The Bill Simmons Podcast - The AD Trade, Next Lakers Moves, Zion's Rosy Future, and Saving the Knicks and Warriors with Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the massive trade between the Pelicans and the Lakers, who won the trade, what the Lakers need now, how Zion Williamson will fit with the new Pelicans roster, Klutch Sports, and more (1:35). Then they discuss Kevin Durant's future, the possibility of the Warriors retaining him, New York basketball courting him (1:26:55), mailbag questions, Gym Corner, and more (1:53:57). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's episode of the BS Podcast and the Ringer Podcast Network brought to you by DAZN, where you can watch Change Up, a new live whip around show across the league presented by the MLB and DAZN. You can also watch Bellator, which you would have missed if you didn't have it for Friday night. Really good card as well as some great boxing. It's on every night of the week, that Change Up show. It's available on nearly any device. Getting set up with DAZN is easy. Download the DAZN app in the Apple or Android app store.

Sign up by creating an account. Start watching across any of your devices. Go to DAZN.com to sign up. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network. We're NBA Draft this week. We are loaded to the gills with draft content. We're going to have our draft guide, which I hope you're reading.

We're going to have Kevin O'Connor and Danny Chow and Jonathan Charks. We're going to have people writing day before the draft, day of the draft, and we're just going to be doing it, man. By the way, subscribe to Dual Threat with Ryan Rosillo if you haven't already, because he's got a couple more off-season football pods

coming up as well. He's here right now. Our dads, we ditched them to do a very, very important Sunday Night Fathers Day podcast. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, so I do a brief outline when we do these shows, and I just try to make sure I have three topics I know we're going to hit. Today I have eight. Oh, no.

The table content's eight. We're going to hit. Today I have eight. Oh, no. The table content's eight. We're on a schedule. Anthony Davis traded on a Saturday afternoon, the ringer's least favorite time for anything to happen. I noticed. A content disaster. Just kills everybody. God forbid this trade happened Monday.

Rich Paul, when he leaks stuff to the media, it's usually Monday morning to get the news cycle. Not this trade, Saturday. So it ruined everybody's weekend, but it was also an unbelievable trade. I think you liked it for the Lakers more than I did, but let's go. Give me your take.

Although, just to add to that, I had a pod with Woj. It was late. It was 3 Pacific when we taped it. It came out probably an hour or so later. I thought in that pod, now thinking back to some of the stuff he said, he knew that that deal was close to being done.

I'm sure he was like in the room. He said they're probably probably texting him for advice. Both GMs. Woj knows everything. You know, I'm going to let you start with your closing arguments. Well, I'll say this. I actually thought this trade would happen on Monday because I thought if the Pelicans got the number four pick, that still bought them 72 hours to decide what to do with it. So I wasn't surprised at the timing. I don't know who the

Lakers were bidding against. There was this article today in the Denver Post about, oh, the Nuggets sniffed around, but then they made it clear Jamal Murray was off limits. It's like, well, that's not sniffing around. They have two assets of the whole team that you could even be make as the centerpiece of a trade what is like gary harris and five number ones like there's no sniffing sorry celtics i've heard conflicting reports on this is very conflicting so i think they knew they weren't getting him they knew they weren't going to match the desperation of the lakers and they didn't want tatum's name to be on the streets, Omar style or Marlo style. I'm sorry. They didn't want it to get out there. So my question to you is who are the Lakers bidding against exactly? Because the Knicks were out too. Because there are any Knicks scenario where it's like, oh, we're getting Durant. So

then Davis would be the second piece and we're off. Now Durant's out for the year. I just don't know who the second bidder was here who was it okay so i've checked on all these things uh but as we know with this kind of stuff like there's some information that'll probably come out whether it's weeks or months of like another team we're not even thinking of maybe it's two teams you know you know who made a really interesting offer here uh the knicks were very out on this uh according to people that i've talked to that they just weren't there's a fear everywhere that even if he had gone to New York, he may have still wanted to go to LA in a year.

So I think the Knicks were afraid of the rental scenario that clearly had to be an issue for Boston. We know the Celtics were afraid. They should have been afraid. Portland might have been the only name we haven't heard yet that maybe sniffed, but I haven't heard their name mentioned publicly yet. No, that would have been interesting if they were like, look, we'll give you a CJ, which is extending this podcast streak

of trading CJ McCollum. No, but they could have gone, we'll do CJ, we'll do Collins, we'll do three firsts, we'll do pick swaps. Is that good enough? Yeah, maybe you like, well, you should like these two players maybe better than any single player you're getting from the Lakers.

The Celtics part of it, and I don't know if you can fill in some of the gaps here, it felt like just talking to different people around the league where it was a split motivation on what the plan here was. Like, was it an ownership thing that wanted to push for this? Because the whole point of the Davis pursuit was that you were pairing him with Kyrie to keep Kyrie and everything was going to work out. But they already know he's gone.

But now they know he's gone. just never I never look there's no way Ainge was going to in 12 months lose Kyrie Tatum and then Anthony Davis and if I'm Boston I'm not messing with Clutch because Clutch has this anti-Boston thing and it'll go on forever and it's just it's just not going to happen so I think that Boston I think Boston would have been willing to do this but i think even before we found out what this lakers deal was bill there was a line in the stand whether it was it was tatum or the memphis pick or some of this other stuff like they weren't going to give you this lakers package which again i think you're right when we break it down to who they were competing against seemed like a lot of pieces so i'm going to start here well it is a lot of pieces

first of all go short term great trade for the lakers because now they're the favorites to win the title because they have lebron they have davis they kept kuzma who i i don't love as much as some of the people are making kuzma seem now like he's chris bosh and it's like all right he's fine um yeah i like him but he's okay he's not they have the calf space which we're going to talk about later. What should they do with this $22 to $27 million, whatever? People are like, get Kemba as the third person. Well, every Lakers article I've read, Davis is just waiving his $4 million trade kicker.

Yeah, why? Nobody's ever done that. And think about this, too. I talked to somebody today who said, nope, it's not happening. And if it were Clutch, the joke around the league was like, it'll be funny when Clutch tries to convince their own client to waive the $4 million trade kicker to help build out the rest of the roster. Why would he do that? Clutch won't want that to happen for that specific reason

that it makes it look like they were the ones that talked their client out of giving up $4 million. It's $4 million free dollars. Yeah. He's taken it. So the $33 million projection. It's $4.5 million, actually. Yeah, $4.5.

So the $33 million cap projection. It's really like $22. and a half so the 33 million dollar it's really like 22 it could be 23 22 23 and that again is the i don't know if this is boring for everybody but basically it's a fair thing you're not getting kemba walker with a contract starting 22 million you're just not no unless he desperately wants to be there and the part of it where it's like well wait a minute why don't the pelicans just do that for the lakers maybe that's why they got all these extra picks or the pick swap stuff that we'll get to. But I was looking at it again and, you know, look, a lot of moving pieces here with all this stuff,

but it would cut into the Pelicans' projected cap space. So the Pelicans were like, why do we, you know, maybe we won't use it, but why would we do something where we have to give up $5 million in projected cap space? We're only helping you so much because you screwed up our season and you put us in this position. So you can trade us the most incredible trade package

anyone has traded for a player. Although some people think that's... But we're not also helping out with your cap. That's what some people do think, though, is happening, and that all these little things, like I don't know if this will end up coming out later in the week

where like actually New Orleans did agree, but some of the early stuff is saying that the deal will go down July 6th and if Davis doesn't waive his trade kicker, like we're looking at 22, 23, the lowest of the three numbers that people have thrown out there. So if we're just doing who won the trade first take style, I think the Pelicans won the trade about as convincingly as I've ever seen a team win a superstar trade.

The hall that they got back resembles nothing in the history of the league. Nobody has ever gotten this many assets back for nothing in the history of the league. Nobody has ever gotten this many assets back for one player. It's never happened. We can go through. I have all of them written down. I'm happy to just make the podcast super boring for 20 years. So I wrote a piece for ESPN in 2011 when Carmelo got traded. And the conceit of the piece was every time a team trades for a super duper star or even like a really good superstar, that team has won the trade. And I went backwards and I listed all of them. You're going back 1965, Will Chamberlain, 1968, Will Chamberlain, 1970, Oscar Robertson, 75,

Kareem, 83, Moses, 93, Barkley, 94, Chris Webber, 96, Barkley again to Houston, 96, Jason Kidd to Dallas, 99, Penny Hardaway. Here's the first one you might regret where they gave up a lot for a guy who ended up injured. Again, you're pointing out the history tells you when you trade for the best player, you win the trade every time. That's the first one we mentioned where it didn't work. Houston, Tracy McGrady, that worked. new jersey vince carter an absolute fleecing eric williams my erin williams excuse me miami gets shaquille in 2005 win the title a year later celtics kevin garnett they won that one and then pal gasol so that was the lead up to 2011. Since then, we've had Carmelo. We had Chris Paul to

the Clippers. They won that one. Dwight Howard to the Lakers. Everybody lost. You know what's weird? James Harden. Iguodala ended up being the best piece of all of that. But he didn't stay with his team. Houston gets Harden and then Kawhi goes to Toronto. So I just went through

the history since basically 1965 of the biggest stars getting traded and really the only time there was real regrets was that penny hardaway won 1999 if you're getting the star you're usually winning the trade or at least feeling pretty good that's what i've always argued like whenever we're sitting here trying to argue about like what do you get with this guy what do you get with that guy like even the paul george thing because the the oladipo that they traded you know wasn't it wasn't like a major asset no no people were knocking that people were killing the pacers for that trade i didn't like it uh but but it's also not entirely fair to do this hindsight thing with oladipo and say well you know look what he ended

up being like that changed his body that's one of those things where it actually worked out really well for both teams and oladipo took himself up to another level. But I always think with these trades, you know, whenever, like the rule for a lot of GMs, this is pretty basic, but a lot of guys will tell you

whenever it's going down, whenever the trade is happening, you know, six, seven different moving pieces, three teams, whatever, end up with the best player out of the entire group. And more often than not,

you're going to end up saving your job. This trade was crazy. Okay, so you're saying this is the one that goes counter history. No, because- Some would argue the Mellow one actually wasn't that great because especially- It wasn't great, but it wasn't, it did what it did. It was actually the thing that really screwed them up was when they amnestied Chauncey Billups. So they, instead of saving it for Amari,

I think if they hadn't done that, it actually might've worked out better. I just, there's no correlation. What they traded for Davis a year from his free agency with no other bidders was just way more than anybody else has ever traded. Looking through all those trades, I think the most anyone ever gave up for a superstar or potential superstar was when Washington got Chris Webber in 1994, they traded Tom Gugliotta, and they traded three unprotected first rounders in 96, 98, and 2000. And those picks became Todd Fuller, number 11, Keon Clark, number 13, and Chris Mim in 2000, number seven.

Chris, the secret of Mim? That's the most. So then here's what Orlando got for Penny Hardaway. They got Danny Manning, Pat Garrity, a 2001 first rounder, which became number 18, and a 2002 first, which became number nine, Amari Stoudemire. This Lakers trade, they got the number two pick of the 2016 draft, Ingram, who if he's healthy, we like.

We just don't know what the deal with the clock thing. The reports seem to be he's okay it still makes me nervous i'm still not sure how much i like him but go ahead just keep going 21 years old right right or it's gonna be 22 next year uh they get lonzo who's the number two pick in the 2017 draft right but whenever you're trying to make an argument anti the player you're supposed to round up a year or two years on their age okay like i'm hearing just like whenever you're trying to win the argument on TV, just add two years to his age on a TV show and no one will figure it out. So they got the number two overall picks and back to back drafts who we still like

as assets. I like Lonzo. I do. When people were talking about them trying to kick the tires on the sixth pick, maybe the seventh pick was Chicago. I'd rather have Lonzo. Yeah. I'm sitting there going, actually, I think I'd rather have Lonzo from New Orleans.

They got the number four pick in this draft. Yep, my favorite player. Right there, that's about as much as anybody's given up for a player. Now, Davis is 26. He's in his prime. He could give a little more than that. Well, here's what else they gave up.

They gave up, Jesus, this is really crazy. Two unprotected future picks that the 2021 one is top eight protected basically if it's not in the top eight it rolls over to 2022 this is important because why the double draft year the 2022 draft is the first draft that has high school high schoolers in it they rigged this so that their 2022 pick could be in the double draft where it's just the most loaded draft we've had.

Here's the other thing. LeBron's going to be a free agent by then. It might be either out of the league or on a different team. Well, LeBron would still have been with Anthony Davis through his second year together. So LeBron's third year was 2021. So it's not top eight protected.

They get it if it's top eight. That two years. So it's not top eight protected. They get it if it's top eight. That's what I mean. It's top eight guaranteed. Right, so what they'll likely get, because it'll be a LeBron, Anthony Davis, barring some catastrophe here. Yes. They won't want the pick

and they'll want it unprotected and it's likely to be unprotected. So the next pick that they get here is probably 2022 in the year that you're talking about the double draft. Also, screws the Lakers because now they can't trade

this first rounder. They can't trade a first round pick really for anything because it's so up in the air that it's not an asset anymore you can't do it because it's like hey we'll trade you this but look it might not happen and damn it isn't worth the wait all right just something to think about when the deadline comes around and they're not able to close on some things so if you had told me this was the whole trade yeah i would have been like, wow, great haul for New Orleans. Los Angeles had to do it. They went all in on LeBron. They wasted a year. They had to do it. They had to get Davis. No, the trade's not done yet. 2023 pick swap and then an unprotected pick that they have their choice between 2024 and 25 for.

And at that point, LeBron will be, I think 40 years old. This is like a divorce dad on spring break with kids like 10 years younger than him. That's, that's how little protection there is. Now on top of it,

those guys are going to be making so much money that it's going to be really hard to add to this team, which we saw what happened with Miami, you know, money that it's going to be really hard to add to this team, which we saw what happened with Miami in the 2013-14 range, where you can only band-aid it with Ray Allen and Mike Miller and Udonis Haslam, who's already there. At some point, it just becomes hard to add players to keep your team competitive. You need probably seven to eight in any given year. So they went all in and they basically have to win the title this year or next year for this trade to make sense, I think. Well, the trade makes sense because you traded for Anthony Davis. So we can put this pass fail grade on it thing if they don't win a title.

But as it stands today, there's so many different things. When I look at this draft after the four guys, if I watch Derek Culver one night, I can like him and I can watch him the next night and go, I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't really like him. That one night I can like him and I can watch him the next night and go I don't know I don't know man I don't really like him that's what I feel like this this trade is because you know for this Lakers team to have the year they just had to get LeBron and then from that moment on have everything go wrong like literally everything has gone wrong for almost 12 months for this organization and Rob Palenka has this job that it felt like now, even maybe more so after the weird Heath Ledger, Kobe story that wasn't true, that a lot of people just started going,

you know what, this guy, like he doesn't get it. He's not right for the job. Jeannie's stubborn here. There's a Kobe connection. Like she doesn't want to get rid of this guy. And he needed a win. He needed some perception win. So that's why he's doing it.

I do always spend, I don't even know whether it's talking to guys, but like I am fascinated by it. Like if you ever got Griff, like hooked up to a lie detector and you said again david griffin and you said when would you have said yes i with that point in the trade that i said before i added the other two pigs so now they gave away two two four and then 2021 or 22 unprotected that that's the biggest haul anybody's ever given up for a star ever okay but if we talk about the players and we do this thing where we start associating like

where they were drafted to what that actually means there's a there's also a chance that ingram gets hurt again and he's not great because he needs the ball and doesn't fit with all those guys and he's somebody puts up big points on a bad team and lonzo's hurt all the time he can't make a shot is ingram a top 50 trade asset? I'm saying there's a, there's a version of this where all three of those players in two years, we go, man,

these, those guys, but are they assets though? They're, they're moderate assets. There's not one player there where the Lakers are waking up today going, damn it. You know, I would have left.

I would have loved to have kept Ingram out of the deal. I would have loved to have kept Lonzo out of the deal. So yes, they want number two in previous drafts, but I don't think it's fair to say like, oh, look at all these top track picks. No, but remember at the lottery night, we said, or right afterwards,

when the Lakers got the fourth pick. We knew. We said, this now makes the Davis trade happen because they did not have the centerpiece of a trade. Now it turns out the centerpiece was basically that number four pick, all the unprotected picks coming later, where it's basically like two and a half because that pick swap as we found out with the brooklyn trade with the celtics a couple years ago that's how the celtics

got tatum they pick swapped yeah just a bit like back the pick swap is really important imagine thrown in and maybe this is just the game maybe this is what you don't understand like with that nets celts deal the story goes that like witt Grosbeck just kept going back and saying, ask for this, ask for this. And you're thinking like, how do you even ask for that when you have a 37 and 36-year-old guy going back? And you got unprotected picks, which nobody gets anymore. And by the way, the Pelicans got three in this. Yeah, right. And so, you know, the Celtics back to that trade, the biggest knock wasn't even just they gave up all the picks for all of these older guys because in the moment when that trade happened

it wasn't it wasn't even close to the reaction to it as it developed like as the net celtics thing got later on you're going wait a minute oh my god like this might be a total disaster for but what happened though with that though prokhor? Prokhorov changed his financial. Basically, what they're going to do is just spend, spend, spend. I don't care about the luxury tax bill. They do that trade. A year later, he's like, this sucks. I care about the luxury tax bill.

I'm not spending money anymore. They're like, what? We just gutted our whole team. What are you doing? How much am I paying for Joe Johnson? Yeah. So that in the moment wasn't as terrible. And some people would have compared this to being like the same thing.

Well, first of all, look, you didn't just trade for 37 year old no davis is top seven guy you just traded for anthony davis that comp i don't really love but it does get back to like when another team calls to complain about daryl morey to me they're like your boy daryl and like daryl and i are friendly but we're not boys boys i've just known him a long time yeah and other teams be like he offers the worst trades of anybody in the league and i now kind of realize why he does because it's it's worth it so if you're griff and you're going who cares like this guy's gone anyway it's awesome to think that like you would just keep asking for all of this stuff but like i said with the players there's a version of

this where you don't regret losing any of those guys you give up the fourth pick who knows a lot of people think it's a three-person draft i don't know what's going to happen with that fourth pick i would just take garland and then these other picks if this team ends up being good sure and if the team ends up being bad lebron is gone retired davis gets hurt then this thing could be a total disaster in five or six years five or six it could be a disaster in two years here's the the difference between the motto of this trade. By the way, Laker fans, don't do the whole, you just hate this trade because it's Celtics. Look, I think you have a very good chance

of making the finals next year with this trade. So that makes at least some semblance of it worth it. Which is so hard. The difference between this and what happened in 2011 when you had this team basically try to, the Heat trying to say we're just going in with these three guys has them still there we talked mike milliner we've got five guys it's not enough but we think we can win the title anyway the lakers have two guys in kuzma right now

they have lebron who missed significant time for the first time last year who's now entering what is this year 15 17 oh is it no oh 304 draft this is 17th season he's played 1500 games dave davis who has not been able to stay on the floor um certainly for 82 games a year he would have played a full season he has but he's a nagging injuries guy. He's somebody that, if you're going to say LeBron and Davis carry us, play 3,000 minutes each so we can contend. I don't think those two can do that. He would have played in the 70s. I mean, it's no guarantee, but

you can't just give him an injury. He played 75 and 75. Would you call him durable? No, but he played 75 and 75 the previous two seasons of this one. So you're going to have LeBron, you're going to have Kuzma, and you're going to have Davis, and then whatever they do with this cap space, which we'll get to you.

I just think it's a lot to ask of those guys. I think it's a lot to ask from LeBron because we saw it with Kobe in the 2012 and on range where we just assumed these superstars are going to stay incredible in basketball and then it's over. And they moved to a different point of their career. Offensively, his stats were good last year, but you know, he takes a lot of plays off. He's especially in the regular season,

he's pacing himself. I just think it's really, it's going to be really hard for this. This is not like a 65 win team, no matter what they do with the, with the cap space. And then you're talking about down the road, like what's the line for you that you would have done the trade anyway, if you were the Lakers? For me, it's like Ingram, Lonzo, the number four pick. And maybe I would have done an unprotected in 2000. Maybe I would have done that too, just because I've looked so bad as an organization the last what seven years and this lebron thing really could have gone south in a disastrous way and you kind of just have to do it that's as much as i would have given i would not have done the pick swap i would not have done the

2024 25 pick that's just too much i'm i don't know who I'm bidding against. Denver's not doing that. Right, it is too much, and I kind of don't care. So you're like, fuck it, we got Anthony Davis. I wouldn't want to say yes. I wouldn't want my name attached to this, because I would say to Griff, I'd go, who am I bidding against? He's not playing there.

Do you want to do this again? You want your first year with Zion to be this Anthony Davis clutch disaster? Is that what you want? Because go ahead, fucking do it. Well, it'd be year two of the clutch disaster. Right's what I'm saying is I would I would that's how I would have to talk to Griff about it be like dude you want how many picks you want what you I'm giving you the three guys I'm giving you the fourth pick I'll give you yeah like I think there

is a line but then when it's finally done and you go okay the top three guys and people can dump all over PER now the top three guys in the NBA's history are Jordan LeBron and Anthony Davis. And now you have those two guys. And you have Anthony Davis for his whole prime now, basically. And your Palenka, who everybody was doubting. Never forget the motivation of the general manager who either wants to keep his job, wants to change the narrative about himself. Yeah, because what does he care?

He's going to get fired anyway if this trade doesn't work out. This is a classic, like, yeah, anyway if this trade doesn't work out. This is a classic like, yeah, fuck it. This doesn't work out. It's not coming back to haunt me. I won't have a job. It just would have been weird. Do you think Griff,

and again, a private moment, he would tell us? No, never. Well, he would never tell us this, but do you think he would ever, like, imagine he's saying something like the most trusted person that he has in his life.

He's laughing. He's like, I can't believe I got this many assets for trusted person that he has in his life. He's laughing. He has to be going. I can't believe I got this many assets for a guy who was leaving in a year. I had no other bidders. I had the Celtics going. Yeah, we do Jason Tatum in the 14. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We would think about that. That was like his other offer. I just can't believe it. Like if Polinka went to buy a house, let's say he's buying a house in Manhattan Beach and there's this $15 million house on the Strand and Poinca sees he's like,

I really like this house. And he asked the realtor, hey, any other bidders for this house? The realtor's like, no, it's 15 million. And Poinca's like, how about if I offer 50? No, no, no. It would be like, I'm not. He's like, he's got the house.

That's great. I've got the $50 million house in the street. I might've lost it. The analogy is him just going, there's no other offers. Okay, I'll pay list. So I don't know if I'm getting through to you here. I know I probably sound like I'm... I think I'm... I feel like it sounds as if I'm contradicting myself.

My point is that I agree that there had to have been some line that it feels like Palenka went over and that Griff probably is sitting there going, I can't believe this. But there's also a part of me who's kind of like, F it, I just got Anthony Davis. And everybody kept telling me after one summer, right? This nonsense that no one wanted to play with LeBron. I'm not saying everybody wanted to play with him, but because Bosh and Wade did want to play with him almost a decade ago and Kyrie was

already there and they traded Wiggins for Kevin Love that now no one, Durant didn't want to leave Golden State. No way. You know what I mean? Klay Thompson wasn't coming. Oh, no way. Now he's hurt. You know, Kyrie kind of did this 180. Kawhi may or may not have wanted to play with him. We were looking at just a few players and turning this into the entire league didn't want him, wouldn't want to be there. And so now they went ahead and grabbed the guy, a guy that's probably better other than Kawhi

than any other player that could have even dreamed of grabbing this summer. LeBron, 1,200 regular season games. 239 playoff games. He's already played like one of the five most grueling minute workload careers of anyone we've ever seen. Now he's also been a freak and he's in incredible shape and all that stuff, but I'm torn on it because I I'm a big believer in get the superstar, do what it takes. I've just never seen a price paid like this ever.

And I thought that was the message that got lost over the weekend because people were just going, well, you got to get them. I'm like, yeah, but- To a point. Do you have to gut the next seven years of your team? This trade is going to hold them hostage. And if they don't win this year or next year, it's unrealistic to expect LeBron in year 20 to still be a top 15 guy. So it's basically,

they have to win the title this year or next year for this trade to make sense. And if they don't, somehow it's a bigger risk than the Kawhi trade. I thought the Kawhi trade was risky. This trade was like a thousand times riskier. The Kawhi trade actually didn't really bother me because of who was doing it it was toronto where you go what are they supposed to just keep to rosen and lowry again next year and see what happens like that was about shaking them up we've just never seen somebody trade for a guy knowing that they were going to be there for one year you know yeah i don't remember that paul george thing is similar to it in hindsight now it feels like oh no no he was yeah but i'm saying kawaii is better than Paul George, I guess, would be my...

Yeah, but there was a time... We're talking about superstars. There was a time there with Paul George. You know what I was surprised is, you know, in my... I was pro really both sides on this thing. I'm surprised, and maybe it's just how the year went for Anthony Davis, how many people, when I had suggested Davis a year ago, was being talked about as maybe the best player in the world,

that there were so many people that were like, no way, no way. You're like, what? Like, you don't remember the way we're certainly the most talented, the way we were talking about him after that Pelican sweep. Like there was a,

you know, we do this in the pledge. Like, wait a minute. You know, that's like why, what Kawhi has been able to accomplish here is that it's not just that you win a ring and your finals MVP.

It was the same thing for a step a little bit. Like we invite you to this thing and we start going, okay, look, all summer going into next year, you're the guy. And Davis was part of that conversation. And his numbers were even better the beginning of this year before the whole thing turned into a fiasco.

So I love him as a player. It goes back to the old schoolyard thing. They have two of the best guys in the league. And regular season plus playoffs, they're going to be relevant. And so they're buying relevancy with this. The problem is they spent the whole decade tanking to get to the point where they would have all these top five lottery picks, right? Which they took basically three in four years or more than that because Russell. They had three number two overall picks and they got the number four this year.

And Randall. And Randall was seven. Right. And then on all these picks coming, so they basically thrown away a decade of lottery picks potentially or high draft picks or just unprotected picks for these two guys. So now it has to work. If it doesn't work, we'll remember this as like the all-time just heat check trade anybody's made. And I still don't know who they're bidding against.

I really don't. Just name me a team. Maybe Palenka thought like, look, at the end with the LeBron stuff with other teams, it hasn't gone well. But, you know, at least we won't have to take on George Hill's contract. We can just lose all our picks. Let's take a quick break. Let's talk about SimpliSafe. There are over 2 million burglars reported every year. That is one every 13 seconds. What's crazy is

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Visit simplisafe.com slash BS. You'll get free shipping and a 60-day risk-free trial. You've got nothing to lose. Go now to the simplisafe.com slash BS URL. SimpliSafe, two I's, simplisafe.com slash BS, so they know our show sent you, simplisafe.com slash BS. Back to the pod. Lost in this trade. You wanted to go Lakers because I wanted to audible the Pelicans really quick. Oh, yeah. Go for it. I looked this up too.

Zion is in the best roster shape of any potential rookie superstar in 40 years. 40. 40 years. 40. How did you come up with that? I went through everybody. I went through everybody who, when they would come in the league, is this person going to be a superstar? How strongly do we feel about it?

And it's not as long of a list as you think, but if you're just going backwards, here was the 2002 Pelicans. Sorry, 2012 Pelicans. Davis goes on that team. Here are their best players. Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon, Grievous Vasquez, El Faruq Aminu, and Robin Lopez.

27 wins with Davis that year as a rookie. 2007 KD goes to Seattle, the tragic last Seattle year. Here's best teammates. Earl Watson, Nick Collison, Chris Wilcox, Kurt Thomas, Jeff Green. That team won 20 wins. 2003 LeBron. Here was his team in Cleveland the first year. Boozer, young Boozer.

Young. Ricky Davis, Darius Miles, Zydrunas, feet breaking down over and over again, Ogascus. Jeff McInnes, one of the least liked players of that decade. And Eric Williams, that team won 35 wins. All right, now you got a 1997 Tim Duncan. It's like, oh man, remember what an awesome situation he went into that year? Not really. David Robinson, Sean Elliott, who had just been, they tried to trade for most of the middle of that decade. Vinny Del Negro and Avery Johnson.

That was it. That was the heart of the team. There's a little Jaron Jackson senior there too. 56 wins for them. And then you have Shaq in 1992 Nick Anderson Scott Skiles Dennis Scott Tim Tolbert Anthony Bowie they won 40 41 wins and then I forgot to put uh Chris Weber in here because when he went to the Warriors they had Hardaway Tim uh Chris Mullen yeah Latrell Sprewell that team was pretty loaded too but you really have to go back to Bird of Magic in 1979 okay but you're talking I thought you were saying contracts you're talking roster i'm just saying like because that's taking a young star about this roster which roster what's so great about the pelicans roster right now well i'm gonna give it i'm just saying roster situation so they're contractually

i would agree with you i don't so zion's going in a situation right now where he has drew holiday lonzo ball brandon ingram whatever they get with this number four pick uh they have about 30 million in cap space julius just opted out we'll see what happens 25 to 30 million in cap space whatever they do with the number four pick all of their first round picks they still have. And then from the Lakers, two unprotected picks, one of them coming while Zion's still a rookie and then the 2023 swap. I'm telling you, that's the best situation anyone's been in in 40 years. Like that is a situation where they could immediately

build a roster carefully with him as a centerpiece that contends for titles in a couple of years. I'm going to push back on the Spurs one. I mean, he's got David Robinson to play alongside. Back then, especially when you needed bigs to kind of protect each other. There's no number two on here for Zion that's close to what David Robinson was.

Okay. But it was David Robinson and some contracts, and they didn't have all these Laker picks coming. I like Drew Holiday. I do. I really do. I'm not going to do the, oh, and they didn't have all these Laker picks coming. I like Drew Holiday. I do. I really do. I'm not going to do the, oh, he's never made an all-star team. That's a logjam of the position, especially out west.

I don't like when we do that kind of stuff where it's like, oh, well, if he's so good, well, no, you're just being difficult. I like Drew Holiday. Robinson was having some back stuff, I think, by the time Duncan showed up. That was one of the reasons he missed all the time the year before. Remember, he had all those injuries. Then they tanked, and they tanked, and they shut him down.

Yeah, with Spurs fans, I've never understood. Spurs fans argue stuff that I'd be like, why is this such a waste of time? It's like, I think we've done this before. Yeah. You shut him down, you tanked. Why do you care if we just point out that he actually is a center? And I know right now it's going to happen.

I'll get all sorts of Spurs fans mad. Be like, of all the stuff you could argue, why would you argue? Like you would never argue. It's like Lowry with Toronto fans. Like if Lowry's on another team with Toronto fans, be like, he's a top five point guard. Like he wouldn't.

If we were saying, what is the most fun team to build a roster with for the next 10 years? Last year's answer would have been the Celtics, right? A year ago. Absolutely. We would have said, you know what team? I want to be the Celtics.

Now I look at all the rosters and it's like hands down the Pelicans with all the assets they have. How much? And there's a chance, there's a chance Ingram and Lonzo are better than I think people realize because they were in a really fucked up situation

the last couple of years. Lonzo with Zion, Ingram, if he's healthy, actually like getting the ball a little bit, like there's a chance those guys are better than we know. There's also a chance they're not as good as we thought. See, that's my point. And I think Lonzo's a better bet

to be a better version of himself than what we've seen so far. Because you're right. It's been so screwed up the whole time. And you know what would be awesome? He's playing with Rajonon rondo why was he in the team and if his dad could just get his dad's back on by the way yeah but like you know he goes off and to sit there and to argue my son should all be on the lakers and think like people are going to take you seriously by the way my shoes still haven't come in um i just i i hope because i've had some pelicans people reach out not griff and go how bad is it

and i go i'll never forget when i asked the lakers i go a lot of this is probably overblown right like it's just kind of stupid and a couple lakers guys were like no it's it's the worst they're like it's bad and it sucks and it's not fun to deal with and it's a real pain in the ass yeah and now it died down whatever version of it was this last year they i told you they sent him packing for a while right but just the player we're totally aligned that like i think there's a really good version of lonzo that's ready to go i had gms that were in the lottery that year that were like look i'm not sure if i ended up with the number one pick if like a couple of them were like i think i'd take lonzo over faults can i. Can I go further?

Because you know I love Lonzo. If I took all the guards in the league where I'm just like, who would be the most fun to pair him with as a backcourt mate? I think I would pick Drew Holiday because they're kind of both guards. Lonzo's a point guard, but also isn't one of those guys who brings the ball up. He's not the kind of point guard we think of like chris paul has the ball he's you know huge usage rate lonzo's like a move the ball long guy drew holidays like a point guard but he's not like he's really an off guard who guards other teams point guards but now defensively how great is that backcourt it's one of the best

it's one it probably is the best defensive backcourt in the league, right? So now you put those two with Zion. Lonzo's passing with Zion. That was my mind. The Laker fans were so excited about Davis. My mind immediately went to Lonzo and Zion. I'm in. Lob City 2.0. I'm ready. And now Ingram is actually, this is a nice situation for him because they don't have a scoring forward. He fits Zion. There's like a weird size thing where I still don't know what position Ingram ultimately is or what his size is. But if he's the forward with Zion, that weirdly makes sense to me.

Now they just need to get a rim protector, right? They might be good right away. I kind of like Zion as a a center point center yeah more than anything else and i'm glad you said point center because the more you watch zion and you know there's just these passes that he makes you're like who is this guy like who is this guy to figure out the game this way to be this size so and you like we should say because we said before if nobody's heard our pod before you and i both think zion is special yeah yeah in the beginning of the year i wasn't sure if i thought he was special and a lot of that was based on like i don't go to high i don't have

time to go to high school stuff okay yeah but i saw the instagram stuff and then of course like in my classic fashion i'd be like well what the hell is all this like the dunks are sick but can he actually play basketball and a lot of people felt that way that hadn't really seen him and only and then you go wait a minute wait a minute like he still can't shoot but um i i think i think he is special i think part of our you know joint excitement maybe even more so with you saying he's the best situation we've seen here in 40 years like if he really is that special that means like in year two this team is winning games. How about year one? So think about this.

One of the things that frustrated us- You think they're going to be in the playoffs already? Yes. That's hard for me to do until I've seen it. I do. Well, they need one more move because they need the rebound or rim protector. But the other thing I love about this, it was so frustrating at Duke.

And I really like Barrett. And I actually think Barrett was in a bad situation where he's on this team with this, you know, comet. And he's somebody that needs the ball. And it was always like a, like a tug between those two. He could have made more shots,

which had nothing. He could have gone right. A couple of times. I still like him. Lonzo and holiday are both these guys that are just really fun to play with and don't need the ball all the time. And you can actually run the offense through Zion and have like a ball movement thing going on where it's not like he's playing with like chris paul or chris you know somebody like that or conley or those guys are like hey man i

need the ball i'm a point guard yeah like that's why ingram's fit worries me a little bit because i think like some of the best ingram stuff we've had is when he has the ball more like remember when he was like playing point It was actually kind of good. Right. Well, could you flip him, though? Because that's the other thing I was thinking was there's some flip. Flip Ingram to Phoenix and do some stuff with that if you just don't like the fit. I would personally, if he's healthy and we don't know if he is, I would like to see him on this team.

But I just really think this team's going to be fun to watch. And if I, if you could, if you offered me the GM of GM job of any team in the league, just with the rosters, I would want this roster a year ago, you would have said the Celtics. And now the Celtics are like 14.

And that's really rough times. I always like when, when stuff like this happens, it'd be like, why do you think ingram will run to leave like he and design are both duke guys and be like okay let me let's just recap here both guys are on campus for like a few months yeah separated by still learning where the mess hall is separated by a few years like i don't know you know i don't know if it's like those

90s team that made a run to the final four I have some possible trades for you for the fourth pick, because I've decided it would be more fun if the Pelicans trade this pick than if they use it. I also am not sure who the fourth pick is. It's Darius Garland. And here, before, why don't you just do your thing and then I'll jump in. There's some Culver, there's some Hunter. And I'm not sure what the roster this team has. I'm not sure if I need another guard now we're

making mistakes what yeah no because I knew this was going to happen because there's people that would say well with Lonzo with Drew and this situation you can't bring in Darius Garland you can't do that when you don't know how your roster fits we're not even sure if you're a playoff team then maybe Griff just likes Culver or hunter just as much maybe hell and maybe he likes kobe white better than darius garland but i would not draft or i should say not not draft the guy that i like because he's a guard i would seriously if it were me and i had the fourth pick i like darius garland i think it's four person draft so you would take darius garland darius garland be like hey you know what maybe i flip drew later on he's really expensive lonzo gets hurt again or maybe lonzo continues to miss everything and then in certain tight games he's somebody that no one's

even guarding so you know what i'll come in and you know it's it's barely five games for garland i could be off on this but the handle quickness shot making out of him needs more love i agree with you i wouldn't do the fourth pick based on I'm trying to build this perfect roster. Yeah. I just really like Lonzo. I'm looking at it differently than you. I'm all in on Lonzo. Now, I might be in the minority on that. I'm looking at this like, I don't need a guard. I have Lonzo and I have Drew Holiday and this is my backcourt. I actually want to try to find a piece that fits with the team I have because I really like this team. I'm not looking at it like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Because in

that case, I agree with you. Where if you're just adding assets and trying to figure out what you have down the road, that's a different game plan. I'm saying, I actually like this roster. I'd want to try to craft this number four pick and try to figure out right away if I could build something that's cool. You disagree. Well, I'm all set. Like, let me just rephrase that. I'm open to any of your ideas

for trading the fourth pick for somebody that can give them immediate help. But that guy's usually not nearly as sexy as we want it to be. Yes, there's a Jimmy Butler trade a couple years ago, that actually ended up working out for chicago far better than people could have thought but remember like chris middleton a couple years ago i remember he was somebody that was mentioned as like you know could you could you flip a top five pick for him i mean the only other time you're really moving this pick for somebody who's established is that it's a

totally disaster situation and the person disgruntled so who's who's the happy vet five six years in and i kind of went through it it's not it's not really easy to pull off like who's somebody that a team has some traits i have some traits okay here we go then look at this i have six and then i have a three team rather like whenever somebody starts doing the hey i want to oh i want culvert because he's six five six", 6'6", and he fits in better. That's when you start making mistakes. Yeah, I agree. Because in two, three years,

half these guys aren't even going to be on the Pelicans. I want a number four pick. I can't wait for this. I'm so excited. All right, fun trade number one. Just number four for eight and 10 to Atlanta. No. No for who? No for the Pelicans. You wouldn't want eight and 10 to Atlanta. No. No for who?

No for the Pelicans. You wouldn't want eight and 10. Now, I'm going Belichick. I don't, I'm with you. After the third pick, I think this is a crapshoot for who's going to be the next good guy in this draft. And I actually think I might have a chance

to get at eight and 10. I might be able to get two guys that are as good as the guy I can get at number four. If it were five, yes. I'm just staying with you so you like garland so you personally like garland but do you see the wisdom eight and ten i do because i think when it starts getting to five ish like i watch hachimura right and you go okay i see some of the problems but but he's not even in the top 10 anymore is he no? No, but then there's times where I go, how different is it really? Like, is it just because he's a little bit older, you know? And then when I watch Jack's the big kid from Texas, in the beginning, I'm like,

I don't know. And then the more I watch him, I go, wait a minute, you know what? He's a big guy who rolls. He's incredibly athletic. He knows exactly who he is right now. Maybe he's a little soft, but okay, that makes more sense. So yeah, at five, I would start thinking like Belichick here. So I'm saying like you get eight and 10, you could end up with Reddish and Huchamora. Yeah. Instead of Jericho. Yeah, right. So that's one. This one hurts. Yeah, right. So that's one. This one hurts.

Gordon Hayward. Who says no fourth pick for Jalen Brown? I think the Celtics would say no. I think they would too. Thank you. I just wanted to throw that out. I'm not saying these trades are perfect. I was just, I was trying to go through.

No, not perfect because it's hard. It's really hard. It's really hard because I keep hearing like, yeah, they'll flip number four to the star. I was saying this in the Ringer NBA Slack. I'm like, what star? Who are they flipping number four for? Am I missing something?

I know all the guys on all the teams. Here's another one. Would you do semi-aujali? I'd have to get a protected first back along with the four. How about this? Number four in Solomon Hills expiring to Indiana for Miles Turner, number 18. I wouldn't do that either from the Pelicans.

I'm just saying these are the types of trades. Now you get Turner in. He's your center. I have a shot blocker. Is Turner and Zion a great fit or a terrible fit? I don't know. I don't like the trade. I'm just throwing stuff out.

The fourth pick in Hills expiring for clint capella seems a little too rich a little a little little too rich for houston no for new orleans no see i actually all right hold this thought because we're coming back to this. Two more. The fourth pick, Hills expiring, and the 2021-22 Lakers pick for Bradley Beal. And then if I'm the... Yeah, because now we're going... Like, we have established highs.

So now it's like Drew Holiday, Bradley Beal,al lonzo zion and free agent center you can play deal at small forward right yeah do the whiz do that do the whiz think about that do they hang up are they trying to dump a contract in there like you got to take i think beal is going to be the distraction to how bad their situation is as an organization the whiz yeah like dump them now no i think they keep him oh long term at least we have this guy yeah at least we have this guy okay sorry don't look behind the curtain i personally do not think the whiz will trade beal but i had to mention that shade and then last one fourth pick and hill's expiring

for stephen adams at number 21 oh adams contract yeah we had him i would say no for pelicans yeah adams contract and i do like steven adams but it's bad just think what new zealand's gonna do with this it's gonna lead to six american sports pundit i wish i could do it new zealand but it'll just come out terrible all right here's my trade this trade is so good he's trading steven adams motherfucker what was that? Both of us. Yeah, it was bad. Sorry, New Zealand. Sorry, Chris Lilley.

Not New Zealand. This is one of the best fake trades I've ever come up with. I throw out trades. I know it's like I'm 80% there, 90% there. This, I'm 100% there. Call this into the league. New Orleans gets Clint Capella in the number 10 pick. The Hawks get the fourth pick.

The Rockets get the eighth pick and Hill's expiring. Who says no? So the Rockets want to get off Capella's money? I'm giving them an expiring contract that they can flip for something else. And I'm giving them the eighth pick that allows them to get at least a younger guy in there that might be ready right away or a trade asset that they can flip. Because the Capella thing, where are we now with him? You want to talk about a peak and valley player in just a short amount of time. I still like him. I think that team got super weird. The hard and usage rate thing, I think went off the rails. And I think that team got super weird. The Harden usage rate thing, I think, went off the rails. And I think that team, the more that's trickling out,

super unhappy from January on behind the scenes. And it really didn't come out until after the season. I think Harden went, that MVP run he went on with the usage rate, and Chris Paul came back and was playing the good soldier publicly, but was going, what the fuck? Like, this is going to be our offense every game now? This guy's just going to have the ball every play? We're just going to stand here?

I think there was frustration watching where Chris would go, okay, so now it's my possession. You just, because you're not shooting, you take it off now? Yeah, you stand over there and you're just not. 2017 Westbrook? Yeah, like like what is this yeah this is what we're doing so like we have some of these high usage off the ball guys now they don't do anything it's called the westbrook it's just accepted in the game where it's like

well man and then guys would be like well he's putting so much on him in the offense be like yeah but you can't also have like 20 possessions where you don't do anything the frustrating thing was when kairi when kairi was doing that it's like you're not even as good as harden you don't get to do this be like you know how like really good players would like it's cool to rest every now and then yeah because it's like wait a minute you get to rest like i'm resting like the heat used to do that where it'd be like you're resting today like oh yeah i'm gonna rest then too that'd be awesome let's let's vote yeah won't you hey do you get that new let's go to barney's and pick out Blazers for our rest night. The worst is when, because we know, because we both play basketball, right? Obviously.

The guy who shoots four straight times, then the fifth time up the court is like, hey, you guys shoot this one. I'm going to stand over here and do nothing from 30 feet from the basket. It'll make it so much harder for you because my guy knows I'm not moving. I won't set a pick for you. I'll be over here. You take this there was always fun to play with that guy there's a there's a bunch of different espn pickup games over the years um there's one story i was about to tell i'm not going to tell it now no no just don't say the name do so i can't i can't because it's going

to turn into a thing i can't oh my god i know No, trust me, because I'll tell you off the air and you're going to say you were smart to not tell that story. OK, I'll tell a different one, though, based on what you were just talking about. Doug Gottlieb is an awesome basketball player. Yeah. I mean, the guy was top 10 all time leading assists. He's just I mean, when you're that good and you're winning games, the big 12 and you're going into the tournament and like you're just you're going to show up to pick up games

and it's going to be automatic like oh my god but the knock on him because it was true like he he wasn't a good shooter and he couldn't hit free throws and when you talk to him too he's like man is the worst because my confidence was just shot like i couldn't i didn't think i could make any shots so we were playing pickup one day at like the y in southington near espn's campus especially back then when I didn't have the normal day thing. I was just basketball heaven. I played the lunch pickup games three, four days a week. What's better?

It was unbelievable. So there was like a bunch of dudes and Gottlieb starts bringing it up. And it was like one of the first games I played with him. So I don't know if he was trying to like show me how good he was. I'm like, dude, I know how good you were. Like I watched you play against Kansas. And he pulled up and hit like four or five threes in a row. But no one ever touched the ball hit like four or five threes in a row but no one ever touched a

ball for like four or five possessions and one of the other guys was like hey you know like we're all just running around out here yeah and Doug's like hey those are great shots I'm open and I think I said like yeah in the big 12 that's a great shot great because nobody's picking you up we're trying to have a good time. No one's turning you. And Gottlieb is a really good, I'm sure he's still a good player because he's just one of those guys who's always been a really good athlete.

But yes, it can, as great as a Harden is, as great as a Westbrook has been at times, when you do that kind of stuff, everybody else is like bummed out. So Doug Gottlieb is James Harden. There you go, Doug. Jamie Horowitz was like that too because he played at Amherst

and he was one of those. He's just shooting five straight times. But you kind of knew he was like, if the goal is to stay in the court, you don't mind having a guy like that. If you're like, we're going to try to play for three hours. Like Jacoby and I, when we would play,

there'd be the times where you played for an hour and a half already. But you want to play another hour and a half, but you don't have the stamina anymore. And you're like, we should get Chris. Chris will just carry us, do 80% of the work.

And we'll just get some runs in. And those guys are fun to play with. I just wouldn't want to play NBA basketball 82 games with those guys. Yeah, if you want to stay on the core, a Gottlieb helps. I've never played with Horowitz. That bums me out

because I would have liked to play probably against more than with him he's i heard he's pretty good he's fun he's fun to play with you're just you know he's got a high usage rate yeah there's certain guys unrelated to hoops but jacoby the last time when i so much fun to play with i flew to new york city he was asking me about hoops and then somehow fighting came up yeah and then he just looked at me he goes i think i could beat you up and he was serious that's and he was like he goes look at my nose i go yeah it looks like it's been busted up a few times yeah i've and he was he was like what do you think i go i don't i go i think you think it and you said it and that's cool man he's a stone face like 10 minutes before going live on the show he's like i really think i could beat you up he gave me like this deadpan look i went all right what a tangent i know so new

orleans gets capella in 10 the hawks get four the rockets get eight and hills expiring who says no wait a minute say it again i was too busy thinking about fighting jacoby yeah pelicans end up with capella and 10 hawks get four rockets get eight and the hills expiring now can I just say they're saying yes to that they're moving back six spots and they're picking up a center who actually might be exactly what we're talking about here with Zion yeah you know I still love a smaller ball Zion center thing I think that's going to be the best version of him in today's game but if over the course of 82 games in certain playoff matchups you have a big Capella to run around with them too the Pelicans would say yes first what if the Hawks say we're not doing 8 and 10 but we'll do 8 and 17

and new orleans would end up with capella and 17 and not 10 i think i'd need the 10 right it feels like it's kind of like for me 1 to 4 and then 5 to like 14 15 or something like that i feel like i'd be just missing out but then there's always gonna be a couple upsets so maybe i think you know one more variation okay it's hard i need a pen hawks get four herder doesn't go anywhere right no the whole lot hawks get four rockets get eight and hills expiring new orleans gets capella and herder instead of the 10. Can they max them immediately? Well, yeah. Atlanta would be, they would sell the franchise.

Yeah, you can't trade Herter. Herter's untradeable. All right, we're taking a break. Come back. Hey, I wanted to mention Big Little Live, our Twitter show, which you can watch on Twitter on the hashtag BigLittleL Live or at Ringer, Amanda Dobbins, Mina Kimes from ESPN. And they're breaking it down right after Big Little Lies.

Every week it is presented by Buick and it's awesome. And speaking of Mina, you can check out her podcast. It's produced by ESPN. It's called The Mina Kham Show with Lenny. Check it out. Subscribe to that one as well. And speaking of podcasts, if you're not listening to Ring or Dish, things are really heating up over there. Tea time, jam session, celebrity deep dives. My daughter is threatening to do another For Realsies.

That's turning into a really fun pod. And also, if you want to hear people talk about the US Open, go to Fairway Rowland with Joe Haas, presented by... TheRinger.com. And Callaway. And Callaway. You buried the lead, Kyle.

Sorry. Fairway Rowland, Joe Haas reacting to a pretty awesome US Open where Brooks Koepka, so close, so close. I was rooting for him. I love Brooks Koepka. So anyway, that is all on The Ringer Podcast Network. Check it out.

Go to theringer.com to read about the draft and all the stuff we have this week too. All right, back to the pod. I am pro New Orleans keeping the four pick because as we just did the exercise, i'm not sure there's a trade unless atlanta gets excited about trading eight and ten and if i'm atlanta by the way i would rather keep

eight and ten in this draft i what are they trading up for number four unless you love culver and you think like this is the guy to put next to trey young for the next 12 years you have to like really love culver to give up eight and 10 8 and 17 is not going to do it but if they love culver then they're thinking it's like oh my god like think about it there's so many different versions of the way teams will look at their boards yeah and we can do this consensus thing and that's how mock drafts kind of weirdly influence this whole thing especially fan bases where if a guy you saw at nine goes sixth and your team's picking six and he goes and you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe we did this. And you go, I don't know, man, especially this year.

Like, I don't think there's that much difference. But anyway, would you do four and Solomon Hill for TJ Warren and Josh Jackson? No, I would not. I'm worried about Josh Jackson. Me too. And I think TJ Warren is better statistically than I think you realize. But I also think some of that's situational with a bad team. Would you do four for six in Josh Jackson?

Take a flyer on Josh Jackson, change his scenery, put him in a place like New Orleans, he'll be fine. How many times have we done that? That was a joke. Okay. All right. I was just going to say, because that's one of the rules you'd have to have as gm but you know what i can't do just because somebody else took a guy high i think i have a chance and

it's funny because everybody that goes in like the top 10 they'll play more minutes their second year than their first year because it's like the team's trying to figure out if they fucked it up and then they're like we did and then somebody always trades for that guy we actually disagree on this. Oh. I like betting on high lottery picks because I think history says change of scenery with them, it's actually more favorable than unfavorable. Because you're going to have the Thabit, Darko,

Markel Fultz trades where you just know going in, it's a sunk cost. And it's like, you can't help it. You take a flyer. But I think like- They got the 15th pick for... If you look at the Chauncey Billups type guys,

those guys, for the most part, if you're betting on the pedigree, we've seen that. Oladipo is another one, right? He was the second pick in the draft. Got traded twice. Was in the wrong situation on two teams and then the right team traded for him.

I don't mind trading for the pedigree. I don't think Josh Jackson is a pedigree guy, though. I will say that. How should the Lakers handle their 2020 roster? This is so hard. You and I have not talked about this, and I think we're aligned.

Without even knowing where you stand, I'm just guessing we're in line. I think putting Kemba Walker on this team would be absurd and idiotic. That's exactly what I wouldn't do, is the third star who gets to stand there as LeBron and Davis are running like a two man game. They need to actually get a couple of good qualified starters who can, who know how to be role guys.

Like what basically with the rocket state, when they got PJ Tucker a couple of years ago, they need to find their PJ Tuckers. They need to find the Brooke Lopez, Malcolm Brogdon, those type of guys. That's where I would spend the money. I would try to get two guys that are in that Malcolm Brogdon kind of level versus

trying to hit a home run with a third star. That doesn't make sense to me. What do you think? Plus, you're not really probably getting a third star anyway with $23 million. Anyway, if Kyrie was like, hey, guys, I'm coming. I'll take a little less. I'd be like, does that make them better to have a guy who needs the ball and doesn't play defense? That's a good thing?

Okay. I went into this believing everything you just said. I go, they need to spread this money out because they are right now, Anthony Davis, James Kuzma, Mo Wagner, and Bonia. And we didn't even talk about, yeah, that's brutal. We should mention that Davis is going to get a giant extension too. So they're going to be in a situation where a year from now, they have no chance of ever getting anybody who's even close to max. This might be the only time they even have a chance to offer somebody $20 million again for three years. Okay. So say I spent three hours on

this today. Not surprised. And I'm still... I always hesitate to give you homework assignments. No, I know, but I'm glad you did here because it was necessary for this because there was a couple people that I was going back and forth with that thought this trade was terrible for the Lakers. I talked to somebody else that was like, you know, what are you supposed to do? You feel like a team

always make a mistake when it's like, well, Palenka, as we said at the beginning of the podcast, like he needed a win. He needed to do something differently. And by the way, how about Magic congratulating everybody and then saying the rest of the front office and then after everybody had said you left out palenka then he adds in a palenka tweet incredible stuff after calling him a backstabber on national television yeah you left him out because he called him a backstabber you believed it and then because everybody was calling you on it you're like i'll throw a palenka bone too

or was magic actually giving himself credit for the assets and all the stuff that they had here to get this deal done magic's like if it wasn't for me um creating a complete shit storm and uh and humiliating the franchise and um and bristling at the fact that people thought i wasn't working hard when i wasn't this trade couldn't happen i I don't think he's going to send that one. So let's do, let's use the $27 million number somewhere around there. So generous. So you were doing the middle, right?

Because it's not, let's say it's, I don't know. I don't know if it's going to be that one. Maybe it's a 23. Because I think Woj and Bobby Marks were saying that it was going to be like 23 this week and this stuff.

So I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. All right. So let's just say it's those five players. So you're trying to figure out how to get to like eight or nine. And so I thought like, actually, yeah, just grabbing Kemba doesn't make a ton of sense. Even though I don't like ball-dominant guards,

I think Kemba was ball-dominant because that Hornets roster was brutal. And when you look at some of his, and KOC had this in the piece on the ringer, and it was really smart, was that over the last four years, his spot up shooting from three has been really, really good. So it tells you that he can still make shots, even though he doesn't need the ball the entire time. I personally think if they were going to splurge on the third guy, that guy needs to be a really good two-way player, a la Bosch.

If you're going all offense with that third guy, your team's going to be a train wreck defensively. Kyrie I wouldn't want because I wouldn't want the Kyrie thing. It's really easy to make up with somebody when you're not living with them. Yeah. And this whole thing that he and LeBron are on the same page, I guarantee, I would bet a lot of money that if Kyrie ended up on the Lakers, within a year we'd be hearing the same shit.

Yeah. Like, oh, wait a minute. All the stuff you were unhappy about, you're just going gonna be unhappy about it again because you're back together like everybody can sit there and play nice when you're on opposite coasts i'm with you so now when i started running through all the different players veteran minimum guys other guys like if you were trying to spread out the money mcdonough vich of the pacers he made 10 and a half. How much is he going to cost? It's got to be... How about Paul Millsap? Millsap's a 30 million option. But it's

for Denver side, not Millsap side. They've got to decline. They're declining that. So then what if Millsap's like, I'll come for 12 a year. I want to win a title. I'd probably grab that, right? That's a glue guy. People talk about JJ Redick. He just made 12. Do you pay JJ 10 after what we saw in the playoffs from him and you think like okay that's one of our

fourth guys like what about patrick beverly like is beverly really going to sign for 5 million but you can get a defensive guy so now so i had beverly penciled in as a 10 million dollar guy i don't think that's crazy especially when all these teams have this much so let's say so half the league has a lot of cap space. Let's say Beverly for $10 million a year for three years.

$30 million for three for Patrick Beverly. Let's sign him up. Okay, all right. So let's say you've got $15 million left. Okay. I was reading another thing today,

and again, this stuff's all over the place, but what do you think Danny Green would cost now? He just made $10 million this past year. It looked like things were probably done for him and now you're telling me he's going to make like 15 there's no way i

would spend 15 million on danny green like you can talk about wanting shooters find somebody cheaper i'm not i can't give you 15 i think he's looking at five or six personally five or six million a year so let's let's give them let's how about this beverly and green combined for 16 million a year you think green's gonna be five or six well maybe he takes a pay cut because he wants to keep winning yeah or maybe it's a one year deal he doesn't care right then the cousin stuff if i were boogie cousins i'd wait until everybody signed and go to the worst team and take 20 shots a game that's how i get my value back forget this going to try to win somewhere because it showed look he was hurt no whole thing um

terence ross just made 10 and a half you know what are the morris twins going to sign for that's going to be over 10 million isn't it so i so that's another one that i think happens because the morris is marcus mor Morris is represented by clutch. Now here's part of the problem with this. We're listing a lot of forwards like Millsaps a forward. Both Morris's are forwards. LeBron and Anthony Davis are forwards, but they still need probably a rim. Maybe they don't need a rim protector.

Maybe you just dump the rim protector and Davis has to play center, which he says he's never wanted to play center. He's always done it begrudgingly. What about New no but that's that's the thing it's like nerlands now it's like starting to make some sense he's got a two million dollar player option so they tell him hey opt out of that we'll get you 2.5 here for one year what about trevor ariza ariza's 15 million we thought he was going to be gifted to the lakers before i think he's done okay but if he's done does that mean you still can get a wing out there that can play 60 games south of 30 minutes a game he's 15 million last year that's not what i'm gonna make this year seth curry he's a free agent just made under three you like seth curry so now you're going see i would rather do that in my mind i know i'm going fast here but I'm just throwing out a million names in the numbers. In my mind, I would rather dabble in that Patrick Beverly,

Seth Curry, Danny Green. I'm thinking that way with the extra money. I want to get like five guys. And if I end up with four, fine. But I need to get seven guys. Right now I have three. And Kuz was my third. Sorry, Kuz was not that good.

He's fine. Do they go to Pope and say, hey, we really hooked you up. And you made too much money. So here's what we need you to do. What if they got Marcus Morris, Beverly, Danny Green,

and then somebody they just luck out on like what Portland did last year with Seth Curry, and those are your four. Like Justin Holliday. Pat Connaughton's what? Non-guaranteed? How about Justin Holliday? Kind of like his game.

Well, Collison's gone. Oh, wait a minute. That's Aaron Holliday. My bad. Justin Holliday, the guy who's on Chicago got traded to Memphis? Chicago was a hard team to keep track of this year. The worst case scenario is if they go

$20 million on somebody who's not Kemba Walker but is the next level down. The D'Angelo Russell connection, as if they're going to drop $27 million on that guy in his first year in a new deal after they just gave him away. Did people think the Lakers were getting i was reading never happened i was reading all the different free

agent stuff and there was there was like hey you know where they bring him back i mean i got real dangerous with some of these numbers like austin rivers oh i don't but i don't mind it no that'd be your seventh guy yeah i think that's i think they should be thinking that way. Now, here's the catch. This organization's been a fucking unequivocal train wreck. Train wreck. One of the least competent owners we've had all decade. A front office that last year signed LeBron and then surrounded him with a bunch of bozos. I mean, what did they go? One for seven with all those signings?

Why should I trust them to do the right thing this time? I think they just think like big name star power, which is why I could see them doing like Tobias Harris or all of those type of guys and just trying to lock down one more star and then thinking they can get all these minimum salary guys. I would go the other way. I would try to put a team. I have two awesome guys. Put a team around them. So I would love to say, use that 25 million and then you can use your room exception. Well, they wouldn't have the room exception depending on how this all works out in the timeline of the trade. And then you have the veteran minimum numbers where you're looking at like one and a

half to 2 million million depending on five plus more years in the league i don't trust palenka to be able to fill out the rest of the roster what those guys did last year is laughable it was laughable in the moment everybody there's so many times when the mob can be wrong the mob nailed it like what are they doing yeah and i'm telling right now for all of the stuff we're like lebron's pulling lebron liked rondo he always wanted to play with him you know leBron's always like cousins. I don't really get it. Okay.

But plenty of people obviously like cousins with people freaked out that he went there. LeBron. And I think clutch to some extent. We're watching all those signings last summer going, what the fuck is going on? Well, then magic goes on summer league and explains it. It's like people think the league's about shooting. It's about toughness. He had that whole speech. They wanted to. It's about toughness yeah we had that whole speech they wanted to it's about toughness it's not about shooting that would go in the

tunnel and you're like yeah what after a loss like so well how about this does rondo come back because you have rondo and anthony davis really clicked in new orleans two seasons ago it seemed like rondo and leBron got along. He's always liked Rondo, man. So could you see Rondo come back for like one year, eight million? I personally would rather have Beverly. I'd rather have Beverly. I think Beverly is,

especially on this kind of team, I think they need some junkyard dog guys and he's one of them. I'd rather my guys that are fighters fight the opponent than everyone on my team and the coach. What Rondo did at the end of the year, and then he turns it

out that it's all oh yeah you're right i forgot about that yeah they can't bring him back you go you sit down and then you get pissed at the media for covering and acting like we're the bad guys when it's like no you go out of your way to show up people because you're smarter than everybody else so i don't know why rondo would come back but one more name for the dylan brooks um i got one more name for he's a qualifying offer anyway but i got i do Dylan Brooks. I got one more name for you. He's a qualifying offer anyway, but I got excited. I do like Justin Holiday. One more name for the 22. We mentioned Kemba.

We did not mention Jerebko. Off and on. I didn't even write his name down. I saw it. Off and on. Yeah. Could you get him for 20 a year? Jerebko?

Yeah, 20? Or would he want the full 23? He would just, his agents would go that was not playoff jurepko and regular season jurepko or two different things i don't know what it is about this summer but there's like a lot of randos that i really like this year do you i went through all of the names and i i go but okay but back to the old the whole question marcus. I think Marcus Morris could be a seventh guy in this team and contribute. He might be more than that, dude.

Maybe. He might be their fourth best guy. As it stands right now, and that's why the Vegas thing is a little out of control, but it's the hype. It's the Vegas, the Lakers influence on that whole thing. So just to say blindly, oh, that's the team.

They're the favorite. We haven't even had the draft. We haven't even done free agency. So the whole, the Lakers are the favorite and remain the favorite the whole way through. Can we see how the next few weeks go before we're ready to anoint all that stuff so having gone through this massive exercise bill my answer would be just pay one of the other guys the max money wow yeah you're flipping around i started on your path as and then as i did the exercise i go what's the difference why am i like am i really going to be able to get morris beverly

seth curry and austin rivers for 25 million am i really going to be able to do that or with all this cap space is one of those guys going to end up getting way more money avery bradley's another name but we've watched him enough and then like look he's going to end up probably making more than 10 million in that first year if he does a short deal uh or maybe not i don't know i mean this stuff's always kind of tough with all these teams. I think I'd rather actually go the old school route and max it out and then get ready for Mello. And Dwayne Wade. But seriously.

And Dwayne Wade. Why not both? Wade's here. Wade's like, we can do another DVD. Yeah. Deleted scenes. Yeah. Bonus material.

Instead of a jersey exchange, everyone around the league has to give the jersey back to him in the past year he's like he apologizes I'm sorry it is not ridiculous though to suggest that Mello becomes a veteran minimum guy on this team it's going to be so hard for them to figure out the rest of this roster so your approach makes sense I don't trust Blanket to pull it off and And it's just, I think it's harder to get the right guys. There are a lot of, if this was the Clippers organization, because I think they've been really smart. I really liked a lot of the stuff they've done the last two years. If I had that front office with this, I would feel so much better about the Davis trade and all the picks they've given up.

I just think this is a really high degree of difficulty now. And it's really hard to do this when you just don't have a lot of cap space and you need five guys. That's why I'm glad I got this homework assignment because I think it would have fallen into like, look, eventually I would have looked it all up and all that stuff.

But like really think if you were in charge of this and you get to build out the rest of this roster with these limited funds and you're going to make it fit basketball wise too although you know guys probably eight nine and ten you're going to go look if this guy's got a pulse and can play 30 minutes in any given night he's going to i'm going to give him whatever i can give him but if you're a lakers fan or you're doing lakers broadcast or you're just kind of like oh they'll figure it out it out. They'll just figure it out. You go ahead and try to do it. It's so hard. Same thing with-

To get six, seven deep and go, I love that team. Same thing with, yeah, the Pelicans should move the fourth pick for another good player. It's like, go through all the rosters. Good luck. We just listed all the possibilities.

I think we've hit all the Davis angles. We didn't talk about... He's not a rental, by the way. Oh, I know. We didn't talk about... Some people suggested, well, you know. No, it's ludicrous. Right.

This is done. We didn't talk about, I guess, the whole... Imagine that next summer. He's like, eh, I don't really like it. Yeah. Well, Dwight Howard did it. Yeah, right. Went to the Lakers and then ended up in Houston.

It feels impossible, but. I think we didn't talk about the clutch part of this. Look, I'm just trying to be objective. How about you getting quoted for saying Rich Paul should have been fired in that Sports Illustrated piece? Yeah, I just want to know when I said that. I don't remember you ever saying that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure i remember all the things i've said on a podcast well that'd be a lot because you've done a lot of podcasts i just

first of all but this was recent this was recent because this is when we were talking about in context of anthony davis i think i might have said something in one pod about how this completely backfires would he change agents would you just think like this experience went badly for me i want i want to try somebody else you always always hate it. Is the host be like, I'd never said that. And somebody's like, here you go. You're like,

Oh damn it. I don't know. That was weird. When I read that article, which was great for rich Paul and clutch, uh, it was awesome. He's making moves.

And we made this happen. The problem is he gutted the team of every future asset they had to get this dream scenario in place. So I don't know how that's a good thing. I mean, I guess, congratulations. You did it. You got Anthony Davis out of New Orleans. Yeah, but those guys aren't going to care about.

Well, they got to worry about Anthony Davis for the next 10 years. I'll tell you who doesn't care about the future picks. LeBron James. He doesn't care about. He gives a shit what happens in 2022. Future picks. He didn't give a shit about current picks. Yeah.

You think he cares? He did this to Cleveland. They traded all those first round picks they won the title and he was like great that was awesome but they traded five first round picks in three years basically and they got stuck with tristan thompson's contract and jerry smith's contract kevin loves contract like there was wreckage left behind nobody cares because they won the title and that's the mindset here. If we win the title, nobody will care. My point is they might not win the title and then people will care.

Now, we didn't mention how wide open it is. This is probably, I'm going to go back to 2009, the year after the Lakers won their first title when we went into that next season and I really didn't know who was going to win the title and you could have told me seven, eight, nine teams. You could have told me Orlando. They got Vince Carter heading into that season. Celtics had KG back. The Lakers.

Chicago seemed like they were the team of the future. But nobody knew. Oh, by the way, Joe Kim Noah, minimum deal for Lakers. For Lakers, that would be a good one, yeah. I had him on my list. It just seems up in the air. We've had this five-year Warriors dynasty where they've been the de facto hands-down favorite every year.

We had the four years in Miami where they've been the de facto hands-down favorite every year. 2010 Cleveland was another one that was that last LeBron year. I think that was the last time it's been this in flux where you probably have 10 teams in the league that think they have a chance. Like if I'm Denver and my odds are 15 to one to win the title, I'd be like, what the fuck?

We have cap space to get like one other really good guy. Like we were good last year. We have a top seven guy. But if you go through, I mean, you could argue 10 to 12 teams have a legitimate shot at making the finals this year. Just go through them.

Lakers, Bucks, Clippers, assuming they get Kawhi. Golden State, if they're like a six seed and start getting guys back, it's not like insane. It's semi-insane, but it's not insane. They'll still have the infrastructure. Who knows?

Yeah, you have to define insane one year from now, these teams are in the finals with all the things. It would be a remarkable story for Golden State, but I don't think it's insane. Houston, Philly, Toronto. That's the

Houston thing. For all the, like, let's blow this up. Yeah. Go ahead. Celtics. I love the Nuggets are 20-1. They were 15-1 at Caesars, but that, to me, is like the sleeping giant of these long shot odds. OKC still kind of waiting for the league just to keep coming back

toward them. And then Portland and Utah. That's a lot of teams. And Utah, I keep hearing they're going to keep coming back toward them. And then Portland and Utah. That's a lot of teams. And Utah, I keep hearing they're going to make a run at Russell. And we looked up the Cavs space, and they'd probably have to move a contract before that happens. But I think they're very aware they need the second scorer. And then Portland, I just kind of like their assets because it feels like you don't necessarily need Nurkic and Collins.

And they have some sort of trade to make. They haveer i think is an expiring this year and uh it seems like they can make there's a move for them to make if they wanted it so wide open i like when the league's wide open yeah it's always kind of one of those things where you go you know people who complain about it goes the same thing over and over again and then people get mad there's no dynasties to topple uh a lot of times it's just like hey you just don't like basketball you can just sweet chat yeah you just say that instead like hey there's not enough parody and i love it even better when people spell parody wrong like i don't think this is a sitcom but it's uh it's it'll be the flattest flattest it's ever been at the top but you know let's let's

see how these next few weeks go. I mean, there are things that are going to happen that none of us know about. And this is the reason I bring this up. I don't feel like team, I feel like a lot of teams could sit in a room all day. Like I'm the GM, you're the assistant GM, Kyle's our director of scouting.

Wait a minute, why am I your assistant? No, no, I'm just, I'm doing a whole, I'm doing a fake office. Kyle's our director of scouting. Wait a minute, why am I your assistant? No, no, I'm just, I'm doing a whole, I'm doing a fake office. Kyle's our director of scouting. Carrie, my wife, walks in. She's our majority owner. Like we have like our brain trust. Female ownership, good for the league.

And we're just talking about our team. And at some point, let's say we're running the Celtics and we start talking ourselves into, you know what? Why not us? What if Tatum makes a leap? We bring Horford back. We get some stopgap point guard for some offense defense. Jalen goes up.

Hayward is back. Hayward's back. He's like getting a free agent. Why couldn't we win the East? And I think there's going to be like eight teams that are just wired that way. That are just looking at the landscape going. We're one move away. We could be Toronto this year, not the Kawhi desperation guy.

You know, you're renting them for a year, but just like a move. That's usually the most dangerous thing you can do. Talk yourself into something. You aren't. I 1 million percent agree. If we're just doing this

celtics thing that i'm sure people are shocked it took this long for us to really talk now i don't want to talk about them i don't either but i can't wait to see them without kairi and i'm not saying it's because they're this really good team that was a game a few possessions away we're playing the nba finals that whole thing is overrated like that's like where you actually officially ended game seven of the eastern conference finals to say that that's kind of who you are that's like when the jets made the afc title game two years in a row and you're like are they really this kind of team and then they weren't but they were in that game it's like 2012 celtics when they made almost made the finals yeah right and it was like if derrick rose doesn't get hurt that year they're not in the mix perfect

analogy so thank you when when i think about that Celtics team, I go, oh, I want to see them without them. That's not why I'm saying it. I just want to see those guys without Kyrie. But a team like Utah could say, we have a chance to get D'Angelo Russell. We got to get rid of Favors' contract. It's an expiry.

He's expiring. No, no. He's done done. No, he's got a year left, it said, on the spot track. Oh, that's on spot track? Yeah. Okay, my bad.

But they want to get rid of that. They pay a first rounder to somebody to get rid of the contract and then make a run at somebody like Russell. No, it's non-guaranteed. Oh, so they could make the run at Russell. I was right. We're down a rabbit hole. Either way, if they talk themselves into trying to get somebody like that, with the case being, if we get one more score, we can make the finals.

It's not insane. And the Clippers are like, if we get Kawhi Leonard, and we bring back Beverly, we can make the finals. I don't think any of this stuff. This is why it should be awesome. This is why somebody shouldn't do something stupid. Maybe this is why somebody should do something stupid and like i said before like this lakers thing i'm for it i don't like the price i don't know how palenka allowed it to

get to this point um i'm sure there's a moment where griff is somewhere in new orleans maybe celebrating by himself laughing but even with anthony davis there now like before i'm ready to just cart you know start calling you the favorite, like let's see what else is happening. I agree. And like a team like the Nuggets, let's say they signed Tobias Harris on July 1st, just added him to their team,

which normally I wouldn't like whatever that's going to cost. But for Denver, who they better do it now because they get to re-up Murray. Like, that's the thing I don't like about this league. Like, hey, let's go sign somebody for something we don't necessarily want to do because the scheduling of our rookie contracts

and how they kick in, we have to do it this way. They make it too complicated for people. If I'm Denver, I want a reliable scorer who plays forward. Who's younger, too. I have Jamal Murray who is a, most of the time reliable but not 100%

and I need a third guy that I can count on who can get points that's what I want and maybe play D too if you traded him did you trade him because you knew because Tobias seems to be one of those guys where you're like oh wow you know what he's alright but I know I can do better

I think the Clippers showed that if you actually run plays for him and put him in pick and rolls and stuff, he could actually be a real guy. Or do they get rid of him knowing, well, we're getting Kawhi anyway? Let's take a break because I want to, we have a couple other KD related things to talk about. Let's take a break to talk about Luminary.

If you're a movie and podcast fan, like all of the people involved in this podcast right now, I hope you're checking out The Rewatchables 1999, where we break down some of our favorite movies from 1999. And we've done a whole bunch of good ones, including, man, we did Office Space this month. We've done Cruel Intentions. We did The Sixth Sense.

And this week, The Matrix. Yeah, The Matrix. The Matrix. That's coming this week on The Rewatchables 1999. Luminary gives you access to a bunch of original shows like this one from Innovative Dynamic Creators.

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Terms apply. And we have another good thing coming next month with them too that we have not announced yet. So there you go. Speaking of the rewatchables, the notebook is going to be the next one.'m not involved in that one kyle but the notebook uh is going to be on the uh the rewatch the original rewatchables feed so that's happening too anyway back to the

pot so katie the next my argument is that the nickicks should absolutely sign KD anyway. Agreed. Throw away next year. You take RJ Barrett. You have one more year where you're somewhere in the top seven with a draft pick. And then a summer from now, you have a healthy KD. You have RJ Barrett. You have whoever you're getting in 2020. You have Kevin Knox and space for two max guys.

And you're the New York Knicks. And you're getting Durant back who's a top 15 all-time guy. Well, the second guy is the max slot to go with Durant, you mean, right? I think they would. I think they'd have like 70 million bucks left. If you sign KD for 30

and then you have, I guess the lottery picks that would get you up to 50, but you would still have like $60 million in cap space. Okay, I agree. I would just go ahead and do it. Now, if you're KD, what do you do?

Let's say the Knicks are the only team that says, we'll give you four for the max. We still want to build around you. We'll give you the best doctors, and we just want to make a you. We'll give you the best doctors. And we just want to make a bet that you're our guy. I asked Woj about this on Friday.

And the way I framed the question was, does the injury help Golden State's chances of retaining Durant? And he said, yes. And I agree with him. You do agree with him? I don't know. I don't like doing the percentage stuff. I hate when I go on shows. You're like, give me a percentage. Or a percentage or even better when somebody's hurt be like what percentage do you think so and

so will be at like i don't fucking know i'm not his roommate have you heard that did you hear this stuff going around last week though that it was kairi and kd is the package deal in brooklyn and that's why well there was there was stuff floating around last week. Okay. After KD got hurt, Kyrie was going there, and then KD was going to be the other one. It was Brooklyn, not the Knicks all along. It was like it was Barzini all along in Godfather. It was the Nets all along.

It wasn't, oh, no, he said, Tataglia's a pimp. You never could have outfought Santino. It was Barzini all along. Basically, the Knicks were Tattaglia. And it was KD and Kyrie going to Brooklyn, but then when KD got hurt, Brooklyn's like, well, we're not doing

that now. That was going around last week. Are we idiots for... By the way, donut aggregators. I'm just saying it was going around. I don't know if it's true. I'm not reporting that. The change from that point, because I can add to that a little, that that's when maybe boston

thought they had a hail mary approach with 100 right so then that's why boston was in on ad because it was we're not just signing ad we're not giving up assets for kate for ad we're giving up assets to have kyrie and ad you know and now everybody's going to be happy and like that was always another problem with what Boston did or didn't really offer is that they couldn't strip it down for an Anthony Davis not just because he was a rental because then they would have had in this this upcoming year have to prove to him how great of a team it was and they were successful they could compete and if they got rid of all the pieces around them and it's like hey cool you're in Boston by yourself halftime pizza depends on the time of day right so uh we should just say that kairi ruined their plans now kairi ruined

their plans on like multiple levels kairi kairi demolished something that they spent four to five years building you could however much blame you want to you want to actually give him as a player as a as a person as like the best player in a team as a teammate all that stuff i'm not even talking about that i'm just saying this was a jenga stack you can remove all of those things i'm removing all the baggage i'm just saying i'm just talking about assets only this was a jenga stack that they built for five years leading toward anthony davis yeah and the kairi piece of the Jenga stack that they built for five years leading toward Anthony Davis. Yeah. And the Kyrie piece of the Jenga stack fell out and the building crumbled and the Jenga

game was over. That's how this played out. You're totally right. Okay. So if we add up all of our little pieces here so that it was Durant and Kyrie and they were going to brooklyn so do you agree that that does that seem feasible to you oh it seems totally feasible yeah okay um me too because i felt like boston got re-energized a little bit about the anthony davis thing yes and i think it was because is there more uncertainty about what kairi is going to do and then banking on the

lakers pelicans thing is so ugly we might actually be able to swoop in here. Yeah, right. Now, the AD thing's over, okay? And I don't want to talk about Boston anymore either. Me neither. Let's put Kyrie in Brooklyn. No, no, swing it back to KD. Because what are his options? No, that's what I'm doing.

We're just putting Kyrie in Brooklyn. His options are Clippers, Knicks, Nets, Warriors. The Warriors, if they say to him, here's the five full year, we feel bad, rehab here. Here's the five full year, we feel bad, we told you. Yeah. We told you you were going to be on a minute's limit and then played you 12 out of 14 and a half minutes and your Achilles blew up. Sorry. I have no idea what to expect next year because then if you're signing these guys,

imagine Steph, like look how thin it got in the finals and then you're going to have 60 plus million sitting on the bench. Well, no, it will be the clay extension. So I'm exaggerating a little bit there. And we both think clay's gone back to the Warriors. Yeah.

Yeah. I think the only thing was some posturing about the five-year thing. Because it's kind of like the Kemba deal. Like Kemba already said, hey, I'll take a little bit less. Like when you go to Kemba and you go, hey, that's really good. That's awesome that you made all NBA. Is there any way you can not do five years and $221 million? Because you know what's more than $140?

Four years for $140, Kemba? It's the five years $190 we can give you. So is your ego such that if we don't give you the 5 2 21 you would turn down the extra year but the 50 million when you're 30 years old right so if durant at this point this gets back to something that you were really good on last week is the one-to-one phenomenon like do everyone the one-on-one the one-on-one yeah i shouldn't say it that way the one-on-one contracts is there a version of this where durant goes you know what i'll take that five years i'll take all the extra money and i'll wait this thing out because i gotta wait it out anyway so why would

i sign with a new team just to sign with a new team knowing i gotta wait the whole year anyway why don't i just come here we'll see where we're at in 2020 see where the knicks are at you know what i mean like granted well one one crucial thing has been removed for him which is and i think was one of the things driving him wanting to leave was like he couldn't win with golden state it was like they could win five titles in a row i've been like you sold out you went to you went to this team that was stacked blah blah blah so it was like well well now i'm gonna go here and i'm gonna to go here. And I'm going to title here. The noise mattered.

Yeah, the noise mattered to him. It did. Now he can stay. And it's like, you're a true warrior. You sacrificed your body. We saw what happened when the team didn't have you. They weren't a championship team. It was like Scott Brocious in 98, a real Yankee.

It's not a sellout move for you to stay. Yeah. Now it's actually like a feel good story because you and Clay coming back from injury, Curry's now in his early thirties. There's no shit anymore and everybody loves KD again. So he actually could go back. My question is, the Jay Williams thing I thought was, I said this the other night, was a real red flag that he went that hard at them for how they handled this. That's the exact same thing I said on the other night was a real red flag that he went that hard at them for how they handled this that's the exact same thing I said on my podcast yeah he's I said it solo because he's in the group and that means that that's how they feel if yeah and right yeah because Jay went at

him Jay's like it was mixed I actually heard that part of your part because Woj came back a little bit and was like no you know that Jay's Jay's his own guy and he says look Jay Williams is part of that camp well he can still be his own guy but he's look jay williams is part of that camp well he can still be his own guy but he's also if he were that forceful and basically saying it was misdiagnosed there's a lack of trust blah blah blah blah and he's doing the boardroom with climate and durant as part of an espn thing that he's not that's not coming out of nowhere so i'm i'm with as soon as i heard him kind of go off it would be like when all this shit was going down with me with espn in 2014 if jaylen came out and just very forcefully like attacked espn for nine different things that was clearly like things i had told him and people like whoa that's what that's what

the jay williams thing felt like to me so are you saying you're closer with jaylen than me huh well at that point i probably was now and, I don't know. It's a toss-up. He says hello, by the way. Jay Williams is too close to KD to just come out and attack the Warriors like that. Not attack, but he was right.

I mean, he really felt strongly about what he was saying. Didn't seem like it was coming out of nowhere. Yeah, that's why, you know, we're just sitting here chopping it up, but all the stuff

like he's a real warrior, like all of that could be completely irrelevant as well too so if however 10 chance of warriors keeping him or five percent did it go from five to ten ten to fifteen okay fine is it 50 i don't think it's 50 50 but there's a version of this where i could see where that would happen but i think the j williams stuff was revealing. It did not seem coincidental. How weird would it be if he signed with the Knicks and can't walk until September, October, and he's just coming to the games wearing casual fan clothes? Some off-white.

Giving R.J. Barrett advice. A Gucci. He's like, here's our new free agent he can't walk we did it guys but think how hard it is to get guys in free agency yeah look at all the guys you do it so that's why you do it that's why you should do it i'd still do it if i were brooklyn you know i don't i just think like a year from now i have one of the best seven guys in the league i have to pay a tax and it's not like he has a skill set where you go oh no he's not gonna be able to dribble past everybody anymore he's gonna shoot

the rest of his life yeah he's gonna you know the achilles thing it sucks but follow up on this i'm not i'm not as worried about it i would i would give him the max because i'd go you know what i can spend i could also give 140 million to kemba i give 140 million to Tobias Harris, or I can, you know, pay Durant more. I don't care. Right?

Like when you really start thinking about like, somebody is going to give D'Angelo 27 million. Okay. I'll give Durant 30 to watch games for a year. What if Horford ops out in the Celticsics signed durant to the max can i ask you durant celtics question i thought we were done talking about him sure if three years ago everybody in fucking bean town wanted a parade for coming in second during the hamptons meetings yeah why is it that when durant and everybody thought he was gone why was it that durant there was no chance

he was ever like boston was never ever in the mix. Now, cap space is part of it, but like, why, why wouldn't they figure out some other way to do it? Why is it never brought up if it was so close to happening three years ago? Cause they didn't have the cap space, but ironically, if Kyrie leaves and Horford opts out,

they will have the cap space. Do you think my dad will have some tickets available for people who want to go? He'll be going about five games. Do, uh, let me, let me know if me know if you want to get in on that. Yeah, okay. By partial package. I'm not going to do.

I'm not going to ask. Do you think Kyrie dumped on Boston and Durant? Because we know he did. Tied to this KD question. And a couple of listeners. I didn't want to list all the listeners who mailed this, but it was more than three. If KD didn't play in game five and the Raptors just won the finals in game

five, Katie doesn't blow out his Achilles. Clay Thompson never blows out his, his ACL. Is that now one of the great what ifs of the decade? If Katie says, I'm not going to be ready for game five, but if we can get to a game six on Thursday, that's three more days I might be able to play.

But they lose in game five. So what are you asking me here? You're asking me. I'm saying two injuries happened by him playing in game five the kd injury yeah and then the clay thompson injury and that completely changed the course of history for the warriors maybe this is a limitation i have in my brain doesn't work that way yeah i don't go you're what you don't have the what if gene i don't no i'm not saying that like what if aunt may had died uh that was real it was a What If series from Marvel. You remember that? Oh, yeah. Were you ever a comic book guy? No.

Kyle got it, though. I can't believe Kyle got it. Kyle fucking nailed it. I inferred. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, he doesn't know what I'm talking about. I get it, though. How's that mango? But KD doesn't play Game 5. I just can't blame Clay's injury on KD even though I get how you got to that whole point. I'm not blaming it on KD. I'm blaming it on

if he came back, Clay never gets hurt. Spacetime continuum. I got it. point. I'm not blaming it on KD. I'm blaming it on if he came back, Clay never gets hurt. Spacetime continuum. I got it. Yeah. It's a little sliding doors all through the universe. Yeah. You don't dabble in the what if sliding doors.

No, I like it. When you used to do that what if stuff for Grantland, when you guys did the Chris Paul one. I think this is a great what if. But what would happen? Like Durant would leave, Clay would resign, and they would have both guards

and they'd still be pretty good. And the whole Durant narrative is totally totally different you quit on the team you never came back there's all that shit started too there's like all these fucking doors that open up no i'm down i'm down with all that i feel like i'm letting you down right now have you have you heard have you heard the rumor it's been discussed. I'm not introducing it here in the podcast because it's been floating around that KD had a partial Achilles tear, not a calf muscle injury.

No. You have. I don't think it's true. I do wonder why the ice pack was always so low in the foot. I have studied that and it's never been adequately explained to me. Even when he was greeting people in game three after the game and that was a big thing in the internet day it was like why is the ice pack so low and it's like yeah why is the ice pack so low it's never been

explained okay i did will it ever come out if there was an achilles injury i i saw you know looking at it again when he went down against hou, you're like, why is he pinching the bottom of his Achilles then? Like, why is he pinching that? Why is the ice pack always down there? The other theory that I, I'm not saying that was partial, but the theory being that if it were,

that somebody could have said, hey, it's going to blow anyway at some point. So that was the other piece of the hair. So if it's torn now, partially, it's going to tear completely we have to tear it when we do the surgery why don't you just go ahead and play but then would they all do this whole thing where they're like okay we're gonna lie to everybody and they're all so if you look if that rumor is true that will get out at some point the case

against this is too many people would have had to know it would have come out already yeah i don't think it's true i think he had a very bad calf tear i think he tried to play i think they didn't factor in the whole achilles part of it and it's kind of ugly i'm sure there's some doctor that would agree that if there actually is just the calf tear and rehabbing it and baby and all the different things that you're doing on that leg and around that area that then the achilles becomes more susceptible the whole thing you know what we can stop doing though yeah is everybody saying that i'm not a doctor because i've never once thought that mike greenberg was a doctor because they would have covered that in mike and mike at some point like this is from my friend david hey go like guess who gonna see in biology this is from my friend friend David Nyman. He has a medical theory. Also not a doctor.

My friend David Nyman. He wants to know why KD threw an ice pack on the back of his injured leg after he had played in game five before he came back. Because he was like... This is what he wrote. He warmed up for half an hour pregame, did the whole dance thing in the tunnel, started

playing, played 10 minutes or 8 minutes whatever, got playing, played 10 minutes or eight minutes, whatever, got taken out, sat for two game minutes, which was five to seven real-time minutes with ice on his leg, and then went back out there. He's like, what doctor would think that was a good idea? Why are you freezing your leg and then going back out there? Isn't the whole point to have warm muscles? I don't understand this. I'm not a doctor. i'm not gonna not doctor not a doctor you know let's out not a doctor each other let's have two fucking guys that definitely don't know what they're talking about debated for somebody i wanted to bring up because if somebody can explain the wisdom of icing the injury that

just got warmed up and lathered up and then getting thrown back out there, whether that was a good medical idea. I don't know. If you're the Warriors, what do you do? All right. I'm Joe Lacob. I call you and I ask you. Hey, Joe. I ask you.

Good to see you again. Do we get Max's? Do we get Max's to KD and Clay? I say yes. I would say go ahead and do it. We're the counters. Why shouldn't you, Joe? We throw away next year.

Everybody's paid for it already. All the season ticket money is in. Maybe we get a six seed, seven seed, a heroic Curry season. Curry puts up 32, 33 a game. Maybe Clay comes back by March,il have a fun fun round one and then uh everybody's back a year from now and where the champs are back you guys have this season we're giving it to you we're gonna be back 2020 21 okay but what are the alternatives because you still have a chance to hang on to something that'd be incredibly special and i think we've learned whenever anybody tries to pivot like what san antonio did is not

anything that anybody can just make a blueprint for true the san antonio thing is absurd they they figured it out on the fly like three or four different what almost ended when they traded parker and 11 remember well that was going to be the that that was when they were, that was a reboot. And then they ended up going the other way and the Kauai trade happens and they get this kind of second rebirth. I personally don't think, um, I don't think you could win with just these three guys anymore.

Cause Iguodala is going to be gone too. Remember like he's going to hit a different point in his career. You're also not going to have the money to be able to do an Iguodala type deal again. And you have guys that are going to, you have KD and Curry are going to be in their 30s.

So, and the league is also better. There's just more talent now. It's just going to be harder. Okay, but let me ask you this because this actually plays in perfectly

with the Lakers thing. Yeah. If every GM basically says, let me get as many of the best players as I can get, and I'll worry about the rest of the shit later. That works. If all 30 of them seem to do this,

are they all fucking idiots? Or are we idiots for worrying about guys six or seven when it's impossible to get a top five or a top 10 guy, let alone two to maybe three of them. I guess I just wonder the KD post Achilles. I'm not worried about it. Clay post ACL. Curry age 32.

Clay ACL. Dudes blow out their ACLs all the time. Not even remotely worried. I just don't think they're as safe a bet as they were this season. Are there both shooters? Two years from now? I'm not worried about it. Okay.

Yeah, I'm just going to tell you right now, I'm not. That's fine. I would do whatever I could to bring everybody back. So you agree with me? You don't think Joe Lakob would want to do it? The question is, Draymond's a free agent a year from now. And if you're going to do it, you got to really do it. And that becomes the most expensive basketball team we've ever had. And two of the

guys will be coming off major injuries. And Durant's injury is a really, not a death sentence, but it's certainly something that nobody's come a hundred percent back from. It's really easy to just sit here and pay everybody. But when you start adding up all the numbers and you get north of 300 million with the luxury tax to bring back all four of those guys, that's such uncharted territory. But I don't know. I mean, what is the cutoff point when you spend, you know, to be spoiled in a way, like in the beginning it was rough, right? But this whole thing can make you spoiled. And making you spoiled can sometimes make you look at things that shouldn't get in the way. Whereas it's like, imagine if you owned a team and you were like,

actually a good guy owner, you were sincere about wanting to put a winner out there, but you just had bad luck all the time in the lottery and you've tried different coaches and you've tried different GMs. And you said to that person like, Hey, look, and all these guys are billionaires. All these guys have killed it. Anybody that owns an NBA team right now, the valuation from where they bought into where they're at now is absurd. And it's only going to get better because you've learned more and more, despite people thinking this live rights thing

is finally going to end. It's only going to get stronger. And the NFL is going to prove this in a couple of years. Yes. Because people go through it all. Like if I had a stock portfolio and everybody's stocks were down, except there was this one stock

that used to like return 13% every year, but now it's only returning seven percent every year but everything else is down then that stock is still a really good stock that's still the stock you want and that's what sports are on tv so sports is like it's returning 40 it's yeah like just when people go okay this nba deal's absurd no it's not no it's not actually it was a fucking steal the second half this nba deal is going to be incredible for espn and tnt and whatever this football deal it's going to be absurd and people are going to freak and lament you go look at the top watch things all the time the reason i'm saying all this stuff is that if you are one of these owners that knows how much money you're making just on an appreciation

alone from the franchise on top of all the other great things that you get with real estate and hiding concession like all the stuff these guys can pull that sometimes like i don't even know if we really know what it's all about if you got asked to go hey you're gonna have to spend like double because of the luxury tax to keep this group together but this is a group that gives you a chance to win just because you've won doesn't mean you should be signing off on an opportunity to keep it around that's how i would look at it if i were like up you left out one part he's in in the rich guy capital of the world. And if he's considered to have cheaped out. Oh, yeah.

He's hanging out with all these other billionaires and he's leaving the room. They're like, fucking, if I owned the Warriors, I would have fucking brought those guys back. Like, he's Cheapskate Joe over here. You got to do it just from a testosterone, I'm as rich as all of you guys standpoint. Totally. You can't be the cheap guy who owns the Warriors

no that's actually that might be the best point of the whole thing because I have never heard from anyone and I think I've been pretty good on the Warriors stuff the last few years but I've never heard once from anyone that they have said oh you know what like these guys might

start going cheap on this thing I don't have you heard that have you heard that they you are scared off there's too many rich guys who would buy that team in a second and he cares too much about his standing with in that it's such a great point because imagine like just take it down a level like if you were the rich guy out of your group of friends which you probably are but um and then all of a sudden like you're not picking up the tab at steak dinners or like just stuff starts changing even if things went south for you like most guys would be like i'm gonna keep paying for the steak dinners because i don't want anybody asking any questions. No, I, to me, this is more like big little lies where it's just like all the families just

being rich and competitive and all these Lake up his big Trump card over all these dudes. He's CEOs from every major tech company. We have people who run the biggest hedge funds we have. And they want to come to his party, man. They're coming in. He's deciding.

They're like, Hey Joe, it's whatever the fuck the CEO of Oracle's name is. Hey, I want to get two more people in to come into the Chairman's Club today. Can you get me tickets? Sure, I'd love to. He's in control of all of those interactions. Was Ratner the guy that had the Nets or was that just the whole development thing? The Nets thing always confused me.

It was like Ratner and- I don't know if you wrote it you might have written this but it was this incredible piece about ownership shit it might have been michael lewis no offense but that's good if i confuse you too thank you but it was this whole thing about ownership where you know whenever it's the cba stuff comes up and there's part of me that's like look if these guys take on the debt service and these guys put together the investors and these guys want to pay this kind of price tag on this kind of thing like there has to be some return to the value of hey i'm one of the few people in the world can step up and do this and put this group together yeah but when you start talking about all the hidden

i don't know if it's hidden assets hidden value and what it is but the first guy that i wrote about that that whole nets thing where he's like it's like a piece of art that you don't really know what the price is supposed to be but it's just going to be higher because you get to show it to other people i wrote about that with that's when the clippers that was no is when the clippers were for sale that's when i wrote that piece about this all these rich dudes who all know each other and i'll go to the same conferences and same resorts and all that stuff and sun valley we should go to that one they can all buy giant boats. They can buy giant houses. They can

buy whatever, but the hardest thing to get is a really cool sports team. All of them have figured this out, and this is why they don't become available anymore. Yankees, Knicks, Lakers. The moment the Lakers ever come for sale, that's going to be like a rich guy fist fight.

All of them are on the lakers and that's why when forbes like hey hear about bobby owns the lakers and does these projections i don't know i don't know how do you do a projection in new york in la you know if the chicago bulls ever came up like chicago's got so much this is my case i was on tv that year with the clippers saying it's gonna go to two billion it's gonna happen i'll never forget one of these dudes are gonna fucking they it's an la basketball team they're gonna go for way more than you think i wish i had the clip i should try to find it but i remember i was i was in a hotel it was like national championship game and i was watching fox news and i don't i mean it was just

on and so i'm not like you know i'm afraid to even admit that with the climate today. Incredible. Some shows on that channel suck. And don't cut that Kyle. Some other shows also suck. And there was this anchor on and the Nets had just sold for whatever. Yeah. Prokof ended up buying it from the other guy. And it was an actual anchor on like the Fox News business show. Like you'd think if you were anchoring that show you'd know something i don't

know about about value business yeah and he just did this whole like oh my god for an nba team how some people spend their money and i'm like what a dipshit this guy is like you don't you don't you can't even be bothered to understand this, and yet you're going to make fun of the purchase on a TV show that specializes in business in the United States, and you're on it. The only time it's never worked out for people that bought a sports team is if it's a sport that- Atlanta Hawks? No, it's a sport that doesn't make sense in the city and has never shown that it could succeed. If you're buying the Phoenix Coyotes, odds are that might not work out.

It's hockey in Arizona, and it's never really been successful. And by the way, when I say Atlanta Hawks, I mean because of the owners trying to kill each other while that happened, not the value of the team. Literally. Because that was so nasty. I have a couple quick things, then we get to go.

Dexter in Houston wants to know if the Durant-Clay Thompson injuries have anything to do with the Warriors swerving their Oakland fan base to relocate to the more lucrative San Francisco arena. How much does karma play into it? I ask you this only because I know how much you hate the concept of karma. This guy is saying they dissed Oakland. Karma came around. So karma let them win two titles, but not a third

in a row. Yeah, my response to this Karma thing is like Toronto traded DeMar DeRozan and won the title. I feel like karmically that should have backfired. How great of a job have people down in Toronto like trying to credit DeMar DeRozan for laying... What foundation did you lay? Disappointment?

He laid some eggs in big games. Like, no, this is possible without DeMar DeRozan. What is the trade asset? Okay. Seriously. They were never ever winning the title with him. I think it's nice that his friends have his back. Good trade for the Spurs too.

They got a good basketball player for somebody who didn't want to play for them anymore. But not for unprotected picks. Brian Goins wants to know, how far did Will Hunting's car actually make it? Oh, great question. From Boston to Stanford. You remember Cole Hauser's character said

it was a good engine, it's a good engine. Yeah. That car looked a little flimsy. It's got to go 3,000 miles. Will's never really driven that long. He doesn't think it gets past columbus and then so i guess will would have to like take the train from that point or maybe a greyhound so i went through a big elliot smith phase after that and uh it was late great it was not i i mean i hate the end of the elliot smith thing because

if you listen to the lyrics and read them i mean on a serious note it's really like yeah it's really spooky but i too was not in a great it wasn't a 2002 year but it was remember 97 all my roommates are graduating and i had like a girl staying with me graduation week yeah and so I was just like in bed and I heard all my roommates downstairs clinking glasses and pounding drinks to head off. And like they didn't even knock on my door to be like, hey, because I don't know how they felt because I wasn't graduating on time. And then I had to go run.

I had like this pickup truck with a six inch lift kit and a gator net in the back. And there was a huge dent because I rolled down a hill and hit a boat. And it was a Toyota 88. it was sweet though man standard and i was listening to elliot smith driving through uvm's campus while everyone was graduating it was my class i was supposed to be graduating so i was super bummed out whereas will will hunting he was excited so he was in a better mood so the elliot smith wasn't going to get him as down but how do we know he was listening to elliot smith elliot smith was just the movie soundtrack song i i really doubt will hunting was cranking elliot smith i think he's probably

i think he was listening to boston maybe yes like something a little i think he was old school yeah 70s classic rock. Well, if he was that culture. Bad company, I think. Steve Miller band maybe have been playing a little bit. Well, Steve Miller band for our age, it was a rule. Like somebody just gave you the 74, 78. Yeah.

Like, wait a minute. You guys are drinking beer in a dorm and you're not listening to Steve Miller, 74, 78? Are you guys even from New England? I mean, if he was like really true, like a little Jay Giles would have been in there. Maybe he's just like all the Massachusetts fans. Here's the problem. It doesn't matter how long because Will was going to steal one and get there. You don't think Will Hunting knew how to hotwire a car?

Of course he did. I'm not positive the car gets through DC, especially depends on what time of year he left too. How about this? What if, if that formula was never on the chalkboard and will hunting never solves it that's great uh kelly cap from baltimore wants to know you know it'd be great though is just be a janitor and start showing up at ucla and just try to solve shit see what happens to your life we're at gym corner kelly cat from baltimore sends an email that starts hi mass holes um two questions yeah has rossillo ever caught

someone recording him at the gym yes yes yes okay we hopefully you were working out and not like showering after no nothing like that okay nothing like that i don't get it i mean you know this it's this whole like when i see real famous people like that's like this thing i think is like the best worst case like people know who we are but we don't get into the cool shit you know like yeah maybe we'll get in somewhere but you're it's different to be recognizable and famous yeah right it's just it's just recognizable kelly has one more question most of the cool shit doesn't doesn't seem to come with this level of notoriety what are your thoughts on gym fail videos more specifically crossfit fail videos

okay i'm not going to say anything about crossfit anymore um because here's the deal bill if you're in the gym you're in the gym okay who or any of us to criticize anyone great playing in there all right no i mean that seriously i hate watching gym fail videos so badly like a guy has too many plates on the bench and it falls on his throat i i can't watch it because i always think like one day could be like a tricep i think i might have a torn something in my right elbow right now and everything scares the hell out of me like so i don't i hate watching and i think a lot of these gym gym fuckery is one of the websites 75 of this stuff isn't real anyway the guys are just doing the dumbest stuff ever to post it just to see what would happen.

And sometimes it's funny and that's cool, but I don't like watching gym. I close out as soon as I think it's a bad gym injury or somebody has a bar drop on their head or a squat that goes wrong. I can't watch any of it. I hate it. Do you want to hear my story

about how seeing Good Will Hunting convinced me to end a relationship? Why did I just do gym corner when you had this one teed up? Please. So take us through. Give us a little backstory. So I'm dating this girl. Really cool girl.

Which year? 97, when the movie came out. Okay. But she lived in New York. I was living in Boston. She moved to Chicago. Beantown. I have no money at this point.

It's like the first year of the website that I had and really liked her. But now it's like heading into winter in Chicago. Every time flying. I'll test any man. I'm on those stupid, those stupid, the ticket websites. Yeah. They were so bad back then. Cheapo Air or was it?

No, Cheapo Air is a real one. Flycheap.com. It was like, I don't even, you couldn't even buy the tickets on the websites, but you could kind of see if there were deals and stuff, and then you could call. I don't even remember how we did it back then, but I was always hunting. I paid cash. I had a reservation for a ticket once. I went to the airport and brought cash and bought my ticket that way once.

I had, there was one time, because this was pre-9-11, you could buy a ticket once i went to the airport and brought cash and bought my ticket that way once i had there was one time because this was pre-9-11 you could buy a ticket like an hour before the flight and just go and like bring your stuff on the flight and you know like last second like oh you're gonna get out oh i could leave on friday and then all of a sudden you're at the airport yeah it doesn't work that way anymore obviously um so we're going it's and the last time i'd been there it was like minus 2000 in chicago i mean it was like one of those chicago where it's just like it's so cold you almost can't believe it i was there one time uh new year's a couple years ago and i had a walk from like one hotel to the equinox it was two blocks it was so bad i was laughing yeah but i was laughing because i knew i wouldn't have to deal with it very long but it was just it's just like freezing

out of the side of your eyeballs it's just incredibly cold and so i had this site and i'm and i'm thinking like do i want to move to chicago and i could do like do the site it was jordan's last year and i was like well he might not be here like could i mix like chicago and boston like my site's called the boston sports guy so you liked her that much you're even thinking about this stuff i'm at least like considering it um how long have you been together a few months wow this is quick you seem more reserved. No, listen. I was never really close, but it was like, all right, how long am I going to fly back and forth to see this person who doesn't live near me? And it was obviously like we were going to break up. Yeah.

But I hadn't come to grips with like, all right, this is how it should go. Saw Good Will Hunting. To see about a girl, all that thing. Will gets in the car he fucking goes and i leave the movie i saw it by myself on like a sunday night or something did you have any idea how good it was in cambridge at kendall at the kendall square cambridge theater were you friends with affleck then or no did not know those guys did did remember the improper bostonian when uh when they were on the cover.

And I was like, look at these two local kids. I talked about it with Damon when I did the podcast with him. So see the movie. That Damon podcast was so good. The Affleck stories. I'm driving home. And I'm like, I don't think I would do that. I really did. I was like, this girl's awesome.

To see a bad girl, I just wouldn't do it. At this point in my life, I feel like something good is happening with this column I'm doing. I love living in Boston. At that point, the Patino Celtics, there was some hope there. I don't remember. We might have gotten Pedro already at that point. Is that possible? Yeah.

98 was his first year. Things were getting possible? Yeah. 98 was his first year. Things were getting better. Yeah, 98 was his first year. Things were getting better with the Boston sports scene. I had some friends and my dad was a bot. Reggie Jefferson had a nice little run. I'd never been out of the East Coast. And I'm just like, I just wouldn't go see a better girl here.

And we broke up. Did you tell her it was because of Good Will Hunting? Did not. Did it ever get back to her? My whole thing is, I don't feel bad because she moved to Chicago. Yeah, why should you feel bad? I mean, people break up.

She moved to Chicago and it's like, all right. Well, at that point, it's not looking great anyway, but the See About a Girl thing. So that was it. It was that night after I saw the movie. I don't know that I've, now if you put it in terms of, I need to see about a girl.

And by the way, no guy from Boston would miss a World Series game in 1975. I don't know that I've... Now, if you put it in terms of I need to see about a girl... And by the way, no guy from Boston would miss a World Series game in 1975 for a girl. It's the biggest flaw in the movie. Right. There's absolutely no reason

that would ever happen. And Robin Williams tries to explain it. And Matt Damon's like, you're nuts. Matt Damon is right in that scene. I don't know that I've ever... Even when I proposed to the girl in 02, I didn't even like her that much.

So I'm not quite sure. Like after that, it didn't go like her that much. So I'm not quite sure. Like after that, it didn't go well and the principal told me to leave the premises. I threw on the double Wu-Tang CD. Elliot decided to join us. No, keep going. I punched a guy that night.

I guess I liked her enough to throw on, to bring a ring ring but i think i wanted to win i think i was like i want to win i want i need a w i was like palenka like i don't care the price dignity i love elliot smith i went through but it's it is tough to go through a deep elliot smith phase because you're signing up for you know it's a rough phase it's hard it's like going through a smith's phase there's some phases that are just dark i want to see something division phase bad do you ever get in him no big time speaking of chicago but i'm i don't know what version i'm going to get out of him. So that's... I'll tell you this about doing pods with you, which you've done a few of these.

I've seen you super excited, especially after we did the two Game 7s and Game of Thrones. We did that crazy game the other night. What was that one? Game 5 Toronto. Game 5 Toronto, where it was like, we couldn't wait to get out here. Nothing puts a hop in your step. Just talking about when people are at their lowest points. That should really be the show you host.

You said people come in and talk about it. Yeah. So 2005, my grandfather just died. See, but that's what I'm afraid of is like, if somebody gives me like a really bad story, like my stories are bad. Right. So you want the quality to be there i don't want i don't actually want like a tom rinaldi tearjerker you know i want i want

making fun of yourself at your lowest point i can't wait for kyle's 2013 which we're not going to do tonight but what was it it was 2013 right definitely 2013 were you like 10 no kyle's got a great that that one's it's classic that was like kyle was 3 000 miles away and even i was hearing about kyle's 2013 i was on the radar then yeah it was it was like in 2013 the odds of kyle working for me were like 150 to one uh yeah so the way we'll save that for another episode you're right though i guess i you know what was funny it was always the radio show like the first couple years you go okay let's go over the top recruits in the sec and like okay let's do this and let's do that and then what you didn't realize was the audience always liked this stuff much more i mean they

have to like the host well they're not gonna like us if we don't end this podcast soon so we gotta go yeah i'm done we uh we didn't talk about the nba draft but that's fine you're doing the nba draft you're going back to bristol you're going to be on van peloton sports center i'll be on tuesday and thursday night i'll be on right after the draft i'll be doing an espn pod for the draft um you know each year it's just my favorite thing so um you know, each year it's just my favorite thing. So, um, you know, I, I'd love to be, uh, I don't know, whatever. Somehow we didn't talk about Brooks Koepka who has now become, I just fucking love Brooks Koepka. I bet on him this time.

So I was really invested at him at nine to one and he almost pulled it off, but I just really enjoy him to have the, uh, the run that he's on with the majors right now where he's basically three firsts and two seconds now out of the last six and the fact that he's lingering in the the masters than uso per day where he's lingering sounds like a lakers trade he's not even playing that's true he's not even playing his best golf and he's finishing second he was 60 he was in the 60s every round in this tournament. Going back to that, isn't that five straight rounds in the 60s in the US Open? I watched.

Today, he didn't really even play that well. He left all these strokes at the table and he's still sat at 68. I really enjoy him. I was happy for Garrett from Kansas, who just was pulling shots out of his ass in a good way all day but that was fun i love the u.s open am i i love the u.s open favorite tournament of all of them um but did am i nuts did seem like there was no one there we we talked about my dad and my dad was here we talked about that constantly we were like where is everybody what are they letting 100 people but then there's just random people on the beach who just seem like they uh just could show up and go i i'll also i'll say this like fox

and you know there's there's less shows than espn you know what i mean there's there's a million moving pieces at espn but like when fox does something like they throw on joel klatt the u.s open coverage yeah i think the first thing would be like why are you guys doing this but in a way you're like oh my god that's sick yeah you know i wish although you did that you you called a couple games i wish they had uh an fs1 like alternative broadcast like they were just showing all the same stuff we're seeing on us open but just with like four relatively kind of like what espn's been trying to do with their little watch-along things. Like Rob Stone, Stoner?

When's the last time you talked to Stoner? I talk to him a lot. We've been friends for 25 years. We're neighbors. I don't talk to him. I just feel like I'm so bored of the golf analysis during these tournaments and everybody just in hushed tones talking about, not a good lie. Ryan, that is not a good lie.

He's going to have trouble getting out of there. And guess what? Every time they get out of there, because they're the best golfers in the world. Kind of like a rock and roll broadcast. Is that what you're thinking about? I would just rather have people talking about- A little Nick Swisher on there?

They're doing Gary Woodland, and somebody's like, guys, I'm going through his Wikipedia. Do you realize he's only won three tournaments, and the last one was the Waste Management Open? What the fuck is going on here? Guys, I'm going through his Wikipedia. Do you realize he's only won three tournaments and the last one was the Waste Management Open? What the fuck is going on here? Guys, lights out. Have you ever gone to the Waste Management?

No, I heard it's amazing. Yeah, I went once. When it was Super Bowl week, it's like a frat party for rich, successful people. I'm not saying everybody's going to do that. So Kyle would like it or he wouldn't like it? Kyle would be fine. I fit in somewhere. Kyle would be fine. It's's wild but then it's like some guy with his it's wild

and you're like yeah but that guy's like 40 i'm gonna see him at mastro's later tonight do you think we could start either like a charity donation thing no it would be a charity donation thing for kyle's 2000 to hear kyle's 2013 there might be something there like i'm thinking about a couple of different things that I'm going to pitch to you. Worst year ever? Worst year ever without like, I don't want really bad stuff.

Yeah. Worst year ever has to be making fun of your own bullshit. It's the funny version of Dirty John. Yeah, nothing. I love Dirty John. It i love dirty john with more laughs reading i love fake reviews so much when we were doing so we had kenneth garay uh the colombian guy who does a lot of deport this stuff he's our guy there he's awesome and uh he used to do t-wolves games with felipe lopez they wanted a

spanish broadcast thing yeah i go but kenneth you lived in miami he's like i don't know man and i'd be like what do you mean he goes i don't know and i was like why would they bring you up from miami to minnesota to do t-wolves games he goes it was a total waste of money that's him like i'm doing the impersonation of him so everybody can understand that's how he sounds and uh so we wanted him we started having him on the show all the time he's hilarious so we wanted him voicing over our reviews and yeah and we were just i saw i started writing a bunch of fake ones they're like svp and rossillo they love it in jail and then because i always thought it was great like snl did that one thing where uh was it phil hartman and they had him reading like fake reviews about a play that was a disastrous they're like i don't

even know what was going on people just started getting on stage says newsweek right right and so we had one liner what was like svp and rossillo put it on when you're having sex and so one of the manager goes we're not running that one i go just let's you know you guys are always saying that we don't take enough risks yeah we're like let's throw a little juice in it you know let's do that and the guy's like i don't want to do it i go i don't come back on me it'll be my fault okay and he's like all right fine we ran it hours later principal's office a much higher up suit was like hey uh who's who's i heard your idea for the put it on while we're having sex promo uh like you know this is disney right

like yep my bad you know the lower up suit was an all-time bust throw immediately oh yeah but i i told him i said put it on me if it comes back he's printing out emails yeah yeah what the hell was i talking about oh different pitches yeah but then i like fake reviews i may go away for a long stretch in august and i was thinking about doing a travel blog for you and pitch that oh wow so i'm just gonna keep track of it see if i can become a travel writer if i want to stop doing sports or if i can't become a real writer as a writer i think it would be good. Here's another spec script, travel writer.

All right. So you're coming back next week, post-draft, and we'll bang out all this stuff. Post-draft, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited. I think we have at least

one or two more really weird moves. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you, I guess, Tuesday. All right. Thanks to DAZN. Don't forget to go to

DAZN.com if forget to go to DAZN.com if you like baseball and MMA and boxing and all the other great stuff they have there. Thanks to SimpliSafe. Over 2 million burglars reported every year.

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Go to TheRinger.com to find out more. Until then. On the wayside I'm a bruised son I never was And I don't have To ever be