved.

Man. Will they be players? I mean, some of those are given like five picks going one way to Golden State, which are then conceivably rerouted to Portland in some of these deals. It's a mess. It's going to be a mess figuring out

where all these picks ended up. But you're right. It is a lot of stealth action. It's a mess. It's going to be a mess figuring out where all these picks ended up. But you're right. It is a lot of stealth action. It's a lot of smaller moves and really a very West heavy tilt overall to all of these deals. So wait, I'm sorry. The five picks, do they count as five twice

in the Atlanta-Sadiq Bay, then to Portland? Oh, interesting. Yeah, what's the rule there? If it gets moved, is that 10? They do because it's separate transactions. If it's a three-way deal, then do because it's separate transactions if it's a three-way deal then yeah it's one it's one move it is technically yeah second the only thing i'll make this quick i don't hate second rounders i just hate how much people defended them

and all i can think of is like sam hinkey at home ripping his shirts going now we're moving five second rounders and i wasn't even around for this that fucker loves second rounders and I wasn't even around for this. That fucker loves second rounders. Anyway, moving on. I had two hours where I was ready to type the tweet that second rounders were the new Bitcoin, but I didn't want to enrage Raoul Bob. I just, I didn't. I just, he's our guy. I didn't want to make him mad, but it really did

feel like this was the second round draft pick year and I don't, I just don't personally value them. If you go look back at the second rounds maybe two or three a year hit I want third rounders I want third rounders and I want I want an NBA writer to write about how they're sneaky actually super valuable but I don't know if I'll ever get that day let's do let's do uh I have all the trades broken down but just a quick thumbs up, thumbs down.

The only one that I really genuinely liked where I'm like this team that I thought had a chance to win a title and is now better is the Golden State move. Where they turn Wiseman into Gary Payton, basically. They save a little luxury tax. But I just looked at that. I'm like, they've needed Gary Payton ever since he left. I know he's been hurt in Portland, but that's just the kind of guy I'm like, they, they've needed Gary Payton ever since he left. I know he's been hurt in Portland, but, um,

that's just the kind of guy I feel like they need going forward. I thought it was going to be Russ, uh, Alex Caruso. I almost said Russ Caruso, Alex Caruso. Um, but I guess the Bulls just decided to set the trade deadline out.

Payton was really important in the finals last year. So they're better. Um, is there anybody else, Rob, that you would say, all right, that team is unquestionably there better than they were two days ago? I mean, so we're taking the big ones off the board. We're taking the Suns off

the board, I assume. Yeah, yeah, Suns off the board. Yeah, we hit that. I think the Clippers are better. I think the Clippers are slightly better. There's still going to be a lot to work out, but they've consolidated a little bit. They have just a tighter eight or nine man rotation that they could work with now. Beyond that, I mean, I think it's more marginal stuff. It's like, I like Jalen McDaniels to the Sixers and kind of that trade out for Matisse Thibault. I like

things like that. But are those going to change the title race? Not really. Russo, Clippers turn John Wall, Luke Kennard, and Reggie Jackson into Eric Gordon, Bones Highland, and Mason Plumlee. Are they better in your opinion? Yeah, they are. I think Reggie Jackson deserves a lot of credit for kind of figuring out his career in the way some other ball-dominant players

don't figure it out. He had some really nice stretches. He wasn't always my favorite player in the beginning because I think you go through that when you're young. The same thing happened with Dennis Schroeder when he was in Atlanta. It's kind of like, all right, this is my team. I'm the best player. I get to take all the shots. And you're like, yeah, let's go to this, you know, again, a big argument on like, are you that player or is that your situation? And so I think Reggie Jackson deserves a lot of credit for that, but it felt like it kind of run its course.

And Kennard, who I helps memphis and trying to figure out some of their backcourt stuff can completely shoot you know everybody wanted to be in on og and an ob there was all these rumors about teams offering multiple firsts for him but i think the price was still at two and then it depended on the player toronto clearly didn't like enough of this stuff and then the wall thing which was one of the most overrated moves we fall in love with the late offseason thing with a name. We do it every fucking year. And I don't think the three of us did it.

But when you talk about, oh, and they added John Wall. You're like, dude, he doesn't play that much. And he's been hurt a lot. And I kind of liked him when he was good. Don't forget the can't shoot part. So if it works, great. But it's not some huge negative because it didn't. So I think when you think about moving that out for Plum plumley who i think is a really nice rotational matchup big i think they

wanted somebody a little bit more active to try to balance what zubats is well and zubats was wearing down too i think you could kind of see it the last month so they knew they needed one more guy gordon that's a big number um again the clippers it looks like i mean the way i have it they're bringing in more money again here but I think the Bones part it depends on like how plugged in you are because you're going wait you got Bones Highland for two second rounders so it feels like a very simple win like what went out versus what came in makes a lot of sense the problem for Bones is it got real old quick with him in Denver and there's gonna be he's an on the I got this all-stars. I got this.

Yeah, like that John Lucas moment with the Chicago Bulls where that meme was going around when Derrick Rose was down. It was like, I fucking got this. And it was John Lucas III, which I loved. I'll never forget. There was a reason why Bones was available for two seconds. And it was because there was just some...

To be nice, I think there was a real disconnect with how bought in he was. So from a talent standpoint, yeah, the quick answer is that I like what they did on the margins, but that's all it was. You always have to be suspicious of somebody who's like, I don't know if I'm a good fit with Nikola Jokic. That's a red flag, just in general.

What do you think of Bones? Not really your kind of guy, Rob, but on the right team i could see him moving into like a jordan clarkson type of heat check kind of guy i think that's like his destiny right yeah i was kind of hoping he would end up on a defense heavy team that needs some juice sometimes like that yeah that is the dream role for him and the clippers frankly can be Offensively, they can be pretty stagnant sometimes. We'll see if that irons out over the back half of the schedule. But ultimately, the costs are concerned.

Ryan, I do think you were being nice about the way you described his situation in Denver. This is not a trade you make if you're the Nuggets unless the vibes with Bones are certifiably bad. He is a talent. He is clearly capable as a scorer. He can shoot. He should be everything that you

want in a young guard prospect. And you're unloading him for two future seconds? It's quite an indictment on where Bones is right now in terms of what his priorities are as a player. By the way, you got three years of control.

I mentioned this on a pod two weeks ago way, you got three years of control. Oh, I mentioned this on a pod two weeks ago. There was a game when Murray was out and Bones was kind of feeling it and there was a fourth quarter situation where a couple times he kind of looked off Jokic at the top of the three-point line and I just followed it away. I was like, this is not going to last. You're watching the tapes the next

day and Bones, Jokic is right there. He's one of the greats. Doesn't like playing with him. So good pickup. The thing I don't get with the clips, and I do, I like all these moves individually. I'm excited for the Skylar Gray. I'm coming home when Eric Gordon comes back.

I know that's going to be emotional. I'm going to be there. Tickets are going to be out of control. I can't imagine. It would be very similar to LeBron's scoring record game him coming back the montage of 25 and 57 teams that he was on

all those lottery teams there's so many guys coming home this deadline George Hill's going home as we mentioned John Wall's going home Gary Payton's coming home everybody's coming home a lot of coming homes I still feel like they needed like TJ McConnell, Mike Conley, Peyton Pritchard, just that guy who dribbles the ball up

and can stand in a spot and shoot. They still don't have it. So maybe, I can't believe I'm saying this. I disagree with it. I think it's a terrible idea. Maybe this means they're getting Westbrook because it still feels like there's a hole for a guy and

I just feel like this is going to be the Westbrook team, Rosillo. I really do. That would be my bet. Okay. Do you like it? No. No. Not at all. No. I do not. I keep bringing myself back to the Kyrie lesson this past weekend.

It's like, why would you want to bring this guy in? Well, apparently five teams did that were good. And I don't know why, you know, the Westbrook thing's taken a very predictable turn where, you know, you were there in the building on Tuesday. It was incredible. The clips that have made the rounds, you're like, okay, so this guy's not. Now, I don't know how much of the Lakers stuff we want to do now, but... Let's

save Lakers for last because I feel like the Lakers always steal the main course of the dinner table and it's like, let's put them in dessert. It just feels like there's an early immediate push this afternoon of misunderstood Russ. Misunderstood Russell Westbrook and you're like, now he's on his fifth team

and it's going to be his sixth team in five years. Like, I think you should be ineligible for the Hall of Fame if you're on six teams in five years. That's an interesting idea. I kind of like that. Yeah.

If it's more than one team a year over the course of five years. Listen, the only defense you can make for Russ is the way he was yanked around and trade rumored really for eight months where they clearly didn't want him on the team we had that Vegas thing where they were him and LeBron were in the same building and then you know two days before the the actual last game when LeBron went on record it was like I'm really sad that we didn't get Kyrie and it's

well there's only way one way you could have gotten Kyrie, traded Westbrook. And then he had to play with Westbrook. And I talked about this on my pod on Tuesday. I went to that game and Westbrook didn't interact with anybody and just had the crazies. And he would just go to the locker room when he wasn't playing. He slow walked off the court in the second quarter

and got into a Darvin Hamm. And it just, you could tell he was like, fuck this. You guys want to trade me for eight months? Fuck you. With that said, I don't think he's the answer for the Clippers. I don't think the Clippers... Mahoney, I feel like there's a clear difference

between the Clippers and then that top tier of teams, which is Phoenix and Denver and Golden State and Memphis. Then I think it drops. I don't think the Clippers are there. And I don't think Dallas is there either. Do you have that as a top four? Or am I wrong?

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that those top three. And then the Clippers are probably the most convincing of the next group, but they're really banking on something with Phoenix's health not quite lining up at the right time, whether it's Durant or Booker or Paul. They're really banking on maybe Denver is just a little too shallow now.

Maybe they don't have quite what they need coming off the bench. The Clippers need stuff to go right. And they really don't- And health stuff to go right, too. Absolutely. And you guys are right. They need to avoid the Russell Westbrook experience

as much as possible. I gotta admit, I was a little sympathetic to Russ today when Dave McMenamin was on ESPN relaying a sourced quote where someone from the Lakers described him as a vampire in the locker room. That's tough. That's tough. But at the same time, if you're the Clippers,

I just don't see any ostensible benefit from a minute going away from, say, Terrence Mann to Russell Westbrook. I don't really see the payoff for a team like that. I wouldn't bring him into a team that has any aspirations because the thing that I always think about Westbrook is that it's a credit to him. His stubbornness made him an NBA all-star, made him

an MVP. 100%. The guy didn't have the big recruiting profile. Even when he got drafted, you were kind of like, what's going on? I remember talking to PJ Carlissimo about it where he and Presti were arguing. PJ wanted Brooke Lopez. Presti just kept coming back to like, I where he and Presti were arguing. PJ wanted Brooke Lopez. Presti just kept coming back to like, I think there's something just special here.

And, you know, in the beginning, they were all right about it. I mean, Presti was right about it. And, you know, the guy hits home runs all the time. So I think there's a part of it where I am sympathetic to Westbrook's stubbornness, but the stubbornness is now why he's going to be on the sixth team here, because the Utah thing's not technically going to count.

But when I see the kind of like, you know, it's weird how we'll have more sympathy for players in ways that we've never had before, which I think is good progress. But then it becomes like delusional where you go, look, it wasn't this all Vogel's fault. Oh, no shit. It wasn't Vogel's fault. You know, oh, Vogel didn't know how to use me. And then, you know, that's why I just roll my eyes all offseason, not specific to Westbrook, not specific to any coach, not specific to the Lakers of like,

Darvin Ham saying all the right things. Everybody's buying in. Playing defense this year. Defensive commitment. You know, he gets me. And then it's like, no, here's the deal. You accepted the bench thing more this year because last year was such a disaster. And by the way, he would have gotten benched in the fourth had they been competitive last season. But at that point, the season's already lost.

So it's like, okay, I don't feel like if you're Vogel adding another dilemma to my daily routine. So whatever, we stink. We'll just keep going rolling with regular minutes. And then when they thought they were going to be competitive again this year, it's like, no, Russ has accepted this because Ham knew how to talk to him, right? That's all the more of the bullshit that we're being sold and so like yeah i've been doing this long enough where i keep seeing it said over and over and over again and you're like none of this is any different so that gets back to westbrook and some of the players that we do applaud for figuring out how to survive in this league he hasn't come close to doing that so if

i'm a contending team even if i I have depth issues, like what kind of how does that conversation even start? Like, Hey, are you willing to, to just fit in here? The answer is no. It's almost like you, I, we just lost our spark, our starting point guard on March 5th for the year. And we need somebody who can basically eat some innings for us at the point guard position who can put up some stats. I Brian Curtis always has that running joke about when any, anything, something's Rocky on a team and then there's a trade or the guy leaves.

And then three days later, there's the big piece with like the eight tidbits about how miserable it was. And like that vampire anecdote you mentioned, and he calls it the, now they tell us peace. I think there's going to be an amazing. Now they tell us piece about this Westbrook thing because that team I watched Tuesday night was one of the unhappiest teams I've seen in person on a night that was supposed to be a pretty joyous night. This is a celebration of this amazing record that was 39 years old that

was going to be broken by one of the league's best players of all time. And everybody looked miserable except him. So, uh. Well, that's his fault. I mean, for us not doing the Lakers thing, we're doing the Lakers thing. I know. I did. Look, I wanted to be as positive as I could be on yesterday's podcast

because LeBron, the player, deserves that. Okay? What he's done, what this number ends up being. Like, the guy has done it. He's checked every box. He and Brady, the best team bets in sports the last

two decades. Hey, you have one of these two guys in these two sports. You have a chance to win a championship. That list is two people long in 20 years. It just is, unless I'm forgetting about a hockey player, which I don't think I am. But when LeBron, who has an amazing habit to compliment himself, to find a way to steer an answer to a compliment about himself, about something he's not even asked, one of the constant things I'll always do is he talks about what a great leader is. He's a terrible leader. Being a great leader is making sure that you have everybody who wants to buy in with you. Whatever this version of it is now, you can't tweet out, I guess it's me, when you don't get Kyrie, which your tweet is really saying it's definitely not

me. And then have your teammates go, what the fuck is he talking about? Because that's exactly what happened. Clearly something happened with Anthony Davis between this last few days leading up to. So like when you're on the team with LeBron, all you are is a trade ship to further his legacy. That's not leadership. And so I don't necessarily like go rest. Westbrook is right in all of this stuff, but like, this isn't hard to figure out the math of how we came to this night where it's supposed to be this massive celebration and his two most important teammates, as far as their stature in the game are fucking like 80 doesn't want to talk to him. Doesn't get up when he hits the shot. Westbrook gets into a fight with his coach. Like what the hell is going on?

And that's why I think as much as I want to celebrate the accomplishment of the career of LeBron, I think there's real questions as this thing goes into its final chapter of like, if I'm a teammate with him, is this about us at all? Because it isn't. Yeah, there's not a lot of team first guy. That's not the first thing anyone was saying about that. Rob, this happened in the last year in Cleveland too. In that 2018 season where, what do they have, like 25 guys on the roster? And when you're constantly insinuating whether it's passive aggressive or not, like we need help. I need better teammates. I need more around me, but you're playing with teammates every day. Like that would be weird.

Like if, if you were on ringer NBA show on Wednesday, Rob, and you were like, I don't know. We'll see what the ringer does. See if they can get me some better co-hosts here. And then you got to do a podcast with Barrett Wise.

That would be weird. I'm going to float that though. We're just going to, we're just going to see what it does for the vibes. We're going to see how it changes the energy. Give it a test drive. No, there was actually something that happened. I'm going to float that though. We're just going to see what it does for the vibes. We're going to see how it changes the energy of the room. Yeah, try it out. Give it a test drive. There was actually something that happened. I'm not going to bring up the names. But I was looking at something happening

and going, imagine if I were doing radio still at ESPN and I'm watching Get Up, watching the show while it happens, being like, this show just doesn't have it. They need me on it now. And then I got to walk down the hallway and run into Greeny or Jalen Rose or Beatle and be like, hey, how's it going?

Yeah. Again, all that stuff's way less important, but I thought LeBron made a pretty big mistake of, you know, it was very proactive of being like, you know, I need more help. And clearly the Wilbon thing was all about the scoring record. He should be doing that sit down. But there were people around the league

watching that clip of him talking about not getting Kyrie going, this is pretty fucked up. Well, don't you think, Rob, that the players in the league kind of see that? Like if you're on LeBron's team and it goes well, that's great. But if it doesn't go well,

you're going to be the guy that's blamed. That goes to this question about what his leadership style is. And often it is the accountability for the situation falls on the role players. And the accountability for, as we're circling, what LeBron tweets, what LeBron says, anything about his circumstances,

it comes down to you, Jay Crowder and Isaiah Thomas, or you, Rui Hachimura and Austin Reeves. You are ultimately going to have to answer for those things. And the trade-off is you get to play with someone who ultimately is probably the best on-court engineer in the history of the sport, controlling mismatches, putting you in positions to succeed if you're willing to play his game. I'm not sure we've seen anyone ever better at those things. But you put up with a lot.

You put up with, and the kind way to say it is a lot of noise. The less kind way is a lot of basically constant bullshit that is on your plate as a guy who's making $5 million a year. Yeah, a fraction of what LeBron is to shoulder a lot of burden. And it's weird because I thought Kevin Love, there was that stretch in Cleveland

where it felt like he just became the pinata for anything. If Cleveland wasn't going to make it to his fault, he was going to get traded. But he always talks and tweets and really positively about his LeBron experience.

But I always felt like he was the fall guy for two years, wasn't he? Dude, there was that ESPYs where I went and then I went to their after party and I ran into Love. And again, I'm not trying to like i'm just and i was like hey man like he was the butt of every fucking joke at the espy's and i was like how how's it going

and he was like and he was so nice you know he was so nice i was like man i'm kind of letting you have it there tonight and he's like yeah whatever and i was like okay i mean he got mario chalmers the whole time and so like look none of this is new we know when there's games that are really bad, LeBron's going to sit away from everybody. He's very demonstrative about like, let me show you that like, I'm not accepting of this. So then I just think that kind of stuff, like, look, when he's this, when he is without question, the best player in the NBA, which he was for a very long time, it's all worth it. It's all worth it. Cause guess what? You're playing for a championship. That's why I do say every time we talk about him,

I mean, to be the best bet in this sport for as long as he was. But now, as we head into this final phase, like I thought you got a sampling of it this week where I'm not going to side with Westbrook on everything.

I'd side with LeBron on a lot of this stuff. AD's been a massive disappointment. You know, it worked out. They got the ring. I'm not going to side against LeBron, but I just thought it was

some real big misplays for a dude where it's like the, the, the, I don't want to use the word duality, but like what happened in the course in the lead up of that game and everything since like, it's crazy. Let's take a break. And, uh, I want to do some of my thumbs down teams. 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.

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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, so before we get into some of the trades and things we liked and didn't like, can we just talk about a couple of the teams that I just wrote WTF next to? Houston just, I guess, became like the second round pick. Dumping ground. Dumping ground place.

And that was all they got for Eric Gordon, who's been sitting around forever. They're trying to make themselves worse, but it was just weird. They didn't get anything. They can't even point to a protected first round pick in 2038. Nothing. Toronto, who we were being told was a seller. Everyone's on the table.

They got to blow this up. This team's going nowhere. And they zagged the other way. This official zag. They got Jakob Pertl. Is that a zag? Protected first. Was the zag for what we were being told was going to

happen and they didn't trade anybody. And Rob, the takeaway for me was they kind of feel like they're hanging around and fuck it. We're not getting what we want for the guys that we value and maybe if we had a big guy, screw it. Let's see what's going to happen. What was your take?

I mean, I think it's some of that. I would say of anything with them, I'm surprised we didn't see Fred VanVleet moved. That seemed like one that was pretty logical, even more so than OG Ananobi, who's been in every rumor for the last couple of months. But OG is a guy whose value is going to be there. A guy who

you could see the Durant situation affecting the progression of those talks and maybe derailing them, maybe delaying them to the offseason. I don't mind them getting in on the Jakob Pertl business. They certainly need a player like him or need a player like him again.

Another guy who's coming home, coincidentally. Oh, yeah. I don't really get it from an in-season perspective. I see that more as like, we want to return to some kind of positional normalcy. We want to have more of a traditional center again. We're going to bring in a guy who's a very solid rim protector,

who has been in relative quiet in San Antonio, who can kind of help stabilize us a little bit. And maybe there's some psychic value to that, to getting back to a place of competency defensively, of consistency defensively, and Purtle is the start of that. But I wouldn't count on the Raptors to go on some huge climb in the East standings.

Russella, they're 26 and 30. They're in the 10 spot. They got Chicago and Atlanta right in front of them. Then the Knicks are 30 and 26, four games ahead of them. Miami's 30 and 25. And then Brooklyn's 32 and 22. And that team might,

they might go sideways. They might go cratering down. They might be better than we thought. I don't know. I guess Toronto's thinking, can we get, is there a path to us to be a six seed? Maybe we've underachieved for our talent

and we're missing this one piece. We can make a little run and maybe get six or seven seed. Does that seem realistic to you? I wouldn't rule it out. I mean, I think they're really disappointing. I mean, still, when Siakam and Van Vliet are going,

it feels like Barnes is taking a step back. But I'll admit, nights I watch them, I'm like, there's still a lot of guys that I like on this team. I think the half-court offense has been, I don't know what the latest numbers were, but I know that was like one of the weird oddities with them. When they got in half-court, they were really stagnant for times, but they were so good in transition that it kind of hid

the overall offensive number. You know, Nick Nurse is somebody, when you talk to other teams, they'll even check. I don't know if it still happens, but so many teams are impressed with Nurse that they would kind of see like, oh, if we're playing this team, oh, Toronto played him two weeks ago. Let's see what Toronto did against him. So when I hear like, oh, maybe they're ready to move on to him or maybe Nurse ends up somewhere else like Houston, I don't know. Well, they did drop his salary in a piece, which I thought was a red flag. Yeah. You know my feeling

on that one. It was like, oh, his salary now is being disclosed. Hmm. Yeah. I think you're on something there, to be honest with you. And look, when I'm not around it every day i don't like i just don't blame coaches a ton because i think it comes down to like who's on your team

all right yeah and so if like nurse isn't bad at coaching basketball all of a sudden now if the team has tuned them out they want to turn on you know go to somebody else it's also the job too like three four years you can know the x's and o's inside and out but we've all heard that's a pretty unhappy team yeah i don't know who's. But we've all heard that's a pretty unhappy team. Yeah, I don't know who to explain for that, but that's a pretty persistent bus. I just wonder if Masai is pretty bold, felt like there was nothing bold. Maybe he

held out for a third first round or for OG feeling like, you know, because for a while I would say, I don't know, Rob, have you heard the same thing? Like felt like there were four or five teams that were willing to move to first. I don't know what the predictions would have been on all of them. Or to my side, just go, I'm going to zag a little bit here. All you guys are freaking out about these side pieces. Once Durant

was out of the picture, I don't think Durant was going to be all that happy long-term for Toronto. Maybe I'm stocking some things here this summer. Maybe I'm better positioned now this summer than I was after the wave of stuff that just happened this week for the next thing.

Maybe that was his move. I don't know. You agree with that, Rob? I like that for them. I mean, it does give this deadline a whiff of like the Kyle Lowry situation, for example, of just putting off that decision to trade him and ultimately moving it into a different space in terms of the potential assets

you could get. But the guys we're talking about for Toronto now are under contract for the most part. They are guys who will have redeemable value. I think OG is definitely in that conversation. And the Nurse thing is complicated because he is tremendously successful within what he does. He does only trust a very finite band of players.

And he plays those guys huge minutes and he relies on them a lot. Huge minutes. But if you're not within that group, you're probably not going to see the floor very much. And he plays those guys huge minutes and he relies on them a lot. Huge minutes. But if you're not within that group, you're probably not going to see the floor very much. And if you are within that group, you might get run into the ground over the course of a year. So there's some weird

trade-offs with him that are hard to manage. But in terms of X's and O's, in terms of what he does schematically, one of the best coaches in the league, no doubt. I would have traded Van Vliet. That would have been my move at it because I think he's going to want too much money and I think he's a threat to leave and I would have rather turned in with something.

All right, so that was a what the fuck teams for me. Cleveland did nothing. Yeah. And that could go one of two ways. I thought at worst case scenario, they'd trade Karis LeVert for Tim Hardaway Jr. or something like that. I thought maybe they might get more ambitious.

Maybe Okoro's on the tip because Okoro's actually played pretty well and looks like he's developing the primitive makings of a consistent three-point shot. I don't want to jinx it for him, but there's been a couple of them who have gone in lately from watching them.

But I thought they'd do something. I thought they might be a dark horse for somebody interesting. Nothing. Not a thing. And that's a team, I think at one point they were 23 and 21 out of a 44-game stretch.

They've basically been a 500 team. You agree with that, Rusillo? Just sitting still if you're them? I'm okay with it. Kevin Love either, I should mention. Kevin Love, who's really not playing anymore, is 30 million expiring. That's another one they could have moved.

Yeah, I think it was like an awesome going, like, how do we upgrade that spot that's going to have all these open shots in the playoffs? Because you're going to have to follow our big guys when they roll. You're going to have to double Mitchell and Garland when they come off the screen. It's one of my favorite things about Garland, man, is once you think you, like, he

goes. He's not going to dick around with the ball. He's going to go. Once he sizes up, you want to tackle which means whoever is in that corner is going to have open shots for an entire playoff series and i'm with you which we've seen for 50 games yeah a coro's game log is telling you it's heading in the right direction game logs can be misleading i don't know if that's who he is i like like Chetty. I like even the Lamar Stevens body type at times. There'll be little moments with him where I go, little Dean Wade.

Maybe it's stopped after Lamar on that one. Look, I don't trust LaVert. I don't care what the numbers are. He's a guy I don't have a ton of trust in. I think he just plays kind of one way, and a lot of that is with mistakes. They may have just looked at the prices going going and we just spent first and future unprotected shit on Mitchell.

Like, do we really want to do that for a guy? We might be a year away. Yeah, fifth option guy for our closing group and we're going to start paying that kind of price tag on some of the shit. Like, I think your what the fuck Nets thing is really interesting, Bill. Well, because they have, I'm going to read the Nets wings in one second. Rob, do you

want to, we're still and I get together at three o'clock on Thursdays and we have tea and we talk about how much we love Darius Garland's crunch time decisions I don't know if you want to join us how have I not been invited already like I feel like if there's a Darius Garland club of any kind I at least should get like a cursory invite all right give him afterwards

give him the secret handshake we'll bring him we just we study his pick and rolls and how, when he makes decisions in the shot clock, we just love that guy. I just got a little teary-eyed thinking about him coming off a blitz, and I'm not even looking at you guys right now.

Can I bring up one more Cavs thing, though? Yeah, please. Yes, they do have a lot of firsts out the door, but one good bit of business from the day that I wonder if they could have gotten in on was Sadiq Bae to the Hawks for basically a bunch of second round picks. I see a lot of teams

who probably should have given up a bunch of second round picks for Sadiq Bae. And I don't think he's a perfect player by any stretch. But if you're talking about a guy who can hit open threes in your corner on the weak side, that seems like the profile of the kind of player you might be interested in. He's also one of those guys

who every month has a 37-point game or a 42-point game. You're like, what happened? Sadiq Bey was 19 for 25 against Charlotte. I'm with you. I don't understand the price of some of this stuff where Josh Hart

hearts are protected first. I really like Josh Hart. I also like Sadiq Bey, but he's just a bunch of seconds. It doesn't make a lot of sense. So Brooklyn, they kept Mikael Bridges, Cam Johnson, Dorian Finney-Smith, Joe Harris, Royce O'Neal, and Wadah Nabi, and then Ben Simmons, if you count him as a wing. That's six wings plus Ben Simmons. I also think Curry as an expiring free agent making $8 million was like a really fun

trade contender chess piece for a bunch of teams. I think they want to keep him. Maybe they do. Maybe they want to keep him and pay him. But Rousseau, what do you do with all those wings? I don't get it. It feels like they just needed to take a deep breath and exhale and then go, we just went through hell with this thing.

And maybe we just need to figure it out. You think it was like a Charlie Sheen platoon, like the helicopter flying away after he kills Barnes and he's just covered in, covered in soot, just kind of reflecting glazed. He just, I don't, I don't know that I blame the Nets for not going like, okay, now what do we do? Because if you were going to say, hey, if we did Cam Johnson in a separate piece, we get this, we do Mikael Bridges in this,

I'm sure people were calling on all these players. I think they do want to keep set. I also think that one of the rules that I always like to remind ourselves of is just because you don't know what you are as a team doesn't mean you're not supposed to have any fucking players. Right. So why not see how it goes and you know see how it goes they have seven wings do you think like rob do you think the celtics called them and said hey how's her in a

second for watanabe and and they're like look joe's joe's uh Joe's at a spa right now. He's really worn out from last night. We're just kind of shut down. That was it? Not even taking calls? I mean, if you're going to be in a grab-and-hold business in terms of NBA types of players,

get a bunch of wing guys and sit on them for a while. And figure it out later. Wait for the desperate teams to come calling. But they're 32-22. They actually have a good record. It's the weirdest team

in the league, though. They're not going to stay that way, though. If there's any lesson from the east side of these transactions, from the Cavs, from where the Nets are, the Heat didn't make any kind of meaningful deal. New York did stuff around the edges. I'm not seeing a lot of confidence in those teams and like, oh, we're going to leapfrog Boston

or Milwaukee or Philly. We're really pushing those teams right now. I'm not seeing a lot of confidence projected in that idea. So you're saying it's like that 2017-18 range where it was like Golden State and Houston in the West. Everyone else was kind of afraid. At least. What are we going to do? We're not going to beat those guys.

Just keep our players. I mean, look at the West by contrast. The dramatic nature of the moves being made based on the opportunity of all those teams being so clumped up in the standings. Yeah. Any thoughts on this, Arcelo, before we move on?

I like the Hart deal than the Knicks, but man, I know guys are like, you're going to bring up R.J. Barrett again? If you're already losing some of those closing minutes too quickly because of Thibodeau's defensive rotation preference and Grimes, which I think he's actually subbed out for in Grimes the last time I was tracking it.

And then Myles McBride who comes in and just wreaks havoc. So I actually, like when those guys come in, I'm not mad about any of it. But when you add Hart to it, I had when that deal first went through and he's got a player option for 13 million and the rumor was that like portland's going okay we we paid simons we've paying lillard we've got the grant part of this um they saved some money on the decision with heart which looked like they were going to be able to resign him

they saved some money on the patent part of this but then they bring in thibault because you know like you know what this is perfect Our other guys can't guard anybody and all they do is shoot. You can come here and not have to shoot and now just play defense. So now I'm talking about a bunch of these kind of marginal moves. I like Hart to the Knicks.

I've always liked him as a player. I know you and I both really liked him, but I'm like, man, I wonder what that means for RJ and how this closing group works because now they've just given Tibbs another defensive option. No, it's like, Rob, do you

have a dog? Yeah. Do you belong to the Bark Box Club where you get a box of toys every month? We have this Bark Box Club and the toys come and we pull the toys out and you give one and it's like the greatest day ever. That's what I feel like Tibbs getting Josh Hart,

where it's like, oh, he tries really hard and he crashes on the defensive boards. Oh my God. I'm going to play him all 48 minutes. Also a little undersized, which is perfect. Josh Hart feels like Tom Thibodeau fan fiction. He feels like he has created this player for himself and imported him.

And yeah, I think he's going to displace R.J. Barrett sometimes. I think he's going to get a lot of minutes. That's what Josh Hart does. Rossella, when would you bet on the R.J. Barrett, some sort of weird LeBron-esque kind of emoji, like just that we're supposed to interpret? I would say give it seven days.

He'll have something. Question mark? Or just like a shot of somebody sitting sadly on a park bench? Just be something. He'll keep us thinking that R.J. Barrett. I'm just trying to think of the perfect one, like the Pink Floyd album cover, Wish You Were Here, and it's R.J. Barrett shaking hands

with a flaming Tom Thibodeau. And guys are like, I wonder what that one means. Oh, I have another WTF team speaking of Portland so they have Josh Hart and they have Gary Payton and they turn them into

Tybalt who I like as you guys know Cam Reddish who does not seem like he can play five minutes in a row for any team in the league at this point I've kind of quietly sold my stock on him a while ago and I protected first. For a team that was making noises

about going forward and all this stuff, they just basically got rid of two rotation guys and go to the world of dice with Tybalt. I just didn't really understand it. It was like a sideways, kind of a pseudo tank move, but not a total tank move. Rob, how did you interpret it?

I'm confused by it. I'm confused. Like for me, I would see value in having Peyton and Thibel personally. I know they're a little redundant. I know you don't want to have them on the floor together all that much. But the enduring value of having Lillard and Simons together is those guys are next level shooters. They are giving you plus level spacing

in addition to the fact that Grant can shoot. And so if you're not just plugging your three spot constantly with high effort incredible defenders i don't i don't really know what the value of those minutes are so i i would have liked to see them keep both but it does seem like they've thinned out on the wing in a way that i don't know that they should be doing that right now and save money too which is another like hmm i i waited i was waiting for the right team for tybalt and if it doesn't happen on this team i might have to like quietly sell some stock because this is it man you're just surrounded by shooters you get to guard the other team's best guy every game if he can't make it happen here i don't know but i don't know what do you think we're still're still a cost cutting move or just trying to save money.

They weird ownership. There's always rumors that they might be on the block kind of very, very, very, very, very stealth. So I'm raising that flag too, but just,

it just seemed like they're cutting costs and they made their team a little bit worse. Yeah. I liked, uh, I liked the options. I felt like they were a little deeper, uh, than they are, but I, you know, we're sitting here going, okay, well, if your guy's expiring, try to find some way to get some kind of asset. And Reddish and a lottery protected first in 23, well, Reddish, have we ever had more headlines about a guy's transactional future that doesn't play than Cam Reddish.

And then on the other side of it, like where all these second rounders that are the Bay, Atlanta, Golden State, Wiseman, Detroit, then actually we end up with Peyton again if you're Golden State. It's not that big of a deal. I can understand why they did it. I think teams are,

you can even look at Golden State going, okay, well, if you look, because I've seen this come up, it's like, okay, well, why would you do this now? You could have just re-signed Peyton. Well, I think they needed to figure out who they had in James Wiseman. And so you can't. And they did. And they did. And it's a big whiff. I feel somewhat bad for Wiseman because I think it was a tough spot to have to be a locked in guy immediately. Curb bailed on him a few different times. He's only played 60 games in three years. He missed all of last season.

I give Wiseman credit for this. Every time I'd watch him get in a rotation, he wants to try. It's not about not trying. It's about still being pretty clueless. And now he can go to Detroit and make all the mistakes that he needs to. Well, he's probably going to have a few nights where you're like, whoa, what happened here? But the money part of it is,

I don't know they could have made the Payton offer or matched the 26 million from Portland with Payton while they still were wondering if they had to re-sign and be on the hook for Wiseman's $12 million, which actually added up to one of the most absurd taxes ever. They saved like 37 million the next two years

on just the Wiseman part of it, but now the calculation is obviously different because of the Payton thing. I feel like there's moves that maybe I don't love or I do like, but I'm understanding of why they happen so I don't get worked up all that much about it. Portland's

27-28. They're the 10 seed. Right behind them is Utah, who's just threw away their season. OKC is tied in the lost column with them. And the Lakers are two back in the lost column. So I don't know. That team could go either way. Can we pivot to that Wiseman trade quick?

Yeah. So basically, Warriors get Gary Payton. Blazers get five second round picks and some Bitcoin. Detroit gets Wiseman. Did they get Knox? Did they end up with Kevin Knox? Yeah, they got Knox, but they'll probably

probably waive him or buy him out. 3-and-D? 3-and-D? I don't know. And then Atlanta gets Sadiq Bae. So the only weird part of this, I like taking

the roll of the dice on Wiseman. And I do think he tries hard. Like he's not a stiff. He's not one of those where, you know, like Hashim Thabit, I don't want to be mean, but it was, you immediately knew that guy didn't have it. You just go to one game. Like that guy's never going to be an NBA player. It's never happening. Wiseman, I'm not ready to go there yet. And I want to see him get minutes, but he goes to a team that has a hundred centers. And I thought they would make another trade after this, but they didn't. So now they have Jalen Dern, they have Stewart,

they have him. It's just weird. It just seems like they're collecting assets with no idea what to do. I don't know why Bogdanovich wasn't on the table for them and why it's like, no, he's part of our plans. He's in his thirts. What plans? What are you going to be in the Eastern Finals next year? I just would have traded him. So that was pretty weird. But then Atlanta just sneakily getting Bay, which I like on paper, but they also have a lot of wings too.

And that team, I felt like that team already had too many guys. Russillo, I know you hate watch the Hawks. Did they need Sadiq Bae necessarily? I think Bae might be Bogdanovich insurance. Yeah. And I'm with you guys on Bae.

I mean, his rookie year, I'm like, this guy's like he should have gone a lot higher. It's not just a catch and shoot guy. He showed you a little bit more. He gets that big ass on you and backs you down.

And for whatever reason, once the other pieces came in, he dipped quite a bit last year. But the fact that he played the way he did his rookie year, I like to move a lot for Atlanta. And I think it's about other stuff down the road about all their different moving pieces. That makes sense. But let me ask you a question about McDonavich, because this is another part of my timeline stuff. When you're rebuilding, everybody's going to be between 20 and 23, and then you can't have anybody else. You're right about Mcdonough going like all right he's that much older though like this isn't just a couple years older he's that much older but don't we watch houston some nights and even though we're

enamored with the talent you say wouldn't it be nice if like there was somebody there that was like a steadier i guess you could argue that was eric gordon at times but i'll tell you man he he has glimpses of like having it and then other nights where i think he's just stuck physically you know it's a lot to ask of him to catch and then other nights where I think he's just stuck physically. It's a lot to ask of him to catch and drive by guys, but then again, he'll do it every now and then. That's just something to think about if you're a Clippers fan. I'm big on the value of a guy that's been through some years, that's still good enough to have the respect of his teammates, that plays with some of the younger guys. You don't want somebody who comes in and completely derails the development.

I'm anti some name guy just going down to Orlando because they're young. But when I think about what's missing from Houston certain nights where it feels like you guys are just playing fucking pickup basketball, like none of this seems to matter, I do think there's a value where Bogdanovich with Detroit, who, you know, he's an adult in the room.

Yeah. And without being like detrimental, you know, it's not, there's not a perfect formula for it. I just know there's certain guys I would stay away from and there's other guys if I were running a team, I go, I know we're really young. I know we're years away from even thinking about being competitive, but I kind of like this guy

even though he's older and, you know, let's keep him around. I feel like that was part of it for Detroit, and the fact the number they have him at is a pretty good number. Rob, was that insulting pick-up basketball for the Rockets? What's worse, pick-up basketball or whatever the Rockets are playing?

I've played in games that seemed a little more organized than that. It depends on how much they're going through Shang-Goon on a nightly basis. Which isn't going to happen. It's not going to happen for him. I mean, I love his game, but, you know,

these poor centers holding up their hands with a nice seal three feet away from the basket. I feel like perimeter players like hang out afterwards going, do you remember when the center

thought we were going to throw it to him? It's like the Thomas Bryant thing. What were you going to say, Rob? I interrupted you. Did Bryant get traded, by the way, for looking for that pass? Yeah, I think he did.

He might have. Sorry, Rob. No, no. The Bogdanovich part of this is interesting. And this is going to sound like filler, nebulous, intangible stuff. But I think you're right, Ryan. Not only about him being an adult in the room for Detroit, which you just shouldn't be in a rush to trade those guys if you're a young team,

but he's a guy who fucking competes. He plays his ass off. He wants to win very badly. And to get veterans who will do that and produce and can fit alongside young players, that's a much smaller list than you think. And so Bogdanovich is going to have value in the offseason. They're going to be able to explore options. Yeah, they might trade him in July.

You're absolutely right. I mean, he's 34, 35 in the next two years. It's 19 or 20. It starts right around there for him. So everything I could say, they might end up moving on from him. But I'll let you jump back in here. I'm just talking out loud, rationalizing why he didn't move today. Totally.

I think what's interesting about this particular trade is you're getting two teams, whether it's Bade of the Hawks or Wiseman to the Pistons. It's like, I get why you're taking the gamble on this player. The fit isn't perfect. There's a little bit of redundancy issues with the players you have. And Wiseman's the guy who I really do want to see succeed.

I don't think it was going to happen for him in Golden State just based on the style they play. I was asking a lot of him to jump into NBA basketball and pick all that up. Detroit is theoretically a place that could be more accommodating. But you mentioned Jalen Duren. Jalen Duren's 19 years old

and a demonstrably better player right now than James Wiseman is. It is kind of a weird situation. As much as I want to see Wiseman find a new spot where you can narrow his role, where you can give him time, where you can force feed him

learning opportunities. Is Detroit really it? So, I wanted him to go to OKC. And the fact that Preston didn't trade for him is probably a bad sign for Wiseman. But OKC ended up trading Mike Muscala to the Celtics for a couple second-round picks, which I was okay with because the Rob, you know, the Rob Williams thing,

you just don't know if he's going to play two weeks in a row. Like, there's just no way to know and Horford's 36 and they were a guy short. You really,

that Luke Cornett in game four of a second round playoff series was like a real option with a couple things going wrong. With that said,

I really wanted them to get another wing and have some Brown-Tatum insurance for short-term stuff like Jalen Brown just got hurt to long-term stuff like it's game four in Miami

and Tatum and Brown have three fouls in the first half. Who's coming in to guard Jimmy Butler? And if the price for Sadiq Bae was just second round picks, I'm kind of bummed out. I would have rather gone that direction than Muscala. And maybe they think they can get a buyout guy. I don't know, but I still feel like the Celts, Muscala's fine. He's a three-point shooter and he's been in some games, but that one. And then the other contender that added

somebody that, this one I really liked with i'll say a caveat was the nuggets just getting thomas bryant for a bunch of second rounders thomas bryant when davis was out thomas bryant was was really good he was like a 2015 guy and i don't blame him for being mad that he wasn't playing well but on the other hand you're trading for a guy who was just mad that he wasn't playing as much as he wanted to and now he's on a team with nicole yokich so what does that look like rob i mean much as he wanted to. And now he's on a team with Nikola Jokic. So what does that look like, Rob? I mean, at least he's playing for something, though.

You know, 15 minutes a game feels different when you're on a contender versus when you're on the Lakers, wherever it is that they're going. So I do like that. I like the pickup. I like the idea of them having more options at backup center. They certainly could use the variety. It's just I look at that bench and I'm thinking, like, if you look, you know, flesh out their eight-man rotation, obviously the five starters rock solid. It's just I look at that bench and I'm thinking if you flesh out their

eight-man rotation, obviously the five starters rock solid. That's a great group. Then it's Bruce Brown. It's Thomas Bryant. And I guess Christian Brown. You better fucking A believe it's Christian Brown, Rob Mahoney.

It's Christian fucking A Brown. That's who it is. Apparently. Blue chip stock, Christian Brown. I mean Christian fucking A. Brown is who it is. Apparently. Blue Chip Stock, Christian Brown. I mean, I like the way he's played. As a team that's trying to win the championship, that makes me a little bit nervous. If our seventh and eighth guys are Thomas Bryan and Christian Brown.

It's a buyout team. I don't think there's any question. But I do think, one thing with him and again, I watch too much of the Nuggets, but that guy is not afraid. He's one of those dudes that comes in and he's just like, I belong here. And however many minutes you need for me to play. But I still feel like they need that TJ McConnell type of backup guard. Just somebody that can come in and ready the ship and be okay.

What are they missing in your opinion, Marcelo? I don't know if it's a ball handler. I feel like it's redundant because you're running so much pick and roll to close games with Yoke, Itch, and Murray. It's like, why do I want another guy's redundant because you're running so much pick and roll to close games with Jokic and Murray. It's like, why do I want another guy to have the basketball in his hands, especially with the way Murray's playing? But what if Murray's not out there? Who's doing it then? So we're talking about like the filler minutes?

Yeah. Yeah, it's not. I like Christian Brown. He'd already surpassed Bones in the rotation. I mean, you could have KCP run some of it if you wanted to. I mean, Brown's kind of a plug into any situation. And it was kind of funny. He was joking the other day. He's like, it's nice that, I don't know if it was the other day, but he was like, it's kind of nice plug into any situation. It was kind of funny. He was joking the other day.

It's nice that... I don't know if it was the other day, but he was like, it's kind of nice to have to play center anymore. I love the Thomas Ryan pickup for them. I really like... For whatever reason, I've had a thing for him for way too long. For the most part, it's been rather disappointing, but I think there's an energy and aggressiveness with when he's feeling it

and he's feeling good about himself. I'd rather have him more than Bull Bull, which I can't wait to get to when we do, or should be not bowl bowl, uh, Mo Bamba. I'd probably rather have bowl bowl instead of Mo Bamba. So I'd rank him third for guys that I just get to know. Yeah.

So we'll do that. We do the, I imagine the Lakers entree a little bit later. Uh, yeah, it does, it does feel a little light, you know,

Sean, Char has been playing the times. I know. I mean, you're rolling your eyes. You should be, I'm just naming been playing the times. I know. I mean, you're rolling your eyes. You should be, I'm just naming names at this point. Yeah.

It would be a little nice, but I don't know if they, whoever they brought in as a ball handler is not going to be important enough to probably dictate where they would go as a series, because we already know what they're going to do on every major possession. And it's really good. Let's take a one more break. And then I want good. Let's take one more break and then I want to rip through

some of these traits. 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.

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and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right. So I separated this into some categories. First one is the... Not sure why you did this one, Trade? Charlotte gets Reggie Jackson for Mason Plumlee, Charlotte has Rozier. They have LaMelo Ball. They spent, what, the ninth pick in the draft on book night,

like 18 months ago, 19 months ago? And they're like, now it's bringing Reggie Jackson? I just didn't fundamentally understand this. I know he's probably been expiring. I think they got a couple seconds out of this maybe, but just didn't understand it. I don't, sometimes there's trades you're like, I don't get it.

This was an I don't get it trade, Rob. Well, especially you're unloading Jalen McDaniels. You're unloading Mason Plumlee. You're signaling that you're probably a team that doesn't have a lot of interest in winning right now. And as you mentioned, in terms of guards, like Rozier's been pretty good since Lomelo got back. He's finally settled back into what's a comfortable role

for him. I guess you're just filling out minutes with Reggie Jackson, but I don't really see what he... It's not an additive value move for them. Is it a buyout? And I just... How did they not get more for Plumlee? Maybe I overvalue him because I just think that's a guy that could be in a playoff series.

I didn't understand the two Charlotte moves at all, but guess what? I haven't understood 80% of the Charlotte moves since 2005. I don't understand any of it. I don't understand any of it. There's one thing that's been consistent this whole time.

Nobody wants to talk about Jordan because it's Michael Jordan, but what the fuck is this team doing? Yeah. I mean, I wrote in the Trade Valley Com. I think at some point, one of these guys is going to be like, fuck it. I don't want the max extension. I can make more money in a big city from endorsements and all this stuff.

And LaMelo might be crazy enough to do it. He might just be like, fuck it. I'm not signing the max. I'll make more money. I'll take the hit short-term, long-term. I'll make way more money if I go to a big market. This is not helping. And I don't know whether you're young team,

tanking, whatever. I don't understand just giving away McDaniels. I don't get it. It's like in big. I don't get it where he's like, I don't get it. It's a robot turns into a building. I don't get it. He's like, I don't get it. It's a robot turns into a building. I don't get it. And then

the Bucs, Pacers, Nets and it's just a bunch of pieces moved around and the Bucs gave up Noir and some second round picks. The Bucs, the Celtics Adam Mascala, who I think is a matchup specific guy against another big. Maybe that means we have Embiid have to chase him

for fucking eight minutes in a playoff series all right you know whatever uh crowder improves a buck's bench and i'm telling you right now if the bucks are healthy which is a big if with the middleton part of this and i did think it was interesting they were a little like leaks although it could have been another gm messing with them about like would they do this probably not but what they do right like the middleton part of it but if if they're right, I'm picking them because of Giannis. You know, I'm sorry. Like even, although I guess I could see a month version of Phoenix where I'm like, maybe I'm not picking anybody against them.

But I think just adding Jay Crowder, even though I think Bill and I are probably both like, is he really all that? But he's played major playoff rotation minutes. He sucked in the playoffs last year. He did. Yeah, but he's played. And he's a year older. Yeah, and he didn't play this year. So does. And he's a year older. And he didn't play this year, so that means he's fresh

and ready to go. And he hasn't played in nine months. I'm with you, Russillo. If my life depended on it, I would pick Milwaukee because I'm just betting on him. I don't feel as good as the Celtics team that coach in his first year. I still feel like there's some

smart white Brogdon stuff that's going to be really interesting. White's played really well. He's been awesome. It feels like it's his team. Brogdon's really good sometimes and I think there's a weird minutes thing there and I don't trust Rob Williams and Horford.

Rob Williams, my dad, he got hurt again. He didn't play last night. I should just do a coffee table book of my dad's text about Rob Williams where it's like, oh, look who's sitting out tonight. I'll give you one guess. He's just had it. I think the Bucs are safe for Becca Giannis.

You just thought of something. I can't even imagine what the advance number would be on a book of your dad's text to you as a coffee table book. Should I just release that? That'd be great. I think you would, you would get a nice check this week and you wouldn't even have to edit it at all.

Really? He's just like, that's easy money. You're not going to believe this, but Rob Williams isn't available tonight. But no, let's just finish on the East thing though. Boston ads,

whatever. We don't know. I'm with you. I feel like Brogdon's been exactly who I thought he would be. Like he's exactly what I would think. Man, it's really good sometimes and sometimes whatever, but when he's healthy, it's a huge part of your rotation. And then I think

Daryl deserves a ton of credit for the McDaniels ad to go, if I want to mess with this 3 and D option, which I thought they had him, with Shaq and with DeAnthony, Thibault been out of the rotation. It felt like he was starting to get minutes again. Maybe they're like,

hey, maybe we just kind of give the minutes to this guy. Not saying like Jaden McDaniels is perfect, but I think it improves that in a very marginal move where it's like, how did they end up with him?

Yeah. Which also speaks to the Charlotte thing. So it feels like those three teams and we always have the Nets. There's another piece to that though with the Philly.

Doc was just done with Thibel. Yeah. If you're the GM, you're like, all right, I have this guy. He's another piece of that though with the Philly. Doc was just done with Thibel. If you're the GM, you're like, all right, I have this guy. He's clearly something, but my coach is done with them. I have to pick one and he picked Doc. It's tough for Thibel to survive with that. That's why I think you calling your broker saying, I'm not quite

ready yet. I might get a bounce here because if you're a non-shooter off of the one true post center. I bought more. Are you because if you're a non-shooter off of the one true post center... I bought more. Are you kidding? I went back. You bought more. These dips aren't going to buy a little more this morning. I'm back in. I didn't have enough. We mentioned the

Zag, the Purtle trade, the Bones Highland one we covered. We didn't mention the funniest trade yet. I thought this was one of the funniest trades in five years. Patrick Beverly, 17 hours after retweeting the picture of him and

D'Angelo Russell and like, we're back, or did one of those tweets. He gets sent to Orlando with a second round pick for Mo Bamba. I guess Beverly's going to get bought out. I would assume Minnesota would grab him, and then Minnesota would have the Conley, Patrick Beverly.

This is way better for team chemistry than having D'Angelo Russell on our team. Backcourt. Mo Bamba and the Lakers. Watching the Laker fans try to talk themselves into him. We also have an incredible situation. KOC, the number one Mo Bamba fan, probably in the United States. Now they're in the same city.

Do we do like an Austin Rivers and Pasha type of podcast with Mo and KOC? K-Mo-C. What do you think of that? K-Mo-C. It's a little mouthy. Yeah, but the magic

giving up on Mo Bamba. We had some teams giving up on really high lottery picks today mo bamba wiseman um does bamba play one second for the lakers mahoney oh he'll play yeah okay i mean i think the idea with him and vanderbilt is like we're trying to save ad as much as possible but also like we want that flexibility and we need bodies if we are going to be in the playoffs to throw it nicola yokich to throw at some of these truer centers. You see a lot of that matchup play happening right now, and I think Beverly could be on the other side of that, too. You mentioned the Wolves as a team that could sign him. He feels like a Milwaukee Buck to me. They lost George Hill. They don't trust Grayson Allen defensively. They're going to need another guard, and they already have a little bit of that with Javon Carter, but the more the merrier, frankly. Can I give you one more

team for them? Please. What if that was a Nuggets team? Or Nuggets fit for him? He could be not only a nice defender for them against some,

you know, if they have to see Phoenix now, you want somebody who's going to get under Chris Paul's skin. But a nice kick in the ass for that team, too. Like, just someone

who's going to keep everything on course, who's going to keep things moving and engaged. I like Beverly for the Nuggets. I just wish Beverly was still good, I think, is my one issue. Like, even watching the OKC, he was just mauling Josh Getty. Like, he can't, he doesn't have the foot speed to go side to side, I don't think, anymore. Russillo, I know you have some issues with Beverly's basketball game.

No, I mean, he's never been a lower with, uh, Beverly's basketball game. No, I mean, he's never been a lower box score plus minus in his career. He's got a PER of eight. Uh, you know, and he talked and can get the technical at the worst point in the game to actually lose you a playoff game in the fourth quarter or do something.

Hey, if somebody wants to take a swing on it, a buyout contending team, bring them in a little bit of energy. I'm not, I'm not going to say that they're wrong. I think that Pat is a master at when you're watching a game. You're like, is he kicking ass?

Yeah. Or is he not kicking ass? He's like an illusionist. He's a magician. The prestige. It's like, does Pat Beverly have a triple-double right now? No, he's got five points um

worst trades of the day a couple doozies here we have uh Matthews and Fernando to the Hawks for Holiday Kaminsky in two seconds that was a trade

money saver we had uh Baisley going to Phoenix and Sarich and his contract with the second rounder going to OKC, which seemed like a money dump,

but I would bet anything. Presti was kind of like, I was like this guy. It was always kind of wanted to see what I have. I bet he plays for, I could see him having a moment. Um, for them.

And then the last one was, I listen, talk about weird trades. The Devontae Graham and four second rounders for Josh Richardson. The Pelicans have 100 wings. Yeah. And they're like, let's bring Josh Richardson in. How many wings?

What do they have in a race with the Nets? I didn't get that one at all. I guess Josh is an expirer and they get off the Devontae Graham contract. I think he goes one more year after this year, but I thought those were the worst. What was your, out of those three, what was the worst trade for you,

Rosillo? It's not that I, I like, Oh my God, I can't believe this Devante Graham trade happened. It just, I'm really proud of us because when we did the preview show and we were talking about the Pelican staff and you're like,

man, Devante Graham, like never his second year, he got like 18 a game, 37 from three. He's shot, he's never shot 40% from the floor. He is a player situation argument. Like, is it him or is it a situation? Or did he get hot for two months?

And in that second year, he played 60 games and he lit it up, but he's still, again, to repeat, I mean, he's 36% from the floor overall the last couple of years. And this year, I mean, he's barely even getting any shots up. So I'm sure they look at it as just a slight upgrade to a team that we thought had as much wing depth as anybody. But I can't get that worked out.

Like, I'm not going to go, oh, my God, F. F. All right, last my God. F F. All right. Last trade. This happened yesterday. We saved the Lakers for dessert. It's not a hail Mary trade. I call this the hook and ladder trade. Not quite a hail Mary.

Okay. I only gave up one of the two first top four protected. Definitely a hook and ladder though. It was an end of the first half. Why are they throwing it to Kelsey over the middle? Oh, he's trying to pitch it to Schuster. Oh, it didn't work.

So the Lakers get Russell, Beasley, and Vanderbilt. Minnesota gets Conley. Utah gets Westbrook's contract. They're going to buy him out. And in 2027, top four protected first. Vanderbilt is my favorite guy the Lakers got. I was stunned and alarmed to see how many people were like, D'Lo!

Watch next to LeBron! I'm like, look, maybe I'm old, maybe I'm cynical. I don't think D'Lo is the number one player I think LeBron would hate playing with after about five days, but he's like top seven. Doesn't really play defense at all. Doesn't really move,

doesn't really run. at all. Doesn't really move. It doesn't really run. Everything's at his pace. He's a dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, jack and 25-footer guy. I don't see it. I just don't. And the Laker fans are like,

well, you just hate the Lakers. I'll fully admit, I don't see it. I don't see the fit. I don't think it was a good move. I like the Vanderbilt piece, but I don't see the fit. I don't think it was a good move. I liked the Vanderbilt piece, but I didn't like the Russell. I guess he's an expiring. Rob, I know you talked about this yesterday on the ringer NBA. Rosilla, what was your take? Because I think you're not as much of a Russell fan. I can't wait. I mean, you know, it's not often that two of my least favorite players in my entire NBA viewing history get traded for each other.

And, you know, that's where I'm at. I'm sorry. I'm like unapologetic about it. I've heard all the arguments, you know, like the same people that talked themselves into the Westbrook trade are now starting to tell me that the D'Angelo Russell trade is good. Like, all right. Good. He plays really well at the ball. Yeah, no.

People are going to be like, oh, you're a dick. You're a curmudgeon and all that stuff. I'm like, look, I just, I try to tell the truth, man. I try to tell the truth and not Will Smith in it here. But, you know, you can look at the counting stats. Do you know Russell's been on fire for two months? Yeah. But if you can't see the five or six times where he just decides, man, I don't feel like getting back on defense now.

Man, especially when you're in the back. You know, sometimes it's not always your fault because you take the shot, other guy should get back and then he's going to have like four or five passes you're like who the fuck are you passing it to what are what are you doing and when the beginning with D'Angelo Russell like this is why I talked about him being my least favorite guy that actually plays like I said worse I should say damaging because he is talented enough to be like I got this because he's a really good passer at times. He actually is a really good shooter. He's got that kind of dribble that he can get where he needs to go. He sort of lulls you to sleep and then it's like quick out of nowhere. But there's so many other times where you're watching him going, what are you doing? When

they bought in Trey Lyles for Sacramento and Gobert was trying to figure out what they were going to do in that Sacramento loss. And there were these switches that were happening. And Daniel Russell just doesn't, he just can't be bothered. And it was pretty clear. I think Finch probably would have liked to play other guys. So that goes into my evaluation of the player. So the other part of it is that Minnesota-

Also their willingness to trade him after he's played well for two months. It's like watching somebody sell a stock that went slightly up. No, it's like my quarterback thing. Like when I have a quarterback, I'm like, I'm not sure about that. And then the team gets rid of him. I'm like watching somebody sell a stock that went slightly up. It's like my quarterback thing. When I have a quarterback, I'm like, I'm not sure about that. Then the team gets rid of him. I'm like, well, what are we doing?

With Russell, getting Westbrook out is a small victory. With Russell, he can shoot, technically. Better than Westbrook. That's a bonus. I think, to be fair to Westbrook, Westbrook that's better than Westbrook that's a bonus yeah I think to be fair to Westbrook you know

Westbrook at the gates of heaven isn't going to be deferential to anyone yeah I would imagine maybe there's a part of D'Angelo Russell where he's not in charge of everything which I think is another reason why they want to get him out of Minnesota where you can't really do that with LeBron

so yeah maybe it's not lateral because you're getting something out that was so negative, but I don't know. I appreciate what the Lakers did here. We made fun of their 3-10, their 4-10 for months at the beginning of the year. They've added Rui. They've added Vanderbilt, who we all love.

Russell at least can shoot. But there's going to be all the same mistakes. He's not going to all of a sudden stop making all of those mistakes that are so costly to the outcomes of games that are so far beyond, oh, he's 45% from three this month. I don't give a shit. Is he locked in defensively?

Is he paying attention? Does he care? Does he care about his teammates? Is he communicating with his teammates? He doesn't do that stuff enough. That's why he loses all the time. So I don't know. None of that's going to be fixed overnight. He's going to have a big, he's going to get 38 in a game and hit a million threes.

And everybody's going to be like, this is fucking awesome. I think the biggest thing with the Lakers thing is they, they improved what was a disastrous group of players outside of it. The Rui part, you know, Vando Beasley, who I think is a little hit or miss,

but this is how bad it was. You know, now you're not playing bad in these huge minutes. You're not, you know. Who's that white guy from the first 10 games? The summer league guy? Matt Ryan?

Yeah, Matt Ryan. Yeah, he's not even there. Now you have Malik Beasley in the Matt Ryan spot. And I like Reeves. I think Reeves is really good. So he'll find a way to fit into all this stuff.

The Mo thing, the Lakers fans haven't watched him play, so I'm not going to argue with them about it. But we don't know. That top four protected now to Utah, it may mean nothing. And it's like, hey, they had a little bit of a playoff run, but it

didn't guarantee. And that's what that pick. That's why with all of these moving pieces, I kind of give him credit. But I also think, okay, but have may have moved an asset four years from now which could haunt you maybe not who knows um for what for what what did it guarantee you did it guarantee you guarantee you a home playing game did it no i don't know that's yeah yeah that's like that's basically your best case. You're not going to be a top six seed. Every time you're doing this kind of stuff, you're like,

okay, what are we doing? Okay, now if we did this and we said yes to us, what does this guarantee us? And I don't think there's a definitive answer for the Lakers, other than they're different. I don't think they're a playing team as currently constructed, even with these moves. I still like the 10 above them, and I still like OKC better than them.

And that's even assuming that Utah is dropping out. So, I mean, the thing about Russell... D'Angelo, right? Yeah, I'm sorry about D'Angelo Russell. If you're going to play for the Lakers at this point,

you really have to do four things. You need to space the floor on offense. He does that to some degree. You need to be really good in transition offense, which he's not, because he doesn't really push in that particular way. You need to guard the ball, which he doesn't. And you need to have a sense of the moment,

which he doesn't really have, or at least hasn't demonstrated to this point. If you're hitting one for four on the most important part of that deal, the biggest acquisition in that deal, I just don't see you really moving that deal, the biggest acquisition in that deal. I just don't see you really moving that far in the standings. I like what Vanderbilt gives to them.

I'm not super high on Beasley personally. I don't trust him as a shooter for a guy who even has his percentages. I just don't trust it. So what are you doing? All this and Mo Bamba and, yes, Rui, we can loop him in for the previous acquisition, but I just don't really see that changing that much. You know what you're really doing? You're getting rid of Westbrook.

I think that's goal number one with the trade. And I think what we found out, whatever Brooklyn got for Kyrie was not worth as much as those two first round picks. That we still don't know what the protections were on those picks, but Westbrook was so detrimental to whatever the Nets wanted to do that they were like, we don't know. Got to throw in more pieces if we're picks, but Westbrook was so detrimental to whatever the Nets wanted to do

that they were like, no, got to throw in more pieces if we're going to take Westbrook. And I think that was the number one thing in the trade that we just got to get rid of Westbrook. And I think the last week propelled them to want to do that. The question for me,

you're giving away that pick. Russo, you would have died on Tuesday night watching Davis jogging around and just being a half second late for four quarters. If I'm getting this version of Davis, the Davis that I watched the other night versus the Davis in November when he had the little MVP run, not sluggish Honestly, looked a little heavy. Not like muscle heavy either. He looked a little doughy. He was hurt and didn't keep the weight off. I just don't know where you're going anyway, if that's the version of Davis we're getting. I would love to know why he has looked like that since he came back. Rob, that wasn't a one-game thing with him either. Did you feel?

No, he's had pops where he looks pretty good for stretches, but nothing sustained, like we saw earlier in the season. Nothing consistent. And that's where it gets tricky with AD. It's always like, can you do this game-to-game? Can you do this week-to-week?

Is your body going to hold up if you do it month-to-month? It's not looking great on any of those fronts this season. Russillo, I have him at the top of my summer unhappy guy rankings for just for how it's shaken out, like fantasy. Like when we do, like when they have the fantasy football drafts

for September, it's like McCaffrey won. It's like we don't even know who's on my team. I would have Davis as my number one for the summer because I think if it goes badly this season and it's going to be that thing that we've seen these LeBron teammates get into from time to time where they go, this sucks. I get blamed for

everything. Maybe I want to try this somewhere else. So, Russell, you agree on Davis looking very off these last couple weeks? Yeah. I mean, I hate it because I love his game so much. I think I've been a big defender. And when he came back and was playing the way he was playing

at the beginning of the year, I'm like, this is who he is when he's good. And you look at the age, you're like, man, he still should be young enough. But he's got to get lighter. He's got to get lighter. I think he tried to bulk up to avoid all the injuries, which I totally get. I think he got sick of being called street clothes. I think it's why he tried to play in that Phoenix series a couple years ago when they lost in the first round.

I get it. It sucks to have those guys on TV calling you soft all the time. I think he wanted to get jacked. As somebody who got called soft a lot and then got jacked later on, I can relate to that. But if you're running around at that size and you haven't been able to stay healthy, I think you need to reduce the wear and tear, the pounding that your body takes. He needs to have a drastic change with his approach, and he needs to think about being lighter and being quicker.

Because let's face it, this doesn't work. Whatever this is, it doesn't work. Every time he falls down, all of us are fucking worried about it. And I just hate, like, I was convinced he had another really nice chapter in his basketball story this summer. And when he played the way he did, where he looked like an MVP there for a while,

I was like, I knew it. I'm like, here we go. This is exactly what it is. And, you know, that wasn't a chapter. That wasn't even, you know, acknowledgments. Well, you know what's shocking tuesday night he's got you got denzel and jay-z sitting there and lebron's family it's a tnt audience it's the biggest regular season basketball audience we've had in a couple years if there's ever a game you're gonna be like i'm bringing it tonight it's that game and it was the opposite he looked like i don't know he looked like something

happened something happened which beats back to you know i'm not going to repeat it at all again because i know what's going to happen it's going to sound like i'm just hating on lebron i just think lebron's done a bad job with the leadership part of it i think he's oblivious to it sometimes but something when we have a mic'd up moment where he's telling anthony davis hey you know i love you and davis is like shutting him out yeah something's weird yeah because that's ultimately what the lakers story is. Like, what if they get healthy Anthony Davis all of a sudden,

which again, isn't a great bet. Like, all we're doing is trying to handicap the health bets of the Clippers, of the Suns. You know, Denver feels like the safest health bet. Golden State's now a bad bet again. You know, Memphis feels like

I'd rather have younger hurt players than older hurt players. So I'm trying to figure out how much faith can I put in all these injured groups, which also speaks to load management. That, again, not working. Guys are still hurt all the time. I don't know. Could there be

some weird... If Anthony Davis was the Anthony Davis from the beginning of the regular season, then I would say Rob would... I would disagree with you. I imagine you would change your idea of them I still think I still think with this looking in this way they have a good chance of being a playing team but

it's not a high bar you know it's reasonable to expect that yeah it's not like no no they're not raising a banner for any kind of stuff I just I don't know man anybody that's really great that it feels like it was taken from them way too young I hate it and that's really great that it feels like it was taken from them way too young, I hate it.

And that's how I feel about Davis at this point. Rob, fan-dol odds right now. Lakers will make the playoffs. Plus 194. Almost two to one value if you bet it. Lakers will not make the playoffs. Minus 245. So they're almost prohibitiveakers will not make the playoffs. Minus 245. So they're almost prohibitive favorites not to make the playoffs.

So that would back up, I think, what you're talking about. All right. We're going to go. This was fun. I can't say it was like the most fun trade deadline because the big trade happened last night.

The Durant trade. You want 20 seconds on the Durant trade, Rob? Phoenix looks pretty good. Kevin Durant, good basketball player? No, I do. I wrote about this for the ringer.com today. I can't imagine a better fit of

Kevin Durant's obviously an incredibly low-maintenance star to plug into any kind of super team format, but the stuff Phoenix runs is tailor-made for KD. You could imagine just take Booker out of this set and plug KD into it. And that takes some positional rejiggering to make that happen.

But we're talking about one of the best pull-up jump shooters we've ever seen, one of the best mid-range shooters we've ever seen. Joining one of the most mid-range heavy offenses that we have in the NBA and a team that lives with that stuff and can kill you with that stuff, in addition to just having, like, a hammer on the back end of so many of their sets and so many of lives with that stuff and can kill you with that stuff, in addition to just having like a hammer

on the back end of so many of their sets and so many of their plays, like a huge threat like that, he's going to be incredible once he gets out there. It's just, can they be healthy enough?

Do they have enough coming off the bench now? Those are really the only concerns. Everything else looks pretty good. And can they hang around in the top five range?

I don't know when Booker and Durant, when they're going to be 100%, but you don't want to be in that situation where you have no game sevens at home in any round. You know, it's just every, you know you have to win at least like two road games per series to compete.

All right, this is really fun, right? So, Russella, we decided Rob's invited to our Darius Garland tea and cookies on Thursdays. He seemed pretty convincing to me. As soon as I said so, I was about to say something nice about him. I saw Rob's face light up. So, for me, he's in.

I hadn't even started saying what I was going to say. You just saw it in his eyes. I stopped myself from tweeting, I love Darius Garland like seven times a night when I'm on Cavs watch because I just feel like he's that incredibly aggressive like can do

all these things but plays within the constraints of like still being an awesome teammate and I think that's so hard for those guys especially at that age now I'd like to say one last thing though and it's just the market the pricing the unknown and i almost feel like i may sit down and do my first written piece in forever of like going through

all the picks and going like no i'm serious like i want to look at what the pricing is what what the worst case scenarios could be because there's going to become i just don't know if we're in an era where we'll go back 10 years from now like remember when everybody just gave all their fucking picks away unprotected and there is going to be a situation where a team has given up all these picks and the swaps and they're going to lose like the rights to kade anthony edwards and franz wagner in like three or four years okay and it's already going to be a team that hasn't that's had their own picks and like they're gonna have a run there's gonna i swear to this it's going to happen with one team like over the next five years where you're gonna

say do you realize what they just fucking did and on the other side there's gonna be a team like say it were the sons in the durant deal where it's like they got durant and all those picks ended up being because they built around booker on the fly again and people wanted to go there and they liked the new owner so they had a second part of like still being really competitive and extended the window. And they gave up like four picks in the 20s, two who didn't even have their third year option picked up. And it's going to be the same math on the picks. And one is going to feel like you completely ripped off the other team.

And the other one is going to feel like a team lost out on like 15 years of elite talent. And I love the unknown, but it's going to be i know i keep bringing this up but like i wonder if there'll be a lesson in there where then it's like 2032 and it's like remember when everyone just traded all their picks unprotected and then after that happened to you know fill in the blank and then we quit on that idea yeah nobody ever wanted to do it again. Because I do think it's going to happen. Piggybacking that point, it did feel like this was the year where

either you had to... It's almost like real estate. You either had to pay $10 million for your house or you could get a house for $300,000. Whereas the Josh Hart, Sadiq Bey, you get those guys at the all-time discount. But if you want a real guy,

you have to pay four first-rounders for OG and an OB to give away bridges and Cam Johnson and four firsts and a swap to get Durant. And there was no middle ground this year. There wasn't just somebody saying, I'll give you a first-round pick for Bogdanovich. Cool, thanks.

I'll take it. Everything was either fringe discount shopping or just people paying 200 cents on the dollar. And that was it. That was kind of how we did it this year. It was very strange. I'm just glad we're at least getting the fringe guys moved, at least getting good role players moved. Because we've seen in some past trade deadlines in particular, teams being very precious about the kinds of players who got moved today, about the Jared Vanderbilts or the Jalen McDaniels or whatnot. And they just don't move. And those guys

end up not going to playoff teams. We don't get to see them in these bright lights and these big circumstances. So I'm glad that the market has at least shifted a little bit in that direction where even though the picks are flowing, teams aren't holding out for too much for their marginal guys. Yeah. All right. I'm going to do million dollar picks. Ryan Russillo, thanks for staying on both parts. Rob Mahoney, it was great to see you.

I'll see you at the Garland party and we'll be back right after this. So money is a thing, but it's not everything. I think you really look at the importance of what are you doing with your time. The conversations that we've had with our financial advisor is very much building what that framework looks like that helps support those important things. The places where you're investing your time and your resources, your family clearly, and those closest to you. Edward Jones. We do money differently. Visit edwardjones.ca slash different.

All right, the Super Bowl is Sunday. Philly is still favored by one and a half against Kansas City. The line has not moved. It sucks to have the trade deadline the same week as the Super Bowl week. Just want to put that out there. I would have loved to have dived into these picks, dove into these picks, whatever the right tense is.

I would have loved it. But that's not stopping us. We're going to do some million dollar picks in a second. I'm just going to tell you what my mindset was. You can probably tell in the podcast earlier in this week, I was leaning toward Philly. Just kind of leaning, leaning, leaning. Keep coming back to the lines.

And I mean, not the gambling lines, the lines, the offensive lines, the defensive lines. What is the best strength in this game? And it would either come down to the trenches. I know when the football people are like, the trenches, Phil Simms, they won that game in the trenches. The trenches combined with Philly has these two receivers that I think are pretty special, Smith and Brown. Plus Goddard, who was really good before he got hurt halfway through

the season. Running backs are good. I just think they have a better team. So if you're taking the Chiefs, you're taking the Chiefs because of Mahomes. And you're just saying, look, this is this five-year arc of Mahomes. He won a Super Bowl already. He made another one. He's always been in the conference finals. And if he gets this, this is two Super Bowls. This is a Mahomes pick.

Well, he's got a high ankle sprain. We don't know how healthy he is, but we know he's not 100%. We also know that this Eagles pass rush is awesome. And I think one thing that's appealing to me about an Eagles pick is the fact that they didn't really get to show their full arsenal in that Niners game because our guy Brock Purdy went out early in the game. Johnson comes in, he gets hurt. Now they have no quarterback. And then it was like hard to get a

sense for how good the Eagles were. We should mention they knocked out the quarterback. That's Hassan Reddick, like took him out of the game because blindside sack. I think this Eagles team is actually better than people think. And I think this Chiefs team, as great as Mahomes is, it's a lot of rookies.

It's Andy Reid, so you're always as good of a coach as he is. There's always some weird game management stuff. There's young guys everywhere. I think their O-line's a little of rookies. It's Andy Reid. So you're always as good of a coach as he is. There's always some weird game management stuff. There's young guys everywhere. I think their O-line's a little bit overrated. I think they easily could have lost to Jacksonville. Well, Holmes got hurt in that game, obviously. But Jacksonville ran for 144 yards in them.

They committed two dumb turnovers. Felt like they left that game on the table a little bit. Then you go to the Cincinnati game. Since he has the ball twice, Two drives with a chance to win. They just couldn't do it. Pretty much every call in that game went against them. But it felt like a game. You have Cincy leaving that game. You have Jacksonville leaving that game going, man, we should have had that. Whereas Philly just blew through everybody to the point that it was kind of comical. They killed the Giants. Then the Niners basically don't have a quarterback. So I went through all

my playoff manifesto rules and it's shocking how few rules applied. Rule number 13 has, you know, before you wager on a team, there's 30 coaches and two of them are Andy Reid or anyone described as Andy Reid's people. So you have that. Rule 16 is take one last look at the quarterbacks. Remember, there's plenty of time to bid against a quarterback or a coach. That's the one thing that worries me is how healthy is Hertz? Is he going to be able to throw the ball?

You can throw the ball on the Chiefs. I don't love their secondary. And could Hertz just kill the Eagles? And that's why this line is one and a half. If we knew Hertz was the guy from the first 10 weeks, and we knew he was healthy, and we knew he could run around like he did earlier in the season,

they'd be favored by three. If they had just killed the Niners that whole game and Purdy never went out, they'd at least be favored by three. But it's like, eh, they haven't played anyone. They played a team without a quarterback. They played a Giants team that barely should have even been there.

And we don't know if Hertz is healthy. Who have they played? You start talking yourself out of it. Look at all the quarterbacks they beat. I think this Eagles team is healthy and ready to rock and roll. All right, it's time. Let's do million-dollar picks. For the season, I went 8 and four in the playoffs straight up,

six and three on big bets. Had a good playoff so far, up $942,000 for the season. We're risking it all. And then some. Of all of our fake money for the Super Bowl, the line on FanDuel right now,

Philly by one and a half. We are taking Philly and we're doing it for a variety of reasons, but it really comes down to this. The trenches, Brown, Goddard, Devonta Smith. I think once they get the lead, that pass rush can really push on Mahomes. And if the only reason to bet on KC

is I'm afraid to get to bet against Mahomes, that's not enough of a reason for me. They have young guys all over the place. I don't trust the Andy Reid game management thing. I am taking Philadelphia minus one and a half for a million dollars. And then some of the props that will kind of reflect what I think is going to happen in this game. Our same game parlay that you can find on FanDuel, Dallas Goddard, 60 plus receiving yards. He did it 8 of 11 times. Then he got hurt. I feel like they're kind of keeping him in their back pocket

for this game specifically. Kelsey, 50-plus yards. And the Eagles to win the game, plus 429. We're betting 50K on that. We're also betting 50K on a Hassan Reddick sack combined with the Eagles to win the game. And that is plus 190. We were betting 50K on a non-QB to win the MVP.

So basically, Mahomes, Hurts, Chad Henney, can't have them. Minshew, they're off the table. Everyone else you get plus 260, bet 50K on that. 50K on total sacks over 5.5. That's plus action on that, plus 122. I think the Eagles can get four by themselves. Chris Jones will get one. Somebody else will get one. We'll get to six.

This is a weird one. Philly scores the longest TD. It's minus 115. We're putting 50 K on that. I think there's a long one between Brown and Smith. I think one of them gets it. I think they burn one of these chiefs guys, just,

just the gut feeling. And then we're going to take a little flyer, 10 K Dallas Goddard scores. The first touchdown of the game. And Travis Kelsey scores. The second touchdown of the game, 80 to one. That's our stupid, ridiculous flyer.

I wanted to do more bets, but that's enough. And there's some possible tease potential where you could do Chiefs plus seven and a half, Eagles plus seven and a half. You can mess around the under. You can get to even. I could have thrown 100 bets at you, but I'm not gonna.

We're gonna ride the Eagles. Eagles minus one and a half. Pass rush. Defense. Or as Chris Collinsworth said, pass rush. Defense. Running the ball. Controlling the ball.

The lead. This Eagles team feels like it's had the lead the whole season. And I think it's a borderline miracle that the Chiefs got to this game with Mahomes on a high ankle sprain. And just that he got here for his legacy is great, but I don't think he's going to have enough to beat this Eagles team. That's the final pick. Those are the million dollar picks for Superbowl week. And that's the podcast.

Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerruti as always. Thanks to Mahoney and Mocillo. And I will see you on Sunday right after the Super Bowl. Cousins out. Until then. On the wayside On the first side of the road I don't have to ever