The Bill Simmons Podcast - Steph Saves America With Doc Rivers, Plus Five Favorite Fantasy Football Targets With Craig Horlbeck and Joe House

Episode Date: August 11, 2024

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers to discuss Team USA beating France in the gold medal game, Steph Curry's incredible shooting performance, LeBron's brilliant play style, the unsung Olympic hero Devin Booker, the uber-exciting Serbia-USA matchup, an encouraging Victor Wembanyama showcase, and more (1:56). Then Bill talks with Joe House and Craig Horlbeck about their five favorite fantasy football targets for the 2024-25 season (59:21). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Doc Rivers, Joe House, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was the biggest Hollywood heist of all time. In November 2014, hackers sabotaged Sony Pictures, releasing nearly 200,000 stolen emails and internal documents. And weeks later, they threatened to blow up theaters, showing The Interview, a Sony comedy about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The incident would entangle the White House, the FBI, and multiple superpowers, scandalize some of the biggest names in show showbiz and forced Hollywood to undergo one of the most painful cultural, creative, and technological transformations in its century-long history.

Brian Raftery talked to former Sony employees, cybersecurity experts, and media experts, including our friend Matt Bellany. It's for a podcast that we're calling The Hollywood Hack. And you can find it on the Big Picture feed later this month. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey. And it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday Night Hockey

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night. I'm not on this one. It is going to be the Grand Budapest Hotel, and you can eventually watch that on Ringer Movies, our YouTube channel. As well, you can watch everything from this podcast on Bill Simmons' YouTube channel. Coming up, we're going to talk about the big gold medal game, USA at France. Not USA versus France, USA at France. Our old friend Doc Rivers is going to come on to break down the game with us. And then after that, Craig Horlbeck joined me and Joe House. We taped it Thursday. We did five favorites.

Craig's five favorite fantasy targets for the 2024 NFL season. This is an Olympic caliber podcast. It's all next. First, our friends from ProJet. All right, taping this a little before 6 o'clock Eastern time. Just watched USA beat France in the gold medal game. Doc Rivers was there for a couple of the early round games, but this seemed like we were headed toward the LeBron, this whole thing

and Curry had this big game against Serbia down the stretch. And then four threes down the stretch against a frisky France team. And it became one of the greatest moments of his career, including the last three that he hit. I think might have been the best three I've ever seen him hit.

He was being double teamed. End of the shot clock flings it up. But I mean, you can't be surprised by this shit anymore, but this has to be way up there for him. Right. Where would you put it? Yeah. Yeah. One, one, when you, the significance, um, you know, the game in Boston, uh, the closeout game where, I mean, that's a world championship or NBA championship. I don't want, what is it, Noah Lyle to get mad at me. So, you know, but when you think about it on this stage, Bill, he makes those shots with what he has on the floor. You know, he has Kevin Durant. He has all these guys around him and they were watching him play at the very end.

And it's, you know, I thought it was really cool watching Devin Booker and all the guys on the sideline doing the shot, earshot, like as a kid. That's how impressed they were. It was awesome to watch. I mean, he just took the game over, took the last two games over. Well, if you drew up the Olympics beforehand and you're like, here's what we're doing. We're going to have all the best young guys here, but we're also going to have LeBron

because he's 39. We're going to have Curry who has been in the limelight in two years. And we're going to have KD who hasn't really had a big playoff moment in the last five years, but is the best Olympic basketball player I've ever had. We're actually going to build the team

around these three older guys and keep our fingers crossed that all of them have moments down the stretch of the medal rounds. And it happened. LeBron had the car keys for the whole tournament. KD hit some big shots, had the biggest shot of the Serbia game. And Steph was kind of the closer both times, but just as a pure basketball fan. I mean, watching those guys have been in the league for so long, these superstars, but watching the LeBron Curry, that little pick and roll play, they ran at the top. Where does that rank for you for craziest, most unstoppable? Like, what do you do? What's this? What, what is the defense supposed to do on that play? You know, it was so funny. I was sitting there cause I, you know, I watched the game as a, as a fan, but I'm, I'm a coach and

you can't get it out of you. You know, the Lakers with Darwin ran a lot of that pick and roll with Reeves. Right. And it was really good because Reeves was such a great roller. He could slip out and roll. LeBron would roll. But with Curry, that's a whole different ballgame. They didn't want to switch it.

They kept switching it. The first thing, I would have put a guard on LeBron because they had a bigger guy on LeBron. Just because you knew it was coming, at least a guard guard, you have a fighting chance to guard Steph. And if they get it to LeBron, he's inside the two of you, live with it. But man, is it a hard play to guard. It's funny, a lot of things stood out in this whole run by the Olympic team. But what stands out to me every time, Bill, and you kind of hit on it, is the old guard. The young guys, if you remember in the early rounds, Anthony Edwards was the leading scorer and all the young guys were the dominant players.

And the old guys kind of sat around and like, you know, enjoy. But when it came to winning time, it all changed. They couldn't get it quick enough into Steph's hands, into Katie's hands, into LeBron's hands. I remember the first Olympic that they won back after we had lost a couple, the same thing happened, but LeBron and Waite were young. And then at the very end of the Olympics, Kobe saved the day.

He was the vet, and they gave it to him. Save us, please. That's how this felt as well. The other thing, and I've said this probably LeBron's entire career, if LeBron could just be a point guard, how good he would be. And in the Olympics, he basically was just the point guard. You know, that was his position. He played point guard for most of the Olympics. His passing and his basketball IQ, it just set everything up for everyone.

He was amazing. The last thing, and I think the unsung hero in the entire Olympics was Devin Booker. I don't think he got enough credit because he picked up full court every second he was on the floor. I thought he was the difference-making Serbian with his ball pressure. As a matter of fact, I thought the U.S., the difference in the game against Serbia and the difference tonight is the guard play and the U.S. ability to pressure the ball and turn the ball and get teams out of their offense.

But that was my take just watching them all. KD is a different player, man, when he plays with all these other guys. He doesn't force much. He kind of lets it come to him. And the last thing is a lot of guys will benefit from this. You know, Joel Embiid, who I thought struggled and was on and off, up and down in this with the Olympics,

will be a better player. All of them will be better players. All the young guys. Anthony Edwards will be a better player. Because, number one, I don't care where you win. When you win, you learn a lot of stuff. You learn, number one, how hard it is. And I think they will all take that back to their teams and all they will all understand winning is hard and a lot of stuff has to go right. I mean, think about the game against Serbia. Serbia has the ball wide open up to with 54 seconds left,

and they missed that three. If they make that three, we're in trouble. You know, it just tells you how many things have to go right to win a game. Even when you're that good, things still have to go right for you. Yeah, you called it winning time. I call it nut crunch time. You had a lot of good stuff there. I'm going to try to unpack a couple of things.

The LeBron point, which I talked about a couple of podcasts ago, but I want your take on it. So, you know, when he's coming in the league and then that the 2000s and it's like, here's a guy, there's some magic in here. There's some Dr. J and there's some Jordan. It's like, and he's kind of a hybrid of all these guys, but there's a lot of magic here. Where, where is this going to go? And then eventually he became a hybrid of a whole bunch of different people and he formed his own style, but there was always that magic piece. They were like, hey, it would have been really interesting just if you just reset his career and watched him just go the magic way. The way he played, or at least tried to play, especially in the middle rounds, was kind of early mid-80s magic before Kareem got older. Magic had to be the go-to guy. You know what I mean? He was facilitators, trying to push the ball,

trying to constantly attack, but was okay not having the scoring burden. And it's just an interesting what if, because this is also the guy who leads the league in the history for points. And it's like, hey, here's this other thing he could have done. It actually made me more amazed by the career he's had. Yeah, he's had the greatest career.

I say it all the time. Obviously, I feel Michael is the greatest player, but that doesn't matter. It's not taking anything away from LeBron. But I don't think anyone's going to have a career, maybe in our lifetime, like LeBron. I don't see it coming. Now, guys are playing longer, but know, but can they stay healthy?

That's been LeBron's thing. Not only has he been healthy, he's been healthy, and he has not lost a step. He's not lost anything. Only thing he loses is energy in games. You can see there's times he's tired. Yeah, he had like four turnovers in the second half. I thought he kind of shot his wad in the first half.

Yeah, but that's called being 40 playing NBA basketball. No one else has done it. Yeah. Yeah. So you had that piece. Then you had this Curry piece where they tried to make trades all summer. I know you're coaching the Bucs, so it's hard for you to talk about other teams, but they were pretty aggressively trying to improve the team because I think they know they have a window with this guy, right? And some trades fell through and now they have a lot of different assets and it's clear that they're going to wait until December, January range. LeBron's been in the same situation with the Lakers for the last couple of years where on the one hand, you have these future picks and a guy's older. It's like,

how much do we sacrifice for this little tiny window? But on the other hand, you watch basketball, like we watched the last two weeks. And I didn't think LeBron was one of the best 10 players in the league anymore. Now I've had to reevaluate that because you're watching all these guys together. You're like,

well, how is he not like, like these games, the more pressure that comes, you said it earlier. It's like, I trust KD. I trust Curry.

I trust LeBron. Like it's just, it moves into this different class. So if you're the Lakers now, I trust KD. I trust Curry. I trust LeBron. Like it's just, it moves into this different class. So if you're the Lakers now, I have to think, all right, what do we do here? And same thing for the Warriors, right? Like you still have these guys that are magical. I mean, all of us, listen, Bill, I've coached for 24 years. I know, I think I've coached for 24 years. You don't have a lot of real opportunities to win. You just don't. And when you have one, you have to seize the day, not only with your staff,

coaching staff and with the players, but with the front office, you have to. Because Steph has, I don't know, three more years, two more years, Who knows? LeBron, every year, each year he could retire. But right now, he's still one of the best players in the NBA. Think about the Lakers right now. It was funny. I was at a party last week in LA and they were talking about the Lakers. And they said, man, the Lakers, I don't know. I said, I know one thing. You give me the two best players, two of the top 10 players in NBA. You have something. You always do. It makes everybody else around you. And kudos to Anthony Davis. Like, something's happened, Bill. I'm not sure what it is. But over the last year and a half, he plays more games. He's playing big games. He's healthy. He's consistently engaged as a rebounder, defensive player, which is, I think that was the nitpick.

It's like, can you do this? Are you falling down again? Like what? But it's just, it's there. I see it too. I mean, today he didn't get the ball once. He just got the ball when someone missed. He had four of the six blocked shots.

He's been fantastic in his whole attitude. He had six offensive rebounds. Yeah, yeah, and that's what he does. And he's become that dominant Anthony Davis again. So when you're the Lakers, you're looking at, I have those two. Now when you look at Golden State, you have Steph Curry. Draymond is one of the smartest players. That's the other thing we don't give players enough credit for, Bill.

And sometimes I remember Kevin McHale saying it when he was way old, maybe his last career. And he said, the thing about my age now is I see everything that I can do. I just can't do anything about it. But right now, you have a group of older guys who they're light years ahead mentally, and they can still do something about it. That's what makes Steph so dangerous. That's what makes KD so dangerous.

And that's what makes LeBron so dominant. LeBron is beating people purely with his head. He needs the athleticism, but he's just beating them with his head. It's like having the answers. This is what happened with Jordan in the 96, 97, 98 range. Because athletically, he slipped a little. But mentally and from a basketball IQ-wise, he was at a whole other level. I got to say, that's one of my favorite things about watching a basketball career

is when people hit that point where you're not like Anthony Edwards right now, where you can just basically physically and athletically do anything you want. Now you have to use a little ingenuity and you have to figure out how to pace yourself and steal some minutes and all the stuff LeBron's been doing the last,

that's going to be the final piece for Curry because he's not going to be able to run around off of picks for two and a half hours for eight months anymore. I don't think, but he can pick his spots like he did in this middle round. Yeah. And that's, that was the other thing that they all were allowed to do, but you're right. You know, listen, I, I had my days in class, but there were very few times I went into a test and I knew all the answers. That's how LeBron and Steph and Katie are all the answers. That's how LeBron and Steph and KD are playing basketball games. That's why they have the confidence. They walk on the floor and they literally know all the answers. They know the answers to any test that's going to

be thrown at them. And it gives them an unshakable confidence. Well, I would include Duran in that too, because I still think the most, other than that last Curry curry three which was the moment of the tournament when they're up to 93 91 against serbia 40 seconds left need a basket and they just kind of instinctively knew durant was the matchup and then bead came he kind of rumbled over to come set him a pick and durant's like it's fucking out here i got my guy and he just did he did the same durant shot he's been there doing but all everyone on the court kind of knew that was the moment and the play

and the shot and that he was going to make it and that's like you know he made another big one right he made another big one

tonight yeah he did why the guy left to go trap Drew Holiday who was inside the paint I have no idea but I think

Durant was one second on the clock and Durant makes it well this is I mean this was the shame of him leaving the Warriors in the first place because I have no idea, but I think Durant was one second on the clock and Durant makes it. Well, this is, I mean, this was a shame of him leaving the Warriors in the first place, because the great thing about him is he can, he's basically the most reliable 27 to 30 we've ever had in the history of the league, but he also doesn't really need the ball and can play, you know, two, three different positions and guard whoever. And he's like the Swiss army knife, but doesn't need to be ball dominant, like can kind of play any style. And that was what I loved

about the 2017 Warriors, that first season he had. You watch and you're like, oh my God, like him and Curry, neither of them need the ball that much. This is unstoppable. Well, I was happy he left. I can tell you that. Yeah. You were like, yeah, you should go. You should get out of there. Yeah. If I had to run into him, I definitely would have whispered that to him. I can tell you that. Yeah, you were like, yeah, you should go. You should get out of there. Yeah. If I had to run into him, I would have definitely would have whispered that to him. I think it's time. You know, that crazy game, that was against us with

the Clippers when Draymond came down. Oh, yeah. I went to that game. Yeah. Yeah. You remember that game? They started yelling at each other. And they started, you know, it's funny. I didn't know anything about, we won that game in overtime. Yeah. But, and then after the game, the media were asking me about the KD green thing. And I'm on my end.

I don't see any of that. But I can tell you all of us coaches are like, I hope it's real. Well, in the playoffs before KD got hurt, his last kind of great stretch, one of the things they played was you. Yeah. And that was when he was like 35, 36 were, one of the things they played was you. Yeah. And that was when he was like 35, 36 a game and was the best he ever played. Lots more to discuss.

We're going to take a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too.

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is the hierarchy, which you mentioned earlier. I have a tweet, which people feel free to make fun of in April when Edwards was handing it to the Suns. And I was like, well, Booker's just lost his two guard spot to Edwards. This is a wrap. This is done. But from the get-go, it was clear the staff loved Booker and Booker was fantastic. I mean, he shot over 60% from three, I think for the whole tournament, pressured ball, the stuff you talked about earlier. The hierarchy, as it evolved, and we got to nut crunch time in both games, seemed to be Booker, Curry, LeBron, KD, and AD.

But then Drew kind of right there as Swiss Army Knife for what do we need? I guess maybe interchangeable with either KD or Booker. If it like really, if we really need, like if there was an awesome guard on either of those teams, I actually think Drew probably plays

and maybe they go three guards. So they did some three guards, but it turned out those were the six guys. Do any of those names surprise you? Booker, Curry, LeBron, KD, AD, and then Drew kind of right there. Were you of those names surprise you? Booker, Curry, LeBron, KD, AD, and then Drew Conner right there. Were you surprised that became the six? A little bit. I think that was,

if you look at the team, that they'd make sense that that would be the six. You could have made a case that you thought Joel would be one of the six. And you can make a case that either Anthony Edwards or Tatum possibly would be one of the six. But when you look at how they play, you can understand that, yeah, that was the clear six. You can tell exactly.

I always love these like, like all-star game format, all these players. But then when it gets serious, the coach will tell you exactly what he thinks and who he thinks he can win with. And Steve Kerr, you know, it's all these other games, he was mixing and matching, but those middle games, you knew exactly who he trusted the most and he did not waver from it.

Yeah. Like LeBron played 32, but I think he was over 30 minutes in both games. Usually, and I was talking about this before the tournament started, like these, because the real question with this team was who's going to lose minutes? This is probably the most talented

one through 12 team they've had. Even if you go back to 92, you had Leitner who you knew wasn't going to play. Bird had the back brace. Stockton was hurt during the tournament, so the decisions were a little easier. This was tougher. They push out Halliburton early.

Derek White's playing so well, Steve Kirk can't even keep him off the floor, and Tatum can't make a shot. Then all of a sudden, the hierarchy starts coming. There was still a weird three-center thing. Like, he played three centers in both halves of this game. Started with Embiid, played a lot of Davis,

and then brought Bam in for big stretches in the second and fourth quarter. But ultimately, it was AD who was the center. Yeah. And that's how it worked out. Yeah, I thought it was pretty smart. I mean, he wanted all three to play. It would be interesting if he didn't care about egos or didn't have to worry about that, who he would have played.

That would have been an interesting exercise. You know, they played Joel tonight and the last game, first six minutes of the first quarter, first six minutes of the third quarter, and then that was it. Ben was good, though, in his minutes. He knows his role. But Bam's always been like he's always played a star that plays in his role. He kind of got that. That's why it was so easy for Drew as well.

He's a role player, but he's a star at it. So I thought it was easy. I thought the guys, again, who impressed me, I thought Steph struggled with it for a while because he wasn't getting a lot of arithmetic shots. Then by the medal rounds he kind of figured it out. I thought KD,

it's a perfect role for him. But I thought the bigs overall, like Joel, that was tough. He's used to being the focal point, them going to him. He got loose a little bit in the Serbia game. Other than that, he was out of rhythm a lot because he's not used to just being a rebounder and a pick setter.

Right. That Durant shot you were talking about, the funniest thing is you can hear someone from their bench yelling because Joel was trying to set a pick and they're yelling, get out of the way. I was, yeah, I was sitting there laughing. I said, I don't think Joel Embiid has ever heard that in his life. Somebody telling him to get out of the way, but they all handled it. I mean, Joel handled it.

I think they all handled it very well. He really struggled in the first quarter when they played him. And he had some really valuable minutes in the Serbia game, especially in the fourth quarter. He scored three straight hoops. I went back and watched it after we did the podcast right after the game. And the problem with him is the defensive rebounds. You give up offensive rebounds when he's out there. He's late to come out on shooters. And I think there's some stuff

that you kind of throw him out there and see what he has. And if he doesn't totally have it, now you're moving to Davis and BAM. It's nice to have options. In the NBA, it doesn't work like that. You're not like, oh, I'll bring in Anthony Davis now. Oh, now I'm bringing BAM out of bio. Oh, that'll be fun. I remember I was coaching a USA team. It was Flip Saunders was the head coach and me and Tom Izzo were the assistant coaches. And we're going to win the gold, but Brazil, they were playing unbelievable. This was Ney Ney, Barbosa,

Varejo, but we had never heard of them. They were that young and they were killing us. I mean, they were having the game of their lives and they're in the fourth quarter. Izzo got, he's like, he grabs my shirt, we have to do something, we're going to lose. And I remember in the fourth quarter, Izzo got it. He's like, he grabs my shirt. We have to do something. We're going to lose.

And I remember telling Flip, I said, Flip, we don't need any trick plays. We're better. Let's just run a normal play, move the ball, and get the right shot. And Baron Davis, if you ever go back, Baron Davis just took the game over when we started doing that because he was better. We didn't need to throw a lot. We just needed him to play. But boy, I tell you, all those guys, the way they played, it was just, you know,

Kurt didn't get enough credit because he had a lot of talent. And that's part of it with coaching. But I thought for the most part, everyone bought into their roles. So the pressure of when you're in that FIBA situation, you have a better team, but now you're in a sports movie and the other team is the underdog in the sports movie and they're hitting shots. Like Serbia two days ago was the best example of this, right? They come out, they're hitting everything. And it was like, they have yoke edge. They're like a high school team built around one guy and some shooters trying to beat like the best team in the state. The pressure of that, especially with the no, you have no momentum at all in FIBA. It's just chaotic. There's like no way to stop, you know, timeouts. And it's just like, you just

feel like you're on a skateboard going down a hill versus like, I don't know, games you've coached, like let's go 2008 game seven against Cleveland, like one of those type of games where you're in a little more control on it. Like what's different about the pressure between those two situations? It's a different pressure. There's a different pressure when you're supposed to win, you know? And so when you're the USA team, everyone knows you have the most talent. There's no doubt about that. When you're trying to win an NBA title, there's a different pressure because you want to win the title. But you're not necessarily the best team. I would say when we beat the Lakers in 2008, most people picked the Lakers.

They were minus 190 favorites. You guys were underdogs. Yeah, they were the favorites. Yeah, we were the underdogs, which still myths us. We always talk about we were not ever the underdogs in our mind. But it is a different type of pressure. You know, it's funny. Paul Pierce, I remember this, and this is not in 2008.

2009, the year after we won, and we got out to that amazing start. I remember, I bet there were seven games, Bill, that we absolutely should have lost. But at the very end of the game, we just won the game. That's what Serbia was the other night. Like, I saw it. You see it coming. They look up and they're winning.

And they see that score. And they're looking at that clock. They're not playing the same anymore. I saw that over and over. Teams wanted to beat you so bad that they actually got in their own way half the time. And I thought that happened the other night. Yeah, they were 0 for 10 in the fourth quarter.

I mean, this game today was great and we're going to remember it for the Curry threes. I think will be the legacy of it. That Serbia game, Kerr said it was the best basketball game he's probably ever been involved with. It sounded like he needed to think about it more. It really did seem like one of the

great basketball games. We've had some fun ones in the Olympics. 08, you mentioned with Kobe against Spain in 2012, but I think that Serbia game might have been the peak. When you think about... That's the best Olympic game I've ever seen. Oh, yeah. Three of the 15 best players ever.

And then Jokic on the other side. And just the right guys getting hot for his team to keep them around. And the drama was nuts. I think it's the best Olympic game ever played. As far as talent, skill, and well played. It's hard for me to think of another game. And I've been watching the Olympics. My uncle Jim Brewer played on that Traverse C-72 with the Munich.

That was my uncle in that game. Oh, God. So I've been watching this for a long time. Yeah, Jim Brewer. Oh, I didn't realize he was your uncle. Wow. Yeah, yeah. That was a rough game to watch.

Well, they won. They got stolen. They won the gold medal, and then it got stolen away. They won twice. They. Yeah. That was, that was a run. They got stolen. They won the gold medal and then it got stolen away. They won. They won twice. They won twice. I still think it's awesome that all those silver medals are still sitting in the vault. And that one player,

they, you know, they called them every year, every year they call. And you would assume like at some point someone would say, yeah, for their kids, all knows it's pretty cool.

Yeah. Cause it was an absolute thievery. One other thing that stood out. Ten years ago, the USA won because we were the better athletes. Now we're winning because of shooting. Our shooting was the difference in this game. It's amazing how it's flipped. We're the skill players now. You know, we're the team.

Our three-point shooting won against Serbia. And the difference of the game today was just shooting. Nine for 30 from France and 18 for 36 from USA. But that goes to why they built. And that's like all my Boston friends who... It's going to be... I'll just say this. It's going to be tough for Kerr when he comes for the Warriors-Celtics game in Boston.

Oh, no. No doubt. You know what's going to happen. He's going to get the A-Rod treatment. But Tatum just wasn't hitting outside shots. He missed another one today. And I think they were really adamant about if you're out there, you got to be able to shoot and hitting outside shots. He missed another one today. And I think they were really adamant about, if you're out there,

you got to be able to shoot and make open shots. You got to make shots or make plays. And it was so funny, Bill. Today, I'm golfing. And one of the guys is from Boston, Robbie. And the first thing he said, what's up with Kermit? I said, Robbie, what do you mean?

He said, what's up with him? Is he jealous? I mean, he was just, he, what do you mean? I said, what's up with him? Is he jealous? I mean, he had all these reasons why Tate wasn't playing, and he really believed that they kept Jalen Brown off. They're trying to mess the team up. And I said, I don't think any of that is true, but we'll see. Well, welcome to about 12 of my text threads. It's like Steve Kerr, he's trying to end the Celtics dynasty before it begins. What does he have against Tatum? Even my dad, who's a pretty mellow dude, even my dad is like completely outraged.

He was like, we just won the title. Tatum did everything. I mean, you think like with the rebounding and the defense and he got out there today, he got some minutes and I think all the Celtics fans are like, please, please have this go well, please, please, please. But the bottom line is LeBron and KD are on the team and those guys are going to play big minutes and that's it. And every player on the Olympic team is used to being the best player on their team. And now you go to an Olympic team and you're the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh best player. That's different touches. That's playing differently. That's hard. It is hard. You see it.

You see it all the time. Like, you know, Coach K used to tell me the first couple of practices of the college season, you know, all the freshmen come in and they've been the best player on their team. And now they're on the college team. And then those college guys, you think about it, there's going to be tons of college guys that make it into the NBA this year. And there's going to be a coach on every side. Hey, your job is to rebound and pass. That guy was scoring 35 last year. And so all that is, it's hard.

Yeah, go stand in the corner. Go stand in the corner and say corner my usage rate was 30 on my yeah what's the deal and so it is different um let's talk your personal experience with steph and lebron because you you will start with steph i mean you're steph's basically in your family yeah he is i don't i don't know what they yeah yeah i don't know what the he's the in-law law yeah. Yeah, I don't know what the... He's the in-law law? I don't know what it is. But your daughter married Seth, who's Steph's brother. So somehow you're in the extended family,

but you've coached against him forever, and then I'm sure you've gotten to know him. But what do we not know about Steph that you get to see behind closed doors? I think you know it, you just don't see it. First of all, he's so high character. And Bill, I can't undersell how high his character is. I've seen him do things with his brothers and sisters

that just no one does. The second part of him is he is competitive and deadly competitive. You know, I always, you know, joke with him. You get this schoolboy choir routine. Everybody loves you. You're this nice guy. And at the same time, you're trying to cut a heart out every time. Like he's a killer.

Very, very competitive towards uh, towards teams, towards individuals. Uh, are we talking like family monopoly? Like he's, he's the banker and he's stealing money from the bank. Like, yes, golf, uh, you know, it's just, that's who he is. Uh, it comes out and it, and it, and it comes out in a great way. And, uh, you know, I love seeing it because you, you assume it because he's so good and he wins, but it's there. Uh,

and the challenges, you know, even today, you know, he making shots, he's pointing to the crowd. That's not an act. That's real. Uh, and that's pretty cool to watch. Well, you can't be, there's a certain level you can't get to unless you're just wired like that all the time. So there was that famous, the famous Jordan stories about him betting people whose bags were going to come out first, but he had already, he'd already paid the baggage handler. That's just, I don't know how you shut that up. So you must've played golf with Steph a couple times. I'm guessing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a little better to me to say the least. Yeah, I was going to say, he's like a prodigy. He's pretty good. Probably, yeah. He's really good, but his father is right with him. As Steph said, the difference is his father plays for 12 months a year. Steph says, I can't do that yet.

So when he retires, he'll be really good. All right. And then LeBron, who you're going against with your team and you guys are trying to break him. Yeah, he actually leaves Cleveland. It was a semi-break and goes to Miami. And then you had that chance in 2012 to really like, I think, break that Miami team up.

If you win one more game instead, he puts a bunch of chest hair on his whole career changes. And then you see from that moment to now, what's like, what's, what's different? I thought that was the biggest game of his career. Uh, game six. I thought it was the biggest game. I'm sure he'll say other games, but, uh, we had them on a ropes with an aging team. We were not that talented, you know, other than, you know, we still had our big three and Rondo was still pretty good. I think Rondo was injured in that series.

And that game in Boston is really, if you remember, he made threes. He was shooting the ball. Yeah, it was all jump shots and just surgical 20-footers. Yeah. Something he had never done. But to me, what the biggest part... Well, there's a lot of things with LeBron that I love saying.

How he could overachieve with the fanfare that he had coming in is absolutely amazing. I mean, he was only set up to fail. Right. When you think about it, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the second coming of God, and he overachieved.

It's a pretty amazing thing. The other two things is watching his growth. In Cleveland, he was a special player, but I didn't think he was a special student yet. As far as, he added this high IQ, but he hadn't added in the film work that you need to know the other team's stuff and their calls. And then I remember the first game against Miami.

He was yelling all our sets out to the other guys you know and i don't think it was tibido it might have been whoever my assistant was and i said it i turned around and said oh boy you were like oh no oh god yeah right because that's that's what kg did you know every know, every game, Kevin, Rhonda, they both, they knew whatever. They knew that if one of the guys on the other team went the wrong way, they was, no, you need to go this way. You're messing the play up. And that was LeBron. And to now, and you can ask coaches around the league, end of a game,

you don't want LeBron near the play because he knows your play. Yeah, you know, he's got a guess, play because he knows your play. Yeah. You know, he's got a guess, right? He does the film work. He does the studying. And that's, that's that, that was the last step for him and watching that growth. Then the last thing, and I don't think this is talked about a lot. How many people do we know that brought his best friends with him and made careers for them. You know, Maverick and Rich Paul, what he's done, and now they're doing it on their own. But that has never been done in sports, ever.

And to me, the off-the-court stuff like that, he didn't just give his friends money. He made his friends become businessmen. And they took a lot of shit for that initially. Remember? They did. Why doesn't he have his typical... I remember in the late 2000s, people were like, what's going on with this? Yeah.

I mean, Rich Paul worked in the mailroom with CAA. Because LeBron made him start from the scratch. Yeah. And now he's worth whatever and is about to marry Adele. Life is good. When you've got to spend, what, nine, ten months with Giannis at this point? Yeah. What reminds you about him of what you saw with LeBron?

Because Giannis is at this point now. He's at the apex of where his career is going to be, right? He's 31 and 11 every night, but physically he's the best and the most athletic he's probably ever going to be. But now the mental piece has to be the next step, right? Yeah. The mental piece is growing and then the skill piece still, you know, like when you think about where he can still go, improve his shot from the elbow, improve his free throws, improve seeing everything. That's what, to me, this year, watching him play, where I thought his growth was just

how he can process where everybody's coming from. Early in his career, you thought you could trap him more, force turnovers. He would still put his head down and just try to will himself. And this year, you can see the game really slowing down for him and doing some really good stuff. So that's where his growth still – I mean, the other thing you love about him, no one's going to outwork him.

His conditioning level, Bill, is scary good to slow him down good, especially in the summer times. I was happy they made it to the Olympics, but then I was like, okay, now let's go home so we can get back to work. Well, I texted you because you went. I thought, what did you go so you could

have a heart attack every time he drove into three guys? You must have been watching your kids play in the playground or something. Oh my gosh, watching your kids play in the playground or something. Oh my gosh. There was one fall in the first game and he went down hard and me and John Horst,

we were sitting there like, this cannot happen. No. He pops up. But after that fall, I swear I was thinking, come on, two more losses. Right.

And we can get out of here. Rudy gets grease. Yeah, we can get out of here it's grease yeah we can get out of here because you wanted you wanted him to do well but you just wanted him to stay healthy think about the last two years he has not played in the playoffs um and and that's really important for him well and that's what you talked about earlier with lebron he's the durability it's him and kareem i mean kareem's worst injury was when he punched Kent Benson, right? He broke his hand.

It was a self-inflicted worst injury ever, but LeBron, same thing. Like some guys are just built to, to do this. And they put the time in off the court and that's it. That was the other thing. He's,

he's, he's like Tiger Woodish, how Tiger changed golf with working out. And LeBron has changed basketball. People are doing the work more because of his conditioning level. But there was a game, I want to say it was us against him, and he sprained his ankle. His ankle hit the floor.

It turned over, and it was right in front of me. And I'm thinking, he's hurt. He walks over, ties his shoes, and I think two plays later, he gets an alley-oop dunk. And I'm like, this guy is different. Because that should have hurt. So he might be the true alien. It might not be Wemba Nyama.

It might actually be LeBron. Yeah, exactly. the bread. Exactly. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows. Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you and your loved ones financially, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters. Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations, or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada, insurance designed for life. Hey you, yeah, you, scrolling TikTok and avoiding your chem homework,

Chegg here, hot take. You've seen enough Bama Rush, ASMR keyboard, and viral dance videos for one day. Let's lock in and start that assignment. If you need a little help, lean on Chegg's expert-supported learning tools. I say this with love. Put on some lo-fi beats and get going with our step-by-step study support. Your weekend will thank you. Small steps today means big wins tomorrow. With Chegg. Subscribe today. You got this. We didn't talk about Wemby Nyama. Yeah, that's right. We didn't really talk about France at all, who didn't have a point guard.

Yabasele. Wasn't he a Celtic? Danny Ainge draft pick, number 16, 2016. Danny gets another win. Yeah. But he was good. But I thought Wemby, you know, that was unbelievable. Like, at least he missed a couple threes, whatever,

but he also made a couple. But there was a fearlessness to him. And when you're going against a team like that, and he just kept coming and coming and coming, I was so impressed. I loved it. You know what I was impressed with after the game? He was crying.

What that told me, Bill, in his mind, he thought they were going to win. No one watching that game thought France was going to win. But their player did. And it just shows to me, like, he's competitive. And you can feel that. He wanted to win that game. And he believed they could win that game. I tell you, for that, for him to have that this young, this league better watch out.

He is coming, Bill, and he's coming fast. But how fast? How fast do we think? Is he a second-team All-NBA guy? What is his ceiling just for next season? I think he probably is, right? Listen, numbers-wise, you could have made a strong case for him to be on an all-NBA team this year.

Yeah, the team was so bad, it's hard. I have a vote. If somebody's on a really bad team, they're a cross-off for me. Yeah, for me, the all-star voting is like that. Very difficult. If your team is 10 games under.500, how can you be an all-star?

But then you think sometimes his team is terrible. It's not his fault. But then there's other times somebody's put up numbers because they're on a terrible team and somebody's got to put up numbers. I don't want to name guys, but we know there's been some dudes over the years. It's like that guy's averaging 30, but yeah, his team's 25 and 57. Exactly. And sometimes they're averaging 30 and that's why his team is 25 and 37. Right, right. So, you know, when you're looking, you do, you look at all that stuff.

How do you, when you're watching these FIBA games and there's guys doing well, like the guys on France, like Lesoreore and Courtney, Courtney and, uh, especially Yaba Selly, but it's a different kind of style. And some guys just make more sense in FIBA. But I said this two days ago on the pod. So I'm not, this is recency bias because Yaba Selly was great today. Like I genuinely feel like he's an NBA rotation guy and he's in shape now. He can hit threes. He was guarding LeBron. Did you see that part? I was so impressed with him. I thought defensively he could switch on anyone, guard them, kept them in front.

He's a big body. Where he's really changed his game is he was never a shooter, and now he's shooting the heck out of the ball. And he's a boost down low. Well, he's in way better shape but kept his strength. Because when he was at Celtics, he was just overweight. But now he had enough strength. Like LeBron really tried to put his shoulder on him a couple times and he didn't move.

And he's also grown up. He has a toughness level about him. So yeah, he could be a rotation player for sure in the NBA now. He was the one guy that jumped out. It's hard to tell with some of these dudes. You watch somebody like Lasord and it's like, all right, when we get,

we've seen like the Kenneth Farid types and yeah, they can get minutes, but you had Harrow who was probably one of the best versions of that. How many rounds am I going in the playoffs if I'm playing 25 minutes with somebody like that's where it gets tough. I'm selling I think the rotation guy. There's no gets tough. But Yaviselli, I think, is a rotation guy.

There's no question. No. The way he shoots and what I was impressed with also is his ability to just kind of fit in. He didn't force many shots. He let it come to him. Really impressed with him. Jokic, we just got to mention quickly.

Because I was arguing with your friend, Eddie Johnson, about Jokic because he was like, oh, Embiid, you know, Eddie's an Embiid guy. He was like, your guy Jokic, he couldn't come through. And I'm like, Eddie, that was, nobody's ever gone through a gauntlet like that and kept their team in the game. Like he had one of the best 13 players in the game. He's going against Embiid and Bam and AD.

LeBron's guarding him in the fourth quarter so the center can roam. Like, I thought that was insane. What did you think of Jokic in that game? I thought he was amazing. The first half, he controlled the whole game. Yeah, and they're double teaming him. Yeah, double teaming him.

LeBron doubled once, which was not a very smart double team from the baseline late in the game. He makes you pay. He's like Barry Bonds. If you throw the wrong ball, he's hitting it out of the ballpark. That's before and after steroids with Barry Bonds. That's how he's always been.

LeBron, if you ever watch it again, he tried to sneak behind him to trap, but he left the guy under the basket. He got half-bound. It was just his brain and his way of play is so dominant. He literally put that team on his back, got them shots, and they almost beat an amazing USA team. Yeah, that game by itself. He's so good. That was by itself a documentary.

I do my curiosity. Listen, I pushed Joel to play for USA. So I was part of that when I was there. But man, I was watching the game tonight just for fan's sake. And I was thinking, oh man, this has been an interesting game if Joel, Wimby were on the same team. Right. Like how would the U.S.

Because they would have had Bam and Davis, but really those would have been the biggest guys other than Durant. Yeah, I was thinking who else would they have, what would be the other big that they would have gotten the U.S.A. team. Honestly, it might have been Chet. It could have been.

It could have been. But it's funny. I'm looking at it like, wow, that would have been, this game would have been interesting. If it was an in-shape Embiid with Wemby and then Gobert as the backup big. As the backup? Not nothing.

My gosh. It would have been interesting. France, to me, felt like they were one, we said it earlier, it's just that one kind of crafty guard short, even though they got a pretty good game from DiColo. I got to ask about your Bucs really fast. You weren't on the Christmas schedule.

You mean us? And thank God. I'm so happy about that. Well, I know you were happy because now you get Christmas with your family. So Giannis, multiple MVP, one of the faces of the league. And usually that Christmas schedule is all the faces. Now, granted, they have the most talent they've had in 30 years and you want to get Wemby in there and all this stuff.

But I, I kind of did a double take when I saw Giannis wasn't one in one of the five games. Like this is one of the guys like is, is there a case building here for the, everyone is sleeping on the bucks or am I nuts? Well, are you not allowed to talk about this?

Cause you're just going to put it on the whiteboard. I'm going to put it on a whiteboard for sure. No Christmas. We weren't good enough for Christmas. Put that on the whiteboard. Yeah. I'm going to tease them about it for sure. Listen,

when I first saw it, I was shocked. I was surprised. I was angry. No, we've lost two years in a row in the first round. And, you know, some of this, you have to earn it. Like, we've lost that.

So now we have to get it back. I think it'll be a wake-up call for everybody. You know, and at the end of the day, we want to be playing at the end of the year anyway, not on Christmas Day. This is the most coach-like you've sounded. Yeah, this is the most... You're in coach mode.

I like it. Well, I'll say, I'll build the case for Giannis for this season. Jokic, it's been a love fest. He's won three MVPs. LeBron, Curry, KD, that generation getting all the flowers right now. Tatum just won a title

and Bede won the MVP two years ago. You got Shade, Alexander, they're the favorites in the West. OKC. All these teams, you go down the line and we saw a lot of them in the Olympics. Lucas sitting there, he just carried his team to the finals. And Giannis, it's like, this is funny

how the league works, where you have all these stars and sometimes guys get, and then they notice and all of a sudden you put the big chip. So I think this is good for you. Big chip on the shoulder season for you when it's coming. For our whole team, Bill, I know we were injured and all that, but we still lost.

And good teams don't like to lose. They don't like to lose in the first round. We've had an impressive summer. When you think about the money we had, we had none. We had minimal contracts, you know, and to get the three Wright and Prince and Trent. The Trent thing as a Celtic fan made me mad. I was like, come on. Because all three of those guys you got can play

in the game we just watched. They could play minutes in that because they wouldn't be scared. You got three of them. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a great summer that way. The work has been good. So I'm really looking forward to it. I can't wait. It's rare.

There's a lot of years, 2008, 10, that you have teams you can't wait to get to work with. And I think this is one of them for me, for sure. Is this the most talented the league's ever been since you've been involved in the league? It's got to be right up there. It's getting deep again. I would say in the mid to late 80s. I was going to say, yeah, that 90 to 93 range. Yeah.

Everybody was deep. And Bill, you forget, like when I started, there was 23 teams, right? Right. deep. And Bill, you forget, when I started, there was 23 teams, right? So if you take seven teams away from the NBA right now and spread all the... The one thing I would say in my first six years, I always thought the benches on the other teams were amazing. The benches would come in and run you out of the gym. And you don't see that anymore, especially with the salary structures and all that. But the teams with the great benches now, it will do them favors later. So that'll be an interesting thing to watch

through the season, through everybody. Yeah, that was a big advantage for the Celtics last year because their bench could actually extend leads. I think that's going to be OKC, one of the best cases for them. Yes. As you look at just the youth and the durability of just young legs and the ability to move people around.

And the stockpile of picks, the Clippers game. That too. Oh my gosh. How are we feeling about the Clippers opening a new arena? It's going to be interesting. Have you been to the arena?

I have not been, but it's James Harden and Kawhi Leonard who just was told to leave the Olympic team. So I don't know how I'm feeling. Yeah, I think they're going to be pretty good still. I love the platoon pickups and all that. The big three era may be kind of lost now. It's really the best two and then everybody that fits around them.

And so they had turmoil with those three guys you know paul wanted the ball more uh james james was running the show and to me james shouldn't run the show that's what he does um and that affected and you know paul goes through to philadelphia so but the league right now you think about the east i mean philly had a a great, a lot of great pickups. You know, we're going to be healthy. We've had some pickups. Well, the Celtics, the Celtics are the Celtics. The best Knicks team we've had in 30 years.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's going to be pretty interesting. Pretty interesting East for sure. Orlando kind of hanging around waiting for, you know. Listen, they had some great pickups. Picking up Pope was huge for them. Right.

You know, a veteran guard, that's what they needed. Miami is Miami. You know, all the guys are back. Cleveland kept all their dudes. Yeah. So, it's going to be a hard East this year. It's going to be deep. And you're going to have to earn wins. We even talked about Indiana who made it to the West.

Right. Yeah. So it's just going to be a tough one and that's good. All right. Before we wrap your three favorite things about the Olympics 2024 basketball edition, what's number one, Curry today? Three favorite are Curry. Curry today or just Curry in general? Curry the last two games, but Curry today was special. I don't know if he was more special in the qualifier, the game before that, but either way, those two games to me were my favorite moments of the Olympics as far as the basketball part to watch. My second one would be Wimby. Like the way he can play.

He played today. How emotional he was. You know, for a guy that loves basketball and coaches, that just says a lot about you. And that was pretty cool for us. The non-basketball, the track and field, man, the women. Oh, man.

It was amazing watching. You know, you think about track and field. They play once every four years. You know, they have the world championships and all that, but it's the Olympics. Yeah.

And just watching them all, just watching them all was so amazing to me so i think paris is the best olympics that i've seen maybe ever um it just everything stands out it's been beautiful uh i was there, the first night of the opening ceremonies. And whoever thought of that, it was a great idea. But being there, it actually was not. You didn't see anything. You saw the boats go by. On TV, I'm sure it looked great.

But thank God. You know what the best break I've ever had? Greece was the first country because they're always the first country. And we got to see Giannis with the flag. He went by. We were in the big USA box with Grant Hill and everybody. And when Giannis went by and looked at Grant and everybody and said, guys, the USA is not going to be here for another two hours and 45 minutes.

I'm out. It's poor rain. I'm out. So I watched that part on TV. I thought the Olympics was incredible. I wasn't prepared for how much I was going to watch, how into it I was. And the hoops was like the cherry on the sundae

because that's by far the best hoops tournament they've had. You think back to the Oscar Schmidt era and how every team had one this. Now it's like these teams are actually good. But I thought the ability to go back if you miss something and to go on Peacock and just be like, oh, I'm going to watch that 100-yard dash. I missed it. And you just queue it up. That was amazing.

Bill, I've been the number one hater of Peacock until the Olympics. Right. Everyone's back. Or any of these auxiliary channels. I hate them. But Peacock was amazing. Like they did their job. It was so great.

Even you can watch, you have the list, like you can watch this, this or this, or you can go back and watch games, which most of the games I watch was me going back to watch. Right. So,

well, that's what we had in the West Coast. Some of the games were coming on at five in the morning. So, but you could just set it up and on cue. It felt like the Olympics 12 years ago, eight years ago, was heading toward this place where it was going to become a relic. It was like, oh man, because I remember watching everything in 1976 and 84. And I was like, oh, I remember that. And it was just that era was going to end. And instead it came back, which I love. You know, Japan should get another Olympics because they,

I think that would have been amazing, but no one was there. And so they should get another shot at it. Well, LA is going to be, LA is going to be out of control. And the hoops, that'll be the hardest ticket of all of them. All right. Doc Rivers, enjoy the summer. Are you beating Larry in golf or no? What's the, what's the, what are the standings? Yeah. That's always, that's always. Yeah. Yeah. Larry is, uh, he is my bank for the summer for sure. I thought if he was retired, I thought that was going to help his golf game, but apparently not. No, no more golf does not help Larry.

All right. Thanks for jumping on. Good not help Larry. All right. Thanks for jumping on. Good to see you. All right. Take care. Y'all afraid of ghosts? How about ghost peppers? It's the moment you've been waiting for.

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Great rankings. Yahoo Fantasy Football is bringing us this segment to help you win your league. So to kick off our Yahoo Play to Win segment, let's talk drafting. They wanted me to talk about rookies and second year guys that I like. I'm in on Malik neighbors. Normally I would say, don't take anybody that you don't trust their quarterback or you think their quarterback's bad. In this case, I don't think it's going to matter. I think he's going to have at least four or five ones where

he just like the 70 yard touchdown, the 65 yard reverse run. He's going to have five weeks where he's a hundred plus yards points gets to 15, 18, 20 points for you and helps you out. James Cook on Buffalo. You look at the second half of the year last year, he was like a top four running back. Why would that change this year? They're moving toward running and tight ends. CJ Stroud on Houston. Yeah. Everybody likes CJ Stroud, but he's still like in that kind of 9 to 15 range for QBs. And to me, it's like, I love C.J. Stroud. I'd be happier to have him than some of the highly ranked, the Dak Prescott, Kirk Cousins, those type of guys.

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All right, so on Thursday's podcast, we premiered a new segment called Five Favorites. Joe House was here for that, and it was spectacular. We brought in Anthony Dibundo. He picked his five favorite NFL futures. House, you had low expectations, surpassed all of them, correct? Well, just because I thought you were going to try and speed rhyme us through on these five picks, but thank God the podfather knows, let the thing breathe. We went double the amount of time you gave us. It was wonderful. Thank you.

Yeah. It's same way when we dinner and you decide to get the second entree. I let it breathe. It's like, okay, fine. We'll get the veal chop. Craig Horlbeck is here.

He produces the rewatchables with me. He just hosted the dodge ball, dodge ball podcast, a movie that I did. I liked and didn't like when it came out. I wrote a kind of half-assed, I like this, but everyone in my theater was stoned kind of review of it. I think you were sick of Ben Stiller in 2004. Is that what it was?

When I was 10 years old in 2004, I was not oversaturated with Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller fatigue. Yeah. But that's the thing about the rewatchables. You never know, like Hardball becomes a belated classic. The know, the replacements, a movie that was, like, truly terrible in the theater and now it's like,

I love the replacements. I'm glad it's on. You just don't know. Craig's also on our Fantasy Football podcast, which is going to become relevant in a second, and he's on The Town as well,

our excellent Hollywood podcast. All right, Craig, your assignment. Five fantasy targets, your favorites. Yep. And we're going to go in reverse order from five to one. Okay.

We are four weeks away from the start of the season. The five guys you were staring at, and you're in the same position that I was in for years when I had my column way back when, when I would write fantasy football, which was controversial on page two back in the day. People are like, you're going gonna write entire fantasy football columns. And I put all my sleepers and my stay aways

and everybody in my league would read the column and then I would just get completely effed. So you're in the same boat with that. So it's almost like you have to accept it. Yeah, I mean, we're doing a ringer fantasy draft later today and you're just gonna steal all the players that I did give you right now, I'm sure. I can't wait to do it.

All right. Your number five in reverse order, your fifth favorite target of the 2024 season is? Derrick Henry on the Ravens. Look, I just turned 30 last week and I feel great. And now I'm convincing myself that 30 is just a number and there is no age cliff for running backs. 30 is the new 25. 30 is the new 25. Modern medicine.

So look, every year I never draft Eric Henry because I think it's going to be the year that it ends, that he falls off the cliff. And he never really does. And last year, on a terrible Titans team, he was still a top 15 guy. Really, he was 16. But still, they were a bottom five offensive scoring,

terrible O-line, and he had no room to run. Now, I would argue he's in the best situation of his career in Baltimore. Since Lamar has been a quarterback in Baltimore, the Ravens he's in the best situation of his career in Baltimore. Since Lamar has been a quarterback in Baltimore, the Ravens have averaged the most yards per carry in the league, and they're number one in yards before contact. It's because everyone's afraid of Lamar, which gives all these guys room to run. That's why Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins average six yards a carry. And now, if you would say, oh, well, Lamar in the red zone, Derrick Henry's

not going to score as many touchdowns as he typically does. The Ravens don't use Lamar in the red zone. They want to keep him healthy. They don't give him a fourth of the carries that guys like Josh Allen or Jalen Hurts gets. There's no tush push with Lamar. Not with Lamar. And it's easy to see because Gus Edwards last year had 13 touchdowns.

And now we're upgrading to Derrick Henry. So to me, Derrick Henry is discount Jonathan Taylor this year. And I think, I think he's a first rounder. Discount Jonathan Taylor house, your reaction. Yeah, I kind of love it.

Um, but before I give my full breakdown, I just want to say, speaking of staring at guys, I mean, every time I get on with, with Craig, his,

his handsomeness, it just comes through. He like, he gets better. He talks about turning 30. He gets better with, with age. If Cerruti would put his box on, we could do ringer only fans. This is like a talk about a full set of handsome.

But speaking of handsome, I love this Derrick Henry pick and it's exact. So there is no tush push with Lamar Jackson's cause he's got a tiny tush. He's a skinny dude. And they don't want him up in that muck anyway. What you want is the big bull. And that's Derrick Henry. That's a guy you can trust. You know what he won't do at the goal line and what Baltimore can count on? He ain't going to fumble the football trying to get across the line.

They have a middle-of-the-road offensive line in Baltimore. That's fine because Derrick Henry can cover up a lot of that. So notwithstanding whatever you might get from him in terms of rushing yards, you're always going to have those goal line situations. And, you know, Craig said it 13 TDs, that is nothing to sneeze at. I was doing a whole bunch of football work the last five weeks, including Fantasy Tears, which I do every year, which is a key podcast for you guys when you're doing this show. And I went back and I looked at my Fantasy Tears for running backs from two years ago. Running backs are now like porn stars. You go back and look at like the 2000, the 2022 AVN awards. And it's just a slew of actors and actresses. And two years later, it's a completely different slew of actors

and actresses. The names change. Like Damien Harris, I think was in my third running back tier two, three years ago. And I don't even know if he's in the NFL anymore. So who's Derrick Henry? Lisa Ann? I don't know. Derrick Henry, he's just survived. But I noticed him. I noticed McCaffrey. We're talking like three years ago. And now you think like how fast it changes

where you guys did your tears and Brees Hall and B. John Robinson at the top. A-Chain caused a 15-minute conversation. And none of those guys existed three years ago. But it's just funny that Henry, we're wondering, does he still have it? He's 30. It's not like he's 45.

There's usually a four-year cycle with running backs. And we are at the beginning of a new four-year stretch. It's, yeah, Brees Hall, B. John Robinson, Jonathan Taylor. A lot of people love Jameer Gibbs. But I just think Henry is in like the- Yeah. ETN, HN. I just think Henry's in the freak category.

Like he's in the LeBron camp where he's different. We have to judge him on a different curve than everybody else. Yeah, and this has been the case since he was like 15 years old. Yeah. He was playing high school football and just demolishing people. Because he's always been the biggest guy. He's still the biggest guy. That matters.

Yeah, the case for it is this is like almost like when the Patriots got Corey Dillon in 2004 when Craig was like 10 years old but this guy that had kind of been buried

on bad teams and people still thought the pedigree was there but we weren't quite positive and then Corey Dillon was just awesome on the pats and the fact that

Lamar doesn't get running touchdowns I like it I saw no real signs of attrition with Henry last year. I agree with Craig. He's a bad quarterback and a bad offensive line.

So it was even hard to say how unstoppable he was. But I like that one. I think it's a fair one. I don't know who he's competing for for touchdowns running-wise. Keith Mitchell? Yeah. He's going to get them if he's healthy, and he's going to be healthy.

I would not be surprised if he had 15 touchdowns this year. I don't think anybody would. Do you have A-Chain as one of your five or no? I don't on this list. Is he yours? No, I wanted to tell House. They had a huge argument about A-Chain in the Running Back Tears podcast that I ended up texting the guys about,

where every year there's a guy who just, you're jealous if somebody else takes them. If you take them, you know what the stakes are. And I compared them to the veal chop. Oh, okay. Every year there's a veal chop guy when you're at dinner and somebody orders the veal chop. And it's a 50-50 order,

depending on the restaurant. You just, if it's a blind restaurant that you've never been to and somebody gets the veal chop and it's a 50-50 order, depending on the restaurant. You just thought, if it's a blind restaurant that you've never been to and somebody gets the veal chop and it's not you and you're like, I hope the veal chop sucks because if the veal chop's good,

I'm going to have so many regrets. Or if you order it, you're like, I'm super hungry. I probably should have gotten the steak. It's a safe bet, but the veal chop might be awesome. I'm just going to roll the dice

with the veal chop. And that's basically A-chain this year. He will either be incredible or it's going to be week four. And you're like, oh my God, he had seven carries for 20 yards. What happened? He like twist his knee and he's out for eight weeks. Right. And you're like, like, how did, how did he go for $39 in my league? That's my concern with Karen Williams. That That's the twist of me. He's another one. That's the one. How many small injuries and medium-sized injuries

has he had already? He's not a big guy and they just drafted Blake Corham out of Michigan. Right. And the question with somebody like that is, can he have 280 carries? Is he going to be there in week 14, 15, 16? Henry has the pedigree of we know he's going to be there. Anyway. All right. Your number four guy is. This one's a little more controversial. I'm

really putting my reputation on the line for this. This is definitely a sleeper. This is not like a top 20 guy. I love Josh Palmer on the Chargers this year. I feel like I am alone on a mountaintop shouting Josh Palmer's name. I know in your head, you're like, oh, Josh Palmer, what is he like 27 years old, fifth round pick? He's actually 24 years old and he was a third round pick. And now Keenan Allen and Mike Williams are gone in LA. And now Josh Palmer is easily the most experienced receiver on this team. Everyone other than Palmer is either a rookie, a bust, or has never played with Justin Herbert before. And if you look at all the other guys on the team,

only two have caught a touchdown from Justin Herbert. One is Simi Fajoko, who has one catch in his career, and it was for a touchdown. And the other is Quentin Johnson, the first-round bust from last year out of TCU. So we're calling him a bust just because he had one bad year? I mean, he can't even crack the first team in practice right now behind DJ Chark. Oh, man.

Really? I mean, the coaching staff has no ties to him. It's not like his competition is incredible and he still can't break the first team. Palmer's got nine touchdowns over the last three years. And if you look at him last year, he was banged up. He was on pace for 1,000 yards while playing with Keenan Allen. And now Mike Williams and Keenan Allen are gone.

And my rule in fantasy football, I I've, I've decided I don't draft wide receivers for shitty quarterbacks. Like I, I just won't do it. It's not fun. It's like the arrested development line. Like I have the worst fucking attorneys.

Like I'm just not doing it. If you have a bad quarterback. And I think we all need to admit that Josh Palmer's a quality player and him going outside of the top one 50 and drafts is ridiculous. I think he's going to be the leading wide receiver on the chargers. So the people that would foil that would be McConkie if he turns out to be good. Who's hurt right now, but I do like McConkie, but that's really it. He's a rookie and he's hurt. DJ, DJ shark. Yeah. Uh, yeah, it's a good point

because if it's a bad quarterback, odds are nobody will get the yards and the touchdowns. But if it's an above average quarterback or a good quarterback, the yards have to go somewhere. How many guys have we seen over the years end were together in San Francisco and everyone's like, oh, they're just going to run the ball all the time. They're not going to throw. That's fine. They're still going to throw a little bit. Yeah, they're going to need touchdowns. Those Niners years, Michael Crabtree and Anquan Boldin and Vernon Davis,

those guys were all putting up solid fantasy years and we're just ignoring everybody who catches passes on the chargers. And it's just because Josh Palmer's irrelevant and unsexy. Well, the other piece with that is I've actually liked Josh Palmer in games that I've watched. He's good. Nobody wants to admit Josh Palmer's good. He's one of those guys, if he's on the fantasy wire, you do give him the extra look. Where do you stand, House?

Where do you stand on the Chargers offense and people scoring touchdowns on it? I know this one's dicey, House, so I'll be okay if you don't like this one. Well, it's not that I don't like it. Where are we supposed to take him? What's the right price? That will help me understand it. Yeah. Is he like an $11 guy?

Like in the second tier when people are paying like $17 to get whoever and you feel like you can kind of steal him? You'll be able to get him for less than $10. Right now, in terms of like rankings, he's going outside the top $120, sometimes top 120 sometimes 150 i think that's insane he should be going in the top 75 top yeah any number one receiver with a good quarterback at least should the top eight quarterback sure but you bring up a different point off of that point which is herbert who i think used to be somebody everybody loved having on their fantasy team and would go for bigger bucks for quarterback auctions and he'd be a higher draft pick,

but people seem to be terrified of him. He's hurt. He's got the pointer fascia thing. He's got the hardball offense. Is he even a fantasy starter this year? I don't think so. Wow. He's not going to run a lot. I think they're going to be like bottom

five in the league in passing. I think the team is going to be good and it's probably going to be better overall in real football, but no, I don't think he should be a top 12. Can I throw quarterbacks at you guys and tell me if you would take Justin Herbert over them just in fantasy? Yeah. Oh, let's do that.

Bryce Young. No. You would take him over bryce young i would yes yeah i want to answer it correctly i would take herbert over bryce young yes trevor lawrence i'd rather have lawrence me too jayden daniels jayden daniels easily wow easily. Wow. I feel like I need to recuse myself. I have too much invested. What do you mean recuse yourself? Why can't you just answer it honestly? Baker Mayfield? Baker Mayfield?

No. Herbert's better. So he's somewhere between Jaden Daniels and Baker Mayfield. I have him 14th. Would you rather have him or Rodgers? Oh, that's close because I think both teams aren't going to throw a ton.

Probably Herbert. I don't know. That's close. I would be fine if you wanted Rodgers. Would you rather have Deshaun Watson or Matt Ryan, who's no longer in the league? It's close. I don't know. Deshaun Watson watson a lot upside you look that the deshaun watson that won the that game against baltimore in baltimore in

that fourth quarter by essentially running like i think that version of of the offense is there if they can protect him um they didn't ask him to throw the ball more than 10 yards down the field over that entire stretch. And they kicked Baltimore's ass. They out physical them. So if that's the version of Deshaun that becomes the blueprint for Cleveland this upcoming season, I don't,

I don't hate him. And that's, that's all we need to hear from Deshaun Watson's defense attorney, Joe House. Well, he didn't play any more games after that because he got hurt. That was the last game, but he went out on a high.

I like the Josh Palmer one. I'm in on that one. It is one of those things, though, where I feel like when we get closer to opening day and somebody really pumps him up and all of a sudden somebody's spending $16 for him in your auction. You're like, what's going on?

I don't think anybody gives a shit about Josh Palmer. No one's going to say a word when you draft him, and I think he sudden somebody's spending $16 for him in your auction. I don't think anybody gives a shit about Josh Palmer. No one's going to say a word when you draft him and I think he'll start for you all year. What did the Danny's say about this? Danny Kelly is with me and Heifetz is against me. Is Josh Palmer, who's better to target in that offense?

All kidding aside, Will Disley or Josh Palmer? I think it's Josh Palmer. Yeah, I think so too Will Disley or Josh Palmer? I think it's Josh Palmer. Okay. Yeah, I think so too. All right. Third pick is. I don't know if I'm just being a contrarian because everybody else is out on this guy. And sometimes I just tend to zag, but I'm into Christian Watson, the receiver on the Packers who everybody's completely out on. And I think he's one of the biggest steals of the year. Everybody. What did I do? I'm going to raise my hand right here. What happened? I hate it.

Listen, this is all sports hate and fantasy hate but I fantasy fucking hate his guts. I hate that guy. He killed me last year and I traded for him and then he immediately turned it on. I was so mad. I traded him to you. I got him. This is the time to buy. Let me tell you why.

I think he's discount Mike Evans. I really do. This is the time to buy. Let me tell you why. I think he's discount Mike Evans. I really do. This is exactly the situation you want in fantasy. He's an affordable number one guy in the offense. The offense is very good. He has an elite quarterback. Great play caller. I think we're just overthinking all of this.

Everybody's in love with Don Tavian Wicks and Jaden Reed, who I think are all good players. But when Christian Watson was actually on the field and playing, it was clear that he was the number one option. He led the team in targets and end zone targets and air yards. He played eight, nine games last year. And in those nine games, he led the league in end zone targets. Like this, this guy's, do you remember his rookie season?

He had eight touchdowns. I had him that year. He was kind of electric. He reminds me of Drake London, where these guys in fantasy who don't actually produce, but they become sexier picks than maybe the value is. And with the Watson thing, we just haven't seen him stay on the field for an entire season.

And also, I worry about how good their receivers are. Maybe it's one of those teams that just, they have four good guys. Maybe there is no number one receiver on that team. Is that possible? It's possible, but usually the cream rises to the top. And with him, we have a sample size of last year. He was clearly the number one guy when they were all on the field. He just had this hamstring issue. And it was the same thing Kamara had. I don't know if you guys remember that from last year. He had, basically, his legs weighed

different amounts. Christian Watson's muscles basically his legs weighed different amounts. Christian Watson's muscles in his legs are very imbalanced. And he realized that this off season, one leg was 20% stronger than the other leg. And Kamara had the same issue. And it's why he kept pulling his hamstring over and over. And now he's claimed that they're only 6% apart and he's fixed it. And he's been healthy all camp and he looks great.

So I think this is why Craig, this is why Craig, it's one of the top fantasy football podcasts. Cause we talk about leg weight percentages. 6% feels like it's in the right ballpark. What were you going to say house? Just that I lived through this with Keenan Allen two years ago when I bought him for $42 in our auction league and the mother effer pulled a hamstring and never like showed up and then came back last year and was effing dominant the whole season so much so that i think he helped you know somebody uh you know finished very high

in our league the christian watson proposition makes so much sense because he is their vertical game he stretches the field he's the guy that gets the most out of what jordan love is best at to me which is getting the ball to f down the field with accuracy. Watson's a beneficiary of it. I like this. Where do we take him though, Craig? What's the right price? Where are we getting him? Yeah. What tier? You haven't done receiver tiers yet. So is he, what's he like tier four, tier three? Yeah. Right now, the great thing about him is he's incredibly affordable. He's going like 80th overall right now. And meanwhile, like Nico Collins is going in the 30s. You tell me, what is the major

difference? Nico Collins plays football every day. Okay, fair. Nico Collins stays in the field? There's one. You were like, oh, there's a million wide receivers in Green Bay. How many balls is Christian Watson going to get? Nico Collins is going up against Stefan Diggs,

Tank Dell. No one seems to care about that. And yet there's much less competition, in my opinion, in Green Bay with Christian Watson. You get him 50 spots later. Yeah, that's pretty good. I'm on Watson. I like it. Well, House loves Green Bay. I feel like House is.

Green Bay could be every year there's a team that could really just kill people from an NFL future standpoint, from a division bed standpoint, from wind total standpoint, from fantasy standpoint, they're being treated like they are, you know,

one of the great offenses of the 2020 is the way we're all talking about them. And I include myself because I think they're going to be really good. And I'm just wondering like how disappointing it could get. That's fair. I mean, but what you want to do is, is like,

you want to find those offenses that are going to take the big leap in fantasy. If you were able to predict the Texans ascension last year, you would have won your league. And so it's like, you know, we were doing that with, we were doing that with Atlanta for like three years in a row and we were

paying 25 bucks for Kyle Pitts. Yeah. We're doing it. We're back doing it one more time. But yeah, sometimes it's not an offense you expect that ends up being the offense. I just think it's weird that everybody's in love with the Packers. Everybody thinks they're a top five team.

People have them as a Super Bowl contender. And there's nobody on their team getting drafted in the top 40 in fantasy. It's weird. That's fair. All right, we're down to the top two. Who do you have in the number two spot? I've never said this in my life,

but I'm betting on the Jets. And I love Garrett Wilson. I think he's going to be one of the best wide receivers in the league. I have him as my third wide receiver off the board. I genuinely do not see a scenario in which he's not a top five guy unless he gets hurt. I just don't see it. Well, wait, wait, wait.

Unless he gets hurt, what if Rodgers gets hurt? Or should I say when Rodgers gets hurt? I don't see a non-injury related scenario in which he's not a top five guy. So I understand if you're worried about that. But to me, he's clearly one of the best wide receivers in the league. I mean, he was fourth in the NFL in targets last year,

and yet he had a terrible fantasy year because he was catching passes from Zach Wilson and Tim Boyle. Four and a half yards down the field. Yeah. We know. All they could muster. I do my, the player rankings that I do, that really helped me like figure out the team

and the future and all that stuff. And he was the toughest one to figure out out all the receivers. Cause I had like as alphas, Jefferson and Tyreek. I think they're just at the receivers because I had like as alphas Jefferson and Tyreek. I think they're just at the top. I had them for five-pointers. And then I had Chase and Adams and Lamb and AJ Brown and St. Brown as the four-pointer guys. And I really wanted to put Wilson in that group, but it's more a Rodgers thing than a Wilson thing for me. I don't know if I trust Rod Rogers to stay healthy.

I think from a talent standpoint, if you just switched Wilson with any of those teams, I feel like he, I just feel like he'd be in that conversation. I'm with you. I think from a talent standpoint, he should be in the top four. Yeah.

I mean, I don't, what are like, what do we expect from Rogers? I know that's been a big topic, but what, like what's, what are the tea leaves saying?

Well, if you draft Tyree Kill, you got to deal with Tua's health. I mean, you always got to factor that in with a lot of guys. But to me, I just think this is the biggest upgrade at quarterback in the history of the NFL, probably. And I could list you a million stats as to why last year was such a disaster.

I don't know if you're... Do you remember week one when Rogers got hurt and Zach Wilson came in and he actually threw a touchdown to Garrett Wilson, but Wilson had to like intercept his own pass. He like tipped it to himself. And yeah, I mean, the Jets moved for 11 touchdowns last year

in the entire season, 11. Give House your inside the five stat. Oh, for Brees Hall? Yeah. The Jets were the only team in the league to not give their running back a carry from the one. They were the only team. Any running back, not just Brees Hall.

All the running backs of the team, they did not have a carry from the one yard line. And Brees Hall had one carry inside the five. All season. Nathaniel Hackett, baby. Hack him up, Hackett baby so I love Bruce Hall too but yeah also

it's basically just Garrett Wilson Mike Williams is there he's coming off an ACL he's older and if you go back to all of Rogers receivers there's a good stat that anytime

a Rogers receiver has seen over 140 targets in a year they have not finished lower than 4th at wide receiver Jordy Nelson Craig Jennings

Devontae Adams and I think Garrett Wilson is going to see 140 targets and I think he's better Nelson, Craig Jennings, Devontae Adams. And I think Garrett Wilson's going to see 140 targets. And I think he's better than all those guys. Maybe not Devontae Adams. You see, the problem with Garrett Wilson is he's going to be treated in that real estate bracket with Jefferson and Tyreek and Chase and A.J. Brown and Lamb, I think.

I think he's going in the second round. Fourth or sixth, fourth, fifth, sixth receiver taken in any draft, price-wise or in a draft. That's fine with me. Yeah. I think in some drafts he'll go in the second round. I think you could take him in the first. Any last Garrett Wilson thoughts, House?

You just have to be an all-in person on the Jets, and I kind of am. I've got some exposure. O-line's way better? Yeah, it's way better. And the, you know, what they did defensively as well,

I just think they're going to be able to control both sides of the ball, and I like the Jets. Yeah, I don't know what food item Garrett Wilson would be in this scenario. Oh, he's a delicacy. Because he's not the veal chop. It's more,

it's a really high-end seafood. A rare sushi item. We should have just done that as a podcast. Food items compared to... It's not too late. It's not too late. I'm here for it, baby.

I had the Tiki Barber as the Reuben 20 years ago. You just know the Ruben's going to be good, and if you don't order it, if somebody else at the table orders it, you're like, fucking A, the Ruben looks great. Why didn't I get the Ruben? It's so reliable. Cut me a corner of that thing.

Who's the Ruben running back this year? Is it Derrick Henry? Oh, that's not bad. Every year you're like, eh, I don't know. And then it's week one and he has 180 yards. It's jonathan taylor sure i don't trust him i didn't i don't i don't like what happened with him last year all right it's time craig's number one fantasy target for 2024 who is it cooper cup i love it i felt i love it i felt this way even before Puka Nakua got hurt, even though Puka is supposed to be ready and back for week one. But right now you can get

Cooper Cup a round or two later than Puka. And I just think that's wrong. I know he's had the injuries the last few years, but he's so affordable right now and he's healthy. And I think he's incredibly slept on last year. He hurt his hamstring twice before the season started and then hurt his ankle again mid-season. And he like half got healthy at the end of the year. And over those last six weeks, him and Puka were both top 10 guys at the position. And I just, Cup's a maniac about health. Puka's already hurt.

Puka was working out with Cup this off season and was throwing up every day because Cooper Cup works out so hard. And like, look, he's 31. He's not 37. He's two years removed from winning the Triple Crown. And this offense is only going to go to Puka and Cooper Cup. And I'm completely trusting the connection between Stafford and Cup. I think the Rams are going to be really good this year. And I basically, in my opinion, I'm getting the

same old Cooper Cup for like half the price. And he's also hit that age, which has been happening with fantasy football ever since we started playing fantasy football, where guys become boring to take. Yeah. Especially when they hit their 30s. Keenan Allen last year was a perfect example of that. This was Marvin Harrison forever.

Yeah. He was like, I've had Marvin Harrison. Then he would go for eight bucks less than he should have gone for. And all of a sudden you're like, oh shit, you know who's the top four receiver again? Marvin Harrison. Then he would go for eight bucks less than he should have gone for. And all of a sudden you're like, oh shit, you know, who's the top four receiver again? Marvin Harrison. The Cooper Cup, reading about him this year, he's hitting a lot of the check marks of the guy who's just like, last year was the year from hell. I'm never letting that happen again. I'm an absolute fucking maniac this off season. Teammates talking about I've never seen the look in his eye like I've seen this year.

It's been a lot of that. People are like, holy shit, he's a man possessed. So I always like that stuff too. I will say with fantasy and with any sport, I almost think we need a new name for pulled hamstring. It should just be like gunshot wound. It doesn't sound dangerous enough for what it is. It just happened to my daughter. You have a hamstring and it's like, yeah, it should be four to six weeks. It's not. It's basically like somebody took an elephant gun

and shot you in the leg and it's never the same for months. We always say you pulled a muscle. What it really is, is a tear. We should be saying torn hamstring. Yes. Yeah. There's no such thing as a hamstring pull. You tore the muscle and it takes forever and you can't come back from it because when you come back, you just keep making it worse and you keep making it worse and it never recovers or gets better. I support strong language like severed. Severed hamstring. Detached. I mean, detached probably, I don't know. Hamstring ax wound. Yeah, it just needs to sound more dangerous than it is.

But yeah, he was never the same. And then finally, last, I don't know, six weeks, started to look more like Cup. But at that point, Nakua had passed him. I have some slight concerns about the Rams because I think they were better than people realized last year. And I thought they were discount Detroit for really the last two months of the season, especially in what they got from Williams at running back. And some stuff went right for them last year. And I'm just, these top heavy teams, it just takes like two guys going down and all of a sudden, like your season spiraling out of control. But fundamentally, it's a fun, it's a fun one.

Plus, you're betting on pedigree. Yeah, I'm not playing for sixth place. Like if it all blows up, it all blows up. You know, I'll take my punishment. Here's the reason for Cup and it's supportive of what both of you are saying. I also think that the Rams are prepared to take a step back. It's on defense.

It's on defense because Aaron Donald is irreplaceable. They grabbed two Florida State defensive linemen, and that's awesome. Great team building, great job by them. But the sheer vacuum that is left by Donald not being there, it's going to expose. They had two rookies last year accumulate most of the sacks, most of the pressures, because Aaron Donald's occupying four human beings all at once. So I think the defense is, you know, their front seven is like a bottom 10 front seven.

Their secondary is in the same class. So what that means is the Rams are going to be playing from behind, and if they're playing from behind, then the Rams are going to be playing from behind. And if they're playing from behind, then Cooper Cup is going to be a prime target. And as long as Matthew Stafford is healthy, then I like this idea of Cup,

this resurgence, this let's get him back to the top year. I mean, like two years ago, Cup was going like fourth overall in your drafts. And now he's going 40th. He's the same guy.

Well, that's the thing. Once the A-plus lister receivers start going off the board, the value guys, those guys that, especially in the auctions, the guys you can grab for like $15, $9, $12, Cup will probably go. I think by the time we get to this season, people will probably sniff this out a little bit better. There's been some Rams offensive line stuff already, though, right? Bad stuff or good stuff?

I thought there was some shaky stuff in the preseason, in the training camp, and they've already had a couple injuries. Yeah, but McVay has continued to reinvent himself. McVay is the best coach in the league, in my opinion. The offense they were running three years ago is completely different from what they're doing now. They've completely switched up the way they run the ball. They're going to be way heavier this year, more tight end, two tight

end sets. They used to be 11 personnel completely. So I think it's just going to be Puka and Cup on the field with two tight ends a lot. Who is your number one stay away for 2024 that's actually going to get highly drafted or bought? Who's on your D&D list?

Jamar Chase. Oh, wow. I don't want anything to do with the Bengals and Joe Burrow's wrist. You can add Joe Burrow to that list as well. I'm with Craig. The Bengals are a D&D for me this year. He's not allowed to practice

three straight days in a row. He's not allowed not allowed to practice three straight days in a row. He's not allowed to throw the football three straight days in a row. Heifetz has been joking about this. He's like, I will draft Joe Burrow when he throws a football for five straight days. Yeah, that seems like a fair request. He ain't wrong. There's no quarterback or pitcher in the history of sports that has suffered the same injury Burrow has. It's only linemen.

Where do you stand on Caleb? I think I'm a little bit in on Caleb. We were talking about teams trying to find this year's Texans. I think the Bears are in play there. I think they have a sneaky good offensive line. I think they have a sneaky good defense. Above average offensive line and some weapons.

Oh, I mean, he is the best supporting cast of any rookie since I don't know one. Right. Did you watch Hard Knocks this week? No, I actually haven't yet. How was it? I'm not going to say. I want to have this conversation with you again after you've watched Hard Knocks. Uh-oh. Okay. Interesting. I have an opinion. I'm not going to say.

I'm not going to say anything. That sounds ominous to me. I don't know. It doesn't have to be ominous. It could be, I'm all the way in. It was incredible. This dude's a born leader. They're a badass. Aberflus is a genius. Wait till you see his daughters.

It's going to be a wonderful experience. Or it could be, this is going to be a train wreck. He's a midget. His accuracy is questionable. It could go either way. All right. That was a great tease. Check out coach Aberflus' daughters. That's all. Now we go either way. All right. But check out Coach April Flus' daughters.

That's all. Now we're back to OnlyFans. I have the Giants on my D&D list this year. And I'm fully aware of all the neighbor stuff that's happening. I've seen the clips. He's incredible. But that's almost more of a reason that because neighbors is going to be in the higher real estate camp. And I just don't trust dimes at all.

And, um, I'm staying away from the entire team. Like I said, avoid all wide receivers with shitty quarterbacks. There's nothing worse than just praying that if your guys open your quarterback can even get him the ball. Well, and plus the shitty quarterback can hurt the receiver. Yeah. By leading him over the middle so he can get annihilated. Craig, talk me out of it.

My D&D list player? Okay. Travis Kelsey. I agree with it. I mean, look. He's basically said, I only care about January. Yeah, they're keeping him on ice

because he completely took off last year in the playoffs. He hurt his ankle and his knee early on in the year. So I think he kind of took his foot off the gas. I think the Chiefs really want to win this. I think they are set on on in the year. But so I think he kind of took his foot off the gas. I think the Chiefs really want to win this. I think they are set on

this is their year. They're going to give everything they have this year to win this third Super Bowl in a row. And then Travis Kelsey might retire. So I don't, he's not my number one tight end off the board.

Yeah. But look, I mean, even a Travis Kelsey year that's an eight out of 10, he's still a top three guy. Okay. Can I polish off one last fantasy take before we go? Yeah.

Tight end boom. Yeah. There used to be a time when there was like two good tight ends and then five guys you could live with. And then if you didn't, now you're in the 8, 9, 10 camp. And all of a sudden you just have this dude who's going to get 47 catches for 540

yards and four TDs. And you just want to trade for one of the expensive fed ends. There's so many options this year. Even think like somebody like Musgrave on green Bay. Like I liked that guy when he was out there and he was healthy. Uh, new Joker was awesome last year. Kincaid on Buffalo friar, Muth on Craig Steelers, McBride was a fucking stud, Hawkinson, Andrews, people like Andrews' backup in Baltimore, Laporta, Kelsey Kittle.

To me, it's like the days of I need to get an awesome tight end, I'll spend $20 to $25. Those days are over. You don't need to do that, in my opinion. I agree. I mean, like Brock Bowers, the rookie out of Georgia is like the best prospect ever. And he's not even the top 10 guy out of drafts. So I totally agree.

The Raiders released their first depth chart for offense and they just, they're going full 12. They're like, here, here's our four tight ends and here's our four receivers. And they were just like, this is who we're going to be this year, guys,

just FYI. So Bowers and Mare are going to start and play big minutes. Yeah, all these tight ends. We were talking about it on the fantasy show. It's like all these guys are freak receivers now. And it's like how we were comparing it to NBA. It's like all these big guys started learning how to dribble and shoot like 10 years ago. And it's kind of the same way now with all these tight ends.

It used to be like there was a couple freaks who were like wide receivers and blockers. And now most of them are just pseudo wide receivers. It's like every tight end now, Kyle Pitts is a receiver. I'll tell you who I'm not taking. Travis Kelsey. Kyle Pitts is on my lifetime D&D. He really, really hurt my feelings. I thought about putting him on this list.

He's close. Wow. Never again. Never again. Can't do it. I think I spent 30 bucks on him two years ago. His stock will never be lower. Well, he's not going to be on my team.

All right, Craig, listen to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. It's an excellent podcast. House, thanks for joining. I didn't even tell you what the topic was. I knew you'd enjoy it. Loved it so much. Thanks for stepping in, guys. All right, that's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Doc Rivers. Thanks to Craig Horlbeck and Joe House. Thanks to Steve Cerruti and Kyle Creighton for producing. I am probably going to be gone for a week. There's a chance I'll pop in middle of the week, but maybe not. So I'm like, I'm trying to think what athlete I'm like. I'm like Kawhi Leonard. You go to the Clipper game, you don't know if I'm like Trying to think what athlete I'm like I'm like Kawhi Leonard You go to the Clipper game

You don't know if I'm playing or not But I will definitely at the very least Be back a week from Sunday But you might see me once during the week So enjoy the rest of the weekend I see them on the wayside Never said I don't have feelings with them On the wayside I'm a person never said I don't have feelings with them