The Bill Simmons Podcast - Playoff Check-in, Celts-Bulls Chaos, and Knicks Paranoia (Ep. 201)

Episode Date: April 19, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ringer staff writers Robert Mays and Jason Concepcion to discuss Bulls-Celtics (5:00), Rondo's playoff run (11:00), Fred Hoiberg out-coaching Brad Stevens (18:00), Jimmy Butler trade myths (22:00), a possible Porzingis trade to the Celtics (26:00), Phil Jackson's many missteps (32:00), Danny Ainge's master plan (35:00), James Dolan's youth (42:00), Draymond Green's blocks (45:00), picking Phil Jackson or Melo (48:00), and Vin Diesel's impact on the 'Fast' series (50:00). Then, Tate Frazier joins to run through the main story lines throughout the playoffs thus far (54:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast, our 201st episode of this particular podcast, is brought to you by SeatGeek. That's been our presenting sponsor the entire time. Find the best tickets for sporting events, music, wrestling, opera, whatever. I was in Boston last weekend trying to talk my family into going to the Bruins game, and I went on to SeatGeek, and I was shocked by how easy it was to find good tickets that I could not talk my family into going to get because nobody wanted to go to a hockey game. They all wanted to go to dinner. I should have picked a better family.

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Just go to tunein.com slash Ringer and subscribe. You can catch the Ringer MLB show for free. And when you upgrade to TuneIn Premiumium again. Live MLB games. They talked about Chris Davinsky who, did they have him on, Tate? I didn't listen to that yet. I was traveling. Chris Davinsky went on. Chris

Davinsky has been saving my fantasy team this year. Had him last year too. Just a godsend. It's unbelievable. He'll just come in. I hope I'm not jinxing him, but he'll come in and he'll just throw three innings and have five strikeouts and not give up a hit. And it's just magnificent. I love that guy. But this is a really good baseball show. So listen to that. It comes back to the Ringer Podcast Network in May. And we should mention, speaking of podcasts, this is our 200th first, but we passed 200 with the Kurt Russell podcast on Friday which was a

really fun one to do he showed up at 10 in the morning just being Kurt Russell talked to him about a whole bunch of stuff but that was our 200th BS podcast we started this October 1st 2015 the day my the day after my ESPN contract ended. And we have done 200 podcasts. Coincidentally or not so coincidentally, we have passed 100 million downloads for those 200 podcasts this week. So 200 podcasts, 100 million downloads. Thanks so much to everybody for spreading the word. It's funny, you can see the SoundCloud stats.

And most of the downloads and listeners and everything is from the United States. I would say it's like 85%. The number two country. What do you think the number two country is Tate? Australia. No, Australia wasn't the top five. Canada. Canada's number two. Shout out to Canada. My number two most popular podcast country. So anyway, thanks for spreading the word. And thanks to all of our sponsors and partners who have helped us do this podcast and pay for the production and all kinds of stuff. And thanks especially to Seageek, who has been with us almost the entire time as a presenting sponsor. I think for just about all of 2016 and, uh, 2017 as well. So yeah, 200 in the bank, another 200 to come. I hope, uh, we have, we're going to talk basketball

this whole podcast. We're gonna have a bunch of guests, so stay tuned for that. But first, Pearl Jam. All right. We are taping this. It is 9 o'clock West Coast time. So by the time we put this up, it'll be about 2 o'clock West Coast time. So by the time we put this up, it'll be about two o'clock East Coast time. Just enough time for you to listen to a podcast for about five hours before there's three playoff games today and everything changes. On the line is the ringer Robert, the ringers Robert Mays, who is a football guy for us, but also loves basketball and loves the Chicago Bulls and hated this team about as much as I think he's hated a Bulls team since I've known him. And now they're up 2-0 in the first round over my beloved Boston Celtics.

Rayjean Rondo has turned the clock back to 2010. Jimmy Butler has made me regret not putting him on any of my all-NBA teams. Dwayne Wade looks somewhat Dwayne Wade-ish. Zipsers hitting threes. Portis is making shots. Mace, what the hell is going on? It is simultaneously both the most surprising thing and the least surprising thing that's ever happened to me. Because

this team was so maddening for so long. And I knew coming into the season that was possible. When they constructed it, I was like, oh God, this could be a disaster. And for knew coming into the season that was possible. You know, when they kind of constructed it, I was like, oh, God, this could be a disaster. And for a lot of it, it was. Then there's also that lingering thing of like, all right, we've seen what Rondo's done in the playoffs. We know who Jimmy Butler is. And yeah, as soon as you didn't put him on the third team, I was like, God, I hope he goes off against the Celtics.

It was my little bit of vindication. And then you think about what Wade did last year in the playoffs. I mean, for all the arguments against Wade, and there are many, the one that I think was relevant is that we are 12 months removed from him looking really good in the postseason. And even if he sleepwalks through 82 games, if he comes into this part, if they make the playoffs and he can make an impact, it's like, okay.

I don't think any of those arguments were worth the way the team was built, but I'm still kind of enjoying it right now. I went to game one, which was a bizarre and emotional game and just strange. The energy was strange in the building. Isaiah's crying before the game. Nobody knew if he was going to play or not. Guy came out, sang an unbelievable national anthem. Isaiah hits the three to go up nine, six, I think, something like that,

and timeout. The crowd goes just ballistic. There was such a release in the arena. At that point, we're like, wow, Isaiah's going to play awesome. They're going to get through this, and they'll win in five. I never in a million years thought that, A, Fred Hoiberg would win a playoff series, and, B, that this bizarre, goofy Bulls team was going to do anything. And then as that game went along, it's like, oh, yeah, Rondo.

Rondo's kind of looking like Rondo. And then guys are making shots. And then, oh, yeah, Dwayne Wade can do stuff. And then in the second half, Jimmy Butler just goes to another level. And then you start looking at it going, uh-oh, they might have the best player in the series. And it's not on the Celtics. The guy picked second-team all-NBA, Jimmy Butler,

we have nobody to guard this guy. And you could feel the momentum going. I was not surprised at all by yesterday because the Celtics were favored by seven in game two. Did you know that? No, but that's the thing is I didn't know it was going to happen yesterday. Because of how wonky is the wrong word. Because of how strange the circumstances and the climate was around game one.

Yeah. My thought was maybe that it was just kind of a weird situation. You have this emotional high and then you crater a little bit because you got to that point, and they'll come back in game two and everything will kind of normalize. And so watching what happened yesterday was just like, man, they just look better. And as much as I thought that there were elements of this team that could give the Celtics problems,

the idea that they'd be better coached and just look better as a complete five-man or seven-man unit is just never something I considered. Yeah. Well, there's a couple guys on this Bulls team that just are the types of guys that give this particular Celtics team trouble. Lopez is somebody that just the big physical guy who's always around the rim getting garbage rebounds. That's a guy that the Celtics team is not really equipped to stop. Butler has size size and when you look at the guys that have hurt the celtics in the past it's usually like those taller guys like the six seven six eight butler's had success against them in the

past wade has always killed boston and has also injured some of our players like there's a lot of history with him but the But the thing that's really, that really changed the series, in my opinion, other than that the Celtics, when they can't make threes, are just an abominable playoff team. Like they're this team

that's built around making threes and when they don't make them, there's really not a plan B. But for Portis and Zipper, as my dad called them, for those guys to be making, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen, Leverkusen The Bulls almost look unbeatable. Are you starting to get, like, if they get past Boston, which I would not count out Boston, but we'll talk about in a second. Are you starting to get ideas? Because you play Washington in round two. It's not like Washington is the most invincible team either.

It's hard to get ideas when I have two games of this and I had, I'm not saying 82 games of something else, because they did play better down the stretch. Rondo played better. You know, Jimmy's just Jimmy. But I'm not starting to get that many ideas. I think that there are some elements that are specific to this series. The Lopez part of it is different when you're playing against teams that have bigger bodies

that are better rebounding teams. But the other part of the Lopez equation that makes me a little bit more excited and gives me a little bit more hope is gives me a little bit more hope is that the way they're moving defensively is pretty remarkable. I mean, he's been just showing and getting to the right spots and you know, Jimmy can play. And when a couple of those other guys are locked in, you know, they're capable, but what he's been able to be in the middle for them, I just didn't expect him to look like that at this high of a level of basketball. When we got to the playoffs, having him be the best version that I've seen of him in Chicago is not something I expect.

I looked up your stats in March. I went into a self-loathing thing about this whole thing last night about 1230 for about 10 minutes. You were 31 and 30 and then you lost nine of your next 12, including like seven of eight. If you looked at the stats for the team, Lopez was like 10 points and five rebounds a game for an entire month. For the entire month of March, played all 14 games, just five rebounds a game.

And then you go into game one, and it looks like if you brought an alien to go watch their first nba game ever they'd be like is that the best center in the league so you have that the butler thing though to me he he does have this in him i think for most of their problems were the fact that they were playing during the season at least from what i saw that they were playing every point guard other than rondo and that the chemistry was way off. And am I crazy, or does it look like the chemistry's better? Like, I watched them in the press conference last night.

The three guys were all sitting next to each other. Wade's making fun of the fact that he hated Rondo in the past, and now he doesn't. Like, I just don't get it. I feel like my head was taken off my body and then put back on. It's a couple of things. One, the chemistry just with the players and the court i feel like is better and this is definitely revisionist history but just the idea that now pretty much any four you're going to put out there is going to give

you a little bit more spacing when you desperately needed it and that's the problem that's the problem quote-unquote with taj gibson being your starting power forward yeah i love taj gibson like with all of my soul but when you have this group of guys around him, it's just really hard. It makes it difficult to do anything offensively. So even though Miritich has been up and down, now that you have him and Portis, they're worse NBA players

than Taj Gibson, but they give you a necessary component. So you add that, plus Rondo being the point guard, okay, now I can see how we can start cooking with gas and stretches offensively. But then kind of the chemistry of the personalities, these are all dudes that just do not give a shit about the regular season. I mean, Rondo could not care less. So the idea that there's actually some engagement from his end and Wade's the same way, I don't know.

Again, this is all like, of course I'm thinking this way and I'm looking at it this way because it's going well. It doesn't make any sense really, but I guess I could see it like a far-off reality that this was out there. I went to see the Warriors and the Bulls right after the trade deadline when we did the first rant podcast, and it was just comedy. They were such a mess. Miritich looked like he was trying to such a mess meritage looked like he was

trying to throw the game it looked like he had bet on the warriors i mean he just didn't want to didn't want to be there and and was just full of hate they're playing michael carter williams they're playing grant they're playing everybody but rondo and then every time rondo came in the team would settle down and they would look good. After the game, I remember driving home with Tate and Tommy and we would be like, why didn't they just play Rondo? Lopez was playing hard. Gibson was playing hard.

But as you said, now that he's not there, the spacing is just better. And there's more room to operate and do everything. And the one thing as I was watching that game, and this is what I can't reconcile with this playoff series, I just think Fred Hoiberg is a terrible coach. And yet you watch these playoff series and he's outcoaching Brad Stevens. The Bulls look totally prepared. My dad and I were walking home after game one and we're looking at each other like,

wow, Stevens got outcoached. Hoiberg, the bulls knew everything the celtics would do offensively and then on the other side the bulls were just doing their thing and it was like wow where did this come from did you see any sign of fred hoiberg being able to do this no and and i'm trying to figure it out i was thinking about this morning i was like well they're long and athletic and if they start carrying on defense and you have a celtics team that it was really built on ball movement so if you know where the ball is going and there's less improvisation maybe you can kind of figure out what the next steps are and again this is all just rationalization in my mind but i need to rationalize it because it's so weird to see it i did not expect it whatsoever jason concepcion has joined us good morning hey buddy he doesn't know really what it's like to have your team surprise you in the playoffs since

it's only happened like two times in the last in the century for him yeah it's been uh geez 18 years or something like that there's there's children who are who can fight in wars now that are alive since the last time it happened. Jason, you... The worst part about this for Knicks fans is that this is now the nail in the coffin of the Bulls winning to Derrick Rose. It's another loss for Knicks fans. It really is. Robin Lopez looks like Shaq.

Jason, you're an innocent bystander. You don't care about the Bulls or the Celtics. You're an innocent bystander. You don't care about the Bulls or the Celtics. True. You're watching this. Just give us the detached perspective of somebody who can't believe that this is the Bulls. Well, I mean, you know, it's like they're the kryptonite for the Celtics in a really weird way. Where they just are soft around the rim and around the paint. And Robin Lopez is like a mutant beast who was bred to grab rebounds.

And he's just destroying them inside. And it's crazy. And it's really, and it's also just, it's just bizarre. It's bizarre. So it's bizarre and it's not bizarre. It's not bizarre that the Celtics are losing a round one series because anyone who's, and I watched a ton of celtics this year i was so nervous about round one thinking they would play miami who was basically on a 60 win pace the second half of the year i was like that team's better than us like we have it's isaiah and it's a house of cards we can't rebound it's this team

that's built around shooting threes and unless they shoot 40 from three they're kind of they're kind of hopeless unless isaiah goes to another level so that doesn't surprise me but you know the the x factor here is would this have happened if isaiah didn't have the family tragedy because he he was not i know he put up stats in game one but it wasn't the same guy and it wasn't even him as much as the team itself. You could just see it. They're consoling him throughout the game, and the energy was off. And it wasn't like – they weren't in this mode of, we're fighting for our playoff lives.

They were like, we feel bad for our buddy. His sister just died. Then you carry that over to game two, and Isaiah's terrible. He missed six free throws. The guy shot 90% from the line. He sister just died. Then you carry that over to game two and Isaiah's terrible. He missed six free throws. Like the guy shot 90% from the line. He's just not the same. And it really exposes

how limited this Celtics team is because during game one, I'm sitting next to my dad and I'm going, we got to put Gerald Green in. We need offense.

Like, Gerald Green's a 13th man. This is not, that's not the answer. You know? So, I don't know, Maze. I think you should be feeling pretty good. On the other hand, from what you've seen from the Bulls all year,

it's a team that can absolutely blow a 2-0 lead. You wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised, but just based on the way they played the last two games, it's not as if something fluky happened. It looks complete. And that's why I feel a little bit better about it. Being them greater from this would be shocking.

I'm not, no, trust me, it could happen. I just think it's not as if one shot went in or something weird went on. I think the way they've played is, against this team, something they can keep doing. Bill, I want to ask you though, because the Thomas thing is interesting, and I think that he's the guy like,

all right, we need a bucket, he can go get it. And if he's off, do you buy into the rondo understanding where the ball's going based on certain movements sort of thing because it does look like he knows what's going on yeah i don't know if fred hoiberg just stepped his game up or rondo and wade have played are just so smart and butler too that in person in game one i was shocked by how unconfident i was that the celtics were going to get a good shot it just seemed like the bulls knew everything they were going to do and yet it's really hard to see that on tv when you're watching you're like shit where do we go it's like over and over again you had guys hoisting up bad shots with five seconds left in the shot

clock then on the flip side the bulls games, got great shots. And if they missed a shot, they just got the rebound. So if you just look at who had the better chances. Mace, do you think... I mean, it's far away. It's 2020, but do you think Fred Hoiberg is going to be the next Olympic coach? Yeah, probably. I mean, I think whenever Coach

K wants to step down. Because by that point, Fred will have what? 17, 18, 19. He'll have three rings. He'll have three rings. So he'll probably be the one that's the next logical option. I will say, at the game, at game one, when they booed Rondo, the fans, and I was part of the crowd, so I should say we. I was not booing Rondo.

Rondo, we won the title with Rondo. Rondo outplayed LeBron in 2010 in a playoff series. Like, I get it. It's the playoffs. He's on the other team. But I just can't boo Rondo. Rondo, we won the title with Rondo. Rondo outplayed LeBron in 2010 in a playoff series. Like, I get it. It's the playoffs. He's on the other team, but I just can't boo Rondo. I just wasn't in me. I love that guy. Even Rondo was like, I understand it. It hurt my feelings. Sports is so

cruel. It really is. But even Rondo understands it. Rondo knows what's going on. Rondo's been around. He's like, yeah, I get it. The things that Rondo can actually get worked up about are very small. I don't think there are many of them. Yeah, like losing a Connect Four game and his roller skates not being around. Explain to me how Rondo was probably the worst defensive point guard in the league for four years.

And now it looks like K kg 2010 jumping the passing lanes up to stuff all the time rondo where did this come from it's not it's what two games though you know what i'm gonna need to see all the bulls pee in a cup i'm gonna i'm gonna need blood tests and your test right now right now although i don't need one from Wade because when he missed the dunk I'm like okay that's good he's getting old naturally Wade this is

Wade's known time of year for you know all of a sudden hitting shots and running harder than he's run in years

would you call this the Rondo Sants? not yet let's let them win the series first okay yeah it's an official Rondo Sants when they's let them win the series first. Okay. Yeah.

It's an official Rondo sense when they win the series? I'm comfortable with that. I'm comfortable with that. Mays, last thing, and then we'll let you go so you can study the top 200 offensive tackles in the NFL draft for another 10 hours. The Celtics never really had a chance to get Jimmy Butler, and it drives me crazy that I'm getting asked this. I'm getting emails about it.

People are tweeting at me about it. Like, oh, that's what happened. You guys should have gotten Butler or George. It's like, why don't we throw LeBron and Steph Curry and Russell Westbrook into that? Oh, yeah, we should have gotten Russell Westbrook at the deadline. Those guys weren't available. There was no Paul George trade. Larry Bird wouldn't call the Celtics back.

Chicago wasn't trading Jimmy Butler. They were not doing anything. They were going to wait until the end of the season to see how the lottery shook out, to see if the Lakers pick was going to be involved. Nobody was trading those guys. So you can't blame the Celtics for the fact that they decided Jonas Jerobco, Amir Johnson, Tyler Zeller, and Gerald Green were acceptable playoff bench guys.

But don't blame them for not trading Jimmy Butler and Paul George or trading for them. Well, that's the difference between having a conversation and having that conversation be rooted in reality, right? I believe that the Bulls and Celtics have talked about Jimmy Butler, but I also believe that pretty much every one of those conversations has involved the Bulls muting the phone, looking at each other, and being like, what is this guy's deal?

Is he serious? So that's the difference. That's the gap there. I think the Celtics called up Chicago and said, hey, are you guys going to trade Jimmy Butler? And they said no. And they're like, nothing, there's nothing we can offer. And the Bulls are like, no. And they're like, nothing, nothing. There's nothing we could offer. And the Bulls were like, no.

And then that was the end of the conversation. That's not a trade talk. Those aren't trade talks. If I call somebody and offer to buy their house and they say, we like our house, we're not selling it, that doesn't mean we talked about buying their house. It kind of does. If you call me and want to buy my house, now I know you want to buy my house.

Yeah, but you didn't want to sell it. Yeah, that's true. You can't blame me for being like, oh, he should have bought Jason's house. It's like, well,

Jason told me he didn't want to sell it. How much of this is also like post we didn't move the guy political kind of like smooth things over so he will play hard

during the playoffs. Jimmy Butler? Yeah. Or either guy. I think they would have been nuts to trade Jimmy Butler. Unless the Celtics were like, we'll give you our Brooklyn pick, we'll give you Jalen Brown, and we'll give you Jay Crowder. You know, something like that.

If the Brooklyn pick was not involved, the no-go. That's the thing. If you called and said, I want to buy your house, I'll give you $3 for it, somebody would say, it's not for sale. The Brooklyn pick has to be there or or the phone gets hung up so hard that it breaks in half wait may stay in the exactly my understanding of it may stay on the line for one second we're going to talk about my friends at harrys.com maze you should really have harrys.com because after we saw your beard in the moriball

trailer i think you need a razor more than anyone I know. They sent me some razors last year. It's so sad. It's gone. Oh, you shaved it. I trimmed it off. It's all gone. Well, I wish you had used Harry's because if you're not using their state-of-the-art

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Just cover that chip, and that's harrys.com. Code BS. Maze, I want you to stay in line for this question and hear Jason's answerrys.com. Code BS. Maze, I want you to stay on the line for this question and hear Jason's answer. I'm ready. Jason's Phil Jackson. Oh, great. So let's pretend you're half asleep.

Make the sound of a bong bubbling for about five minutes. You might be a little high. You're half asleep and you just want to blow things up. And I'm Danny Ainge. And I'm freaking out that my team just lost in round one to the zombie bulls. And I'm like, I'll give you the broken pick right now for Porzingis.

I'll give it to you right now. You can have it. I don't even know if we're going one, two, three, or four. Here's the pick. Just give us Porzingis. I feel like Phil would do it. And that's terrible. Phil would do it. Just give us Porzingis. I feel like Phil would do it. And that's terrible. He would do it.

I think he would too. He would do it. So here are the benefits for it. Let's say you get the number one pick. Sure. Sure. That person is now under contract for two extra years. Porzingis, starting in about a year,

you have to start worrying about him leaving and running from the Knicks, which any sane person would probably do. He's started running already. He's already started looking out over the... seeing what's over the distance there. Yeah.

Mays, is this a trade that on paper makes sense to you? If you're the Knicks, here's the thing. Do you feel like the guys in this draft would be the number one pick? Could they be the best player on a championship team, and do you think that Porzingis could be? Because if you're the Knicks, you're starting over anyway, right?

Yeah. Let me flip that around. I do believe that some of the guys in this draft could be the best player in the championship team and i think that porzingis his ceiling uh taking into account the first part of his like developmental arc before this kind of stagnated season i think you know he could be maybe the second best guy like a pippen type guy on on a championship team like a highly qualified number two yes yeah that said that's kind of like the micro the macro is this is bad process you don't do this you don't cut bait with a guy who is a who projects as even like a second tier star because he doesn't want to play a 1950s offense you know like and

and and your president of your team is not even going to be there in two years and the new guy is going to just two years you know like well it's assuming he lives at his extension oh yeah we talked about this in my office yesterday james dylan has this thing where he's like i made a deal with phil jack Jackson. I live up to my deals. He has five years. I make a deal. My word is the law. And then it's like, James Dolan's had 15 people running Madison Square Garden.

He fires them every two years. Also, an option is part of a contract, and you don't have to pick it up. No. You could still have lived up to the contract and decline the option. Well, how about this? If the Sixers take Porzingis at three and you take Okafor at four, the Phil Jackson era is even possibly worse than the Isaiah Thomas era. At least Isaiah drafted a couple people and I don't know.

It's just bad. You don't do this. you don't run a team this way whether you could actually get value for porzingis in in any number of situations and i think in that situation like if you really wanted to look at it maybe you do get value out of it you don't know what these guys are going to be you have with porzingis you have a bird in the hand so to speak but it's just you don't. This is not the way to run a team. You don't run a team by like killing the trade value of your guys,

by burning a guy in the media with your friend's blog. And, you know, like this is not how you run a team. You don't do it like this. Yeah. Can you imagine to the Phil Jackson era, though? There's no way to know it could have gone this bad. No one could have predicted this, except for everybody. I didn't think it would go this bad.

To be fair, I did not think it could go this badly. I remember I was on Countdown that second year when they did this. And I said on TV that I thought it was a mistake, that I thought he was too old to just all of a sudden run a team that I couldn't imagine him flying around all these different countries scouting international prospects. I didn't think he would put in full days. And everybody got mad at me. People were like, oh, he won six titles.

Who are you? I mean, the issue really is he wants to coach, but he can't do it physically. So he's coaching by proxy through a bunch of people. And none of them want to run the triangle and he wants to make them run it and it's you know the triangle is the most perplexing thing of all this it's it's almost it's i don't know what maze what's the football equivalent if somebody was running like the like the what's the the wishbone something we're under the wishbone

you probably have to go that far back it's like something that exists in the late night or midnight. Right. I mean, it's crazy. Phil was asked what he liked about Porzingis' game last season and said a bunch of things. But one of the things he said in part was he was proud of a game where KP didn't take a three because it's, quote, a cheap way to get baskets. Yeah. He should have a job. That is so just I mean, mean like it's just brutal you know what the other thing is he's literally i mean i've written about

this but he's literally if you created a stretch five from scratch you would create porzingis i don't think you would change one aspect of who he is as a basketball player. He's like tailor-made to play the modern game. Yeah. And yet Phil can't appreciate this and in fact thinks that the way the game is played now is some kind of abomination and we need to turn the clock back

on the way it used to be. All right, we'll throw in Jay Crowder. Oh, great. Jay Crowder's like the guy... Scrape the triangle. Jay Crowder's like the fortune cookie. He gets thrown into every deal. He just gets passed around.

Yeah, we'll throw in Jay Crowder and that's a done deal. I personally would not trade Porzingis unless it was for the first pick. I think Fultz has a chance to maybe have a higher ceiling and you get him under contract for two more years. That to me is conceivable. But I think the ramifications that it would have on the Knicks fan base who love Porzingis. It would be brutal. And then if you look at the history of basketball, the trades that work out the worst for the team trade, the young player, the young star, whatever, it's always circumstance and not

the trade itself. So it's like the Harden trade. They're arguing about a difference of like five million bucks. Right. And they ended up, they had all these other options. They just send them out. But you always want to, Chris Weber, Jason Kidd. You go through all the guys that have just been plucked from other teams at the wrong points of their career.

It's always circumstance. And also throw out whether it works or not. If a trade should go down, let's say, and Porzingis hurts his foot like a lot of big guys do and he doesn't have a good career, it's still bad process. Like, don't run your team like this. Right. And that's what people say. Oh, look, you got injured.

Yeah, but you can't run a team by being psychic and knowing guys are going to get injured in two years. Like, you have to have a process and you have to stick to it and it has to be consistent or else you're just kind of throwing stuff against the wall and hoping stuff happens. You can't run a team like this. If you played poker with Phil Jackson, would you be like, I have two threes.

It's not good enough, but I think I'm going to go all in anyway. You'd be like, what? Why are you telling me your hand? He'd be like, numbers are a social construct. What does a number mean? The symbol three is actually correlated to the number three, but that's not tied into anything. That's what Phil said.

Mays, who do you think has more playoff wins since 2002? The New York Knicks or the Seattle Supersonics? I love those early 2000 Sonics teams, so I'm just going with them. I mean, it makes up like two, don't they? Wins, game wins or series wins? Playoff wins. You have seven playoff wins since 2002,

and the Sonics have eight, and they folded their team in 2008 and moved to Oklahoma City. They've got one series win in 15 years, 16 years. Brian from Washington, D.C. asks, here, 16 years. Brian from Washington, D.C. asks, here's a question from Brian from Washington, D.C. Is this lottery the year the Knicks finally get lucky? No, because they lost yesterday.

They lost the coin flip to Minnesota. You went from six to seven. They've already lost. Brian says, 17 years of James Dolan, zero luck in the lottery, missed out on Curry by one pick, missed out on Westbrook and Love by one and two picks, blew the top spot in 2015 with two games to go that went to Towns.

And then he asks, but if they did win, would Phil Jackson pass up Fultz and Ball and take a big man like Larry Barkin in anyway? Because he's Phil Jackson. Secretlyly though, the Knicks have drafted well relative to the positions that they've had. Yeah. I was going to say, I can't wait to hear

what this explanation is. They've drafted well. I mean, you look at the guy in the playoffs right now are a number of players, Channing Frye, Nene, number of guys who the Knicks drafted and then were like, ah, we got to get some older, broken down, more highly paid guy.

That's the Knicks move. That's the Knicks move. They never develop these players. So it's like, they'll probably take somebody good, and then they'll probably trade him for some old, broken down guy. For my long gone HBO show, after the second episode,

we did a whole thing heading into free agency about how the Knicks were destined to sign Dwight Howard. That is the Knicksiest of Knicks moves. And just their 45-year legacy of always ending up with the guy three to four years too late. And in the montage, we put Joaquin Noah in there. We're like, gotta cover our bases just in case they sign Noah instead. And that's who they signed. At his end of year press conference, he said of Noah, he's 31.

He's still relatively young. Yeah. He hasn't watched Joe Kim Noah play basketball in six years. I guarantee you that. Check the odometer on that one. Joe Kim Noah is a young 31, like Axl Rose was a young 31 during the Guns N' Roses tour. Joe Kim Noah, ask anyone in Chicago like Axl Rose was a young 31 during the Guns N' Roses tour. Joe Quibdola.

Ask anyone in Chicago who stayed out past two in the morning how old Joe Quibdola was. He literally couldn't move last year. He couldn't move. He's like from point A to point B. It was three feet away. It was incredible. It's very tough.

The other weird thing about the Knicks, I can't believe we're talking this much about the Knicks, but it's so irresistible. The weirdest thing about the Knicks, I can't believe we're talking this much about the Knicks, but it's so irresistible. The weirdest thing about them is they, I would argue that they have more fans than just about anyone. Maybe I think the Celtics and the Knicks, maybe the Lakers, but just when you talk about generations, the Knicks have fans ranging from the age of 90 to the age of four.

David Stern was famously a Knicks fan. They also have a lot of highly educated fans, people who understand basketball. The concept that they have to make splashy moves all the time to kind of seduce the fan base, it's actually the opposite. If they had some sort of Moneyball, smart, build it up, Theo Epstein, Cubs type of plan, all the Knicks fans will be like,

that's great! This is what we should be doing! All they gotta do is look at Boston. Look at Boston. In four years they went from a complete teardown to the top seed in the playoffs. It's like, the excuse is always New York won't stand for a rebuild.

And then three, four years down the line, if you had rebuilt, look where you'd be. And they, you know, it's, this is the trap that everybody falls into. They want to go to New York because if you win there, you basically become a legend. And in order to do that, they get seduced into making these moves.

Except for LeBron. LeBron was the one person. That's why he's a smart guy. Well, you know what happened? James Dolan rolled into the meeting. He had the free agent meeting. No, they wheeled in Donnie Walsh, who had just had some surgeries in a wheelchair. It's like Donnie Walsh in a wheelchair, James Dolan, and one other guy.

Donnie did right by the Knicks. And then they go to Miami, and Pat Riley's just throwing his dick and his rings at the table. In that order. Here's my dick, and here are my rings. Boom! And LeBron's like dick and here are my rings. Boom. And LeBron's like, ah, I want to play there. Mays, last question. Is it possible Danny Ainge knew that this was the destiny of the Celtics team

and that's why he refused to give up any assets whatsoever at the trade deadline because he knew this was a house of cards and smoke and mirrors team and that's why he refused to give up any assets whatsoever at the trade deadline because he knew this was a house of cards and smoke and mirrors and basically a 500 team that isaiah thomas pulled 10 extra wins out of because he just was out of his mind watching this celtics team for two games is that possible well and we just discussed that the jimmy beller trades and paul george may not have been on the table at all. But say those two guys are part of a package of giving up assets. You don't like that team?

You don't think a Jimmy Butler, Isaiah Thomas, whoever else? Don't do this to me. It wasn't possible. Stop it. It wasn't going to happen. No, but they could have. If all of those moves are off the table, then maybe. No, they could have gotten Serge Ibaka.

They could have tried to get New Orleans to win. Let's say they gave up the two guys they stashed for Serge Ibaka. And let's say they gave up something else for Boyan Bogdanovich. The sad thing is even Irian Ilusova

would have been better than seven of the guys who played in these first two games. Turkish Kobe. Yeah. Anyway. All right, Mays. Look, I'm not happy for you. I feel no joy for you whatsoever.

But it's all coming up Mays, man. The fucking Cubs win the World Series. The Bulls are having a renaissance. The Bears have a QB you got Mike Glennon the second you put that into the other two it's just I'm insulted

and I know you're trying to make me mad Mike Glennon you got I'm leaving now it's all coming up Bears thanks Maze talk to you buddy talk to you later

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slash BS. Gift code BS. All right, so Jason Concepcion and I have worked together since the Grantland days we were all infatuated by your Twitter account

which was network with a 3 that's right and after hearing enough conversations about it I said to Chris Ryan can we get that guy to write something for us and Chris Ryan did this oh yeah yeah yeah yeah but never did anything.

And then I got mad at him. And then it turned out you had actually written a Knicks book. Who'd you write that with? Or you were working on a Knicks book? We found out you were actually really a writer. I had written a couple of things in a Knicks book about Jeremy Lin

with a bunch of fellow Knicks writers. So that's when like, well, this guy, well, he can write, he can put paragraphs together. Sure. So what was the first thing you wrote for Grantland? The first, it was some shoot around that I can't remember what it was.

A shoot around post, so probably like a 400 word. And then you started writing more and more? Yeah. And more and more? I'm still fooling people. Then you came to the ringer with us? That's right. We're here.

And then we finally, as the last chapter of our journey together, we made you move to LA and you actually did. You turned your back on the Knicks, which I don't blame you. It was time to leave. It's better to follow them from afar, I think, than have the energy be so close to your body and infecting you all the time. Yeah.

You need to be 3,000 miles away. It's true. I got this email from somebody that haven't used an email bag yet, and I will, so I'm stepping on it. That's all right. He said he Googled how old James Dolan was.

Yeah. And James Dolan was like 61. Is that how old he is? He's dark. 61. And then his next Google was, what is the average expectancy for a white male and it was 79 years old and he's like i have 18 years left so dark the law the loss the law of

google and whatever and math just says i probably have around 18 years left with jim dylan give or take a couple years and he's like do i do I just switch teams? What do I do? I'm sure you've actually, you've gone down this path mentally at least a couple times. I have, but I try not to because it's such a dark line of thought. You know what I mean? Well, but the line of thought of just,

I'm stuck with this owner and by the time he sells the team or something happens, I could be 60 years old. Here's a semi-hot take. He's almost good, right? he's almost good right he's almost a good owner okay he's willing to write checks he spends money that's a major part of being like this keep it going and he cares about winning he cares too much as a matter of fact he's the caring overrides his impulse control okay you know and you know if you could just somehow

this is why i had hope for the film move because uh you know as as we have said the next classic move is find us big name people who are old you know and, and like, just... Whether they're players or executives. So the ultimate, the ultimate peak of that philosophical path is Phil Jackson. They don't come bigger than him, right? 11 championships. Who's, you know, the greatest coach of all time. So you bring this guy in. Now, all of a sudden, James Dolan starts going out on tour. He's not around the city.

You know, he's been out of it for the last couple of years. You look at his touring schedule, that's how you know he hasn't been meddling with the team. His touring schedule. It's sad that that's what it is. That's your hope is you can find somebody who's got such a stature that Dolan will back off and that person can run the team. Unfortunately, Phil Jackson turned out to be semi-insane. You know, like burnout, who is like obsessed with the triangle, which we all knew, but nobody knew to what extent. But, you know, that's like the hope is you can find somebody

who can get Dolan to back off, still write checks, and can run the team in a competent fashion. It's weird that he had such a bad concept of how to lead a franchise. Because he was leading men as a basketball team. No, Phil. Yeah. Because he was in charge of the Bulls and then the Lakers and was-

Are we sure he wasn't insane the whole time? And we just didn't know? Or he got more and more insane as it went along? I mean, remember that thing in 2000 with the Kings when he had a pump-up film before the Lakers-Kings series? He had a pump-up film cut together that compared Rick Adleman to Hitler and Jason Williams to American History X? Do you remember this? I don't remember that.

Yeah. That sounds a little Phil Jackson-y. It was like a semi-controversy at that. Yeah. That sounds a little Phil Jackson-y. It was like a semi-controversy at the time, not really because it was Phil Jackson and it was kind of pre-internet, but he was always kind of a wild dude. All right, let's do a couple mailbag questions

because the playoffs is going on. Yeah. This is a fun playoffs. Simon in Toronto asks, All this MVP talk is cute, but are the Warriors about to unleash holy hell in the playoffs and go 16-0? You heard it here first. So I wish I'd had a platform. It's too bad I don't have a column in a podcast where I could have said this or Chris Vernon's podcast where I forgot to make this point. It is possible they at least go 8-0. I mean,

Durant got hurt. And I think without Durant, there's a chance Portland might stay one of those games. But round two, I think they're going to sweep the Clippers or the Utah. But you could see, you know, I would say there's a real chance they're 8-0 going into round three. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Obviously, the Durant injury throws some uncertainty into it, but they're just so good.

They're so good. What was scary about game one is Portland throws their best haymaker at them, right? Two huge games. Two huge games at the same time from the two guys they needed, and in the fourth quarter, the Warriors are up 15. It's like, all right, we have no plan B. Our plan A was these guys scoring 80 points together, and that's not happening.

Could you see a scenario? So the Houston recipe, and I don't think Houston is better than Golden State. No. They get two monster Harden games, and they get two games where just everybody makes threes. That's the only way. It would have to be a seven-game win,

two for Harden, two for they go 25 for 48 from three it's conceivable i'm not saying it's conceivable it's conceived i mean there's going to be at least one game where they go crazy from three yeah if you stretch that to two there's a chance but i just don't see it i mean like draymond has been like ridiculous yeah and you just throw him on whoever guy. He just smothers people. Is he? Put him on hard. He's not the best blocker, shot blocker,

but he's the most fun shot blocker. He's got the biggest balls. I mean, he blocked two shots in that last game, two dunk attempts in that last game that would have been dunk of the year because it was him. Yeah. And he just, you know.

It's amazing. Huge balls. Mike from New Jersey says, my friends and I play a game at the end of every regular season where each playoff team, seeded one through 16, gets to draft a single player from a non-playoff team. Would Anthony Davis be the first pick? I think unquestionably yes.

Who's the second pick? Oh, this is good. Second pick, guy who did not make the playoffs it's a tough one it is tough i'm trying to go through other teams i would say towns the towns is kind of out of his mind all right if you wanted a win a win guy maybe wiggins i'd go towns still you know. Depends on what your team needs. From Andrew in Oklahoma, Paul George's future

question. Do the Lakers even have anyone that can be as good as Miles Turner? The answer is no. The Lakers do not have a guaranteed future. I like Julius Randle, kind of. Would you rather have Miles Turner or Julius Randle? I'd rather have Miles, but I like Juliusius he's like a wrecking ball man you know

he's like a very very poor man's like blake griffin cross with dream on i like miles turner too yeah do you think paul george took enough shit for being a terrible teammate after game one i was actually i was stunned a that he showed c. Miles up on the court after the miss. Like, he just acted like a dick. And then after the game. He apologized a little bit. He apologized two days later. Yeah, that's still huge.

I've got to take that shot. Yeah, but how many guys in history, I'm not excusing him, and I agree with you. At the same time, like, how many guys in history would say the same, have said the same thing? That's like the kobe move what's paul george done in his career yeah he may he battled miami the eastern conference finals as the best player on the team once it's also like one of those things where you like they pump these guys up like it's your team it's your team you lead and then at the end you got to get that shot yeah big mistake by cj miles not throwing the ball back to paul george three

seconds left in the shack that's why you put it on him. CJ Vow is a good offensive player. I agree, it was a good shot. Shoot the ball. This is from Darren in Durham, North Carolina. If the Knicks could get rid of either Phil Jackson or Carmelo right now, but had to keep the other for the rest of their contract, who would you pick?

Phil. You'd get rid of Phil? Yes. I mean, listen, you know what you're going to get in Melo? You're going to get a guy who clutches the ball a little too much and is an elite scorer at times and doesn't really defend, but will get you 23 to 25 points a game. He's a known entity, and you can work around that. Phil Jackson, I don't know what this guy is going to do next. It's like having an aging parent who's starting to lose it a little bit. You show up at the house and he's just outside, not wearing pants.

It's like, Dad, you're in the front lawn. You don't have pants on. Hey, from Chris in Phoenix. Are we sure Giannis has the right nickname? Why aren't we calling him Greek God? Because Greek Freak rhymes and rhyming is great. I think it's

evolved to the Freak. You think? It's like professional wrestling. Where you start out with your nickname and then you hit a point where the next nickname comes from that nickname. Right. So he was Greek freak, but now I think he's just freak. I give him

Zeus. This is really important. This is probably the most important thing I've ever asked you. From Mark. I didn't put a city down for some reason. Paul Pierce has always looked like he's followed the Krispy Kreme light diet. He's probably the kind of guy who shows up to a family dinner

in jogging pants for the extra stretch he has legit boobies in the player tribune video he did with kg not quite d out level but as pierce heads to retirement how much weight gained in the first four years of retirement do you pick for one of the all-time great celtics does he go full ben stiller at the end of dodgeball and never see his penis again like char Barkley? Great question. Let me explain to your listeners that there's a disease called RFD, round face disease. And no matter how chiseled a guy is, if he has a round face, he always kind of looks out of shape. And I think Paul has suffered from this for most of his career.

Mello is another guy. RFD, Eric Gordon. Markel Fultz could be the- Round face. Could be the greatest round face disease sufferer of all time. If you have that round face- Okay. There's nothing you can do. You will always look out of shape.

And I think Paul, while he is slightly, he's out of shape now. There's no question. I think he's been unfairly maligned throughout his career because of the shape of his face. Okay. Yeah. When do you have to go? Two minutes? Yeah.

Pretty much now. Last question. Yep. Is Lance Stevenson to the Pacers as Vin Diesel is to Fast and Furious? No. Come on. Where if you take him out of the franchise, Pacers slash Fast and Furious, he's mortal. He's forgettable.

But you give him the uniform, you give him the Fast and Furious franchise, all of a sudden he's an A-lister. No, because Vin is so integral to the Fast series that it's not a comparison. Vin is the lifeblood of that series. This is why I'm Team Vin in the Rock Vin. You're Team Vin? Yeah, because this is Vin's house. He built this.

He built this thing. You can't come in here and feud Vin's house he built this he built this thing you can't come in here and feud with a guy who built this franchise that'd be like me coming in here and being like Bill's gotta go

it's like you know Jason it's about family salute me familia there's a guy here and I'm not gonna name names but he's causing problems here at the Rigger

and you know he's not a man yeah I'm team Vin too yeah settle down Rock yeah settle down alright Jason Concepcion name names, but he's causing problems here at The Rigger, and he's not a man. Yeah, I'm team Vinted. Settle down, Rock. Yeah, settle down. All right, Jason Concepcion. You're working on a secret project podcast that we can't talk about, but we should mention

Achievement Oriented, our video game podcast that you host with Ben Lindbergh. That's right. Which you can find, subscribe, wherever it is. The gamers love that one, huh? I hope so. Shouts to my guy, Ben. Yeah, all right.

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Jason at Together. Tate Frazier here. What's happening, Tate Frazier? How's it going? I went to the Quipper game last night. I want to talk about the West really quick. You watch the Quipper game because I saw you tweeting. Of course.

You do the passive-aggressive Quipper tweets. What do you mean? I don't know. You take shots. You hate Chris Paul. No, I don't hate Chris Paul. You like making fun of him. I do like making fun of him.

But I was proud of him last night. You're proud of him. Okay. Yeah. They cut the game to three. The Jazz did. And then Chris Paul comes down, pulls up, hits a three, stretches the lead out, gets the crowd back into it.

I was very proud of him. I took my daughter to the game. She spends most of the time asking me why DeAndre Jordan isn't like the greatest player in the history of basketball. Because if you don't know that much about basketball and you watch and you just, the rebounds and the alley-oops and it just seems completely unstoppable. And how massive he is. Yeah. He's huge. Yeah.

I don't. So I, so the Clippers, Utah's guarding Blake with Boris Diaw. Mm-hmm. and with Joe Johnson. Yeah. And the Clippers just weren't giving the ball to Blake every time. Yeah. I thought that was strange. And I don't know whether he's hurt, whether he doesn't have confidence, whether Chris Paul's freezing him out or whatever.

He had Joe Johnson on him for long stretches of time. And there was a point in that second half where the guy two rows behind me is going, this is it. The Clippers, this might be the last game of all these guys. Everyone's like, if they lose this game, they're going to get swept. This might be it. We could be saying goodbye to these guys. The lack of urgency and the lack of, let's go to Blake Griffin, I was kind of stunned by.

Did you see that watching TV? Yeah. Well, I saw there were a couple times when DeAndre was going to inbounds the ball, and Blake wanted to inbound it, and they both were arguing with each other. And then Chris had to be like the dad of the two. It was like one of you guys just inbounded it,

so they were getting mad at each other, which was great. But I just thought it was incredible the Clippers first wire-to-wire victory. I couldn't believe they didn't go down in that whole game. Yeah, that they didn't have that one weird Clippers stretch. Yeah, where they just get down by five and then they come back the utah missed a couple shots this is why i think they're gonna win the series pretty easily actually even no matter when gobert comes back but they just missed shots that had they gone in

the series flips or the game flips the crowd gets. I don't think either of these teams has a chance to hang with Golden State in any significant way. Yeah. And for the Clippers, Doc comes out and he says, of course we've got to keep this group together. Yeah, we're not blowing it up. No, this is like Malone and Stockton. It took them years to make the finals. Technically that's true but Malone and Stockton

made the finals those two straight years with probably two of the worst teams they had the league was just worse it watered down who was the third best guy in that team like Antoine Carr Greg Ostertag, Brian Russell you know I guess it was horn

a sec but their the teams in the late 80s early 90s were just better but the league was better the league got worse utah kind of rose to the top doesn't mean that you know i don't that's not gonna happen with the clippers the league's getting better yeah so i don't know let's disagree on something okay what what have you heard me say about the basketball playoffs that you disagree with the most i think the clippers are going to take the warriors to seven really yeah what give me that give me the reason i think that their continuity wins all in basketball and i think the clippers actually have the the team that's unfortunately so they're the most like the continuity on that roster is

insane they all know each other really well i think the one problem they have is reddick is just so bad on defense right now they can't hide him anywhere but i think chris paul is taking it to another level i think chris paul may be if they have a series against the warriors he may decide he's the best player in the series he looked really good last night and has this energy about him the whole game that's kind especially when you're there in person it's really fascinating like there was one time he came off the court you know that one clipper assistant who always dresses like in the yeah in the nice sweaters yeah yeah the guy he's like a young guy he almost looks like he's an intern but he's been

there 10 years and he's i don't know what that guy's name is they just started screaming at each other coming off the court and the guy was like i the guy was like, I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help you. And then they had to pull the guy away. Everyone's like, what? Chris Paul doesn't need help. Yeah, Chris Paul's like, get away from me. He's so mad.

He's just stomping around. And I think those guys, they love playing with them, but they also hate playing with them. It's a weird energy. I base this on the super team theory of like the first year it never works out because if it did it would just be too easy yeah so say the warriors something bad happens maybe durant doesn't come back fully healthy maybe they don't know who the guy is down the stretch the clippers deal like if chris paul does the dirk thing and he gets his one championship to validate everything else in his career yeah that's that's my that's why i had the

clippers that's why i just believe they could do it but then i'm like then i watched the clippers and i'm like oh there's no way that this will happen but i believe blake was definitely more athletic and more competent two years ago yeah during that spur series he does this thing i think he's hurt i think it's going to come out after the series that he's got something wrong with them yeah or after the playoffs but there's this thing i don't totally understand it just the thing where he just lurches into guys when he fall when he like falls back flying into guys he's just trying to get contact and but it's not there's no grace to it and i felt like in the san antonio series he had an element of grace with what he was doing with the spin moves and the footwork

and now he's just kind of barreling into the paint yeah and i don't know what happened i don't know if it's rust or lack of confidence or injuries or he's breaking down physically or what but he's not the same guy he's the only guy outside of the ymca's across the country that goes straight back and falls into the basket on people like like a kid he's like a kid he just falls back into the basket into people it's so strange even deandre does it but he does like the backwards dunk it's just so awkward sometimes my favorite thing about the clipper is that lucan bamute will not drive to the basket joe ingles drew a charge last night by setting back at the three-point line and lucan bamute drove back it was the first charge i've ever seen someone take a charge driving away from

the basket that's how bad lucan bamute does a charge driving away from the basket. That's how bad Luke Mbamute does not want to go to the basket. But yet he had a couple backdoor layups because they were just not even acknowledging him. He's like, alright, I'll take your free backdoor layup. What do you think happens in Houston OKC? Because I tweeted my prediction yesterday

that I think Patrick Beverly could foul out in three minutes. Yeah. So here's the thing, and it's not a Westbrook thing. It's not like, oh, you hate Westbrook. It's like this is how the NBA works. They have three or four players that they're going to take care of.

Houston was physical with Westbrook in game one. What happens is the league looks at that and they say, this is too physical. If they're going to do this, this, too physical like you gotta if they're gonna do this this and this you gotta call that yep houston doesn't adjust they're they're playing by the game one rules game two happens the refs are calling touch fouls westbrook has more leeway momentum goes and all of a sudden he's at the free throw line 22 times i think that's how tonight plays out i could yeah that definitely checks out i I kind of have a feeling, a sneaking suspicion,

that people are going to turn on the Thunder. They'll be down 2-0. People will be like, oh, they're no good. They may get swept. And then Russ has a 50-point game three. So maybe that's the way to get to every cup. And then everyone flips back that way. Like, oh, this is a home-and-home type series.

But then, I don't know. I just think the Rockets are better. I think they're definitely better. I think it would be for the nba if if russ didn't win a game if he gets what if they got swept and then he wins the mvp that's just awkward i mean not as awkward as nowitzki winning the mvp after he lost as a one seed 2007 2007 um yeah so i would say from what i've seen, I disagree. I think Houston is the only team that has a chance to hang with Golden State just because of the threes.

I think Golden State's too good. But then you go to the East. It's like Milwaukee, Toronto should just win that game by 15 points yesterday. Milwaukee won their game. Usually how the NBA goes is you win game one. Game two, the home team takes care of business. Milwaukee almost won game two. It was tied with two minutes left.

I watched it this morning. I was like, Jesus, they had that game. Yeah, when Giannis hit the three to tie the game with two minutes left, that was unbelievable. Giannis is unstoppable. I think he's clearly the second best player in the East. He can make a K. What's weird is Isaiah, I mean, we don't know how much all this stuff's affecting him.

He hasn't played like one of the top three guys in the East, but I think going into the playoffs, I voted for him second team on NBA. You would have said LeBron, Isaiah, Isaiah and, oh,

I voted Giannis for second team on NBA too. I guess Giannis was the second best, but now he's clearly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't even,

I wouldn't think anyone wants to play. I think the Raptors kind of got a raw deal having to play the bucks in that first round oh yeah especially with when he threw that alley to maker to thon maker and they had the yannis a thon that's a scary sight it kind of it reminded me of 2013 with the warriors you're like this team's gonna be really good this might not be the year where that they do it yeah but they're gonna push someone like when they push the spurs to six games it was like oh they're a serious contender in the future might not be this year maybe the raptors win in seven but the next year and then the next year it's like the bucks are basically a look like they could be a dynasty with all those guys i know if you add jabbar to it too just even as a score out there yeah even if you if he's 25 minutes game off the bench as their second the leader of their second unit or something.

And I forget something. I don't talk about John Henson enough with that team. They have a huge guy that's 6'11 with a 7'4 wingspan to block the rim. They have everything that you need to be a good team. They can just throw this random Greg Monroe post-up wrinkle and he'll go get buckets for three minutes. The Cavs would kill to have Greg Monroe. The Celtics would kill to have Greg Monroe. I don't know why they didn't trade for him I Thonmaker hasn't looked this good since the 2005 McDonald's

All-American game which I thought he was great in that game I think he was with who was in that game Brandon Roy I can't remember who but yeah they were just hooking up yeah oh it's him and Durant maybe it's 2006 2006 it's him and Durant and Oden yeah Brandon Wright Thonmaker I think he had a double double it was a huge game it was really good Milwaukee is him and duran and odin yeah brandon wright i think he had a double double it was a huge game it's really good it's a walkie is definitely they've won the internet in round one i think right who's won the internet so far milwaukee everyone's on yannis playoff rondo yeah uh jimmy butler to some degree yeah um the portland guards yeah That was really fun. Draymond. Yeah. Patrick Beverly.

Not Oladipo. Not Oladipo. He's definitely lost a lot. That was bad. Yeah. It was a one for 12, I think. Yeah. But that's the thing. It's like you get to the playoffs.

It's a different level. It's a different level of intensity. And all your warts get exposed. You know, like the Bulls are just like, mark a smart shoot. Take it. Keep shooting threes. We're going to leave you right there. We dare you to shoot.

And it's like, what do you do? He's a 30% three-point shooter who thinks he's a great three-point shooter. Taking spot-up threes. Yeah. When he got the steal and brought it out to the three-point line and took that three,

rather than resetting and resetting the offense, I thought Stevens was going to have a chenism on the sideline the worst was when the the celts were trying to come back against the bulls they got a basket i think they're down six and crowder just took two terrible threes in traffic but yeah they have a lot of guys who think they're better three-point shooters than they are uh so washington to me is the big winner in this whole thing. They end up in the four spot. They don't have to play Toronto or Cleveland. Now they're going to play this Celtics team that's in a free fall, that even if they came back would seem vulnerable.

Or this Bulls team that was a mess three weeks ago. They would have home court advantage against the Bulls. They'd have a huge speed advantage with Wall against Rondo. Yeah. And, you know, Barkley was saying from day one it was going to be Cleveland-Washington. I still think Toronto's going to be heard from. I like their team and how flexible they are. I think this Milwaukee matchup's just weird.

It's a bad draw for them for the first round. It's crazy. Do you like Washington, though? I do. I like John Wall. I do, too. I think that John Wall may be the best player. We were just talking about Giannis being the second best. It's crazy. Do you like Washington, though? I do. I like John Wall. I do, too. I think that John Wall may be the best player.

We were just talking about Giannis being the second best player in the East. I can argue that John Wall is the second best player in the East behind LeBron. Could you say that the East is actually as good

as the West this year? I mean, it's fun to watch. The West are the best team, but then you go like two through eight versus one through eight, and I would say that the East probably

has more interesting teams. I don't know if it's a fatigue with the West teams, too. Like, obviously, we're all fatigued with the Clippers. Like, we don't really even appreciate them as much. And then you watch the Wizards. It's like, oh, Bradley Bill's so fun. He can hit threes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, John Wall runs this great offense. He, like, gets everyone involved. It's like an almost hyper-athletic Chris Paul, and he's, like, more willing to pass than Russell Westbrook, but he's just as athletic. Yeah, like, oh, Otto Porter is fifth in the league in three-point shooting. You've got the Morris twin

that's kind of trying to be nice now. He's not nice. Did you see his brother wearing his jersey? He wears the Wizards jersey. I think they should swap places in case they're having a bad night. They probably could. That'd be a good rom-com. NBA players that switch places. Can I ask you about LeBron?

LeBron's averaging the most minutes in the playoffs already. He's like 42 minutes a game. I think he's just a cyborg. I don't understand it. There has to be an end to it. I just don't know how you can play 42 minutes in the playoffs. I love, people think I'm being sarcastic because I've tweeted a couple times about how much I love watching this Cavs team. I think they're really fun to watch

and you can't turn the game off because even if they're up 15 they still might give up 10 points in a row in two minutes because their defense is so bad. All of their games are entertaining. They might be involved in eight hardwood classic games over the next, I don't know,

two months. I would fear that they do it on purpose because it's more drama to have them come back because they get ahead and then they just sit there for a little while. Channing Frye starts taking shots. Kyrie stops getting the ball because Kyrie is like they can just give him the ball to score like six straight points and then he'll just kind of lay back. The part I don't understand with the Cavs is Kyrie is unstoppable and it seems like Lillard

has these runs where he's just 30 points a game for two months and all these other point guard John Wall has his runs Westbrook obviously going to Isaiah yeah these guys have their hot months why doesn't Kyrie's just 25 a night where's his month where he's just like oh my god Kyrie yeah he's gone for 35 a game for four weeks now like it feels like he could do that anytime it feels like he checks out and then someone has lebron it's like all right kairi turn it back on and then he's like okay i'll go get eight points real quick and it's like unconscious eight points it's like the it's like unbelievable shots easy buckets and then it's back to somebody sent me a question about whether

marcus gray in jersey if you were david David Griffin and you could redo the summer of 2014, would you max out Gordon Hayward, keep Andrew Wiggins, and convince LeBron to play the four for the rest of his career and make that your team with Thompson and Kyrie? It's actually a better team. Oh, way better team. I still think the whole, especially if they get rid of love there's going to be some sort of concession in like five years from lebron where he's like he

made a mistake for the he panicked traded for him yeah and i think he just looked at the rebounds and was like what do i need what did i not have in miami i had to do too much rebounding i didn't carry that low like low too much okay i'll get kevin love to come here and rebound for me so i don't have to worry about that i wrote a column that summer about love wiggins before that trade happened about whether they should do it or not yeah and it basically came down to if you're just trying to win the title this year you do it but if lebron's going to be there for eight years and you're trying to build like this next this uh this basically decade of excellence, Wiggins was the pick.

Where he'll be the veteran guy at the end of it. Yeah, and you make Wiggins your pippin. Wiggins, we knew, was good defensively. Although I think he's been a little disappointed in that in Minnesota, but at least he had the athletic ability to do it. LeBron basically turns him into his little clone. And just kind of shows him the rope. And that might have made them more dangerous.

You have Kyrie and Wiggins as your backcourt for 10 years. Yeah. I wouldn't want to play against that. LeBron's now he's his end game. Now is his son. He's recruiting his own son. When he trades Kyrie for a son for the pick to pick a son in seven years. LeBron,

they do the Ken Griffey senior, senior, junior thing. I love that. All right. We got to wrap this up. So we have two more podcasts coming this week. We taped a podcast yesterday that I'm not sure when we're running it yet

with Matt and Trey from South Park. That was really good. So keep an eye on that. And we have two more high-profile guests coming this week. So that'll be fun. Thanks again to Proper Cloth. Finding a dress shirt that fits is hard. Ordering a custom fit shirt has never been easier thanks to Proper Cloth.

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Thanks so much to SeatGeek. Thanks to Jason Concepcion. Don't forget about his achievement-oriented podcast. Don't forget about Tate's GM Street podcast with Mike Lombardi. It's heating up draft time. And thanks to everybody out there for spreading the word for those first 200 podcasts.

Really proud of everything we've been able to accomplish on this front. Back later in the week with more BS podcasts. And by the way, I have not given up on the Celtics yet. I just want to go on the record with that. I think they could steal game three. I think Isaiah can get going. I think, I don't feel like this series. Tate, am I crazy?

Just go to seven. Just one at a time. Win three. Just try to get it back to game five. Down 3-1. You win game five. Now you're game six. Bunch of pressure on Chicago.

It's fine. Yeah. It's okay. The Bulls are not... This is not the 93 Bulls they're playing. They should at least be able to throw a couple of handmakers these next few games. Good luck to Isaiah Thomas. Yep.

And good luck to the Celtics. And we'll see you on the BS Podcast later in the week. I don't want to see them on the way so I don't say I don't have feelings within On the wayside I'm a person never lost I don't have feelings within