The Bill Simmons Podcast - Tatum’s Ascent, Clippers Concerns, Houston vs. Everybody, and Fury-Wilder Reactions With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: February 24, 2020

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to talk Lakers-Celtics, Jayson Tatum’s impressive stretch, Clippers vs. Lakers, the Rockets experiment, whether the Spurs are still a ���smart” team, Wilder-Fury, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Finding key players for your team can be challenging. Just look at the minutes Brad Wanamaker played today for the Celtics. It was challenging. Cafe Altura's CEO, Dylan Miskiewicz, he could relate to the Brad Wanamaker situation. He needed to hire a director of coffee, posted his job on ZipRecruiter, found the best person for the role in just a few days. Four to five employees who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS.

My listeners, ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Meanwhile, if you got stuff lying around that you just don't use, check out Mercari. It's a selling app that makes it fast and easy to sell almost anything. Take a few pics, add a description, boom. Your item is listed in the best part. Everything ships. There are never any awkward meetups.

You can find Mercari on the app stores or on mercari.com. M-E-R-C-A-R-I, mercari.com. Double meanwhile, introducing the new Microsoft Surface Laptop 3. With its beautiful touchscreen, you'll experience stunning graphics with razor sharp resolution. Now available with a 13.5 or 15-inch screen. And with the latest processors, there's no project the Surface Laptop can't handle. It's both light the Surface laptop can't handle. It's both light and powerful. You can get more done on the go.

Visit surface.com slash laptop3 to learn more. That is surface.com slash laptop3. Hey, it's going to be a big podcast week for me. I'm just warning you. Book of Basketball, two episodes left. That is happening this week as well as the rewatchables. We did the greatest wrestling movie of all time. Also the only wrestling movie

of all time, or at least one of them. Vision Quest, 35 year anniversary. Me, Ryan Rosillo, Chris Ryan. That is coming this week as well. Don't forget to check out theringer.com

for all your awesome web content. And I hope you checked out Music Exists, the new music podcast we did exclusively on Spotify with Chris Ryan and Chuck Klosterman doing deep dive arguments on all kinds of music stuff. All right, it's time.

Sundays with Priscilla. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. Okay. Every Sunday night, Ryan Masillo joins us on the BS podcast. You can also hear him on the Ryan Masillo Podcast, and you can hear him. I think he's, like, making beans right now in a camp or something. How are you?

I'm terrific. I was just unscrewing a water bottle. Just got done playing a little. I didn't really even play pickup hoops. I just wanted to get some shots up after seeing Tatum today. So I came back. Basically, what happened was the end of the game, you were there, I was not. And then I was sort of annoyed that I was in this general malaise. So they went outside and get some shots up. And then I came home to research for like an hour, but I just sat there in my own sweat as I was writing down notes about different topics. I don't even know if we'll get to these notes, but that's where I'm at right now. So that was a nice ice cold water. Jason Tatum passed an invisible point today that is a good sign for his ascent into superstardom. They were sending early doubles, Adam Rosillo.

Early doubles. He was that hot. He had one point in the first quarter and then it just seemed like he was on pace to get 60 points. And then finally the Lakers were like, screw this, we're taking the ball over your hands as soon as you get over midcourt. It was the first time I have ever seen a team do that to him. I thought he

handled it fairly well, but there was definitely some Tatum, LeBron back and forth, all that stuff in a good way. And then it ended with not only the hug and all that stuff after the game. And then LeBron commemorating it with the Instagram post, talking about, just raving about Tatum. When he does stuff like that, do you feel like that's a Jedi mind trick or is it all 100% genuine? What's your opinion? No, I think he really kind of sees his place in the game.

Like for all the, look, there's far more positive about LeBron. I'm a little too repetitive about that. But when you're in the limelight as much as him, there's going to be some things you're like, oh, what is that? What is that? I really do think he relishes the idea that he's kind of that old guy, but yet he's not playing like an old guy. I mean, I was going through some of the numbers today. I mean, he's unbelievable still. But I think he feels like he's kind of the steward of the game where he's

always kind of going up to young guys and and let him know how he feels about their game and people could say it's disingenuous people would say oh he just loves a spotlight like clearly he loves a spotlight and he's he is the ultimate performer but i don't think it's something where he thinks in the finals boy if i post something on instagram about tatum in february when we match up in june i'm going to be in his head. I think he like, how could you not be a basketball God? And, you know, how could you not appreciate what Tatum did today? So I think it is more genuine than people give LeBron credit for.

I agree. That is a 100% genuine. But he does look out for the younger guys and he does embrace like his role as the, as the legend, you know, who's been in the league for 17, 18 years. And it makes me wonder if maybe when he was on his way up, some of the established guys didn't embrace him in the same way. I don't really remember, but I can't imagine 2005 or 2006 Kobe doing an Instagram post after a great battle with LeBron because the league was just different back then. Everybody wanted to kill everybody. And now, you know, there definitely is more of a camaraderie. I thought, you know, you go back to Tatum's really the last 10 games, he's, I think he's at like 28 or 29 a game, seven, eight rebounds. He's getting to the free throw line. It's all the

stuff we had kind of been hoping that would happen. And we talked about him a couple of weeks ago when we did the trade deadline pod, where it was like, you could see real things starting to happen. And watching the game today, I think he's a top 15 guy. Now I just think as a two way player, somebody who can create his own shot as somebody who seems to get better in big moments, and the way he's played against the two LA teams this year, which is the ultimate measuring stick, I think for this season, something legitimate is happening here. And I think it's the most interesting subplot in the East right now, because you have Toronto's ripping off wins. They look great. Milwaukee's headed towards some weird historical thing, but we kind of, we know who those teams are. We know Philly's messed up. We know Miami and Indiana probably aren't going to be there

when it gets to April, May, and June. And Tatum is the X factor in the East. And we saw why today, am I too excited about this or am I properly excited? Because you know how I feel about both Tatum and the Cs. No, I think you're right on with this, but I still think it's going to be funny that we started off with five minutes on Tatum when they lost, but that's okay. It's your podcast. I was probably as high on Tatum going back to it.

I thought he should have gone number one, and then people called me out on it, and I had the receipts prior to the draft. Yeah. Like, Oh, okay. So you did like him. Um, we all know how we felt about him after that rookie year. And you know, who knows this guy might've had an NBA finals and a couple of possessions break differently against the Cavs and LeBron, you know, and LeBron remember when Tatum threw down that dunk, you know, granted LeBron's happy cause they win game seven and they're going on to the finals again. But LeBron was jovial and going like, that guy got me, didn't he? He admitted Tatum got me. And then you have the Kyrie season, which is a disaster. And you go, wait a minute, what happened to Tatum? And I'll admit, this

whole thing has started, I think, right after. It has nothing to do with it. I'm not saying that. But like you, I watch this team pretty closely. I like being able to talk Celtics with my dad and I go, wait a minute, it was Tatum four 17 again today. Or what, what happened here? He was one for eight from three. Like what the hell is going on with this guy? And so part of my frustration when I started saying, do I need to reevaluate who Tatum is going to be? Because in Boston, people are like, ah, you can't trade him for Anthony Davis. And I think they would have traded him for Anthony Davis if they thought that was going to keep Kyrie there. If they were going to do the Kyrie Anthony Davis thing, I think they would have done Tatum. I agree. Um, you know, what Kawhi, would you trade him for Kawhi? You

know, no, like, I mean, granted, I'm not using Tommy Heinsohn as the only polling results here for what would you trade Tatum for? But I felt like there was a stretch before this national coming out party where I kept looking up being like, you know, for a guy who I think really can be a top 10 guy. So my frustration with him was only because I felt so great about what his ceiling should be. So it wasn't like I was off of him. I just went like, hey, this is a month or so straight where I just, if he's going to be the guy that we think he can be, he needs to be better. And now not only has he been that he shattered it, the Clippers game really felt like a coming out party. And then this, I'm going to go ahead and really gross people out here.

It feels a little bit like Paul Pierce in the end of that 2001 season where he had just been on this absolute tear. He starts the month up with 30 in Milwaukee. He goes to Washington, drops 21, then 24. Goes to the Lakers, drops 42. And then he actually missed eight free throws in that game. Has 42 the next game against Phoenix. And then he had 37, 44, 36, 41. I mean, he went on this absolute tear.

And I think that's when Shaq first called absolute tear and i think that's when shack first called him the truth and that's why you're sitting there as a celtics fan being like hey i think pierce is good but whoa like is this guy going to be like the like the number one player on a good team because that's the difference too is like is your team winning when you're doing stuff like this and the celtics are a good team but i still think the lakers are better than them that's a great point with pierce i was going to bring it up myself because it reminds me a lot of that stretch post Patino. And I don't think anybody in you and I were both living in Boston at the time. None of us ever thought it was ever realistic that the Celtics were going to make the finals. And yet Pierce went up a level

and then all of a sudden it became realistic and they made the Eastern conference finals. He wasn't totally ready yet. I don't think it wasn't like he was peaking as a player or anything, And yet Pierce went up a level and then all of a sudden it became realistic and they made the Eastern Conference finals. He wasn't totally ready yet. I don't think it wasn't like he was peaking as a player or anything, but he put that first phase of his career together. It's funny. I actually went over and saw the countdown guys today during the second quarter of the game and I was making fun of Pierce. I was like, this is Tatum now.

He's kind of on your corner now. This is getting awkward, you know, because Pierce had had this, this Tatum, he's kind of on your corner now. This is getting awkward. You know, because Pierce had had this, Bird is the best Celtic forward ever. McHale is who he is. Oh, that's he going down the line. But Pierce was kind of the modern best two-way forward and a guy who began, had his prime with the Celtics and then ended and then basically had the last couple throwaway years.

But, you know, it was a true Celtic. And I don't think anybody expected this Tatum thing to progress as fast as it did. I think Pierce embraces it and he loves it. But all those guys, Jalen, Jay Williams, Pierce, just watching the second quarter and all of them were like, this is happening. This is on. So I think it's important for a big picture standpoint, not just because we get to talk about the Celtics, but it's the one NBA subplot right now. We always see somebody every year seems to take off January, February range, right? Like remember two years ago,

I think it was when Davis went up that whole other level and all of a sudden it was like, holy shit, is he Tim Duncan? And you always see that one guy, right? Right around the all-star break or maybe even before that goes up a level. And all of a sudden it was like, holy shit, is he Tim Duncan? And you always see that one guy right around the all-star break or maybe even before that goes up a level. And it seems like Tatum's the guy. You made the key point though. They lost the game. The Lakers are still a little too big for them. And what really was happening in that game was the Lakers made it really physical on both ends and they turned it into a legitimate playoff game. There was people getting

shoved, people jumping over the backs, uh, hard picks, people clawing for steals behind. They just, they were going to get away with whatever the refs let them get away with to their credit. And they got away with a lot and made it and turned it into basically a rugby match, which they're just more equipped to win. And leaving that game, I was like, man, if they can get the officiating in the playoffs where it's that liberal, where Howard's allowed to just be around the rim, no three seconds. Davis is allowed to jump over guys' backs for rebounds, which he did a couple times in big moments today. But they're playing by what the whistles were going. And that was what was working.

They were just a little too physical for the Celtics team. And yet, I still feel like the Celtics could have stolen that game. But did you notice there was some bully ball stuff going on in that game that really felt a little May-June-ish, right? Absolutely. You know, I think over the back, though,

is one of the more misunderstood things in basketball. When Anthony Davis is going up against that front line, and Jalen Brown was assigned to him, that's kind of the, whatever possession that was clean, where it wasn't everybody trying to cross-match or match somebody up off a miss or something like that, whenever it was a clean defensive setup,

Jalen Brown was guarding Anthony Davis. And the funny thing is I'll watch Davis, and I love him, but then I'll be like, man, is he doing that passive thing? And then he had like a couple moments, and he does this. Like Davis will know he's been too passive, and then it's like, okay, I've had it, and I'm going at guys. And he did that on kind of a putback. There was one where it was in the second half

where he almost went too fast because he was going to be really aggressive and he missed what looked like a bunny. He still ended up with 32 points and 13 rebounds. But when you watch it in the course of the game, you almost felt like he should have been more dominant. And the Celtics did a really good job kind of ganging up on him. So near the hoop, I don't have the shot chart up, but I can't imagine. I may pull it up here as you're talking, but it wasn't that good. But the problem is that screen and roll with LeBron

and Davis screws you up so bad because it's LeBron James and Anthony Davis running a pick and roll. You can't help but pay a little bit of attention to it, especially as the game is progressing. It's almost like play action as a linebacker where you can sit there and try to stay

disciplined, but there's probably a good chance in the third quarter, you're going to step two steps in the wrong direction just because they kept running this play action at you. And LeBron is better than probably anybody in the league at knowing where you're going to screw up with your help and your positioning. And that I think is the difference between the Lakers and some of these other teams where when they have that right to your point that in the playoffs and they can be physical and all of this stuff, you know, I think in a way the Lakers are almost underrated this year, if that makes any sense, where, you know, they've had some stretches and I'm still not sure what the rotation is.

I was looking at some of their five-man stuff, but like, I know I can bet on that in the playoffs. I know that that is going to be working tough to deal with. And so many of these other teams, I'm still sitting here in February going, I don't know. I'm not sure if this is what it's really going to be in the playoffs. So I, that was a long over the back answer. I just think big guys get too much shit for just being bigger than guys in

front of them and they're not supposed to reach. So I'm not as big on anti over the back stuff as others. Yeah. They, they, they were going over Tice, which I think was the difference. They, they, once, once they established it early on, it became a day at some point, you just, you got to just let it go because you haven't called it one

piggybacking on two of your points, that high screen with Davis, you made the play action football analogy. It's so true because there was a play in the fourth quarter when Tice was just naturally starting to gravitate backwards because you're just so scared of Davis rolling in the basket. And that becomes the play action thing where then all of a sudden Davis has an open 25 footer, but you don't realize it. And then he can make that obviously. And then if you're playing too close to him, he can go by you, bounce off, you get the call. And there's just a lot going on mentally during the game. And I do think it wears you down a little bit. And what's funny is I think the Celtics are about as well equipped to defend them as anybody because they have their entire team can switch. Right.

So normally LeBron's trying to get, you know get whoever to get switched on him and Kemba Walker, whoever it is, and now he can do the mouse in the house thing. But the Celtics had Smart, they had Hayward, Jalen, Tice, Tatum. And no matter who is switched on LeBron, it was somebody that could at least make them work a little bit. The Davis thing, they were saving Tatum, putting Tatum on him for the last five minutes, which I had been waiting for. And I think they didn't want to wear down Tatum and get him in foul trouble. But I think ultimately that if they ever played in the finals or something, I think that would be the key crunch time matchup because the Lakers, they took out their big guys last five minutes. They made Davis to five. And at that point, now you can have Tice

and Tatum on LeBron and Davis. And if they switch, you're fine because Tice is just weirdly, really good now defensively. So anyway, that play action combined with LeBron's ability to just barrel into people with his back, like he did to Jalen when they're down to the play where he ended up. He got the foul call. He made the first free throw, missed the second. Davis goes crashing into Jalen. Ball goes out of bounds. They call it Laker ball. But that play where LeBron, he did this in the 2018 finals too, where his back's to you and he's just kind of going from left hand to right hand, backing you down, using his elbows. And I got to be honest, I don't know how you stop that.

It does feel like they could run that play every time and he's getting lit. How do you stop that? What would you do? Well, the only thing you can really do is, like, Jalen did a really good job. Jalen stayed with him. He did. There was one where LeBron, you know, LeBron's going to want to call. And he got him really, he almost got him pinned underneath the basket.

And LeBron, uh, Jalen never left his feet. He kept his arms straight up. There may have been a little contact in the arm, but I felt that when LeBron initiated it and, uh, you know,

Jalen, I don't know that you can do much more than that. I mean, you can sit there and try to say, Oh, we're going to send doubles, but you can't have Tice leave Davis. So say you want to send size at him and double there.

He's just going to throw a lob over you. I mean, LeBron's honestly like, he's like that great quarterback that you actually are better off not blitzing. If you want to send doubles at you, even if you get him one possession, he's going to burn you like the next few because he's already going to be like, okay, that's what you're doing. And that's the beauty of watching him beyond everything else. I still can't believe they called that charge on him against Tice.

Yeah, he doesn't get that until after. No can't believe they call that charge on him. I know. Yeah. He doesn't get that into him, but that's no, most stars never get that call on them. I know that the calls were frustrating and the out of bounds thing. It looked a little bit like it was Anthony Davis. Mark Jackson gave the, Oh, it's obvious,

which was like one of the least obvious things I've seen all season long. We watched these replays and, you know, even people that think that they can see it's off of somebody's hands, like unless the ball moves or you see a finger bend backwards, it could just be the illusion of the ball being behind the finger and it never really touches him. And that was actually, I can't imagine what it was like in the building. It was great. Just waiting and waiting and waiting.

It was great up until that replay review, which felt like it was six, seven minutes. I mean, as soon as I saw Mark Davis, I knew we were just in trouble in general for the game. But, you know, the most fascinating subplot other than the Tatum thing today was that Kuzma, I thought, had his most important game as a Laker that I've seen because they couldn't stop Tatum. They couldn't slow him down.

He must have had 30 points in a quarter and a half. And maybe he was getting a little tired, but Kuzma came in and really did a nice job on him and then made a couple other plays and was athletic. He had that block on him. Yeah. Rondo jumped into the conversation. It was an important, I think, game for him

because I still can't figure out what their crunch time is and maybe it's just going to depend on the matchup and who the other team has out there but I don't think you can play Kuzma and Green together with Davis and LeBron and I just

don't think I don't like those four together so Kuzma got the green minutes today, basically. He just basically took, green would have come in in crunch time. Kuzma took that from him. And then they have the guard. Then it doesn't seem like they ever want to play a center the last five minutes. So then it comes down to the Avery Bradley, Rondo, Caruso group.

And I guess he's just going to do it by feel this whole season, right? Ultimately, it really doesn't matter because they have Davis and LeBron. And when you have a game like that, where Hayward blows that layup, would have put the Celtics up four with like a minute and a half left. And Hayward, that was the full Hayward experience today. He looked incredible in the first half, lost his confidence second half, and it was just the whole gamut. This is what he's been like all season. But when it really gets down to it, you're in that final minute, and those two guys are on the four, I'm with you. I actually think the Lakers might be underrated. And then you look at what their schedule has left. I think they had,

going into this game, 17 of their last 29 were at Staples or something like that. So their schedule is going to get easier. They're going to run away with the one seed. I don't think anyone's going to touch them. And unless Milwaukee makes the finals against them, probably going to have home court too. So I'm with you. I actually think they're probably underrated. And so it's a weird, I don't feel like that's the hugest proclamation ever, but I do feel like people are like, oh, the two LA teams. And we're going to talk about the other one in a second. I don't think it's close. I don't care how good Kawhi was last year.

And I don't care how good he can be game to game. To me, it's not close. I think the Lakers are just better right now. Yeah, that's kind of how I felt like, you know, even though being out here and, you know, every Laker fan will tell you, oh, they have nobody for Anthony Davis. It's like, yeah, but you lost, what,

the two times they played? The Clippers have beat them both times, I believe. Yeah. I think I have that right. I think I've been repeating it. No, you're right. I hate to be wrong on it. And yet, even today,

if Boston had won this game, I'm like, man, they beat them twice this year. They smashed them in Boston, and then they win at their place without Kemba. And that game was winnable because the two Gordon misses were bad. The Jalen pass out of bounds, just straight up out of bounds to Tatum was terrible. Marcus Smart had some of those awful Marcus Smart moments today where it's like, hey, man, if you're going to exaggerate an injury, don't pull up from 30 feet right after you've been rubbing out a muscle. Like, and I'm not saying he doesn't have like a leg bruise, but he had a stretch like canter checked in at the end of the first quarter. It was like a one point game and it wasn't all just on canter, but canters become unplayable

in certain games and canter never got back in except to sub in on the free throw for a rebound. But Smart went layup, bad layup, impossible layup, leg injury, exaggeration, pull-up three, leg injury, exaggeration, pull-up three again. And you're like, Jesus, dude, relax. And so it was one of those things where I'm at home and I'm going, I just expect the Lakers to win this game. I think they're going to win this game. I think they're the better team. And yeah, if you're a Celtics senior, you're like, are you kidding?

Two-point loss at their place with no Kemba. But the more I watched them, and I even texted somebody with the Lakers. They said, who's your five? Who's your five? Not Vogel, by the way, because he would never answer that. But Davis, LeBron, Kuzma, Green, slash CP. Or excuse me, not CP. KCP. The way it's written excuse me, not CP. KCP.

The way it's written here is Pope. Yeah, KCP. But then it was like, you know, Caruso's, Caruso's definitely somebody that, Caruso doesn't really play that much for them. I mean, he played eight minutes today, and it always feels like they're good minutes when he's in there.

Maybe that's because the home crowd loves him that whole time. But I don't know that Vogel, you're right. Like, I don't know that Vogel has to come up with this obsession with who are your seven and who are your eight. The way this league is now

and different matchups and different nights and everybody's sizing down more and more, I don't know that it's necessary. If Pope is feeling it, leave him in there. And I think Vogel still likes Rondo

despite some awful stretches, but I thought Rondo was really competitive today. I think the Celtics thing and KGB in there fired him up a little bit. So I leave this even with a two-point win going,

you know, it's going to be hard for me to pick somebody at least the way it feels right now in late February against LA in the playoffs. At least in the West. We'll see what happens

with Milwaukee. Rondo, at the very least, gives them an option for when LeBron's out of the game and he could just do the two-man thing with Davis. And they have real chemistry and it's, you know,

it's something at least. It's been bad though at times. No, I know, but it's at least compared to think about what the Celtics had for their second year. This is the last thing and then I want to move on to the Clippers. They never upgraded

the Wanamaker spot. I think they probably thought, well, in the playoffs he's not going to play anyway. But then you see a situation like today, there's no Kemba. The drop-off from even if Kemba had played 25 minutes to the absolute turd that Wanamaker gave them.

And Wanamaker was actually losing confidence during the game. You could kind of see it on the court. He got his pocket picked. He was just really, really bad. And then Kanter was the other guy who was supposed to be Tyson Kanter was the other guy who was supposed to be Tyson Kanter, you know, against certain teams. They've been borderline dominant at that

position where they'll, they'll put like 25 and 20 combined, stuff like that. And yet it, for whatever reason, Brad doesn't trust him against certain teams. And it's not even like I'll throw him out there. And if he's bad, I'll take him out. He goes into the game going, I'm not playing him. He will see no action today. So they weren't able to get that buyout guy who could play 15 minutes at the five and they weren't able to get the Wanamaker improvement guy.

And it still feels like they're a little short. And I think it's going to be an issue. I want to talk about the Clippers. So we're going to take a quick break. Hey, let's talk about our presenting sponsor, ZipRecruiter again. Okay. Finding key players for your team can be challenging.

Just ask the Celtics who relied on Grant Williams and Brad Weinmeier in an ABC game today. Cafe Altura CEO Dylan Miskiewicz could relate. He needed to hire a director of coffee. He posted his job on ZipRecruiter. He found the best person for the role in just a few days. And it was somebody with better ball handling skills than Brad Watermaker. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. I know that's impossible. That doesn't sound reasonable,

but those are the percentages. 80%. Right now, my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. It's a special URL. So do that. ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. All right. here's my Clippers question for you. If Adam Silver called the Clippers right now and said, hey, I talked to OKC, you can have a do-over on the Paul George trade. I'll just reverse it. Shea and Gallo are coming back.

OKC said they'll keep half the picks. You can have the other half. Would the Clippers do this? Wait minute wait a minute so you're actually talking like not just a do-over like a compensation tax like we put everybody through this but you can have gallo so just so we revisit the picture i'm going to revisit the pics i'm going to let you answer your own question first because i know you're hot on this right yeah? Yeah. Okay. It's seven picks. It's four unprotected, one protected, and two pick swaps. So that means

in 21, the Clippers give them the Miami pick that's unprotected, an unprotected pick in 22. They have a lottery protected pick in 23 and the potential to swap an unprotected in 24, a swap in 25, unprotected in 26.

I struggled saying unprotected numerous times there. So what's your answer? I mean, you could argue Paul George for SGA and Gallinari just as a two for one, given the way SGA has emerged this year and the way Gallo is playing, just as a two for one, you might rather have SGA and Gallo and Ari. You really might. Now, here's where any Quipper fan I know,

because all of them are freaking out about this trade at this point, they're going to do the whole thing. No, no, no. It was the only way we could get Kawhi. We had to give up all that. I'm conceding that point. I'm just saying, no, no, no, it was the only way we could get Kawhi. We had to give up all that. I'm conceding that point. I'm just saying we knew SGA was good.

We didn't know he was going to be what he became right away this year. And if you just think, if they don't do anything, and they have all those picks and they had those Miami picks in play and SGA gallowing and expiring, if they had somehow been able to convince Kawhi to come without having to be hijacked into that Paul George trade, basically, where they're giving away all the assets they have, basically for two years of Kawhi and Paul George,

this did not turn out great. And I think even if all of this works out in their favor and Paul George comes back and everybody can stay healthy in the playoffs, I think with what they have, I still feel like the Lakers are better. And there's a chance that they might not make the finals over the next two years and they might get completely gutted. And look, I hate, I know this is back chair quarterbacking, all that stuff, backseat quarterbacking, all that stuff, backseat quarterbacking. But my point is, just pure basketball for this team, for what we've seen this year,

I think they would have been better off with SGA and Gallinari. George has been hurt this whole season. And then when he's out there, he's kind of a ball stopper. And he's a little bit redundant with Kawhi in some ways. Then they go out and they get Marcus Morris, another ball stopper. Then last week, the coup de grace, Reg get Marcus Morris, another ball stopper. Then last week, the coup de grace, Reggie Jackson,

yet another ball stopper who isn't afraid at all to take the biggest shot of a game with 30 seconds left. I don't like the makeup of this team. And I actually think it's more likely that they would get upset in round one

than it is that they would make the finals. That's my hot take of the day. How's that? So you would pick the Thunder against them right now in the 6-3 matchup? I'm saying wow, that could be the 6-3 matchup. You're right.

It is right now. I'm saying it's more, if you were asking me what's more realistic, them making the finals with the team they have right now that they're basically stuck with into the spring or them getting upset in the first round, I think it's more likely they get upset in the first round. What have they showed us for the first four months? Every time we do a podcast,

we talk about this team carries itself like they've won four titles already. There's no consistency at all. They get in their ass kicked by the Kings. There seems like over and over again, the quotes from the clubhouse, the rhetoric is all of a team that seems to be in more trouble than maybe they're letting on. And if I was a Clipper fan, I would be losing my mind.

I'd be completely panicking because you're all in on these next two years. This is it. Both of these guys could leave in two years. So to have Reggie Jackson and Marcus Morris be your big moves, I think their big, big, big mistake was not really trying to get Thompson somehow. And whether it could have been the same package they gave up for Marcus Morris, maybe even you put in more, maybe even you put Zubach on the

table too, Plus all the stuff you gave up for Marcus Morris. I think they're a guy short. I think they're too small. And I don't trust the Paul George health thing. I don't trust that he's going to be healthy for the rest of the season. Do you? No, I definitely don't. I mean, we're talking about a guy's missed over 20 games. And even when he came back, when he played in that Philly game, you could see something was wrong. I don't know if it was re-aggravated or games, and even when he came back, when he played in that Philly game, you could see something was wrong. I don't know if it was re-aggravated or what. He had three points in the first half.

He's just having one of those Paul George games. I've always struggled with Paul George. I always have because I know what the numbers are. This guy's going to end up making the Hall of Fame, and yet I just think like a foxhole guy,

like he'd be like, hey, can you go on the other one? Like, hey, there's no room in this one, Paul. Yeah, no, no, two down. That's for Fred. Fred's coming any second. Yeah, no, just wait in that one, because, yeah, we're good. No, that's not an extra spot.

That one's taken i i think the original point here so let me preach give you my eric sermon if you're a gm you spend your whole life hoping for the opportunity to add kawaii leonard and paul george your free agency now i would agree with you that i'm maybe the thing i'm most fascinated with when it comes to just being a GM is you couldn't have given him six picks, right? Like, like with Sam Presti, like, no, I need the seventh first rounder. Right. And Lawrence Frank and winger are going, nope. And he's like, I need the seventh. They're like, we're offering six. And like, you can't, but you can, but then again, it's like, if you're the guy on the phone, do you want to go back to Balmer and say, Hey, we could have had Kawhi and Paul

George, but we just couldn't do that seventh pick in 2026. It feels like, it feels like four first should have gotten this done. I don't know why they were getting seven. Who else was giving them four first and Sga and gallo for for and kawai right like kawai was going to the guys in toronto like before it finally happened i told you about this you know i get the call and like hey i'm just at dinner and kawai facetime somebody with a raptor saying hey can we get paul george can we get paul george and i couldn't like use that because there's a chance if i get it wrong, everybody was getting all the Kawhi stuff wrong,

and then that ended up being totally true. So I think it's not even the counter to you. I get what you're saying. I'd love to know lie detectors, Presti, and then Frank, and just say, what would you have been willing to do? What would you have said yes? What would you have said no to? But this whole point of this is to put those two guys together. So we can say Paul George is redundant, but when it looks good, we feel like, hey,

the Clippers are doing that thing that we love with Boston. What do we love about Boston? Interchangeable wings. Jalen and Tatum defensively, offensively can play off of each other. Well, we were just talking about how these were the JV version of it. That seems dismissive of Tatum and Brown because the vars guess the varsity version is is kawaii and george i think your best point is that they carry themselves like this team that's done something and honestly like imagine if toronto clay doesn't get hurt golden state finds a way to win game seven would we look at this entire clippers and kawaii thing entirely different i think we would even though go ahead going to say, I haven't made my best point yet. It's about to come right now. You ready? I blame Kawhi Leonard. Look at the basketball options that he had heading into July. He could have gone to the Lakers and played with

Anthony Davis and LeBron James. That's a, that's a wrap, right? At least for the next two years, or he could have just gone back to Toronto, even if it was for one year and played with the team, he just won the title with a team that had Siakam. You know, I don't think it was inconceivable, uh, nine months ago that Siakam was going to go up a level. He was playing against those guys every day. You put Kawhi on this year's Toronto's team, and that's a potential 67, 68 win team. Or the other option was to go to the Clippers, force them to trade every asset they have for Paul George. And now you're stuck on this team where your team is Paul George, Harrell, Lou Williams, Landry Schammett, hopefully a couple of buyout guys, Zubach. That was the worst basketball

situation of the three, regardless of the Paul George trade. So I wonder if there was a moment where the Clippers had a meeting and were just like, hey man, should we tell Kawhi we're actually better off not doing this Paul George thing and that SGA is really good and we'll have way more flexibility with all those picks and Gallo's expiring and maybe SGA blossoms and maybe we have a chance to really build something for the next four years? They probably thought about it. And I think what happened is, I think Kawhi that he's looking at this as a two-year thing. Two years plus maybe more, who knows? But really, I want to succeed the next two years.

I don't care if you give away every asset you have because if it doesn't work out, I just won't be there anyway. You guys will be the one that's screwed. I'll just be on my next team. So I don't know. I mean, this has to work out where they have to make the finals within these next two years

or this will go down in history as one of the disaster trades. Don't you think? They basically gutted their team for a decade. Oh, there's definitely an ending of this where both those guys opt out

and they're like, okay, let's just do this again in 2021. And you go, oh my God. Oh my God. That is a catastrophe. Honestly, that's like the Brooklyn trade multiplied by five.

Because they lose SGA, who has a chance to be an all-NBA guy next year. Yeah, but they were getting Garnett and Pierce. No, that's true. That one's way worse because as much as, you know, Pierce still had, I think, more left in the tank. When it was over Garnett, it was over like that. Well, they also, they thought their owner was going to be spending 180 million a year and he just changed his mind a year later. It's like, hey, actually, I'm not going to do that anymore.

But I think the disaster. Jet skis are expensive. The disaster, jet skis and other stuff. The disaster for the Brooklyn thing was that when it cratered, it cratered in a way where now the Celtics have Tatum and Brown because of that trade. So I'm just looking at it from a Clippers standpoint where, okay, see, if those two guys leave the Clippers in two years, that becomes the Brooklyn trade multiplied by two because it's more picks. I think it would be harder for the Clippers, maybe not as hard as it was for the Nets because they were really gutted, but it's going to be some lottery picks potentially. But it's the first time over the last two weeks I really started thinking about the worst case scenario parts of this trade where you have Paul George. I don't even know what,

how many Paul George injuries we're up to or what's wrong with them lately, but you know, he's at the point say he's been in the league, I think a full decade now. And, uh, you know, whether health wise, whether last year before here to shoulders, was that his apex? Is he ever going to get to that level again? Will he ever be healthy enough to play eight, nine straight months? I don't know. They,

man, I think, I think it's really alarming. I think this trade is officially alarming. Maybe, maybe I'm overreacting, but I don't feel like I am. I still think you are.

Although I, like this isn't a, you're right. You're wrong because you very well could be right about this, but I don't feel like I am. I still think you are. Although, this isn't a you're right, you're wrong, because you very well could be right about this. But right now, it's still too early. So let me push back a little bit from this. Please. Because I could do more on Paul George. The numbers aren't bad, but he's taken half of his shots from three.

If you're going to keep telling me he's not healthy, then what can I do but just go on what I'm being told and that he's not healthy. Look, he's not playing. Kawhi's probably playing his best basketball of his career if you look at some of the stats here. Agree. He is actually, for a guy, and by the way, like something you said there earlier about, couldn't you reach out and said, hey, we're actually going to be better without Paul George Kawhi. Good luck getting anything out of Kawhi. Good luck getting to talk to him about any of your

plans or his plans. So I don't know that that discussion is even realistic. Seriously. I'm not even trying to be funny about it. I don't know that there's a, Hey Kawhi, here's all of our options. Like, you know, where are you at? Like, I don't think you're, you were allowed to do that with him before free agency or during free agency. I think you're actually seeing Kawhi get a little bit more frustrated, though, with refs and teammates, which you never see from this guy. They have now going in, because I went back and watched the Sacramento loss. I mean, they started, I think, 3-21 in the first quarter.

I don't know what it is with them in these Saturday games. They had a Saturday Memphis game where they were at home. They lost 140 to 114. There was a Saturday game at Minnesota where they lost. They gave up 142 to them. And Paul George

actually played in that game. They haven't had Beverly this whole time. That's another problem for them. So we can't overlook that. Yeah, but wait a second though. There's a 28 different starting line. But the Beverly thing,

he's hurt every year. Like, are you surprised they don't have Beverly? That's certainly, he's not Mr. Durable. So, I don't know. I don't know. I think that this whole, like, I guess the point that I should make, 28 different starting lineups. They've had 15 guys start games.

And yes, some of the lineups that are out there now don't make any sense. Their top unit is 215 minutes. Their top five-man unit is 215 minutes. You want to compare that with the Milwaukee Bucks that have more stability? Their top five-man unit has played 361 minutes together. That's clearly more than 100 minutes off of other teams. So having said all of these things, they've dropped three games in a row. They've lost. They were, what, three and a half behind the Lakers in the one seed. They were four games up on Houston. Now they're only a game up on Houston.

With all of this that we've just gone through, they're still 37 and 19 and there's a version of this team that exists that I am not going to be dismissive of even though it'd be a lot nicer if they could have played

a few months together. All fair. Can you guess how many times in 2020 Paul George has played 32 minutes in a game? The line is 32. I know he's missed, what, 22 games, I think?

How many 32-minute performances has he had in 2020, which is now we're two months in. Five? One. He's played in one in 34 games. we're two months in five, uh, one he's played in one in 34 games in, in whatever, two, whatever,

two months of games is he had a, he played 35 minutes, once 31 minutes, another time. That's it. I think it's a problem. Um, I don't like the moves they made either.

I was already on the record with the Marcus Morris thing. And then the Reggie Jackson thing. Wow. Good luck. Talk about a guy who can win you a playoff game and then lose you four. I would say Reggie Jackson's up there.

Not a lot of Reggie Jackson suitors as we headed toward the trade deadline. Don't remember his name popping up in a lot of Woj, a lot of, uh, Woj columns. I don't know. I think they're too small. Yeah. Is the buyout market sort of like a vacation t-shirt? Well, because the guy that if Thompson was out there, that's a game-changing guy. That's somebody that I think could swing the title race. Other than that, we haven't seen Markeith Morris.

From what you saw today with the Lakers game, did you watch any minute of that game and go, man, if only Markeith Morris was available. It really pushed him over the top. Most of these guys are pretty shaky. The bio guy I got the most excited about, did you see the Warriors sign Dragon Bender today?

Yeah, the dragon. He's 22. I remember when I first heard about him. I was like, wait a minute, he's a taller Dirk? That sounds good. A little like, wait a minute, he's a taller Dirk? That sounds good. A little racist, but I'm in. All right, I tried to get you more scared about the Clippers. I did my best.

It didn't work. But since we talked about... Yeah, but I don't think it's a disagreement. Your ending could happen. I just... I don't know. There's a version of this too, where I think if it were really this bad,

when we talk about them, like as a seven or eight seed and twice too good. There's another piece of this though. And I think one of the reasons so many people are so excited about this last summer and even heading into the season, not just, Oh my God, we got Kawhi Leonard on the clipper.

He's the best clipper of all time. There was this sense like now it's a two basketball team town. Maybe they could take LA from the Lakers. A lot of dumb stuff that if you actually lived in LA, you'd know there was no chance. What we've seen the last four weeks since Kobe's tragic death, there is no chance, zero, none, that this will ever be anything other than a Lakers town. It's a Lakers town through and through. It's the DNA of this city. And the Clippers are going to be the second banana. And when they get to the playoffs, if they win a couple rounds, some people hop on the bandwagon like they did with the Kings in 2012 and 2014. And you know, if LAFC ever made the, whatever the MOS cup is called, all that stuff. But this is a Lakers town.

And I wonder if I'm Balmer. And I think like, I went all in on this and I really genuinely started to think I could turn this into a two basketball team town. And now I'm looking at this going, oh, there's no chance. There's no chance. I can build my own stadium in Englewood. I can have the coolest sweatshirts. Clippers have great sweatshirts. They did a great job with their merch. They have a whole bunch of awesome people that work for them. It's a really well-run organization now. I love their staff. Love their

staff. And none of it matters. Not, not any of it. It's a Lakers town. This is all Lakers here. They have no chance. So, you know, maybe in a, in a weird way, maybe it is a good thing that this is a two year we're all in. And if we're in, if it doesn't happen, maybe, maybe the Clippers don't happen in LA. Maybe they should move to Seattle if this doesn't work. Because this is a Hail Mary, basically. And not a Hail Mary

because you're getting Kawhi Leonard and you're getting Paul George, who is one of the 10 best guys in the league. But now you have a two-year clock. You have no indication, zero, that either of those guys are staying in two years. And especially with the way basketball is, you know, like shaking a snow globe every year now. And I just think it's so much bleaker than I felt like it was last summer, September, October. Like,

I think they have no chance to make this a two-team town. No chance. You've only been here for, what, two years? How many Clippers anythings have you seen? What's the Lakers-Clippers ratio for just things you've seen as you've lived in LA? That's not close. I don't even know what the number is. I mean, is it 10 to 1 low? It feels like 100 to 1 sometimes. I would say 100 to 1. And think about it. I mean, they add, but to think to add, hey, like in less than two years, these four teams added, as you said, four of the best players. George is debatably top 10, but he's not that much further out of it, even though I have frustrations with him. But all four of those guys showed up to this city in just over a calendar year.

And it just happened to be that when the Clippers finally did the thing that other teams plot five years out. And that's why I do push back on the, oh, what about Paul George? Well, you know, you hope to ever add one of these guys in free agency. There's 15 fan bases every year going, no one's ever going to sign with us. That was just in Chicago.

They're convinced there's like a curse. I mean, think about Boston. Boston's going to get a free agent forever. And then what happened? Like they did. They got a couple in a very short amount of time, which was unlike anything else in history. So when you could add those guys the the you know it almost can seem like there's no price that's

too excessive because it's so hard to add any of those guys but that i think is part of the problem that you're talking about there with the clippers is that oh we we added kawaii and paul jordan okay but the other team who owns the city just added anthony dav LeBron. So the timing of it was bad for the Clippers to gain any ground in the city. Yeah. Speaking of tall white guys, Dragan Bender, Aris from Ann Arbor, Michigan. You know, we're doing Theory of the Week.

I'm giving you my Theory of the Week later in the pod. His thing was, he wanted us to discuss big white guys who are supposedly great shooters shooters but really are not. Where it's basically like when they say an athlete's really funny but they're athlete funny, they're not actually funny. It's like, oh, he's hilarious.

It's like, no, he's actually not that funny. In real life, not funny. Like Tiger? Right. So he says, if you're near seven feet tall, white, and you attempt threes, fans immediately assume you're Nowitzki 2.0. He goes, Exhibit A, Brooke Lopez averaged 36% last year. Everyone thought he was Klay Thompson. Exhibit B, Laurie Markkinen, 35% three-point field goal percentage.

Every time I watch a Bulls game, the announcers are shocked that he didn't hit that semi-contested three. And then he said, exhibit C, Nikola Meretic, supposed to open up space for the Bucs last year's playoff race, shot 29% on threes, career average in the playoffs, 32%. Is there something there with tall white guys who could make a couple threes and we automatically start to think they're these dead-eye shooters and they're really not? I kind of like this. I have an entire Brook Lopez theory later. I could even go solo. I could probably do an hour on it on mine,

so I'm not sure if I want to use it yet. Okay. Those numbers need to be worse, because I was looking up a lot of Brook Lopez stuff today based on this theory. Brook's three-point numbers are down, but they've been pretty steady, you know when you're around 35 around that size so i don't know if this year's an anomaly or what's going on there i do think there's some serious like i played in pickup games where i was the only white guy when i was open

everyone just screamed shooter right that felt that felt a little presumptive um maybe they knew davis bertans yeah davis bertans screws this all up for everybody though because he's just he's been wet for his entire career out there 41 i mean he's been over 40 three he's he's at 42 on eight three-point attempts for game i think he's averaging 40 a game. Oh, 15. I'm sorry. So those numbers need to be lower because I just looked up Mike Mascala and Mascala's numbers are actually pretty good. And everybody seemed to love him as a pick and pop guy. And then it was like, yeah, but that's literally the only thing he can do. This is great. I'm glad you brought up birth times because I had a subject for you, but we'll take a quick break.

Hey, cybercrime is on the rise. Complicated tech like the cloud and internet of things makes it hard for modern businesses to see and stop attacks. ExtraHop helps you detect threats in the cloud up to 95% faster and automate response so you can stop bad actors in their tracks. I'm not talking about bad actors like, I don't know, somebody who would be sucking John Wick 3. I'm talking about actual bad actors. Stop I don't know, somebody who would be sucking John Wick 3. I'm talking about actual bad actors. Stop ransomware and more sophisticated threats up to 60% faster. Complete visibility on every asset in real time and at scale. Expose attackers hiding in seemingly legitimate traffic in real time. Stop threats. Again, 60% faster. Secure your hybrid enterprise,

wherever it is today and wherever it goes tomorrow. Automatically detect new rogue and unmanaged IoT devices. I don't even know what those are. Those sound scary. See everything in your environment from the cloud to the data center. The customer detect threats with advanced machine learning at scale.

You know who uses ExtraHop? The Home Depot. To manage and secure nearly 2,300 remote sites because, quote, no data site is more complete and accurate than what ExtraHop delivers. Check out the full product demo, customer success stories,

and more at ExtraHop.com slash BS. Once again, ExtraHop.com slash BS. All right, we're back. You mentioned Bertans before we did the break there. Here's my question of the month for you. At the end of the month, I'll have one important question for you. Have the Spurs officially lost their status when everybody goes, oh, they're one of the smartest teams.

And you list like the four or five teams or they say, oh yeah, the smart teams were always on that guy. Or yeah, the smart teams had noticed that. Can we remove smart team status from the Spurs? I'll give you seven moves they've made just in the last two plus years. Pau Gasol, they gave $48.5 million for three years and had to buy him out within like a year and a half. They gave Patty Mills $50 million for four years, summer of 2017. They traded Kawhi and Danny Green for DeRozan, Purtle, and a late 2019 first.

They traded Bertans basically for Damari Carroll because they thought they were also getting Marcus Morris. I don't know. Call me crazy. I'd rather have Bertans a hundred times out of a hundred. They also gave Carroll a three-year deal, which had a team option for the third year. They bought him out in year one. Still trying to figure out why they did that. Now he's on the Rockets. They have to carry his cap next year. I don't know what the benefit of that is versus keeping him and having him as an expiring. They gave Rudy Gay 32 million for two years last summer. They gave Trey Lyles 11 million for two years. Who the fuck? I wouldn't give him $11 an hour. And then they gave DeJounte Murray, they gave DeJounte,

do you know this right before the season started a 64 million four-year extension with didn't have to do anything. Could have just, you know, seen how his knee was watched him for a year. Um, maybe let somebody make a restricted offer for him, whatever that everybody in the league has a point guard. It's not like there's going to be a giant Murray market. So those are just moves they've made in the last three years. They're not going to make the playoffs. They're in no man's land.

They're the last team that's really grasped the advanced metrics, lots of threes, all that stuff. My question is all due respect to the Spurs and everything they've accomplished and an unbelievable, remarkable, uh, 18 year run that they had all the way to Duncan's retirement. But when it's over, it's over. Why do we have to say they're one of the smart teams? Doesn't the last three years matter at all? Your thoughts. So what did they need to get to like 25 straight years for you to, to buy into their approach?

I don't know when it's over, it's over. It happens. This was supposed to happen like 10 years ago. You know what I mean? Like it's finally happened to him. And the fact that even that team even made the playoffs last year and still almost beat Denver with Derek white,

like showing up every other game. Um, you know, that to me, this this is all this is all just free free after you've paid the tab so I agree individually a lot of that stuff doesn't make a ton of sense the Rudy Gay his contracts at the second half of his career go dig into that stuff

you're like what did he do what did he opt out of oh then he got that cut like what the hell he got hurt and then he got that like what is going on there the Deante thing i think is is them going let's just do this in case something happens where he really takes off because i think we all really liked him and we go up that's the spur smart taking him 29th in the first round yeah start of his career before the injury it really looked like they had something uh the problem is he's a point guard that's a non-shooting point guard, which is kind of hard to use, even though the three-point numbers are up. He just doesn't really take that shot very often. He never gets to the

free throw line. And that position, we can like little things about DeJounte, but that's not really happening. The Damari thing, I don't understand. The Rudy Gay money, I don't understand. The Powell money, I don't understand. Berton's bouncing, I don't understand the Powell money. I don't understand Berton's bouncing. I don't understand, but you know, the team is built around Lamarcus in the second half of his career and DeRozan who's consistently despite traditional popping numbers has always been this guy that's like, you know, you really want to pay him all

of this money and I don't know, you know, they might they might because I don't know who else is going to do it just to feel like they're relevant to even the eight seed because there's no real other move out there. So to me that the run was overdue to even be like this, but yeah, like I'll give you something on some of that, but I understand the DeJounte one. So maybe they just got Tim Duncan in the 97 lottery. And then in the two thousands really smartly went after these European guys and South American guys and foreign guys well ahead when everyone was thinking that way.

And now this decade, everybody caught up to all that stuff. Tim Duncan gets old. And, you know, I think if you're comparing them to Belichick and the Pats, Belichick has over and over again figured out a way to adapt with whatever the hell was going on with the league. Even last year, an incredibly disappointing Patriots season. They still went, what, 12-5? And lost by a point to a really good Titans team. That's how the season ended. I don't know.

I think at some point, when you're judging somebody by past performance only, at some point, that has a shelf life, I guess would be my point. And I just think there are smarter teams now. I think there are teams that have figured out a whole bunch of stuff in a much better way. Now, does it matter? Not really. They had an incredible 18-year run, and they're running on fumes and they're on gravy on the gravy on the fumes of their gravy and it's all great and they had one of the best runs in the history of the

league but just had to mention you know what you know what it's a nice i i need to know more about what was really transpiring with the kawaii stuff because i've been told that the lakers deal could have happened if it were brandon ingram that were included in it. You know, I really, even if that had happened and I think it proved it out and I got beat up on this for like a year, but I really don't think Kawhi wanted to be LeBron's like sidekick. Even when LeBron was telling him, hey, you're going to be the main guy. Like, and the point is like, it's still LeBron is so good. I don't know that LeBron's going to stand and watch you Houston Rocket style because he told you in free agency recruitment that it was going to be your team. So no one will ever convince me that Kawhi actually wanted to play with LeBron.

And look, he just had the chance to and he decided to go to the Clippers, OK, to do his own thing. And honestly, like, I thought that was the thing we wanted. I thought that's what we wanted, especially when you go back 10 years ago, which seems like absurd overreaction outdated criticism a little wrong for going to miami heat like going back and be like what does this guy think he's doing and then because you were the first guy that all this different stuff happens anyway the point that that i needed to make here is there's nothing dumber than when i hear trade rumors whether it's stuff we read or stuff we hear from sources where it's like okay well or stuff we hear from sources, where it's like, okay, well, this team wants to move this guy, but they want to make sure they get him out of the conference.

Right. If the deal is better, this is a really hard game to build your roster. Take the better deal and worry about it later. And so I'd love to know what some of the other offers are out there, because if it was like, hey, let's punish Kawhi for bailing on us and send him to toronto like okay great job on the revenge there and then the all-timer was this past trade deadline where it's like the rockets want to move capella but they'd love to get him out of the west like yes because that will alter everything depending on which side of the country capella ends up in. So this is, it's not entirely fair what I'm doing here,

but just based on some of the breadcrumbs of information that were out there, if San Antonio thought that they were punishing Kawhi somehow or making sure he wasn't in the West, like it's really short-sighted and petty to do that if you're a GM because you're really punishing yourself if that's your number one goal because there's probably a better deal

in a deeper conference coming your way than just saying, oh, because there's probably a better deal in a deeper conference coming your way than just saying, oh, go to Toronto for a year. Well, if they could have actually gotten Brandon Ingram for Kawhi, they should have done that. I think that's a better trade. Well, there's people that believe that that was out there, but the Lakers wouldn't do that. So speaking of Texas teams, our next topic is, is this Rockets experiment actually working? Do we owe an apology? Neither of us liked it. Neither of us.

I don't like watching the Rockets. I feel like they've sucked you in. There's a tweet from- Who, me? Yeah, I feel like they've sucked you in a little bit. I feel like I'm by myself now. Oh, there you go. There's a tweet from at

L Tamar 710 which reads as follows. The Rockets have now played nine games in the micro ball era. I love how the Houston fans have now named this

the micro ball era. You're really desperately trying to get a book written about this team. Excluding the Suns game in which Westbrook didn't play, their record is 7-1. In those games, the Rockets have had a monstrous

119.7 offensive rating and a 108.7 defensive rating for an excellent plus 11 net rating. They're a problem now. So there's some stuff going on here. One is that when the Rockets play whoever and this team that's going through their schedule and they're in Atlanta one night and Charlotte the next night and Dallas the next

night and then they're playing Houston and Houston's playing this crazy fucking style and every single time it seems like it completely unravels the other team. Whether that can make sense for an actual two-week playoff series, I have no idea. All I know is it seems like it's happening during the regular season.

So that's one thing. The other thing is there's this nobody believes in us thing that's been building with them. Their fan base, their fans, the media, they all feel like everybody's against them. Everybody hates them. It's us against the world. I think the players feel that way. Westbrook, who is just acted like a complete jackass in the Thursday Golden State game, which I happen to be watching because obviously I hate

myself. He's starting fights with just random scrubs. He's barking at Klay Thompson on the bench. And the whole team has this fuck you edge to them. And it's kind of working. They, I watched the Utah game last night. I went on my little iPad this morning and plowed through it. And, uh, and that game was never close.

And something is clearly happening. Whether this translates to an NBA finals appearance, I don't know. Are you wavering at all from where we both stood that this was a complete gimmick and had no chance? I'm just looking back at the minutes here on their 7-1, if you don't include the Phoenix game where Westbrook was out. Because that Lakers game was kind of a coming out party for it.

I felt like that's when everybody was watching it, and you just kept expecting the Lakers to beat them the whole time and you're like, oh, I guess they're not going to beat them. I don't like watching them now all of a sudden, by the way. I think you do.

The Westbrook thing the other night is like classic. I feel like you do. I feel like you got sucked in a little bit. The entire season. Now, this is why I'm the best because I can't stand it,

but yet I give Darryl probably more credit than anybody for trying to slay the beast that was the Golden State Warriors. And I've done this now twice, where every time Houston does the thing that everybody else says isn't going to work, they've been right, and the mob has been wrong.

Whether it was taking a million threes. I remember the first time we read about it, right? Well, Daryl was like, I'd love it with this G League team to just take 73s and see what would happen. And then it's like, well, maybe I'll just do it with the NBA team. And guess what? He was right.

Now everybody does it. The Chris Paul thing. Oh, that's not going to work. No, they staggered it. It was great. That team very easily could have won a title. And I say this all the time because it's worth bringing up and giving them this credit.

Oh, they're going to go small. Well, this is stupid. This isn't going to work. You can't hold up here. Well, guess what? It's working. And it's disrupting. It's not just, hey, we take even more threes than before, and we're trading twos for threes. It screws up the

other team. Gobert is not a great offensive center. I understand that. And Gobert, the biggest issue with him is as great as he is defensively, and he is that great. That kind of impact he makes over a regular season is great, but we've seen flashes at times in certain playoff matchups where you're like, okay, can you keep him out there? If Utah plays them again, I don't know what you do with Gobert if they're facing each other in the playoffs. And the more frustrating thing isn't about his defense. It's you took six shots or seven shots and had six rebounds. Like how the fuck does Rudy Gobert end up with six rebounds in 34 minutes against the Houston Rockets? And it's screwing all these guys up. And then honestly, to watch Gobert, like let Westbrook punk him a little bit. Like I a little bit, I don't know what the hell that's about.

I honestly can't believe somebody hasn't taken a swing at Westbrook. His act with the Golden State Warriors the other night was so embarrassing. It's like, oh, you're going to be a tough guy with a half a G League team? Awesome. We've seen your boxing videos. But I can dislike it all. I don't need to do this segment anymore. You know what I mean?

I've done this segment a million times. But it's just from a basketball. And hey, be fair. Don't analyze with the outcome that you're hoping for, which is that it doesn't work. Acknowledge that Daryl has been right in the face of his critics a lot of times. But then this all ends with like, I don't even know if it's a period at the end of the sentence because you know it's the next paragraph and then you go okay but

what about the playoffs and that's where i'm like okay you know now what are we doing well that goes to the milwaukee thing too and i we talked about this a lot last year and i feel even more strongly about it this year i i've gotten to the point where I can't even take the regular season really seriously when looking at the overall stats and the point differential and all that stuff because we just know when we get to the playoffs that so much is different. It gets slower.

Teams get used to each other over the two weeks. Everything we've already laid out a million times. And my question with this Rockets thing, twofold. One, can they just sustain it from an intensity standpoint? How frantic it is. Can they just even do this for three more weeks at the level they've been at the first couple weeks here? Then the second piece is,

if you see it every day for two weeks, does it become like the Baltimore Ravens offense type of thing where in the regular season, it's one thing, but in the playoffs, if you have the two weeks to actually prepare for it and be like, okay, Lamar, they like to do this. So we'll do this and you can kind of fix it and take it out. Um, is that what's going to happen with this? I don't know. All I know is this. It's rejuvenated Westbrook in a real way. And I'd kind of given up on him as an A-lister.

Even to the point when we were talking about who should make the all-star team, there were signs that Westbrook was coming on. I was like, I'm not buying it. I just think he's done as that kind of player. But now it does feel like there's some two-man punch now with those guys where they're starting to carry themselves like real A-listers again as a combo. Not just Harden and the Hardenettes. Feels like Westbrook has kind of moved side by side with him,

and it's because they opened the floor for him. So I guess kudos to that. I still fucking hate watching it i'm just gonna say that i think westbrook's kind of like um i don't know you ever i don't even married a long time but you ever date somebody who's pretty serious and you break up and then you go i miss this person and give it another shot like, we both care about each other. Maybe we're a little bit more grown up. Let's do this.

And in those first few months, maybe weeks, depending how much of a nightmare you both are, you're like, this is awesome. This person's making concessions. They're trying to fit in. And I look at Westbrook's shot attempts per month to further this analogy. The first month, granted, is a handful of games, 16 shots a game.

November, 20 shots a game. December, 24 shots a game. January, 25 shots a game. Up until recently, he was averaging 28 shots a game, and then they came back after the break. So he's at 26 shots a game here. Westbrook, for him to be better actually needed to go back to being who he was. And then now them opening everything up where it's five out

without any version of some sort of pick and roll with a big, which Capella actually at times had been really good with. They just weren't running it anymore. Like Westbrook reverting back to Westbrook has turned him into a better version of himself because when we were doing the all-star stuff, we were totally fair about about that it was the worst year of his career you know up until him really taking off here and you know he's not taking threes like he had a moment in that jazz game where they left him wide open like everybody is and he didn't even take it like he didn't he didn't bother he's like okay you know and like he took a couple um he was two for four in that jazz game and side note too which is really funny because I complimented Houston which I guess He didn't bother. He was like, okay. You know, like he took a couple. He was two for four in that Jazz game.

And side note, too, which is really funny because I complimented Houston, which I guess makes you think I'm backing on the Rockets, but then Jazz fans who are always friendly. It is so embarrassing when you are the back-to-back guy. And I still have IT on this because everybody brings it up whenever their team loses on the second of a back-to-back. I guess in NBA history, no team has ever won on the second of the back-to-back and by the way you just had a fucking week off okay so that that loss was not about it being a back-to-back and conley didn't even play in the first game back anyway so So the Rockets thing, you're right. It's rejuvenated. Daryl deserves credit.

But it is always TBD with two absolute playoff flameouts as their one and two options. Westbrook in 2020. So just the calendar year right now, January, February. He's played 17 games. He's basically 32, 8, and 7.

The shocker to me, though, he's taken 25.4 shots a game, but he's shooting 52.4% from the field. And as you said, he's eliminated threes. He's only taken 2.4 threes a game in that 17-game stretch. He's 6.5 free throws, only taking 2.43 is the game in that 17 game stretch. He's six and a half free throws,

but he's actually taking good shots. And like when the Celtics played them and Harden and Westbrook were just going to the line over and over again, most of the shots Westbrook took was pretty good. And maybe, you know, maybe Daryl and those guys looked at this and thought, we have no chance unless Westbrook can turn into Westbrook again. All right.

So how can that happen? We have to quicken the pace. We have to completely open the floor. And that's the only way we can potentially save them. Were they smart enough to think that? Maybe. Were they smart enough to look at their numbers with Capella, with their rebounding numbers, rim protection numbers, and just like, oh man, well, we're middle of the pack

anyway. Why not? I don't think it's sustainable, but I don't think they were going to win the way they were constituted beforehand. So I'm begrudgingly admitting that this might have been the right move. Now, it also might flame out spectacularly, but I think they were flaming out spectacularly anyway, and they were all in anyway on this Westbrook trade once they did and gave up the picks. So here's where I am, Rosillo.

I'm picking them now to win the NBA title. In fact, I am, Rosillo. I'm picking them now to win the NBA title. In fact, I'm guaranteeing it. I'm guaranteeing a Rockets title. I think it's, I think it's an amazing comeback story. Okay. But if,

let's just say imaginary world here, say it was Houston, Boston in the NBA finals, who would you pick? Oh, who would I pick if it was Houston against the 96 Bulls? Houston, I would pick.

I think they've unlocked it. Do you think if it ended up as unlikely as this would be, if it were the finals with Houston and Boston, do you think the Celtics would go to Kanter and be like, hey, no offense, we just have to cut you before we can even play you in this series? Can you learn a second vocation? Can you become a trainer on the side?

Hey, do you want to cover the finals and tweet about it perhaps? Because we're not going to be able to play you against the Rockets. Podcast? So, you know, we laugh about Houston Lakers. That's going to be round two. Maybe that's the only way to beat the Lakers is to throw the absolute weirdest possible lineup rotation speed thing at them

let Davis have whatever he's going to have you know LeBron and Davis are going to score whenever they want to anyway and you're just trying to beat them with math listen, I get what the Rockets are doing I don't really like watching it in fact, I dislike watching it but

obviously they looked at it from every single angle and it goes back to what Nash said when I did the pod with him where he's like I wish we'd triple down on all the shit we were doing in the mid 2000s in Phoenix we were halfway there we should have just gone

all in on it. That's what the Rockets are doing. I'll tell you this. If they end up making the finals, beating the Lakers, all that stuff, we're in for an insufferable few weeks. Because that fan base, and especially the

media, they are going to be out of control. You told us we couldn't make it. Well, fuck you. It's going to be a lot of that for four straight weeks. Hey, Rosillo. Hey, how about that Westbrook trade now, you fucker?

Yeah. Welcome to Rockets Twitter. Is that going to be your, is that your Houston, Texas accent? No, but I should have added a Southern accent. It would have been a better bit. Hey, Rosillo, go fuck yourself, dude. Yeah. Oh my God.

How's that? Was that good, Kyle? Hey, what I did when I just did it last year, I go, hey, you know, I know all you guys think like guys are biased and aren't biased. By the way, fan bases seem to think that bias now is defined as you point out things about my team that aren't good um right and philly's usually philly's usually the worst about it but houston's just so sick of everybody saying hey i can't stand your entire approach to life here for the last few years oh and by the way your baseball team's a bunch of fucking cheaters who can't figure out how to say sorry right.

You know, like, it's a tough little stretch. Well, you know, they got Bill O'Brien punting on fourth downs. So they're a frustrated, frustrated group of fans down there. But I can't,

this is why I think I'm so fair is that, you know, everybody wants to go small and all this stuff. And, you know, Daryl looks at his team going, this doesn't work. Westbrook's at 20% from three, taking six a game a few months ago. The Westbrook thing looks like a total disaster. There's no one in the world that would convince me that Daryl actually wanted to add Westbrook at those numbers to his team.

But he is very much like, okay, this isn't going to work. So let's just blow it up. Try something nobody else is doing. If everybody wants to go small, why don't we just be small the whole time? And you're right though. There's the playoff part of this where you start learning people's sets. You start jumping different cuts around screens because you just become more familiar with it. Would a Rudy Gobert in a seven game series be invisible? Would they have to cut his minutes? Or would somebody get to him and be like, hey, will you go down there and be seven feet, please?

And it's not like you're going to run your offense through the post with Gobert, but just go get us more than single-digit rebounds. Get us second possessions here so that we can counter the fact that they're going to take like 53s a game. Well, the Houston thing, look, the good news is they're not going to remind us at all if it turns out well for the Houston thing look it the good news is

they're not gonna remind us at all if it turns out well for the Rockets they're not gonna remember every slight um hey Russillo

I got a hotel room for you for the finals it's up your fucking asshole dude yeah Rockets

yeah it's gonna be terrible let's uh let take a break. We got more to talk about. Hey, if you were to guess on average, how many days people in the U.S. have to wait to see a doctor, what would you say? Americans have to wait around 29 days to see a doctor in major U.S. cities. If you're dealing with a condition like erectile dysfunction, guess what? You want treatment ASAP. That's why our friends at Roman have spent years building a digital platform that can connect you with a doctor licensed in your state, all from the comfort of home. Roman makes it convenient to get the treatment you need on your schedule.

Just grab your phone or computer, complete a free online visit. You'll hear back from a US licensed physician within 24 hours. And if the doctor decides that treatment is right for you, Roman's Pharmacy can ship your medication to you with free two-day shipping, free unlimited follow-ups with your doctor. Yeah, that too. Anytime you have questions or want to adjust your treatment plan, you have that. And with Roman, there are no commitments you can cancel anytime. So if you're struggling with ED, go to GetRoman.com slash bill for a free online visit and free two-day shipping.

GetRoman.com slash bill. It's time for my theory of the week. Each week we rotate our theory of the week. You went last week. My favorite part of this podcast so far is you had a Brooke Lopez theory that's so good. You're just saving it for your own podcast. You're not even giving it to us.

So I look forward to hearing that on your podcast. My theory of the week. Kyrie Irving is this generation, Stefan Marbury, plus a final shot, plus a game-winning final shot. Same age as Marbury, 2004, after the Knicks trade, when the disastrous 2004 Dream Team, that whole era of Marbury. But at that point, Marbury, he had been in the league, I think, eight years. He played for three teams. He averaged 20-8, made the All-Star Game twice, two All-NBA third teams. Kyrie, 2011-2020, three, two all-NBA third teams.

Kyrie, 2011, 2020, three teams, average of 22 and six, six all-stars. A lot had to do with the fact that the guards are pretty weak in the East. One all-NBA second team, one all-NBA third team. All right, what does that mean? I think there's a real chance, and I say this devoid of all biases and the fact that he ruined my basketball season last year. I actually think there's a real chance, and I say this devoid of all biases and the fact that he ruined my basketball season last year.

I actually think there's a real chance that we might have seen the best of him at this point. And the reason I'm comparing him to Marbury is in 04 and 05, that middle run when he went to the Knicks, he was supposed to be the savior. And then within a couple of it just you know he got banged up physically he had some definitely some head issues going on and all of a sudden he just wasn't an impact NBA player anymore

and it happened really fast and it was surprising but actually it wasn't that surprising if you were actually watching what was going on and I wonder with the Kyrie thing whether it's even realistic to think that surprising if you were actually watching what was going on. And I wonder with the Kyrie thing, whether it's even realistic to think this is somebody that is going to be for eight to nine months next year, the year after the year after whenever an impact guy, or is it more realistic that his career just continues to get weirder and

weirder and weirder? What was that? I was just pulling up the, I was pulling up the Stefan Marbury eats Vaseline on YouTube. Okay. There you go. That was, that was July.

That was July of 2009. Yeah. And Marbury. Yeah. Well, remember the South Exide Marbury and it was like, oh, you know, only 31. Still really talented. And it was like the ship had long sailed.

I wonder what this Kyrie thing he's had. I think he's more physically banged up than Marbury was at that point of his career. But same kind of thing, right? Where he's just this incredibly talented guard who couldn't kind of stay out of his own way and and his body didn't really hold up and i'm wondering if that's how we're gonna see the next couple years of kairi's career play out so it's just a theory and the thing with with this year is that kairi was cooking like this is the best statistical season he's ever had.

He was unbelievable. The shooting numbers, the efficiency. I don't know if we're still allowed to use PER for some perimeter guys. But it was like, wait, here's another stop where they lose when he plays? What the hell's going on? I used to sit there and go, okay, that's the stuff with Boston. Let me dig in. Let me look at the opponents.

That's not really true. And yes, I didn't really know that I was still the biggest, wasn't a huge Kyrie guys. The season went along. I told you I had that one guy that's really good on stuff. That's just kind of like knows where the bodies are buried. He goes, he's not coming back. He's not coming back that entire thing. If you'll have me, he's like, that's total bullshit. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. And you know, he goes through that whole year in the Milwaukee series where he's got this dumb smile on his face as they're just getting smoked. And you're like, oh, this guy's really locked in right now.

But doesn't it feel a little dismissive of Kyrie? And, you know, we could get sensitive about the motivation behind the Stephon Marbury thing. Like he talked about, like, look, man, I was out of it. Like really depressed, suicidal, all this stuff. With Kyrie, if it really is just a shoulder injury. And, you know, like he was really weird this year, and they lost more games, but he played really well.

So I'm just not there yet with him. And I don't love him. We just did the pod last week where I go, what's the safer bet that Durant and Kyrie, after two years, Durant's like, oh, man, I can't believe I hitched my wagon to this guy, or that they win a title or even get into the NBA finals. So the safer bet is that probably Durant goes, I don't know. I don't know about this dude. Cause I still think it's entirely different. Like being friends with somebody and then actually being their teammate for an entire year and dealing with all that stuff. But I hope it is just the shoulder injury. I hope that it's actually significant enough that he's missed all this time. And I'm not one of those guys like, Oh, he doesn't want to play Boston next week. And that's why he's doing this. Like, look, the guy's missed a lot of games. So I don't think it's just about the schedule, but there's a, because of that shot, the safer bet is that he has peaked.

Well, I think the difference between the two of them, if, if the theory is this is somebody that he's 27, it feels like he should be entering his prime. And yet it feels like we're looking backwards. And with Marbury, I think a lot of the issues that he was having was more mental. Um, and you know, and he's been pretty open about that over the years.

I think with Irving, the thing that would scare me is the physical side of this. And the fact that he's been really dinged up in a bunch of different ways now. Yeah. How many surgeries is he up to? At least three, maybe four. So he's now you're talking, he's had multiple knee surgeries and the shoulder impingement thing. And, you know, honestly, some really erratic behavior the last two years. And I just wonder, you know, you think like the Nets, they feel like they, everything was leading to this cap space summer and they ended up getting these two impact guys, including Durant, who's one of the best 16

players of all time. And Kyrie to some degree was the tax to getting Durant. But at the same time, they're hoping that Kyrie and new digs new city can be an MVP candidate, or at least a, you know, second team, all NBA guy again. And now it's like, I mean, they got 20 games out of them. We have no idea what he's going to be like next year physically. And we have no idea if he's somebody that when he's cooking, it seems to negatively affect everyone else on his team. And everybody kind of stands around and watches him. And it doesn't really seem to translate into anything that special. So I think it's really weird.

We've seen this with the NBA. We're both old enough to remember a lot of guys that were really, really special and really important and top 10, top 12. And it was just kind of over. Like T-Mac was like this in 07, 08, right? Now he had the knee stuff. But he went from a guy who could be the best guy on a team that won 22 straight games to this giant salary that is just getting tossed around in the trade deadline. It goes fast in the NBA. And I think if you look at Kyrie's last three years, dating back to the Celtics

when he basically missed that whole playoff run because he had to have the knee surgery, everything that happened last year, and then this wasted year, that's three years now. That's not an insignificant amount of NBA time. You figure you have 12 to 13 really good years in you, and he's basically lost three.

So I would be concerned if I was a Nets fan, I guess is my point. You have to be, you have to be because the injury thing seems to be overlooked. And like I said, like it's still new to them. So, I mean, the funny part for Nets fans that argue about this is they still think everybody else has it wrong like Cleveland fans and teammates have it wrong that Boston and Boston fans have it wrong and it's like no you you guys get Kyrie and it's awesome and you still have this hope and you know I just the amount of stuff that's such bullshit and it's like ah they respected the culture like no they didn't Brooklyn's cool they both want to go there um it's not kenny atkinson it's not fitbits it's not all this stuff and all we respect you know din witty and oh my gosh caris lavert's

really versatile it's like hey durant where do you want to go i don't know kairi where do you want to go let's go to brooklyn all right cool that's it that's it like all the all the words are so wasted on all of that stuff and i you know look i, look, I, we both don't like Kyrie and it isn't about Boston. It really isn't. Uh, nobody wants to believe that. I don't care at Boston. You know what I think is really funny about the Kyrie story is that Boston, I think has been aggressive in making sure stuff doesn't get out. Yeah. Because they don't want to seem like they're trashing Kyrie and making it seem like an unfriendly NBA city for players. Because if, if a lot of bad stuff about Kyrie got out, they'd be like, Oh, there you go again, Boston, just trashing another dude and all this stuff.

Like they've been actually really smart and, um, proactive about it. You know, like, you know, don't, don't share a ton of stories about Kyrie because we don't, we don't want to make it look like we're bashing this guy because he turned us down. But the injury total is the most important thing you've said. Because wherever the ending is, like, that'll be the thing where you go, what happened with Derrick Rose? Like, it took Derrick Rose forever to even be a rotation guy again. And that would scare me. But Nets fans don't want to hear it.

They just don't want to hear it. They think anybody that criticizes him doesn't get it. And it's like, no, you're the guys that don't hear it. They just don't want to hear it. They think anybody that criticizes them doesn't get it. And it's like, no, you, you're the guys that don't get it. And the only other thing I would say about this is I think, especially for the people that are a little younger, maybe like 24 and under or less than this. And they hear the name Marbury and they just think like, you know, the eating Vaseline on the internet. And this guy who is kind of a wasted town to some degree, the guy was really good. Uh, he was, you know, was, in my opinion, probably pretty similar to Kyrie in a lot of ways, the first five, six years of his career. When he was with KG in Minnesota,

we felt like that was going to be the next Stockton and Malone. KG got a huge contract. Marbury got definitely jealous and resentful of it. Wanted to be on his own team, goes to New Jersey, then ends up getting traded to Phoenix. And all of a sudden him and Stoudemire are together. And that really felt like something, but I mean, he got traded straight up for Jason Kidd, who then went on to be one of the best three players in the league the next couple of years, next best four players in the league the next couple of years, took the Nets to two straight finals. Then when he got traded to the Knicks, they gave up a mother load for him. They gave up a lot. And the Knicks fans all felt like Marbury has come home.

Finally, we have our great New York City point guard. So this was a guy who was a really respected and really fun to watch talent for eight, nine years there. And then it just was over and it turned into something else. And I guess that's, I just wanted to flag it because I think people are just penciling it on next year when Kyrie's back.

And it's like, well, maybe he's not going to be back or maybe he's going to be at a different phase of his career than he's been or maybe he's just never going to be healthy. So throwing that out there. One more theory. This is from reader, I'm sorry, listener, Mitchell Epner. He says, watching the Sixers,

are we sure Joel Embiid isn't like Warren Coolidge on The White Shadow? Others on the internet have noticed their uncanny resemblance, but it goes further. Most talented guy on the court, when he uncanny resemblance, but it goes further. Most talented guy in the court when he's at his best, carries his team, questionable conditioning, unquestionable charisma, and takes far too many outside shots. That's all I had. Whether Joel Embiid is the Warren Coolidge of right now. That is a reference that has lost basically everybody under 40. So about that but the white shadow is an iconic show do you feel a little warren coolidge within beads game i'm not a huge white

shadow aficionado it was you know there's there's certain times that you and i will talk about things and you'll notice just those couple years i was a little too young to consume some of that stuff yeah so and whatever reason it never got back into the mix i'll tell you my favorite sixers fact of the fact of the week though yeah you ready for this one okay so like you i you know when we're deprived nba that's basically all i've done and i've watched the incredible win by fury last night but i've just been all nba like i was like all right get get acclimated get get back to the stuff and i feel like you know at times we get a little repetitive, but then you go, okay, well, over 82 games, teams don't change dramatically from time to time. And so the Sixers have had one game since the All-Star break, right? The Nets, which was one of the weirdest games ever because they were up huge.

And then the Nets went on like a 44-8 run. And the Sixers, who are incredible at home, still almost lost to the Nets went on like a 44-8 run and the Sixers who are incredible at home still almost lost to the Nets at home but they won in overtime and so everybody's looking forward to the Milwaukee game the Philadelphia win against Milwaukee where Philly hit a million threes and Embiid did a great job against Giannis but it's never deterred Giannis and Giannis attacked him again last night but that was a fluke Philly win because they, unlike what they normally do where they miss a bunch of shots, they were unconscious from three-point.

Yeah. And so the pregame, it may have been even a sit-down with Rachel because then it played into the Mark Jones. It was a Mark Jones-Hubie broadcast. And they were like, well, you know, Embiid feels like the real turning point of this season was that win against the Clippers right before the All-Star break.

You're like, oh, okay, so let me get this straight. We're 50-plus. We still don't know what the rotation is. Horford's blamed for everything, and Horford's been bad. Yeah. You really lock into Horford. It's tough. There's all sorts of numbers where you like that's down that's bad the shooting like he looks lost out there too you know looks like he has no legs either yeah and I think he's so confused

still like what the hell what am I supposed to be doing like what's going on and now you got shake Milton with drives and granted look they got splasted by Milwaukee Simmons left the game with back pain so we can go ahead and do that. There's a really good chance they're probably going to lose that game anyway when you're that bad on the road. But for Embiid to say,

and maybe it's that Tiger thing where through years of his struggles, he would tell you he's never felt better and he's never stricked the ball. You know, like, I've never stricked the ball

this well in months and all this stuff where you sort of talk yourself into it. But for Embiid to suggest that that was the turning point and they'd played one game since the season turning

point sounds like somebody that is either making it up or doesn't get it. And I like Embiid. I I just run out of things to say about the Sixers. I'm trying to think if I was a Sixers fan what kind of silver lining I'd be

looking at as we head toward toward March and April. And I really don't know what that is. I don't trust the coach. It's a weird team. When they have all their guys healthy. He does. When they have all their guys healthy.

Wait a minute, we're losing timeouts in the new... I need those nine. And the Horford thing and the Harris thing, those contracts I think are untradeable. When they have all their guys healthy. Rep Brown's like, wait a minute, we're losing timeouts in the new chain. I need those nine. And the Horford thing and the Harris thing, those contracts I think are untradeable. So going forward, not a lot of flexibility either. So I don't know. It's a tough one. We're going to take a break and then we're going to do a little game in or out.

Hey, the U.S. Postal Service has issued a warning about email scams that claim to be from the Postmaster General. One email notifies the recipient about a failed attempt to deliver a package worth $100,000 and asks for personal information in order to deliver the package. Another scam email asks for payment on unpaid online postage charges. Well, remember the USPS does not email customers directly to demand money. Here's the thing. Every time you bank, shop, or browse online, you can be vulnerable to cyber criminals. Norton and LifeLock are now part of one company, Norton 360 with LifeLock. It's an all-in-one membership for your cyber safety that gives you device security, identity theft protection, and even a VPN for online privacy if there's an identity theft problem.

Guess what? Their specialists will work to fix it. No one can prevent all cyber crime and identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But, I repeat, but, Norton 360 with LifeLock

is a powerful ally for your cyber safety. Until March 8th, you have a couple of weeks. Until March 8th, save up to 40% off your first year. Go to norton.com slash Simmons for 40% off. Norton.com slash Simmons. All right, we're going to play in or out. I'm going to give you some names. You tell me if you're in or you're out.

Colin Sexton. There's no way I'm out. It's still too early to be out. I'm out on the Cavs, but I don't watch them enough. And the Garland thing is, you know, it's... So there's no out for him. So I guess I'll just by default say in, cause it feels unfair to say out. In or out.

The Cleveland, you're not going to answer that one. It feels like he will get, somebody will trade for him like a year from now and he'll find the right team and it'll actually be pretty good. I'm starting to wonder like, not the, I think on this, in this, on this actual Cleveland franchise, I'm out on everybody there. I think, I think it's like reset button to start over the Colby Altman thing.

Holy mackerel, man. Somebody on Twitter had a tweet of like things he's done, and it's catastrophic. He's had multiple higher fire coaches the same year things, and on top of some really bad contracts and trades, and

man. I think it's all Gilbert, honestly. Do you think that's Kobe Altman? I don't know. When it's going well, they're always saying it's the GM, and when it's not going, honestly. Do you think that's Kobe Altman? I don't know. When it's going well, they're always saying it's the GM. And when it's not going well, everybody's like, I think it's somebody else. Everybody's so desperately scared to just criticize GMs

because it's such a... GMs, like with the info business, they're all like commodities and information, all that stuff. So you never see GMs get ripped anymore. He would be him and Vlade, I think are the two leading candidates to just, you know, to have just a hit piece.

Remember, remember Woj had that hit piece once of, who was that guy's name? Chris Grant. When, yeah, he was the guy before Griff. He just demolished Chris Grant one day.

I was like, Oh, it was just guy before Griff, he just demolished Chris Grant one day. I was like, Oh, it was just like a classic, just annihilation of the Chris Grant era. And you don't see pieces like that anymore where somebody just takes a GM and just rips apart whatever their plan was. It's that's kind of, it's,

it's so much friendlier now, but man, I think you could do that with, uh, with the cabs of Covey. All right. Next one. Justice Winslow think you could do that with the Cavs and Kovy Ahmed. All right, next one. Justice Winslow, you in or out? They gave up a couple assets.

I'm out on what they did. No, what they did. Memphis, you dig into that and you go, wait a minute, you took on how much money? Yeah. You wiped out any options with cap space? You did this for a guy that's not even in Miami's rotation because he can't stay healthy. That'd be the kind of thing if I were a GM, I'd go, hey, I like Justice Winslow. I like the way they've used him. Okay, but what am I going to do here? I'm going to give up Iguodala, who you and

I both were like, is he a little overrated right now? I think we're going to be right about that. And you go, I'm going to take on how much extra money? When you add up all the extra money that they took on in that deal for somebody who Wins wins low who you don't even know what he's going to do so i'm i've had moments i've been so in on him for far too long we've loved those stretches where he played point ran the offense i don't know why he would ever be doing that with morant but i'm um i'm i'm just out on the total package of what they did on that deal the more i read about it. I'm in on him on a different team. I'm out on him on that team because I think he needs the ball. But this new era of NBA teams taking on like $26 million of shitty salary

because they're getting either a half-decent asset or clearing cap space in a year, I think it's very odd. I still think I was one of the few people who just was completely confused when Atlanta took Carmelo's entire salary that year to get rid of Dennis Schroeder and got like a really shitty pick. And people are like, oh, brilliant move.

There's another one. Brilliant move by Travis Schlenk. Another great one. Who? What's his name? Travis Schlenk? Yeah, that's not a closer. Travis Schlenk? Yeah, that's not a closer. Travis Schlenk?

I'm with you. I still think that Capspace is overrated, but to blast it out for Justice Winslow is... Very strange. Too much. Yeah, yeah. Because you still can absorb somebody else and then they still waved dion waiters where apparently that's just the we don't want you around at all where

i don't know is it more valuable to to hang on to him and uh you know is a potential trade. Trade's salary. I don't know. Everybody knows what I'm trying to say here. Wouldn't it make more sense to keep the $12 million to put that in some trade? But it doesn't guarantee the trade's going to be there. It doesn't guarantee the cap speed. But now it guarantees that none of those things

are even options. And that seemed to be a lot for Justice Winslow. It's a very strange way to build a team or a business. If I text you and I'm like, hey man, good news, we landed Chris Long. it's a very strange way to build a team or a business. Like if, if I texted you and I'm like, Hey man, good news. We landed Chris long.

We have all of his pods, but I had to take $30 million and from some dude on the sec network, just have to pay that. Just pay it out for the next three years. But I'm super psyched. It's like, wow. Yeah. It was James Johnson. You're just paying him forever. the next three years. But I'm super psyched. It's like, wow. Yeah, but James Johnson,

you're just paying him forever. Next in or out. Nas Reid. Yeah, we're going deep. We're going deep league. The dark recess is a league pass. Nas Reid, you in or out? In.

Like those dudes trapped in a mine. I'm all in as well. I don't know what he had lurking in his background that he is not drafted, but he is a big man who can shoot threes and roll to the rim and defend the rim. And I was really impressed by him in the Minnesota Celtic game.

I watched him Friday night. But again, I have no idea what else is going on with old Nas. Next. He plays his ass off. I mean, he's 36% from three right now. And he's taken a few a game. And, you know, he makes his free throws. He's 20.

He's 20. Next in or out. Any wing on OKC are you in on any wing pick a wing pick a thunder wing anybody

this is obviously not including Danilo right no it doesn't count the younger ones yeah because right right so you're asking me for a Terrence Ferguson take?

How about Lou Dort? How about Dort getting the start the other night? I'm just out on all of them. Speaking of undrafted. Out. I'm blind out on everything. All of them. Last one.

Luke Walton, in or out? I watched the Sacramento game. They have more wins than you think. There were expectations because of the 39 wins last year. I was really paying attention to some of the stuff they were doing. I'm in. I'm in. I feel like the way they're talked about,

they are five games out of the playoffs. They're 10 games under.500. The way they're written about it, it feels like they have five wins this year. And Buddy Heald is coming off the bench, but he's been better. Even Giles, who they declined the option on, which seems a little excessive

just to save a few million bucks on a first round option. Or stupid. But he closed the game. Like in a Clippers game that was close on Saturday, when you just expected the Clippers were going to make this comeback,

Giles is out there closing it out. So it's Bogdanovich, it's Heald, it's Barnes, it's Fox. And they did some cool stuff there. So that's a long Luke Walton in answer. But I'm in, especially since Rondo hated him. That makes me think, oh, Luke must be doing something right.

They have some good wins. Memphis is 28-28, but has a really hard schedule about to come. Portland just won tonight. They're basically three back. New Orleans is lurking San Antonio seems like they're

out Sacramento is the only other one but yeah when you think they they got less than 10 games from Bagley this season I think and and it doesn't seem like he's coming back like that in a really you know talented

conference it seems like 23 and 33 is reasonable at least. Last, we'll do a bonus in or out just so you can do two minutes on this. You love the Pelicans. Love the Pelicans. That's your team. You've adopted them as that's your league pass team right now.

You like all the shootings i i taped uh that win against golden states that one's official that one's in the books zion 28 and 7 and yeah a couple dimes there for your boy one of six from the free throw line so you could have a 30 point night here's here's what it here's what it is and every team is trying to do this it's what Daryl's trying to do, right? This is unbelievable what we see with some of these roster builds is, can I have everybody out there make a shot? I mean, that seems impossible years ago. We accepted two or three guys. Some of the guys that Presti had around Russ and KD,

where it's like, okay, I have these two dynamic scorers, but I want three guys that you never have to defend. I want to put three guys out there with them that are just, you don't even close out on them. It's going to be awesome. But Ingrid can make buckets. Zion is humiliating guys, humiliating bigger centers. Favors is not as good as I want it to be, but he's steady.

He can get you a bucket. Lonzo's a better shooter, not from the free throw line, but his three-point shooting's good. Drew can get you buckets Mellie Mellie there was some serious disrespect the other night Hassan Whiteside was like I'm supposed to guard this guy

what's he 30? where's he from? Cuba? he couldn't figure it out Jackson, Hey, Bredick each one more heart I mean out of the entire rotation

Hayes is probably the only one that's dependent upon somebody else getting him a lob to get you a bucket. So that means we're talking about eight to nine guys on any given night that can score because they do play Jackson. And then Alexander Walker didn't play in that Golden State game. I think they've done a really good job putting together a team that you have to guard almost every single person who gets minutes. And the Toronto 2019 motto is in play with them. Like what you said. That's it. Everyone on the court can create a bucket. Now, you always push back at me on the

whole, I just called it the entertaining as hell tournament where you only guarantee the seven playoff seeds or the six playoff seeds, however you want to do it, and then have a play-in tournament for the seven seed, the eight seed, whatever, and have a little one game elimination winner takes all aspect. People are split on whether it's a good idea or not. To me, the 2020 Pelicans are exactly the reason why you have something like that. Because for a

variety of reasons, they got started a little bit too late. Not that realistic. They're going to make the playoffs. So they have a chance. But if you put them in a single elimination tournament, everyone would be rooting for them because it'd be so much more fun if they're in the playoffs than basically any of the other candidates. I don't think they would beat the Lakers.

We talked about it last week, but man, would it be fun and talk about the physicality of, you know, LeBron and Anthony Davis overwhelming people. Guess who they're not overwhelming? Zion. Cause dude, I heard from a reliable source that he is over 300 pounds. No way. You don't believe it. No, I do believe it. Because I think sometimes when guys get like really big, it's so hard to tell the difference

between 300 and 280. Well, I think I had always heard LeBron in 2018 was at 290. And I believe it. Right? You think like he's 6'9", and just so much muscle,

and he's whatever. Like it's not unrealistic. I don't know. I mean, we did the vision quest. 290 seems. Think too high? Yeah, it seems a little high. Just does.

All right, so Tyson Fury's 270 and is 6'9", so he's the same height as LeBron. Wait, would you buy 280? Muscle's heavier than fat. LeBron is certainly more muscular. So that's a great analogy. Tyson Fury, 6'9", 270, but I think LeBron's bigger than Tyson Fury is.

You think he is? I think Fury looks enormous. But I also think Fury's legs, like I think he's top heavy. I don't think Fury's legs are probably as big as LeBron's. If you put LeBron in boxing trunks, I think it would be pretty terrifying. I want to talk about that fight in one second. We've got to quickly go through sham at face syndrome got a lot of nominees from the listeners

excellent I think some people were confusing this for the all ugly team which is not fair it's not an all ugly team thing it is a looking at your face yeah don't it's not an all ugly thing it's looking at your face I'm surprised

you're a basketball player i should be a shit afraid of in the last five minutes of a game so of current guys joe angles came up the most kyle corver got a few handsome guy by the way this is this is start this is starting to sound a little racist but i'll i'll i'll hang in there chris middleton we just got ch Chris Middleton? Chris Middleton's a good one. I saw him in person All-Star weekend. The way he's like,

he's got like sloped shoulders. Yeah. Like there's nothing about him that says killer. And then, by the way, like the other night you go, oh, where's Middleton?

Where's Middleton? It's like, oh, I'm going to score 12 points straight here. And you're like, oh, that's why you're pretty good. Middleton's a good one though. I just was afraid

it was going to be also called, the Shamit Face game was going to be called Name White Guys in the League. Well, here's another one. Alex Caruso. He got a lot of votes. Brad Wanamaker got some votes. So did Davis Bertans.

Dario Saric. Those were our top seven. And then Jokic, who you actually mentioned when we talked about Shamit Face the last time. The more interesting group was the retired group, which I narrowed to a starting five with a sixth man. Jeff Hornacek, Eldon Campbell, Hida Turkoglu, who we mentioned, Charlie Villanueva, Sam Casse aaron williams the nets the the lefty nets rebounder guy i like those good with that list all-time sham at aaron williams is a yeah because williams isn't like oh i don't think you're gonna be like he looks like he would kill you if he was

working the door right in the meatpacking district, right? And then he was actually, he had a nice little run there. He had a nice run, but he doesn't look like he's going to be this dude that's playing a bunch of years in the NBA. One of the best ones ever for Shamit Face wasn't even in basketball. Tennessee had this running back that ran so hard. Like, okay, this guy's just nasty, just slamming into dudes. And then he took his helmet off and he was like really pretty and had braces and i expected like maybe a teardrop tattoo under his

eye and a grill i'm like what happened here like the way you play football i didn't expect this and uh you know that's just a whole nother element we don't open it up to that but those are those are really good ones. Why do you think the Brad Wanamaker one's good? What do you think about the Eldon Campbell thing? What was it about Eldon? Unclear. He didn't look like somebody who was a 6'11 intimidating shopwalker.

Right? By the way, some people mentioned whether this Shamit face could cross over into other sports. And one person was very high on Trubisky. If you want to either bring Shamit face to football or for football, call it Trubisky face. I don't know where you're staying on that. This is your thing, not mine. I really would like to just keep it as Shamit Face. And if people want to expand it, we can expand it.

Okay. Would Patrick Reed, the golfer, have Shamit Face? Definitely. We've got to get House involved in Shamit Face. We'd end up having to edit half of it. A listener named Dan Zeeble wants us to talk about the future of the Nets and whether there is a curse of Dr. J,

which is similar to the curse of Babe Ruth, which didn't exist, but whatever. The Nets curse. They sold Dr. J when they joined the NBA in 1976. They tried to sell him to the Knicks. That didn't exist, but whatever. The Nets cursed. They sold Dr. J when they joined the NBA in 1976. They tried to sell him to the Knicks. That didn't work. Then they actually did sell him to the 76ers. They sold Dr. J. And since then, they have not won a title. They were the defending NBA champs this year. So they actually were a defending champ. And now it is 2020. They have gone 44 years

without a title. And they just had this Kyrie, KD, whatever the hell this is. Curse of Dr. J. Any inkling that there's something there. What do you think? Can you tell us more about the Dr. J transaction? Yeah. So this is one of my favorite random stupid NBA history things. Four teams joined the ABA. The Spurs, the Nets, the Nuggets, the Pacers. The fifth team is Kentucky. John Y. Brown agrees to disband it because he's getting the Buffalo Braves. I'm doing this off the top of my head. I think I'm right.

The sixth team is the St. Louis Spirits, who were the worst team in the ABA. Had a couple of players that were in the expansion draft. And the NBA is like, we don't want those guys. We're good. And then they're like, well, what if we give you, we'll give you 3 million bucks, and you get one-seventh of the TV rights from each of the four teams that made it for the rest of your lives.

And the ABA owners are like, all right, cool. That sounds great. And then it ends up being, it's been written about a million times. It ends up, they make hundreds of millions of dollars from this. Meanwhile, the fucking Nets, who are the crown jewel of the league, who are the whole reason the merger is happening because they have Dr. J,

they have to spend, I think it was like four or five million because they're in the New York Knicks territory. And the Knicks are like, we have to pay our territorial fee. And it's like 5 million bucks. So the Nets, who are, again, the whole reason this deal is happening, they're now like in the hole. They're going to lose tons of money. So they say to the Knicks, we'll give you Dr. J. Wipe out the territorial fee.

We're not going to owe you the 5 million, whatever it is. I think it was 5 million. Just wipe that clean. Here's Dr. J. You now have probably the best player in the league other than Kareem. And the Knicks are like, no thanks. We just signed

Spencer Haywood. We're not going to do that. This is amazing. Thanks anyway. Really, they didn't want to pay the $5 million, right? Like the $5 million was... Yeah, they were like, we'd much rather have the 5 million And plus I don't know if you know this But we got Spencer Haywood So they don't get him

So then the Nets are like fuck And they go And then the Sixers are like Well we'll pay about 4 million And we'll get Dr. J And the Nets are like, cool, done. And they make the trade. And that's how Dr. J ends up on Philly.

So ever since then, the Nets have not won a title. I don't know if that's enough for a curse because I think they were like basically going under and they couldn't afford Dr. J. So it wasn't like trying to fund no-no Nanette or whatever that play was. So what's your vote? I just laid it out for you. What's your vote? Curse or no curse? I don't believe in curses.

Okay. Before we go, let's talk Fury Wilder. What were your thoughts? So this is going to sound, you know, I'm not one of these guys that's like makes up stuff after the fact, but that's what everybody's used to people doing in our business. But the first time I talked about Wilder was a few years ago. I was at actually where the Nets play now, Barclays. And I was talking to some guys that know boxing better than I do. And I go, I've watched him, Wilder. And I go, I just don't really get it. I go, there's no smoothness to his movements. He, you know, his left, just everything seems kind of, there's not a snapping of it. And they were like, yeah, who gives a shit? He just murders everybody with his right hand. And that's exactly what he was doing.

So I'd be looking at him going, is this really going to be like the heavyweight champion of the world? And what does that even mean in 2020? Does it mean what it used to mean? You know, my first reaction is no. And I don't mean that as like the old guy who always thinks everything's better because I've been screaming it. The previous generation NBA players being like, you guys sound like idiots trying to pretend that the NBA player is the one thing that's not evolving. But I just never really knew that while there was this

complete guy, other than he was just bashing the hell out of people with his right hand. And we didn't really think that much of his competition and so the first fury fight you know fury's like josh hamilton of boxing where this guy's praying to be dead uh the drug use depression i mean his story's incredible and then he hangs in there with wilder and it's a draw and you could argue fury should have won maybe fury was going to win that fight because people were just, they didn't expect it because Wilder would knock everybody out. But in that fight, Bill, I actually found myself more impressed with Wilder because I was like, man, this guy's like tougher. Like he may be knocking people out, maybe limited offensively, but this guy can fight. He can get in there and fight.

So he puts on 20 more pounds. I still couldn't get this thing out of my head that I felt like Wilder was a little one-dimensional. I'm incredibly impressed that Fury at 270 plus can sit there and faint and move the way he does in this unorthodox style that's consistent throughout the entire fight. And once he caught Wilder with that hit that busted

his ear up, Wilder was so shook by that punch that he looked up to the ref as if he was complaining that he'd been pushed. Some others said that he thought he got hit in the back of the head and he didn't have his legs the rest of that fight. And yet he still stayed in there. So I've always thought he was limited as a fighter. I'm actually very impressed with Wilder's toughness and the fact that he competed that much and that they had to throw in the towel for the whole thing. But it just kind of speaks to something that I thought for years that I think Wilder is somebody that's really limited.

So Fury, who's tough, not afraid of anybody and has all that size on him. That's not that's not some shocking upset to me, despite what the odds were. I agree that. I was surprised. First of all, Wilder's last fight, he got hit the entire fight and then landed a classic wide and then all of a sudden it was over and he won. But it did feel like you could hit him. I think what shocked me the first couple rounds, even before he got hit in the head and the whole fight changed, was Fury was just faster kind of on the draw, on the punches. And Wilder kept loading up his right. He was like, oh, cool.

You're actually leaving this open. I'm going to be able to hit you with my right. And every time he would go to line up to do it, Fury was hitting him. And he was just over and over again. Just seemed like he was just a step faster. And that really surprised me. Then he gets hit in the head on the ear, behind the head, ear, whatever it was. And like you said, not only was he never the same,

I don't think he threw another really powerful punch after that. And people are theorizing on Twitter that it screwed up his equilibrium or he lost his legs or whatever, but he was just never the same after that. I didn't mind the stoppage because it didn't seem like he could stop furious punches or land any of his own to any degree. Now, whether that was a fluke, he got hit in a weird part of his ear and it totally changed the fight for the worse. And if they fought again, none of that would happen. I don't know. But I can't remember a fight where really he probably just should have stayed down in the third round. It would have been the same result, right? It's not like he added any value from that point on. It just completely changed it. I was really impressed by Fury though. I got to say, I thought

he was going to be a fraud. I thought it was, you know, nice story. He turned his life around, but ultimately I was like, well, Wilder's going to knock this guy out. And instead Fury fought a brilliant fight. I was really impressed. Even the stuff where he was putting wild or where they were tying him up, but putting him in a headlock and kind of wearing and leaning on him.

Everything was very purposeful. His corner seemed locked in Wilder's corner reminded me of like Tyson in Japan, where it was like he had just grabbed two dudes from the stands and be like, hey, can you just take my mouthpiece out between rounds? He had no plan. No, there was no urgency. I didn't really get it. It just seemed like Fury was more locked in, better plan, whole thing.

I was really impressed. I thought he fought a great fight. Disappointed, though, that it, you know, it almost would have made more sense if he got knocked out in round three if you actually watched it from beginning to end. So that's my take. Would you give it like a B minus? Yeah.

Yeah, because I'm with you. Like the first Fury Wilder, I was like, okay, I may not love wilder but like you're gonna be kidding me with this fury thing right like and i know he'd been knocking dudes out but like i don't understand boxing well enough even though i'm a huge fan of it and i've gone back and read about all this different stuff and i like you kind of grew up or you know the fights were a really big deal and i think despite this death of boxing stuff that gets brought up all the time i don't know if the depth of fighters is what we used to have.

I don't know if the sheer numbers, if you still have the same number of people that are competing and doing this. But you'll look up and be like, this guy's 30-0. Like, how the hell is everybody 30-0? Like, what? Who? How does that happen? How do you just go? Like, I can understand, like, 12-0 and 15-0 when we first started seeing guys kind of on the rise but they they do this thing now they've been

doing that in boxing forever but um i didn't really know what to make of fury i didn't know what to make of him in that first fight and then all of us are kind of collectively just so impressed with him and then i think the human nature is that you buy into being supportive of somebody that's that's had that that bottoming out but the the wilder corner like great call i i was thinking exactly of tyson douglas in japan because if you go back and watch anything on that or you read the sloman tyson book which i would recommend to everybody because it's so much fun to read tyson goes through every single fight and then you can read the chapter based on his perspective and then you just pull up the youtube clip of his fights and you can just like watch the

fights like you're having tyson tell you everything he thought was going on in it. They basically at one point, I think grabbed a rubber. We're like, can we get some room temperature water in this condom and then just put it on Tyson's face? Like it was, it was embarrassing. And then here's Wilder in the corner. I'm not even exaggerating. Like Wilder's in the corner and you're like,

did you guys not see his ears bleeding? Like what the hell? Like you guys didn't wipe that down? And so maybe because my expectations or ceiling for Wilder weren't as high, I found myself more impressed with him despite a draw and a loss. But you could see, like, there was a moment later on where I was looking at Fury going, okay, you know,

you still, it's kind of the cool part about watching a Wilder fight. So I was, I wouldn't say, hey, it should have ended in the third round. You're at Fury going, okay, you know, you still, it's kind of the cool part about watching a Wilder fight. So I was, I wouldn't say, hey, it should have ended in the third round. You're just still going, what if he gets him though? Like, what if he loads up that right? Like, it's the most lethal right in body. Like, what if he actually can still catch him? And Fury didn't even care. Like, Fury's

left arm was down. Maybe throw it up a little bit and just kind of do this kind of meathead block of it. And then you start realizing, like, even if Wilder catches him, there's nothing behind this because his legs are shot yeah he stood up that much longer he was gone he's gone but you know i think that's really what instead of being critical of people not knowing or the depth of the heavyweight class and all that stuff like it's a little bit like college basketball college basketball suffers in the regular season i plan my saturday around baylor and kansas early in the morning because

i wanted to watch it but they have this moment where they own a few weeks with their thing. And everybody was talking about that fight going into Saturday night. So I look at it as a win for boxing that we had a bunch of friends that were like, I'm going to this thing. And that's what boxing should aspire to do is have their six or seven moments every year. And I think they've actually done a really good job with that. Yeah. They figured out the calendar in a much smarter way because the two biggest fights of the year are usually that first weekend in May, that Saturday when it's always Kentucky Derby and all the playoff games. And then usually there's another one, maybe like November 3rd, November 10th, something like that, where you have all the football, basketball started.

There's just a shitload going on. This was an awesome weekend to have a heavyweight fight. It was like, I don't know if you could have picked a better. This weekend, next weekend are the two best weekends for sports fans to be like, oh, cool, we have that. Man, normally it was just like, basketball and college basketball and some XFL and you're really starting to talk yourself into stuff.

And this felt like it owned the weekend. So I thought from that perspective, really smart. And I hope the other, I hope the other, the boxing, UFC, WWE, all this stuff, they should all be thinking about like, what are the open weekends that we can go after.

There's another one, I'm going to say like August 22nd range, kind of before football really gets going. Baseball's a little dead. There's usually, if there was an Olympics or World Cup or all that stuff, it's usually gone by then. And there's a couple dead August weeks

that I think this would work for that as well. So anyway, all right, we went too long. We're at the two hour mark. Rusillo, we can hear you on Tuesday and Thursday on your podcast. More importantly, we can hear you on the rewatchables this week. I made you watch Vision Quest

and you're on the Vision Quest rewatchables this week. And it was great. You enjoyed it. I did. I had a couple of regrets after the fact. i had a couple regrets after the fact i had a couple things i wanted to bring up including shoots bulge in that final wrestling scene um i didn't apex mountain bulges and i honestly going back and watching that final scene i mean you're like who i thought i was wrestling a high school kid not mr ed i'm surprised

swain didn't forfeit on the spot. Or was he padding the wrestling thing? Yeah, you're right. We should have talked about this thing. I will say, though, you... It's like, seriously, it's like Spinal Tap. This kid shows up to a high school wrestling mat. You're like, my God, man. Well, listen, if you ever want to hear Rosillo

do three minutes on how to do a lat pulldown, this is the podcast for you because that happens. Russillo, we'll talk to you next Sunday night. Thanks. Yeah, I got Kilborn on Thursday too, by the way. Oh yeah, Kilborn. And Kilborn's out Thursday.

Beautiful. What a week for you. All right, we'll talk to you next week. All right, thanks to ZipRecruiter. Thanks to Russillo. Thanks to the NEF. Thanks to Norton Secure VPN. Norton 360 with LifeLock is an all-in-one membership

for your cyber safety if there's an identity theft problem. Their specialists will work to fix it. No one can prevent all cyber crime and identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses, but Norton 360 with LifeLock, a powerful ally for your cyber safety

until March 8th. Save up to 40% off your first year. Go to norton.com slash Simmons. Don't forget about the Book of Basketball coming late, late, late Monday night. You're going to be happy, Spurs fans. Talk to you then. See them on the wayside Never said I don't have Feelings with them On the wayside On the wayside

Never said I don't have