The Bill Simmons Podcast - Tatum’s Stunning Return, Wemby’s Big Weekend, and a 2011 MVP Deep Dive With Zach Lowe

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Zach Lowe LIVE on Netflix to react to Jayson Tatum’s return before recapping the NBA games of the weekend (0:32). Then, they take a look at the playoff picture and have a stock draft before ending with a deep dive on the 2011 MVP race (54:12). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zach Lowe Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers Sam’s Club | Join The Club of Yes And The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I really screwed that up. It's a Ringer podcast network. For some reason, I froze. I'm so excited to talk about Tatum. There's a lot to talk about since the last week when we got together and I was like, I feel all signs are pointing to Tatum on Friday. And it just feels like so many things have changed. The Spurs feel like more juggernautty than ever.

We're coming on right after they beat the hell out of the rockets. The Celtics have just inserted themselves now for real into the contender conversation. The Lakers look more interesting without LeBron James, which is a fun little wrinkle. and the Pistons are looking a little gamey, a little teetery. Where do you want to start, Tatum? I'm sure you want to start Tatum, so we can start Tatum.

It is the most exciting thing that happened in the last 72 hours. I would argue it's the most exciting thing that happened this season just because when you go back to last May and it was like, oh man, we're not going to see this guy for 18 months. And then you think the first week of the season,

I remember going to, I saw a home game in the first, 10 days and came away from the game thinking they got to blow it up like this is ridiculous just trade Derek white just start this over who are we kidding with this team and the transformation over the next four months has been startling and i mean the craziest thing there's the tatum piece which i want to talk about in a second but then there's also the getting all these minutes and reps for all these dudes now that are now these trained dragons for a 10 or 11 man rotation you saw shireman today was one of the key guys in the game who just wouldn't have played this year if Tatum had played the whole year.

But Tatum coming back, Friday was emotional. For you? It was emotional for him. I think he had a lot of trouble getting through it. I think it was, you know, his son's sitting in the front row of the basket they're going against in the first half. And he just looked way more like himself today. But I didn't fully 100% believe until this driving righty layup bank shot that he made in

the second half where he pushed off his bad. to call it the bad leg because it's a leggy, surgically repaired leg, I guess. And it was just a vintage Tatum play going off the leg that everybody was like, he's got to be careful. He's just far further ahead of where I thought he was going to be. Is the same for you? Were you expecting 27 to 29 minutes and real intensity?

I'm legitimately shocked at how good he looks. And I realize he's 12 of 32, 6 of 16 in both games. The eye test is. I mean, I'm shot. I'm absolutely blowing away. He is, he looks really, really good already. And it's a little scary for teams who have been saying like, well, if not now for the Knicks, when, you know, because Tatum's out and Halliburns out and Lillard's out.

And well, even if Tatum comes back, he'll be a shell of himself. And I, I wasn't sure how much of like, is he going to be 60% of Tatum, 80% of Tatum. I don't know what percentage he's at now, but 50 minutes into this or whatever it is, he's so far ahead of where anyone could have reasonably expected him to be. It's it's legitimately shocking to me. He looks like Tatum. There's some stuff like there's some very careful deep dive.

I test Tatum stuff. Like I think he's being careful jumping in traffic. Like for instance, like making sure when he's landing in a sea of legs, I'm sure that's in the back of his head. I thought it wasn't really until the second half that he seemed like you really wanted to, like that righty layup I mentioned. Well, that layout, by the way, that's on Mobley on a switch getting, I believe we're talking about the same one where he gets by Evan Mobley going right.

It's Evan Mobley. Like he also had a spin in the post around Sam Merrill. They ran that White Tatum pick and roll a bunch to get switches. And he had like a quick baseline spin finish through Mobley. Like that's just trademark Jason Tatum stuff that we're seeing 27 minutes in this game against Cleveland, a team that's been rolling. I know they didn't have Jared Allen. But who. And the defense stuff, too, where when they had, when they had him out there with White and Jalen at the same time and their abilities to switch.

And I thought his side to side stuff looked really good, too. Look, going back to Friday night, my friend Hinch came over because we vowed if he somehow came back that we're watching the first game together. So Tatum comes back. Obviously, it's emotional. Obviously, he's going to be a little nervous. I was a little rusty. Can't make a shot. Crowds starting to get tentative.

The misdunk happens. We made my wife make cocktails. We're like, all right, this is now way more intense and excruciating. So she had to make, she made me a vodka soda. She made hansha gin and tonic. I just want to say, you had your wife. You didn't make cocktails. Well, she's a good bartender.

Yeah, I want to take advantage. You know, it's like 4.30 on a Friday afternoon. So get the drinks. He finally gets that follow-up rebound dunk, right? Huge release in the crowd. We're like, oh, my God, he got one. Okay. And then within 20 seconds hits the three.

And the crowd just went ballistic. And I know a bunch of people who were there, and they said it was a finals-level crowd. The explosion of that 30 seconds, the two plays in a row, like people were just delirious. And it really went from, uh-oh, is this going to be a lot more awkward? and weird and depressing that I was anticipating to,

oh my God, Tatum's back. Holy shit. And you could feel the ceiling kind of go up during that game. And then this Cleveland game was, he just looked like Tatum. Well, I love the way he came out in the Dallas game. He was looking to pass the ball. And there was a play in that game where he got the ball.

Nothing was going on. He got the ball on the right wing. Nothing was happening. And you just thought, all right, he's going to get into his Tatum bag and ISO. And instead, he whipped a pass to Derek White and ran into a screen, like ran sprinted set of screen slipped out of it like all it's been the perfect mix of getting his

stuff within the Celtic system and then being Tatum one on one against good matchups that are produced by which he's he's looked incredible and that dunk that missed dunk was nothing but encouraging to me because on the way there first of all came off a catch like an active catch he came off like caught the ball coming around the screen and we're right to attack so you're not doing all the heavy lifting on your own we're going to give you a head start and the change of direction and explosion toward the hoop were like jarring to me that he's already here. And he didn't get the explosion quite up to dunk. It seemed like he missed timed it from how far away from the hoop he was, right, which is just reps. But I like the explosion, the change of direction

and the explosion on the way there was like, whoa, this guy is so far ahead. And by the way, to your point about, I mean, we, you and I were not concerned about the chemistry and like any of these things. We were like, this is going to be fine. Good players playing good basketball is good. Jalen Brown today, I thought had an awesome game. 23 points. Third quarter, third quarter especially, yeah. 8 assists, 9 rebounds or 9 assists, 8 rebounds. I can't remember which. And just

making every right play. And yeah, low and behold, he's still going to put up huge numbers playing this way and play with Jason Tatum. You know, I like what you said about that first half of the Dallas game. The shots weren't going in. Everything was short, whatever. But

he was in the flow of the game, which was encouraging, right? And I was I'm wondering, like nobody, people are asking a bunch of questions and you get the post game thing. Jason, how does it feel? What's it like to be out there? I'd love for somebody to ask him, do you feel like you gained anything from these four months just sitting on the bench watching basketball? Like, do you feel, has anything slowed down for you? Has anything changed about how you think about when you're out there just from just being a spectator? because I felt like he was a little more patient

than maybe he was even at his peak, just like kind of not asserting himself too much and just kind of fitting in, but I might have been imagining it. What was cool about it, you know, they had Shireman in that spot in Hauser and Hugo and Jordan Walsh,

all these different swing. When he's out there, you just kind of forget certain things about Tatum, like, oh yeah, he can handle the ball. He's basically a point forward. Oh, now we have one more guy out there who can do that.

The lineup that, I don't know what the plus minus stats were. But that lineup with him and Jalen, Pritchard, White, and Kata, which we had last year, Kada is a different guy this year, obviously. Pritchard's up a level as a score. And I thought they had two stretches in the Cleveland game that I would be really scared of if I was a team of the East because all they were doing was like, it was either Tatum or Brown in the corner. There was Kada setting picks for either the guards or one of the other forwards and just a lot of movement and just things happening until they got the mismatch they wanted, which was usually

hardened, or it was Tatum on Mitchell. And just over and over again, they were just getting the right matchup and the right guy in space and these four elite shock creators. And that was the first time I was like, holy shit, they might make the finals. Like, I wasn't even considering it until the second half of the Cleveland game. I mean, Cato's a real guy now. Yeah. Like a real screen role, make plays into short role, like finish.

rebound defense. Like you put a real guy who does all the center dirty work stuff around those four dudes on offense. That's a scary lineup. And so far the only like rotation casualty of Tatum to turn is Walsh. Gonzalez is still getting minutes. Shireman's just good.

Like Sharman's a good player on both ends of the floor. Yeah, they've looked awesome. And I just Tatum, it's, you know, you can tell that you mentioned the not diving into traffic. They're clearly going to get him up to speed slowly on defense. Like they're going to give him easier assignments. So far, that's been the case. You're not going to guard Cooper

Flag. You're not going to guard Donovan Mitchell. We'll put you on Bean Wade, whatever. You can switch into those matchups, but it's just, it's shocking to me that he looks so much like Jason Tatum. Like, it's, it's shot. I keep saying it. It's shocking. The other thing is what a great sports story is. And you could even see at the beginning when Harding came over and hugged him and Mitchell had him at the end of the game. And it's just like, you know, you have your livelihood taken away. And you have it taken away. And you have it taken away when you're at the peak of your powers. Like I was thinking back to that Knicks game,

which I thought was one of the best games he ever played, the game he got hurt. And the whole playoffs, athletically, it just felt like he was at the highest level he was ever. You could feel it as you were watching those games. You're like, oh, my God, this guy is just one of the great athletes, you know. And I don't know if it's ever going to 100% come back to where he was, like just from him flying around and challenging everything.

And maybe it will, maybe it'll just be reps. but even the stuff we saw today, like coming 10 months after an injury like that, part of it's modern science, but also I do think it's the age. You know, I think when you're in your 20s and you're in your prime like this, I think maybe it is more conceivable to come back.

But I just thought he seems so relieved. And I think they did something important keeping him with the team, which he's mentioned a couple times, traveling all over the place with them and just staying in the fabric of it and staying with it. that it seemed kind of organic.

Because this could go one or two ways, right? The other way is the guy just disappears, works out on his own with his coaches. That wasn't like this at all. And I've been, you know, like every other Boston fan, I've been watching the Jalen Jason stuff, making sure Jalen handled it and said all the right things. You were alarmed at points pre-returned. You were alarmed. I was, there was, I was thought Jalen was maybe two sentences short of just saying, like,

I really missed my brother, we're just trying to hold the fort until he gets. I just thought he was like too light. But he made a point of saying that after the game, he did one of those Twitch things. And I just thought the way I don't, I didn't feel any dueling banjo stuff at all today. I thought everything was organic. It just felt like,

it just felt like they're back. And you're talking about one of the great, unusual partnerships we've had this century. Just two guys playing together for this long is impossible. Like we're going to talk about the Utah jazz a little bit later. It's tough to keep a pairing together for five years. in the state of age. You know,

Westbrook and Durant were together eight years, right? Even Curry and Clay didn't make it, they admit it to what, 2023, but just in general,

just having two guys do their thing together like this for a long period of time, it's unusual. The league's not designed for this to happen. I thought there was

a little more dueling banjos today against Cleveland than against Dallas, and that was part because Cleveland was just switching everything and kind of

making the Celtics go one-on-one. but like when you have two players who are this good going one-on-one, you can have some dueling band-aels. Like, that's going to be part of it. And as long as they have the mindset, and this is where Jalen has really leveled up this year of when I get into the paint and draw a bunch of traffic,

like I'm just going to make the simple play every time. If the simple play is me finishing because I've got a good angle or a height advantage or whatever, that's it. If the simple play is the kick to Hauser or Pritchard, like he's just- Dish Takeda. That's the other thing he loves to do. And even those, like there was a stretch,

even a month ago where some of those were getting a little reckless. Like he tried some around the back bounce passes. We were like, ooh, that kind of hits somebody's shin and somehow found its way through. He's cleaned that up too. He's had a really a really great season. And earlier you said, you know, someone should ask Tatum, what did you learn watching basketball? I would like to ask him, what did you learn about some of your teammates watching them? Because for all the change that the Celtics made over the summer to cut costs and move on to a new era kind of.

and prepare for this season where Tatum was maybe going to play, maybe not. He does have a lot of built-in continuity with all the core guys that are left on the team. That's part of the reason why I think this was going to be seamless is he's just played. Even Richard White,

Houser, like these are guys he's got a lot of built-up reps with, but he also got to see them play in a different context. And I wonder if he just sort of learned there's more breadth to their game or this guy can do a little bit more of this than I thought. And also, Jalen, I just think is a better player than he was.

was last year. And he was a great player. He was one of the best 25 guys in the league. But like the point you were making about how he's making the right play, I just think he does that more consistently this year. Defensively, those three together, White, Jalen, and Jason are just it's going to be one of the best things, best threesomes defensively anybody has combined with Kada. You know, the other piece, there was some luck with this too, like Horford leaving. I think ultimately it was probably a pretty good thing, you know, because this team is a little bit more rebounding and centers and offensive rebounding and stuff like that. It was not stuff for Forford was really that good at or Porzingis.

So the team's a little different. There's a couple of things I think we know for sure now that I wasn't positive of because from what I heard, Tatum's been playing five on five for a month. That's why he's so far ahead and they've done a great job of keeping everything quiet. Yeah, well, whatever they've done starting from the moment the injury happened until now. And it helps when the guy's 27 or whatever. whatever and not 34, like needs to be studied by other teams. Right.

This is like crazy. Yeah. So he was playing, I think, more than we realized. And that's why I thought he was going to come back and be 20 minutes. Like he, they, the Shireman proxy theory was correct. Like they've moved him right into those minutes and he's 27 and 29. They want to build him up to the mid high 30s by the end of the season. He's probably going to miss, I don't know, four games.

So we learned, we learned that specifically. the Simon's trade makes a lot more sense now. It was always like this. Yeah, it was always like this. No, but I think if Vouch was good, it was a bonus, but I think the Simon's trade was really more about, he, Tatum's just going to take all of these minutes. And they kind of must have known this at the deadline. That was important. And then randomly Vooch breaks his finger. And I think they probably would have ended up with Garza in the Vucevich minutes anyway,

because I don't know how great of a fit he was. And he was the one piece that I just couldn't, couldn't make, make sense with the group they have. So if you're talking about holes, Garza as your backup center, fine. How many teams is that going to really rear its ugly head against? I don't know. I think Tatum would have the ability to play small.

It was interesting to watch the announcers. And, you know, I love Lager, so do you, obviously. It was interesting. I thought, I thought Cleveland went small for a while in the fourth quarter. and I thought it was a bigger story that Mowgli would just wasn't out there. Tatum coming off an Achilles tear has like less of a minutes restriction

than guys who are coming off sprained ankles and like toe injuries. And it's like it's remarkable. Yeah, so Mowgli, so they went small against them. And I'm wondering like down the road will the Celtics respond by going small with Tatum Brown, two guards and one of the wings. And the other thing I think to watch long term

with the Celtics is, Will Houser be the guy that starts or would they move Hugo or Shireman into that spot as the fifth guy to try and maybe move Houser to the second thing? A couple other things really quick. Well, could we just stop on Vouch for a second? Yeah.

I just think he was, I agree, they're not going to, like, Garza's been good. He makes threes. They're not going to miss Wuch pretty much at all. Except I think they viewed Vooch as like, Kada and Garza is like a pretty small center tandem, and the Knicks can go double big. The cabs go double big.

The pistons are just this ferocious. We'll fight anybody. We're giant team. And I think that could be a matchup thing in the playoffs where, okay, we just need a bigger guy out here for 12 minutes. But hopefully he's ready by then. I think this might be the deepest Celtics team since the 08 team. Remember that 08 team when they added Cassell and PJ Brown,

the end and they just had two many, almost too many guys, and they had all these different lineups and wrinkles. Like the fact that Shireman, Hauser, Gonzalez, like, these are real bench guys that any team in the league I think would want combined with the Walsh piece. Like, they probably go 11 deep for real now with Tatum. And I'll be interested to see how the minutes go. They can use these last 20 games, basically, to rest some guys, try some different things. On the Cleveland side, I did have one Mobley question for you because I thought that was a pretty big Cleveland game today. And I thought the halftime guys did a good job of properly excoriating them. Now, these afternoon weekend games, I just think are impossible to predict.

You know, I watched Orlando, Minnesota yesterday and Minnesota just didn't show up. And I've seen those get that over and over again on a Saturday or Sunday. Teams just kind of either don't show up or they were out the night before or whatever. It was weird that it took them an hour and a half to really be like, oh shit, we're on national TV and this is kind of a big game. We should really step it up here. What, have we peaked with what we're getting from Mobley, in your opinion? No, I wouldn't say, I mean, what is he?

24 years old? I would be very hesitant to say that we've, we've peaked with Evan Mobley. What's left is just. What's left? What's the next, what's the jump for him if you think there's going to be more there? What is it? I think it's all the stuff that we think might be in there, right? It's a more consistent three-point shot.

It's a little bit more aggression, assertiveness on offense, a little bit more with the ball against mismatches, running, pick, and rolls. Like, they just, and you hear that this is going to come every preseason. Like, oh, you should see this stuff. That's why I brought it up. And it just sort of, you know, you see it in fits and starts and for a game, and then he's out this for a week and you don't see him.

I think there's, he's still so young that Peaked is just way too strong of a word, But I think the question you're really asking is, like, what version of Evan Mobley do they need right now to get to the finals for a team that just made a huge trade that was clearly like a red flag of, oh, we need to get to the finals, like immediately. We cannot wait on Darius Garland. And do we have that version of Evan Mobley? And I will say I'm beginning to like the Cavs even more when they have the two bigs together.

I feel like that's their, that has become their best look. and we didn't see that. No question. I want to see more of that. Yeah, that's why with this game, it was a great win for the Celtics, but I just feel like if you take out one of those four guys for the Cavs, it's a little more substantial than with some other teams

because I don't think they're 5 through 12 is really that impressive. The reason I brought it up with Mobley, his stats are basically the same for, he's in year five. It's basically been the same guy for the last, four years. Like his field goal attempts set year two. He was 12 a game.

Now he's 13. He shot 21% from three in the second year. Now he was shooting 32%. His rebounds. He was nine in his second year. He was 8.7 this year. His assist, 2.8. Now it's 3.8.

Blocks around the same. Everything's kind of around the same. And I just feel like by your fifth year, I wanted to level up. And I still think it's in there, but I also don't know, like, when he shoots a three, do you think it's going in? I don't feel awesome about it, but I don't feel bad about it. I just feel like it's a shot that the defense is willing to live with. And it may always be a shot that the defense is willing to live with, given the alternatives on the team that has Donovan Mitchell and James Hardin and whatever else.

It is interesting that, you know, with Allen out, he doesn't, like, Hardin and Allen just had immediate pick and roll, chemistry, like pocket passes, lobs, whatever. And it just, and this is not the first time this has been the case with Mobley and a ball handler when Alan is cleared from the picture and he's the center and the pain is all his. For whatever reason, that does not come as easily with him and for him as it does for a more traditional rim runner like Alan. Like I want to see just rampage, man, like put some shooting in there, let hard and loose

and rampage. And it just isn't as easy. Like for Jared Allen, it was immediately like, oh, I'm just going to get 25 points every game now. There's more there and I don't, not sure what it is. The three point shot would have to get better. The ability to punish any sort of mismatch. I don't feel like he's totally there yet.

The defense is really, really good. It's not like I won't be told my grandkids about it, but it's really, really good. And so it's, I just wonder two years from now are we in the same spot. I think about this with certain guys in the league. Like I look at Jabari Smith that way too, who's obviously the easier younger than Mowgli.

But when I watch him, because I like his game and I have a lot of Jabari-Smithstock. And sometimes I'm thinking, is this basically going to be it? We're going to be at like 16 and 7 and he'll hit some threes and he'll be able to guard different guys. And this is just what we're going to, this is where we're going to land? Is there going to be a jump? Will it have to be he gets straight to a bad team? Or it's just kind of the vicinity of where we're going to land? I don't know.

We're going to take a break. I want to talk about Detroit and the spurs and the Rockets and the Lakers and the NICS. That's coming next. It's a lot. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Sam's Club. It is that time of the year when you just got to get in your car and go somewhere, done that plenty of times of my life. Nowhere gets you ready to go quite like Sam's Club.

Snacks, the gear, super low prices on gas. They got a bunch of stuff that keep you and the whole crew rolling. And here's what you got to do. You got to join the club of YesN at Sam's. Sam's Club.com slash yes and. You must be 18 years or older to purchase membership, but membership is subject to qualifications. Visit samsclub.com slash yes and for details.

This episode is brought to you by Venmo. Supporting your team never gets old, but here's something new. You can now pay for your game day wings and rep your team at the same time. How? By getting your college colors on your card. Score more with the college branded Venmo debit card.

Get up to 5% cashback with Venmo stash. Sign up at Venmo.com slash college card. The Venmo Mastercard is issued by the Ban Corp Bank, N-A. Select schools available. Venmo slash bundle terms and exclusions apply at Venmo. Dot me slash stash terms, max $100 cashback per month. I forgot to mention at the top at his CR month on the rewatchables.

He's an American hero. We did Sicario last week. week. We have Fargo coming on Monday. We have to live and die in LA coming a week from Monday. And then we just had a vote for the fourth movie. And it looks like the nice guys won the fourth movie with Brian Gassing and Russell Pro. And then the last movie of the month will be LA confidential. Oh my God. You mentioned something we went to break. Say you're a Cleveland point really quick about what happens if it doesn't go great for them this spring. I just, I think they become a very interesting off-season team.

And I think if, let's say they lose in the second round and it's just another second round loss for this iteration of the Cavs, we've already seen them trade Garland. And you just mentioned Mobley and when is Mobley going to develop and the Yonest thing could be revisited. And I just like, I'll be watching. It's a team blowup. Did they sign harder to the extension or no? Not yet. wasn't. I think Hardin had one of those games where it's like, wait, is it mid-May? Oh, no, it's the beginning of March. You're burying honeymoon. Is Honeymoon Hardin over? Is the honeymoon? Hardin might have, yeah, this might have been. I left my purse at the hotel bar and now it's gone. We got to find it. The honeymoon's and shambles.

Detroit, lost today. They're six and five in their last 11. They are 45 and 18. The Celtics are now two wins in the loss column behind them, nine and two in their last 11. The Brooklyn loss, which I did not watch, they did not have Kate Cunningham in. No kid. And blew a big lead near the end. You know, that's fine. The loss today was a little different because they got their asses kicked by Miami.

And we'll talk about Miami in a second too. Detroit hanging on a little bit. And then you watch some of these other teams in the east that have two, three, four guys who can create a shot. And Detroit still, like we say every week, has the one guy who can create offense. and then just a lot of good cutting, a lot of good cuts, and some low post play,

but not a lot of guys who can create shots. And it's just the herder trade. I just don't understand their trade deadline. I understand not, we said this in the trade deadline pile when we had it. I understand being afraid to mess with the chemistry, but I also think they needed a freelance wing, guard, somebody and they didn't get it.

Herder's really not playing. and I just feel like they're a creator short. So what do you see? I think this has been the concern all season and why none of us have been ready to crown them East champions like we would normally crown a team that was so, that was like six games ahead, it's seemingly a blink of an eye ago.

It's because you know that the offense is going to get harder to come by in the playoffs when you play two non-shooters at almost all the time, sometimes three, and you're really, really dependent on an all-world player, but he's just one player. And you have all these little subsets, right? Like Duncan Robinson flying around is kind of like a creator, even though he doesn't dribble because he creates openings and gaps

and attention comes to him. And Jalen Duren can face up. I don't love these Jail and Duren jump shots that are starting to happen now. I think that's like we got a maybe another. It's a little bit of working on that before you start busting that out in games. And I love J.D. And it's like a little bit of this and the offensive rebounding is part of it. But all that stuff is harder to do in the playoffs

when everyone is geared up on defense on every possession. And this has been the concern all year. I'm not going to panic. It's a late season, you know, slide, one game without K. Team had a huge lead. Everyone is coming back from suspension one by one. Like, Beef Stu just got back. I agree with you.

Like, we all had big dreams for the Pistons trade deadline all season, right? Like, it started with marketing, like, that's the perfect fit. And then it was clear Utah was just not going to trade marketing in because he's just going to, I guess, be a jazz lifer and just maybe one day make the playoffs for the first time ever. We took a Trey Murphy spin around the parking lot. That didn't bite.

It doesn't, I never really heard Detroit being aggressive and they settle on this, you know, Ivy Herder basically exchange of those two guys. There's a pick swap here and there. And J.B. Bickr, maybe they should have asked J.B. Bickriss staff first. Like, hey, are you going to play Kevin Hurtor if we get him? because we might trade for Kevin Herder. And, like, he's been a break in case of an emergency guy.

And he's the kind of player that could help them. Wouldn't change their life. I think we all knew that. But, yeah, I mean, look, this four-team race in the East, and you want to throw Charlotte in and make it five, go, go ahead and do it. Can we throw in the zombie heat? Zombie heat, five straight wins. Maybe the heat just heat around, and they heat their way in one way or another.

So, as you know, I'm over. terrified of the heat. I'd written them off this season. I saw them in person last month when I was back for Cousie's thing at Holy Cross and the Celtics came back from a big deficit, beat them. Khalil Ware looked like he was just a section 8 for the season. He came in for two small stints in the game and it was just a catastrophe. And it was like, wow, it's gotten this bad. Like, it was one of those. This last five games, it wasn't just winning the five.

I watched that Rockets game. That's when I got scared. That's a good win for them. What they did is Charlotte on Friday night. It was notable, and I want to talk about that in a second. But then the one today, too, just taking it to Detroit.

Heroes just back. Heroes like, I'm actually offended that you guys forgot I was good at basketball and I was being thrown around and these trade deadline shit. Like, I'm good. Bam, I think, has gotten better offensively as the season went along. There was some pretty shaky Bam stats, but it's basically been a 2210 guy for two months.

Powell's out right now. Powell isn't even playing. So when he comes back, just thinking about them in a playoff series where you have these two heat check guys, you have Bam, who's steady, you have a defensive by identity, you have a good coach, you have a couple weird bench guys and wings, and you only have to go four and three to advance in a playoff series. I look this up. It's true.

You only have four and three. You can have three shitty losses and still win the series. And I just don't want to see them in a series. And somehow they've been resuscitated, Zach Lowe. And I'm just horrified. I'm already looking at a 27 Boston Miami series. You can look at it right now because that would be the matchup if we had it right now. Well, they got to get through the play.

And they got to heat their way through the plan. Although, you know, six is becoming quite interesting now. Orlando is six. Philly has dropped to eighth after a nightmare weekend where Maxie gets her. Now it sounds like he's not going to be out for a long time, but Embed is still out with this oblique thing. And so that is flipped almost completely.

The Hawks have won six in a row. Don't look at the, don't forget about the Hawks. Jaywin Johnson's played himself into like legit all-MBA consideration. I think he's there. I had him on my rough draft like two weeks ago, third team all-N-B-A and people were kind of stunned. I was like, I don't know, I think he's been pretty good.

And Camingo's been good for them. I'm not, I wouldn't take the all-out victory lap on Cominga quite yet, but he's been very good for them and definitely more productive than Porzingis, who finally played. The Matt Ishbya, premature ejaculation victory lap. Yeah. Hey, Matt, keep it in your pants.

All right. You're a seven seed. Like, settle down. The moment he did that, everybody in the team got hurt. Yeah, the Dylan Brooks, who took a little bit of a hit this weekend as well. Maybe take the victory lap after the season. Well, the Bamware stuff has started to work and work big time, that combination in the last three to four weeks has really changed their team. And like,

Jaime Hakez Jr., I haven't done a detailed six man of the earth dive in maybe a month, but I think, you know, he, Kelton Johnson, Nas Reid, there's a bunch of good candidates. He's just been consistently outstanding. And teams just can't keep him out of his comfort zones. He spins and drives his way into these little eight-foot flip shots. He seems to make all of them. And he was a huge difference maker in that win at Charlotte on Friday. Charlotte's playing right now and they're tied heading in the halftime in Phoenix ironically.

So I watched that Friday game because they were going head-toid with the Tatum game. So I had on the smaller TV I was monitoring it. You don't have to say that you watch a Hornets game. We all assume that you are watching

every Hornets game. They were the second game. Parents watch their children legitimate or not. That's the thing. It's like when I would have Zoe's soccer games on one of the side TVs. Charlotte played well.

They had 120 points. good game offensively. They kept doing stuff, but they couldn't stop Miami. And I thought it was interesting. It was a little cold water being thrown on the Watch Out for Charlotte. They could be this year's Indiana

bandwagon that I think I was on with three other people. That bandwagon is... Yeah, we didn't even have wheels. We were just like, we were basically building the foundation of it. But they had nobody in the team that could stop Hero.

And I think if you're going into a playoff series, their issue is going to be stopping those hero pritchard, these crafty guards, these crafty heat check guys. They just don't have anyone. Like they're five, their best five. Everything's good except for that one wrinkle. Donovan Mitchell, I think, would be a real problem for them. And that was my lesson from that,

because they got 120 and they're still lost. Miami's going to be heard from. And I think we can officially say the east is better than the West. We might be able to say it. I mean, you know, certainly the bottom five of the West is not covering itself in glory. No. Nor is the bottom four in the East, however. But it's a conversation now for sure.

Well, we were about to have four legitimate East contenders all with various cases going on. Cleveland took a hit today. And the Knicks were the other one. the Knicks who I've been hesitant to trust because every time I'm about to buy in and then they had a couple good games. I even thought, I thought that OKC loss they had was the best Knicks game I've seen. That was a good loss. Yeah. That was like, oh yeah, this could be a finals. And then they just get waxed today against the non-Lebron Lakers. They had, there was some good stats with them. We have the number one defense last 20 games, all this stuff. And they just got smoked.

and they kind of looked like the bad version of the of the next, this little Jekyll and Hyde thing they have going. Did you see any of that game? What did you see? I've seen pieces of it. I'm going to go back and watch the whole thing tomorrow, but I saw a team that has been, you know, the Lakers played really well in that game.

I mean, that's the first thing. The Lakers said it was a good Lakers game. Really was. The Knicks, you know, their losses tend to be loud. Like the two Detroit losses, the Lakers, the Cleveland loss. the Laker lost today, losing by 13, McHilbert just puts up zero. And, you know, the Knicks are, I was texting with a friend of mine who's a huge Knicks fan,

and he was just over the moon after the Denver game and just I'm all in on the team. And that was as good of a road win as you can have in the NBA, just taking it to the nuggets like that. And I picked the Knicks to make the finals. I haven't been convinced to pick anyone else over them in a complete way yet. but I texted in the back and I was like, they seem to, no matter what kind of run

they're on, you're always like one weird cat game or one weird bridges game away from being like, ooh, something is, it's just a strange, strange brew that way.

I agree. There's a number four seed subplot with the East that I think is worth mentioning where you could be in the two, three and know that you're going to not only probably play Miami. I think Miami's going to get to the six seed. So you two, three, if you're the three, you play Miami in round one,

and then you play the two seed in round two and you're on the road. Or you could just drop down to four. You play Toronto in round one and then take your chances with Detroit. And to me, that's the more palatable path. I don't know how you feel about it. But that two, three, feels a little quagmire to me. Interesting. Yeah, you know, look, Toronto is only a game ahead of Orlando and Miami now in the fifth spot.

you know, let's take table that one. Swing even more. Right. And they can't beat anyone good. I mean, that was another great win for the Knicks. They went to Toronto and blew them out. And Toronto just can't beat any of the good teams in the NBA. So to backing up your point that if you can park your way into a matchup against them, maybe that

is a little less terrifying than seeing Spow stride up and down the sidelines. And like, what kind of zone can we throw at these guys? Triangle and Touche, should we bust that out? It'll blow their minds. That's the heat, man. And then the Lakers really quick. nine and two without LeBron,

which is a record that will be brought up over and over again over the next 12 to 18 hours as the talk shows kick in. You know who had never had a record like that when they were injured? Michael Jordan, Bill.

That never happened to Michael Jordan. Okay? Michael Jordan. I just like when it's Luca and Reeves. Like, just remove LeBron out of it. I think that's the foundation of a really good team because you could build the right team

around those two guys. You know who else? They're going to be your worst defender. You know who else thinks that? The Lakers. I know. I know. It's Luca and Kyrie again. Yeah, they like playing together. So you can see the vision.

I don't know why they didn't start the vision in February. And this is just a really weird situation for LeBron because he's still, it's not like he's washed up. But this has been a weird fit for him the whole season. We've known it. You can watch it. You can see it with your own eyes. And I don't know where he ends up next year, but it's just, I find it hard to believe it's going to be the Lakers. I still think it's going to be Golden State.

I find it hard to believe it's going to be the Lakers, but as you've pointed out, I kind of find every scenario a little hard to believe. Golden State needs them. I think Golden State would be the team. I mean, Golden State needs something because this has been a hell of a depressing season for the Warriors. I mean, they still

play hard and they play a fun style of play on stuff's there, but this is not going to be the most fun stretch run in Warriors history. There's been some good Warriors news. I bought a I bought a small condo on Guy Santos Archipelago. Guy Gulch. Guy Gulch.

I bought some property on DeSanto Straits. They just paid him. They did. They paid him a good, a good, what was it? Five a year for three years. He's a solid player. He's a very, very Steve Kerr player. It's like just central casting Steve Kerr player.

We got to talk about the Spurs too because they had an awesome weekend. They came back from 25 against the clippers. I was watching a movie with my wife. I had the TV on the small screen. Never turned it off, even when it was like 75 to 50. Hold on. What movie? I don't want to say.

Okay. And could you? It wasn't a movie. It was this TV show called Vladimir. I'm unfamiliar. Clearly you're not that invested in it if you have half at one eye on Wembe over here. It's with Rachel Weiss. She's like a professor.

It's a Netflix show. It's basically my wife. Her algorithm is just like, they put the show on Netflix, and then her algorithm, there's a hammer that actually comes out of the TV and hits her with it because it's so like in her wheelhouse according to the algorithm. Like, you will watch this now! So that was on and we're also watching the Spurs game. I mean, Spurs Clippers.

So Niederhouser, who I was just touting to you a week ago. Such a bummer. And the fear with Niederhouser is like, this guy's a maniac. He tries to block everything. He's going to get hurt. Of course, he gets hurt trying to make some crazy block out for the thing. the year. And you could really feel it in that spurs game because you can only ride the Brooke Lopez Express for so long. Great comeback for the spurs. I have no idea why I wouldn't be

cried at the end. I said, did you weep? Did you weep? Did you weep? Did Vladimir make you weep? I would have only wept if I had the clippers in a parlay. But so they had a big comeback win on national TV and then they really, you know, thrash the rockets today and look scary. And we've talked about, is it too soon? We've had all the spurs. conversations you can possibly have at this point. I can't talk about Dylan Harper a little bit. Oh, my God. Who I've liked the whole year.

I haven't seen a rookie guard like this in a long time, and I'm having trouble fitting him in the context of rookie guards. We've seen since we've watched basketball. He can't really shoot, right? If it's an open three, I don't think it's going in. Three of four today. He's got this crazy. this combination, like, he's really nice along the baseline.

He likes to have his background guy. So I guess like the comparison, maybe it would be a little Jason kid, like very comfortable with a little space near the low block with his back to a guy, ready to go either way, gets to the rim. There's crazy rim stats with him. Like it's basically him and centers and, you know, big forwards with like finishing at the rim. and I don't know where we're going, but I don't know if there's much of a ceiling for this

because when he learns how to shoot, when he gets a floater, combine with the back to the basket with the way he uses his body and bounces off dudes and how hard he plays, I'm starting to wonder if there's some Jason Kidd kind of potential, even though they're different players. 62 combined points for Fox Castle and Harper today

and throw in another 20 for Kelman. Johnson before you even get to Wenbenyama. I mean, the depth of scoring and rim attacking they have is crazy. And what I love, I mean, I could not love Harper and Castle anymore. I mean, and aside from all the highlight plays that Castle delivers, all the sort of classic attacking guard stuff that Harper has, they're just so tough and so competitive. And they want, they want to outwork you and out physical you. And I can't remember how this possession ended up, but there was one possession in that game.

somebody on the Spurs missed and Harper had Finney Smith on him on the left side and was just like I'm getting this fucking rebound. You're not stopping me from this offense rebound. He ended up tipping it out to somebody and I think someone made a three and it's just like those are the plays from a rookie guard

a tap out offensive rebound for Castle a second year guard a yeah give me give me Kevin Durant like I'll do my best to guard him and then you know you saw today the Rockets put their Shengoon on him to start the game and it had him on Castle for much of the game, which is a strategy that I've been saying all year.

I think the spurs are going to see at some point. They saw it today and it didn't work because Castle figured it out. But those are the kind of plays that they make at such a young age. And they're just winning, they're winning basketball plays. They are, they evince a competitiveness and a toughness that rookie guards who want to score and make a name for themselves, like you don't see plays like that. Like this team is so together, they play so unselfishly. They have sequences of ball movement for a young team where you're like a,

a team this young shouldn't be able to like just pim, boom, boom, boom, boom, the ball's flying around. It's really impressive. And those two guys are awesome. I'm glad you brought that up because one of my takeaways watching today was they play like they've been playing together for a few years, which I think is the rarest place you can get to as a team. Like they really like understand each other and where the next guy's going to be and how to

use each other and how to play. Even that play they ran at the end of the half when they got Wemby that three. It was just, they're very well prepared. Some of the credits got to go to the coach. And then everybody plays hard, which is the other thing. And it's very similar to the Celtics and the pistons where it's like, you're not playing if you don't play hard. The thing with Harper, usually when rookie guards that are super talented come in, they have their things they can do. Right. And they're like, I can do this. I can really get to the rim. I'm a really good shooter. You know, they'll have these skills that they can kind of dwell on, but they're not basketball players yet.

And I think what's was just so bizarre about him is like what a good like team basketball player he is, which is why I brought up the kid thing. Like he's just really smart. I didn't watch enough for that Rutgers team last year who it sucked. It was him and Ace Bailey and nobody else. It's amazing to me he could ever be on a bad basketball team because he knows where to go, what to do, how to playoff guys. I'm just really excited for him.

And then big picture, you think, like, for the league, this is a disaster that they ended up with Castle and Harper with Wembe. And these guys are all 23 and under. And they have, they're 47 and 17 now. And Wembe, I mean. This team could win the title, like, for real. I mean, that's not even a hot take anymore. This is one of, I would say, probably.

the number two pick you would have to win the title at this point. Christmas is what finally, not finally, Christmas was when I said they can win the championship. And nothing has changed. In fact, it's just gotten clear to me that despite the experience factor and they would be somewhat anomalous among championship teams, they have enough and they have a guy who's a top five.

He's a top five guy. And today was like, you know, you mentioned how this first play unselfishly, super competitive, super hard. They drafted a bunch of guys who play that way, but when your best player is unselfish, and Wembenyama is unselfish,

one of my favorite things about him, and play super hard. No one else has any choice but to play unselfishly and super hard, especially when you start winning. And today, I know we're going to talk MVP a little bit, and there's just so much uncertainty about who's going to be eligible and who's going to be not going to be eligible.

But today was like, Wembe should be in the conversation. I think Shea still has a clear lead and a clear case, but if he's not eligible, like Wembeaz is good of a case, minus the minutes, he's a little behind it minutes, but you just feel him

every single second on the floor, and the defensive dominance is just unheard of what he's doing on defense. His odds during that game dropped from 20 to 1 to 15 to 1 on Fandall. That was an MVP performance tonight. He has,

he's in the fourths, he's in the third spot now. He's past Cade. Yokage is 9 to 1, and Shay is 4 to 1. Look, I don't know if this is the 90 bowls or the 91 bowls, but we're in that vicinity with this team, where you have a potential generational star

and you have a loaded young cast, and the only question is, when is this all going to come together? That's where we are now with this team. And I went back and I looked at the 90 Bulls. They were 55 and 27. They lost the Detroit and 7. That was the Pippin Migrant game.

Jordan was probably, you know, he's Jordan. He's the best part ever. But he was a little older than Wembe. He'd been a couple years in college. And he'd been in the league for six years at that point. So he's probably a little further ahead than Wembe was. But it's the same thing. It's like these guys that you, when you're watching a basketball game like that,

you could bring in my mom, you could bring in your wife, you could bring in your daughter. You could bring in my, you could bring in anybody and be like, does this guy seem a little different than everyone else in the game? And the answer is yes, he does. he's doing all of these things. I don't watch other players do. Combine with the identity they have and like what they did to Durant today,

I thought was just a sign that you're a really well coached together team, right? They're like, we're going to do these three things to make it really hard for him. We're going to have Kelden Johnson mugging him. We're going to pick up the ball with him at half court. We're just going to make it really uncomfortable for him the entire game. And they did it. And that was one of the reasons they won. So I think about them versus OKC if Jalen Williams doesn't.

really become Jalen Williams again in the playoffs. Could they take out Shea? No. Could they make it really hard for him and make other guys in that team basically have to make plays or they're going home? Yes. Well, we've seen that. I mean, we've seen it.

They're four and one against them. And today the Wemby, I don't know. Playoffs is different though. But I don't know. Today, the thing that stood out to me about Wembe against the Rockets was, you see some games like this and some games where he, He doesn't do it. I don't know if it's a, he was fresher in these games or he just likes the matchup better

or whatever it is. Today he did the thing where he just, when he got, when he faced up off the dribble, he, he did the thing where I'm taking an extra step to the basket to the point where I can just reach my arm out and I'm at the basket. He had one on. And Thompson liked that. He had another one against somebody else. And when he does that, you wonder, why doesn't he do that every time?

And there's just something about that night, that matchup. But today he had a clear directive in his mind of like, I'm taking the extra step or half step off the bounce and just reaching my way to easy buckets. And when he has those kind of baskets, that's when you feel helpless. That's when you feel like there's just nothing we can do. You know, I remember saying this early on in the Wembea experience that I didn't like how, first of all, the playing him as a guard, I've always, I never liked. I understand that you go through the process of it.

But it was like the question with him will be, when does he realize that the closer he is to the rim, the more devastating he's going to be. And it seems like he's realizing that in real time, to your point. Like, hey, I'm seven for four and I have long arms. And if I'm three feet from the basket, odds are something good's going to happen. He's just, you know, and then you talk about the defense. The Celtics play them on Tuesday.

And I look at somebody like Pritchard, who was doing his thing this, this Cleveland game, right? All that herky jerky, low post, up faked up, just maybe stick to threes for this Wemby game, Pritch. Reed Shepherd made a couple over him in the lane today. I know. It's, man, it's high risk. Castle over Shepherd. Shepherd's been good the last month, I think. It's not like he's a bust or anything, but that's interesting.

I wonder if they would redo that one, the Rockets, because they took Shepherd third, Castle went fourth. I'd mean, I would redo it. I'd like Shepherd, but come on. I bet they would say no. I think they were just. What about after three drinks? They would, they would crack. a little bit. You'd start to hear anecdotes

that you didn't hear before, but they were all I mean, they were all. What about after we do fireball shots? Then it's good. How many drinks you're going to serve them? My God. You crack! A few readers have suggested to me that KD's nickname should be the burner.

I mean, it works on multiple levels. 35 for the burner. You guys had a whole KD. discussion, which I really enjoyed about how he unilaterally was like, that awesome nickname I don't like, easy money sniper's better, not Slim Reaper. Like Slim Reaper was just minted. It's so good.

And he just didn't like it. The burner, I actually thought today, I'm a little bit surprised that road crowds haven't found a creative way to throw this in his face a little bit. I don't know if it's going to take the wall with the clippers. that anymore. Clarow's not allowed to be mean. Everybody knows.

Like the fans all know now. I feel like I'm a little surprised that it just hasn't come up. The wall, I bet if they play at the Clippers, I bet the fanatics who sit in the wall will do something. I got an email. I'm trying to find it and I can't find it. Just because I was asking about the best nicknames of all time. And the guy said, the best think of all time is Magic Johnson.

People literally think it's his name. That's the last stage of a nickname when nobody even really. they forget you have a real name. And I think that's a really good point. Magic Johnson, it's such a good nickname that he had other nicknames. Right? I think some people called him Buck.

It was like the nickname for them. When you have the second nickname, because your first nickname, people think is your actual name. It's the final level of nickname. This episode is brought to by Uber Eats. It's winter and you can now get almost anything you need for the coldest months of the year

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Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Playoff matchups. Detroit versus Philly Atlanta or Charlotte. Boston versus Miami. New England versus Orlando, Cleveland versus Toronto in the East, and in the West, OKC versus bizarre, Golden State Clippers, Portland, none of us are that excited to even have this series.

I wonder if you offered any of those teams. You could have the 10th pick or play in round one, what they would take. A bunch of them are digging the 10th pick. Yeah, that's what I think too. San Antonio Phoenix, which we're going to have to fix that series somehow. Minnesota versus the Lakers, which would be a mismatch, and then Houston versus Denver would be our four matchups. We need some work with that.

I would personally like to see OKC Phoenix and San Antonio in the one seed. It would be more fun. What is your, I don't remember if they're playing tonight, what is your current Denver concern level after Aaron Gordon came back and they got thrashed by the Knicks at home? And Murray turned his ankle. So Yokage looked better this weekend. That was a bonus.

Murray did get hurt. I am now in the, hey, Denver, just fall to six and get everybody healthy. The last 20 games don't even, just be careful. Are you still, do you still have faith in the Denver fully healthy? Is it, is a juggernaut? Or are you starting to wobble on like, well, we just haven't seen a lot of Cam Johnson. Oh, I'm wobbling. I wrote that in my, I had a quicky thought section I was going to do with one of them is Denver possible year from mini hell. Not year from hell. It's a year from mini hell.

It's like they can't have a week without something happening, right? I call it. It's not our year year year. That's fair. I don't know if they're having it, but they seem to be having a year. If you had it, it would look a lot like this. It's what, remember there was a couple KG Celtics years where they were like 25 and 25 in their last 50, and then all of a sudden they would be in the Eastern finals. And they'd be like, how did I ever doubt them? If I were them, I wouldn't care about where I landed in this three, four, five, six. Just like, whatever.

I don't think, let's get everybody healthy. Yeah, let's get everyone healthy. I have a new, new gimmick for you that I'd not prepare you for. Completely unprepared stock draft. Okay. Buy stock and two guys right now. Okay. I can start if you want.

Wait, I'm just, just anybody in the entire NBA? Just guys you've been looking at, not necessarily putting real estate on their island, but just you're buying some stock. So I'm not buying Yokch stock. We're searching for buy low under the radar. You're buying 2015 Yokage stock. Okay. 2016, when did he come in the way?

Can you go first? Yeah, I'll go first. I'd like to put a little down. I'm going to call my guy. Carter Brian, I'd like to put some stuff down on him. I mean, you're making me angry with that one. That was, that's so, he's really the only reason I wanted to have the stock draft.

Friday and Sunday, the crowd's cheering for him now. Like, they're chaining his name, which is a good sign. But, uh, I like that he's one of those quiet assassin,

just killer swing guys. I don't, he probably is not going to get into it once with anybody. He just got, if you knock him down, he'll just get up. He's like a Michael Myers. And,

uh, he's bigger than you think he is. It seems like, It seems like he can guard basically everybody in the league. He hits threes. He's athletic. And they got him at the 14th pick. It was a great draft pick.

And he's going to be in that team for a while. That's a great. It's a great thing. I'm putting down a load on him. Slam dunk runner up, I believe. So his, his playoff viability, clearly they are trying to make him playoff ready now.

And when he was not playing much in the regular season, he's in every game player now. Because defensively, he's A plus. He's ready for the playoffs. he's ready for the highest level of stuff. It's just going to be about his offensive readiness and not even just about his three, shooting 33 percent. It's a little hit or miss.

He had a couple, like, plays today where you could see a little tentativeness in him when they put Houston put centers on him and kind of dared him to beat him and attack him. And he had a couple of plays in traffic where he's like, I don't know, I'm going to pivot around here. And like, that's the kind of stuff did in the playoffs. You can get a quick hook if you're a young player, a rookie untested like that. All right. Should I make a pick?

You can do one. Yeah, we can only do one if you want because I had neither was the other one. Who was your other one? I still have Naderhauser stock. I don't care that he gets hurt. I love that guy. Yeah, you should hold that stock. Yeah, I'm going to hold that.

Yeah, I didn't panic. I'm going to, I'm just going to, I mean, again, no preparation. I'm assuming Alex Sar is too high profile for this. No, it's just the stock's higher, but you can still buy it. I'm going to buy some Alexar stock. And I'm going to, I'm going to sneak in right now to the Moloch stock market in Phoenix. I'm going to buy a little on a lot of the, the Mala Watch Marina.

I'm going to play my flag in there. And just it's got, Park Williams is hurt, and I think he's going to get some run, and he blocked four shots the other night, and I'm just going to, I'm going to buy now. Interesting.

Yeah. Because I was wondering what happened to him, because House really liked him coming out of college. He's been like G. He's been like Goliath in the G League for whatever that's worth. Okay. Noah Penda?

Can I buy some Noah Penda stock, Noah Penny Penda stock? You definitely could if you want, to. This is a guy that I've had stock for a while from way back, sold it, did really well. I think it's low right now. People aren't seeing it. Like a little Robert Williams, the third, I know he's older, but for this summer, I think this could be one of those. Robert Williams just signed for three years for $50 million. What happened? I think there's going to be another cycle for him. as a guy that good teams

talk themselves into as a playoff guy. Three years 50, I don't see it. I don't see it. He's just not available. Like a really stupid contract that you'd be surprised by. I mean, Yakopurto did get a crazy extension

that I didn't understand as that was happening. It was crazy. So maybe that would deterred. Yeah, whatever. But I think Robert Williams is going to have a moment as a free agency center

with a deal higher than you think. Which Brooklyn Nets rookie would you prefer to buy stock in right now based on? They're priced differently. Like, Joeman is a little higher price because where he was picked.

Like, if you had to buy one, are you going on, you know, the wolf, the wolf den? What are you going in? Definitely not him.

Wow. I don't mind, Traori. He's pretty good. Yeah. I think he's 19. I think if it was like, you could only keep one of these five guys

who you keep in, I actually think I might keep him over the other four. But, um, Pretty rough that draft when you think of some of the other guys that were in that draft. Don't say that to Nets fans. They're going to be like, you're missing.

You're missing the three minutes in garbage time where Traori hit a scoop shot and Drake Powell Guard. I'm like, it's all right. Great. They passed on Hugo five times. That's unbelievable. Hugo gets in, gets him. Did they took, Agor, they took him over Coward, right? Yeah, and a few other good players, too.

Yeah, that's a tough one. He's pretty good. He's pretty good. But again, like, it's, he's, he's, he's, He's pretty good on a team that's horrible, and you would like him to put up a little bit more. I have one more stock guy that I've had for a couple weeks. Jacoby unfortunately cornered the market on it, but Naquan Tomlin, I have a little on him. I don't even know if we saw him today.

We did not. I like him. He's pretty good. He has a little flyer. It's like a penny stock. Yeah. Did you have any others? Anybody on Philly?

Daryl always has one or two guys to buy in on. Barlow probably should. shut up a little bit. Yeah, he's fine. I feel like the stock is probably overpressed right now. All right. A couple other things really quick before we go to the two things we had. Rob Dillingham, just a sunk cost, I guess.

It's not going great. A rare L for Tim Connolly. It's a tough trade. You do that giving up an unprotected pick down the road. You got to feel really good about the player. And one of the things I think about, and the draft's interesting because there's a bunch of really exciting scoring guards in this draft.

You don't follow the draft, but it's like probably the best crew of scoring guards we've had, and some of them are smaller and some of them are bigger. It seems like where teams get in trouble over and over again are these undersized shooting guards or undersized point guards, like the Sebastian Telfair, the book night, the guy we're talking about now. Like these guys, Dillingham,

these guys that you talk yourself into and they just end up, they're too small. Jimmer? Do I hear Jimmer's music? Jimmer is definitely in there, too. But it seems like that's a recurring theme that you're probably just better off taking a six, seven guy who can't shoot, hoping he learns how to shoot versus an undersized guard.

I just can't believe how little he's playing. He has played since being traded to the Bulls. His minutes are up a little bit lately, but I thought they would just be like, hey, just do make, don't be afraid to make all the mistakes that Minnesota could not afford to have you make. Make them here. And are they tanking? They're not tanking. What are they doing? They're tanking. Okay. Every time I think they're tanking, they win. Adam Silver was at Sloan and laid the smackdown with tanking. I saw in his very, in his ad, Adam Silver can only lay the smack down like a lawyer, like a highly trained cravath lawyer. But if you read, do you put it through your Adam Silver translator? the translator spat out. We are changing this, and there's going to be real rules put in place after this draft was my interpretation.

I don't want to hear. When he says I'm an incrementalist, which is fine, like there's going to be change. And I don't want to hear from the peanut gallery over here of owners that are against it. We're doing it.

So buckle up. Shaq didn't know who Baylor Shireman was. I didn't see this. That's real. That was tough. He's been starting for the number two team in the east for quite a long time. Yeah, I know it's like a running gimmick that these guys don't know who's on.

And I know we all love the inside the NBA guys. But you could know who's in the rotation for the best six teams in the league, I feel like. Seems a reasonable request from the fans. Has this buck season reached everyone might get fired status yet? Because I'll give you their last 17 games. You're just trying to manifest Doc Rivers podcast guests. That's all you're doing. Be honest.

No, I'm more worried because I like Doc Rivers. I want them to have a job. They're 9 and 8 in their last 17. Here are the 8 losses. You don't even need to, they stink. We don't need to hear the losses. No, no, this is pretty good. Okay.

They lost by the following numbers of points. 28, 19, 28, 28, 29, 23, 27, 18, and today, 39. They don't just lose. They get annihilated. They get blown out. They had Janus for the 27 and the 18. and we were here a week ago wondering if things were going to turn around for them. And the answer is no.

So you don't think this is a blow it up this summer for them. Oh, everybody goes. I'm talking GM coach. It's a reset button. Nuclear. Boom. Yannis has gone. New people and we're doing a four-year tank, all the thing.

It's definitely possible. And the honest story is not over just because you didn't get traded at the trade. that line. I think we all know it's not over, but I don't think they're going to trade him unless he demands a trade. I just don't think they're going to because they probably correctly understand the abyss that's waiting

for them on the other side of being completely irrelevant and he's still 31 years old and one of the three to five best players in the league. And I think it starts with him. Now, could they make changes around him? Sure. We've seen them do that before. They've changed the coach a bunch of times and they would change the coach again in the middle

of the season. So anything's on the table. But yeah, they, you know. I have some silver linings for Bucks fans. Sure. Let's hear them. They won the title four years ago, five years ago. That's a, that's, we've downgraded that to silver lining. Yeah, I just, just go back and watch the DVD.

That's one. Two, if there's expansion, you're not going to lose somebody you really like because you don't have eight players to protect. So that's a good one. And then. That's mean. That one was mean. You didn't need to. That was mean.

It's a silver lining. What about Phanasis? Will someone take Phanasis in the expansive track? They leave him up protected. And then you do have your first round pick this year. Yeah, you do. And there is a scenario where them versus New Orleans, because New Orleans has nothing to play for,

they keep winning. Their picks might be around each other. So they might end up with the pick they would have ended up with anyway or somewhere around there. They might not be like, oh, man, we could have, blah, blah, blah. what is your time machine,

Yannis trade if you could go back in a month and just force a trade because I have a team. I have a trade that I wish would happen because I just think it would have made the league more fun. I can just do any team. You're going backwards a month and you're being like,

I know you didn't want to do this, but now I'm forcing to do this on February 5th because I think there's a specific one. I'm trying to be realistic for the bucks, right? Like I'm not just going to do like, I want him to go to the Warriors. so I'm going to make a Warriors trade, which you can make a plausible Warriors trade.

I think the most interesting one to revisit that's realistic for the Bucks is either, it's going to be one of three teams you're going to bring up. It's going to be either Detroit, Cleveland, or Houston. It's going to be one of those three teams. I had Houston.

Yeah. Who's going in the trade, Shangoon? Shangoon, Jabari, and some picks. And right now we watch that game tonight, and Janus is on Houston. we're watching Milwaukee, Schenguins on Milwaukee, and I just think the league's more interesting

and Milwaukee probably feels better about where they are. I know the Milwaukee fans don't want to trade Janus. I think it is alarming that he came back and they just got crushed a couple times. I was going to say, does our month timetable extend before he got injured?

Because I think that was an under, I don't think that was talked about. We all talked about it, but I don't think it was, this assumption that he was just going to come back and be healthy and 100% and never get injured again. and he's actually come back

and looked good, but not like Janice and is always seemingly at risk of some injury like this. Wanted to mention, haven't heard a lot from Drew Hanlon taking shots at the ringer lately about how wrong we were about Embed.

Just wanted to open the door for him if he wanted to keep taking the shots. I mean, Embedd's not playing. This is another just weird, just added to the list of weird injuries. But he didn't, he didn't get to do it with Carmelo Anthony this week, I'm sure you saw.

He's played 33, 19, and 33 games in the last three years. This is why we can't put him in the top 30 in the Ringer 100. One of the parts of being a high-end NBA players playing NBA games. That's one of the things we value here at the Ringer. There's going to be a WMBA strike, I think. I think it looks more likely than less likely. It's a disaster. I don't think it looks good in the barring a miracle,

but it feels like we're heading that way. and I just wanted to say that I think that sucks. I understand the reasons from both sides, but it's just unbelievable to me that they would stop playing basketball when they finally had momentum after 25 years and now we're not going to play. I have a list of teams I've given up trying to figure out.

Bronze. I'm going to go bronze, silver gold. Bronze medal, Houston, silver medal, Minnesota, gold medal, Orlando. I just get it. I was actually going to ask you, Orlando quietly is one four games in a row. I have no takes. I have no takes. I give up. What's the deal with that team? What's the deal with the Orlando magic? Do they know how to do magic? Or they barely beat Dallas on Wednesday. Like barely. They're fine. Dallas isn't even trying to win. Then they go into Minnesota and they kill Minnesota in Minnesota on Saturday. I just don't understand them. I don't understand Minnesota either. That was one of those games where You're like, what's happening here?

I don't understand how this magic Minnesota games. The NBA just has funny games. Yeah, they both Washington, Dallas, Minnesota, Milwaukee is their four-game winning streak. So forgive me if I'm going to just not go crazy over it because three of the wins are Pooh-Poo wins. The Dallas one down to the wire, as you mentioned. The Minnesota wins a good one. They have talent.

They're fine. I just, you know, we'll see where they end up. I really wanted to believe in Minnesota. I was dying to believe they were 33 to 1 to win the. the title, um, heading into that Saturday game. I was like, here we go. They're going to be the three seed. You're crushed by one loss.

That's it. You're out. It's just every time, every time we feel like we're getting momentum with, here's the mystery contender we needed for the stretch run. It's Minnesota. And then they just suck in a game. I'm keeping them as the mystery contender. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not wavering.

That's fine. All right. Um, we're going to do our deep dive. So we've done deep dives on, we did Kauai Leonard. Who did we do last week? Good one last week. I already forgot. Once we're done, I forget.

Yeah. We're going to do the 2011 MVP race. Okay. And it's topical because there were some slight parallels until Detroit fell off a little bit and Cade fell off a little bit. Uh-oh. What happened with the Hornets? Hold on.

Did they, did they? Oh, they're losing. Okay. So that's it. We now pause a podcast in real time because the hornets are losing. Oh, yeah. The deep dive was about the hornets last week. So we did Kauai and we did the hornets. Yes. We've in the 2011 MVP race because of slight parallels to what we're watching this year with

Cade and there was a brief MVP case for him. But now that Shay's comeback doesn't matter. This is probably, I think, that other than 2017, the most polarizing. MVP race since the decision. It wasn't polarizing when it happened because Derek Rose won. Derek Rose had 113 first place votes out of 120. Dwight Howard finished second. LeBron James was third and Kobe Bryant was fourth.

This was the season after the decision. Chicago was 62 and 20. They started out 9 and 8. They finished 55 and 12. They were 24 of their last 27 games. and somewhere on the line, we all decided Derek Rose was the MVP. And now as the years have passed, because Miami made the finals for straight years, LeBron is who he is, this is a MVP race that people now point to as this should have been LeBron's MVP.

You did not vote for either LeBron James or Derek Rose. You didn't have a vote, but your fake vote was not for either guy. I would have been the fourth Dwight Howard voter that season. thought he was, first of all, he was defensive player of the year and it was almost unanimous. It was easily the best defender in the NBA and it was maybe his best offensive season, 23 points a game, shot well. The advanced stats all loved him. And I just thought, you know, it's interesting.

We were, that is so long ago in sort of NBA discourse times that we were just sort of getting into like on off data and stuff like that. And again, when you're doing these races, it's all, you're just splitting the thinnest of hairs between guys who are all deserving. And obviously, Derek Rose was the story of the season. The Bulls were the story of the season. But one of the arguments that you could make in favor of Dwight Howard. And 15 years later, I probably over-indexed on it in picking Dwight Howard was the on-off data that year.

The Magic were awesome with Dwight Howard on the floor. And I think they were negative something. I'm trying to look it up now with him on the bench. And the Bulls were really good with Derek Rose on the floor and really good with Derek Rose off the floor because their defense without him was impenetrable. And some of that had to do with Derek Rose. Some of it was probably just random luck. And I probably underestimated the luck factor in that back in 2011.

But I think there's an ironclad statistical case for Dwight Howard, not ironclad, but you could make a statistical case for Dwight Howard easily. And I just thought he was the most dominant two-way player in basketball that year. And the LeBron one. Wait, can we talk about Dwight first and then go to LeBron? Sure. So I had Dwight, I think I had him fifth. And I said, kudos to him for, this is, I wrote a big MVP column that year.

And I said, kudos to him for getting about 11% better this season. Me blah, blah, blah. Magic's only rebounder, only above average defender. 60% of shots, blah, blah, blah. And then I wrote, I can't give my MVP vote for one simple reason. He leaves something on the table every night. Dwight Howard should be the league's most dominant player. Then I had a couple things about comparing him to Shaq,

all this stuff, Shaq's MVP season, where that Shaq MVP season I wrote, ha, that's the Shaq we were waiting for. I knew he had that extra gear. That's how I feel about Dwight Howard right now. Hakeem averaged a 24-14 with 4.6 blocks, 2.1 steals in 1990.

It wasn't even one of the best three seasons of his career. I keep going on that. Are you telling me his 20, 23.1 points, 14 rebounds, 2.4.4 blocks. 26.1 PR is the best he can do. No way. So then I wrote, that's when you ask, wait, why does it matter? If it's better than anyone else's best season, who cares if he peaks as a player? It's still the best season.

And then I said advanced metrics should be used to accentuate opinions. We're already leaning towards having instead of forming and shaping those same opinions. If Howard is Orlando's best player, he's holding something back every night, how can you say that doesn't affect the magic? So they had the eighth best record that year. They were 52 and 30. I was saying how he gets dumb technical. That was the eighth best record that year?

Yeah. Dumb tactical, dumb fowls, disappears in Crunchtime. Didn't even rank in top 125 in Crunchtime field goal attempts. They had an uneven season. Nobody's afraid to play them in the playoffs, blah, blah, blah.

How can I vote for him for MVP? That's how I felt in the moment. So I think there's an eye test piece to that where it's like, I just don't feel right saying that this guy is the best. guy in the league. You've, you've been, you don't care about as much about that. You're more Spock when you do the case. You're like, here's the mathematical case. This guy is the best at this. His records this. I still slide the eye test stuff in there probably a little too much.

I don't know who's right. Well, I mean, part of the eye test is he was single-handedly making the magic a good defensive team, like by himself as easily the best defense, not easily, but the best defensive player in the NBA. I mean, that has to be, when you talk about leaving stuff on the table, Derek Rose was not a good

defensive player that year. So he was leaving stuff on the table. But they were the number one defense. They were. So he couldn't have been that bad, right? No, they were way better. They were way better. They were like a freaking juggernaut from hell

without him. But that doesn't, like, again, all these guys had cases. Everything you said about Dwight is fair. And that was like the, that was the end of that era of the magic. That was the last year that team was good. Well, that was the irony

of what I wrote is that was his best season. And I think he was like, is there more there? And it's like, no, there actually wasn't. There wasn't. And there was, in fact, less eventually. But it did feel like at that time he was holding together the last remains of that team

that had made the finals and then the conference finals the next year and they ended up losing in the first round the next two years and then it was kind of over. And yeah. But I just thought defensively, he was like he was a floor every night. Like your floor was pretty stable with Dwight Howard in the middle on defense. And yeah, the Shaq thing is, it's so tiresome because Shaq has perpetuated it too.

Like they had this rivalry over the years and then they would reconcile and then they'd be a rival again. He was never as, he's not as big as Shaq. You couldn't just move people out of the way as easily as Shaq could. I mean, Shaq was just, you know, just the eighth wonder of the world kind of guy. And he just was never a polished post-up player. And those were the years where. Stan Van Gundy

just sort of successfully shoehorned him into, yeah, post up a few times a game when you've got good matchups and we'll throw you the ball.

To make you feel good about it. But just do these things you're awesome at and you're going to be the foundation of every single thing we do, offensively and defensively you are the tent pole

of everything. And I just thought that was his best season. So the stuff I wrote about Rose and it's weird because over the years I've been like, I got the Rose thing wrong.

And then I went back and read how passionate I was about the Rose case about that team was 62 and 20. He was the only guy in the, he carried their offense, was the only guy in their team who really could create his own shot, right? Who else was a little like the Detroit case this year. There was a little boozer.

A little, a little. Usage was pretty crazy. In crunch time per 48, second most field goal, eighth most free throw attempts, ninth highest assist. He was doing everything. I was comparing it to the eye. Iverson 0-1-6ers thing and just like, just everything was on him game after game after game. And they won most of their games, which matters.

And then Boozer and Noah both I wrote Rose keeping the Bulls contention for three plus months with Boozer and Noah missed significant time was the most impressive thing. I witnessed this season. Their quest for number of one seats should have been derailed in November, blah, blah, blah. He kept them hanging around, kept them relevant. And they were the best team that year. and whether he was the best player or was the bigger question

because LeBron was still the best player in the league but that Miami season was super weird. It's interesting. What I wrote in that MVP column was that I thought Wade had a slightly better case than LeBron that year because he was more kind of stable and reliable. LeBron had all that.

He was the villain that year. He was a little up and down. There were games when you didn't know where his head was. But I really said both, they were basically co-MvPs, which I talked about co-MvP seasons of 1970, Reed and Frazier, 72, Jerry West, Will Chamberlain and 06, Shaq and Wade

was really hard to separate the two guys and impact. If I had to do it over again, I think I would have Rose 1. I think I would have LeBron 2, Wade 3, and Dwight 4. And I think that's how I would go. Because those guys won 55 games. There was three guys.

It was those two in Bosch. Mike Miller, who wasn't exactly awesome that year. they had Carlos Arroyo, Mike Bibby. Like they were grabbing dudes from the street. They were three on five and they still went 55 and 27. Every game they played was the biggest game of the season for the other team. So I don't know. When I look back at that, they were two of the best three guys in the league other than they just want to throw Dwight in there.

Can you imagine if LeBron had won MVP that year and then had the same finals that he had that season? It would have been worse than the Durko. seven. I mean, it would have been the all time, like, there would have been columns being like, we need to revoke the MVP and give it to whoever finished second is what would have. The thing is, the animosity from the decision, he wasn't winning MVP unless they won like 60 plus games. I also think it's okay. I think it's okay for voters when these super teams happened to take a year and just sort of be like, I don't, I got to kind of see what's going on here because the word valuable in there does give you sort of leeway

to be like, well, that one guy is so centrally important to his team and these all three of these guys just teamed up. It's why like, this is even a level up super team, but the moment Durant went to the Warriors, those guys were never winning MVP again. And I think that was fair.

Like it's just like the team's too good. You have too much, like there's another, there's going to be someone else doing more, much more with doing the same with much less than you guys have. I think Wade, the Wade from 09, to 11 is the most underappreciated guy of the last 20 years, how good he was. And he's like, for instance, why not start at 06?

Well, you start at wherever, but those three years specifically, I just think, like, I thought his 09 year was one of the best years any two guard had since Jordan. In 11, he's better than Wade. I wrote that in the MVP piece because Kobe ends up finishing fourth in the MVP. Wade was just better than him that year. He was better pick a stat. He was better than him defensively. Kobe was still getting those all defense teams at that point.

He wasn't the guy Wade was. And Wade was just as good as LeBron. And in the playoffs was actually better than LeBron, especially in the finals. I just think they were like this. LeBron that year was not, I don't think, better than Wade. He might have better nights. But I just think Wade was like the engine of that team. And he was the alpha of that team, really trying to keep LeBron's head into it.

It wasn't until the next year that, LeBron ascended and kind of went to that next level. But I thought Wade was, I'll never forget watching Wade that year, especially in the finals. I just thought he had it. I can't remember if it was game three or game four, but he had one game that was just, he was so fucking good in this game. In the Dallas finals?

Yeah, it was either three or four. He was just so good. I still remember being in the stands like, holy shit, you know. And I just felt like Kobe, Kobe stole some of his sunshine. I think because they were going against each other and everybody at that point, Kobe had become, you know, he was rising up the ladder. And I just think Wade was right there with him for years.

And we don't think of it that way now. No, we don't. And it would be interesting to do the all-time shooting guard rankings, one deep dive because Wade would be very, very high and was an elite, elite two-way player who just like his athleticism betrayed him fast because of all the damage that had been done to his knees. But, I mean, you go back and you watch Pete Dwayne Wade, and he just jumps off the screen.

There is nobody who can stay in front of him. I mean, he's just a remarkable, remarkable athlete. He could pass. The defense was there. It's just an unusual player. A guy that height who could block shots like that and protect the rim and play vertically was very unusual. And very tough, tough and like fearless from day one.

So that was the other thing I was to say. Mean-spirited and I mean it as a compliment, like really had an edge to him. Kobe did too, but really carried himself with almost a level of anger when he played in a good way. So that year he was 26 a game, six rebounds, five assists. Kobe was 25, five, and five. He shot 50%. Played 20, 23 minutes. Some of the minutes stuff this year was nuts.

Rose played over 3,000 minutes. So did LeBron. I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to bring this up. The top four finishers played 82, 78, 79, and 81 games. Like, is that ever going to happen again? Right. I mean, that's the best thing with the Rose case is he just played. He played 80, like 81 games, 37 minutes a game.

He was their entire offense. He was in fifth gear every game. You never saw a game when he had night off. And so the more I stared at it and thought about it and read what I wrote, read some other stuff that was out there. I still think Rose is the right call. And the fact that it was that one-sided, I think maybe it shouldn't have been as one-sided as it was. But I think that is meaningful.

It shouldn't have been as one-sided as it was. I think it absolutely holds up as an okay to correct decision to make. I wouldn't have been my vote, but I think it completely holds up as an MVP case. And if I think all of the, if there was ever a we got this wrong like MVP discussion about it, I think it would all focus on LeBron. I don't think any of it would focus on Dwight or Dwayne Wade or Kobe. I think it would be it all coalesces around. Did the voters punish LeBron for the decision and when it was still obvious that he was by far the best player?

Because the advanced stats will tell you LeBron was the best player. The advanced stats, not every step, but the advanced stats will tell you that. And I think it would coalesce around him. And I think it's fine that he didn't win MVP that year. I think that's totally fair. I think him and Wade were 1A, 1B, and I'm not even sure who 1A was. Wade was plus 10.4 that year, and LeBron was plus 10.1. They were just so intertwined.

I don't know how you can even say one guy was more valuable than the other. And it really was amazing to watch those guys, those first three years and kind of culminated in the streak, right? The streak, which was one of the great achievements. And that was really Wade's last great run, I think. Because even when they got to 2013 playoffs, he was starting to break down. there's one guy I was trying to think, did anybody have an advanced case

that we didn't really fully understand in 2011, but now we understand better in 26 if we were doing it with our lens? And it's clearly Dirk Nowitzky. Clearly. And I wrote some of this in the MVP thing, even though I had him like eighth, where they were basically like 55 and 12 when he played.

And then something like that, 55 and 14. And when he didn't play, they were helpless. He was the only guy in the team. that could create a shot other than Terry. They had that Roddy Boublah. They're trying to turn him into a thing for a lot of the year. No, he was untouchable.

He was untouchable. Couldn't trade him. And then it all coalesced in the playoffs. And they found a defensive identity. He went up a level. But his advanced stuff was, oh, they're 55 and 18 with him when he played. But he was plus 10.3. He was 23, 7, and 3.

So it was a typical dirt year, 52, 39, 89. and they won like 57 games. So that was, there was probably a little better case for him. They had the fourth best record in the league. And that would be the guy, maybe if you had to do it over again, maybe he stinks in the fourth or fifth.

That's probably, that's a good call. And I remember writing at Sports Illustrated that year that the Mavs were a contender hiding in plain sight because of their, he missed like 10 games. I think that he went like one in, without Dirk or some crazy number like that.

And that totally deflated their place in the standings. They remember that year, you know, they played Portland in the first round. And I believe that series is 2-2. And there's the branded Roy game. And Portland wins games three and four at home. And everyone's like, here go the Mavericks again. And then it just skyrocketed from there.

It's a great fork in the road where it really seemed like not only were they're going to lose to Portland, but then they were going to have to blow everything up. And maybe that was going to be it for Dirk and all kinds of. outcomes and then all of a sudden it flipped the other way. Can I just say one there gross thing? Yeah. It might be the, I don't want to say rank injuries, but that injury, like heat bulls should have been an all-time great half-decade rivalry.

It just had everything, contrasting styles, contrasting cities, Noah calling them Hollywood as hell, just defense first, a team that was perceived as a highlight like Lob Dunkin. It was just everything. And then the Pacers came in and, like, filled the void. But it was clearly like someone's got to fill the void. And they were not as good as the, but that should have been just four straight years of conference finals and just slug fest the whole way through.

Yeah, there were two great LeBron rivals that got crippled because I think KG's 2009 injury was the other one, right? The two biggest injuries in either conference during this whole stretch where the KG09 and the Rose and 12, where you had teams that probably had a chance to win. win one, maybe even two more titles between them. And you look at the teams, Indiana was the best team they played probably.

In the East. In that 2011 of 14 stretch that Miami played in the playoffs, it was probably the Pacers. Indiana took them to seven and then six, two times, I think. No. That next team, I thought, had potential,

but they kind of fell apart. Then you go to the 2015 when he went back to Cleveland. I mean, they played a 40-41, 41, 41 Milwaukee team in 15. That early on us with some Chris Middleton. I forget who else was on there. They played Atlanta.

They played somebody else. But I just think the league is so much better than it was 11 years ago. I couldn't believe some of the teams in these playoffs teams back then. Those four years, they were so visibly bored with not only the regular season, but the playoffs, too, in the east. I remember there was a, I don't know. remember which Raptors year it was because God knows they humiliated Toronto enough times but it was the one where Toronto had them

2-2 in I think it was the second round and LeBron had this all-time quote after they won game 5 like yeah I think it was something like I've been in adverse situations before and this wasn't one of them and it was like wow you're just like two-two in the playoffs and you're just like I don't care

just wake us up when we have to actually win crazy all right that was a good deep dive Lebranto so you're keeping I'm sticking with Dwight. I'm sticking with Dwight. The career from there careened sideways

a few times. Got weird. Hit a snowbank, fell into a lake. There's a lot of bad stuff that happened. As I was researched in this stuff, you know,

as I have amnesia with half the stuff I wrote, you and I did a back and forth piece about the 2013 Lakers as it was going sideways. Okay. We exchange emails. It's like five.

thousand words. Yeah, it was like January or February 2013. And it was when Dwight's season was starting to go sideways for the Lakers. And Nash was looking old and Kobe was doing the thing where he's like, I'm just going to, I think it all culminated and Kobe just playing 48 minutes a game and then getting hurt. But that team went off the rails in like the craziest way. We're writing about that in real time. And one of the guys we're writing about is Dwight. Like, oh yeah, this is probably.

probably isn't happening. By the way, Dwight Howard, just for the record, I wanted to say this because I spent time looking this up. Dwight Howard, one defensive player of the year that year,

I think it was a third one in a row by a lot. He received 114 first place votes. The following players were the other players who received first place votes. And this was before the voting was public. Kevin Garnett won first place vote. Can't argue with Kevin Garnett.

You're in. Grant Hill, 38-year-old Grant Hill of the Phoenix Suns got a first place defensive player of the year vote that year. Jokim Noah got one. Keith Bogan's snagged a first place vote that, according to SB Nation, Dr. Jack Ramsey on a broadcast claimed that it was him, the voter for Keith. And that's what he lost his vote.

And the only other player who received multiple first place votes with two, Chuck Hayes of the Houston Rockets, Chuck Hayes. Two first place votes. Low post shutdown guy. We all love Chuck Hayes. But whoever those two people are, take it easy with Chuck Hayes love. Last thing before we go. We didn't get to our Utah thing.

Maybe we'll do it next week. I read this book. I'm going to do a quick book review. I read this book called Masters of the Game. Okay. By Sam Smith and Phil Jackson. Oh, I have it. I haven't read it yet.

So now I will be interested in your review. They go through 75 players and it's basically a back and forth. almost like how we did that Dwight Howard thing. It's a back and forth of their conversation with each player, but each one kind of can basically zag into this different conversation. It's one of the strangest books I've ever read. I don't understand if they had a proofreader or an editor or anything. There's certain guys where they don't even talk about the guy.

It's like, number, you know, whatever, Anthony Davis. And then it's just the whole section, some story about Phil Jackson when he coached for Albany. There's factual stuff that's wrong. Like they say at one point, Lonnie Shelton got in a fight with Bill Bridges when it was actually Buck Williams and just, it's just a, I kind of couldn't believe how lazy it was and why they didn't try to make it better. And at the same time, I got like 20 things out of it reading it. And there was some really interesting tidbits. And it was worth kind of zooming through. The biggest thing that I learned, and I had no idea, as you remember, I used to love Pat Riley's disease of me.

And I made a big thing about it in my basketball book, and I would always bring it up and all this stuff. Apparently, it was actually Lenny Wilkins' thing that he called Championship Hallout that he called during the year after the Seattle Sonics won. And he talked about all these factors that happened in your team, and he named a championship fallout. I don't want to say Pat Riley stole it,

but Pat Riley definitely, renamed it into the disease of me in his book. And then I thought it was a Pat Riley thing, but it turns out it was a Lenny Wilkins thing. And that kind of blew my brain. Half a life is marketing, right? Like, yeah, you know, did Winklewey invent Facebook? Or did Mark Zuckerberg event Facebook?

Who knows? Championship Fallout, it's called. So that review, that review you just gave, there were some plot twists within the review. I mean, I thought it was going to be a full-on pan, and then it veered into, like, There was guys where it's like, I don't understand how that's all you had to say about Chris Paul. Like you couldn't have just done two paragraphs back and forth about Chris Paul and said he went this way.

But at the same time, I was really enjoying some of the stories. So I don't know. The book, I kind of enjoyed reading it as I was frustrated by it because there was some tidbits that reinforced things I heard. Like they killed Elvin Hayes. You know, they talked about Dave Cowens, what a maniac he was. But there was some interesting coaching stuff with Phil, like guys that he clearly liked. Like he loved Jason Kidd. And he kind of didn't like Chris Paul.

And he was like, Chris Paul was kind of like, look at me, look at me. I'm the leader. Look at me. And Jason Kidd was like actually a leader. So there was there were things to gleam from Phil Jackson. And then Sam Smith covered the league. And I really respect Sam Smith. And he had some really good insight on these different teams he covered.

So you just kind of had to. to dig out the interesting stuff in the book. And that was the takeaway. But this was one of the things Phil Jackson said. I was actually Sam Smith said this. They were talking about Patrick Ewing. And the Knicks go up to nothing in the Bulls NICs series in 93. And he said, they go back to Chicago and Ewing says the Knicks just had to win one, just had to win one. And he goes, you never heard that from Michael down to nothing. He would say, we're going to win the next four. You was just more normal than Michael. And I was like, that's actually a really interesting point.

There's two types of players, right? There's the guy that would go into Chicago up to nothing and be like, we just got to win one and get it back to New York. And then there's like the Jordan Kobe types. I would be like, we're fucking winning the next four. Fuck these guys. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of. So it got my juices going on all these different basketball things.

But I was still like incredibly frustrated reading it. So that's my review. More normal than Michael is a section of the Venn diagram that encompasses most of humanity. By the way, on Apple books, this book is $2. So you could just read it, download it, and zoom through it on your iPad and have a really good time. Well, let's do a book talk. So I'm about two-thirds of the way through the new Larry Bird book, Heartland. Oh, what's the best thing you learn?

I mean, it's just, it's all so far, it's all, like he just got to Indiana State, basically where I am. It's all his, I mean, I knew a lot of his childhood growing up and his dad and his family situation. But I did not know as much about, like, how long. long he was actually at IU before he left and one of the, some of the reasons why he left and what his roommate situation was. And just like, you really get a good picture of both French lick and Tara Hote. Like they talk about the bars that people would go to and,

and some of the atmosphere around those early Indiana state games, but it was clearly had something with Byrd. And this international, I was not aware or had forgotten about this team of like high school, or might have been freshman year of college, all stars that went and played international. nationally on this trip that became like a disaster. They got into a ball and it was crazy.

There's a lot of good stuff in there. And I like that it's, I don't even know if we're getting to the Celtics in the book ever. It's all college in high school. Oh, interesting approach. We ran an excerpt on the ringer accident. A couple other things from that book, by the way. Phil Jackson really loved what a tough guy, Carl Malone was. And like, I almost wonder, I got to really rethink.

by Carl Malone because he obviously I was always glass half empty on every aspect of him and even created the 42 club to try to try to make his resume worse because I really valued how bad he was in these end of the game things. He was talking about just what an absolute intimidation guy he was and how he would intimidate like Garnett, Rashid Wallace, all these dudes wanted no part of him because he was just this tough guys, elbows were always up and nobody really fucked of them ever And I don't think I've counted that in enough with him. So that was one thing. And then he was talking about Shaq,

just what an awful practice player Shaq was. And he was, and he basically was like, as the years past, you romanticize all the good things about a player, but it was like, Shaq just ruined practice for us. We would have to play four on four.

Like Shaq just was actually like a negative, negative influence day to day because he just mailed in practices nonstop. And it really hurt us. So you hear stuff. for that and they're like, all right, that's something. You know, it's not just about the stats. And then you would go score 45 and be completely uncharable.

That's why you put up with it. Yeah. That's why you put up with it. But it was interesting. I'll check out. Yeah, I'm going to try to read a basketball book a week and give a little review at the end. He really loved Jason Kidd, though. Man, it made me wonder if I had Jason Kidd too high in my pyramid, whether he should be lower.

Why would that make you wonder if he should be lower? I mean, like, I have them in the 40s. Like, I'm wondering like, yeah. Because maybe I'm discounting his shot too much. How could any coach not love Jason Kidd as a player? I mean, he's just next level basketball savant, and tough and plays defense. Like he's just, he's got to be. He's a coach's player.

Well, I wonder I did the pyramid before the 11 finals. And maybe I should factor that in more because he was awesome in that playoff front, even though he was running on fumes. I love to be able to get to Wiski where I needed to go and be the leader of the team, all that stuff. I loved that version of Jason, old man, Jason Kidd because he learned to shoot threes and he was like, I'm going to, he was like, I think I think I can make up a position where I play point guard and I never go in the paint. I just play like old man quarterback point guard. Right.

And it's, I'm still such a good passer that it works. Would you rather have Jason Kitt or Chris Paul if you could have one guy for their whole career? Jason Kidd. Yeah, I got to redo the pyramid. All right. See, I'm glad I read this book, even though I was frustrated by it. It really did get my juices going. direction. So thank you, Sam Smith and Phil Jackson. Two dollars on Apple Books right now.

Zach Lowe, this was a pleasure as always. Thanks to Eduardo O'Gahou as well. Zach's going to be back on his podcast on Tuesday. I have Fargo for the rewatchables tomorrow. And then, I'm not sure, going to do some football, I think, on Tuesday. And then, I don't know, on Thursday. So, and then potentially, I think I'm seeing you again on Sunday. Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. Well, you're traveling their stuff, but we're going to figure out some sort of, some sort of Got some stuff. Zach Lowe, thanks,

man. Thanks to everybody on Netflix and Spotify and we'll see you next time around. Must be 21 plus in President

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