The Bill Simmons Podcast - The 25 Most Intriguing NBA Playoff People With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: August 17, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the NBA’s delightful play-in game format for the bottom NBA playoff seeds (2:30). Then Bill shares his list of the 25 most intriguing people in the 2020 NBA playoffs (21:03). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the BS Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network brought to you by Spotify, which has the best podcast listening experience imaginable. You can discover new podcasts with their charts. You can change your speeds. I am a 1.2 guy, whatever you want to do. You should be listening to music there anywhere. And if you listen to music there, listen to podcasts too. We're also brought to you by Buffalo Wild Wings. Playoff basketball is here. It is time to celebrate the return with Buffalo Wild Wings, where the wings come in 24 sauces and seasonings. When you watch at home, make sure you watch with a wing bundle. Basketball, playoff basketball. Yeah, it's back. No better way to watch than with Buffalo Wild Wings.

If you want to follow our content, you can go to the ringer.com. All the stuff that we are writing every day, little previews, reactions, features, everything as we dive into seven, eight weeks here, playoff basketball. And then the Ringer NBA show is going to be going at least four times a week. Don't forget about Mondays. Logan Murdoch and Raja Bell. That podcast is

already excellent. We've got the mismatch on Tuesdays and Thursday nights with KOC and Verno. And then group chat will be going at least once a week on Wednesdays. So you can listen to those. You can listen to Ryan Rosillo. You can listen to R2C2, CeCe Sabathia and Ryan Rucco. They're hitting the basketball as well.

I think Rucco might even be calling some games. One more thing on playoff basketball. We are launching a new contest on FanDuel. It's a daily fantasy contest. Every day there's playoff games. $5 entry fee per contest. And if you win your day, you get a ticket

to the leaderboard series during the NBA finals where all the winners will compete for a share of 50K cash ringer swag. And you can be deemed the sole survivor of the ultimate hoops ringer league.

Learn more and enter at fandu.com slash hoopsringer. Age and location restrictions apply. I came up with this idea. I was super excited about it. I want to know who the Ultimate Hoops Ringer is. So let's do it. Every day, all you have to do is win one day and you advance to the finals. There you go. Coming up, Rochelle and I are going to break down the 25 most intriguing players in the NBA playoffs and a whole bunch more. First, our friends from

Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this Sunday night, 6 p.m. Pacific time. No basketball for the first time in a couple weeks. Kind of a bummer, actually. I feel like they misplayed this. I felt like they could add a couple of playoff games tonight. Ryan Rosillo is here. We're going to, I made a list of the 25 most intriguing players in the 2020 NBA playoffs. And instead of sharing it with you and including you,

I'm just going to throw my list at you and you can agree with me and disagree. It's more fun that way. We just would have been arguing in a Google doc for four hours. Now you could just get mad at me. I do have, I have a small scoop though. No i just have to stop you for a second to be like hey i came up with this thing that i researched the shit out of didn't tell you ahead of time how's your sunday didn't research it just made my list all right made my list um i have a small scoop though so I'm hearing that

they're going to actually try to condense these playoffs a little bit in round two and round three because the players are starting to get a little restless in the bubble at least some of them so they have talked to the networks about the finals was supposed to be finals was supposed to start Wednesday

930 September 30th. Now they're going to, um, do this thing with round two and round three, I guess, or they're trying to where basically when a series ends, you try to play the next series in the next round as fast as you possibly can. As long as the tooth, there's going to be no weight. There's going to be no one team waiting five days, the other team waiting three days. They're just going to be plowing ahead. And they really apparently want to get the final started by Wednesday, September 23rd.

Another option is Friday, September 25th or Sunday, September 27th. I had been hearing rumors about as much as we all love bubble basketball, maybe not as great to be going back to the same suite over and over and over again. What have you heard on this? Well, first of all, good scoop. And you've done a pretty good job. Well, I don't know.

You've done a really good job on this. Like when we talked about Orlando months before it happened and all the stuff that we'd had. So I trust you on this one. There's part of me that wonders if LeBron just said to Adam Silver, like, hey, Mallorca in early November is the best time to go. So I would like to back this thing up.

There's no, like my whole thing through all of this, not even basketball, Bill, has been, but there's parts of this, it's sacrifice, you know, as Silver said, you know, we have to find a way to kind of like put this whole thing together. So I know the guys, like I, I interviewed Seth Curry for, um, for Tuesday's podcast. And, you know, it's, it's for those of us that have lived in a hotel, I lived in a hotel for like three years at one point, it's an incredibly boring existence, even though, you know, I wasn't getting paid like $7 million a year. I remember I was in the same hotel for one of these. I was

doing countdown for the finals when it was two, three, two in San Antonio for eight straight days in the same hotel room. And, and by, I had pretty nice room. I, it was like a junior suite by the eighth day I was, you know, turning into, turning into somebody from the Exorcist Four. Like, I was just like losing my mind. So after a month, I can't imagine. And I do think like, you know, these guys are used to being in, you know, big houses with their people around and just having everything customized their way. And I'm sure it made me think because I hadn't really thought about it.

I'd been so into the basketball. I hadn't thought about the psychological stuff is actually going to be a huge factor with these playoffs. So now if they end up condensing these playoff series and really, really tightening it, I think that's going to affect who wins the championship. Because if you're looking at a team like the Clippers and it's like round two is up, we're starting round three, you know, 48 hours later, 36 hours later, whatever it is, there's some of the older teams I think are, uh, are going to be in trouble. All right. So are you to the point though, where you are willing to accept like an outcome that you wouldn't normally think of? And that's, that's kind of where I stopped myself whenever I think about this. And, you know, Celtics are

kind of like this hot media pick because they were younger. And I'm thinking like, hey, they haven't really played together that much. Although I absolutely love the way the Celtics went about the bubble. I don't know because you're still not getting on a plane. The fact that you're not on a plane for three months, even if it's condensed, I would think that that kind of balances itself out.

So I don't know that I'm ready to start picking other teams that I wouldn't normally pick because of a different schedule. Here's what it does though. So you get like the Westbrook, Westbrook stream quad type thing, the way they had the playoffs before you really did kind of ease into that round three and round three became every other day. First two rounds grueling, but they were still, especially if you could finish your series early.

So who knows? I mean, there might be a situation where you have, let's say the Heat win in round two and the Bucs win in round two, but the Bucs win in five games and the Heat take seven games. There's going to be no way to start the next series, obviously. And I don't think they would do it so that if somebody won in seven games, somebody else won in five games, the series just started the next day. But this is the first time I really thought about what a grind this is going to be. Cause it,

if let's say, let's say it starts Friday, nine 25. Well, today's tomorrow's going to be August 18th. You're talking about four rounds in like seven weeks or less. That's about as hard as we've seen since 1999. That was the last time we've seen a grind like that. And teams got hurt. Can I share a hotel story with you that I know you're going to like? What's here?

So years and years ago, living in Southington, Connecticut at espn because i had a place in boston but i was at espn the whole time and wade boggs is on my return flight to harford and i had him booked the next day for my show it was a sunday show and i go up to wade boggs and i go hey uh like my name's ryan you know obviously you know kids of the 80s it's wade boggs like you know for people that don't get it like that's a big deal yeah and i go hey uh i got you on the show tomorrow and he like looks at me stone cold and goes i'm not on your show tomorrow i was like okay i was like all right no

problem dude not a big deal and i knew i had him but he was like matter of fact about it and then as i pull my car around the hartford airport, I see him like on a phone with like a white sheet of paper out and I go up, you know, somebody messed up his travel. So I, I roll the window down and go, Hey, look me again. You know, where are you going? Can I offer you a ride? And he goes, I'm, I'm going to the residence in, in Southerns, Connecticut. I go, well, that's where I live. You know, get in the car, whatever immediately throws a dip in. I go, what's up with Clemens? Did he ask out of that game? Like I couldn't, I couldn't stop. Right. The blister game six. Right. And he, and Wade is like, you know what, Ryan? I don't know. He's like, to this day, I still don't know.

And so we're across the street from this country bar. That's a big deal. I don't know how into the audience is line dancing, but this place is a spot and i was like hey look i gotta work in the morning but i was like i don't know if you care but there's a really good country bar next door and he he looks at me he was so nice about it and he was wearing like flannels and jeans and cowboy boots and he goes am i dressed okay for it i was like wade you're good i was like you're fine you're wade bugs yeah he goes i'd like, cool. No problem. He comes back in a different pair of jeans, cowboy boots and flannel. And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, you look great, dude.

And we went next door and it was really funny because we kind of like hit off to the side. And I thought he was like getting really bored with me because I was asking about hitting and listening to him talk. Hitting was insane. How great he was like, hey, look, when you're in the minors, all these different things. I was like, wow, this is amazing. And then once I once i was like hey do you want to go up to the front and then everybody started harassing him he was way happier so that was my night with wade boggs really good time and he kept asking he's like do you want to do shots i was like no i have to work

in the morning he's like okay we're not going to do any shots tonight ryan i was like thank you wade what does this have to do with hotels in orlando nothing Thank you, Wade. What does this have to do with hotels in Orlando? Nothing. I thought you wanted good stories on this podcast. That was good. I enjoyed it. I thought you were circling around to Wade's hotel suite or something.

And it just, no. No, Wade came by the next day. Yeah, no. Wade came by the next day and was like, that was a good time last night. He was like, it's all right. Can I ask you about the double elimination games? Bill, you can do whatever you want. I think we're established at this point.

I think they have to do this going forward. I really enjoyed Portland-Memphis. I like the fact that Memphis had to beat them twice. And I think there's a way where you could shorten the season from 82 games to like 76. And you could have the double elimination for 7, 10, 8, 9. And you can make up some of the money that way with potentially eight extra playoff games,

as little as four, something like that. But I just liked it. And I think it does, you know, you look at or something like that, but I just liked it. And I think it does, you know, a team, you look at a team like Portland, this does happen every year. There's always that one team. I know it's a fucking long season, but there's always that one team that it's like, oh man, I like the way they're playing now. I wish they, I wish they could make it. And I do think it opens the door for that team to have a better chance every year. There's always one team.

So that'd be my case. Also fun to gamble on. Shaking my head like crazy. I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this and I'm going to push back vehemently. Portland is so bad on defense. They couldn't stop the B squad for the Nets. They couldn't stop Memphis without Jaron Jackson,

which is a big deal. And I'm going to bring up different possession things that I tracked. I wrote down with a pen, not in pencil. And their forward situation where they have to play Gabriel, like, great story. And I'm just so sick of the announcers being like, you know, I could be out there

like Ryan Russillo. He puts it all in. He cares every day. He shows up. You know, the locker room loves him. Like, he can't fucking guard anybody. And I just, I'm not buying into the Portland as much fun as it was. And I like

that team. We all love the Lillard thing, but I'm just not going to buy into a team that can't stop anybody. And then all of a sudden, they're going to shut down the Lakers forwards. I'm not doing this, and into a team that can't stop anybody. And then all of a sudden they're going to, they're going to shut down the Lakers forwards. I'm not doing this and everybody I feel like is doing it. Very fair points. Vegas

has only made the Lakers minus 450 in that series. I was driving the bandwagon of watch out. Portland's going to give them a problem. Huge Portland guy. I watched every Portland game because we had a huge bet on them to make the playoffs plus 480. It was wonderful.

How much money did you make on that? I made like 10 bucks. They were so bad defensively the last three games that by the end of that Memphis game, I was like, they have no chance of being the Lakers. Melo was like weirdly actually important to them offensively,

which, and he's basically, you know, he's on the tail, tail, tail end. He can hit spot up threes once in a while, have a post up,

whatever. But then they're bringing in his, they, Stats brings in his own. Yeah. Every first half. And then remembers that he sucks every time. It's like,

Oh yeah, that guy sucks. That's why he wasn't playing white side. You know, you're going down the line. It's like, oh yeah, that guy sucks. That's why he wasn't playing. Whiteside, you're going down the line. It's like they basically have five guys and one of them is McCollum who has a broken bone

in his back. So on paper, I love the matchup with the two guards. I think the Lakers would have a lot of trouble with Dame, et cetera, et cetera. But they just don't have the depth.

It's not going to happen. And if Zach Collins was 100%, then you'd be like, okay, well there's it. But he's obviously not 100%. And it's not going to happen. And if Zach Collins was a hundred percent, then you can be like, okay, well there's it, but he's obviously not a hundred percent. And, uh, and it's not going to happen. It would take Dame. You know, you think about, he had the 50 plus and the 60 plus back to back. Those are like on the Dame scale, like a 10 out of 10 for him to be able to do that in a game. He'd have to do that at least three times in a Lakers series.

It's not realistic. So I'm bummed. I think all of us love the Portland thing. This is not an anti-Portland deal. I wish Zach were healthier. I wish CJ were healthier. I also wish they had more forwards. And it was funny for a franchise that had all these forwards that you felt pretty good about that were like 3 and D guys.

Now they don't have them. And I've been tracking Herzogonia, like an ex boyfriend, right? He is just horrible. And I mean, he's really like, if he makes the first three of the game for him, it's the worst thing that can happen to Portland.

Cause he's like, Oh man, I made one. This is going to go badly, but he had a play where he turned it over and then, Oh no, no, no.

Excuse me. He made a three. You're right. This is perfect. This is actually perfect. And then he had a good strip. He had two good plays in a row and it's like this is terrible this is gonna be for portland he made a three left side took a three immediately into the shot clock and i just i would love to be an nba coach you go hey mario um look we get your six

seven six eight and your hair is terrific, but we're not looking for you to pull from three, like 30 feet out with like 18 seconds left in the shot clock. That's not our offense. That's not how we build our thing. We have other guys that we want to defer to a little bit. And he pulls up right side, and this isn't, to be fair,

it wasn't on him, but he didn't get back on defense. The other guard is supposed to when the other guard shoots or however it's lined up. And, uh, I think Tolliver like ran down and then he goes to hit him and then he fouled him. It was like, perfect. You're like, that was 12 seconds of awful, awful basketball. But seriously, man, I don't think they really have much. Like I can sit here and talk myself into the guard situation because the guard situation is a problem for the Lakers they're going to search out Kuzma they're going to find

guards that are going to go at their perimeter guys with no Bradley no Rondo but well the Lakers aren't going to be able to trap Dame either because I just don't think they have the type of team that would do that effectively I also think trapping is a little overrated. I think it's like, Oh my God, this guy's getting trapped. And then really good players go, okay, cool. I'm getting trapped. And then now I'm going to pass it to CJ McCollum. Well, or, or Nurkic. That was what they unlocked in the Brooklyn game. They finally figured out like, Oh, if you do this, we'll just give Nurkic the ball at the foul line. He basically has a two on one every single time. Then when Memphis tried to trap them, Nurkic just destroy them.

And I think, you know, it's funny. We talk about the guards, but Nurkic looks so good in the bubble. Like, like he's going to be a semi problem too, for the Lakers.

I don't think they have good centers, but they'll end up playing Davis. They're going to play five. And, and that'll be how it plays out. But I don't know. I wish they had two more guys. I'm going to push back on you.

I really look, man. The JaVale Dwight thing has been a success to get 30 plus minutes out of that rotation. I would much rather have Nurkic against those two guys than Davis. Yes, but it's not like as much as I like some of the Celtics stuff we're going to talk about, it's not a Celtics-type problem for the Lakers at the five. I'm just not sold on JaVale and Dwight.

Okay. I think there's a big difference in regular season and playoffs for certain positions. Those guys, I just want to see it. I didn't think dwight looked particularly good in the bubble i didn't think the lakers looked that good in the bubble and i think that's why one of the reasons why everybody was kind of so excited to see a dame type character

just kind of take them on um but mccollum not being you know he he rallied in the memphis game but just in general he looked like he was somewhere between 60 and 80 percent depending on the game there there. That's not going to cut it. No. And he was he was big because he's going to be the guy if they're going to send that trap and people are going to try to do that. And I did feel like in the bubble, certain teams were just trapping like crazy. And it's definitely like a Lakers thing with Anthony Davis. But CJ is the guy in a way like, hey, this is great. I'm four on three. And then I drive and then I got meo in the corner. Hopefully not Gabriel, but Trent has definitely turned into somebody. But they're just so bad. That Brooklyn game, it was so much fun.

How about all the offensive rebounds? How about the offensive rebounds for Brooklyn? Jalen must have had like 10 in the fourth quarter. Yeah. So I think that's where McGee and Howard could hurt them on those second chance, especially when you're playing mellow at stretch four, you're giving up so much in so many different places.

I gave him a lot of credit for, you know, he made some big shots in the bubble, but that's not somebody who should be the fifth best guy in a playoff team. Like if he was the ninth guy, I could see it, but not the fifth guy.

Uh, I want to take a break and then I want to go through this 25 most intriguing because, uh, I think we can cover a lot of hoops here, but we'll take a break. Let's take a break to talk about FanDuel Sportsbook, where they have an amazing NBA playoffs offer for all new customers. Plus 2000 on any team in the playoffs to win the NBA title. Doesn't matter if the buck, if it's the Bucks, Lakers, or Nets. Plus $2,000 on everyone. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app to get started. Be sure to sign up with promo code BS so they know you're listening to this podcast.

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1-800-GAMBLER. Colorado, 1-800-522-4700. West Virginia, 1,800-GAMBLER.net. Indiana, 809 with it. Back to the pod. All right. I made my list. You react. Okay. The 25 most

intriguing guys in the bubble bubble. If I was doing this as a website column, I'd go backwards. But, uh, for this column, I'm going to start at number one. I think it's Giannis. I think he is the guy I'm the most intrigued by in the bubble. Everything that has happened leading to this bubble playoffs that we have, and especially if they have to tighten the series a little bit, this should be a godsend for him. He seems indestructible. He has the best team. I think he's the best player.

All of the pieces are here for back-to-back MVPs. We've only had one back-to-back MVP that ended up never making a finals. It was Steve Nash. Kareem won back-to-back in, I think, 76 and 77, didn't make the finals. But it's really hard for a back-to-back MVP not to make the finals.

And I think his team is good. He's got a good coach. I think the finals, but it's really hard for a back-to-back MVP not to make the finals. And I think his team is good. He's got a good coach. I think the bracket, you know, they're going to have Miami in round two. That's going to be, it's going to be a hard one. I actually- You're writing off the Pacers?

Yeah, I am. But just in general, I think it's lined up the best for him. And he's the one, out of all these super duper stars that come in, he's the one where we talked about it before. It's like, I love the guy for him. And he's the one, out of all these super-duper stars that come in, he's the one where, we talked about it before, where it's like, I love the guy for 47 minutes, but there's that last piece of

like, alright, last minute of a game when you go mano a mano, that's the piece we haven't totally seen with him yet. All of that's fair, by the way. I don't think it's wrong to have this little part of it where you go but i mean at this point he is the unquestioned best basketball player in the world

right yeah i don't i don't really feel like there's much pushback on that anymore and we've we've rotated around we've talked about it differently and all these different things but uh there's part of this is kind of something we talked about last, last playoff series or season where I was kind of proud of where I go. I really think there's a separation between regular season and off season that we've never really seen before. And, um, you know,

everybody just goes, Oh, build a wall, build a wall, build a wall. I actually just like saying it to be a dick now because it's so it's, it's not easy. Like if he's full head of steam and

he's going at you and he's about to pick up that dribble you you can build a great wall it doesn't matter like you're not going to do anything with him and he still isn't a shooter as hardened as you know we talked about on last week's pod but uh yeah i'm with you i i actually and i sent you a text on this but you push back He's the best player in the world, but I wonder what the NBA will be like post-LeBron and having a foreign player be the unquestioned best player because despite all of the LeBron content that we get out of it,

I do think there's going to be a bit of a vacuum. You could feel the Giannis versus Luka narrative already kind of brewing a little bit. And Luca, who we're going to get to in a little bit, could make it a lot more fun by really going toe to toe with this Clippers team. But look, it's set up for them to rip through the East. And, you know, you look at some of the great players ever. And I think like the 91 Bulls are a good example of like, they just, they ripped through everybody that year in the playoffs. They, they lost two games.

And I think, I think both, one was overtime and one was like a last second shot. If you were giving me all the scenarios of how this Giannis Bucks thing would play out, there is a scenario where they just destroy everybody in the East

and Giannis goes to another level. So they've been playing like 30, 31 minutes a game. He's going to have a full tank and they have a really good team. They're like unbelievable defensively. Like with the stuff they do protecting the rim, you basically just have to bomb threes against them and hope they go in. That's why I think Miami probably has, if you're going to say who has the best chance to upset them, it's gotta be a team that has shooters like Miami, in my opinion. How do you feel about Jimmy Butler?

Just going, Hey guys, I'm a huge dick. What's up? I think he's had a really fun 2020. I've enjoyed it. What was going on? He was selling coffee for $20 a cup.

I don't know what's going on. Uh, all right, I'm going to keep going. Number two, it's gotta be LeBron. Yeah. So,

we'll see what happens, how many games they're going to have to play. I thought Rajabell said something interesting on my pod on Thursday. He was talking about how he's, you know,

he's basically who he's been for however many years. He was saying the one thing is he can't totally get by people with his shoulders like he used to. And he's like, he's been for however many years. He was saying the one thing is he can't totally get by people with his shoulders like he used to. And he's like, he's seen tiny bits of atrophy, but nothing, nothing major.

But it's just, it's harder for him to create shots, especially against really good teams. And, you know, we're going to see in Portland round one, it's the perfect matchup for him. He's going to be going against Carmelo and Hazonia and Gary Trent, whose forage is smaller than him. And like, they literally don't have anyone to guard him. Zach Collins. That's my whole thing. Like, what are you going to do? You're going to switch into Mello? Right. You can't. So he's going to, I think, look awesome in the

Portland series and people will be like, Oh, LeBron, here we go. And then the next series is, you know, he's, they're playing the winner of OKC versus, uh, Houston, which is another series that he could potentially look pretty good in. Right. I think neither of those teams, but then we get to the Clippers and they just have dudes to throw at him and they've had pretty decent success against him. Like I think he's had his worst stats against them. So I think this will evolve as it goes along is my point i am so fired up for lebron right now and off of what we just talked about with yannis there's i mean it sounds like a horrible horrible television show where you go lebron underrated but think of his draft class and how many of those guys are on their third you know condo association and this guy

is doing what he's doing and it's still a pretty good bet and then remember like i'll never like where we were at with the lakers and lebron and anthony davis in march before the season stopped i remember being like in a hotel and we're going back and forth we're just like why are we going to bet against these guys like why would we and now I've obviously pivoted to the Clippers again because I can't help myself, but I can't wait to see what this LeBron thing is because there is a, despite all the attention, I think you would agree that there's part of it where you go,

I don't know that we appreciate it enough that he's in this season since that draft class and he's doing what he's doing and he feels like a pretty good bet to do it again. The Lakers are, I think a little bit worse than they were in March for a couple of different reasons. One is they've lost a couple of guys. I was thinking about though, this is something we've talked about in the past that LeBron, one of the best things about his career is that over and over again, right. When you start to get content, you're happy with where you are and

who, you know, it's going to start to ebb a little bit. There was always that next carrot that came at him that got dangled in front of him that he had to like prove himself again. And that, I think that was really the difference between his career and MJ's career over anything else was that there was always the next competitor for LeBron. There was always somebody that he had to go through. There was always the next thing. And you think about these playoffs, even Portland, I guarantee he's been reading all the Dame stuff and people comparing Dame to Kobe and oh my God, Dame. Oh, they might be LeBron's like, he's putting all that stuff in his crazy basketball brains. Like, all right. Oh, you think I'm going to lose to fucking marry his own you and Carmelo. Just wait next round. You know,

you figure Houston, Houston, okay. See Houston's favorite. Let's say Houston makes it. Now he's got the head to head against Harden who he's never been in a playoff series against people like Harden. Is he the, is he the best offensive player we've ever had all that stuff. So now he's got that carrot. And then the round after is the Clippers. He doesn't need motivation for that. And then the last round is probably my Milwaukee. Where it's like, well, Giannis is the two-time

MVP. He's the best player in the league. So each round, he's got the carrot. And I think that's important for him. Okay. True or false. This player was in LeBron's draft class. Chris, the cave false, this player was in LeBron's draft class. Chris the Caveman Cayman. That's true. He was sixth.

You're good at this. You should have a podcast. Well, because allegedly Miami almost took him five and took Wade instead. Yeah, there was a whole... There's a faction of the Clippers who feel like they almost got Wade. Sweetney went ninth, by the way, just to let you know. Look, LeBron's in this draft class,

and you go through it, and you're like, Jarvis Hayes? These guys felt like they'd been retired for a decade. Well, how about Carmelo? They're talking about him like he's old band Mello. Same draft class. Your neighborhood theory on Mello is incredible. And I didn't realize this, but Mello and LeBron have never played against each other in a playoff series.

And so that made the rounds. But you've always had this really good point. I have another thing I'm going to compliment you on later. I don't want to back him up. I don't want to go back to back because I don't want people to get upset about it that I'm complimenting you. But your neighborhood theory where LeBron, like mellow doesn't look at him and go oh my god it's lebron james like he's thinking i worked you in high school the problem for portland if mellow starts going i got this

five minutes left hold on mismatch lebron's garden i'm gonna post them up uh there's a world in which they get killed in that series. Next guy. That's where I'm going. Yeah. Number three on my list is Kawhi Leonard. You know, I think it's set up for them. And if my life depended on it,

that's the team I'd pick to win the title. There's a world in which he goes through Luka in round one whoever wins Denver Utah Lakers in round three and then Giannis in round four and they win back-to-back titles and now we're just like

holy shit Kawhi Leonard look at this three finals MVPs on three teams beat LeBron in two different series. I don't need to run through all the beats for you. Wait a minute. Are they your guys now?

Did we pivot off the Lakers thing from March to now you're picking the Clippers? I don't feel good about it. I didn't bet it. I think, gun to my head, I would take the Clippers. I am actually a little worried about them in this round one though. And I know they've owned the Mavericks all year and it's a terrible, terrible matchup for Dallas for a variety of reasons. I just don't think the

Clippers are the Clippers yet. I think it's going to take two, three weeks. Like Harold's barely played. Um, like even scrimmage, much less played in games. Lou Williams just got dinged up. There's a world in which the Mavs just go into that series. And we're like, we're shooting 45 threes a game. I went to a Clipper game before the pandemic. Um, I took my son and it was actually a sucky game. We left early. They played Sacramento and Sacramento was like, we have no chance tonight. We're just shooting threes.

It was like, buddy, shoot, buddy took like 11 threes. And you know, Fox took a bunch of Bogdanovich took a bunch and they made a lot of threes. And all of a sudden the Clippers were down 20 points. I think that's what the Mavs are going to have to do because they're not going to be able to stop them defensively, but they just basically have to go math and be like hey man we got to go like 20 for 43 um we got to go 22 for 45 and try to do that four times in seven days yeah there's there's part of me where i i don't know i get so annoyed with the three-point shot where i look at what dallas does i mean luca passes up layups to kick it out harden does the same thing and you go wait like you are wide open is this what we're doing and it's it's a lot like the hockey thing where you

go oh you know if uh if flurry gets hot and you're like why am i listening to you and so the hot goalie yeah right and you're you're like you're on tv with a fucking suit and you're telling me if the goalie gets hot like i already had that i had that before i turned the channel on and so i i don't like to default oh if if if but what i like about the clippers if if that's not working they can if hughes is not hitting threes toast if milwaukee's not hitting threes kind of toast uh if if the Clippers aren't hitting threes, they'll do something else to you. And that's really important to me.

And that's why I've come back around. Same for the Lakers. Yeah, exactly. Like the Anthony Davis-LeBron thing. If I told you how many times I rewound that whenever they set up, then you would be like, this is why you're not married. And I go, because I can't stop rewinding

all the LeBron Anthony Davis stuff. So, you know, I like that. I'm into the, what else can you do if the hot goalie isn't happening? I think the threes thing, Dallas would be the most logical pick to be like,

this is the only way we can win. We're going to actually shoot so many threes that it's going to be talking point on like PTI the next day. Like, oh my God, this is the only way we can win. We're going to actually shoot so many threes that it's going to be talking point on like PTI the next day. Like, Oh my God, this is where basketball is going. That Lakers, or excuse me, that, that Rockets Mavs game where I think the Rockets took 61 threes. Yeah.

I was kind of at home going, am I having fun? I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't know if I like it either. And that's why I enjoyed that Saturday game when Nurkic and Valanciunas were kind of doing the one-on-one low post. Valanciunas had like 12 in the first three minutes. Yeah. I was into it.

I was like, this is great. Look at these drop steps. All right. So Kawhi, we don't need to lay that anymore. How long is this top 25? Are we going to do this till like Tuesday? Yeah. We're on good pace right now. All right. Number fourwhi, we don't need to lay that anymore. How long is this top 25? Are we going to do this till like Tuesday or? Yeah, we're,

we're on good pace right now. All right. Number four, I have Dame and he's way higher and he's going to lose in round one. But, um, there is a world where he starts throwing haymakers in this series. And from like a mystique superstar mystique standpoint could

actually go up another level. Like if he does what he did the last eight games against LeBron and the Lakers, and they're up to one in this series and he has like 62 and 58 in the two wins. It's not inconceivable. Um, I also don't think he'd be afraid.

And I gotta say, I just loved, I loved all the teammates. Like the stuff Mello said about him yesterday was unbelievable. He's like the best player I've ever played with. He's the best teammate I've ever had. He genuinely cares about all of us. He won't let us lose.

Like I'm really invested in this. Like as a non Celtic subplot, I've enjoyed this about as much as I've enjoyed anything in a while. So I kind of don't want him to go away. I've really enjoyed watching him cook. Does he have the highest Q rating of any NBA player? Right now? But he fits the Rosillo thing, though, where some of the other players seem testy with him.

Takes shit. You like that. You like when the guy is weirdly underrated by his peers. I like when you're good and you talk shit. I don't like when you're not, um, he's almost become, I mean,

I hate this overrated underrated thing, but he's, it's almost like he's so underrated that you go actually, no, he's, he's kind of where he is. And the weird Dame thing I was thinking about when I was watching the Memphis game yesterday,

where I go, is he, is he actually benefited from not having big time playoff failures is my high was the ohio state theory where ohio state gets smoked by florida and lsu and back-to-back national championship games and then all of a sudden ohio state gets dumped on and if you're a buckeyes fan which there are many um vociferous ones they're like hey so what are we supposed to do? Lose the Big Ten and go 8-5 and have everybody like us? We go under the radar? That's the part where you're Ohio State and you're like, we win the conference,

we play the national championship, we lost back-to-back games. Dame has avoided all of that. So he doesn't have... I mean, hell, Russ and KD have dodged the massive 2016 Golden State bullet. They never, ever have to answer to that.

And yet the Golden State 3-1 thing is a forever deal, right? And so Dame hasn't, and this is all as a very pro-Dame guy, but Dame hasn't, even if they go to the Western Conference final, like, look, we get what happened last year. It was actually like they got smoked, but he's avoided that where we kind of turn on these guys we turn on celebrities and we turn on nba players and he's avoided that for this much of his career well he lost to the warriors i think three times out of like the last year wasn't even close like they didn't yeah but he had no nurkic he had no nurkic and no Collins. And their swing guys were even worse last year than they are this year. At least this year, they have Trent and Zombie Mello.

Last year, it was way worse. So, I don't know. Who's the best player he's ever played with? Aldridge, you would say, earlier in his career. Second best guy he's ever played with is McCollum. Third best guy he's ever played with is Nurkic. I'm not... Look, this is not an anti-Dame thing I'm just telling you the rules

the rules are the rules and the rules are if he were to lose like for the shit that Harden puts up with which I am more than happy to remind everybody of all the time Dame avoids that well Harden's next to my list he's number five if Westbrook's

out here for a week this becomes the James Harden. I got to do this by myself show. And Hey, this matchup's weird, right? Cause Schroeder's Schroeder's going to play, but he's not a hundred percent. I don't really have any idea who guards hard. Who do you think? Who do you think guards harder for? Okay. See, is it Dort you got your guy dort some of the stuff dort did against lebron we like dort i don't care about foot speed i care about what's inside of you yeah if you decide i mean lebron's one thing but hardened hardened so i would actually i would if i played in the nba i would start a hardened hashtag. It would be like, we can't.

I'm trying to think what the proper hashtag would be like. It would be this. I have no choice. Because all you can do is drive by contest. You can't go at him because he kicks his legs out, the whole thing. All right, so I'm not going to do this. But Dort is not afraid of anybody. And I would imagine he's the deal on top of a few minutes

that you try to escape you know by with with a collection of other small forwards that probably none of us like adams can't really play in this series doesn't seem like it's a bad matchup for him um that the wildcard guy is sga who did not not make my top 25. But if we're just doing the... Shut up. If we're doing a there's a world in which dot, dot, dot. There's a world in which SGA is awesome in this series. And if we try to think like, all right, who are your nominees for we're coming out of the first round

and it's a big circle jerk out of some new name. SGA is one of the candidates. He's one of the nominees where it's like, oh my God, this guy. Wow. They got him plus all those picks. I mean, the, the hardcore basketball people know he's good, but there's this whole other universe of people like, Whoa, this guy. And I think he's one of the possibilities. Um, so anyway, with Harden, you think they're going to win that series by the way are you picking them it's it's the closest in betting odds yeah i uh i think the westbrook thing really threw me off because i was actually going to take houston because i felt like okc was the sexy sleeper underdog pick that everybody was

on and meanwhile i i do think there's some you know if was shrewd or not being 100 i think that three guard thing, which would have been really great for them in this series, who knows, but the Westbrook thing, I don't know. Hey, cause sometimes people get these injuries. They're like, yeah, it could be a couple of days. And then the guy misses the whole first round and you got Austin rivers out there for 40 minutes a game.

So I almost feel like it's like a no pick. I, I'm going to admit right now, I'm there's, there a no pick. I, uh, I'm going to admit right now. I'm there's, there's no series. I'm more emotionally attached to that series. Rooting for OKC. Yeah.

Between my Chris Paul love and my anti Houston thing, which we've been over. And I just told Houston, I go, look, you know, it's not my fault that I told you Chris Paul is going to be traded. And he was, it's not my fault that I told you that your coach doesn't get along with

your ride receiver, your quarterback, which he doesn't. It's not my fault that I've, I your coach doesn't get along with your ride receiver your quarterback which he doesn't it's not my fault that i've i've told you all these things and uh the city has not dealt with it well over the years and i'm just like i did a podcast where i think it's one of the least professional things i've ever done where i go i know you guys think people are biased i am telling you i'm rooting against your team every fucking night well we were saying we didn't know how sustainable it was for them to play small like they're playing

and put the kind of onus that they're putting on their dudes to chase, to rebound, to block, to protect the rim. They're really asking for superhuman efforts. And there were a couple of games in the bubble that they just didn't need when they couldn't be in fifth gear, where, man, they look bad. Because when they couldn't be in fifth gear where man, they look bad because when those guys aren't in fifth gear, it's, it's like, this is not sustainable. So,

you know, the fact that Westbrook got hurt, like, I'm not surprised somebody got hurt, right? No, the, the, the being hurt thing is fine, but I, I definitely, I don't know if it's a pivot because when, when it first happened right the beginning of February no Capella we're like wait a minute is this about a real basketball thing because their per 100s were off the charts and people that I would talk to with other teams would say oh no no this is amazing like he's actually doing Daryl's doing the thing that we've always wanted to do but nobody wants to do it and I would worry about some of their switches but i'm i look i don't even think i'm right yet on this but i just don't think switches are as big of a deal as we make them

out to be how many times have we seen the guy the small guy switch where the five is on him from 30 feet out and then he takes a fucking three and you go what was the point of this lebron we used to do it all the time in mi, which I never quite understood. And it's like at least drive and force a decision. Like basketball is make the defender make a decision. And when you step back from 30 feet or not really ask anybody to do anything. And so Houston gets bailed out on that.

The other thing with the big guy, which again, like this is repetitive, but it's important because that was what we thought their downfall would be, is the switches. And everybody seeks out Daniel House from the tip. Hey, let's go at House. Let's figure out our matchup.

But it's more of the rebounding. And they are the worst rebounding team in the NBA that's in the playoffs. And we saw that against the Pacers. Hell, the announcers thought that game was over and they were down 14. And they came all the way back to two and had a shot. And then guess what happens? One of the worst rebounding teams, the league and the Pacers, at least offensive rebounding, they couldn't box them out and they couldn't get it.

So it's not, it's not small versus big. It's not switches. It's rebounding. And it's a really tough thing to do when you can't rebound to win a championship. Well, I wonder if OKC can figure out a way to play Adams successfully for 25 minutes a game. I don't think so. It might be a night-to-night deal, right? Maybe. I mean, are you with me on that, though? Like, there's certain nights where you go, hey, look at this guy. He's crushing them.

And they're actively seeking out this thing. Depend on the energy. Yeah, right. They're setting up his screen lower so that he's an easier role seeking out this thing. Depend on the energy. Yeah, right. They're setting up his screen lower so that he's an easier role in all this shit. And Paula will figure all that stuff out. And maybe it plays itself out in a series. And then I think there's nights, like you said,

where it's going to look like, hey, you got to get him out of there. You can't put him on the floor. Well, it's funny that you have Chris Paul against James Harden. Two guys that you wouldn't say there's a shitload of playoff heroics between them kind of staring at each other,

push you have all the OKC Houston, the Westbrook Paul. Like there's, this is the best series by far. No, I have memes ready. They're ready to go. This is the best series by far.

We got our guy Dort in there. Um, all kinds of good stuff. I'm getting Ben a Dort jersey. Uh, all right, we're going to take a break. Come back in a second.

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Giannis, LeBron, Kawhi, Dame Harden. Number six. I got your guy, Jimmy buckets. Here's why. I really liked this Miami team. I really, I was so impressed by them as the season went along. They maintained it in the bubble. I think they're really,

really hard to play. They're the team I'm the most afraid of other than Milwaukee for my Celtics. I hate the fact that they have so much shooting. I don't know what happened to Duncan Robinson, who we're going to get to in a little bit, but Duncan Robinson has turned into just a fucking dead eye. And they have all these different malleability with their lineups,

but ultimately, you know, you need the straw that stirs the drink. Butler in that Philly series last year was kind of the guy for Philly. You know, he was kind of the emotional center of it. So we know he can do it in a playoff series and he's done it before in other playoffs. I think this team is built to compete as a dark horse for the title and the

Clippers heat. This is the only bet I liked that I might've put a tiny bit on, but Clippers heat for the finals was 40 to one as a finals matchup. And I was like, that's too high. I think there's a world in which the heat could absolutely make the finals. And I'm really impressed by them. I think they're really well coached. I think they know who they are. I think they can do a bunch of different things depending on the opponent. And, uh, and I think Butler, you know, I had him, I think third team all NBA, but he's

one of the best 15 players in the league. So, um, we'll see thoughts on butler uh really good pick because he a little bit like my dame theory has has avoided some of the criticism because i just don't think he lives in that neighborhood with some of those other guys and he's a level below yeah right and i mean he thinks he's in that group which that's good that's right it's a positive right but it's not it's not if i'm picking a team to win an nba championship so as much as i love bam as much as i love duncan i love the confidence and the malleable word which i'm a huge fan just of that word in general it's perfect for them

because other teams have depth and it's an issue sometimes with them depth is like a huge huge part of where i like them but you know their second best player is drakic and and but i would say i would say it's bam all right well look i mean we bam is different in a way where it's i'll even look i'll give you bam bam's their second best player and jimmy's their first and jimmy's not in the neighborhood of franchise altering players so here's here's the case for them because they they finally just started playing so they're 12 on defense well they finally started playing a little smaller with bam the shooting and how good they are at shooting. And they, they really are like there, there's some 2019 Toronto potential for them as an outside shooting team. And we saw it last year

where it's like, wow, this doesn't make sense. Wow. They can't keep it up. And it just kind of, they kept it up. Um, the Robinson thing is the big X factor for me, but we'll see with Butler. This is what he wanted. I think if you're just looking at career moves, him getting out of that Philly situation, starting a new team in Miami, basically him not realizing how good the rookie was going to be hero, him realizing, not realizing how good Robinson was going to be. Maybe he knew that Bam was going to be Bam. Um, but certainly not to the level that It's just a good team. And you know, that Iguodala Crowder trade was great. I'm not a gigantic Jay Crowder fan,

but he's a nine man rotation guy. He certainly would be helping the Blazers. And I was impressed by Iggy in the bubble. I actually was expecting him to be like zombie Iggy. And he wasn't, I thought he was at least moving. Like he wasn't washed up yet, which I think as long as he's not washed up,

that's a nice guy to have on your team. I don't know that I'm as bullish on Iggy as you are, but the Jay part, I probably like Jay Crowder too much for certain seasons. He had a nice Celtic year that year. Yeah, but that's what I liked about him. Although I really feel like if you're a tough guy, you don't let J.R. Smith do that to you.

That's how I feel. That's my J.R. Smith rule. But I'm going to ask you because I have two lists of players. 145 left down three corner. Do you think it goes in? He's on the list of no. Yeah, I think he said no. Jeff Green is first list of no. Yeah, I think he's a no. Jeff Green, his first team, no.

And... Hazonia. No, Hazonia is the Will Chamberlain of this category. He's not out there. Hazonia is a permanent no. Do you know what I mean, though? There's so many guys where I'll go, that's not going to go in.

You know who's the secret no? I swear i'm right about this so much by the way you know who's the secret no hayward minute left down that's staying did that stay out loud i don't think it's going in when when it really matters i don't think it's going in i just don't prove me wrong gordon i beg you uh number seven i can't if you admitted it, you just ruined his trade value. He's only got one year left. Oh, he's good. He's Sean Grandy. Our friend tweeted a stat about how 17 points a game and 50% field goal, 40% three, like only Larry

legend had done it for the Celtic. There's some stat like that. Number seven on my list. Most intriguing. You haven't really vehemently disagreed with anybody yet. I have Davis here. Glenn? Big baby. Well. Roger and I talked

a little bit on the Thursday pod about if there's a matchup where Davis is clearly the advantage for the Lakers, would he assert himself in a real way? Like let's say the Clippers where they just can't guard him, but there's two minutes left. They're down two. And LeBron's like, I got this. But meanwhile, the Clippers are like, thank God they're not going to Davis. What is that seesaw? And where does Davis assert himself? Because you think like against Portland,

he should go nuts. I mean, he like really, especially if they can survive playing JaVale and Dwight 35 minutes a game, Davis is going to go nuts and he'll dominate that series. Then the next series, potentially they could play Houston.

He's we've already seen what he does to Houston. So there, it should be a wake up call. You're Houston. It should be a wake-up call. You're right. It should be a, like, I would be swearing at him every day. He would hate me by the end of this playoff run. Yeah, you should average 40 points a game. Right.

I'd be like, you have to hurt people's feelings. You have to have parents not say their kid is on the Rockets. You have to humiliate these people. And if you don't have that and that's the part and i think that's what raja was kind of hinting at which i'll ask you to expand on but as much as i love that guy the fourth quarter stump numbers against the clippers is it a real thing is it a weird number because the numbers are pretty bad but are you willing to accept that maybe there's just a gear that he doesn't

have? And I hate even saying that because I'm not even sure I admit it. Raja wondered about it on Thursday. I don't, I don't think that's a hot said the same thing. Does he have that extra piece that we would want from him? Does that, is there that killer side of him?

Does he have it? He could be higher on this list. Yeah, he could. Number eight, I have Tatum. So Tatum, second half of the bubble just looked fantastic. Philly's an awesome matchup for him. They used to guard him with Simmons. And Simmons is great defensively.

Now he's not there. It looks like, I was wondering if they're going to do this. And then there was a story today and I got bummed out because Brett Brown was like, we might start thigh ball in game one. I was like, fuck. Because eventually thigh ball will be starting one of these games because he's their best chance of slowing down Tatum. I was hoping Brett Brown wouldn't figure this out.

Where's thigh ball on the Jersey order list for you? I have a, I have a have a honorable mention on this list, but Tatum should be able to rip this Sixers team apart. If he's doing his thing, if he's driving the basket, doing the pot, like if, if he's got that in and out thing going,

if he's just doing that, I'm going to take 20 foot fallaways and quick threes and the stuff that my dad starts texting me in the second quarter. The hell is he doing? Then Philly has a chance, but he should be the best player in this series. Um, unless MB just has this throwback crazy and beat thing. And a bead is a number nine on my list. Yeah. Fair. Uh, Tatum to me is, is held to a different standard because if he's going to play like tatum from pre-covid shutdown you know look i didn't like the celtics last year i felt like people were a little too

bullish on them considering we haven't really seen them uh the the mb thing scares the hell out of me because when you see it in person and tice is trying to deal with it it's it's horrifying like i i still think philly has a chance with Embiid. Did you see the Vegas line for it? Yeah, it's not. The Celts are like minus 450. It seems way too high because there is a world in which Embiid goes,

I'm going to dominate these guys for two weeks. And the Celts are in trouble if he decides that. I think people are just kind of down on him hitting hitting that he's he's been so up and down even if you watch a game he's a different guy one half to the next half i talked to a team that uh that played against him in the bubble and i i was like what what do you guys do here and they're like oh he doesn't give a shit like we knew we knew he didn't give a shit so this is what we did and it's exactly what happened like he didn't care and he has really bad habits um defensively and he's been a little bit better not doing this why anybody ever goes to his up fake from 30 feet out is mind-blowing but

um i i have thought of what happens if some version of him is unlocked where there's no weird substitution patterns. It's no weird trying to figure it out. Because really, the Sixers are about, what does your closing four minutes look like? What do they look like? And who's out there? Yeah, and it's like, hey, Ben's a power forward, except when it matters.

Hey, Ben's doing this. Oh, okay. Well, Horford. So now you have a Horford situation where it's probably better because Embiid, you know, isn't going to have to deal. And at this point, like, I just, I want to see the Embiid that is mad at everybody for doubting him because I do believe it exists. It just doesn't happen that much. And so even with Boston where I'm like, ah, I don't know, man, like the big, that Steven Adams scrimmage still scares the shit out of me.

But then I started thinking about Boston against Toronto and I can start talking to myself. I knew it a little bit. So that's where, you know, all the, all the Tatum stuff where you go, which version are we getting?

Cause if we get the guy that we saw before the season shut down or, or was interrupted, then we're talking about a completely different team. And that's, you know, this isn't hard. It's my whole Miami thing. Who are the five best guys?

Because one of those guys is probably going to carry his team to this whole deal. And talking yourself into a team that doesn't have one of those guys is probably stupid. With the Embiid thing, if he decides to show up, every team would be in trouble, not just the Celtics. Do you love him? I love him

when he's right. I just, just having been in the building a couple times when he had it going for a quarter, half, and he's just dominating. And you're just praying that he just gets tired, or he gets a foul, or, you know,

it's the same feeling he used to get with Shaq 20 years ago. Yeah, please. Or take some 25-footers, Joel. That's open. You should a foul or you know it's the same feeling he used to get with no one passes 20 years ago yeah please yeah please or take take some 25 footers joel that's open you should take that please every time he every time he pulls up i'm like good and i know that i i looked like post touches and it was like oh no and bead and bead leads the league in post touches i don't know what it is as of today i would imagine he's probably top five i'll look i'll get it on it and so it'll be like this pushback was like no you guys are idiots like mb posts up all the time you go you realize 10 years ago al jefferson had twice as many post touches as joel and bead has today that's that's wrong if i you you could only pick one of these

two options joel and bead is awesome in this series and reaches all the potential for at least two weeks that we've always wanted for him. Or the Sixers completely roll over in this series and Brett Brown is quietly fired a day later because they lost in four or five and they clearly quit on him.

Which is more realistic to you? I have a hard time buying into teams that have given me like 70 games of evidence that they're not figuring it out so i think it's that's far more realistic i remember though it's a fan part of it i remember when the yankees lost the diamond backs i was actually bummed out because i was like oh now steinbrenner is just going to go crazy and like i actually wanted the yankees to win that World Series as much as I hated them because I was so worried about what Steinbrenner would do.

And it's not the same thing with the Sixers, but I think if you're a Sixers fan, there's probably part of you where you hope it flames out because I just don't think the Brett Brown thing has worked. And that's okay. It's all right. After three or four years, you get your shot at it. A year ago, everybody thought he was out.

And, you know, after a while, guys just tune you out. It's not a question of your manhood or any of that kind of stuff. It's just time to move on. One thing with Philly and why Simmons was such a weird X factor against the Celtics because he just loved going against Tatum. The guys that give the Celtics the most trouble are, you know, the Donovan Mitchell, those Dame Lillard, all those, the little guys who can score, create shots, move off screens.

That's really when the Celtics are vulnerable because they basically have Kemba and Wanamaker and whoever. They can't defend those guys. They haven't been able to defend those guys for a couple years. Philly just doesn't have anybody like that. And they have a lot of size, but the Celts have shown over and over again they like to play teams with size,

because offensively, they can kind of do whatever they want, and then defensively, they can patch stuff together. So I think without Simmons, this is a good matchup. Again, this is all off of a no Simmons. And I probably feel a little differently about it, but you really think post you think the Celtics like playing big teams? Cause I think that's their downfall. No,

I'm talking teams like awkward teams like this team, like they're going to play and bead Horford and Harris probably as a frontline in crunch time. And I think the Celtics will match up with that. Because they'll just have Tatum and Jalen, and they'll just run, they'll move the ball, and they're not going to be able to get burned on the low block by any of those guys. Is Horford going to be posting up Jalen Brown?

Like, it's not happening. Well, he doesn't post up anybody anyway. He doesn't post up anybody. And then Harris is the inferior version of Jalen and Tatum. So it goes back to Embiid's got to kick ass. I'm going to save it for later when you get... Do you have a Toronto player in this top 25? So I'll save it for a little bit later.

All right. So I'm done. I'm done on this. Number 10, Luka. We talked about him a bunch last week. We don't have to talk about him. I mean, it would be legendary if he just beat this Clippers team by himself. And, you know, the fact that there's,

it's not really the Clippers yet. They're not running at full capacity. And who knows? Like maybe they're playing tomorrow night. Maybe he could put up 48 in game one. Oh, look at the Clippers. You know, there's... I wouldn't...

Put it this way. I wouldn't be, like, completely flabbergasted if the Mavs were, like, 2-2 after four games, something like that. But I just find it hard to believe they could beat them

four times out of seven without... Well, they swept them. The Clippers swept them. It wasn't even a sweep, though. I mean, they, like, demolished them. Two questions for Luca. Is he an only child?

Where does he buy his jeans? Worried. Paul George is my number 11. Playoff P? You litigated that one last week. Yeah. If they win the first round, he's like, wait, there's another round. We going to play somebody else.

I think two Eastern finals. And then he did. He did. It's not fair. As I say that out loud, I know I'm not being fair. He's a terrific player. I,

uh, no, whatever, man. I mean, look, if the Clippers win this whole thing, it'll turn into a,

Oh, you know, you guys doubt Paul George. I'm like, well, you know, not really a pretty good roster and voted i voted for him for mvp like two years ago i voted for him like third first oh no like i think i had him like third or fourth on my 14 pre-leg thing no this is what one of those okc years maybe even last year the okc year he started off last year it was it was last year and after like a weird start where i just was like i'm done with this guy then i have this odd habit of as soon as i count you out then you have like the best run of your life where you're like wait a

minute what she's dating who and um ge, after like a weird bumpy start, had an incredible, incredible run. But I don't know. He's kind of... Well, I'll tell you this. Look, he's the most talented Jeff Green I've ever seen. Oh, that's insulting. I'll tell you this.

Round one is the perfect matchup for him. Perfect. Who's guarding Paul George on Dallas? Nobody. I mean... Tim Hardaway? They've definitely run some guys out there. Michael K. Grover. I mean, they've tried some things I think. It's going to be bad.

Rick has sampled some things where I wonder if that's what he's doing. But, I don't know. They can't defend anybody, man. I mean, look. Luka, it's great. Przingis thing, when it's right, it's awesome. They're five out. They're Houston with big guys.

They can't defend anybody. Houston's a much better defensive team than they are. I got Mitchell at 13th. I moved him up because of this weird Mike Conley. Nobody has any idea how long he's going to be out of the bubble, but his wife had a kid. He left. And now you have no Bogdanovich

and you have no Mike Conley. So you basically have Mitchell and Joe Ingles deciding everything offensively for Utah. Before the Mike Conley, before he left, I was actually thinking Utah was undervalued in this series. Denver, I think, was a 2-1 favorite

before the Conley thing. Now they're higher. And I just feel like this is an either team could win, but now without Conley from a depth standpoint, you would just have to have this incredible Mitchell game. And he has it in him. I mean, he had a bubble game like a week ago where it's,

you know, when he's feeling it, but are you talking to the overtime, the double overtime? Yeah. That was, that was Donovan where you're like, wait,

is he a top 10? Like, I, I just like doing that where I'm at home and I go, Hey, is he a top 10 player? Like, am I wrong for even saying that?

But then on a given night, he looks like one. Yeah. But then, then I think we always kind of check it with, okay, well, but what are you doing?

Uh, I'm, I'm just, I don't know. I mean, look, I'm going to, he would have to,

for them to be Denver. I think he would have to, for them to be Denver. I think he would have to basically do what he did to OKC a couple of years ago and a better version of it. 14, I have Kemba. And does the positivity from the Celtics camp about Kemba is a much appreciated. I don't trust it.

I still have not. Hey, has it been better though than we thought when we were doing this Kemba topic a couple weeks ago a little bit better I'll be interested to see how it goes when they're asking him

for 32 minutes a night every other day for five straight weeks I'm going to be a little more nervous about that but you know if he

if he can get back to very close to where he was in October November November, December, you got to increase the ceiling of the Celtics team. That's it. What do you actually... I mean, I don't know.

I don't know if Brad Wanamaker is 25th here, but what do you actually think is possible with the Celtics? Go ahead. The floor is yours. I think they're two guys short. Two guys? I think it's a seven-man team. And one of The floor is yours. I think they're two guys short. Two guys? I think it's a seven-man team. And one of those seven is Cantor. So then it's six.

Because Cantor's unplayable in certain games. Right. I think they could play him against Philly. I like them against Toronto. Now, Siakam's missed two of the four games, and maybe I'm doing way too much recency bias, which I wish people on this podcast appreciated how aware I am of my own flaws as a human.

But I like them against Toronto. I like that they can put a big eye on Lowry and Kemba. Van Vliet has been a terrific story, but they can do some things defensively where I'm probably, if it ends up Toronto and Boston, I think I'm going to pick Boston, which sounds crazy

because I have much respect I have for Toronto, but I like them against them. And maybe I'm putting way too much on something I saw last week. I want to see what Kemba looks like over these next two weeks. But I think from making the final standpoint, I think it'd be really hard to do it

unless Kemba was 85, 90%. And unless there's some bench dude has got to show up. Over and over again, they're putting these second units in there and you're just looking at the guys that are out there like, oh my God.

Now, they could get around that by, I think, reconfiguring Hayward's minutes. And you know, I, I just, I don't know why they trust watermaker to the degree they trust them. And I know there's a couple of positive advanced metric stats. I just know how he makes me feel. I don't trust him in a playoff series. I'm just, I, if he, if he's playing 20 to 25 minutes off the bench for you in the Eastern Conference Finals, I feel like that's a negative. That's not great. Cantor, as you said, can only play against certain teams, certain matchups. So now you're really down to six guys. You're six and a half with Cantor.

If it were a Houston Rockets, Celtics, NBA Finals, I think Brad would tell Cantor, oh no, the games are in two weeks. He would lie to him. Yeah, it could have been street close, something like that. Can I ask you about Wanamaker though? Real quick. Yeah. Wanamaker is the absolute,

there's better versions. Hassan Whiteside's actually the best example of this. But as soon as an announcer says something about Hassan Whiteside, I go, oh, okay. You don't put any effort in to prepping for this game at all. Or you've never watched this guy. Or you don't,

and it's weird to say, hey, you don't know how to watch. Wanamaker is a little Whiteside-ish for me where when the announcers start telling me how great Wanamaker's been, I am with you. I'm like, eh, I don't know. I'd love to see those 20 minutes somewhere else.

And I think that position is so deep. And he's an incredible story. Good for Brad Wanamaker. But I think the position is so deep that if you're the Celtics, you should find a better 20 minutes. I was just talking to somebody about this the other day. Every year, these teams find Trey Burke, Cameron Payne,

these guys that bounce around and they could just- Cameron Payne. Cameron Payne. These guys that can give you like the 15 to 20 minutes out of nowhere that were like in the G league or playing in Spain or something. John Lucas. I would just never draft those guys after like pick 20. I would never draft a point guard in the Celtics seem to do this over and

over again. Like they did it. They, they took, um, they took Carson Edwards, Carson Edwards and Waters. It's like, why do we keep taking 5'10 guys?

Roll the dice with like, try to figure out who this year's Gary Trent Jr. Is Gary Trent Jr. with 37th? Anyway. I would have a rule. No, I'm with you on that. I would have a rule where- I would never take a point guard after top five.

Well, it may be a point guard, but I wouldn't take one sub six feet because it's a different deal. And I've said it a point guard, but I wouldn't take one sub six feet because it's a different deal. And I've said it a million times, but some teams have like a no short point guard rule because they're like in the playoffs. It clogs everything up. Well, coming up, we're going to talk about two point guards in a row. That's right after this.

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I have Kemba14. I have SGA15 and CP316. Put them together. I love how much they love each other. I've really enjoyed watching them all year I think it's a professional basketball team and SGA as we discussed earlier is the ceiling

for them if good things can happen if not only can they beat Houston but even get a little frisky in a Lakers series it's SGA second year guy we've seen this happen before where somebody kind of they get a taste and they make a little mini leap

as the things get along they start putting together and as I said earlier I think he's one of the nominees for who's going to be kind of the quote unquote breakout star of round one or round two whatever and then the CP3 thing you know only made one conference finals was basically cast

aside nobody wanted to trade for him. We were talking about this on this podcast, remember? We're like, wow, nobody wants CP3. Nobody, even at $40 million. Everybody was kind of like, oh, no, he's gone, he's gone. And, you know, I'd shared with people where I go, I think the only team he, like, there's a Miami thing. I think he wants to go to Milwaukee.

But when you're absorbing $40 million, even if you love Chris, which you should, because I think he can play with anybody. There's nobody I want to... I'm telling you right now, top of the list, ring rankings, who do you want to win a title? Chris Paul is number one for me. Really?

I want people to appreciate... Dude, man, stats have fucked up so much stuff now, man. I shouldn't be this emotional about it, but like we talk ourselves into some of these guys and you're like, do you not understand winning moments? Do you not understand the things where like all these little things matter? And yes, Chris is annoying. And yes, the playoff resume sucks. I just want people to appreciate the things that he does. Like, it's not a mistake that, that Oklahoma city is way better than people thought. It's not a mistake that that oklahoma city is way better

than people thought it's not a mistake it's because of that dude and i wanted to win a ring so bad so that everybody can do the well you know like you know i always liked him or whatever and all these people that dump on chris paul just to have i want them to have to admit how great of a basketball player is and and i i'm worried that his career is going to end where you're like, that guy never got out of the second round. Like, what the hell was his problem? Because normally I would hold that

against every other player, but with him, I won't. If they can get by Houston, they would put the Lakers in round two. And I kind of like the matchup for them. I'm not saying they would beat them. No, no. It was a good matchup.

No. Paul was like, all right, Kuz. All right all right hey by the way bill kuzma he a problem um i just think that meme is like there should be a mandatory level of production where you're allowed to be called a problem or he's different like yeah if kuzma was on the orlando magic there would be no kuzma conversations zero zero he'd be fournier with better hair but uh he look there's chris paul was like come here come get some of this and he smoked him if schruder can get healthy in time for that round two and then they have the dort who knows what we can get from Roberson? The door.

You got a little Adams to throw to throw against whoever. Davis is a problem, but who basically Davis a problem for? I mean, honestly, how many teams are like, yeah, we can handle that Davis guy.

Like maybe three. I'd be really fun series. Push you to have the whole Chris LeBron. Do they do the interview together? Do they do the thing where it's like, we're not, we're so close, but

we're not talking for the next two weeks? This time, it's personal. It's kind of like the intro to the real world where you go, when people stop being nice, start acting real. Number 17. I have a Raptor.

I'm going to say it's Siakam over Lowry. It's Nick Nurse, my favorite coach. Did you vote for him coach of the year? I sure as hell did. I wish I could do it twice. With bells on. I saw some people that have votes,

and I was like, I may call them and say don't vote for anybody other than Nick Nurse. As you know, I am the all-time Brad Stevens Kool-Aid drinker. Nick Nurse is the best coach in the league. I'm constantly impressed. He maximizes the potential of every guy in their top nine. Offensively, they are the most interesting team. Every person who he's coached has gotten better.

Ben Bleat. Ben Bleat has turned into a real guy. He's all first team sham at face. That's a good point. When he's gotten out of Gasol and Ibaka, who I feel like in other situations would be like on their way out of a nine-man rotation. I was out.

I was out on Ibaka. No, I like him. And Gasol. I just think, all right, so you got him. Round one doesn't matter. They're going to win. But then round two,

him versus Stevens. And if he can, you know, Stevens, it's a couple of things with him, man. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Go ahead. I'm going to turn my mic off. Go ahead. No, no more semi-automatically. No more, no more.

Dude, dude, no more, no more, noaugele. No more. No more. Dude. Dude. No more. No more. No more, Brad. Did you watch semi in college in Texas? Did you watch?

Because I talked myself into a little semi. I had a semi for him. He can't shoot. As Jalen would say, open for a reason. And the watermaker thing, it's like,

watermaker, you just have to pull them the moment, the first time he drives into Giannis full speed and whips the ball against the bottom of the backboard. I bounce like, take them out. That's it done. I think he's too loyal to some of these guys. He's going to kill my dad. Like the watermaker thing is like, but it's more frightening for my dad than COVID. Um, number 17, I'm sorry. Number 18 for me is Duncan Robinson. And I just want to say this about Duncan Robinson. White guy?

He is a white guy. Yeah. I think the white stretch three and a half-ish guy, there's a stereotype for those guys now. It's like, oh, they're just a shooter. If you actually watch Miami, like he initiates plays, like they run pick and rolls with him. He does stuff. This guy is not like Kyle Korver. This is, he's turning into somebody who can actually initiate plays and get himself great shots. He's a 50% three-point shooter since the all-star break um i just think i think he's kind of elite as a shooter now and you know it's like all right remember when pager stachowicz won uh

what was he like third mvp into yeah i think it was third right yeah he was third i'm not saying he could be as good as pager stajkovic someday but I wouldn't be like shocked by it because he's not just a shooter like he can actually like create stuff for himself and I think he's really evolved and improved and I think he's a huge X factor in these playoffs

that's my Duncan Robinson rant for you by the way Vladimir Guerrero that year won the MVP in baseball. So I obviously... Were you looking at Pagia? Yeah, I was looking at...

Was he third? Third or fourth? Garnett won. And then as soon as I pulled it up, I was like, oh, this isn't right. And then I clicked on it because I couldn't help myself.

It was Vlad, Sheffield, Manny was third, Ort I clicked on it cause I couldn't help myself. It was, it was Vlad Sheffield. Manny was third Ortiz was fourth. So they split the sec vote. And then Tahata who to this day, I've never seen anyone throw a baseball like Miguel Tahata in person. Like seeing it in person was the most amazing thing ever. But we don't know about Peja. Uh,

no back to Peja. Uh, well really third, you talk, I'm going to look it up all right uh duncan is so much more than space the floor so you're absolutely right duncan robinson is uh it's not an acquired taste it's it's a oh okay i i love basketball and i because he does everything right i would imagine if there was an approval rating on players by coaches, I would think Duncan Robinson would finish in the top five because every cut, every movement, none of it's wasted.

He makes you guard the whole time. And I think a lot of this league at times is guys being like, I want to deal with this. And he's going to make you work the whole time. So I couldn't be a bigger dougan robinson fan it's funny when you when you take biases and when you see these guys like when he really first started playing well for them and it's like like oh man what a nice story yeah yeah like he's gonna be like jed bushler for them or somebody like somebody who could make a couple threes and then you keep watching the heat and it's like, man, I didn't realize he could do that. And then like Spolstra is calling plays for him. You're like, what the fuck is going on?

Like this guy's shifty crafty. Uh, Pagia was fourth. Your top five and Oh four was KG Duncan Jermaine O'Neill Pagia stock of a Kobe Bryant. So there you go. But yeah, Robinson is basically a 50% three-point shooter and has turned into a guy for me. I don't know about you. It's shocking when he misses. He's wide open. He's shooting.

It's like there's no fucking way he's going to miss. And he misses. You're like, oh my God. Number 20, I put Porter Jr. here just because he's kind of the ceiling guy for the Nuggets. Who knows? It's the bubble. Nobody really cared about the seeds.

I don't think he has any idea what he's doing on defense. Well, it doesn't. But I don't care now. He's so good on offense now. Now I'm willing to accept him. You kind of have to keep him. Yeah, you kind of have to keep him out there. And I don't, there's not a lot of examples

that we have over the last 30 years of somebody just kind of playing their way into such a pivotal role this late into the season when they really hadn't played at all before. put up minutes so um i think they need him because of the way he clicks with yokage and the athleticism and just kind of the heat check factor him i don't trust anyone else offensively on that team well you trust yokage right yeah oh by the way i accidentally omitted yokage i had yokage 12 i forgot to mention him sorry sorry yokage 12 in case you were wondering where Jokic was. That's good. But just to clear this up, because I'm saving you here from the, what is it, 702 or 720? I think it's 720.

Jokic, you trust Jokic, right? You trust Jokic in a playoff game? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, especially after last year. Right, because after him, I don't even trust Jamal Murray. And they were a weird team. Right.

They're a weird team with who they had available. So it's not a criticism. It's just they're starting this playoff thing this week on who's who, what's the deal here. And Porter, when he is right, looks like one of the best scorers in the league. That's how insane it is. And that's where you go, hey, in the playoffs, we need somebody who's almost 6'10",

and we can pull up off the dribble. I need those possessions because there's a lot of possessions with Denver where I feel they're a little predictable. I hate when teams don't know who they are heading into the playoffs, and that was my big hesitation with Denver. And that is why I really wanted to pick Utah to beat them. Cause I just felt like I was like, at least Utah knows who they are and what they're doing. I think Denver probably has more talent, but they're still trying to figure out on the fly, like who their best five guys are, um, who's healthy and all this stuff. But with Conley out, who knows that Syria to me, that series is a gambling stay away.

Five to go. I got Porzingis at 21. I mean, he's in the bubble, had a couple of monster stat games. Athletically looks even a little more athletic than he was on the Knicks, right? He has moments athletically where you're like, holy shit.

Yeah. Like those first moments where, and as everybody knows, I'm a huge Przingis guy because I feel some ownership to it where I watched him the year he pulled out of the draft. And I remember texting Chad Ford. I was like, what is the deal with this Przingis guy? Like, why isn't he in the top 30?

This is insane. This guy's good. And we didn't know. And then he shows up to Knicks, and he's balling. And then because it's the Knicks, you know, everybody's story kind of dictates, like, how we feel about all these guys. But this is what I like.

And I'll reference the Seth Curry interview where I was like, you guys are kind of Houston, but you're big. Like, you play five out. Luka initiates everything. And he's like, yeah, we move around a little bit more. And then he's like, honestly, Luka has these things where we cut off a Luka. All that stuff that we were talking about a week ago

where I think Prazingis has moments where you're like, this is the perfect player to play with him. Where I think Yiwi even brought up last week we were wondering like, oh, is this bad because not enough is going through him? Like whatever Prazingis ends up being, he's going to be his best version of himself as a tier two superstar.

He's never going to be a tier one. And that's great. And I think it looks better with Przingis. Or excuse me, Donchich. My favorite is when

he's kind of trailing the play and it's like an unconstructed, they're coming up and he's trailing the play like Brooke Lopez would, right?

Like he's just kind of behind it. They're setting up half court, but then all of a sudden he's taking a 26 footer from the top of the arc. And it's, it seems like a pseudo set play by them. It's like a rope-a-dope every time where it's like, yeah, we're going to wait for Porzingis. And then all of a sudden he's shooting from 26, but it feels like he makes that shot 50% of the time. And I look at, you know, with the Clippers, especially if Harrell's not going to play, they're going to, or they're going to have to ease Harrell in.

They're going to have to play a lot of Zubats against Porzingis. I think that's great for Dallas. Yeah, the Zubats, like Zubats has been pretty good. I know he has. I like him. Right. I want him out there if I'm Dallas.

Yeah, no, I think that's kind of the point is that because he's been better, maybe he plays a little bit more. The transition thing is it's really because because running in transition, you have to be really committed to want to still defend in transition. And that's why I don't like Portland, because I saw some stuff against Memphis where I'm serious, like two specific plays in the second half where Whiteside stopped running as Ja was even with him. And then Whiteside stayed to follow Jonas as the trailer. And you're like, how about you just stay with Ja?

Because he's probably driving. And then there was another play, as much as we love Lillard, where Lillard was even with Ja on a drive and he turned like he he pointed a white side this wasn't even white side's fault where he's like you got him and Lillard stopped and you're like what are you guys doing so I I love the Porzingis observation because I think there's so many buckets in the course of a game that are waiting for you there. If you want offense, stay locked in trail of play. And then everybody knows, like I've seen that over the course of a season where,

Hey, they know this guy now is trailing the play. They're going to wait for them where other teams, you know, maybe the beginning of the year, they don't, they don't understand each other enough, but Dallas does a,

I don't know what the numbers are off the top of my head, obviously. But when you're presenting, you have that range. Go offense of all time. All time. All regular season. The thing I like about Porzingis on that team,

and you could go either way on it, whether he's the right number two you'd want for Luka, but all the shots that he gets are just great shots in that offense. It's rarely like the contested post-up where he's off balance throwing the jump hook it's all like 26 footer nobody in front of him or he's posting up five feet from the basket with somebody six inches shorter than him i just like how i like how they've figured out how to use him and it seemed up in the air before number 22 for for me, Kyle Lowry.

So I was thinking about this with him. We've had so many Lowry conversations we don't need to keep talking about him. But he's at a weird point like where Chauncey Billups was in 05 when the Pistons had won the title and then in 05 they have a chance to beat the Spurs. Spurs are pretty banged up at that point.

Duncan's, you know, playing on one leg. And there was this moment where it's like, man, if Phillips is the best player in this game, his entire legacies, like he's going to probably make the hall of fame. Like we'll be talking about him like for two straight years, this guy was the best player in the playoffs. What do we do with that? Lowry is in a not dissimilar position this year where he has a really good team. I would say they have the fourth or fifth best chance to win the title. That team knows who they are.

He's the most important guy and he's the most important player they have. And if there's some world where all of a sudden they're in the finals and they're going toe-to-toe with whoever, and it's like, wow, Kyle Lowry.

What do we do? Like, he's going to the Hall of Fame. Is he? If they win two straight titles? Look at what the bar of the Hall of Fame is. When you started this, I was like,

Spencer Haywood made the Hall of Fame. Yeah, but that should never be the argument. It shouldn't be. If I had a radio show and I go, well, I'm not the worst radio show. I was going to be so positive about Lowry and then you punched me right in the face with Hall of Fame Lowry.

I didn't punch you in the face. I'm just telling you how it's going to play out if they win the title again. You know what I love about Toronto, among other things, is that, like, can you imagine when we were younger going, oh, they have this,

you know, they have Lowry, but then they have this Van Vliet guy who ran everything in college. And you're like, well, those two guys can't play together. You know, that was kind of the rule. And it was pretty accepted up until a few years ago.

We're now, if you don't try to change it, David Kahn was like, I'm fucking, this is going to be amazing. You guys want to go small. Let's go small. Flynn Rubio.

I've got news for you guys. This worked with Frazier Monroe. It's going to work now. Can we make the logo smaller? Um, I, I just, the fact that he and van vliet are like interchangeable makes it really scary so i look i don't i'm not going to be negative lowry i was i almost was uh hall of fame i'm glad you fought it off yeah hall of fame seems a little like i don't know about that but again everybody gets into the nba hall Fame. You're going to be in it one day. And I can't wait to introduce you.

I have Kuzma at 23 only because it's intriguing. It's a good pick. Well, it's intriguing because if he sucks and they end up not making the finals or whatever, everybody, he'll be the fall guy. What do you think you get for Kuzma?

I mean, you're not getting Karis Levert. You're not getting guys like that. I don't know what you're getting. Josh Richardson? He's only got one more year to a small thing. Anyway. That was pretty good off the top of your head, by the way.

He's the third best player on that team. And I would say he is the worst third best player on any contender. But that's by design. They traded everything for Davis. Although, the way Lonzo looked in the bubble, the Davis trade's looking better and better. Oh, my God. I mean, Lonzo looks like he's on his way to Greece.

What happened? There's no way he's this bad uh first of all and i was uh i was the target of uh many many pelicans uh guys about the gentry thing but you know there's only so much i can say uh but uh i would say like i'm not look it was awful but i'm not ready to give up on lonzo because it was pretty good for for like four months this year so i'm not i'm not ready to give up on Lonzo because it was pretty good for, for like four months this year. So I'm not, I'm not anti Lonzo other than the evidence after the bubble was like, Hey, did you know that they voted to come back? Were you, did you not know the rest of the guys voted to come back? And you know, really the biggest thing with the Pelicans too, man,

and you know, digging around a little bit on this, I'm making an announcement. All right? I want everyone, this should be the breakout video. Stop freaking out about guys' physiques on photos, on social media. Okay? I could look like two different people if I wanted to within the span of 30 seconds. And when Zion in that pictures post is like, man, 25 pounds of muscle, impossible. Zion, again, 25 pounds of muscle. Impossible. Zion.

Again, 25 pounds of muscle in months. Bane. Look at this guy. And then you watch the games. You're like, he looks out of shape. I love him. I love him. If I'm Zion, I'm like, why am I the problem when I'm a dominant player?

But there's something you said years ago that I didn't like. And then I had to kind of begrudgingly admit that you were right about it, where when you start your NBA life as a loser, it's a fucking problem. And that's something you shouldn't, you shouldn't accept. There's nothing like a guy that never thinks he's going to lose. I'm serious. Like I'm not trying to do softball stats with you, but when you never think you're going to lose a game, that's such an amazing mentality to have. And you brought it up with the Sixers where you're like, I think this might be a long-term thing where your foundation is set with,

hey, we're just going to lose a million games. No one cares. No one's accountable. Not a big deal. And you don't have to play. That's a problem. And with Zion, whoever gets that gig has to say to him, you could be maybe the best player in the league,

but we need you to get in a little earlier. We need you to stay a little bit later. And yes, they babied you for good reason, but eventually you got to play. And that's the thing about the Pelicans that scares me a little bit, as much as I love watching that kid play basketball. Coach Mike D'Antoni?

That'd be the best to happen to Alonzo. Pretty weird because normally you don't get to coach out without another year on the deal. So, I mean, I'm going to defer to you

on this one. I think you know pretty well. He's out, right? Who? D'Antoni. I would guess it depends on how they do. But I would assume if they don't make like round three.

Would I bet on him being there next year? Yes. No. No. I bet on him not being there next year, but I don't know. I selfishly kind of want to see what Harden would be like with another coach where in the first time out of game one where Harden goes, uh, actually, uh, I, actually, I just bring the ball up

and shoot every single time. So whatever. We kind of have a deal here. Maybe they'll just make him the coach. Taking a break, then we're finishing this up. One more break to talk about Buffalo Wild Wings. Playoff basketball, it's finally here. Catch all the postseason action

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at buffalowildwings.com or through the Buffalo Wild Wings app today at participating locations for a limited time. Bundles only for takeout or delivery through Buffalo Wild Wings app or website. Not valid with any other offer. All right, I have two more guys in my top 25. I'm going to recap it though for you. Giannis, LeBron, Kawhi, Dame, Harden, Butler, Davis, Tatum, Embiid, Luka, Paul George,

Jokic, Mitchell, Kemba, SGA, CP3, Duncan Robinson, Nick Nurse, Westbrook, Porter Jr., Porzingis, Lowry, Kuzma. Number 24 on my list, playing his last two weeks for the Brooklyn Nets, Karis LeVert. So wait, he's, I mean, yeah, he's still alive. I think Karis LeVert's a really talented guy. If you were healthy or he would have gone higher in the draft, when he missed that shot against Portland, i was not surprised oh no who uh where does he where is he playing next year

uh i don't know i don't have the cap space charts up in front of me so you're the brook. You have Durant. You have Kyrie. You're stuck with DeAndre. You're overpaying Joe Harris to keep him. You still have Dinwiddie, although you'll probably

try to trade him this summer. And you have to either trade Dinwiddie or put him with Levert in a two-for-one for somebody. What are you trying to get back for Levert? You're trying to get back a shooter who can space things for Durant Kyrie who doesn't necessarily need the

ball correct yeah I mean that was a big thing with Joe Harris and even Sean Marks said hey he's he's the number one guy we have to worry about like Sean like Joe Joe Harris is one of those guys where you go how much do I have to pay this dude but yet everybody's trying to pay that guy everyone and the great thing about Joe is he can put it on the floor a little bit. And I'm not saying he's like, you're running your stuff through him. This league's about

scoring, so I wouldn't be in a hurry to get rid of Karras because I think he's so good off the dribble. He needs the ball too much, though. He can't play it to ran Kyrie. Brooklyn's had a really weird can you imagine this run of d'angelo russell massive usage guy dinwiddie as soon as he gets out of there i'm right they've had and then karis they've had three guys that are pretty good

yeah but but it's such an element of we like everything is them it's it's up to them so like I like I think all of us like Karis Laver but if he's your best player you have a problem which is you know can't wait to see where he goes 25th and last on my list Eric Bledsoe just because he was the guy last year that over

Middleton well I think Middleton's more of a fixed I know what I'm getting with him I don't know what I'm getting from Bledsoe in these playoffs. I have no idea. Is he going to stink like he did last year? Is he going to be better? Is he healthy?

I don't know. Can they win the title if they're not getting at least a B-plus from Eric Bledsoe? No, I don't think they can. They need some big Bledsoe games. That's how I feel. That's why I had him 25th. Middleton's 20.

You just write it down, but you ask yourself, okay, where are these 20 coming? Are they coming at the end of quarter one through the beginning of quarter four? He does that thing where he has six points, but then he makes, all of a sudden, he scores 10 straight points and he's got 16. He's one of those guys where it's like,

man, where's Middleton? And then it's like, Middleton, that's 16 for him. It's like, Jesus. Three straight threes? What happened? My dad turned 75 this week, and he's still convinced he could get like 12 points in a game. And he's not lying. He's not being funny about it i'll be like dad

come on here's who uh honorable mention guys who didn't make 25 tj warren there's a a puncher's puncher's chance that he goes toe-to-toe with miami for two weeks i personally think he just got hot in the bubble for a couple weeks i don't think that's i don't think it's sustainable did you have to vote by the way for the bubble no you had to be in the bubble for a couple weeks. I don't think that's, I don't think it's sustainable. Did you have to vote, by the way, for the bubble thing? No, you had to be in the bubble. I was mad. I checked. I was like, well, I've watched every game.

I can't vote. Did you call somebody to complain? I tried to find out what happened. I wanted to know why I wasn't consulted. I couldn't believe, I thought it was a joke when I read about it. I was like, wait, they actually had like a bubble all first and second team? Honorable mention, most intriguing, Brett Brown. Could be our favorite.

I mean, Brett Brown might not be the Sixers coach in like eight days. Eight days would be bad, yeah. Gordon Hayward, for reasons we discussed earlier. Bam Adebayo. Rudy Gobert. Gobert is a good one. Very good. Who, with Conley out,

do you think he had the conversation with the coach yet? Like, hey, man, if you need me to post up more, I've been really working on it. I've got it. We're working on my job. I only lose the ball half the time. Russell Westbrook, for obvious reasons. Westbrook should be higher.

Yeah, I'm sorry. Well, he's hurt. He also got hurt by not being on my list. Covington, put on there. Always just fascinated by how the Rockets use him. And then Tybalt. Had to put him on. If they pick Boston.

Just so people understand that are listening, Bill will, for whatever reason, with zero prompting, it won't even make any sense. It'll be a Tuesday morning and he'll text House and I

going, I love Matisse Dybel. And I'm like, what happened? Did he die? It's not untrue. It's not untrue. All right. Round one gambling stuff.

Bucks, Magic, Raptors, Nets. The odds are too high. But the other six underdogs, Sixers plus 330, Pacers plus 250, Blazers plus 350, Mavs plus 430, Jazz plus 230,

OKC plus 130. I'm not letting you pick OKC as the best underdog bet. If you had to go those other five, Sixers, Pacers, Blazers, Mavs, Jazz, make the case for one of those five. Probably Sixers. Sixers, because I just, I can't get out

of my head watching it on the baseline up close, going, this is horrifying with Embiid. And you know, the Simmons thing may actually, I'd rather them have Ben Simmons. If they had Ben Simmons, I would pick them, first of all, straight up. I would pick them to win, but there's still part of me

that can't get over that whole thing. OKC is not a fair pick. The Blazers number is wrong. It's just wrong. Yeah, it's too low. It's too momentum-ish, which means, you know, whatever. Do whatever you want to on the other side. So I would go with Philly.

There's a parlay right now. If you do the Lakers parlayed with the Clippers, parlayed with the Miami Heat, all three to win their series, it's basically even money. Is that what you're doing? I'm looking at it. For some reason, I'm scared of the Mavs

and I can't explain it. I've watched those Clippers. I watched the Clippers kill them this it. I I've watched those Clipper. I watched the Clippers kill them this year. I, something worries me about the Clippers heading into this round one. I don't like that. They're not their full team yet. And I think the Mavs got a lot of good bubble time in and they kind of know who they are and they're going to just fire up threes. And look, I'm not saying, I'm not saying watch out. The Mavs are going to win this series. But when I think about parlays like that, and you just kind of had that gut feeling

of which team kind of scares me, I'm not scared of the Pacers and I'm not scared of the Blazers, but I'm like a wee bit scared of the Mavs. I don't like betting against somebody who's awesome like Luca. Like it sucks when you have a bet and there's somebody in the other team and they're just killing you. So, uh, I think that the, in terms of just odds that are screwed up, I think that Sixers line is just too high. I don't understand it. Like the Celtics being minus four 20, when there's no home court advantage makes no sense to me. It'd be one thing. It was like game sevens in Boston, but it's not, it's everyone's playing in the same location every time. And the times of the games are weird too.

You know, like they're playing 3.30, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this week. I'm just prepared for weird shit. I was anti-weird shit for a while because I was like, why are you going to just assume that the lesser teams are going to be better because the circumstances are different?

Like no one's traveling, so no one should be tired. yeah the the the end of the year injury assessment with so many of these guys it's so annoying like oh hey by the way groin and they're like all right cool like you know what because i don't know and i'm not dismissing it but i i don't know because guys can be hurt but it's like are you so hurt that you were a different guy? Or did you just go, like, if you got 30 a game and you're telling me your knee was a little twitchy, I don't know what to do with that.

Like, am I supposed to give you more credit? Am I supposed to say that you were supposed to win the series? And this stuff happens all the time with these guys. So you think H own is hurt he's uh he's he hasn't been right since and that's the other part when i go through the season series you go okay this team beat this team three out of four times like all right when's the last time they played a year ago january 30th so so what am i supposed to do with that yeah it's tough when they start going backwards with stuff that happened earlier in the year when it's eight nine months start going backwards with stuff that happened earlier in the

year when it's eight nine months away when some of the teams are different when different guys are playing you know like the blazers are a good example where how do you use any stats with the blazers when nurkic wasn't on there when he's their third most important well they're still bad on defense even with him but like you know denver's a great example because you go they played a bunch of these games without their backcourt. And Gary Harris is going to miss the first game. And then sometimes when I watch him, Will Barton's going to miss the first game too.

So you go, wait a minute. What's going on here? But sometimes when I watch Gary Harris on offense, maybe that's not a bad thing. Maybe that's more shots reported. He was terrible this year. And I remember we must have talked about this last summer. not a bad thing. Maybe that's more shots for Porter. He was terrible this year. And I remember, we must have talked about this last summer. We were talking about Chris Paul

destinations. And I thought Denver was the team. And they had enough salaries to put in, and I just felt like you think about him as the instant leader on this team. And maybe the Jokic thing is a tiny bit weird. I don't know. I think it's weird to put Paul with Jokic thing is a tiny bit weird.

I don't know. I think it's weird. I think it's weird to put Paul with Jokic, to be honest with you. I'd rather have, like if they're giving Chris Paul away and I could figure it out for Gary Harris and a couple more pieces. I'm just doing it, figuring it out later.

Do you think Chris Paul is on OKC a year from now? He's got one more year, right? At over 40 million um and we don't know what's happened with the cap everything that i've heard about him was they they actually told him hey we're gonna let you relax you know don't go too crazy he's 44 million next year uh 44 40 he's 44 million next year um jesus i i really you know look here's i put my chris paul hoodie on but uh billy donovan like from what i was told was kind of like hey you know we're gonna we're gonna make sure you're okay we're gonna you know we want to bring you along slowly we want to spare you the grind of all this stuff.

And Paul was like, nah, no, I'm going like, fuck this. Let's go. And they were like, oh my God. And, you know, I, I, I just think there's something about having a point card where you trust his instincts so much that they may not want to get rid of him and remember he took less money to get out of la in the first place to go to houston and then harden didn't want to play with him anymore and i don't think paul loved playing with harden obviously he's not there anymore but uh i don't like well that's the most fun series. I mean, out of the most fun round one subplots,

you know, the, the Embiid, what's he going to do? I think is one of the big questions. Okay. C versus Houston is just such a good series. And I have no idea how it's going to play out.

And I'm probably going to try to avoid betting on it. Cause, um, there's just too many weird factors going. Dame versus the Lakers will be really fun. And then that Denver-Utah one, I just think that's like throwing shit against the wall. Anyone who's like,

here's my hardcore opinion on Denver-Utah, I think you're crazy. I don't know what's going to happen in that series. It would be pretty disappointing if Denver lost that series. It would be, but I can't say I trust them. Do you? I have trust issues in general, Bill. Yeah, I know. That's fair.

The team I would be most disappointed in in round one if they had a stink bomb is, I think, Miami. Just because I really bought into them over the last couple weeks. And even earlier than that, I really do think that that team's dangerous.

What if Philly beats Boston? Where are you going to be? If Philly beats Boston, it will be because Kemba was completely compromised. That's why they will lose that series if it happens. It will be because Kemba's playing on one leg or he re-injures his knee or some sort of thing. I think if he's relatively healthy,

even if Embiid is putting up like 38 and 15 every game, I still think Boston's just a better team. Yeah, I trust them more. They certainly have a better coach. Yes. Well, I'm looking forward to it so you have uh when's your next pod you got mike vick uh this week seth curry this week looks like todd mcshay as well who did his uh first round mock draft that he hates doing more than anything it's the most red deal so we have a really good week i want to leave you with this stat, though,

because as we were doing this pod, I was watching the Yankees and Red Sox, which would have, years and years ago, dictated my entire day. My entire day would have revolved around first pitch, Yankees, Sox, Sunday night baseball. From 1999 to 2001, Pedro Martinez, who is the best pitcher to ever throw a baseball

in the history of the sport. No argument here. He really is. I actually think Pedro's underrated. I want to do a full-blown, shirts-off Pedro podcast to be like, people don't understand how insane you are. I'd need like 10 minutes just to refresh in my head some of the numbers, but I could be ready. I could be ready to go in 10 minutes.

His ERA differential, one of those years where he's like two runs lower than the guy who's second. And, you know, look, there's going to be an asshole listening to this. And just say out loud in front of your kids, hey, I'm an asshole. I resisted Rosillo's Pedro, you know, proclamation because Pedro, I wouldn't mind if he was on currency. That's how I feel about Pedro Martinez. So anyway, Friday night, Yankee stadium, one hitter, 17 Ks against the best baseball team

of the last 30 years, Chili Davis guest fastball, got out in front, turned on a change up the only hit. And I was bartending that night with a Yankees fan who was the owner. And one of my favorite part, I think it was yankee hat giveaway day and there were people in the bleachers losing their minds after every strikeout pedro was just um there's no one there's no one i don't want to stat all right here we go like all right stop talking about no no because i sidetracked you no i just i want to i want to write pedro a letter curs Cursive, not typed. In those three years, he gave up 122 earned runs.

The Red Sox going into tonight's game against the Yankees had given up 124 earned runs. Wow, that's in like 18 games? Oh my God. Pedro gave up less runs in three years. And yes, I understand he's not pitching every single day, but... I like that the Red Sox owners at least finally admitted that they fully intended to take a shit this season. It's so bad.

It's so bad. It's like the video game that's not allowed to use the players' names. And I really love baseball so much. And for the first couple weeks, I was like, all right, Sox are on at four. And I go, why am I doing this to myself? And I still throw it on the second TV. It's a second TV assignment at this point.

I would be watching more if Devers wasn't a corpse. I don't know what happened to him this year. He was my favorite remaining Red Sox player, but you throw... Over Bogarts? Yeah. I liked watching Devers hit until this year, but the pitching staff was such an affront

to the fan base, to the people who, you know, until they decided we couldn't have games, but people are going to play full season ticket, hardcore prices for the, you know, Ryan Weber and this kind of shit.

It's like, I, and then they're like, well, you know, we got some bad luck with sale. It's like, yeah,

it's bad luck. Cause you gave the guy a giant extension and he couldn't get through a season. Like you had bad luck with E. It's like, yeah, it's bad luck because you gave the guy a giant extension and he couldn't get through a season. Like you had bad luck with E-Rod. E-Rod had bad luck. He had COVID. Sale is not bad luck. Sale is bad management.

Yeah, sale is not prepping. And look, trust me, I've heard it where you go, hey, this wasn't the plan. I go, okay, but what was the plan? It's the worst rotation of our lifetime for the third highest payroll i think in the league and guess what they're going to do they're going to get so mad ownership and if you if you put it into two categories like hey these owners are going to come in they're going to save fenway make it a historical monument they're going to win

four titles and that's how your 20 years are going to go all of us would have signed up for that so let's be fair to them i would have signed up for the one title yeah i know back then are you kidding i just wanted one that's all i wanted was one and then ironically once they got one i was i was a little bit more over it because i was doing it every single day but i uh i just you know what's going to happen they're gonna they're gonna spend so much money on some b minus guy to be like see we're not cheap they don't they are they are they did it before they did it with Crawford they did it with Lackey just the Red Sox should be a team that's like buying

the Mookie Betts type but look if Mookie didn't want to stay he didn't want to stay okay fine the whole deal but watching Mookie every night here in LA smash the hell out of the baseball and then watching a guy from my intramural B-League pitch has been a...

No one cares about us, but it's not been fun. It's a little taste for what it's like when things don't go well for your sports team. I would say the Boston fans... If Boston could just get it right. We definitely do. We definitely do. One last thing before we go.

Last week, we talked about Luka's passing and Harden, and we had, I thought, a pretty intelligent nine-minute conversation about the whole thing. One tiny excerpt was pulled out of it, was put on Twitter, made it seem like I said James Harden only got cheap assists, even though we said

over and over again that he was one of the best passers in the league, super creative, all that stuff. And yet again, it's one of the best passers in the league, super creative, all that stuff. And, you know, yet again, it's one of those things where I don't know if this is just where we are with sports media in 2020, where people take the tiny excerpt,

they take it out of context. They don't put the time in to listen to the whole segment. But then to hear it regurgitated, I didn't know it was happening because I'm not on Twitter, but then I think some, some blogger wrote a news thing about it. And then once it happens, once somebody does something, I was like, what is this? Yeah. I was like, this is a thing that people, people thought this was blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, all right, well, so here's the thing. We're going to shoot the shit. Sometimes we go for two hours and if people pull the stuff out of context and they don't want to listen to the whole thing, then that's on them. I think Luka is the best passer in the league. I have lots of evidence for this, including the fact that he's averaging

almost nine and a half assists a game. He's 21. He's incredibly creative and the way his teammates react to him, which is the whole point of what we were talking about. Like, this is something hardened. It took him eight, nine, 10 years to get to a similar point. Luka came into the league almost fully formed in that thing.

And if we can have an intelligent conversation about that, then that really shakes my faith into where we're going with sports coverage. And then to have, you to have at least one announcer, I won't name because I like, just read the headline of it and then regurgitate it. Like I said, Harden only gets cheap assists because that's how this shit works. It's like, all right, well,

I just hope that most people actually heard it know that this is the wrong way for shit to go down. I'm just glad when we were prepping for this pod and you said, I think Joe Harris is the number one score in a league. I was like, let's not do that. Uh, Luke is fucking unbelievable.

I, how is this a debate? We complimented, we complimented hard in the whole time. I don't, I have nothing to add to it. I was so mad when I heard the announcer say what she said. So,

but whatever. Oh, there you go. Anything else? Anything else you want to hit? Uh, went to a UFC guy's house last night to watch a UFC fight. That was interesting.

I don't know if I'm not, I don't know if I'm allowed to say where I was. Cormier could have been in better shape. Yeah, but you could say that about Cormier every single time. He looked especially girthy. Stipe looked tight.

I started like in my own head, I was like, huh, 230? Stipe looked pretty good. We'll be back next Sunday. In my own head, I was like, huh, 2.30? Stipe looked pretty good. All right. We'll be back next Sunday. The last game on Sunday. Nuggets Jazz.

That goes until 8.30. Maybe we'll go a little earlier on Sunday, but we'll have a lot to talk about. All right. Thanks to Spotify. Thanks to FanDuel. Don't forget about the Ultimate Hoops Ringer Contest. You can join. You can do it any day you're feeling it with Daily Fantasy. Join. If you win the day, you advance to the finals. Big prize at stake. Thanks to Home Depot. With

the Home Depot, decorating your home is now easier than ever before. They offer free delivery on select items, $45 or more. And now for a limited time, you get 10% off the styles you love when you use code Billsimmons10 at checkout. Valid on select items only online. Find exactly what you're looking for and more at homedepot.com slash decor. Okay. That's it. Two more podcasts here coming up this week. And then rewatchables. We have two coming, including I was so excited for the NBA playoffs starting this week. Had to do an awesome movie. So we're doing Caddyshack. That's coming Monday night. 40-year anniversary, long overdue. Stay tuned for that.

Go Celtics. Go Celtics. I don't have feelings within. On the wayside.