The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Bam Backlash, Kawhi’s Heater, East vs. West, and SGA vs. Jokic, With Tim Legler

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Tim Legler to discuss how the gap between the NBA conferences has closed significantly due to the talent of the league (4:17). Then, they break down Bam Adebayo’s 83-point game against the Wizards, Kawhi Leonard’s late-season surge, and much more (34:38). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Tim Legler Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Sam’s Club | Join The Club of Yes And #ULTRACourtside could get you closer to the game! https://michelobultra.com/courtside MICHELOB ULTRA® COURTSIDE ’25 to ’26. No Purchase Necessary. Open to US residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1, 2025 and ends on June 30, 2026 Multiple entry periods. See Official Rules at https://michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Sam's Club. We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where we put up a new episode of The Rwatchables on Monday. We did Fargo. We have another one coming next Monday. Third episode of CR Month, it is to live and die in L.A. And we're actually doing two episodes next week

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anniversary. I thought it was a really entertaining piece. And then we did a video thing too. I was in it. A bunch of people are in it. But if you care about the last 20 years of advanced metrics and Sloan Conference, all that stuff, we got Darrell Morris in it. Check it out because I thought it was really good. We've been doing some good stuff there lately. Coming up on this podcast, so I was going to tape something, record. I would say tape, it's record. I was going to record something after the two games tonight at the top here, because it was OKC, Boston, San Antonio, Denver,

but Tatum's not playing for Boston. Wembe's not playing for San Antonio. So we're just going to go with Tim Legler here. Hadn't caught up with legs in a couple weeks. We had to talk about West versus East, BAMs, 83-point game, the Celtics, how they're looking. And then we talked about Kauai and the Clippers and just Kauai in general what's going on with him

and a bunch of other NBA stuff. So this is an all-MBA podcast, very excited about it. We're going to take a break. Pearl Jam. And then our guy, legs. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Sam's Club. It is that time of the year when you just got to get in your car and go somewhere.

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but membership is subject to qualifications. Visit samsclub.com slash yes-end for details. All right, we're recording this before the Thursday night games. It's late afternoon Pacific time. Tim Legler is here. You heard them last night doing a Houston, Denver blowout, and there's a lot of stuff to talk about for us. I'm going to start here, though.

So we catch up like every three, four weeks or so. We try to do like a big theme at the top. John Schumann, who I think has an invaluable NBA.com, Monday column, write some other stuff. He did a piece today about the East versus the West, wondering if the East is caught up to the West. And he wrote that the West has been the dominant conference, basically for the last 27 years.

East has only had a winning record the last three times. Then you think about 16 to the last 25 titles West, and that's not counting, you know, the 99 spurs. 15 of the last 25 MVP's West. The hot number one picks that have gone to the West, Wemby, Flagg, Zion, Anthony Davis, just in the last 15 years. The best run teams, Golden State, Oklahoma City, San Antonio,

maybe Boston, Miami, so three of the five in the West. And then they have most of the good players right now. and yet the balance seems to be shifting. Are you noticing this that the games you're doing? Yeah, for sure. I think the gap has been closed. And I think I'd look at it a couple different ways. So the first way I would try to interpret this question is let's look at the top teams

in terms of viability and likelihood to actually win a title now this year. So when you look at that, clearly you'd have to give an edge to the Western Conference. Top two goes to the West plus Denver. Yeah, I think so. I think you're right. I think the top two, I don't know any Eastern Conference team would be favored in a series

against either Oklahoma City or San Antonio. I don't care who comes out of the east. They're going to be an underdog against either one of those teams. And then you've got Denver sitting there. You're right because they got that next group of four after the top two in the West. You got Lakers, you got Minnesota,

you got Houston, you got Denver. All of them have been inconsistent for different reasons. When I look at those four teams, the one team I look at and go, you know what, I still have a belief that this is going to be a very difficult team to play and could go on a deep run in the postseason. That's Denver of the group because I know how good they were early. Yeah. It was one injury after another all season long. And now they're starting

to get these guys trickling back. Christian Brown's back Aaron Gordon. Peyton Watson is right around the corner. And he's, by the way, as a completely different player that you're injecting back into the mix than he was when, you know, the beginning of the season. So I look at Denver still and I go, there's still enough time with 16 games to go to get all these guys back, figure out your rotation, and put together an impressive close to the season to make you think like,

hey, man, Denver is very much in the mix. So you're right, Denver would be the next team. And then you look at the East. Wait, one thing with Denver right now. They have a top one, top two, top three guy, wherever you want to put Yokage, which is one of the recipes

for winning the title. You need to have one of the best guys in the league. All right, so go to the East. There's no doubt. Then you look at the East, I mean, right now you'd look at Detroit and Boston, to me, is the top two, right? Then you've got the Knicks and Cavs, be the next two, and then you get down and start getting into teams like Toronto, Miami, Orlando and Philly. I love they put Boston in there.

This is, I'm delighted. Hey, look, man, I, it's crazy because, you know, we're doing all these marquee games. Yeah. The slate that they gave us, like with the group that I'm with this year with Mike and Richard, like the group that I'm with most of the time, like, you get that slate of games. You're so excited. I've only had, I think, last night or a couple nights ago, was my second Boston game Sunday. We did Boston Cleveland.

That was my second Boston game of the year. I haven't seen them in like a couple of months. So when you're watching them on TV, you can get a perspective. And I'm a big fan of what they're doing. It's incredible story. And Missoula, to me, I've just been so impressed with his coaching job this year.

But when you see him in person, it's a whole other level of belief in them. And what I saw on Sunday was a couple of things. They're so smart. They're so sharp. They do not make mistakes with their communications defensively at all. Like when you're watching teams and Oklahoma City Team is the gold standard for that the last couple of years, Boston's on that level.

They do not make mistakes on like help and recover situations where two guys are flying at a shooter or somebody fails to rotate on the baseline when it's their turn. They just don't make those mistakes. they don't run back in transition and two guys flare off to the same side of the court when there's only one player there. They communicate those matchups. They just say don't get burned early. When you're that smart, you communicate that well. And then a couple metrics stand out to me, turn over the ball less than any team in the league.

They're not hurting themselves. And they protect the paint better than any team in the league. When you do those two things alone, you've got a great chance. And now on top of it, the way they share it and you're getting Tatum back. I was so impressed with what I saw Sunday because look, the Cavs treated that like a very big game because the Celtics have beaten them twice. You could just tell by the intensity of Kenny Atkinson

like the pregame conversation we had with him. He was like, no, man, we need to show up today because this is, this team's gotten us twice. We've got Mitchell coming back today. Hardin's playing through this. They didn't have Jared Allen and that's a big loss. I don't want to just, you know, just kind of shoot that because he's playing great.

but still Boston dismantled them. Dismantled them. And it was so impressive, Bill, that I'm going, man, Tatum finds that little extra burst that he doesn't have and you wouldn't expect him to have right now. If he gets some of that back in time by the start of the playoffs or by the second round of the playoffs, absolutely would not be surprised if Boston wins the Eastern Conference.

Now, Detroit's been the best team all year. They're not playing as well right now. Boston has closed the gap with them. And then you have New York and Cleveland, I think, a little bit behind both of those teams in the way I view them. So in the top seven, you could argue the top three or the West and then the next four of the East. I like all four of the East teams better than anyone after the three in the West. I don't trust. After the Nuggets, yeah.

I don't try. Minnesota has finally lost my trust. I was holding on, holding on, holding on. I've just given up after these two L.A. games. They're going to have to win me back. And then Lakers, you know, LeBron will come back and they'll go back to what they look like when they just have not been able to figure out Luca LeBron and Reeves together.

They can't do it. When one of them's out, it's a little better. It's the best when it's Luke and Reeves, and we all kind of see it. At some point, basketball doesn't lie. Like, guys play harder.

Things look smoother. The ball kind of falls into place. And I don't know. It is what it is. It's weird to think that LeBron would make a team worse. And I'm not saying as a player, he's worse or anything like that. It's just it's a weird fit.

He's the odd man out. They're better with the other two guys with the ball running through those guys. Yeah, I mean, look, it's one of those things where, like, you know, you're not going to say, I'm not going to say, like, I think it would be lunacy

to sit there and say, oh, they're better without LeBron. I'm not going to say that. LeBron James is too good a player. But there is a vibe to an offense. And you can't just completely ignore the fact that, you know, Luca and Austin have played well together on the court.

They've had another unit where LeBron is out there himself without those guys with a different group of guys. And that group has played really well. So the three of them together, I mean, you just look at the numbers. It hasn't been, I think, what certainly JJ Reddick and the Lakers expected. And now LeBron's out right now. He's going to be coming back and you're going to have to figure this out to best you can as you head into the postseason. I think your point about looking at the top of the east and then these teams in the West.

So we agreed on Oklahoma City, San Antonio, and then Denver being the next team. So that leaves Houston and the Lakers and the Timberwolves. To me, all three of those teams are flawed, but they've had stretches this year of a seven to 10 game stretch where they look really good. And you're like, man, that's a lot of talent. And it's coming together. And then they hit another one of those stretches where they have, like for Houston, they'll have a, they'll blow an 18 point game to lead to the next in the fourth quarter. And they can't run their offense. And you're like, okay, there's their fatal flaw.

can't shoot. You look at the Lakers, some nights, you go defensively, it's just not good enough. It's never going to be good enough. Their offense isn't going to be so good that it overcomes it. That's like their flaw. And then for Minnesota, it's just been, there's nights you watch them. And you're like, wow, man, like I thought they were so much better. And then, you know, you don't watch them for a little bit. Then you pick them up a couple weeks later and you watch a few games and you're like, man, I don't know. Like this team still looks like they could potentially really threaten some. body. So the problem is this. It's the same word with all of those teams. Inconsistency. And even the nuggets, you'd use the same word. It's inconsistent. But I think you still have

faith in what their whole group looks like because you got a taste of it at the start of the year. And you saw a dominant they were before these guys started going out left and right. So I have more faith in them than those other teams. Knicks and Cavs, I kind of know exactly what they are. And look, they're teams that I don't think. is going to be easy to play, but I think if they're squaring off with Detroit and Boston in the second round, I'm going to favor

Detroit and Boston to win those series. Yeah, Minnesota, the defense, I don't know what happened to it this year. Last night against the clippers, I went two weeks ago in person and I thought they played some really good defense against the clips, but the clips also didn't have a point guard. Garland wasn't playing, and they

really took advantage of that. Last night, Garland played, and Minnesota just got their ass kicked. Like, they Couldn't stop Kauai. They're getting beat in fast breaks. You were doing the Denver game, so you didn't see it. But they have nights where they just look like shit. And then Houston, last 30 games, they're 18th in net rating.

They're a terrible three-point shooting team. Like, it feels like they're like minus five to minus seven on three-point shots every night it feels like. So they're trying to make that up. And they're not the same offensive rebounding. I got to be honest. Like, you could talk me into Miami or Charlotte being as dangerous as, as those three teams, as that is that Houston, Minnesota, Lakers group

because at least with Charlotte, we have this pretty big sample size of them being a top five net rating team and they can shoot and they bring things to the table. And then what's happened with Miami, you know, the team, they drive me nuts. I call them the zombie heat. They just, every time you think they're dead,

they climb out of their grave and they start doing this and walking around. Now they're doing it again. You don't want to see those teams in a six. I'd rather see Minnesota than, freaking Miami at this point. And I'm shocked by that. I thought Minnesota was a stealth contender. I said, we were just sitting around the green room last night and we had interviewed the coaches. So we kind of, you know, got that little bit of time to kill and you're just kind of prepping for

the game. You're getting hampered for the game. And I was just looking through some stuff. And I started through a trivia question out to the room. I said, I got a question for you. There are five teams in the NBA right now that have winning streaks of four or greater. And now it's actually five teams with winning streaks five or greater. Yeah. Who are they? And it was like, quickly, you know, my boy Ryan Rucco rattles him off. He takes a lot of pride in these trivia questions, right? He's like, he's like, well, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, I'm like, bang, bang, got two right there.

He's like, oh, Orlando. Orlando's hot. I'm like, yep, there you go. There's three. I said, who are the other two? It was Miami and Atlanta. So I'm going, I'm going, do you understand three of the hottest teams in the NBA right now are in the play-in territory in the eastern conference? Like three, and that's not even counting.

Charlotte, who doesn't have the winning street going right now, but over the course of the last six weeks, you look at their body of work, and it's unbelievably impressive. So you're right. Like, there's a lot going on right now with like that part of the Eastern Conference race. You're not getting as much of that in the West. You kind of know, like, what those top six are going to look like. Phoenix has been an incredible story. They've won three straight without Dylan Brooks and Booker was banged up for a while.

Amazingly, they actually have a shot still to be six. and push one of those teams into the play-in. And that would be, honestly, that would be one of the most shocking stories and also impressive at the same time in the part of Phoenix. But could you imagine if you push like Minnesota or the Nuggets

or the Lakers into the play-in, the Phoenix Suns, especially without Dylan Brooks for a long stretch, the way he's played this year? So your point is well taken about comparing the two conferences. It's still a little heavier at the very top

because of what you have, in the West, but then when you start to look at the totality of then you go like three through whatever, eight, and you look how impressive these teams have been in the Eastern Conference, man, it's no question. The gap has been significantly narrowed. Well, a couple other things with that. So Schumann had this stat that I thought was fun. You take out the Raptors and you take the next one, two, three, next seven teams against the top eight in the West are 45 and 44. So basically everybody bit the Raptors. The Raptors are one and 11. against the top eight in the West.

So they dragged it down. And the Raptors are free falling right now, and I think might get caught by a couple teams. So that's one thing. The other thing is, the East has had really bad luck, and the West hasn't. Janice, Embeddardton,

Tatum, those are four of the best, I don't know, 15 to 20 players in the league. All of them are gone, and the West hasn't had the same kind of injury stuff. And you think, like, If we had just had a completely healthy Yonah season, and we had, I guess maybe we're never

getting another Embed season. But Philly's had between Embed, Maxie's now hurt, George gets suspended. They've had some bad luck. And then if Halliburton was playing, I think Indiana would be a playoff team. So I wonder, like, with all these guys coming back next year, combined with whatever happens with the lottery, which I think, you know, that's going to be a free for all for those top four picks. It might actually flip next year.

We might have OKC in San Antonio at the top. But then I think that the bulk might be in the east. And I don't really have an explanation. Somebody was asking me about this. Like, what's the explanation for this century? Why? And I think some of it is just luck with drafts. Some of it is some of the dumber teams.

I think we're in the east, right? If a team like Charlotte, that's just been really stupid for 20 years. Sacramento can claim the West as the stupid title. But there's a lot of dumb teams in the east. but I just think, and then you've had some East guys go West. That's what I was going to say. When you talked to something like the migration,

like Shaq, you know, shack going west and then like, you know, even in Washington, look what we did with the Sacramento Kings and giving them Chris Weber and, and triggered that one they had where they were contending.

Right. The best five Weber years. Well, I was looking at, if you just look at the best guys this century, most of them are West guys. And it's just like a fucking fluke. Curry,

Duncan, Shaq, Kobe, KD, Joker, Dirk, KG, SGA, Hardin, Kauai, Kid, Russ, Nash, CP3, Luca, A.D., Clay, Dame. It's like, I just listed 25 guys that are like basically all-time West or mostly West. And the East just doesn't have the same West. So maybe it's a play. You know, it's funny, Kawhi, Kawhi's a West guy, but the one year he went east, he just went to the West. And then he just went right back to the West. But basically, that's a lot of West. a West guy that shows you how good the West guys are because he went over there for one year and he won one. And then he just

went back to the Western Conference. So yeah, there's a lot of reasons for it. There's been some of its luck with drafts in terms of where the ping pong balls bounce. Some of it is just improper evaluation of talent for some of the teams in the East that had top picks. I mean, Philadelphia went

through it a number of times alone with what they went through to get those picks and like you got a hit on those and they weren't able to. And even the one guy that they really hit on, Embed, you know, with all the injuries, he's, you know, he's had like half of a career of what he should have had probably.

So there's a lot of reasons for it. It did create. There's no doubt a huge separation in gap. And you could just see it. Like, you would just pull up at any day over the last 10 years. You just pull up the standings on every day. And you start just looking at the teams.

And you'd be down like seven, eight, nine, and you're still looking at quality stuff in the Western Conference, right? like good players, teams that you have to show up every night and play against the beat, and then you tail off pretty quickly in the East. This is a little different now, what the East looks like, particularly if what we're seeing right now out of some of these lower teams, because that's what it really is, man. It's the depth of quality.

That's what we're talking about. And we start to get into the Orlando's and the Miami's and the Charlottes and the Atlanta. Yeah. Like those teams, if those teams can pick it up and like now it's like, wow, man, like you got to show up to beat these guys, then now the conversation really is kind of like one of those like flip a coin type situations between which conference you'd rather have. Although I still think most of, I would say the top talent is still in the Western Conference. We start listing names. If we were going to play the franchises you would rather be for the next seven years,

OKC and San Antonio are one, two in some order levitating over everybody else, right? There's nobody else you would put in that class. I don't think. All the young stars, they have two potentially generational guys as the lead and then picks to even get more guys. So they have to be tough.

The next three I would have are probably Boston, Denver, Indiana, and some order. Because Indiana, if they can, if they can pull off a top four pick in this draft with Halliburton coming back and Zubots and all this stuff. Yeah.

And like some pretty good cap management. the Celtics, all the stuff they've done, and then Denver with Yokej and Murray and some really great supporting guys. I think that would have to be the next three. But then it gets interesting because now you're talking about Charlotte, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, maybe Minnesota, Cleveland, Atlanta,

Lakers, something there. But I think Charlotte and Detroit, when you think like Detroit had, would they lose, 25 games in the world, Charlotte was a mess for 20 straight years. And now they're at least really in the conversation now. Houston might have blown it. You saw them last night.

And, you know, my big question with them is, I wonder if you gave them true serum, would they do that KD trade over again? Probably. I think they would. Okay. Yeah, I think they would. I think they would because I really believe

they looked at themselves internally last year. And look, I know they played, you know, Golden State to a seven game series in the first round, but they looked at themselves and said, this is just not enough offensively. This is not like a modern enough offense. Now, ironically, the Durant's been great for them, but they play really slow. The Van Vleet thing hurt them a lot just in terms of leadership and organization on the floor.

Like the way they have to start possessions and how deep into the clock they get so often in the course of a game. Now, just so happens, they've got some great mid-range players. Shangoon operates in the mid-range. You know, Thompson with his slashing and cutting and getting into the rim. They're a great offensive rebounding team. Like, this is their formula to win. but that's not a modernized offense. But it's better than it was last year

because of the Durant factor. Rich Shepherd has taken a big step forward. So now they have a legitimate shooter on the floor to close games. So I do think they would do it again. But I just think the loss of Van Vleet and not really filling that and doing that by committee, the way that they bring the ball up the floor,

the way they initiate their offense. I'm watching them last night. I've been watching them all year. But when you see it again in person, there's just things you notice a little bit more. Like when I'm looking at that end of the floor when they're on offense and like one eye is going up to that shot clock. And now they've run some action

and now invariably the ball gets thrown back out toward half court with like eight, seven, six. And now they're at 40 feet. And now here we go. Let's try to get something out of this at the end. And now it just so happens. They've got this guy that can end possessions with great shot making. He didn't have it last night.

Durant looked gas to me. I mean, they played the night before. He just didn't have it last night. they had a great defensive game plan against him. So it was an anomaly for Kevin Durant, obviously 11 points. But typically most nights, he can deliver. And it's like, okay, that kind of put a band-aid on that possession. Because Durant hit an incredibly tough shot.

It's just not a formula that's going to win enough. But it's still, I think, better offensively than what they had. So I do think they would do it again. I just, I'm looking at that man, and I'm going, how are they going to beat one of these teams? they're going to have to go up against potentially in the first round. I mean, you could get a three six Houston, Denver. How are they going to have enough offense in a series that get to win four times?

I actually think they would lose to the other three teams. And I agree with where you landed because they didn't know Van Bleet was going to get hurt when they made that trade. If they knew they're going to lose Van Bleet for the year, they're not making the trade. But they didn't know that at the time. And you know what? Something I've been reminded of this season that. I felt strongly about my whole life and it is not the hottest take ever.

Point cards are important. Turns out, turns out we need them. Like you look at the clippers, they finally get Darius Garland in there. They haven't had a point guard all year. They had basically James Harden as the point card for a lot of the year. They trade them for Garland and it's hurt.

They're patching to get. I went to the Minnesota game two weeks ago and Mathurine and Quayor basically bring the ball up and run the offense. Minnesota's pressing them at half court, trying to trap them. Garland has been, like a revelation for them.

And I don't even think he's gotten to where he's going to get to. Like he's just coming back. He's getting his game back. Guess what he's giving them. Fast breaks. Ali oops. Ad lib points where he's driving and somebody cuts and he just fine. And you get an easy layup.

Like there's all these things that come with it. And that's what I don't see from Houston this year. Like everything is like, we are doing this. Shangoon. Here's the ball. Figure it out. You know, and they don't get any fun.

stuff. They don't really get fast breaks. They don't get open threes. Or the threes are open. They're open for a reason. So I just don't see it without. You know, it's, they're like a low volume three point shooting team, which means they clearly don't make a lot either. The percentage is not terrible. Their percentage is like top 10, but on a nightly basis. Yeah, 30 a game. That's the thing. On a nightly basis, their deficit is they're like a minus, you know, a lot of nights. Like, oh, they, they scored, the other team scored 15 more points from the three. They scored 24 more points from the three. That's tough, man. You're talking about a lot of mid-range, free throws, offensive glass.

Like, that's your formula. It has to happen for you. You run into teams that do a good job of, like, keeping you to one shot for the most part. Last night, offensive rebounding was not a factor in that game. Denver did a great job. They're a good defensive rebounding team, not a great offense rebounding team, but they can keep you to one shot. And it was not a factor in the game.

Now, Durant is seeing a wall of three guys all night long. they were so committed to having three guys literally in front of him, walling him up. So now he's got to give it up. And so now you're saying, okay, the only chance we have some of these role playing three-point shooters, let's start with Reed Shepard, who's had a very good year for them and shooting the ball,

just under 40% going into the game. I don't know what he ended up, but at one point he was like one for eight from the three. And they were really good looks. Like those are possessions when the teams are committing that much to Duran or Shingun and that ball swung. Reed Shepard, like, you need him to do that. He's made four in a game a ton of times this year,

and it's amazing how much better they are when he has those nights. So there is a formula against them that you can force certain guys to be open, and you've got a great chance to beat them. Who's the best point card you ever played with? Well, I was a very, very brief time. I was in Utah, so I'd go John Stockton.

And I just missed Jason Kidd in Dallas by a year. He came in the year after I left. Rod Strickland was a great player and a great talent. Played with him, Washington. I played with Tim Hardaway in Golden State. And he was, yeah, he was a great player. I played with him free well, Chris Mullen. I mean, there was a lot of talent on that team.

So I played with some great ones. I'd put all of those guys in that category. Did you ever play with somebody who you were like, wow, this is fucking easy. They're cutting my food for me. I'm just, all I have to do is just stick the fork down and eat it. Like one of those type of point cards? Like the Nash types?

You know, honestly, I'm going to give you a name of an underrated, and I should have mentioned him with this other group. He had a very bizarre injury that curtailed his career at exactly the time he was skyrocketing. And for me, as a guy to eat, this was the guy that fed me more than anything else with what he created. It was Robert Pack. Wow, Robert Pack. Interesting. Remember Robert Pack? Yeah, of course.

It came to Washington. he is he was in the top two i think maybe two or three in the league and assists about midseason fast as shit about fastest shit built like a brick shit house yeah like and you know he was turning the corner and putting so much pressure in early offense and i love to run i would run to those those those trail like wing threes after he did all the work so we had a great thing going most people don't know this like robert pack at that time was in his not late 20s 27 28 be my guess. He's having the career year.

He's going to probably make the All-Star team. And in Washington, we're in Cleveland. It's an off day. We have practice. And this is when like an off day on the road in that era, you're taping and scrimaging. Right. You're not, you don't know what I mean?

You're not walking through stuff. So we're scrimaging, but we had a lot of guys banged up. So we only had nine. So we get an assistant coach, Derek Smith, jumps in practice. We're running some, some scrimaging. And Derek Smith sets a screen on Robert Pack.

And his, basically, his knee, went right into the side of Robert Pax's knee, and it wasn't a knee injury, but it was a nerve injury. He went down in a heap. He basically went back to the room. He iced, and basically by the next day, he could not walk. He couldn't feel his foot.

So he basically missed the rest of the year. And it actually curtailed his entire career. He ended up playing with some other teams over the next few years, and I think he might end up with the nets for a brief run. And it was just like he couldn't really do any of the things he did before. And it was from that injury. But from all the guys I played with that just made it easier for me personally, Robert Pack might be right up there with any of those guys.

Well, maybe a weirdo on the internet will make a nice mixtape of Robert Pack feeding you and you hitting open trees. That'd be great that on YouTube. He was so good, man. And he also had this great energy about him. He walked in. He always had a smile on his face. And he was one of those guys that, like, was levity in the locker room more than heaviness.

Or moodiness or whatever, you know, inconsistent personality types. Like, those guys are tough. He was not like that. He loved to play basketball. And he was a massive talent. So anybody out there, if you're younger and you're listening into this and you're like, Robert Pack, go ahead. Pull up a YouTube video of Robert, Robert Pack at his best. Just be amazed.

Fast as shit. What that guy could do. All right. We're going to take a break. Come back and talk about Bam. the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to by Fandul. Your Friday night, it's just got a lot of louder because

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Bam out of bio, 83 points. More than doubles his career high, which was 41. In the running for a single weirdest and most unexpected NBA achievement of my lifetime, I was trying to think of anything else that was this weird. And I think it would have to, the only thing I could think of

that came close was when the Warriors went 140 and 24, back to back years when they won 67 and 73. Like just that that happened that we thought the 96, 97 Bulls would be this North Star for greatness and regular season. Then Curry and the Warriors were like, yeah, we're going to win 140 games in two years. Like, that was really weird. Thompson and George Gervyns scoring the 73 and 63 in the same day. Last day of the season.

No threes. That was weird. This was fucking crazy because I, like, if we did a draft and we just drafted who would score 83 points, I don't think he would have been one of the first 50 picks. Definitely not. Definitely not. And that's not even some sort of slight against him as a player.

It's just it's the nature of his game. Like you respect the hell out of him for a lot of reasons. And, you know, in certain nights, he can hit you with a 20 to a 30 point game. I think he had one 40 point game in his career. I believe I read the next morning. And so, no, that's what we're saying. It's just not his, it's not the nature of his game to be a voracious shot taker. And a guy that puts up big numbers.

He does a lot of other things to help you win. So 50 might be actually a low number. That number would be a lot higher or the number of guys that you would pick and just go, okay, you know, oh, well, Benedict Mathrin, like that guy could get really hot one night because he's a score. Like all he thinks about it was like scoring and attacking.

That's not really what BAM does. So you're right. It's a really crazy thing. You could have told me like Cam Thomas. You could have told me Pascal Seahak. That's a great one, actually. You could have told me Peyton Pritchard. I probably would have believed it more.

It did make me think because I watched the whole, basically from midway through second quarter on, it did make me think that somebody's going to get 100. I have a bunch of takeaways. My first one is 100 is going to happen because he didn't even make a lot of his threes. And he missed like nine free throws. And there's a replica of what he did in that game

that I think somebody else could do who would just hit more threes. And even like one of the best examples of this was the Kobe, like a couple weeks before he had 81. He had this game against Dallas where he basically had like 61 and three quarters. And he was like 22 for 28 and made all these free throws. And I always felt like if he just stayed in, he probably could have gotten a 90. And I wrote a magazine piece about it.

And then two weeks later, like basically stay in. Go for it if you have the chance. And then two weeks later, he had the 81. But it did that. So my first question is, did this make you think 100 points as possible? no, it didn't. And I'll tell you why. Now, so to even get up in this stratosphere, game can't be competitive. I think you and I would agree on that. Yeah. Like you're not, you can't get a guy going for 75, 80 in a one possession game. Because if that's the case, right, then you got to seriously

question what's going on with the defensive scheme of their opponent, right? So it's got to be a blowout. And I still think, as a coach, a put myself in that spot. If some dude is tuning me up to that extent, and I'm talking way before that guy gets to 65, okay, I'm sorry, but the ball is going to be forced out of his hands. Yeah. It just is. And that's why, you know, you look at to me, the prototypical player that would have to be someone you look at to get it, threes and free throws are a big part of it, but it's also the ability to create your

your own deep shot off the dribble. Yeah. And that's as a part of your game, not like a situation where Bamadabio takes 22 threes in a game. And I don't even know what the most he'd ever taken in the game before that night. But it's obviously a crazy number for Bamadabio. No, I'm talking about guys like Luca and Anthony Edwards. And these guys that take a lot of those type of shots.

And you come out one night and you dip your toe in the water early. And Luca hits five or six threes in the first quarter, which he absolutely could because. Because I always joke that he's the one guy in the league that, like, the very first possession after the tip is a heat check. Yeah. Like, he's the only guy that does that. Like, immediately, let me see how I feel tonight.

Right. So if he comes out and he goes bang, bang, back, back to five, six threes. And he has a 25 or 30 point first quarter, you're thinking, like, man, it could be on tonight. Like, he might go for it. I still think the coach of the other team, the staff of the other team, like, those players, They're just their pride in general. Like, no, they're not going to let this happen.

We are going to make sure. Now, look, he might even have a 15, 20 points second quarter. And now you're at 45, 48 at halftime. I guarantee you that's going to happen at the start of the third quarter. Right. So, you know, this was a team they ran into that's clearly like they're not really trying to win games right now. They're one of those teams that's trying to position themselves for a high pick.

And so the competitive environment on the other side was not really. there. So Bamada Bio kept doing it. And I kept waiting for it to kick in. And they finally tried really late, way too late to try to stop them from getting 81. But it was too late by that point. Most of the teams are not going to allow a guy to get up in, you know, 45, 50 points at halftime without so massive adjustment to start the second half. And now they're just going to have to work way too hard to get themselves to 75, 80 by the end of the third to give themselves a a chance at 100. So I still don't think a hundred's going to fall.

Luca was the guy I thought of that could do it. Because the same thing. You watch Luca the first three minutes of a game and he does kind of do this to see if he has it. You know? I went to a game. That's the thing. The other thing it has to have to have his mentality. So we talk about, like, you have

talking about, you know, the three-point shooting free throws, obviously just the talent overall to get your own shot. But also the mentality, it's almost like what I would call a lack of like, you know, self-consciousness about like, I'm shooting too much. You know what I mean? So you have to have that too. And if you get it going, like to keep going and have teammates that want, hey, man, that's pretty cool. Let's see if we can do something for him. And I still think defenses would not allow it to happen by what they could employ against you just to make sure, even if you give up on winning the game.

Right. We're not going to let this dude. No one's going to do this to our team tonight mentality. That's why I think it would be hard for anybody to get to that level. So I didn't think really we'd see an 80-point game. Well, that's why Bam couldn't make those. Once they really started guarding him on the threes, he's just not that kind of shooter. I think for somebody to do it, I think you'd have to hit 15-3s, and you'd have to go to the line at least like 20 times, right?

So you're getting like two-thirds of the points basically from threes and free throws. So if you get to 66 that way, then you need to make 17-2s to get. get there, which is crazy. But if you're, I wrote, I went back. I went back and I read the column I wrote after Kobe hit 81 because I watched the game. I had somebody call me and I was watching like basically maybe the last half of it. And I watched every, by the way, I watched every play of that game. I just happened to be at home scrolling around and there was no reason to be invested in that

Sunday night. Yeah, it was just a league pass game. I'm just like, oh, Lakers. I like watching Kobe. I'll watch the game. So I actually happened to watch that game live as it was playing out. Right. This one, this one with Bam, I was like, I was actually in Denver.

I was eating dinner at the hotel, sitting at the bar, had a bunch of stuff. I was kind of working, preparing for the game, watching. I can't think, what was the other game that was on? It was a double header that night on one of the networks. Southexperse. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It was Boston, San Antonio.

So I was watching that game. And all of a sudden, you get these text messages coming in. So now I kind of put my phone up, propped up, my iPads on this side, and I'm looking one eye on it. And then basically from the middle of the third quarter on, I kind of just went all in on the heat game. I just watched the rest of it. Yeah. Well, it was funny hearing people talk about the Kobe game because, and I spelled this out in the piece I wrote, you know, that team was built for him to be selfish that year. And he kind of embraced that too.

But they owed him was the only other good offensive player in the team. And at some point, they realized Kobe, go nice. be a ball hog. Like I was comparing him to the guy in Teen Wolf, just like having the ball, stealing it from his own teammates, like joking about like, this is,

our whole offense is this guy, right? And he would take 28, 29 shots a game and 12 free throws. And that's, they decided this is our best chance to win and he embraced it. And there was something kind of, I wrote the phrase inherently selfish.

Because like in the 81 point game, he had two assists, right? He's just out there. thing. But it was also riveting to watch because it's like, this guy's basically, this is like watching a video game, you know, and Toronto was trying to do some stuff and send multiple guys. And he was just solving everything and just killing him like he had done to Dallas a couple weeks before. The hullabaloo after people thought it was, you know, it was pretty split. It was very similar to the band thing. Like this is in basketball. What is this? He chased this near the end.

is this a good thing like his teammates don't even seem that happy about it there was a lot of like that kind of vibe the band thing the teammates were like delighted like they were celebrating

like they won the title they really wanted me get it and I think that's what made it so unusual they were like holy shit like bams does bams have the night of his life this is the best no doubt

and it's that's the thing I know there's a lot of talk the next morning some people really just hated what they watched and they saw it. And I looked at it differently, completely. I looked at it like,

if you're talking about a guy that garners the utmost respect from everybody on his team and everybody on the coaching staff, everybody in the organization, that you're happy for something like this, this crazy night to happen, it's him.

And so all that support behind him. So I'm looking at Spoe, but I've got so much respect for. And I'm going, okay, finds himself in this situation, where I felt like he did have an obligation to the player because this is a one-off night, a historic night.

This guy's got a chance to do something that's only been done a couple of times in the history of the league. He's on pace to do it. It's almost my obligation to help him do it. I was sitting there watching Spel and I'm thinking, gosh, is he hoping that he makes all these free throws? because imagine if, imagine if what was going on.

They were fouling to get the ball back and then the Wizards were fouling other players so that Bam couldn't shoot. So he goes to the line and he's got 81 and he's going to the line for these two free throws. What if he missed both free throws?

And you got a minute to have to go. And now poor Eric Spolstray, they have to keep this up now. At that point, you're all in. You're all in to try to get you past 81, I believe. So I'm looking at Spow going, He doesn't really want to be a part of this environment

with the weirdness of what we're doing right now, like the basketball part. But I also felt like a lot of love and admiration for his player. And he was trying to help his player have a historic night. It's just like the same thing when I say when teams, you know, the year that Golden State won 73 games. And people are talking about, well, you know, take your foot off the gas. And I'm going, man, I don't know.

There's something you can accomplish as a group, the greatest record in history of the league, and you have a chance to do that. I almost feel like there's an obligation to do that to put yourselves in the record books, man, for eternity. And now, though it looks, turns out they didn't win a championship that year and people were pointing at that. I thought there was no correlation there.

I really didn't. But it's this situation here. You have a chance. It's right in front of you. Spolster's going to help him do that. His teammates were going to help him do it. And he was able to get it done, even though it looked a lot different,

like at the end of that game, then certainly Kobe's game. I don't know what Wilts game looked like at the end of that game. So I don't know what that. look like. But that was a strange end of the game. A lot of people had a problem with that. It was very controversial topic. All of these games have that though. They like, I remember when Larry Bird tried to score 60 against the Hawks and they were like trying to foul to get the ball back at the end. Spolster had, I don't know if he saw it, he had a press conference saying.

He's like, I apologize to no one. He was like, look, we had to do it. That's exactly what I would expect him to say. 100%. And I love that. I do. And like I said, he's, for me, he's, you know, He's one of the guys that represents the gold standard in this league for coaching. And a guy that I would pick if I had had any 10 players in the world to coach, whether it was like eight-year-olds or the Olympic team or a foreign team or an NBA team. And I had one month to prepare. Eric Spolster is fine by me if you want to go with him to coach that team. And it might be who I would pick.

So I have so much respect for him. I'm glad he said that. There's one other point I want to make about this that we talk about profile of player that it would take to do something like this. there is another component. Strength and stamina. Yeah, right. Because, okay, so look at the guys we're talking about.

Kobe, maniacal, maniacal with his stamina and his drive. And like, that was adrenaline for him. The competitive adrenaline, you have to have it. You know, you look at a guy like we talked about Luca, strength to do it. Well, I'm saying the physical strength. Not the stamina, though. that many shots and not get worn out.

I don't think Luca would get worn out if you had one of those nights going. But the reason I bring it up is look at a couple other guys. That would be really tough for a guy like Curry. Right. Okay. You'd have to make 23s. And then you're still 40 points short. Where's that coming from?

Okay, we'll give you 10 free throws. Can you still go make 15 other shots with all of the running and the dribbling? And like he's 640s, kind of slightly built. and like it's a lot of contact. Wemby. What about Wemby? Same thing. He'd wear down.

Like that's a lot of physical toll. Like, oh, that guy is built like that. And like the amount of contact he'd be facing all night. Now look, one thing he does have going for him, he could shoot a three whenever he wanted to, even over double teams and get it off. So if you wanted to shoot 30 threes in a game, he could. And no one could really stop that unless you just flat out,

put three guys on to try to deny him the ball. But I think that other component, That's why I got like Hardin would be a good candidate. Like when he was in Houston, because he could make 10, 12, 15, 3s. And he could also get to the line 15, 20 times. Yeah. And make, make some floaters.

And like he has the strength to play that way. And foul the other team out for an entire game. Yeah, he could foul out like the top four singman. So a lot of people are asking me the last two days how I felt about this, because they know I care about the history and stuff. First of all, I love when the guys go for it because ultimately it's a stupid regular season game. And as you said, earlier, when you have a chance to make history, you should go for it. Like, I remember Carmelo took

him out, took himself out of a game when he had like 62. It is like his peak with the Knicks. He took himself out. I forget how many minutes there were. It was like five, six minutes left. I was like, dude, stay in. Like, this is it. This is your one chance when they, every time for the rest of eternity when somebody else is in a situation like this, they show all the names and you could be one of the names. Like, that's, that's cool. Nobody will remember the circumstances. But the biggest thing to me, and this is where people are like, well, that's bastardizing the game what they did at the end, Miami. Like, guess is bastardizing the game. Fucking Washington.

These teams that tank and, you know, trade for guys that are injured or come up like what Utah's doing in Sacramento, like, hey, is there a surgery you need? Because we've, you should get the surgery now while our season's still going on. Like, we have eight teams in the league that are completely bastardizing. every aspect of this season for ticket holders, you know, for competitiveness. We have games where teams win by 40, 45, 50 points. So I'm like, guess what, Washington? There's 30 NBA teams. You're all professional athletes. You're all getting played. Fucking stop the guy. If you don't whine about it, don't the rest of the league can't be like, oh, this is like, these guys are professional athletes. You have a job. Go stop it. He's got 70. Don't let him score anymore.

here's the other point. Let's go back. Let's go to the start of the game. Okay, I understand where the Wizards are out. Yeah, how does man have 30 and a quarter? Bill, not did he, not only did he get 30 and a quarter? Did you notice their starting lineup? Oh, I noticed it.

This is, this is, this is who the, and I'm not knocking these guys, but I'm just saying, no Tyler Hero. No Tyler Hero, no Norman Powell. I'm talking about from a, from a game plan, I understand, even if you're not trying to win, just from a game plan. You're a professional team. It's Bam out of Bayou, Myron Gardner, Pelly Larson, Davian Mitchell, and Yakutonis.

Yeah, maybe Guard Bam. Maybe Bam is the guy that you're looking at on the whiteboard going, you know what? We probably want to run an extra guy at Bam. Right. Because they don't have hero and they don't have Norman Powell primarily. They were giving them wide open threes. It's like this is the only score they have.

first quarter. Right. And even if even if that that played out the way it did and you're going, well, who's expecting Bam to come out and shoot like that early in the game? I got news for you, man. The huddle during the between the first and second quarter, maybe then is a good time to address this. Or I got an idea. How about when he's up to 55 or whatever he had at half time? Maybe at half time, you go, you know what? I think Bam's feeling it. Maybe we should run an extra. guy at bear. Or how about when he's at 65s approaching 70, you finally go, you know what, that's it, line in the sand. He's not getting anymore. But they did it really until it was obvious that he had a legitimate shot at 80 points. Now it was like that's when they started full court, two guys denying him and like all this crazy stuff started playing out. But that should have taken place way before that, way before that. Just from a pride standpoint, look, your team, Washington, they've got 16 wins. Do you also want your team to have that?

Seriously. No, this is such an important point. No, these guys, and we saw this with Philly during the process, you're just teaching, it's like, oh, this is all going to be good because when the draft comes, we're going to top four pick. Everybody you have on your team, you're just putting a stink on. And I was saying this during the process with Philly. Like, you're teaching these guys that losing's okay, skipping games are okay.

you have a coach. I was watching Will Hardy last night. They're playing the Knicks. Utah's beating the Knicks, right? In third quarter, it's like they're trying to lose. And it's like, oh, this would be fun. How are they going to lose? They ended losing by 17.

The Knicks flipped the game, I think, by like 27, 28 points. And they're cutting to Will Hardy and he's just kind of like, you know, it's like, I don't even know if Will Hardy's a good coach. I know that if E. E. May had left the Celtics and Will Hardy wasn't already at Utah, Will Hardy would have been the coach because he was the number one, right? He goes to Utah instead.

Will Hardy can coach and he's one of the really bright young minds in the game. I'm just saying we haven't seen it on them because they're not letting him coach. They haven't just turned him loose and going, hey man, every night go try to win. Right. But I'm confident when that opportunity comes for him,

whether that's in Utah or somewhere else, I hope so. I think he's going to be able to prove that. Because this is three straight years of watching him basically call off the dog when they have a chance to win in February, March, April. But anyway, with Washington, when I watch these teams, I'm like, you know what, we should be trying to embarrass these teams.

It's embarrassing to watch this. It's embarrassing that they're charging full ticket prices for it. And all of these dudes, like, I just don't understand how this helps Washington long term to just be humiliated by Bamada Bio. And I hope it keeps happening because maybe this stuff will change. I don't know. I sounds like you and I are in agreement then. I had, like you, it sounds like.

I had far more problem with what Washington was doing than with what Miami was doing. Far more problem. Yeah. Okay, because that's how I felt. And I was actually a little bit surprised at the volume out there the next day, or even that night, but certainly the next day, this was a talking point everywhere,

of how many people were, like, so upset with, like, what the heat were doing. I have a much bigger problem with what the Wizards did. And I actually totally get where Eric Spolster was coming from the organization. And this is a guy that's revered. and he plays the right way every single night. And he had this crazy start to a game. And they decided to go for it against an opponent that was going to be willing to let that happen.

Right. For the most part. And everyone has, go for it. And everyone has amnesia with everything that's happened in the past. And anytime somebody has chased points or any of this stuff, the game usually degenerates down the stretch like that. So let me ask you this question.

Last one on this for me. So then the other thing that people are talking about was just, like that that full screen. Do you have a problem now with the full screen that says, Wilp, Bam, Kobe, when you put those three numbers up there? Because I just don't understand what people are so upset about that. And there's a lot of people after that because I'm just not, man. It is what it is.

It's the nature of the game. People are going to break records. They're going to put up numbers. Like lists change all the time. And so that was like felt like a lot of people like that was their problem. Because it was Kobe Bryant. No, the Kobe thing, and he was a big Kobe fan. I actually was wondering if he got 81 and he was going to leave and be like,

I'm going to share 81 with Kobe. But he was like, nope, breaking it. For the full screen thing, I like it because years from now, every time we'll see, he'll be like, oh, my God, remember when Bam out of Biola, 83 points? I think it's going to be actually a fun wrinkle. And by the way, this is what makes basketball great. We have these seasons that are too long. Weird shit happens during the.

season. Scott Skyos had 30 assists once. I was in that game. Bill Russell had you, yeah, right, Bill Russell had 55 rebounds in a playoff game, right? I forget George McGinnis had 420 turnovers in a season. Like, there are these great weird numbers that that's part of what makes basketball great in the Bay. Hey, I called, I called the NBA's only 30, 20, 20, 20 game in history last year. I was on the call for that Yolkage game. Now that was a good one. 30, 2020, 20, 20. Never thought I'd ever see. I was just like honored when the game ended that I was a part of that to watch.

I never thought that was possible for a player to do that. That's the high in it. Well, I think the difference with Kobe versus Bam is it's weird to say it. But Kobe was just so good during that stretch that there was a real artistry to at game after game. You felt like, look, they're building this around him being able to maybe score 50 to 70 every night. You just don't know when it's happening. He was weirdly must watch TV, even though the team was like relatively not that happy. I don't think Phil Jackson loved it.

But they won 46 games basically with two offensive players and no bench. And it was just because of what he was doing night after. I voted for him for MVP that year. I thought it was the best thing anyone did that year, even though I didn't really love it as like a basketball fan who loves values like team basketball and shit like that. That was the year that he had that outrageous. It was like a super long streak of 40. point games, right? Was that that year? No, that was earlier. This was the year

he averaged 35 a game this year. So, I don't know. I thought it was fun and it mixed up the season. It was fun to watch people get so bad about it. Get bad about the tanking. Get mad about teams putting out shitty lineups and not knowing how to play defense. I hear you, man. There's a lot of other things you could get upset about right now as opposed to a guy having like an epic night and then maybe, not maybe, definitely sort of bending the end of that game

to try to allow him to get that thing across the finish line to the number he was trying to get to, which was 82 at least. And the guy, but the guys, you know, the guys start to the game, dictate, and he even said it. Like, well, when does you start thinking about like this, you know, you could go for something like this?

He goes, you know, after the first quarter when I had 30, I kind of was thinking like, I could do some special things tonight. You know, the other thing. Yeah, absolutely. The crowd, that Miami crowd, which I've seen good versions of it and bad versions of it,

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I want to talk about Kauai Leonard quick. I have a couple other things for you. Kauai Leonard, they're 29 and 22 when he plays. He's averaging 31 a game in those wins. the Quippers are 27 or 11 in their last 38. During that stretch, he's 30, 30 a game basically, and almost a 50, 40, 90 guy. And he was so good last night against Minnesota. You missed it because you were doing the other game. He just, like, killed Minnesota.

Like, I actually think this is the best I've ever seen him play. So I was like, man, this is a little unusual. He's 34. He has all these knee injury stuff. Like, I wonder how many times somebody has average 28 a game who's been 34 years or older. How many guys do you think have done this? You had to guess.

34 or older? 34 years old or older, 28 a game. Man. Like you think there would be a few guys, right? I'm going to say, I'm going to say five or less. Okay. Michael Jordan wants.

Bernard King. Did you play with Bernard that year? 91 Wizards? 991 volts ago. No. Steph Curry in 2003, LeBron twice,

and Kevin Durant. And all of those guys did it at 34, except for LeBron, the two years, 37 and 38. And it was like, wow,

this is more unusual than I expected. And this is why I think when we talk about titles and age, I don't think we do a good enough job with it because the league

just favors young people, especially in April, May, June, right? You're just better, off having Shea at age 26, 27, then you are having Kevin Durant at age 37. You're better off having Jamal Murray in his mid-20s than you are having Steph Curry in his mid-30s once we get to a certain level. But the Kauai, like, first of all, I never thought he'd be in this position where

it just seemed like he was going to be hurt, not hurt, just back and forth the rest of his career. But then being at this level, almost being a 50, 40-90 guy for two-thirds of this season, I think it's amazing stuff. He's single-handedly saved their season. he is an absolute machine he is as machine like on the nights he's playing well as any player I've ever seen it's so automatic there's there's like zero margin for error on his jump shot because he gets no higher than eight inches above the rim it's like straight it's and it goes straight and it hits the it hits the inside back rim and goes straight down like like he's one of those guys that like and I used to try to do this when I would like give like a

shooting talk or something where like you'd always make a joke like I train the ball to come back to me. Yeah. You're shooting it perfectly. That's what it does. It goes in, hits the rim and with that English comes right back to react. Like he does it in games with two dudes trying to stop him. And it's like so automatic when he gets on these roles.

And I love the fact that Anthony Edwards said what he said about him after the game. Because, you know, he's an older player. It's been a while since like Kauai, like, you know, won that. championship in Toronto. Anthony Edwards is still so young, trying to figure his way. He gave him so much respect after the game and said, man, if this dude did not get hurt, had the injuries he's had, you're talking about one of the all-time great players in the history of this league.

And he was talking about from his experience playing against the guy at this advanced stage, after all the injuries, that's how much respect Anthony Edwards has for like, what a load this guy is to guard, how hard he is to stop, his strength, his balance. it's just, it's too much. The way he dominates in a 15 to 18 feet, man, all night long. Like, that's his wheelhouse. And then he added the three-point shot later in his career. But imagine, Bill, imagine what this guy's career would look like.

If he didn't lose basically, what is it, like about five full seasons to injuries. Right. Zach and I did a deep dive on him. And he's only 34. Yeah, Zach and I did a deep dive on him a couple weeks ago on my Sunday pod. And there's also the weird part where the first four years of his career have no, parallel to what happened next where he's basically like a 12 points

a game score is like a 3-and-D guy and then all of a sudden now it's 2026 and he's got like as as much of a bag as any forward in the league right he's scoring all these different ways if you're just talking about

pure talent and LeBron is that if you're just talking pure talent forwards this century and LeBron's first it's probably him versus KD for that second forward spot, right? Pure talent-wise, if it's like I could have the peak version of either of these guys for one season, who would you want? It's a pretty good argument. Oh, yeah, no. You might want to, you might be 55, 45, 45 toward Kauai that I would lean.

You know, Kauai would get a lot of, and I'm glad you kind of injected him into that conversation with those guys because most people would think that's beyond the realm, but it's not, man. Kauai Leonard is that good. He deserves to be in conversations like that. He's doing it again. year and their team has been really interesting. And they went through the Hardin thing. Norah Powell left and the Hardin comes in and Hardin's gone. And they go out and they get Garland. It's a really nice pickup.

And then Mathrin's been great for them. Mathrin has given them kind of exactly what Mathrim was at his best for Indiana. But they weren't all that frequent those nights. So if they want to get into a best of seven and man, wouldn't that be interesting? If you get Kawhi Leonard and these clippers in a best of seven as a six seat or something. Or seven or eight or eight or whatever. Like imagine playing them with Quiliter? The seventh seed, who would they be playing as the two seed?

San Antonio. The team that booze him, the fans that boo him every time he gets the ball now, eight years later, they boo him every time he gets the ball. I think that series would be awesome. I, first of all, they were six and 21. It's nuts that they're even in the conversation. This is even more nuts because I, you know, I have the Clippers tickets. I have some Clipper fans of my life.

And everybody's like, man, if we had Niederhouser, we'd be able to potentially pull a two seven upset. This kid Niederhouser out of nowhere became important. They're one big short. They're like 15 minutes of a big guy. They basically, they're relying on Brooke Lopez, who's old, way too much. And they can go small ball. John Collins is out now.

He's coming back. But Matherin gave them something that, a phrase that you could not say on your ears of PIN broadcasts, but I can say here on a podcast. he gave them some fuck you he's got he's got some fuck you energy that combined

Chris Dunn has that too John Collins weirdly has that this team is and then Kauai is like nobody even messes with him he's like Clint Eastwood he's over here this team's got it there's a feistyness to them now that I don't think they had before

and in a playoff series where you just have to go four and three I don't know I don't really necessarily want to want to see Kauai now he could get hurt tomorrow who knows No, man. That's the, yeah, no.

And ultimately, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, and they can only get as high as seven. So they could be a seven or eight, because they're not going to be able to get into the six. So you're talking about playing your Oklahoma City or San Antonio in the first round. I'm not thinking the clipper's going to beat either of those teams. But man, would that be compelling and interesting to watch Kauai Leonard go up against those two teams if he's feeling healthy and right?

Because even last year against Denver, like you put up numbers in that series. You know, and his efficiency has always been there. So to watch him take on that challenge where they're, Clippers team that, you know, basically throw out the first third of the season and look at their record the rest of the way, that would be a really interesting first round series for either of those teams. I want that knowing the title so we can find out if Chris Paul got a ring and a playoff share or not.

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Only in theaters March 20th. Get tickets now. Hey, all-MBA. Got a month left now. Yep. Yokeage, SGA, Kade, and Wembe are going to be all NBA guys. I think those are the those are four. That fifth spot,

I got Kauai, I got Anthony Edwards, I got Jalen Edel Brown. I have Luca who's really come on. I think the last like maybe 10 days or so. Maybe even some Donovan Mitchell. Who would be your fifth guy if you're filling out about right now?

I'm giving you. Yokeage SGA, Kade, Wembe. And by the way, you can bump Kade if you want, take two from that next group. Who would you have? No, I wouldn't bump Cade. Cade's in.

To me, Cade's a lock. In for me as well. He's a lock. So that last spot, here's what's interesting. If you'd ask me this question, you know, three weeks ago, with still a lot of uncertainty around Tatum's return, I would have thought Jaylenl Brown had a great chance. And he may still. But as Tatum continues to get his legs and his minutes and, like, has more of an impact

on the game and you know he's not as like kind of deferential offensively as he's been as you would expect him to be to this point you're it's just a natural cannibalism of some of these big knights that jalen brown has had to carry that team and it's weird because it's like right here at the end of the year it's actually going to hurt him a little bit he's absolutely had a season worthy of first team all NBA there is no question about it and if tatum didn't come back I think there's a really good chance he gets that last spot. But now I think there's going to be,

especially like, you know, imagine if they win some games now and like Tatum does like kind of find it and he's got some 25, 30 point games, it feels like it's going to hurt Jalen Brown, even though probably shouldn't. Because they wouldn't be in position to do what we said at the beginning of this broadcast,

which is, A man, this team might be able to get to the finals if Jalen Brown didn't position them to be there with his play by the time Tatum come back, came back. but it is going to hurt him, I think. So that's why I think a guy like Luca, if the Lakers can continue to play better and they put together a 7-8 game winning streak

or something like that with his numbers and leading the league is scoring all that, like Luca's got a really good chance. But I think Jalen Brown, because he plays both ends at a higher level defensively than Luca and what he did with that roster to get them really into the second seed, really with his offense carrying him every night.

He's got such a claim to it, man, but I think the Tatum thing might hurt him here down the stretch. Yeah, I had Jaylen for that last spot for now, and I feel like he's going to get passed for all the reasons you said. But I also, it's weird because he, because we don't have anything that we have to find things to talk about for six months during this season. There was some advanced metrics of like, well, when he's out of the lineup, what about this? And I'm just telling you, like, first of all, they designed that bench unit to come in and be like these crazy defensive pit bulls, right? and they're going against teams benches. And that's one of the reasons the bench stats were so good. That's why Hugo has one of the best on-off ratings in the history of the league.

But with Jaylin, I just thought the durability and the consistency of like put it on my shoulders. I'm showing up night after night. I don't think we value that. I keep saying this on my pods. I don't think we value that enough when we look at this stuff. Just knowing somebody is going to show up night after night when you don't. really have a lot of guys. I don't think you can put a price on that. I completely agree, man, toughness and, like, just competitive professionalism is a skill. Yeah. And not too often we call

those kind of things intangibles. It's a skill, man. And Jalen Brown has it. And, you know, I was having this conversation with somebody a couple days ago. We're like, the Tateham thing, like, you think any part of Jalen Brown like a little bit just, you know, from. from a player who's had this kind of a year just a little bit, you know, not bothered. He wants to win and Tate him does a better chance to do it. But the same time, I was like, man, that was really fun, like to show you what a cable of. And I said, you know what? Actually, I don't think so because here's the bottom line.

He rang the bell when he was given the opportunity. He basically showed everybody what his true ceiling is as like the top guy, the alpha, the top of the food chain. on a team. He showed you what he's capable doing. He dialed his scoring average up to basically 30 points a game with the same level defense, career highs across the board

in a lot of different categories. You know, guys that were role players primarily elevated to higher roles to try to give him supplemental offense. They all did it. But if he doesn't play the way he did, they're not anywhere near the second seed. So I think some part, my point being, some part of him

probably feels incredible I got the opportunity. Look what I am. And so now, yeah, he's going to have to give up some of that when Tatum starts to really find his game. Ultimately, it might lead to them billing in the finals and winning a championship again. But so he'll take that because I think now he proved to people, like if he averaged 23 a game and shot 43% and they had eight less wins, like people would view him like, yeah, he's a really nice number two. what he wanted to prove to people was, no, man, this is what I can look like as a number one. And that's why I think mentally there's got to be a security about Tatum coming back

because of what he was able to do while he was out and the validation that he was able to muster. I'm glad you put it that way. I obviously agree. He proved whatever, the one thing that he probably felt like he had to prove to everybody over the course of his career was I actually did sacrifice the last few years. I didn't get enough credit for it, right? I just showed you what I could do if I'm the number one guy. I think what really struck me, like these last six, seven days is how happy everybody,

including Jalen was for Tatum. Because this wasn't one of the, you know, and obviously that goes without saying to some degree, but he was with the team all the time. Like sometimes when you'd have like Kauai and some of these other guys, when they're rehabbing, they're just gone, right? They're like, nobody even sees them and they're not really around or they want to rehab on their own, then they'll pop in and out. Tatum went on every road trip.

He was on the bench, like, rooting for everybody and just was stayed part of the team. And they knew how much time he had put in to get back to where he got back. And I think, I think Jalen, it probably brought those guys closer would be my guess. Like, Jalen held the forefront now they're back. You did that Cleveland game on Sunday, watching them kind of still trying to figure out how to integrate Tatum back in. And Jalen had that incredible third quarter. When I was like, okay, I'm going to take over for these five minutes here.

And he's just going to be better at that now because he has the reps. So I think ultimately it was great for both of them. And look, there's a great, I mean, there's a great, great cast to choose from for first team all league. And I mean, all the guys you listed, man, like they can make a claim. I think the guy that's got the greatest argument of that group is Jalen Brown. based on what they were missing. And it wasn't just Tatum. It's like they reinvented their team to a certain extent.

Right. To hold the fort. Right. And just not just like keep us, you know, floating at 500 and hope that Tatum can help, you know, us as a sixth seed run through the Eastern Conference. Man, they position themselves to play two home rounds in the postseason as Tatum starts a round into form. and that's because of what Jalen Brown was able to do offensively.

So I have so much respect for the guy anyway, but I just have a new, a completely newfound respect for like what this guy ultimately represents every night because I've always loved his competitiveness, how hard he defends the challenge. He takes it seriously every night and they don't shy away for putting him on top guys. They don't worry about keeping out of foul trouble,

any of that stuff. He takes on the challenge. And now the question was, can he dial it up to like, 30 because that's a totally different level of responsibility every night in this league. And he did it. Well, it's a little easier for him now too because the Tatum gravity that can pull gravity is the new word of the year this year.

But it's just a little different when you have Tatum on that side, able to punish small guys. I felt bad for Jaylen on Tuesday night because, you know, I watched the entire Celtics season. Jalen had it going in that Spurs game and got kicked out. really, you know, as usual, wasn't getting calls, got shoved out of bounds, got mad, got thrown out by the

ref who didn't even make the call. And the shame of it was, like, you talk about missed opportunities with the league this year, that had a chance to be one of the best games of the season. Right? The Southex are like, they're resting Tatum, the OKC game.

They're ready to throw haymakers at the Spurs. Wembe, their strategy was let Wembe shoot threes, which he made over and over again, but it was really competitive, feisty, you had the Harper brothers, both in there. and Jalen was great. And I think he had seven assists when he got kicked out. But I felt like that was going to be a real statement game for him.

And the rug got pulled out, unfortunately. I felt bad for him too. And I talked about it a lot yesterday, you know, how that all played out. And it was just so unfortunate because of what that game represented. I mean, you potentially, I mean, you know, I think if I had to lay money on it today, I would say Oklahoma City gets to the final. But we just talked about San Antonio's chances. Yeah.

They're right there. So potentially, that's an NBA finals preview, potentially. And you got Tatum back for the game. Spurs have been incredible. Like, let's go, man. And it was a close game. It's like, you got everything you could ask for. You're winding down toward halftime.

And then that happens. And it just changed the entire second half of the game. It's just, yeah, just from a pure viewership standpoint. And like fans wanting to watch two great teams. that you have so much respect for their way they play too. And, and like everybody's there too. Like we got every,

all the major components are played. Man, this is going to be great. And it was living up to it to that point in the game. And then boom, that happens. So I felt bad for them too. Maybe we'll get again.

We don't need to talk about San Antonio ceiling because people see what it is now. I asked Zach on, we're trying to figure out on Sunday who Harper, who I just infatuated by, but this weird game he has where, how he uses his body and the post-ups and the slithery stuff on the baseline. I was like, what guard was like this? And the only guy I could really think of was Jason Kidd, how he would

do some weird back to the basket and mismatch stuff and was physical. And, you know, he's, Harper, five years from now, is going to be 15 pounds heavier. He has this footwork, slither stuff already, but he's also going to be bigger and more physical. And I just, I don't remember a guard quite like him. Plus, he's left-handed on top of everything else. Do you remember anybody that reminded you of him? No, I like the comparison a kid with the only exception being this. Because I like that when you

talk about like the physicality of their game, the strength of their game, like the way that they could like manipulate, read leverage. Like when they get a guy in their back, they can read leverage and know which way to spin and they never make mistakes. Every time the guy leaves one way, they're going the other direction. The only difference is

like kid was doing a lot of that two steps ahead mentally knowing he was going to make a play for somebody on the tail end of it. Whereas Harper wants to score. Right. Like Harper is getting you in that spot. He's going to score.

I am so impressed with him. By the way, another guy, and they remind me of each other in a lot of ways as AJ Mitchell because they're both kind of similarly built. They're left-handed. They're very hungry as scorers. And OKC just got him back. And he was incredible in that game on Sunday against Denver. I mean, he acted like he hadn't been out at all.

He's been out forever. comes back in, immediately picks up where he left off. Two really, to me, top shelf lead guards. Don't know when they're going to get their own team, where it is 35 minutes a night and I got the ball because obviously that's going to be tough on OKC when you got SGA and Jalen Williams. And then you look at the young guards with Castle and Deere and Fox and San Antonio.

So I don't know when if it's going to be with the organizations they're with now. but at some point both of those guys are going to be guys that are playing 33, 34 minutes a night on really good teams and they're at the starting point guard and they're doing some serious work in that role whenever that's going to happen. That's how much respect I have for both of them.

Yeah, Harper's inevitable. AJ Mitchell sounds like GM Tim Legler taking over like the Pelicans or somebody would be like we're going after Mitchell. I'm telling you, man. We're getting them. Yes, I'm telling you right now. I think he's got it in.

Now look, I don't know whether it's, you know, his ascension here happened a little bit later. He's older, a little bit older. So it's a little bit of a different path for him, right? But it doesn't matter. He's still young, and it's happening now. And he opened up everybody's eyes in that organization with what happened this year. And everybody around the league, really.

So then everybody I've talked to kind of has the same opinion on him. Yeah, I like that. This dude can flat out go. And he's not phased by big moments. And so that's why, yeah, I just can't wait to see. But you're right. No, there's no doubt about Harper at all. Like, he's going to be a star.

I don't know if Mitchell will be a star, but I think he can be a lead guard on a good team in this league and put up good numbers. Harper is an Ombia guy at some point and it's like he will make an Ombia team. Probably multiple. By the way, man, I think Castle

has a chance to do that if he ever really solves the shooting thing. He's better. But, you know, I'm talking about at some point, that means can you shoot a three off the dribble a few times a night? Because that's what guards on that level do and shoot it at a clip that at least gets north of 36%, 38%, like get up in that

range with his defense and the way he physically attacks the rim, I think Castle is another one of those guys. Like, there's no telling how good this guy could be in two or three years. Well, you're betting on a psycho competitor to fill in holes in his game over the next three years, which he's going to do, right? So stuff he can't do yet. Yeah. By the time he's 26, so he'll be able to do it.

The league's in really good shape with some with these young guys. They have two drafts in a row. I know you're too busy with the NBA to follow college, but there's some crazy guy, not even beyond the top four. There's some crazy scores in this draft and all kinds of things coming. So it's pretty fun. Last question.

Did the SGA Yokech game and SGA basically turning into Kobe in the Kobe, Michael, basically just summoning the spirit of those guys down the stretch and hitting these FU-3s? Did that change your yokech is the best player in the last part in the league at all? Yeah, listen, yes. I think that, you know, Yokic to me was clearly that label. There's no doubt now.

It's this, it's, you know, you can lean towards Shea. I have no problem with it. It's certainly a much better debate. I don't have any problem with people that want to say, Shea Gilgis Alexander is the best player in the league. The stuff he's doing with those type of shots at the end of games, like how difficult those shots are and he doesn't go going both directions, by the way. Like, that's, most guys have their favorite direction they have to get to if they

they're going to take a deep stepback shot. He can go either direction equally. He's a very good defender. It's impossible to keep this guy out of the lane. He's about as automatic as it comes in the mid-range. 55%. That's where you get into those efficiency levels that are just, like, ridiculous for a guard that takes a lot of contested shots.

No, man, he's, listen, I got no problem. Anybody wants to say, Shegilder's out of Exeter's best player in the NBA. I'm not going to fight you hard on that. I think it's an absolute legitimate debate and it's 100% subjective. Just come with a good argument, come with your criteria, state your case. You're not going to be wrong if that's your opinion. He's definitely moved into a 1A, 1B situation for me.

And I think the question is, which position do you value more? Like it hits that. Like most of the time, the last 15 years, Perimeter guys have been the ones that have been driving titles, right? Where you have every once in a while you have the honest title. or the Yokage title. But for the most part, it's guys that have the ball, guys who are 25, 30 feet from the basket who are then trying to create something.

And that's been the best asset to have. That was why in the Luka draft, I was going nuts because I was like, I can't, how does somebody take eight and over Luka when we have already established this decade that the thing you would want the most is an elite perimeter guy? This is the number one thing you need.

But Yokage is so good. It's almost like he's a perimeter guy, as a center. I don't know. It's a great argument to have. I thought that game, that game was like out of like the late 80s with some of the games we would watch with MJ versus Bird, MJ versus Magic, Isaiah versus Matt. Like that's what it reminded me of. Just like two great guys at the peak of their powers, just trying to beat each other. And I don't know, I don't know where that goes in the playoffs of Denver's healthy. It's going to be amazing. That's as good as this league has to offer what you watched in that game. Let me just, just, you know, how tight it was.

the level of shot making, the talent, the way the two teams play and how much you respect the way that they play, that's just fun. And then on top of those guys delivering when they had to deliver. Right. Big shots, big hard shots. SGA's last shot, kind of pushed off, but I didn't mind it.

But that step back from going to his right, which is a harder shot for a writing. Way harder. Last last question. Are you happy with the commander's off season? So I feel pretty good about what we've done. But at the same time, this renewed cynicism kicked in that I had shed. I had shed all of the cynicism because of how much faith I had in.

Adam Peters coming in and changing the head coach, the coordinators. Obviously, you know, you get your franchise quarterback. I had shed it. You know what? all of that stuff that I've been carrying around for 25 years. Like, it's gone. It's kind of crept back into my psyche just because of how bad it was last year. And they're going to chalk it up mostly to injuries.

It was a lot more than that, a lot more than that. I was scarred by what I watched last year. How do you go to NFC championship game and then win five games and lose eight in a row? And a lot of those weren't competitive. Like, that shouldn't be the drop off no matter how many guys can hurt. you should have that drop off. You should at least be in the mix, in the fight 8 and 8, but hey, man, we fight every night

because we're a winning organization now. We reverted. So I'm going to sell you, I like the names. I like what on paper it looks like it's adding. I'm cynical that it's actually going to work out that way. Just where I'm at right now. Have you studied the NFL draft because you have the seventh pick? No, I haven't gotten that far yet because of the NBA season,

but I will have that buttoned up. Because there's a chance. Like McShay for us thinks love is the best player in the draft, the running back. There's a chance he could go to seven. They spent all the money they just spent went into their defense. Yeah. So that's been that it should be.

It was just laughable, how bad their defense was that year. That's where the money's been spent. So now the talk is they're going to turn the first round that a draft into an offensive pick. And that would be the position. We only have one running back right now really. you know, Cross Camarro, it's a really good player.

But that's like the only running back we have. So other guys have signed with other teams. Eckler probably done. So like, we don't have any other running back. So I think that probably

is the position that they're going to target. And that is the name that looks like it's going to be there when they make that pick. Would be pretty exciting. Get a healthy Daniels. Get love. Some skill guys.

All right, Lex. I'll see you in a couple weeks before. So it's what, yeah, we'll do one more right before the playoffs. And then you'll be on Zach's pod once. But I've been enjoyed hearing you on the game.

Say how to say out of the rev, Mike Breen, say out of Rucco, say out of RJ. Thanks for coming on. Always good to see you. Anytime, Bill. We'll talk to a couple weeks. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Legs. Thanks to Gahon, Eduardo.

As always, don't forget, I am going to be on live on Netflix, 4 o'clock PT right after March Madness. So stay tuned for that. Have a great weekend. I will see you on Sunday. 21 plus in president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in president DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Optin required. Rewards are non-witrable restrictions apply, including bonus and token expiration, leg requirements

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