The Bill Simmons Podcast - Sean Miller vs. ESPN, Top 5 NBA Draft, and Cleveland's NFL Draft Conundrum (Ep. 333)

Episode Date: March 2, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by The Ringer's Mark Titus and Tate Frazier to discuss Arizona head coach Sean Miller versus ESPN (6:00), ways to fix the collegiate basketball system (14:00), potential top-five NBA draft picks (28:00), Anthony Davis's dominance (40:00), and Oden vs. Durant (46:00). Then, The Ringer's Kevin Clark calls in from Indianapolis to discuss the NFL combine (55:00) and the Browns' best draft options (1:02:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Wesley Morris, Cam Collins, Amanda Dobbins, Chris Ryan, all of them came in. They shot a bunch of videos. We did some podcasts. We did a get out rewatchables.

We were running a lot of the podcasts on channel 33. So that is fun. And then I have a new column on the ringer.com today about Anthony Davis. It's called the rise. And then last but not least, go to the ringers Twitter feed at ringer on Sunday night. We are going to have a little pre-game show before the oscars uh the half hour before it starts well we'll go over the categories one more time with our oscars crew amanda dobben sean fantasy chris ryan and more

and then right after the uh oscars telecast right after it ends we're going live post game show at ringer on twitter everybody's going to be reacting to that and then We're going live, post-game show, at Ringer on Twitter. Everybody's going to be reacting to that, and then we're going to run that as a podcast the next day on the big picture show that is on the channel 33 feed. But check that out if you want to wonder what the hell just happened after the Oscars, the Ringer Oscars post-game show.

It's happening Sunday night. We're going to have a ton of guests on today, and then my AOL mail uh along with everybody else's aol mail uh fell apart no mail today for me could not get guests because my mail doesn't work you got stuck with me no you were on anyway but i wanted to have multiple guests i want to have people calling in so now we're just gonna have to wing it it's okay i'm used to i'm used to being the 12th option That's my Get out of here You were already booked

Mark Titus coming up from the ringer Tay Frazier His mic is live Wow It's almost like these two guys have a podcast This will be fun New tape one later This will be fun

I'm getting like sloppy seconds Alright here we go Pearl Jam All right, Mark Titus is here. He arrived in L.A. this week from lovely Ohio. Brought crap weather with him thanks for that titus yeah the weather is actually better in ohio right now yeah that hurts so lots going on you guys are covering this on the one shining podcast which um is america's hottest college basketball podcast right now i would say yeah if you put enough qualifiers on it that would be true the america's hottest college podcast it's how coaches do you just keep adding more things I would say, yeah, if you put enough qualifiers on it, that would be true. The America's Hottest College Podcast.

It's how coaches do it. You just keep adding more things. Yeah. And then it's true. It's the hottest college basketball podcast right now. One shining pot. On the Ringer Podcast Network. So all this FBI stuff's going on. Yeah.

And now it's Sean Miller versus ESPN. Yeah. And I'm getting Arizona fans telling me, like, start wearing an Arizona jersey. This is great. You would love this. You are basically like, start wearing an Arizona jersey. This is great. You would love this. You are basically like an Arizona mascot at this point. They love you. Build down.

I think I might start wearing the Arizona. What jersey do I get? Salim Stoudemire. Do they have the Steve Kerr throwback? Wear the Salim Stoudemire headband. You wear Eugene Edgerson knee pads. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. So the story is ESPN, it's basically, yeah, it's Arizona versus ESPN.

This is why people are reaching out to you. It's basically Arizona's version of Deflategate, which I don't know if you want to scratch that itch again. I told you guys this at dinner last night. I remember every single person at espn who said something about bad about the patriots during the flake it gets super personal when you feel like somebody is messing with your team whether it's right or wrong it goes to a whole other level well the weird thing about this one is like and i wasn't really that in tune with the flake gate with how all that went down but this one feels like it was one reporter at espn broke this story

that sean miller was on a wiretap they have the fbi has a wiretap of sean miller saying he will he was offering a hundred thousand dollars to an agent for deandre ayton right and so all the other espn personalities just assumed that was true and so they go out and like on college game day billis is out there just like they got to fire him now and and all those guys kind of come out and said they got to do something drastic and then now like even all these guys had nothing to do with the report are like trying to walk it back as well they're like trying to distance themselves but they can't because they work at espn so i don't even know if it's really like an espn thing or if it's just like one guy at espn and then they had to pair the report around for everyone so now arizona fans are taking all like as soon as it

happened on friday every single big name like from vital billet everyone dickie v uh dickie v so the saturday like the news breaks friday night it's about midnight eastern and then the saturday afternoon dickie v's calling the syracuse uh duke game and dickie v sounds like he's gonna have a heart attack i mean he's like i can't like he's going to have a heart attack. I mean, he's like, I can't believe what's happening to my sport I love. Sean Miller, he's got to go now. We've got to clean this up. Dickie V's like, there's no way Jim Boeheim did this.

He's like, no, no, he's not involved in this with Dickie V. He's defending Rick Pitino. And then Dickie V tweets out my article on the rigor that I write, which is basically like, hey, this investigation is kind of problematic. And Dickie V is like, hey, this is interesting. I didn't see it. You know, it's like, Dick, two days ago, you were saying we got to shoot this man into the sun.

Not only that, but Dickie V was mentioned in the piece. So he tweeted it out. It was like, really love this piece. And everyone's like. I would say he's been mentioned in every Titus piece since you started writing. But the point is like the ESPN thing, I can't tell if it's all of ESPN or if it's just like, Dickie V almost feels betrayed by this as well. He's like, I can't believe I believe this report.

Well, it's interesting. I watched PTI yesterday because Olbermann was back, which was really good, actually. It had a certain energy to it. Turns out Keith Olbermann, say what you want about him, but very good at television. And they opened with the Sean Miller thing, but the elephant in the room was like, ESPN caused this? Which is like, Sean Miller, do you believe him? And all this stuff. It's like, maybe you can't talk about how ESPN caused this,

but ESPN definitely caused this. And I think, you know, 2018, reporting matters more than ever, but less than ever at the same time because like, and we did this at the ringer, somebody reports something and then we jump on it and we react and rewrite a story. And it's almost like you don't need your own reporters anymore. You just react to what the noise is.

And we're so conditioned to that, that when the noise is wrong, everybody's already moved, you know, at, at 60 miles an hour in the story. And we don't know if the story's true. It worked out perfect for Tate and I

because when the story broke on Friday, I called Tate and we were like, we got to do emergency pod right now. And we would have definitely regretted that because we were like, we just said all the same thing. Sean Miller's got to go, all this kind of thing.

You guys are heroes to Arizona now. You're the one people who are like, hey, we need more info. We waited until Tuesday. Mature journalists. Yeah, you guys, I'm really proud of you guys. Yeah, we need more info. We waited until Tuesday. You're very mature. Mature journalist. Yeah, you guys, I'm really proud of you guys. Yeah, we waited for all the news to come out.

But I think the main thing that was really wild about the whole situation with the Arizona fans is now they're never going to forget J. Bill has said that. So they're like tweeting at the – they're going back. It's tough. That will never go away either. He's done with Arizona for life. And that's a blue blood. They're going back. It's tough. That will never go away either. He's done with Arizona for life. And that's a blue blood.

Yeah. And I slide right in it, and they're never going to forget that you and I had their backs the whole time, and now we go to Tucson. I remember. Three years of dirt bags. I remember all the people in the national media who were cautious with the, oh wait, there was nobody who was cautious with the flake eight. Not one person.

That's so sad. I can't believe the Patriots are victims. I know. We are always victimized. So you guys, you've been joking on your podcast all year about good guy, bad guy. Yeah. And, you know, obviously we know that college basketball players get paid. We've known this forever.

Lonzo Ball told us that. You're not speculating. He said it. There's a code of emerita. Jalen Rose, who I spent just an incredible amount of time with, and who is an oversharer and tells you things that you're like, wow, I almost wish you hadn't told me that, would never talk about who got paid at Michigan or any of that stuff.

It's like these guys, once they go through it, Titus played for Ohio State. You never heard him actually talk about which guys at ohio state might have gotten paid everybody makes this kind of agreement to never say anything but we know it's happening right so this it's just been funny to watch like you said that and so for people who don't know this story and i don't know how you missed it andy miller this pretty successful agent um just got just got cracked down by the fbi and stuff's been leaking out one of the things that leaked out i think two weeks ago or one week ago was his kind of payment list of all these dudes and the the numbers were hilarious it was

like 7200 dollars yeah 24 twenty eight dollars and it was like how did they even come up with these numbers well we just said loans to players and this was yeah so this was christian dawkins the 24 year old runner so we're basically taking all the stuff that's getting leaked out is from the fbi that is leaked reports that journalists are getting everyone's taking it as this is the fbi putting out the information so therefore yeah that's why it's such a big story but these are still just leaked media reports of what they have as evidence. And we don't know, you've written about this,

but we don't know why this stuff is coming out. Yeah, we don't know where it's coming from. What is it, four different possibilities? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we don't know where it's coming from. But also, as Tate and I have said on our podcast, this isn't necessarily like stone cold evidence what it is. It's just one guy typed up like, hey, I paid this money to this guy.

And there's no receipts. There's no bank records. There's none of that. And that's the problem with sort of all the reports that are coming out and the reason no one's – basically the schools at this point are just like throwing up middle fingers to the NCAA saying do something about this. They're saying prove it. Because all these guys that have been – there have been a ton of current

players that have been implicated, quote-unquote. They're listed in all these reports, and every single one of them is still playing. And Sean Miller comes out, and he's like, do something about it. I'm coaching, bitch, and drops the mic. And that's everyone's attitude because there's really not stone-cold evidence. It's just one 24-year-old. I mean, Tate's like 20. You understand how dumb 24-year-olds are.

I don't even have expense reports. Yeah, but I'm just saying, if that were the case, people lie on expense reports. We said that from the start, and that was the whole point Tuesday. It was like, we're using expense reports of a 24-year-old kid as the holy grail of college basketball corruption because that's all we have. And that's a bad place to be in because you can't.

I gave Tate a $37,000 loan when he left Grantland to come work for me. He still hasn't paid it back. When I was at Grantland, I used the ESPN credit card to do all sorts of stuff. And then when I had to report to the bosses, I was like, yeah, it was a production meeting. So that's the evidence they have. The guy that said, yeah, I was meeting at the strip club with this guy. And they don't even have the credit cards. They don't even have the actual payments.

And they don't have the pay stubs wait do you think it's a bad thing to loan a college basketball player money with the promise that he's going to pay you back i know it's illegal but is it a bad thing because i don't think it is um that's the shady that's the big question that everyone has is like who's the victim in all this um it's like sorry that these guys who can barely have enough money to eat when they're making money in school can get an extra 20 grand. I guess the problem, and I'm certainly no lawyer, but I do have a Twitter account and I know how to read. So I guess that's good enough, right? The problem, I guess, people would say is a lot of the schools are publicly funded. They're state schools.

And where is that? Taxpayer money is going to bribing families. i think that's like where an issue comes up but yeah like the big question but the issue is college basketball shouldn't even exist as the sport it is with the amount of money that it makes and just what's going on it's completely broken it's been broken forever and that's why people cheat well this is why tate and i are really frustrated with how all this has gone down is that he and i both want players to get paid. And we felt like this was an obvious way to make that happen. It's like if you got half the teams that are in the NCAA tournament, the FBI is going to throw cuffs on their coaches.

And, you know, like you can't have an NCAA tournament. So we were excited that, awesome, this summer the NCAA is going to look into it, actually change the model, let guys make money off their likeness. But then this reports that have been coming out have botched everything that there's going to be like literally nobody's going to miss the NCAA tournament. There's going to be no punishments. Like no one's going to be sitting out. The NCAA does not have a mess on their hands. And so no change is going to happen. So we're just going to be back to square one.

It's just going to be a real change. Could Division I just be like almost like the Premier League where you have like 40 programs or 32 programs or whatever, and all of them can pay their players? Yeah, yeah. And then people can, if they play well, they get in, you get promoted, then you can pay your players? I think that would actually work. That would be awesome. But Duke, UNC, Arizona, UCLA, Ohio State, like the OGs.

All those teams should pay their players. Like when Oden, you were buddies with Oden forever. I don't want you to spill too many secrets. But when Oden was, you knew Oden. How tall was he in the eighth grade? He was like 6'9 in eighth grade. How tall was he in 10th grade? Like about 6'11.

So he got up to about seven foot by the time he was a senior. What grade was he in when girls were asking him to have sex with them but not use a condom? Like ninth grade? Seventh grade. Seventh grade? No, don't use a condom, Greg. No, no, no. We're fine.

When did people start offering him money? There were a lot of shady characters that started popping. A lot of guys wearing velour jumpsuits started showing up in 10th grade. For the longest time, it was just the friends and family of all the players. We'd go to AU tournaments, and there'd be 12 people in the stands. Hey, come meet Uncle Juno. Then right around 10th grade, you'd see guys that were buddying me. Like, we're walking down hallways, and we got our little circle going.

And all of a sudden, like, some guy, some, like, balding 65-year-old with a big stomach, like, wearing a velour jumpsuit, comes, like, buddying in. And he's, like, dapping up Greg. I'm like, who the hell is this guy, you know? A lot of those guys started popping up out of nowhere. You should have gotten paid out of this. I should have, yeah. You should have marketed yourself better. Like, listen, I have a lot of sway with greg i'm not saying i

can convince him where to go but 10 grand might help me greg uh so greg i would say is is like jalen and that he shares a lot of things with me and um i he's i've asked him about paying players once or not once i mean like a million times i've asked him when we were both under the influence of substances where he would not you know he would just yeah but he would just spill it he's told me stuff that is a million times worse than hey i took like a thousand dollars from a day and he's never once told me that he got money i'm telling you it's like it's like the mafia money yeah it really is it's like the mafia it's like you just don't talk about it yeah i mean the one thing i ever got from Jalen

I won't say the school but he always said there was this school when he played that was famous for it was the same price for everybody

and I think it was like 50k in an Escalade or 50k in a Cadillac or something but that was just a deal it was non-negotiable it was like almost how we did

30 for 30 where it's like it's 500k to do Doc O'Meara we're not negotiating that's the contract and that just became the school so when you would go there everybody at the school was driving an escalade because they had the local dealership they could launder whatever and then everybody got certain money but the shady stuff that i don't

even know is technically legal but it's like in blue chips when uh penny hardaway's mom gets the house and the job that's or like the the high school coach gets hired on the coaching staff that happens every or the dad or the uncle gets a job yeah i mean we know this stuff has been happening it's it's not even fun to joke about it's the fact college basketball so i'm i'm kind of amazed that people are so alarmed by this yeah that's that's the weird thing whoa whoa my god it's like yeah this is college basketball i think that's what we're tired of too because every single year it seems like there's some huge breaking story it's like college basketball this is the sea change you've you've been waiting for and then we get these stories and then you actually read them and you parse through it and you go there's really nothing

here i mean it's a juice it sounds like a great headline, and it does fit if you put the pieces together in a certain way, but it's not necessarily fact. Well, even, so the Sean Miller thing, the claim was that he talked about paying DeAndre Ayton. Yes. Not that even that he did, that he talked about it. Yeah.

First of all, I think we all agree that's an insanely good price for a franchise center. Ask any NBA GM. It's great. Brian Bowen was going for $100,000. Do you win extra money if you win the title? Yeah. There's an extra prize, right?

Yeah, the coach's contract. Is that like a few million bucks? Yeah. Oh, yeah, like bonus clauses in the coaches. Yeah. The players. I think the universities get a prize, too, I think. Yeah, the universities get TV money. Yeah, the coaches the players i think for the player yeah i think the universities get a prize too i think yeah the university get tv money yeah the coaches get a bonus so how is that

not worth 100 grand to get the best center in college basketball for a year yeah and that's why you arguably worth 500 grand that's why this is never like you can't even if you clean up if the fbi had the ability and the ncaa together they had the ability to take every single guy who's currently coaching in college basketball and every single player who's taking money every coach that's cheated and they pluck them out and they put in like honest guys like tate and i who would just do it the right way um even if they had the ability to do that corruption is going to return like in the snap of a finger because like you just said you have so much incentive to cheat and it's so easy to do it yeah so it's never going to go away until you actually say those people that game their podcast stats with the subscribe, unsubscribe, and

like the- Present company excluded. Yeah, we don't do that. We certainly would never do that. Or the people that they ask the people to post messages on their boards. When we take over Pepperdine, when you guys are co-coaches and I'm the athletic director- The job's open. So here's my

case for pepper nine we did this actually hold on let me let me uh talk about bmw first the all-new bmw x3 was not built for everyone you didn't take a car this time titus right you're living close to the office time around the bmw x3 too bad because it was engineered for those who share the desire more more passion more ambition more making every second count the new bmw x3 plane capable of doing more and when i think about athletes who have passion ambition class just it's superior to the competition you know i think larry legend oh yeah the legend larry bird oh yeah who was better than him used every possible advancement in training diet dieting.

No, actually, he didn't do any of that. He was so talented. He drank beer during the summers. But he started working in the 87, 88 season. All of a sudden, the legend showed up. He was in great shape. He lost 20 pounds. He had this follow-up dunk over the rim.

That's what happens when you reach a level of performance that places you as the best when you have the desire and the drive to win and keep winning the bmw x3 capable of more with the level of performance you expect from a bmw i drive 6.0 with intuitive touchscreen available safety features like the active blind spot detection next generation x drive intelligent all-wheel drive pretty soon it'll be one one touch of a button they'll be listening to our podcast and cars very exciting the all-new bmw x3 built to handle whatever road terrain or adventures had no matter what test drive the all-new bmw x3 at your local bmw center today bmw only makes one thing the ultimate driving. So here's my case for Pepperdine. We did this podcast on One Shining Podcast in December.

It was a two-parter. The 12 schools that should just be better at college basketball. We picked 12. Two of them were Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount, which I was very excited about. Now with college, everybody is so over the top now with the safety of the students, and rightfully so. When my daughter goes to college, I want her to be in the safest environment possible.

When I was in college 30 years ago, nothing at all was safe about it, and it was like the wild, wild west. This is steering toward Pepperdine. It's Pepperdine, very religious school. You're not allowed to drink on campus. I think within 10 years, nobody will be allowed to drink on campus. Pepperdine's very religious school. You're not allowed to drink on campus. I think within 10 years, nobody will be allowed to drink on campus. Pepperdine's ahead of the game already

in Malibu on the ocean. Good conference. You could win it every year. You could become the Gonzaga of the Pacific Ocean. And now with you guys in charge, I think we have something. And with BMW involved, the official sponsor of Pepperdine basketball.

Yeah, all the players could drive BMWs on the PCH. I dig it the job was open the Pepperdine job was it opened up the best job in college I really did you get to be a Malibu every day what's better than that it's I absolutely deal with drunk kids on campus I would do Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine would be the OG jobs for me for just like weather, location, the ability to sell kids, that stuff. But the Pepperdine thing. Do you think they're the most likely candidate out of all the ones we talked about to make a jump? Or do you have another pick? Because we got a lot of feedback for those pockets i'm trying to remember the ones that we had um people like the san francisco one is the one that comes to mind

houston's like houston was on our list right they're actually really good yeah nebraska was the other one that we kind of laid the groundwork for houston yeah houston no i veto nebraska yeah by the way you vetoed nebraska and penn state and they're both having like their best years of all time. Those two teams right now. Their point guard, Tony Carr. They're red hot. He's just roasted Ohio State both times.

Penn State's got a first-round pick. He's going to be a first-round pick. He's like a 6'5 point guard, Tony Carr. Is that Big Ten? Yeah, Big Ten. Which is terrible. That's this weekend. Yes.

As for the smaller ones, though, Pepperdine's got think, like, yeah. Pepperdine's got a shot. I think Pepperdine's path is getting a disgraced coach like Rick Pitino and plucking one of these FBI guys. Or bring Romar back. Bring Lorenzo Romar back. I think Pitino is the great white whale right now. Yeah. He would come in.

He would do whatever it takes to redeem himself. And he's kind of overqualified to coach any mid-major, right? Right. That's your perfect guy. Patino would be the guy. He would definitely have success there. Nobody wants to be vindicated, I guess would be the phrase, more than Rick Patino.

I remember Jerry Tarkanian after he had to leave UNLV. And when we talk about bag men, I think the conversation really starts with him but um he went to long beach state in the mid 90s and it was awesome it was like everybody everybody who nobody else wanted to touch tark was going after and they had this locker room fight where somebody pulled a sword on somebody it was either a locker room dormitory, and there was this samurai sword involved. I mean, it was like the greatest. But we need that again. I feel like Patino can bring that back for us.

Patino would be the guy. Yeah, for sure. Does Patino ever coach again? He thinks so. Oh, yeah. He wants to coach badly. He's like in tears. He thinks he can get a bigger job than Pepperdine.

Yeah. I saw some report that Patino was hoping to be involved in the UConn discussion if they let go of Ali. And that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. You know who needs to get the Pepperdine job is Mata. My coach at Ohio State, he's got the beach life down.

He just dreams about being on the beach. I need to talk to him about that. That would get me out here. That's how I get into Pepperdine. Wait a second, you know I don't follow college basketball until March. Kevin Ali, his job's in danger? Oh, yes. Oh my die. Wait a second. You know I don't follow college basketball until March. Kevin Olley, his job's in danger? Oh, yes. Oh, my God.

No, it's not even in danger. It's dead. He was the hottest free agent, remember? Yeah. When he re-signed with UConn, the NBA teams are coming after him. Cleveland was trying to get him. Remember the Thunder? Now his career's over?

The Thunder. Yeah, the Thunder was trying to get him. So it's done now? It's done. It's over, Johnny. What happened? He is not good who is good are there five good college coaches

six because i watched villanova with nephew kyle the other day and you were jay right they couldn't even do an inbounds pass in the last minute so they for turnovers or near turnovers i think the problem with kevin ollie is he sort of took an NBA mindset to college. And they're very different animals. I mean, I don't need to tell you. I don't need to tell the listeners. But, like, yeah, it's just like a different animal. And you can't really do that.

We make fun of, like, Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullen all the time because you can't. Like, Ewing is more into it, I would say, in his defense. Like, he's actually embracing it. It's hard to believe those didn't work out. There's, like, a thing of, like, guys who just, I don't work there's like there's like a thing of like guys who just i don't know your former player you're like i just show up you know i've been around basketball my whole life i can do this but like college coaching is like yeah you think the cloud of you being there and being a presence is going to affect all these kids but you actually have to literally coach them and get in and actually teach them things you're teaching you're not coaching you're like you're taking

kids that don't know what the hell they're doing have never run like a structured offense in their life because their whole life they've been three inches taller and more athletic just give me the ball everybody yeah and now you have to actually like coach like teach them how to do fundamentals set screens like yeah like stupid things like that and it's hard for like mullen seems like he's very you know i think patrick ewing actually is teaching these things right yeah which is amazing he's trying but it's great for patrick yeah patrick ewing's trying. It's great for Patrick Ewing. Yeah, Patrick Ewing's trying. Mullen's just showing up in a sweatsuit and is like,

I'm Chris Mullen, bitch. It's like, welcome to the garden, baby. Mullen's a good hang, but that can only go so far as a college coach. Yeah, I was saying to you last night that when there is an overqualified college coach, the guy just goes to the NBA. Like Stevens, I don't know like for what stevens has at the celtics versus what's the greatest college basketball job um unc duke yeah kansas would be up there too kansas kentucky's probably number one kentucky's probably number one they have the most

money and like would you rather be the coach of the celt or would you rather run UNC? I'm biased. But you want to deal with one and dones every year? Well, the good news is all that stuff. It depends. I mean, yeah, it depends. Like, it depends if you're, are you a good coach is the question. Because, like, if you're, I would rather be a god if I'm like Roy. If I'm Roy Williams, I'm like a god.

But Brad Stevens has it pretty nice too. I think Brad made the best choice because Butler was going to have to decide if they were going to get in the game and be a top-tier program. Get some bags. Yeah, exactly. And he has a private school, and they would have been fine. And Butler's actually handled it pretty well. Holtman was great at Butler.

He was the perfect guy to come in after Stevens. I don't know how that worked out so well. Could there be two Division I things, not the Premier League, but the one league or the conference or the extended whatever where it's just like Butler and programs like that that we know are okay? And then everyone else is like a free-for-all. It's like Escape from New York. Have the clean programs.

It's like Butler and the Ivy League. They're not even attached to the NCAA. They're just on their own island somewhere. Speaking of college and NBA coaches, how's Billy Donovan doing? I don't pay enough attention. I feel like people want to... He needs to come back to college.

That's my UConn pick. I want him back in college because he's a great college coach. And I feel like the NBA people hate him. Yeah, he's a tweener. Just come back home, Billy. We loved you in college. I want him to come back to UConn.

He's kind of too good for college, but he's not quite good enough in the NBA. Yeah. So he's in no man's land. But I think he's getting paid a lot. But he also coaches the Thunder like a college coach. Like he's very, he'll pull people to the side and try to talk to them. And they're like, all right, dude, it's my job.

Get away from me. Right. Westbrook's like, can you tell the four other guys to stand there and I'm going to try to get a shot? So we have the NBA draft coming up on our Ringer NBA Show podcast draft class every Friday, which you guys are going to make appearances on. The top five right

now. I don't want to talk about Donchich. Donchich. I don't know enough about him. We're watching him on YouTube basically. But you guys both love deandre ayton look deandre is number one yes yeah not even close who would you compare him to um i i'm not good at this i don't know i said young ewing with a better shot oh young

ewing with a jump but i loved young ewing his jump shot is so fluid though like that's the thing he's got perfect form. So we think he's a sure thing. I think his floor is like he'll make a couple all-star teams, at least. I mean, he's 7'3". I don't know. He's chiseled out of stone. It seems like all the players like him and the coaches like him. They said his family's great.

The only thing I can't figure out about him is his defense. He feels like he should be averaging two and a half blocks a game. I'm telling you he doesn't care. That's the one thing that's kind of weird to me. He's not catching lobs and dunking all over people quite as much as he should. But otherwise, he's pretty obviously number one. For the listeners who are NBA fans who also enjoy March Madness and filling out their March Madness pool,

Aiton on Arizona. You'd recommend a test draft. I would recommend watching Arizona for a lot of reasons. Because the Sean Miller day, Arizona's the nobody believes in us team. Arizona, I got your backs, man. I'm right there with you. It's the best three in college

basketball. It really is. By far. It's got everything. It's got the FBI, the number one player in the country. They also have a kid who failed a drug test because he i don't know we know we can get a lot of that tree they had a kid fail a drug test oh yeah i saw that story and then he got cleared and then he like the drug was coming out of a system and he tested again and he failed but it was like the remnants that were still there from like six months ago so they what kind of drug is that it'ser elm spray. It's wild. So Arizona has the adversity stacked against them. I think it's hilarious that Steve Kerr,

Steve Kerr and Popovich are like the great spokesmen of the league right now, and they talk about social issues and stuff like that. And Steve Kerr, who is just a huge Arizona guy, he went there, obviously loves it. And now they're embroiled in this. I keep waiting for him to speak out on it. So we love Aiton.

We love Colin Sexton. Who's going to go like five spots too late. Yeah. What were you saying he was? He was the Kemba guy? He's a Kemba guy. Explain what that is to the listeners. There's a guy.

So pretty much the way, the only way I think individual guys can carry teams to titles is if they have great defenses as well. Yeah. So, like, the formula, I guess, that UConn created with Kimball Walker and Shabazz Napier is, like, just play great team defense and then have this guy you can give the ball to and say, go get us points. And that's how – that's good enough to get it done in NCAA tournament.

Because, like, teams – Score on bad shots. When you fill out your bracket, you get lured into like, oh, wow, this team scores 106 points a game. But the way the NCAA tournament is completely different than NBA. The Warriors can have an off night. There's still a seven-game series. They'll kick your ass the next four games, and now the series is over.

But in the NCAA, you see these hot offensive teams suck. So I always look out for the teams that have like, we play great defense, and we have this one stud who we can give the ball to. And Alabama fits that with Sexton. And Avery Johnson, once upon a time, beat Popovich in a game seven. Yeah. He made the NBA finals.

His team got robbed by the refs. He won, like, 66 games the following year. Like, it's not like he was a bad NBA coach. And they lost to that Warriors team, like the Destin Warriors team, the eighth seed, when they were the one seed. He's another like he was a bad NBA coach. And they lost to that Warriors team, the Destin Warriors team, the eighth seed, when they were the one seed. He's another great hang, by the way. I did a couple of countdowns with him.

He's the greatest guy ever. He had one of my favorite countdown stories. We were going to hang out after a show with Jalen, and then he got some email. He's like, guys, I got to cancel. Popovich is having a team dinner, and I got to go. And it was like he was still on the team. And jay and i and we were so fast and we were like so you're just always the spur he's like yeah i'm still on the team he was like even when he coached with the mavs like they would have

dinner after like that's kind of what we have here at the ringer everyone's on the team well it could be it could be a spur for life thing with colin sexton you know they need a point guard pop has just got avery there you know scouting for him that that the spurs are jalen brunson waiting to happen with like the 24th mortal lock he's gonna go like 20 spots too late um wait what were we talking about draft guys oh yeah draft guys uh mo bamba you guys are down on mo bamba uh i just i understand why people like him um but in watching him through a college lens, it's just, I could do without him. I'm not excited about Mo Bamba.

I see his length, I see his shot blocking, it's like, yeah, I see why you'd be into him. He seems like a great workout guy. He hasn't made an impression on college basketball, but that doesn't mean that he's going to go to the combine of the NBA and everyone's going to say this guy is a physical marvel and he's going to go top five. It doesn't matter. I can't look at any center now without wondering what happens when they're in the NBA and they get switched. To me, that's the number one thing. You throw away every other thing.

It's what happens when you're playing the Warriors and Curry and Zaza get you in a switch and all of a sudden you have to guard Steph and Curry. That would be my fear with Aiden, I guess, is that he's not great at that right now. Tate seems to believe that he just doesn't care. Well, I mean, the defense is Embiid has similar issues, but the Sixers, their defensive ratings and stuff are really good. But in the All-Star game, LeBron's team was just constantly

trying to get Embiid in his switches. It's just the reality of how basketball is played now. I guess you could go with the theory that you give up 25 points but score 30. You're still doing your job. Plus five. That's how I feel. That's why I like Enos Cantor. Yeah.

Well, Enos is the perfect example of that. Enos puts up points, man. He's constantly trying to beat his own man who's scoring on him every time. Who else do you like? Give us some other sleepers. Sleepers. Or in that lottery like like what donovan mitchell guys that i'm high on is like like jaron jackson who i know is not like a sleeper he's in the top five but i really i really really like him um but i think some people have mo bamba over him yeah i would not do that i like jaron jackson michigan state more i like miles bridges by the way he's kind of like people have

he came back he could have been a top 10 pick last year i don't know where he's projected now classic stock yeah classic stock cooled just because he came back for another college he's left-handed carmelo i mean that's like exactly who he is um did you like donovan mitchell last year yeah uh he kind of like patino runs a system a pretty obvious system at louisville and mitchell was good in it but he he was sort of handcuffed a little bit so i'm not gonna lie and say like i saw him being this good but yeah it makes sense to me that he is this good because he was like kind of because that's the other thing with college i could get put in these structures and that's why like right it's why a team that bill self had joelle and beat and andrew wiggins on the same team they lost in the

second round to stanford because like just, I don't know. You run your systems, and you try to fit guys into these. It's a system over players. Yeah, yeah. Who do you like? Anybody else you like, Tate? Well, I like Sexton to be sort of like what Donovan Mitchell was, but luckily he's at Alabama, and they sort of let him have the keys.

I love Sexton. Yeah, Sexton's awesome. I love the fact that I like the way the coaches and the teammates talk about him. I can't believe we've got this far, though, talking about draft guys, and we haven't even talked about Trey yet. Nah.

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Use promo code REGROWTH25 to get 25% off your purchase. That's HairRegrowth.com. Use promo code REGROWTH25 for 25 for 25 off speaking of regrowing how do we regrow trey young's draft stock is this like a markel faults thing that's going on he's the best college guard i ever saw in my life and now he's in his own head it's very is this just what's happening now with basketball where you get so much attention immediately and if one thing goes wrong throw this throw this in with the ESPN hatred from college basketball. Forget the Arizona thing.

The ESPN ruined Trey Young. I feel like I might have ruined him a little bit, too. I had all these crazy hyperbole tweets about him. I don't think I helped. But it's also the thing where he was all over... We need a word for this. It's like a PTSD for being just overexposed. What happened to Johnny Mantel?

What happened to Trey Young? What's happened to markel fultz like all these guys that are all over espn for a little while and then they get their own head and then they're just done yeah i don't know how you avoid it it's not even like he he it doesn't even he just looks like a shell of him for his former he looks like he has no soul in his body anymore he's just like he's not even playing basketball anymore it's it's very sad i got worried that and i was texting you guys that weekend when they played at west virginia yeah and west virginia just had the perfect team to throw at them their crowd's crazy they have an awesome home crowd and they kind of laid down the blueprint for what to do just keep sending dudes in them keep making them work beat

the shit out of them and uh that concerned me, but I didn't see this coming. He looked like Steph Curry for a month. I mean, I guess if you're being optimistic about his pro career, you could make the argument that his teammates in the NBA will probably be better than his teammates in Oklahoma. And have more space. Yeah. So, like, that's part of the problem is, like, people figured out just, you know. We're guarding Trey Young, not Oklahoma.

Yeah. His teammates are not... They were good for a little while, but that's part of it, too. And it's just kind of snowballed into itself. I don't know. It's sad. Tate's convinced he's going to the Cavs at pick six. Six or seven, yeah.

Right around there. Right where LeBron wants him. I thought that Trey Young... You said he was like Steph Curry. I think it's a lot like Steph Curry in 2016 when he came back and everyone was like hitting the shit out of him and he was trying to get over it in his head. He was trying to prove himself he was 100% again. They're doing that to Trae Young.

I don't understand the fascination with trying to find the next Steph Curry. I feel like this is a very... I don't think there's anyone that's going to be like Steph. That's what I mean. It's degrading to Steph to be like, oh, we can fight. Just take the guy that shoots and he's quick. But I do think there's models of that that can – like Damian Lillard, I was watching him last night against Minnesota,

and he's very Steph-ish, just the way they use him. He's not Steph. But there is that model for the really good shooting three-point guard who makes 40% of his threes, who can play slash and kick, and who can take 10 threes a game. I think we're going to keep seeing that guy. He's just not going to be Steph. Right, but I think you see a Trey Young,

you're like, oh, he shoots it from 30 feet, and he's kind of got a quick handle. That's Steph Curry. We have to take him number one now, and it's like, what if he's not all the way there? He reminded me more of steve nash but just with a little step in there but the way he kind of played and ran the game and um that's why i'm not giving up on him i will buy all your trey young stock america yeah yeah i mean

you get them around guys that actually know what they're doing and a coach that like isn't just i don't know tell me he's long kruger but why isn't the. John's kid considered to be one of the best guys in college? Shamari Pons, yeah. That, I mean, he's... Because that guy's fucking awesome. Yeah. And it's in New York, and he's like a point guard in New York, which is the classic. He's really fun to watch.

I guess they don't win. That's part of the problem. But they have two of the most signature wins of the season, which is crazy. I like that guy. Yeah. He's another one I could see the Spurs drafting like, oh, of course. He reminds me of the second round pick that everyone's like, oh, yeah, that guy's going to be great. It's like Draymond, Malcolm Brogdon, like the 36th pick or whatever.

And you're like, oh, this guy's good. Like Sterling Brown last year from SMU. Those guys that come out, you're like, oh, this guy's an NBA player. Yeah, we keep screwing up the draft. Even last year. And we have so much info and we're so good at the stuff now and there are 19 screw-ups like kuzma went to 27 and donovan five guards went before donovan mitchell and it's just the same shit happens every year i wrote about anthony davis

today on the ringer and one of the parts of the piece was just about like there's only been three sure thing number one overall picks in the last 25 years. It was him, LeBron, and forgetting the third. Was it Blake? No. Shaq? No, Duncan. Oh, yeah. I can't even remember my own piece.

Duncan, LeBron, and Davis. And Davis just kind of jumped up a level. Boogie went down and Davis just went up a level. And is more importantly healthy. But you were saying that by far he's the best college basketball one-and-done guy you've ever seen. Yeah, he might be one of the – he had the single greatest college season that I think anybody – I mean he won freshman of the year, defensive player of the year,

national player of the year, Final Four outstanding player. They lost two games that year. One was Vanderbilt, the Kevin Stallings special. The other was a last-second shot at IU. And that Kentucky team, like when it was happening, when they won the national title, I remember thinking like this might be one of the best teams ever. Is this team better than the 96th Kentucky team?

Where do they stack up all time? And now you're looking back on it and you're like, that team wasn't even that good. And they went 38-2 just because of Anthony Davis. And we just assumed. How many people did he get in the first round? Right, yeah. Terrence Jones.

Marcus Teague. Yeah. MKG, number two. Deron Lamb got drafted. I don't know if he went first round, but Der yeah. Terrence Jones. Marcus Teague. MKG, number two. Deron Lamb got drafted. I don't know if he went first round, but Deron Lamb was a shooting guard on there. He was pretty good,

but he was a good college guy. But yeah, he got drafted high and had like a cup of coffee in the NBA. I remember thinking he was going to be good. It's so hard to tell with those Kentucky guys because their offense, they always have a guy like that every year. Well, it's like James Young, Deron Lamb, all those guys that come out

and you're like, oh, that guy's a scorer i want to have him i'm scared monk might have that thing now or i'm losing my mind davis averaged i i want to say it was 4.7 blocks per game yeah so i was i was going crazy house and i were i think we talked about on the pod too a lot but like i just was like who the this fucking guy like i never thought i'd see kevin mckale again and he just was like, who the, this fucking guy. I never thought I'd see Kevin McHale again. And he just seemed like an evolutionary Kevin McHale. But now his ceiling's way higher than that. But the New Orleans had one and Charlotte had two, which was part of what I wrote about today.

And we knew it was a chasm. But when Charlotte took two, like I went back and read my draft diary. I really was happy with that. Yeah. I was like, that's a great pick. That guy's going to be like one of the best defenders in the league. He'll figure it out.

He's such a good athlete. And now I guess he got hurt. So it's not 100% fair. But Bradley Beal was third. And Bradley Beal was young. He was one of those guys. He was like an 18-year-old freshman in college. And everyone was already saying he was going to be Ray Allen.

And it actually happened. He is. Yeah, he's Ray Allen 2.0. But that's still a massive drop-off, even if they had taken Ray Allen. But, man, that is – when you come that close – I was telling you guys last night about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Neil Walk. It was a coin flip. Phoenix and Milwaukee.

And Neil Walk was out of the league in like four years. But when you come that close to somebody and then you don't get them, I don't know how you recover. Odin Duran is a little bit like that too. I mean, it's the reverse of it. Too soon. Portland could have had Duran is a little bit like that, too. I mean, it's the reverse of it. Too soon. Portland could have had Duran. Yeah.

He was sitting there. We knew he was this good. What if you had Lillard, McCollum, Duran? Yeah, maybe. I guess, to me, Lillard was the basketball guy that's doing a make-up call. Yeah. From Brandon Roy. Here's the thing with Odin, though.

He comes along 10 years later with all the stuff we have now. I think he plays for like 20 years. Yeah. For Brandon Roy. Here's the thing with Odin though. If he comes along 10 years later with all this stuff we have now, I think he plays for like 20 years. Yeah. They would have figured out his, the, the, the legs that weren't the same size thing immediately. They would have,

he would have had cushions when he was in the eighth grade and he just would have, he would have been fine. He's the, the thing, I guess I don't, I don't need to rehash the Durant thing. Looking back on that, I don't think anyone thought Durant wasn't going to be this good.

And I think that speaks to how good Greg was. It's not like, oh, wow, Durant's better than we thought. I think everyone knew when Durant was coming out of college, this guy is going to be an MVP. Yeah, he's definitely special he's super special he's a national player and despite of all of that we still believe greg odin is better and that just speaks to like i don't know it also speaks to the signs of the time that a big guy was still going to be the number one pick yeah we're still in the dwight howard world of thinking where if we have a big guy we have to take him number one i know there are a lot of younger listeners that just know greg is like the broken down guy and that's that's like a weird

transition for me to like move into the the older thing and like there are people that don't remember greg being that great but just google it like you can watch it ohio state greg odin mike conley i was team durant that whole year and when the championship game happened and odin was fucking awesome with one hand he had like a broken wrist he had a broken wrist he's going against noah and horford and was just like taking them on one like 27 and 12 or something after that game i was like i fucking love kevin durant but that guy's this guy odin is awesome too um i don't know it comes down to like if you're betting your life on it who could he get 15 years out of yeah versus what's the ceiling of each guy. You ruined me too, by the way. I remember being in college with Greg and all that,

and I'm reading what people are saying about Greg and the draft and stuff. And when you talk about how he'd walk funny and how injury prone, the concept of a guy being injury prone never entered my mind until Greg happened. And I started like, you know, you're making this thing about how his legs are different lengths. I'm like, is that really a thing? Like, are these things that happen? But I guess it speaks to your point that like, you know, you're making this thing about how his legs are different lengths. I'm like, is that really a thing? Like, are these things that happen? But I guess it speaks to your point that like medicine back then, these weren't things that like trainers talk to you about.

It was just like, if you have a sore knee, just throw a pack of ice on it, take some Advil and you'll be fine. I think his generation is the last generation where they couldn't figure that stuff out. And now I think if he comes, look at the guy, like steph curry if he's 10 years earlier i think he plays for six years he's out of the league because i think his ankles completely fall apart and now it's like you read the stories about him and he was having all these ankle issues it was not going to get better but then they they literally retaught him how to walk run they do all these exercises all they did was strengthen his legs for whatever reason we're putting this massive amount of pressure on his ankles and they retrained his

legs how to kind of operate they never would have been able to do that in 2003 right so you know it's a it's too bad i wish we could go back to 06 in a time machine and do a bunch of things but one of the things i would do is grab Odin who's the all time injury what if guy I know this gets brought up a lot Odin's in the discussion but it's isn't Grant? and Penny

I was trying to think of the one Brandon Roy to me it was one that I still can't believe it played out like it did Bernard King's a good one because he was basically putting up 35 a night when he blew out his ACL. For me, the number one, the best guy I ever saw that I just feel like just had bad luck was Penny.

Penny was unbelievable. He was this 6'7 point guard who was like he really could have been a cross between like magic johnson and three other people and he was in the finals when he was like 20 yeah and he was he was or 21 he was just so good grand hill was another one grand hill was amazing in the grand hill he's a couple late 90s years where you just look at this stature like oh wow that guy was putting up 26 9 and 8 you know there's this great interview i was watching jordan in 96 and this is when he's coming back to basketball and they ask him who like the the next jordan is and he and he goes penny hard away and

if it's not penny i'll give it to scotty if it's not scotty i'll give it to grant and it's like you know scotty's his teammate right and then it's like they tried they really tried to make grant happen so there's a little backlash and this was pre-internet too but it was like uh everyone was so on that next jordan corner and what's funny is you know that was the first year i had my website i went all in on kobe yeah i was like that's the guy it's gonna be kobe this guy this guy's special in the first couple years of years, I have all these pro Kobe comments. They got it out of the internet. By the way,

that's one of the refreshing things as a guy who kind of observed the NBA from afar and just pops in every so often to watch games. I like that people don't seem to be trying to find the net. I mean, we just brought up the next Steph, but there's not a universal. I remember growing up, up until basically Kobe hit his peak,

it was who's the next Jordan? And that was it that's all anyone cared about was like is this guy like you just take any good guy you're like is is kevin durant the next jordan and you're like no he doesn't even look like what are you talking about it's really ridiculous um but now we've reached a point where it feels like there is he the next lebron is he the next steph is he the next durant the next you know and like you have like have six or seven guys that you kind of do the next thing with. So that's kind of cool, I guess. Yeah, I agree. But I think that, Tate, you better sit down for this one.

I think that speaks to how great Michael Jordan was. Oh, God. We were so nervous. Here we go. We were so nervous about life after MJ that we were like, how are we going to replace this God that's passed through our lives? I see what's happening. We're not doing that with LeBron.

The greatest athlete of the 20th century. You bring the Ohioan in here so you can double team him two on one here. My problem with you guys talking about LeBron and Jordan is that you're never, I guess Tate sort of is because you're a Carolina guy, but you're never praising Jordan. Oh, I'm always praising Jordan. There's always the takedown of LeBron. No. But the irony is Tate blindly and unconditionally loves Jordan

the same way I love my dad. Right. He does. He absolutely does. But he's a Charlotte Hornets fan, and Jordan has completely destroyed the Hornets over the last 10 years. He's been one of the least successful owners we have, and Tate's pretending this is happening in an alternate universe.

He's like, oh, you know, he's had some wins, too, and some good stuff. He's trying. He's trying. That's a good one. He's trying. That's a good one. He's trying. I just love that he's an owner.

Kevin Olley, he's trying at UConn. He's trying. I think the problem is, and every time this comes up, you think it's, I'm trying to put down LeBron. I don't think it's fair LeBron has to get compared to MJ,

which we've said multiple times. Yeah. And I think that LeBron should be compared to Kareem, which is a much more flattering comparison. He should be,

Kareem and Karl Malone should be the comparisons right now. But you also, you're scared to like compliment LeBron because then he starts infringing on Jordan's.

When they beat the Warriors, when they beat the 73-9 Warriors, that was the first time I ever conceded that LeBron could eclipse Jordan in some capacity. But the Warriors are a dynasty. There were no other dynasties during Jordan's time. LeBron's most Jordan-esque play, do you know what it was? The most Jordan-like moment of his career. Game 6 in Boston when they were down. That was good, but no. that's in the top four what about the pistons game when he was like

the younger lebron also good but no it was goading it was goading draymond into punching him in the nuts because watching that game and i remember i watched that in kimmel's office with sal and we had this big warriors bet and that game was going and it became clear the Warriors were going to win. And we were talking about it in the office. I guarantee they're going to try to get Draymond on this extra thing. And they were clearly trying to figure out how to goad him. And stupid Draymond finally got goaded and hit LeBron in the nuts. And LeBron, that was like a genius Jordan-like move.

Yeah, that's something Jordan or Kobe would do. Jordan would have totally done that. So Kobe would have done it too. That's the extra gene. Anything to win. Hey, let's talk about Wink. My wife loves wine. She loves whining about my faults.

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check that out try wink.com slash bs all right we're gonna call kevin clark he is at the combine in titus's homeland indiana all right on the phone right now, Kevin Clark from The Ringer, The Ringer NFL Show, and from Orlando, in that order. Right now he is in Indiana for the NFL Combine, and we thought we would call you because, not just because Titus is from Indiana, but because it's America's heartland. It's the real capital of the United States. It's the basketball capital of the world.

I love Indiana. What's it like in Indiana, Clark? Titus, why are there so many steakhouses in Indianapolis? There's nothing else to eat there. That's what we eat. We eat meat and potatoes. It's literally all they have is tunnels to take you from building to building, and then the only thing in the buildings are steakhouses.

I remember I was there for the Super Bowl for a week, and I was trying to eat super healthy. Obviously, it's almost impossible in Indiana. There was an Au Bon Pan like three blocks from our hotel, and I would just walk to this Au Bon Pan every day to get soup. I remember when you were there for the Heat, when you were working for ESPN and the Heat Pasture Series. Oh yeah, I took you to dinner.

Yeah, you were like, let's go to dinner. And you kept asking me choices and I was like, no, we don't have that here. Yeah, I was like, give this, get healthy. What do you have? No, we don't have that. We have steak and cigarettes. We can go to Steak and Shake right by the mall. Steak, cigarettes, and sports bars. So what's going on at the Combine, Clark? What are they talking about?

Well, no one actually, the Combine at this point is sort of overrated because none of the GMs or the coaches have actually watched many of the prospects. So if you ask them anything, like Anthony Lynn was asked about Lamar Jackson yesterday, and he was basically like, yeah, I saw him on TV a couple times. So they're kind of just hanging out. It's kind of a fraternity reunion. That's what happens in the early few days of the combine. That's what's going on right now.

It's a booze cruise. Yeah, it sounds like the Summer League in Vegas. There's kind of a purpose, but not really. Is there NFL scuttlebutt? Are there things going on, things happening, things you're hearing? Well, yeah, so Saquon Barkley just jumped 41 inches in the air which seems impossible wow and like he's going to be this year's most intriguing prospect and that's people are kind of freaking out about it because the last couple years I mean I think the Cowboys

probably wish they drafted Jalen Ramsey instead of Zeke Elliott and you know Leonard Fournette went out of the Jaguars lineup last year and it it didn't have a huge impact on them. So I kind of think the jury's out right now on running backs in the top five. But Barkley might be just an actual generational talent. And I think I've heard a lot of teams say that. And so I think that's going to be the big debate now. And aside from the quarterbacks, which is anybody's guess at this point. But the scuttlebutt, I mean, it's all over the place. No one knows where Kirk Cousins is going to sign,

and everyone has a different conspiracy theory. So that's basically all anyone talks about. I am on record, and I'm going to even double down on being on the record. I think Barkley has a real chance to go first to the Browns because they can still get a quarterback at four. Right. Titus. Titus, isn't that the move?

You have the fourth pick. There are all these quarterbacks left take the generational running back at one i think that's what the the the browns fans want because you know the the the cleveland people we we were the ohio people we saw so guan barkley we saw him play at penn state because you know ohio state penn state big 10 stuff yeah i think that's what the browns fans want is that and then you have him and miles garrett that's a that's a nice start to a franchise. So that means they'll definitely not. That means they'll trade down and take like three quarterbacks with all their picks. I'm anti-running back in the top five, but I am not anti-generational talent in the top

one. Like if this guy's that good, you got to do it. I have something to say about the Browns. I know a guy who knows things, as you would say, was with someone who works for Cleveland a couple nights ago. And the guy wasn't a decision maker, but he was in the building. And that guy just threw out the idea that the Browns should just take two quarterbacks with the top four picks.

I almost did a mailbag thing about this because I got an email about it because people were saying the guy who emailed me said, you have a 50% chance of striking oil with a quarterback in the top five, right? And he was like, why not just take two and hope you hit with one of the two? Your odds are 50%. I'm in. I like this idea. No, stop it.

I'm not even a Browns fan. I'm not even really a football fan, if we're being honest. But living in Ohio, it just seeps into you. You cannot avoid just the Browns misery. Are they just making decisions to – I feel like the only reason they're drafting quarterbacks at this point is to add to that long jersey that they have in that window at the store where they have every quarterback in the last six years that have played here.

Is that a store? That's in the store? They have this jersey where they bought – I forget who it was, Tim Couch or something, and then they cross out his name and they write the next starter. At this point, on the mannequin, it's all the way down to his ankles because they just keep adding names.

I think that feels like what the Browns' plan is. It's just screw winning games. Let's just add names to this list. It's like a list of the people in the Trump administration, just like 100 people who just cycled through. I remember I was at Grantland. It must've been four years ago when they had some terrible quarterback starting and the cleveland.com ran a poll of who's the best Browns quarterback in Browns history.

And they had all the choices. And I think Tim couch one, but it was like 12 guys received votes, but they were guys like Colt McCoy and Seneca Wallace. And it was amazing. It was like a non-ironic poll. Yep. Brian Hoyer, I think, was the quarterback that got me into, like I watched three Browns games in a row. It was Brian Hoyer, right?

And then he blew out his ACL. Then I was like, all right, I'm back to not watching the Browns anymore. The one guy who seemed relatively competent was Derek Anderson. He had one year where he was kind of flinging it around. Pro bowler. Yeah. 2007. He was maybe slightly above average, which is the best they've ever done.

But yeah, I mean, I would take Barkley, one, and know that I got a great guy. And then you just roll the dice at four. Like, nobody seems to – Clark, nobody seems to know which one of these quarterbacks is the best quarterback, and all of them have bus potential, right? So everyone seems to say it's Sam Darnold, but I think that's only because it's the consensus for somebody else. Like, I haven't heard anyone say Sam Darnold is the best quarterback in the draft. I've heard everybody say that they heard that Sam D darnold is the best quarterback in the draft i've heard everybody say that they heard that sam darnold's the best quarterback in the draft it's kind of like a the snake it's a snake eating itself right like so i i don't know i just don't

think these guys are evaluated enough i i would guess it's probably going to be darnold the first guy off the board but who knows i mean like i baker may feel i don't think baker mayfield's going to be the first guy off but like there's, there's a huge variance in where he could go. Lamar Jackson, I mean, some teams apparently want to see him a wide receiver, and some teams might think he's a first-round pick. So I don't remember a quarterback batch with this many questions going into the combine. I like when they're picking the quarterbacks apart, and it's like, Baker Mayfield, short arms. I always think about, like like what it'd be like

if you were baker mayfield you're reading this stuff you're like god are my arms really that short like you're developing a complex about it you're standing in front of a full-length mirror like i they don't seem that short you're just losing your mind do we have hand size hand size is a big one too like could you imagine just not knowing you had small hands until you got to the combine? Yeah. I found out yesterday on Bachelor Party with Julie Lipman that the Bachelor are a huge hands, apparently. So he would have done well at the combine.

What were you going to say, Titus? I said, is there any story? I'm always fascinated at the combine with the just absurdities that the GMs are asking the players. It was Des Bryant that got asked about his mom, right? That's the famous one? Yeah. Do we have any stories like that this year? We do. asking the players. It was Des Bryant that got asked about his mom, right? That's the famous one? Yeah.

Do we have any stories like that this year? We do. So a Scarborough, the Alabama running back, was asked if God is an Auburn fan. What does that even mean? I'll answer that. No. Nope. How is that a question?

I think sometimes they like to throw just insane curveballs to see what would happen. You know, because so last year, Tyler Boyd, the receiver, said that the Bengals just asked him about the Civil War. Like, I just think that sometimes they just like to throw out questions. Make people uncomfortable. Yeah. What a great idea. There's also the stories about them finding the worst thing they could find that would absolutely make a guy angry.

A quarterback revealed a couple years ago that there were a bunch of questions about his parents' divorce and stuff. So they really just – it's a psychological test more than anything. They just want to see if you're going to blow up at anything. That's what I did when I was interviewing Tate in my driveway before I decided to hire Tate. I just started besmirching Michael Jordan and Roy Williams and asking about the academic scandal,

just trying to push his buttons. He handled it perfectly. Can we talk about the St. Elmo's shrimp? Yeah. We went there last night. Yeah, I mean, I logged my fair share of time in indiana and everybody's like san elmo's gotta go to san elmo's hardest place to get over there it's fine it's solid i've been there once in my life it's fine i've been there one good restaurant

yeah it's okay it's a good example of i but like when you're in indiana how is shrimp your specialty that's where where are the oceans in indiana that they're dragging the shrimp out of it's the one restaurant that indiana like all the hoosiers got together and we're like what do people outside of the midwest like and we couldn't figure it out no one really knows because all we eat again is meat and potatoes maybe a side of bread if we're feeling really hungry and someone was like like, we could maybe do shrimp, I guess. And do people like shrimp? Is that a thing?

Yeah, let's do that. And then St. Elmo's got exalted as the restaurant that everyone that's coming in should go eat to. I've eaten there once in my life, and I've lived in Indiana for 18 years. Good cocktail sauce. They figured out the cocktail sauce. It's almost pure horseradish and cocktail sauce.

That's all it is. There's barely any shrimp in there. They just made it as spicy as possible. It's a good example of just an Indiana resident's idea of just a great restaurant. It has everything in it. It has the steak. It has the weird fish for some reason.

And so, yeah, when we were there last night, we did not consider it particularly special. Do you guys want to bury the hatchet about this Victor Oladipo thing? Clark has Victor Oladipo for a couple years. His stupid GM gives him away. Oladipo spends a year in the OKC Penitentiary being frozen up by Westbrook. Goes to Indiana. And Titus explains this on my podcast as this is great.

They're just going after Indiana guys. Indiana people just want to watch people who went to Indiana. That's all we want. And Oladipo turns into one of the best 12, 15 guys in the league. And now, Clark, you had this guy who was this all-NBA guy, basically, on your team that you gave away for somebody who's not on your team anymore. Do you want to talk about it? Sure.

So I was in an Uber the other day, and the Uber driver randomly started talking about how much they loved Victor Oladipo, and I was too upset to talk. I probably got like a two-star rating because I just didn't respond. Just with catatonic. Orlando, you go back, and it's like Victor Oladipo, Aaron Gordon. Who else was on that team?

Moe Harkless. Alfred Payton, who's actually been pretty good on Phoenix. They had some decent pieces three years ago. Alfred Payton really was a destructive pick because his lack of shooting sort of poisoned

Rob Hennigan's brain and broke his brain and basically just said, OK, well, we got to fix the fact we have a non-shooting point guard. So what do you do? You get rid of the guy who's not a knockdown shooter who's next to him in the backcourt in Oladipo. I think that was a lot of it. You can keep Oladipo as long as you have a point guard who can make threes or whatever. And so I think that they committed so hard to making Tatum work that they basically broke their franchise.

I mean, there's a couple of... Well, you know why, though? You left out the reason why. Because they traded an extra pick to get Alfred Payton. Yeah. Which ended up being Sarge, who's really good. Oof. Yeah.

I mean, the Magic looks... Even before the trade, it looked so much better when it was just DJ Augusta, and they just didn't, I mean, Peyton was a ball stopper. He obviously couldn't shoot. His vision was overrated. I mean, I just, like 80% of my frustration with the Magic over the past two years was just Peyton

and all the decisions they made to protect him. And his hair. Well, I think this is good because I like when the Indiana Pacers have a good basketball team. I like when people in Indiana are happy. And now they have this team they can rally behind. And to me, the more Indiana guys, the better. I think they should get all of them. I've always wanted to see a team do this.

By the way, this is kind of what Charlotte should do. Charlotte has to do it too. Yeah. You just get all UNC guys. They've been doing that. You just place a premium. Just get all of them, though. You didn't get do it too. Yeah. You just get all UNC guys. They've been doing that. You just place a premium. They've been doing that. Just get all of them though.

You didn't get enough of them. You didn't get the right ones yet. We're okay. We need a good one. We need Joe Barry. Get him on the team next year. We don't need John Henson for $50 million. No, get him.

Get all those dudes. You know, there's been rumblings every couple years that Magic might just start selling out and trying to get Gators, which actually wouldn't be a bad strategy either. Yeah. Especially five years ago. You're down at Horford, Noah, you can get Chandler Parsons.

Get Noah's available. Get him now. That's the way to do it too. The players love it because like Oladipo, even if Oladipo for some reason just, he becomes like a guy in Space Jam and loses all his talent. He just sucks. And just overnight, he's terrible.

People in Indiana are always going to love him because they're always going to remember how he took the Hoosiers to a number one ranking. He the program back which you know Indiana is now missing by the way this year this is the case for trading for Cody Zeller too yeah and and they will available it does it does not matter what you do to on the Pacers you know like you just remember the the one time he almost caught a lob at his ankles against Michigan like these are the things that people remember and everything you do for the Pacers is just gravy. So like, honestly

he's already the most popular Pacer since Reggie Miller. That's amazing. It seems crazy to me to say it. And he loves it. He loves being there. I think he might be able to surpass Reggie if he just stays there for the next 10 years or whatever. Did you guys know that he loved Indiana so much? He loves Indiana so much. When he was on the Magic and he would

play a road game, before the game he would meet with the local alumni club at the arena. Wow. I'm not making that up. He would meet with the IU chapter in Houston before they played the Rockets. That's awesome. Love it. He is all in on Indiana. So the dream for Indiana is they get Cody Zeller

and then they trade four first-round picks for Brad Stevens yes you get how many first-round picks would Indiana trade for Brad Stevens conceivably with the most that's ever been in a trade yeah they would do seven first-round picks whatever it takes whatever it takes you get like get an aging Mike Conley you know he's he's get him on the tail of his career available he available. He'll be, yep, the Grizzlies will be wanting to hit the reset button. Wait,

dude, Indiana doesn't have a point guard. That actually kind of makes sense. to Indiana. Yeah, I'm on this.

This is great. I love, see, Orlando doesn't have to do this because they're in Florida which is one of like five teams

where you're not paying state income tax and they should have a massive advantage getting talent and for some reason only Miami is the Florida team that gets people because of that but Indiana has no advantage. talent. And for some reason, only Miami is the Florida team

that gets people because of that. But Indiana has no advantage. Never. They're in Indiana. Never signed a free agent, I don't think, in history. I don't think it's ever happened. And what's weird is players either don't really like it there or they love it there.

Like Jalen loved it there and allegedly lived on a lake. Listen, Bill, in 49 states, it's just basketball. I know. I know, man. You're talking to the guy who wanted to put the Basketball Hall of Fame in Indiana after I blew it up. Rebuild it in French Lick. How far is French Lick from Indiana? You don't want to rebuild it in French Lick.

You don't want to do that. Maybe we can rebuild French Lick. All right, Clark, you're writing every day from the combine, right? Yeah. Enough. Enough. Not every day, but enough of the days. All right.

China? Either Danny, Robert are filing every day. And you had Danny Kelly try to oysters? So last year, Danny Kelly had never had French onion soup, which is a very bizarre blind spot. And so this year I asked him what else he hadn't had. He said oysters. So we went to a weird dive bar, had some oysters.

It was pretty shady, the bar we went to, so he's been on food poisoning watch for two days. I think he's out of the woods. Well, you'll be happy to know that at the commissary here at Sunset Gower, oxtail soup was on the menu for four straight days, and I'm not sure if it's been available for a fifth, but by the time you come back, we might all be dead. It's unclear how it's going to play out.

Clark, when are you on Ringer NFL show next? We have an episode that's coming out Friday, and then we have one next week in which we'll wrap up the combine. All right, great. Yeah, it'll be good. Thanks for coming on. Don't inhale too much secondhand smoke. Thanks, guys. Enjoy the NDC, buddy.

We hit almost everything, but before we go, because you guys got to prepare for your podcast too, let's do quickly the best odds right now that you like for March Madness. You have them. I'm going to have them.

Give me three teams, and I'll throw some odds at you. I feel like Kentucky would be interesting. But, no, they're going to have – see, I don't know how Vegas works. I don't gamble. I'm smart enough to not gamble on this stuff. That's great. But Kentucky's, like, ranked low, but they're getting hot right now. Yeah, I think Kentucky's odds are probably shooting up.

They're probably, like, 20-1 or something like that. I'm trying to think of the teams that are... I have a huge sleeper, but I want to see what the odds are before I give it out. I got it right now. Hold on. NCAA Championship. Kentucky.

35-1. That's interesting to me. What do you got, Tate? NC State. The miracle of all miracles. to one. That's interesting to me. Okay, what do you got, Tate? NC State. NC State. The miracle of all miracles. NC State. 80 to one. I love it.

It feels like a weird year like that where there aren't any good teams and some team gets hot in the tournament. What about Michigan? They're interesting to me as well. Michigan's a team that the thing about this year 28 to 1 michigan has better odds in kentucky yeah see vegas knows vegas knows yeah vegas is kind of those are three great long shots

anytime you get a long shot for more than 25 kentucky is like i mean the vibe with kentucky is like this might be the 2014 team that struggled all year, but then sort of put it together at the end. They have, how many first rounders on their team?

Three at least? Yeah, at least three. Nobody believes in us, Arizona, 15 to 1. 15? 15.

That's a really good one. I wish it was worse though. I wish it was like 25 to 1. Yeah, that should be worse. And then, though. I wish it was like 25-1. Yeah, that should be worse. And then Alabama. Amy? 300-1.

Ooh. Colin Sexton, baby. Alabama's going to be what, like an 8 or a 9 seed? Yeah, I think they'll play a 1 seed in the second round. Why are they 300-1? That doesn't make sense. Just because they have to play a 1 seed in the second round. The dream Alabama scenario is they play like, they've already played Oklahoma this year, so they have to play a one seed in the second round. The dream Alabama scenario is they play like –

they've already played Oklahoma this year, so they're not going to play Oklahoma in the first round because they can't do that. But I don't know who they would play in the first round. Oh, you mean their nine seed? Yeah, like if they're an eight or nine seed. But the dream is like they get Xavier. Xavier gets a one seed.

They play Xavier in the second round, beat him, and then now they become the one seed. They just like inherit the one seed. How about the Bonneys at 500 to one? No? I like 500 to one. I like 500, yeah. My wife, the worst sports fan ever who went to St. Bonaventure's,

like the other day, she's like, Hey, do you know St. Bonaventure's is good at basketball this year? I'm like, yeah. What's Holy Cross? Holy this year I'm like yeah what is what's Holy Cross Holy Cross I'm scrolling I'm scrolling the Holy Cross

C words UConn UConn looks like they're 5,000 to 1 I wouldn't tell you stay away stay away from that one they're not even

going to make the NIT Holy Cross isn't even on here what is what's Ohio State? They're actually interstate. I'm super biased, but I feel like their odds would be terrible. I feel like they're like 20-1.

Ohio State is 25-1. They have better odds than Kentucky. See, I don't understand Vegas at all. Kentucky's the pick for me then. Because if Kentucky is really that low, I think they're better than 35-1. Yeah, but then you're betting on Coach Calipari successfully coaching seven straight games, which I'm not a believer. What's Missouri?

Wichita State, 60 to 1. I don't trust that Wichita team. Missouri is 50 to 1. That's a good one. If Michael Porter comes back, then they're a problem. Who has won the tournament without a top seven lottery pick in the last couple years? Villanova. Villanova villanova

two years ago two years ago uh yukon 2014 but villanova still had although they still had blue chippers on that team bridges yeah bridges will be a top team pick they just had young future guys um brunson and bridges yeah trying to think of who else why is Auburn 30-1 stay away from that yeah stay away from Auburn who thinks Auburn's

going to win the national basketball title Auburn's been tough to figure out because they're are they leading the SEC are they going to win the SEC yeah

but a lot of people are mad at us because we haven't talked about them but they're two best players going into the season or two pivotal players were held out

also they're cheating their asses off it's like it's gonna get vacated anyway so it's like hard to get excited about anything they're doing because my dudes at the bruce pearl special my dudes at west virginia are 25 to 1 yeah see that's it that's a final four team that's i feel like they're a fucking veteran backcourt team that's an interesting pick backcourt that knows what the hell they're doing i still like bob h, though. Bob Huggins wearing big sweaters. Every single team you've listed has better odds than Kentucky, so I don't know. Alright. Listen to

OneShiny Podcast. We're going to be doing a whole bunch of stuff next five weeks. Check out our Instagram. Ring our Instagram. You guys will be instant reacting after some of these games. You've got Big Ten tournament this weekend. We're going to be messing around with that. Are there Big Ten tournament odds? I didn't even look.

Hold on. Before we go. Michigan State's playing right now. Oh, conference tournaments. Yeah. Oh, no. Do you care about the West Coast conference? It's just St. Mary's-Gonzaga.

It always has been. Gonzaga's trying to move to the Mountain West. Gonzaga minus 250, St. Mary's plus 150. San Francisco, 20 to 1. There you go. That's the pick. The Dons. Pick the Dons.

The field is 100 to 1. One Shiny Podcast. Subscribe to that. Follow those guys on that podcast, on their Twitter feeds, at Club Trillion, at Tate Frazier, and on our Instagram, which is The Ringer's Instagram. Thanks to ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. My listeners can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com.

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But yeah, they're going to be reacting. I don't know how we topped La La Land versus Moonlight in that fiasco last year, but we'll see how it goes. Enjoy the weekend. Go Tudela. On the wayside I'm a person never lost And I don't have to ever forget