The Bill Simmons Podcast - Sad Patriots Fans, Crazy NFL Signings, and Tankapalooza 2018 (Ep. 339)

Episode Date: March 14, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin Clark to discuss Kirk Cousins's massive contract (03:00), the new-look 49ers (13:00), and more impactful free-agency moves (20:00). Then, Bill's dad calls in to talk about trusting in the Patriots' process (31:00) and his frustrating Celtics (42:30). Finally, Kevin O'Connor joins the show to discuss the benefits of tanking (50:30) and to talk about All-NBA predictions, so far (01:14:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, brought to you by ZipRecruiter, a place where we did not find Kevin Clark. 80% of employers do find people by posting a job on ZipRecruiter and getting a quality candidate through the site in just one day. You didn't need to do this. You had clips. Lots of people do. You emailed me.

It's a great way to find somebody. Yeah, I emailed you out of the blue. Their powerful technology distributes your job to dozens and dozens of the web's leading job boards, then identifies the right people with the right experience and invites them to apply to your job. Find your version of Kevin Clark. My listeners can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS and CA. We put up a new episode of the Rewatchables today. We did Creed.

Oh. Yeah did Creed. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Earliest rewatchables. I mean, and well-deserved. Yeah. Yeah.

Timing seemed good because of Black Panther coming out and making Kugler the hottest director in the country. That is up. Me, Wesley Morris, Sean Fantasy, Cam Collins. It's long it goes in a whole bunch of directions and includes sean's revelation that tiffany haddish should play reggie hammond in the 48 hours remake which i was very jealous of yeah i should just uh edited that out and stolen from um check out the ringer nfl show lots of free agency stuff all week including we are taping this it is 9 22 pac Pacific time AM, Wednesday morning. Who knows how many more people will get signed

before we finish this podcast. Coming up, we're going to talk football and a little basketball. Kevin Clark is here. Kevin O'Connor is coming. And we're going to call my dad because he's completely traumatized by the end of the Patriots dynasty.

Maybe, we'll see. First Pearl jam. All right. The ringers, Kevin Clark is here. You did a ringer NFL show yesterday with Mays. I don't care. We're going to talk football again. You're going to talk about all the same things. Let's run it back.

What are you going to do with me? How are you doing with the Nate Solder departure? It's a lot of money. Yeah. The Pats are basically just losing everybody they had. They've lost a lot of veterans. We're going to talk about that with my dad because he's very upset. Let's start with quarterbacks. Kirk Cousins signed.

Three years, 86, fully guaranteed. So fully guaranteed means they have to pay him $86 million. He got paid Kirk Cousins, who's not a top 10 quarterback. He's on the borderline. If you want to go seven to nine, he's your guy. Sure, sure. He got $24 million more guaranteed at signing than any player in the history of the NFL.

So first, there seems like there's a new paradigm. Shorter contracts, more guaranteed money seems the new way to go. Why are they doing it that way? Because Kirk Cousins wants it that way. But it's not just Kirk Cousins. It seems like it's a lot of people. Well, I mean the the broncos didn't want to lock in case keenum case keenum's happy to take two years 36 with partial guarantees obviously the first year will be fully guaranteed these guys are realizing so essentially what happens is

anytime a quarterback signs a contract he immediately becomes a bargain yeah okay because the salary cap rises at least $10 million a year. And then you get into a situation where Aaron Rodgers is the 13th biggest cap hit this year. All that matters is timing. The highest paid quarterback is the most recent quarterback to sign an extension. And so quarterbacks have started to realize that and said, okay, I'm not going to sign a six year deal guys.

I'm not going to be dramatically underpaid in year four, five, and six. I'm just going to take two or three years, keep running it back, and keep resetting the market every three years. If Aaron Rodgers was a free agent every three years, he would own half of the country. Wasn't his last contract long? Yeah, he's still on it. It was signed in 2012.

So the old motto is six years seven years whatever you get paid a lot early and then sticker number 120 million dollars you know partial guarantees aaron rogers has per game bonuses in his contract yeah well i mean if he can't get the leverage to say by the way is fully guaranteed, then the system was broken. So, Kirk Cousins, I can't tell if this was intentional and he's one of the great contract minds of all times or just completely lucky, but year after year, he's gotten paid full value. What's it? Three straight years?

He's made like 20 plus million? Yeah, he's on the tag. But he made 20 plus million three straight years. Now he's made 84. So, he's made, for six years, he's probably like 20 plus million yeah he's on the tag but he made 20 plus million three straight years now he's made 84 so he's made for six years he's probably made 140 million dollars after his rookie contract expires he will have averaged 25 million dollars a year after that there's six years yeah derrick carr became the first 25 million dollar guy on a contract basis last year but kurt cousins is quietly going to have been doing that for six years. But Carr's thing wasn't totally guaranteed, though. No.

Yeah. No. And the NFL had set up a system where it was okay to give these guys, okay, you get $25 million. By the way, it's not even, there's no guarantees after three years. And what's up with the franchise tag that everybody thinks is the dumbest thing of all time and just has not gone away? Is that just yet another DeMora Smith blew it with the players union?

I mean, it's a longstanding thing as far as getting rid of the franchise tag. No, just having it. Yeah. Why does it exist? Well, you know,

I had a discussion with, um, with a players union guy last year, and we talked a little bit about this and he said, look, it's not great to have, and we're talking about cousins specifically. Yeah.

Okay. It's not great that Kirk cousins couldn't go out to the open market two years ago and get what he wanted, but he was still making $25 million, $24 million. And so I think they view it as a trade-off. Kirk Cousins was happy to make that money. There are certain guys who get franchise tag. Look at Jarvis Landry. Jarvis Landry is making 16 this year.

He would never get 16 in the open market. So I don't like the franchise tag i think that team along with the draft and rookie contracts it is one of the most unfair things in football but i think the players enjoy being able to say for one year okay make 16 17 million dollars that's that's the player side argument to why it's not an abject disaster until you have like a teddy bridgewater all your knee ligaments going nine different directions injury. And then the franchise tag not as fun after that. But that was just poor Tommy.

He hadn't even, his fifth year option. No, I know they didn't have, but I'm saying like franchise tag is great as long as you don't get injured. Exactly. If you get injured, it's a whole different animal. And that goes into, Mays asked me, why can't Aaron Donald get a fully guaranteed deal? And the answer is because quarterback is the only position where teams think completely irrationally. If Aaron Donald went out and tried to do what Kirk Cousins did, got franchise tagged twice

and then tried to hit the open market, if he got hurt or if his play diminished, teams would tank his value. That doesn't happen with quarterbacks. Sam Bradford got $20 million yesterday. But how much of that was guaranteed? 15. What is wrong with teams they

don't all right i'm gonna tell you my theory bradford sample sizes do we need he's he i think he's older than you are how old are you i'm 31 we're about i think he's 38 um here's my theory on quarterbacks in as far as negotiations go when i ask owners say how involved are you yeah they say ah you know i let the gm do it i will get involved when it comes to quarterback i you know i'll sit on the meetings you know they're during the draft i'll go to dinner if it's a quarterback prospect when there's a negotiation i'll sit down and so when it's aaron donald or when it's the wide receiver the the owner's not sitting there over the GM shoulder saying, do this, do this, do this.

I mean, how many times do we get in situations where the owner either says, give the guy the money. We don't want to lose him. There's sort of a fear of missing out with quarterbacks a little bit. You don't want to lose them. Also, it's like they sell luxury suites based on who the quarterback is. There's so many dumb things that go into it that I think teams just completely lose their mind

when it comes to quarterback negotiations. There should be no fear because we just saw a team win the Super Bowl with Nick Foles. Yeah. Unfortunately, teams see it as... It's basically the personnel idea. It's a personnel version of going forward on fourth down. We have evidence that there's one way version of going forward on fourth down, right? We have evidence

that there's one way to do it that no one does, but everyone is just too afraid to say, screw it. We're going to go with the Nick Foles guy we believe in. Nobody wants to do that. Basketball is like this too. I think the Blake Griffin trade was like that. Detroit basically takes on this ludicrous Blake Griffin contract and gives up a couple assets. And the whole mindset behind it is we got Blake Griffin, go get those jerseys, somebody in the billboards. And it's like, yeah, but you guys still suck. And he's going to get hurt in six months. And that trade's awful.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. And that quarterback is the singular position in that sport where that can happen. Go get those jerseys, guys. Well, listen, I have no dog in this race. I could care less about Case Keenum,

Kirk Cousins, the Vikings, the Broncos, any of these teams. I'm just, I'm a businessman and I have an IQ over 80. I don't understand why you would pay Kirk Cousins three times what you could have gotten Case Keenum for.

Explain that to me. I have no idea. What is the gap between those two guys that I'm not seeing? We also have seen what Case Keenum looks like in that offense, and it's pretty good. My question for you, Bill, I guess if you wanted to put yourself in Rick Spielman's shoes, Case Keenum got that team, and they're not going to suffer huge losses. He got them to the NFC Championship game. Yeah.

And by the way, why did they lose? They lost because he had made one bad throw, but they really lost because their defense sucked in that game. And that seemed to be a weird mental thing. Their defense got destroyed. I'm not really sure what happened. That was like one of the...

This happens every five to 10 years. A team in the NFC Championship game just completely folds. Usually a team that's overconfident and can't believe that they're not winning the game and it just snowballs against them. That was a classic version of that game. I remember before the game, it was Chris Ryan, maybe it was Gons, saying that game, the Eagles-Vikings,

was the first time we'd ever seen two fan bases completely overconfident. But it worked for the Eagles in a weird way and it didn't work for the vikings the vikings went into that game going nick falls you're gonna have to beat us yeah and then nick falls is like all right cool they just completely beat them so when i look at the nfc there's an arms race going on right now yeah the rams have stocked up the eagles are gonna have once again the rams have stocked up with talent and uh they rolled the dice with some character dudes marcus peters there are people The Rams have stocked up. The Eagles are going to have once again. The Rams have stocked up with talent, and they rolled the dice with some character dudes. Marcus Peters, there are people I know who've been in football for 20, 30 years,

and they say Marcus Peters is the most interesting person they've ever been around. I kind of like Marcus Peters. I kind of like him, too. I remember I did a story during the season about how he had used some social media posts to get a family into the country during the Muslim ban thing. And you can read it on the ringer.com somewhere.

And I remember I tried to get him for the story, which was like a nice story. He just wouldn't talk. And I remember talking to someone and they were like, there's every NFL player says they don't care about how they're perceived every single one. I don't read the media or whatever. Marcus Peters, the first person this guy had ever met who actually just didn't care. Yeah. He just didn't care about outside perception or anything like that. And I think that that helps when you're a football player, especially a cornerback. Well, I think having the right coach will help him. He seems like he's almost like some basketball players we've had over the years that could go either way depending on what team they're on.

So you said the arms race, you got the Rams, the Eagles. You even have the Eagles, but then you even have the Niners. I mean, like everybody's stocking up here. The feel good Superbowl sleeper pick of 2018. The San Francisco 49ers. And so you just have to wonder in, in 2018, you're paying Kirk Cousins all this money.

Are they going to get to the Superbowl? Because that's the only way you can better Keenum's performance. And I just. Okay. But there's still a salary cap. And I agree with that. If, if Keenum's. They had a lot of cap space. I'd rather spend it on the defense. performance and i just okay but there's still a salary cap and i agree with that if if keen they had a lot of cap space i'd rather spend it on the defense i totally agree

the way you win in football there's two really easy ways to win in football the first is have a bunch of guys like the you know the 2012 2013 seahawks who are making 400 000 a year on rookie contracts that's that's one way and that's lightning in a bottle and it's not repeatable. Okay. Unless you get really lucky. The second way is do what the Eagles did. Do you know that no one on the Eagles last year made more than 6% of the salary cap,

which is smart, absurd. It was the Belichick version, except with, they always had Brady. But other than that, they were very careful. Yeah.

But Brady is still, you know, I think Revis is the only player ever who made more money than Brady. I just don't know what I'm missing with Kirk Cousins. I'm not saying he's bad. No. But I just I watch football. I gamble on football. I spend my Sundays watching football.

I've never watched Kirk Cousins and thought he was one of the best five quarterbacks, which is how they're paying him and the amount of money they're committing to him. They're basically saying man, if we had last year's team and Kirk cousins, we'd win the Superbowl. And it's like, that's not what I saw. Plus they lost Jarek McKinnon, who I thought was really good for them. Now I know they have a cook coming back and he's expendable,

but I thought that was a really good sign by the Niners. It was a little pricey, but I think he's a gamer. I like that dude. I agree. And we're seeing the Niners are going to benefit from just absurd amounts of cap space and being able to do. I mean, they're they're basic. It's like if an NBA team had just an empty roster and they were able to go out and get whoever they handpick a bunch of guys in a free agency period, make some trades. And I think I love what the Niners are doing. There's one signing I didn't like from them.

Richard Sherman. I think, first of all, crazy to me that everybody's writing about this for a solid week and not mention the fact that he blew out his Achilles and that is a really shaky injury to come back from and sometimes can be a two-year injury. In basketball,

it's been a career ender or a career alterer almost every time with very few exceptions. For a guy who, by the way, doesn't have top-end speed to begin with at cornerback. And who wasn't as lights out even before the injury as he was in previous years. He was still, I would say, very good, but he wasn't

like a generational cornerback. I like the signing more than you do. I think he's a... Well, because he negotiated it himself, it ended up being a steal for the Niners. A lot of per game bonuses. How about those Richard Sherman quotes? Hey, I don't need an agent. I spent 10 to 12 hours reading different contract language, so I was prepared.

10 to 12 hours? I have a theory on this. How about using a guy who went to law school? I have a theory on this. I spoke with Richard Sherman the second half of the season when he was hurt. Yeah. And I was just going, what are you doing now? He says, well, I'm getting really into finance.

I said, okay, great. That's cool. Why? He said, well, I'm hurt, so I can look at my finance for the first time ever. This is right before the boom. Got a lot of Bitcoin. I was like, oh. Yeah.

Maybe he doesn't need to get a huge contract. Maybe he's the Bitcoin. I don't know. Have you seen Bitcoin lately? It went up, way up from when he got it. He said he was an early adopter of Bitcoin. I really like everything the Niners are doing. And I think the Garoppolo trade was a transformative trade for them.

I would be very careful with Richard Sherman because the one guy I don't want on my team is a guy who used to be a superstar. Who's not the same physically anymore, but still thinks he's a superstar that is death in football. And he is somebody that could cause a lot of issues for them. If he's not happy with how he's playing, if he's not physically there. You didn't like Adrian Peterson screaming at Sean Payton in week one of the NFL season last year?

This is one of the rules of the NFL. You never want the former superstar who still thinks he's a superstar. I still like them in that division with, it's funny how it just flipped. It was the Seahawks and the Cards. Yep. And now it's gone the other way

and the Seahawks are going to be terrible, which, you know, and this is, we're going to call my dad and talk about the Pats for a little bit, but you know, you have like a five-year window in the NFL. It's a cycle and you got to ride out that five years and be awesome. And the Patriots have basically had three, five to six year cycles that don't really have a lot in common with each other other than Brady and Belichick.

Seattle had their cycle. It ended last year. The Cardinals cycle was a little smaller. The Niners are about to have their cycle. The Rams are in year two of their cycle. And that's the way it is. You got to ride it out. I like what the Rams are doing more than anybody.

I think they're, I just, I like the position they're in. I think they're talented. I think they actually really could have won the Super Bowl last year if a couple things had gone differently, if their kick returners showed up. So NFL teams, and the Rams are doing this now, are getting really smart at what to do when they have a cheap quarterback.

Yes. Because... You've written about this. Yeah, and so... It's the biggest asset you can have. Basketball has nothing like this. Russell Wilson made less than a long snapper on the 2013 Seahawks yeah and what did the seahawks do they just went for it they just said okay we're gonna trade for trade for percy arvin didn't work out but they started the blueprint to

how teams were going to do it eagles last year the eagles last year the rams now just saying you know we have the cap space the the chiefs have mahomes now and and they're just saying screw it we're gonna go for it we're gonna sign sammy watkins put put the weapons around him and he's getting 30 million dollars guaranteed something like that and so by the way that not like that signing no i did not either it was a bad signing but it's just they're going for it and see me on the bills it's like oh man that guy doesn't have a quarterback this is too bad and then on the rams last year it's like oh he actually does have a quarterback in a great offense and he's still not he's still not putting up points the theory goes that they put him on the wrong side of the

offense they put him on the back side let's keep making excuses for sammy walk it's like 28 i'm not making i i don't like that signing either but what's happening is teams used to wait for the quarterback to prove competence and then they would put the weapons around him yeah now they're saying screw it we have a four-year window and that's what's so interesting about what the cowboys have done i mean like are they gonna waste dak prescott dak prescott or are they gonna go out and just you know to build an army around them they're kind of held hostage by a the fact that they just won't change their coach and b zeke elliott is just gonna have more and more drama every year. And it's just going to play out the way it's going to play out.

I've been hearing they're going to cut Dez Bryant for months now. That's just a football decision. He can't get open anymore. Every single time I open up a Twitter feed of a Cowboys reporter, it's Steven Jones saying, well, we've got some tough decisions to make. And then they're just not going to do it. I don't know. All the Cowboys fans are going to be angry at me

because there's probably some explanation for it. A couple other signings I just wanted to cover quickly so far. I was there for Jimmy Graham the last couple years. I don't even think it's an are-we-sure-he's-good situation. I just don't think he's very good anymore. I don't know what I'm missing on that. He was in an offense where they really needed him, where he had a top six quarterback, and I just didn't see it.

So to watch Green Bay and New Orleans fighting over him, it's like, do you guys have the Sunday ticket? What am I missing? Led the NFL in catch rate among tight ends in the red zone, which I guess is something. Bill, they threw it to him all the time in the red zone, so I would hope. Yeah, it's an odd one.

Can't block at all. At all. Can't block at all. At all. Great in Russell Wilson's wedding photos. I'm not saying he's bad. It's just like the fact that these two quarterbacks were like man the one thing we need is jimmy graham it's like yeah if it was 2014 it's kind

of funny to me that the packers were so resistant for years to get into free agency and all the fan base the entire fan base like oh we got to get involved and then they signed a guy who's a prime example of why you don't go into free agency. Yeah. Especially like I, and I think about this all the time with Gronk. I just think tight ends, they lose it overnight. Oh yeah. You know, a couple injuries, one too many hits, two or three or 20 concussions. And then all of a sudden, you know, they're, they're like running, like they have concrete sneakers on.

I didn't understand that. Nate Solder went to the Giants. Yeah. A lot of money. For an incredible amount of money. They paid him basically like the best left tackle of all time. And I think he was above average for the Pats. He ranked 44th last year by PFF among tackles.

Interesting. Yeah, he's good. He's fine. We won a couple rings with him. Great teammate. Great teammate. Unbelievable clubhouse guy. That was a lot of money.

The Giants have it. Dave Gettleman is a jobs creator for overpaid offensive linemen. The problem with the Pats is they act the same way I do when I'm at a fantasy football auction, where I just have in my head what I'm going to pay. And once anyone goes $1 over, I'm like, well, that's it. I'm out on that one. But then there are drafts where you look around and you have $105 left and

everybody else has 40, but there's no good guys left. And then you go, oh man, what am I going to do with this $105? That's kind of what the, what the pats are, the situation. Does that frustrate you? No, because I think that he has a philosophy. He's like, this is what you're worth. Oh, they're going to pay you more than that? Good luck. He's been doing that for 20 years. The other way to look at it,

and I understand why you can't have someone like Nate Solder making more than Brady, but they were given the greatest gift, maybe in the history of football, which is an elite quarterback who doesn't necessarily want to be paid as one. Well, if you could criticize the Pats on anything, it's been their inability to take care of

guys ahead of time. Right. So, and I'm not just talking about Nate Solder, but, you know. They make choices. Deion Lewis. Right. They could have signed him a year, extended his contract and spread it out a little bit more.

Jimmy, I think, is a great example. If they had taken care of business a year ago and given him 30 million for four years to be like the backup and waiting and he had never even shown anything, I think he would have thought about it. By the way, I thought the Niners screwed up on that. Make that trade and sign him. You get him for half the price of whatever. I totally agree. Mays was super fired up about Allen Robinson. It's almost to the point now where I'm rooting against Allen Robinson.

He's good. I mean, he's coming off an ACL. He's good, but when you look at the market, Sammy Watkins is getting what he's getting. Marquise Lee got a pretty big chunk of change. It's not a terrible contract. I just don't think it's going to make them instant contenders. You know what's not great?

And with the Golden Tate kind of exceptions to it, but just when wide receivers change teams for a lot of money, the history of it is, I would say, less favorable than more favorable. I think Alshon Jeffrey was okay. Golden Tate? There are examples, but I think for the most part, I would say it's, what,

40-60? 40% it works out, 60% the guy's just much worse, and it's hard to understand. Yeah, and also, I mean, it's sort of what we're talking about with the building around a rookie QB thing. You're giving all of these weapons to Mitch Trubisky, and we're unclear if Mitch Trubisky can take advantage of that.

Although I like Matt Nagy as a coach. I thought Sam Bradford. I just don't know what I'm missing. And it's always amazing to me with durability. Durability is the one thing with free agency in any sport that just gets completely discounted or reluctant. It's like, well, if he's healthy and it's like, yeah, but that's the whole reason you're getting him at a discount is because he's

never healthy. Sam Bradford is never healthy. He's the one guy who the, when the question is, if he's healthy, he's never healthy. No, he's not. It's more likely to me that he is working on the SEC network for ESPN announcing games. Big 12, probably. Big 12.

The Big 12. Is that Big 12 a network? Probably. It probably gets $9 subscription. More likely he's doing that in two years than playing quarterback. But what do I know? I like Trey Burton of the Bears. $8 million on the high end there.

I just like him. I think he's got potential. But the thing is, any free agent you're getting these days, you're going to pay 25% more than what the guy's worth, right? CPS had Trey Burton as the eighth best free agent in this class. Interesting. I do like him. To borrow from you, I think he became so like him to to borrow from you i think he

became so underrated he became overrated maybe uh the jets they sign a quarterback that i really liked from the ramps tremaine johnson then they did bridgewater and josh mccown for one year 10 million and they're gonna do after quarterbacks and my favorite jets finding in a long time signing a long time. You can always count on the Jets to get that Chris Ivory type guy who's not quite good enough. You don't want to start him in fantasy and they overpay him. He'll have moments, but he's not that good. And Isaiah Crowell is the best version of that guy.

He's like, you've lost a fantasy week to him. What the hell just happened? I can't believe he had 200 yards. But he's not good. Classic. Classic jet signing, just classic. The best. They love locking down those B minus running backs for a little more than they're worth. I wrote last year that the Jets just quietly didn't have a plan. And all the Jets fans got mad at me and told me there was some great vision that Mike McKagan had that I couldn't see. I was too dense to see.

I think we're safe to say there's no there's no plan there. Jordy Nelson is sitting there and I think this is another durability guy. Like if the Pats signed him, I would just be excited. But then it'd be like, well, he's 33 and he's had some pretty major injuries. Well, that's why, you know, when I talk about the per game bonuses earlier earlier that's why teams have so much leverage on a guy like nelson they the patriots can just say here's your contract you only you only get eight hundred thousand dollars unless you play 12 games go yeah and then you're fine they lost danny to the dolphins who speaking of no plans yeah that was weird can we just why why did they just pay in Dominican Sioux if they're just going to go out and get Albert Wilson and Danny? That was weird.

Tennessee is doing the old, they're doing the old get the Patriots guys in the building because they know how to handle themselves like businessmen. Including Mike Grable. Yeah, smart. Deion was probably the best player in the Patriots in November and December. He wasn't as good in the playoffs. Malcolm Butler sucked last year.

Did you see? This blew my mind. I think Deion's making $4.5 million this year, and that's his annual average. Yeah. And he's a top eight paid running back in the NFL. I mean, those guys. Because that supply and demand is just endless. It's just dried up.

And at this point, I would say there's probably value in running backs because of that. Because there's such a small percentage of the cap. Just take the third stringer from Auburn and Alabama every year in the fourth round, and the guy's going to be your best guy. I like Paul Richardson to the Redskins. Good vertical leaper. Kind of what they thought Pryor was going to be last year, but that didn't work out from day one. But I've always kind of enjoyed him. I always wondered what he'd be like on a different team.

He's got some durability questions. Last year was the first time he played 16 games. Absolutely. And then going through. So Sue, I guess, is the last giant chess piece. Yeah. Is there Patriots possibilities with him? There's some rumors.

I know they've always liked them. There's some rumors floating around. I just don't know, Bill, and this is a better question for you. I don't know how a surly guy who hates the media would fit in with New England. It wouldn't go well. I mean, he hates the media. He hates talking to the media. I just don't know if that's a culture fit for the Patriots.

Maybe that's why Belichick's so enamored with him. Belichick's like, this guy reminds me of myself. No, I think it's any 4-3 team who can make it work are going to try to make it work. I think there's a lot of interesting possibilities. I mean, maybe... Danny Shelton was a fun trade. He's huge.

He's a huge person. The real problem with the Pats last year, I mean, of the many problems, was they were too small in the front seven. And James Harrison was probably their strongest guy at the Super Bowl, the front seven. They just got shoved around and teams did whatever they wanted. They had no pass rush and they had a bunch of backups. And it was a problem.

Yeah, it was a problem. I mean, if they were able to make it, Maze is all fired up about the idea that he would go go to the chargers sue but i i don't think he's gonna go be in oa sue yeah yeah the chargers are in oa yeah i continue to forget are they still in oa there's they they are maize continues to refer to them as sandy we're gonna call my dad the celtic season fell apart it's a massive blizzard and everybody in the Patriots is leaving I just want to make sure he's alive let's call hello dad I'm here with Kevin Clark

one I just wanted I wanted to make sure that that you were handling this week okay because the Celtics fell apart and everyone in the Patriots is leaving and there's a lot of snow in New England. So I just want to check in. Are you okay? It's not a great week. It's a terrible week. I'm looking out of my backyard. I have 15 inches of snow. It's 40

mile an hour winds. It's too cold to go outside. And then I'm reading in the paper that our Patriot team is falling apart. And our Celtic team, they're not even sure who's going to be able to play tonight. And the Bruins have injuries left and right. A week ago, everything looked great. Well, at least there are no Boston teams in March Madness. We have that at least. The Pats, it drives you crazy when we don't pay that little extra something to keep the best guys in the team, which is what a lot of other teams do. And yet, on the other hand, the Pats have been incredibly competitive

for 18 years, and we seem to go through this exercise every year. Why don't we trust the process? You know, I think we always did trust the process. And then I think in the last couple of years, strange things happened. You know, we don't get too many superstars because we never have a high draft pick, but the Jamie Collins trade worried a lot of people. Sending the defensive end to Arizona, who had the most sacks in the league this year, that worried a lot of people. The Garoppolo trade worried a lot of people.

Including you. And then, of course, everybody is still talking about why didn't Butler play in the Super Bowl and in Bill We Trust which has been the mantra here for so many years it's not it's fading people are

I don't hear people saying that I hear people questioning his moves and now we have free agency and you know I don't hear people saying that. I hear people questioning his moves. And now we have free agency. And, you know, the best receiver on the team last year, by far, the guy Brady trusted over and over and over was Amendola. And it appears they shortchanged him or they just think they have enough depth. And they always have depth, but they never have... The guys that Brady trusts, they don't seem

to put enough weight into that aspect. And if I'm Brady today, I'm really pissed off. Well, Edelman's back though, right? Well, you don't know. He had the torn ACL. Guys take a while to come back from that. Sometimes they never come back completely. He's not a young guy. You hope he's back fully.

Well, I loved, Danny was freaking clutch, man. Yep. He really was. He was one of the most clutch clutch kind of exceed whatever their talent was in the right situations guys the pats of ed like very reminiscent of like kevin falk and a couple other guys that were just like branch you know yeah there's always a guy that uh you know lots of guys put up the stats during the regular season and then you get to playoff time, and guys fade away. And then other guys emerge.

They star in the moment. And Amendola was one of those guys. I thought Lewis was one of those guys, too. And, of course, Butler was one of those guys. Wait a second. He wasn't one of those guys. Lewis fumbled in one of those playoff games, and you were, like, ready to drive him to the airport for his next free agent signing.

I mean, everybody makes one mistake. You've made one mistake, and you were like ready to drive him to the airport for his next free age. I mean, everybody makes one mistake. You've made one mistake and you recuperated. I don't even know what that means. I don't want to get into it. Amendola had 350 yards just in the playoffs last year. It was unbelievable. He was amazing. Clark, what questions do you have for my dad?

I have a couple of questions. Number one, what is the most frustrating Bill decision in this run for you? In the last year? In the last few years, yeah. Garoppolo for me. Yeah, Garoppolo by far. Not the fact that it was obvious we couldn't afford to franchise him

yeah but that he he didn't you know you see all these quarterbacks getting huge contracts and other teams that are going to take untested college juniors in the draft next month. And he just, I don't know whether it was out of, you don't know what's going on with Kraft and Belichick, but you can't tell me that the 12th pick in the second round or whatever we have is the best they could have gotten for a guy that just signed a mega contract with a team that's so excited to have him as their future franchise quarterback. If they had won the Super Bowl last year, it's a much more defensible trade

because then you could have gone back and said, well, the chemistry was off and they needed to do something and look how great Brady was. Who ever said the chemistry was off though? I'm just saying that's what I would have said if they won the Super Bowl. That's how Bill would have sold it. That's how I would have spun it for my beloved Patriots. But the Jimmy thing, even if you had just franchised them. Yeah. Which you didn't do with Castle.

Or made him a restricted free agent and got the picks. You see the market. When Sam Bradford's getting $50 million it really makes me reevaluate also if the Vikings are so desperate they're going to change the future of NFL contracts by giving Kirk Cousins $86 million fully guaranteed

I just don't know I'm with you I don't understand why they didn't have more of an auction that week and just on Monday that's a perfect word for it. And that's where everybody up here is saying, and you probably hear the same stuff that, you know, it was Belichick reacting to Kraft interfering in the whole,

I want Brady to stay here until he retires. I still don't believe that. I think, yeah, I think Kraft is just not there. I don't think he's locked in like that. Not there in what way? I just think he's old. I don't think he totally knows what's going on, and I don't think he's that locked in.

I don't, you know, maybe not as much as in the past, but his sons are certainly plugged in. By the way, Dad, I don't mean to disparage people 70 and over. I'm just saying. I'm just judging him. I'm judging him from luxury suite camera reactions, photos of him at parties. I was going to say that. I mean, every time there's a party in Los Angeles, like the third guy who shows up is crap. I just don't think he's the guy from 20 years ago.

I think 20 years ago, 1996, he 100% meddled with Bill Parcells and ruined that situation. And maybe even 10 years ago, he did some meddling. Who knows? But at this point, I still don't believe it. And I know that ESPN wrote that whole piece and I know they have the reporting and they believe in what they reported. That's fine. I just don't personally believe it. And I know that ESPN wrote that whole piece and I know they have the reporting and they believe in what they reported. That's fine. I just don't personally believe it. It doesn't jibe

with what we've seen. Maybe I'm naive. Part of it doesn't jibe, but again, the two more recent decisions of letting Amendola go, I don't know what's behind that.

But the Butler thing, you know, everybody's hoping now that Butler has signed this contract or signed it today, and therefore it's not going to impact his availability or his attractiveness as a free agent, that he's going to come out and have a press conference and talk about why the hell wasn't he out in the field. Yeah. We needed one stop in that game. We should mention that you complained about Malcolm Butler for the entire season. I mean, really consistently, week after week after week,

you said, what the hell happened to this guy? No, that is what you did. I don't mind complaining about somebody if there's somebody better to put in and take his place. Well, that's true. Those two guys were stiffs. But we had nobody. Yeah.

Look who we put in. Yeah. I think two things. I think everybody's right here because I know a guy who described Malcolm Butler in the middle of the season as the most checked out person they'd seen in an NFL locker room. And what I mean by that is he was ready to get on a plane

and go to New Orleans or Tennessee or whoever was going to give him that money. They ruined him last spring. Which, by the way, that's Belichick's fault. They handled it badly. With the Gilmore contract. Yes, exactly. And so that is correct. But also, I mean, he's better than what they threw out there

against Philadelphia, full stop. So I... At least he could tackle. I mean, maybe he had a poor season in terms of giving up passes, but he's a good tackler. Everyone else they put out there missed that one tackle that could have stopped the drive where we probably wouldn't have won the game.

Can I read you... This is from Bruce Allen's Twitter feed. Shout out to Bruce. Cap hits in 2018 from SpotTrack. Chandler Jones, 15.5 million. Jamie Collins, 12.2. Garoppolo, 37 million. Nate Solder, 15 million estimated.

Malcolm Butler, 12 million estimated. Logan Ryan, 8.6. Amend Malcolm Butler, $12 million estimated. Logan Ryan, $8.6 million. Amendola, $6 million. Lewis, $6 million. It's about $114 million just for those nine guys. The NFL salary cap is $177 million. This doesn't mention all the guys on the Patriots. Well, that's not my complaint, though.

My complaint is they wait too long to re-sign guys that are maybe two years away from that fifth year of free agency. And Malcolm Butler, before that Gilmore trade, which is still a suspect trade for the money they're giving that guy, you can't tell me they couldn't have signed Butler for $11 million a year. They didn't like something. And Chandler Jones. I mean, we in essence gave the guy away. I know that he showed up naked at a police station before the playoffs, but everybody makes a mistake, like I said before. Wait, we got a second-round pick for him. Yeah.

He's really good, though. A second-round pick for a guy that's first-'s first team all pro and led the league in sacks. By the way, did we have anybody who got over nine or ten sacks? No. You know what hurt us? Our complaint every year is we can't get to the quarterback. And we keep trading away guys that are quarterback rushers. We seem to be the only NFL team that is still playing white guys

at outside linebacker. It's probably a problem. You know what hurt us was? Bill saw Shane McClellan and was like, this guy right here. Shane McClellan and Kyle Vignoy. Those are our outside linebackers. I'm going to blame Deflategate. Because if they hadn't taken our first-round pick,

you figure we get somebody for the front seven, that guy makes one play, we win the Super Bowl. So screw you, Roger Goodell. Or they could have just played Malcolm Butler. Or they could have played Malcolm Butler. They could have done that, too. I know our conversation today is about the Patriots because of the free agency opening this afternoon,

but my worries and my frustration really has more to do with the Celtics. Oh, wow. I mean, a week ago, this team was really looking good in terms of a playoff run. And, I mean, the rumors coming out today, at least on talk radio, or Butler might be done for the year. Tice, who I on talk radio, are Butler might be done for the year. Tice, who I liked a lot. Hold on, Marcus Smart might be done for the year? You just called him Butler.

I'm sorry, Marcus Smart. That was a senior moment. Marcus Smart might be done for the year, that it might be a torn tendon. Yeah, that's a disaster. That Tice, who I liked a lot, might be done for the year. You have Irving, the franchise player, suddenly with a bulky knee and having to miss time, which, you know, we've been through this before a year ago with Thomas in terms of an injury. Yeah.

You have... Don't forget about Gordon Haywardward who had to have his right foot reattached to his leg. Yeah. And I guess maybe the sum of all this is we're a year away. Yeah. Good. Good.

I like, I like that. Optimistic. We're a year away. Well, we assume Hayward comes back healthy. Yeah. We assume they're going to have to do a scope on Irving's knee. We assume that they're going to re-sign Smart, who is a restricted free agent.

We assume that Tice will come back healthy. And of course, we're assuming that the Lakers are going to get lucky in the ping pong ball. That's not happening. They might make the playoffs. Yeah. And we'll get one of those tall, big guys coming out. Clark, does this sound like a farewell letter to the 2018 Celtics season for my dad?

It really does. It really does. And conflating Malcolm Butler with Marcus Smart says a lot about how he feels about the Celtics right now. Yeah, seriously. Well, I think they're both polarizing. Yeah. My dad has a mostly love, a tiny bit hate relationship with Marcus Smart. I had the same relationship with Tony Allen years ago.

There's always a guy I have that relationship with. Marcus is, yeah, he's better than Tony Allen, but Marcus is one of those guys that even as he's about to shoot the three, you know whether it's going to go in or not. Right. You've seen enough where you're like, oh, he might actually bank that one in and then he'll bank it in. Right, he's one of those guys, when he's taking that shot, I'm screaming no. And then when he makes the shot, I say great shot. Yes, great shot.

Good job, Marcus. Yeah, yeah. So last question, Dad, and then we're going to go. All right. Do you want them to sign Ndamukong Su would that make your spring happier and healthier and more rewarding you know

no I just don't think he's a nice guy a good guy I don't want to I don't want to root for that guy yeah I just don't think he's a nice guy, a good guy. Wow. I don't want to root for that guy. Okay. Yeah, I just don't. I'd rather see them go after somebody else. Plus, I think he's on the other side of the mountain in terms of his career.

He didn't have a great year last year. Okay. Bulletin board material. No, I don't want him in my locker room. Okay. You like Danny Shelton. You like that trade. Ietin board material. No, I don't want him in my locker room. Okay. You like Danny Shelton. You like that trade. I like Shelton.

And you're monitoring the Jordy Nelson sweepstakes, if I know anything about you. You're monitoring that a lot. I think Jordy Nelson is an awful out like Amendola in terms of you need 11 yards for a third down, and he'll get you 12 yards. We should mention Amendola really couldn't play six games in a row ever. I mean, he would always get hurt. I love the guy, and he's one of the most clutch Patriots ever, but it was hard for him to stay in the field.

I think he was gearing everything towards the playoffs. He would just take the season off. I would have shut him down for the entire season and just activated him for the playoffs. I mean, that's when we needed him and he always came through. He and James White should only play in the playoffs. Yeah, exactly.

I liked with Danny Amendola, I like the guys on the Patriots who really love and appreciate Tom Brady, who almost preach the altar of Brady, even as they're playing with them and they'll go like, they'll fly to Costa Rica.

To Montana. To Montana. And they'll just work out with them and they're just like, they're pinching themselves. So we need to find somebody who fits that because we have Edelman. We need one more guy.

I mean, and then you also like a guy who, he has a gorgeous girlfriend and he would end up at who he has a gorgeous girlfriend and he would end up at the Kentucky Derby with Brady I mean he

he was a great guy to have around here wow wow you can't put a price on that you can't put a price on that

on his Instagram yeah dad this was fun we'll get through this every time Belichick makes us question and waver, he ends up coming through.

I don't know. Be careful. We're taping this. The last time versus time thing suggested the end could be near for everybody. Yeah, I didn't like that. I didn't like that either. By the way, if you're going to suggest that, then can we keep Jimmy Garoppolo?

It's like we traded Jimmy Garoppolo. It's like, I don't know. The end is near. It's like, well, our quarterbacks are the Niners. Plus, I don't like the fact that Giselle has so much influence, so I guess there's a downside to being with a beautiful woman, although I'm with a beautiful woman, so

it's fine. What are you talking about? She does seem to have a lot of influence, though. Yeah, she does. I didn't like the end of that where she was kind of, you kind of got the inference that she was pushing Brady toward retirement, didn't you? Oh, you didn't like that. Wait, not just that. Did you guys see what Jay Feeley said a couple weeks ago?

No. Former Michigan kicker? So he told Sports Illustrated that he visited the cabin last year and Giselle was like, you get Tom to retire now. Yeah, I think she's worried about, the word in the street is she's worried about the concussions. I think he's had two in the last couple years that I know about and God knows how many other ones.

Yeah. Yeah. So. Well. I worry about that too. Then I go back to one final point. Don't trade Jimmy Garoppolo? Silver Linings, Dad, we have

the King's pick of the year and they're absolutely a dumpster fire and that's going to be fun. And Kyrie, we get Gordon Hayward. Bruins playoffs will be fun JD Martinez and the Red Sox I think you're fine plus we're going to

the Masters next month oh wow and Tiger's Tiger's gonna be there yeah I'm just waiting for that thing to come across ESPN

saying Tiger's back is acting up he may not be able to play in the Masters wow this is this weather's really bringing you down

it's a bad week in Boston weather's really bringing you down it's hard to be optimistic alright dad get Masters. Wow, this weather's really bringing you down. It's a bad week in Boston. The weather's really bringing you down. It's hard to be optimistic. Alright, Dad, get somebody to shovel for you. I'll talk to you soon. Alright, talk to you guys later. Thank you. Bye. We're bringing in Kevin O'Connor about

the rewatchables. We did Creed this week. It's really good. Don't forget about the Ringer NBA show, Draft Class, KOC's new draft guide, and a podcast. We are kind of owning the draft. Now March madness is here. Uh, the draft guide went up today.

We did 15 March madness prospects as well as a couple others. And we're going to keep adding to that over the next three and a half months. And then on Fridays on the ringer MBA show, the draft class podcast, how's the hosting going for you? It's good. Feels like it better each week. Who are you studying? This week, we haven't

laid out the game plan yet. Gonna have Danny Chow on, though. Who are you studying from a hosting standpoint? Do you go older? Like the Mike Douglas show? Like the 1970s? Dick Cavett? Yeah, Dick Cavett. I watched him talking with Jimi Hendrix. Learned from that on YouTube.

I listen to Mark Maron here and there. Oh, wow. Mark Maron. Jesus. Ask every prospect ifi Hendrix. Learn from that on YouTube. I like listening to Mark Maron here and there. Ask every prospect if we're good. Are we good? Shots fired. So we have a lot of basketball right now. Weirdly, the NBA is taking a backseat. It's at a weird point in the NBA season, too,

where yesterday, Clark, I know you've never been prouder. There was the best tanking we've seen all season last night. Rodney Purvis playing 15 minutes. It was Orlando's down 40 and they're like, this feels too close. Let's put in more guys nobody's ever heard of. Let's try to get this to 50.

But we are seeing tanking the levels of usually there's three or four, maybe even five. We're up to like eight of teams that are really openly don't give a shit is that because this draft is that good what do you think the reasons are i think that's one of the reasons why i think it's not the type of situation where there's going to be one guy that teams are going for there's maybe five guys you might be happy to get or some teams might be happy getting seven of them i think this is a draft where everybody's gonna have like i think there's a one and two eight and in don't church but after that the three to eight range or so that's gonna vary drastically depending on your what you need and what what you value like pick nine might be the third best guy in the draft

possibly maybe even second for sure i also think tanking, as someone who studies tanking, obviously. Well, I mean, your whole life is really, we have March Madness and tanking. That's what your March is like. So tanking builds more tanking. Because, you know, a couple of days ago I looked at Tankathon, and I think there were five teams at 20 wins. Yeah. Nobody wants to come off 20 wins, and so you don't want to be the guy who got win 21. And so all of a sudden, teams

had to keep going. Kent Bazemore was just shut down the other day. The Magic are going to, you're not going to believe this, take it very cautiously with Evan Fournier. He's got a knee. Aaron Gordon has vertigo. You can come up with injuries that nobody can challenge, right?

He's got vertigo. He does right it's like he's got vertigo that's what he's telling us you know how in the nfl they have independent doctors and they just have to sign off on it i think that at some point they're gonna need independent doctors for tanking and just like kevin basemore you're fine get back out that's the solution right there evan fournier your sprained left knee is not actually a problem get back out there well one of my favorite corners right now, Haralabob. Shout out to Haralabob Valgaris, who's been on this podcast, esteemed gambler. He's saying the biggest issue with gambling on basketball in the NBA is this tanking stuff.

And you have a situation like last night, which I watched. I watched Oklahoma City and Atlanta the last eight minutes of it. It was a tight game with five minutes left. And Coach Bud, from that point on, very carefully manipulated the result. And Oklahoma City ended up winning by 10. Now, if they have gambling on the NBA, and you could argue, is that, what would be the right legal term? Not collusion, but.

It's inside information available. Or you could say, like, I bet on this team and they intentionally tried to lose. I'm suing the Atlanta Hawks. The reason that the NFL has injury reports is because they want they want no inside information being available. None. And the more teams that you have who are saying we're going to, you know, pull all of our starters in the third quarter, the more strategy there is involved in obvious losing by a lot,

the more people are going to know about it. If someone's like, I'm only going to play five minutes a night because we're tanking, what's preventing a player from calling their buddy and telling them that and then they place a bet? Or just watch basketball. These teams are just openly blowing games. It's unbelievable. It's been going on really since the mid-'80s.

And then I think 07 was when it went to another level. I think Doc Rivers. Keeney Oden. Doc Rivers, one of the founding forefathers of tanking. Some of this stuff, I remember they had like Alan Ray playing like 35, 38 minutes. Alan Ray. Young Gerald Green and playing Rondo and Telfair together and just things that made no sense, but it was clearly the purpose.

I think you made a key point though. So Memphis has 49 losses. The Knicks have 44 losses. Memphis is one right now and the Knicks are eight and everyone else is bunched in that group. And really for whatever reason, there seems like a cluster this year. Now we're seeing everybody lose.

Like Memphis has lost 18 straight. That's excessive. Memphis has the Bulls coming up. Phoenix has lost five. The Knicks have lost eight. The Knicks have belatedly thrown their hat in the ring in a really, really large, significant way.

Yeah. And it's going to come down to the wire with some of these things. Clark's magic is two losses behind Memphis. They've lost four straight. They've lost eight of their last 10. They're truly reprehensible. Frank Vogel. I feel bad for it.

It feels like he's going to start crying during games. I feel like Frank Vogel's responsible for some of this. I think he is. But you've been here where you've thrown away seasons and then you end up with somebody who's not even an all-star. There's a report we're going to hire Jerry Stackhouse next year. Really? Yeah.

Why not get Doc Rivers? Bring Doc Rivers home. Doc Rivers has been good this year. I have a question. I like what he's done with the Clippers. Doc, or what about Stan? No. Guess what Stan's doing next year?

He's on NBA TV with Sam Mitchell and some random play-by-play guy. And the Pistons highlights are on. And it's super awkward. It's like the elephant in the room. It's like, we're out. Another rough night for Blake Griffin. One rebound one rebound all night stan what do you think happened there kevin are you enjoying like this tank race no not at all i mean i like tanking do you feel hope do you feel hope no because it's the fourth time we've done it fourth isn't it like the the fifth well no i i just there were a couple years

there where we knew so they traded dwight during the olympics of 2012 yeah and so 13 through 17 basically was a throwaway throwaway except for the weird abaca trade the i'm saving my job abaca trade that didn't save anyone's life the guy by the way rob hennigan is now the director of foresight that is his actual title the guy who traded victor oladipo director foresight we need cooler job titles at the ringer bill oh that's it yeah i gotta make somebody the director of foresight that's a good one but it'll probably let you have rob hennigan if you'd like the reason why i asked though is because like on the hawks reddit they have a thing where they say they're undefeated this season because the team wasn't trying to tank. So every win counts as a win and every loss.

It's like, well, you know what? We're moving up the lottery standings. And I'm just sitting here thinking to myself, it's like if we didn't have this to talk about, I think all these teams at the bottom, like what reason is there to watch? What reason is there to feel hope? I think I don't know why you would want to change this. I think this is fun. this tank race it's not that fun well it's it has kept everybody's interest whether their team is a playoff team or an abomination i went to the way if you're a knicks fan you're monitoring these games now hoping they

don't screw it up like they did last year when they fell five spots basically over the last couple days i went to the lakers magic game i know you enjoyed last week okay so a couple things happened number one all i did was root for his own and isaac because they're the only players who will be relevant going forward on that yeah maybe gordon you never give up on his own yeah unless his own yeah leaves yeah if he's too expensive he's too expensive then aaron gordon the the magic score 10 straight points, including Shelvin Mack, two clutch threes. Aaron Gordon has a great driving up with five seconds left. We take the lead.

I get excited. My fiance gets excited. And then Vooch loses the game by fouling Brooke Lopez. Okay. So we get all the excitement. We get his only threes and they lose. Yeah. Okay.

A Lakers fan comes up to me afterwards because I have a magic shirt on and he just goes, you must be happy. That was a great game with a magic loss. And I said, exactly. Yeah.

Exactly. Had a Bud Light. Great loss. Yeah. Great loss. Exciting loss. I remember those. I remember those

with that parking spot downtown. That 07 Celtics year was always great when they had the gritty, gutty, last second loss

as like your dream scenario for tanking. I do think, though, this is a particularly good lottery. We did our draft guide today, and poor Trey Young, who was the best college guard I've ever seen, and now he's not in the top 10 of our draft guide. What? The rankings,

they're not rankings, to be clear. It's like just 15 guys to watch. we haven't done the rankings yet yeah but he's is he in the top 10 i think he should be like 9 or 10 if he on my list he's in the 9 to 12 range now i think i so i talked to some people at sloan last month in boston and like where do you guys have trey young and people are like he's the type of player where you hope your owner doesn't want him because they a lot of people feel he's like the 13th maybe 14th best guy in the draft they call it

jimmer syndrome i think he's that sounds like a magic magic player but they trade down for him pick up like some extra first round picks that won't do anything king's guy maybe too who who comes in next year and is awesome right away because the thing i'm worried about the celtics have the king's pick next year and the kings suck they stink they're gonna stink next year too unless somebody comes in and makes them good right away and i'm looking at uh old luca there i know he's only he'll be 19 next season but i'm worried he could come in and just like completely transform the franchise i think he's definitely a guy who can move the needle um maybe not enough to like obviously not make him a playoff team but you're

talking make him like the 10th worst team not the second worst team yeah i think a guy like him i think marvin bagley can put up big numbers immediately um but other than that i don't know if there's a lot of guys in this class that are really aiden maybe i mean the kings do have 19 centers already. Yeah. Even though they just cut one of them Papayanas. Yeah that was a tough one. Aiton maybe. Dontrich I mean like Mikhail Bridges

from Villanova is the type of guy who's going to help a team but I don't think he makes them a 30 win team if they're actually a 20 win team without him. And there's a couple teams that are going to jump. I think Phoenix will be a team in their 30s next year. They get one more blue chipper.

I don't think Atlanta jumps. They have three picks in the top 35. They could jump. Atlanta, no. Orlando, sorry Clark, no. Brooklyn, no. Dallas, yes. I think one more guy with Carlisle and all that stuff and cap space,

and they'll be heard from. The Knicks, yes. I think the Bulls will be better. Charlotte will be better. So maybe four teams are going to be in the same spot they are this year, which is really sad. And you root for one of the teams, Clark. Yeah. There are better lives i'm sure you

know what's funny though you're in florida it's one of the biggest advantages in the nba and it has been orlando or i mean i'm sorry uh there's five teams in florida or texas there's massive tax advantages but you guys should never be bad i mean used to do that. I mean, we got Grant Hill, who was sought after at that point. We got Trace McGrady. We almost got Tim Duncan. You almost got the three. Yeah, we almost got three of them together. We almost got Tim Duncan.

We did get Horace Grant back in the day when he was a sought after free agent. We had this legacy of the guy saying, yeah, I want to live in Tiger Woods' neighborhood. I can't believe you left that. He do. He was a mid-level guy when we got him. But that was a good signing. It was a great signing. But I don't think he came for the tax breaks. What about Richard Lewis?

He loved Orlando. It wasn't the $117 million. You made the finals with him. I love Richard Lewis. I was defending. Danny Chow and Justin Verrier were giving me shit about that signing the other day and I went back at him. I love that signing. 09 finals, baby. You beat LeBron in his prime. Match-up nightmare. Michael Petras and Richard Lewis owned LeBron.

They did. Ahead of the curve, those Stan Van Gundy teams. Yeah. And now I get so mad. Oh, the Rockets and, you know, the Warriors revolutionizing basketball. Stan Van Gundy was just jacking up threes. You know who's not ahead of the curve these days? Stan Van Gundy.

No, he's not. He's not at all. You know what's not ahead of the curve these days? Stan Van Gundy. No, he's not. He's not at all. You know what would be a great shot? Blake Griffin from 21. I mean, he had two points. He had a gamble. I mean, he had a gamble on a player that, you know, has been a superstar. I think it was too much of a risk, but I think he had to do something, you

know, to save his own job. This is, I made the case when it happened. I think this was yet another good litmus test of, do you understand basketball or not? The Blake Griffin trade was a bad trade made by somebody who, if the trade didn't work out, was going to get fired anyway. And anytime your team makes that trade, it's not good. When your GM's like, ah, fuck it.

This doesn't work on that anyway. That is not where you want to be and it's so unfair to the fan base it's what you went through with the bucket the abaca trade signing yeah well this works out great yeah and biombo and they're just i like biombo more than other people i might not 17 million though that's rough it's you Did you just say you like the Biambo signing? I said I like Biambo as a player more than other people. I don't think he's a good value for $17 million. He's going to be alive.

I enjoy watching him out on the court in context to the other players on the Orlando Magic. A summer after this one, when all of those bad contracts from the summer of 2016 are about to be free agents and have one year left, there's going to be some fun trades. I like Biambo for $6 million. Totally. Once you stretch into the $17 to $18 range, I'm a little less enamored. The Mozgov deal.

Yeah, but there's a lot of those. He's better than Mozgov. Yeah, he is. Definitely. KOC, what do you make of the Lakers? I know you've been following them. I know you've gone to a couple games. We've both come around a big way on Julius Randle. They have a bright future. Lonzo's looked like their star potential.

Ingram versus Simmons is at least an argument. I think Kuzma's been really sketchy the last four months. Nobody wants to admit it. He just can't make threes for three months. He was good last night. But there is a foundation there.

If you add Paul George to that team, which is what people out here seem to think is going to happen. I think so too. What is that team? So just Paul George this summer. So just add Paul George. So they add Paul George. They give Isaiah Thomas a one-year, $16 million deal. like the payment the kcp deal right and then they're saving their cap space

for 2019 yes i think there's certainly a team that could compete for the eight seed i think another year of development for lonzo and ingram and not just kuzma but also josh hart a guy like him if you bring back julius randall as well i think paul george is a guy who could put them in the conversations the eight seed they've been so good the last two, three months. I don't know their record, but ever since LeVar Ball said the guys don't want to play for Luke Walton, but they've been damn good on both ends of the floor. And I think if you're the Lakers, if you had one max guy this summer, whether it's just Paul George or LeBron, guess what?

You're the top destination again the following year when you have cap space again. They're set up for a bright future with or without Bron James. What a move from LeVar to get the Lakers going. I know. Master motivator. Well, I wonder if the fact that LeVar left the country was played any whatever. When he pops back, he's going to say that was the plan. Yeah.

The Lakers, the Cowboys, and the Yankees are the three teams that can always turn it around in one summer or one spring. Because people are always going to want to play for those teams. They can never be counted out. I was looking for, I took a screenshot of what the Lakers record was a while ago when I was super excited that the Celtics had their pick. Remember those days?

I was like, oh my God, we might get one of the top. At one point, I remember there was one day. Oh yeah. There was one time when they had an 80% chance to get in the pick so the Lakers were 11-25 at one point Atlanta was 10-26 they had the second worst record in the league

and right now they're 30-36 so they've played 19 19-11 last 30 games it's pretty good. The stat is they're 20 and 9, the seventh best record in the NBA, top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency ever since LeVar Ball made those comments.

By the way, they ended up getting Cleveland's pick, and that might not be the worst pick in the world. They have the eighth best record right now. That might be like the 21st pick. To get rid of Jordan Clarkson's contract and you throw Nance in it, which all that did was allow Randall to play more anyway. That was a really good trade.

I liked that trade. I didn't mind that trade for either team. The other, the George Hill trade was an abomination. It's like with Detroit. It was a risk that they felt like they had to make it. With Cleveland, it's a deal. It hasn't looked quite as good as it did the first week, but it was something they had to shake it up.

It could end up looking like the wrong decision if Isaiah continues getting better. He was pretty good last night. He has a little bit more of the burst that he had last season. Agreed. He's still only like 80% of what he was, but he's getting closer. And maybe when mid-April comes and the playoffs are about to start, we'll be saying, well, geez, Isaiah looks ready to go. Maybe Cleveland should have just kept him and worked through the difficulties they were having.

If we had the entertaining as hell tournament this year, the Lakers would be a really fun wild card. They'd get in. And then the variation of it. What did you think of the variation that trickled out? Which I did some more investigating and apparently three years ago was seriously discussed. But it was basically seven versus 10, eight versus nine for the two seeds, one game, both conferences. So there would have been four games total.

Who hosts the higher seed? Yeah. So the Lakers conceivably would have been the 10 seed. I'm going to do it right now. I can't believe they're not doing this. It should be like the election or something where we should all get to vote. I feel like this would get 95% of the vote. Isn't this kind of the entertaining as hell tournament right now, though? I mean, we have the Thunder as the 4th seed, and then the Lakers as the 10, or rather the Nuggets as the 10, and there's only three games separating them separating them i mean this feels like the entertaining as hell tournament and the thing is it's well to your point it's not

like this every year and you're saying to make it like this every year by installing that tournament at the end of the season but right now this is better than it's ever been for me where it gets less fun is with the east because you would have detroit and charlotte and playing games and nobody wants to watch them now much less in a playoff situation. Are you going to be upset when they actually Institute the entertaining as hell tournament and they call it something like the Sprite challenge series or something? The last person calling it the entertaining is because you sort of own the

corner right now because you named it. I did, but if it has to be the Sprite Challenge, I'm fine with that. Willing to compromise. A couple other NBA things and then we'll go. Utah's really good. I don't know how far their record went, but now they're 38 and 38. I've been watching them all year.

They were one of our over-under locks when we did the over-unders with House. I just liked the team. I had no idea Mitchell was going to be this, but I just liked what they did last summer. And I thought Rubio was going to be good. Then he looked terrible. Now he looks good again.

And what's crazy is they might be a seven seed or an eight seed. You could make the case. They're the third best team in the West. Like right now, if you're just like let's redraft the teams who's the scariest i might have them third who do you have third koc so i mean obviously you have houston golden state one and two i think portland portland would be the other candidate utah would probably be fourth though um who would you pick in a

portland utah series with portland has home court advantage so portland's the three and then utah yeah game seven's in Portland. It's a pretty good one, right? How's Exum looking when he gets back? I'm not counting on Exum. Cross him off. Portland at home, game seven. Because of how Dame's playing.

For sure. And he's really channeling Stephen Curry circa 15, 16 season right now. There's like a sneaky first team all NBA case building for Dame Lillard, who is somebody that I've, I've been a little more lukewarm on the most over the years, but I think he's been incredible the last three months. And you know,

people seem to be penciling DeRozan into that spot. I think the MVP race and all NBA are two different conversations. Um, if you switched all the Depot and DeRozan, I think Toronto would be just as good you do I do really I really do DeRozan's been pretty spectacular

not just as a scorer but as a playmaker too 100% agree he surpasses Oladipo I think Oladipo's better defensively I think so too but I don't know if it outweighed DeRozan's playmaking advancements. He's been spectacular.

DeRozan's been playing on that team with those guys for a bunch of years, which I think is at least a piece of this. I just think Oladipo's spectacular. So you're saying in a vacuum. I just think Oladipo's great. I think statistically he's a better three-point shooter, and I think he's a better defender. I think you're right.

DeRozan can create a little bit more for teammates, but he's also more used to those teammates. Who's Oladipo creating for? Thaddeus Young? Can we use that against him, though? I mean, he's been on the same team, and Oladipo just got traded. My point is,

the second first-team All-NBA spot should be wide open between Lillard, Oladipo, and DeRozan. Do you know what? Here you go, Clark. What do you think Indiana's record is right now? I don't know. I'd say mid 40s and wins. They're 40 and 28 and they're the three seed right now.

Who do you think their third best player is? Because Miles Turner's their second best player. He think their third best player is? Because Miles Turner is their second best player. He's their third best player. Statistically? Yeah. Is it that young? I don't know. Maybe.

So Toronto's 10 wins better than them. I think what Oladipo's done in Indiana is actually kind of incredible. Oh, it is. Yeah, absolutely. To me, it's that they're 40-28 and have a chance to be the three seed and finish like 50-32. It's fucking crazy. It is.

I get the DeRozan thing. Yeah. But I don't know. I knew this was going to be the week where everybody was like, Toronto. But Oladipo's led them to be a 40-win team. DeRozan has helped lead the Raptors to be one of the best teams in basketball. His team's much better. Of course it is. They're so

much more talented and they spent way much more money on players. And they have a coach who's been there for nine years. DeRozan's overall impact has just been more significant in my opinion because of the playmaking factor. But that's your MVP case. Yeah, I'm with Bill. So the all

NBA case is just like, who are the best players this year? The MVP case is like, who means the most of the best teams? Right? I think so. I mean, it seems like every year the MVP definition changes. One year it's about the guy who has triple-double. The next year it's about the guy who has the best narrative.

I don't know what an MVP is. I feel like it's individual to each voter. I'm on Team Bill here. I think what Oladipo's done is more impressive. So here are the stats. DeRozan is 24-4-5. Oladipo's 24-5-4. Percentages, Oladipo's slightly better, and he's better from three.

Higher PER. Two steals a game. Oladipo is slightly better and he's better from three. Higher PER, two steals a game, Oladipo has 10 more wins. It's pretty even. It is. Just statistically. I'm with you. The thing that I really like from DeRozan is he's had big moments when they really needed him

in games that they kind of needed to win to protect their number one seed kind of area. But watching what Oladipo did against the Celtics and then how they handled their business in Philly, they just won in Boston and Philly the last two games. No, you're still not buying. I mean, Oladipo's been terrific. He changed his body. He changed his game.

He's elevated his play and really helped turn the Pacers into a team that's going to make a little bit of noise in the East. They're not going to be probably beat Toronto, but they're definitely feisty and they definitely, they definitely like each other. They're tough. It seems like Al Jefferson is like 45 years old now, but he's been the leader on the bench. Suddenly a team that,

you know, I was dead wrong about with that trade. A lot of people were wrong about that trade last summer. There's hope. I mean, Oladipo is only 25 years old. Turner and Sabonis are both 21 they'll have cap space coming up and they're an appealing team ton of cap space i wish they had made a trade in february i think you get to save that cap space though i mean if you're if you're a free agent and there's not a lot of

teams with cap you know it's the bad teams like the hawks that might have cap space or there's a good team like the pacers you might want to go to to Indiana and play with Victor Oladipo and Miles Turner. Oladipo's three-point attempts and three-point percentage have both gone up every single year he's been in the NBA. Yeah. You saw the early Oladipo when they made him point guard as a rookie, which was idiotic. It was terrible.

Put him with a bunch of terrible guys. He was so erratic. Because, I mean, first of all, you waste energy carrying the ball up the court yeah but he was just so erratic where he would i remember a game in brooklyn he just completely exploded and and you would see these flashes that this guy's one of the most exciting players in the nba and then other games you just didn't have it i mean it's funny to me rob hennigan i remember josh robbins from the innocent one written this a couple times but rob hennigan believed shooters could get better and that's why he took a lot of these guys who didn't have a jump shot and the horse he should have bet on in that regard was old depot because he literally he went

from 32 his rookie year to now uh almost 37 it's gotten better every single year and so for some reason by the way that's an impressive 37 because when you watch them he has the ball with like six seconds left in the shot clock a lot it's the type of thing where it's it's not like he's an impressive 37% because when you watch them, he has the ball with like six seconds left in the shot clock a lot. It's the type of thing where it's not like he's an above, slightly above average shooter. He takes a ton of shots off the dribble. Yeah. He's cooled off since the beginning of the season, but still overall. But he's taking tougher shots.

I look at Draymond. Draymond, who there's this weird spot for third team all NBA with the third center that I have no idea who it is. And every person you'd mention, you'd pick apart. Draymond's shooting 29% on three this year. But all of those threes are wide open. When you watch the Warriors, it's like, I haven't seen Draymond even take a three with a hand in his face this year. And he's missing over 70% of them.

That's not good for them, I don't think. Who do you have as third team all NBA center? Here are your choices. Jokic, Draymond, Al Horford, Andre Drummond. It's Horford because of the two-way impact. Jokic has been tremendous offensively, but the defense is just horrific, as you saw last night against the Lakers when Isaiah just crossed him and giggled

as he was on his way to the rim. Drummond, I just give Horford the slight edge because of his overall immense defensive impact. You mean average out? That's what some Boston radio hosts call him. And his playmaking ability is just unbelievable. I think it's Horford too, but I don't want to feel like I'm a homer

because I'm voting him over Jokic because Jokic is like six assists a game for a center that's like an insane number. He's awesome. 17-10 and six from Jokic, but he's a zero on defense. We saw that last night. An unequivocal zero on defense. Maybe not a zero, but a negative.

Yeah. I mean, he's really hard. He's a minus three on defense. He's really bad. And that's the type of thing where Jokic, like a couple weeks ago or maybe a month ago, when he's racking up all these triple doubles, it was like, well, would you take him over Towns?

It's like, no, you don't. Because Towns has proven he can be a a really really good defensive player and an elite offensive player yokich has a long way to go to enter that class harden lillard oladipo derosen steph curry kairi irving russell westbrook i just listed seven guards there's six all-NBA spots. Who doesn't make it? What were the last two you said? I'll do it again. Harden, Lillard, Oladipo, DeRozan, Curry, Kyrie, Westbrook. I want six spots for those seven guys.

I think Oladipo or DeRozan could fall off. One of those two. But I don't think it'll be DeRozan. Fall off, all NBA? Well, here's the thing. From people who don't know basketball? Here's the thing. You got to consider the voters.

Russell Westbrook's going to get on there. He is? Yeah, he is. You got to consider the pool of voters. Who is the pool of voters? It's not my choice. Thunder Raiders? It's who do we think will get selected. Does Ray Keogh have 50 votes?

Jamal Crawford got some six man of the year votes last year. Probably will get him again this year too. I had Westbrook like definitively off a couple of weeks ago, but now they've kind of risen to a top four seat. It's going to be tough to leave them out. Their schedule's really hard. This is crazy, but I think Steph could be the guy that gets bumped. I don't know.

If he misses more time and he only plays like 60 games this year, even though this has statistically been an insane season for him, I could see him getting voted. And also if Kyrie misses another 10 games. For sure. I think Kyrie could also be on that list as well. It depends. I mean, how much are people going to weigh the games played

against the production? Because if you're looking at production, it's certainly Stephen Curry would be foolish to not have him on it. But I mean, if I get a vote, it's the type of thing where it's tough to weigh that. I think I would put Steph on there if he plays, let's just say, four more games this season. I think the production over the 50-ish games has been significantly enough. For me, Harden, Lillard, Oladipo, and DeRozan, unless they get hurt or locks. Your top four.

Those four guys have to be on one of the all-NBA teams. And then I'm watching Curry, Irving, and Westbrook for the other three spots. And if Curry can't finish at 65 games, I think this is one of the few years where durability matters. Who do you have off, Clark? Or have you just completely checked out in this NBA season? I have vaguely checked out. I'm more,

I'm literally on tankathon.com right now. I'm checking that out. I have not watched enough basketball to have to make a, to make a intelligent point about that specific point. If LeBron doesn't make the first team all NBA, will you be flabbergasted? Um, well, I, no, no, just, I, just because of the way, I mean, the way the season has developed, I'm, I'm ready for anything. This is Bill's favorite topic. We have to talk about it. Then we'll go. So so Davis I think gets in as a center center two forwards two guards

Davis is a center Giannis Durant LeBron only two of those guys can make it I actually think Giannis is the one who's going to fall out because he has been secretly not nearly as effective for about six weeks

the stats back it up. Yeah. And you also have to consider KOC's point, which is the voters are behind. And they're just going to say, well, LeBron. Exactly. With that said. It's like Derek Cheater's gold gloves. Giannis could strap it on these next four weeks and take it.

And then it becomes LeBron versus Durant. Because Giannis is his two-way play. Him and Durant as two-way players have just been better than LeBron versus Durant. Because Giannis is, his two-way play, him and Durant as two-way players have just been better than LeBron. LeBron's having the best offensive statistical season of his career. He's not that same guy defensively. What if LeBron turns it on too, though?

He could just as well, like Giannis can. I mean, what if he's like, you know, screw this. We're going to make a push, you know, and grab a higher seed. You think he's going to increase his swing speed like Tiger did? 129 miles per hour? Swing speed increased.

I don't think it's worth him doing it now. I think he needs to save it for mid-arrival, but he theoretically could. But I don't think he's going to do it just to get on Bill's first-team all-NBA list. There's six forwards this year. Or the top six.

We mentioned three Paul George, LaMarcus Aldridge, Carl Anthony Towns it's for there's a forward there's some reasons for that we don't have Kawhi Jimmy Butler got hurt I think he would have made all NBA

we're just kind of a couple forwards short was he listed as a guard for All-Star I think Jimmy Butler he might have been but I think he could have snuck in. We got to get rid of these positional designations. LeBron, by the way, has been All-NBA every year since 2008. First team, All-NBA. I think voters like that sort of continuation. My guess is that he'll keep it again.

But it's definitely been a challenge this year. Oh, yeah. And we've seen seasons. We saw this in, you know, the center position in all NBA. There was a couple of years where Kareem's in the league. It's just completely unfair to everybody else. It's like, yeah, Kareem. And then there's no way to really kind of reward anyone else. And then now we're seeing with guards, it's a guard heavy league right now. Out of the best 15 players in the league probably eight or nine of them are guards and i we didn't even talk about chris paul who i think the rockets are 43 and 7 when he plays another games played guy where that'll be used against him right but if he plays the rest of the way they might go 58 and 7 when

he's on the court like you know interesting though i like all this stuff and i think we're about two weeks away from having some definite ideas who's who's your number two mvp candidate right now davis yeah i think davis right behind harden who do you have for three um make a case for de rosen there's a lot of guys. Is there more legitimate top five candidates this year than usual? Because it feels like it to me. Yeah, but it's guys that I wouldn't want to actually vote for to win the MVP.

You know what I mean? It's like guys who deserve to be in the discussion, but Harden and Davis to a lesser degree are so far above everyone else this year. I think LeBron's still up there for me because that team would be without him. But that's partly his fault. I see.

When I talk about MVP, I blame the players who put themselves in that situation. If they had the power to either stop it. Am I wrong to do that? Would Kyrie Irving still be there? If LeBron like really fought to keep him there. Going even back even further. Okay. Yeah. Tristan Thompson, Jair Smith. Like he's T the, that would kairi irving still be there if lebron like really fought to keep him there going even back even further okay yeah tristan thompson jr smith like he's he the reason they did all those

dumb contracts was because of lebron doesn't that make him less valuable or am i crazy i don't know i'm like i said i don't know what mbp is i don't know about that i don't know about that point bill i mean if he that's you know now we're talking about executive exactly i mean like just valuable guys are valuable that's something that happened a couple years ago on his team anymore i think i think my top five would be something along the lines of harden davis the rosen lebron durant i think that would be the top five as of now bill when you talk about guys who have the power to make personal decisions and then making them, Shaq was historically terrible at picking the guys he wanted.

Dwight Howard insisted on trading for Big Baby Davis, which was an all-time. Kobe had some bad ones. Yeah. I mean, where does LeBron rank on, I want these guys as my teammates? Really low. Yeah.

Really, really bad. The bar is very low to begin with. He's bad in Miami, too. It's like, we got to get James Jones. Norris Cole or Shabazz Napier? Who was the guy that- Shabazz Napier. Shabazz Napier.

He loves Shabazz Napier. And that was Chris Ryan's fear with LeBron. It's like, well, it seems like everywhere he goes, he leaves the team just and just tarnished. And when he's gone, Thompson Jr. Contracts were indefensible at the time. It was just a crazy amount of money for those two guys when there was no and Schumper to a lesser degree, but like there was just nobody else bidding. And that that's when it gets dangerous.

I guess LeBron is significant leverage in any negotiation. He used the leverage where basically like I'm signing short-term contracts. And if you, if I don't like the stuff you do, I'll leave again. The Kirk Cousins move. The Kirk Cousins move. Do you like that?

What are you working on this week, Clark? More free agency stuff. I think that the way that teams build now is going to change forever. And I think there's, you can't write enough about it. I'll throw it a Tiger Woods piece this week. What are you working on

other... Yeah, that was a good piece. What are you working on other than I don't believe in you, Victor Oladipo? I believe completely in Victor Oladipo. I heard what I heard. Wrote a big feature on him this season in December. Check that out. Did a Kentucky article today. Other than that, just doing a lot of draft guide stuff at the moment.

Are you like two in the weeds with the draft? No. You sure? Yeah, it's fine balance. We need to pull you out? No. Is Mo Bamba the best ceiling basement guy we've had in a while? It's like a 42 story building with like an eight floor basement.

Yeah, I think he's I don't know if his basement's that quite as large as you think. I think he's going to be a solid player with his size. I mean, the only thing stopping him from being a 7'9 wingspan dude that can protect the rim is injury. I think he's going to be at least a solid player. What draft player, other than Colin Sexton, has the chance to have a Kemba slash Curry slash Jimmer type run? Did you say a Jimmer?

Did I mishear you Somebody who gets everybody Excited for a week Aside from Colin Sexton I still think it could be Trey Young Honestly why can't it be We believe in you Trey Young I mean like what he's probably Somewhere in the middle from the highs earlier in the season

And the lows now yeah but what if he reaches Those highs again in March Madison leads Oklahoma a team that probably has no Business being in the middle from the highs earlier in the season and the lows now. But what if he reaches those highs again in March Madison, leads Oklahoma, a team that probably has no business being in the tournament on a run? I think it could be him still. We believe in you, Trey. Bill, I've been doing a deep dive on LeBron's All-NBA history.

It's like 10 straight years, right? The last time he didn't make it, Amari Stoudemire did. And I can't... I'm in a weird spot right now remembering that there was a time that that made sense. I don't know what to say. What was your highlight of the podcast? My dad blaming Gisele? I'm going to tell you what it was.

It was me spending five minutes figuring out how to address your dad. Do I say Bill's dad? Dr. Bill. I didn't know what to say. You call him dad? Dr. Bill. Dr. Bill. Yeah. I didn't know what to say. You call him dad. Dr. Bill. Okay, Dr. Bill.

Could have called him dad. Oh, fine. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to check it out at ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Yeah. Enjoy the tournament. We're coming back on Friday morning with one more podcast. And check out the site because we're going to be doing

all kinds of stuff with March Madness including on Instagram on YouTube and a whole bunch of different places Kevin's, thank you Thank you I don't have a few years with him I don't have.