The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Celtics' Collapse, LeBron's Next Move, and Adam Silver's Concerns, With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to talk about the Boston Celtics' downhill tumble and how we got here after penciling them in for the Finals last summer, the Lakers-LeBron soap opera, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver's concerns for the new generation of players. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast and the Ringer Podcast Network brought to you as always by ZipRecruiter. You know what's smart? Talking for an hour with Adam Silver. I think the smartest person I know. I did that at the Sloan Conference in Boston on Friday. Still trying to figure out how to run this as a podcast. I got to convince the NBA to do it. Man, that dude is smart. You know what else is smart? Go to zipcruiter.com slash BS to hire the right people for your business. Their technology identifies people with the right skills for your job. Actively invite some to apply. Get qualified candidates fast. Try ZipCruiter for free at zipcruiter.com slash BS. ZipCruiter is the smartest way to hire.

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Oh, Kevin O'Crisis wrote about what's really the matter with the Celtics. That happened. Ben Lindberg and Rob Arthur got their hands on 73,000 never-before-seen MLB scouting reports. That also happened. There's a Trey Young celebration happening on the ringer.

You can read that as well. Justin Charity wrote about Amazon ditched in New York, but how the big Apple isn't giving up so easily. Uh, a lot of good stuff. Oh, the Yankees, Zach Graham. He wrote about them. Why didn't they get any free agents? I don't know. He's going to tell us.

Check all that stuff out on TheRinger.com. Check out The Ringer Podcast Network as well, where we had our greatest month in January. 42 million downloads. Jesus. You guys like podcasts. Coming up, we're going to talk to Ryan Rosillo about our weekly NBA chat,

including a lot of Boston Celtics stuff, because I was just in Boston for a couple of days and actually went to the game on Wednesday and talked to a lot of people. I was at the Sloan Conference and have a lot of thoughts on not only the Celtics, but stuff that Adam Silver and I talked about, Future League. Kyle, did you get any good suggestions for a title for the Me and Rosillo podcast? Yeah, I got some good ones. Any classics? I really like the Sunday Night R&B.

It seems a little gimmicky. Sunday Night R&B? Yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Everybody wants to talk about mass holes and stuff. That doesn't even sound right. I was thinking about, because we both bartended at some point in our life,

calling it the double shift. I like that. I thought that might work. Yeah. I don't know. We can talk to her still about it. That's all coming up. But first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, on the line right now,

fresh off a dramatic appearance on Jalen and Jacoby. Ryan Rosillo, we do this every week. We still do not have a name for it. Kyle has some names that he wrote down. He mentioned a couple of them right before we started. But at some point, we're naming this. How are you, Ryan Rosillo? I'm good.

Back at the hotel in New York. So a couple days here. Get up tomorrow with your man Jalen. Get up. A lot of you and Jalen. I'm jealous. Yeah, it's good. Stay off my corner.

Yeah, I know. I feel like if I start doing something else where it's like I watch a Gannibal podcast with a different company. Hey, real quick. Yeah. I saw a couple suggestions. Basketball was pretty strong. Basketball?

Yeah. What does that mean? Massachusetts. So like the basketball hour. Oh, basketball. That's pretty good. It is. You're an established Celtics homer.

Everybody thinks I am. They don't really realize how little I care sometimes. But I don't know. I mean, it may play to the branding. Everybody thinks it's a Celtics pod anyway I was saying I thought the double shift could work

because we both bartended called the double shift that's good it's like a double shift that's good the double shift in it that'd be a better

bartending analogy yeah if you can come up with one anyone listening just tweet it Kyle at Tom Shady 300

send them all of them basketball's pretty good but you're not from Massachusetts so that's weird Just tweet at Kyle at TomShady300. Send him all of them. Basketball's pretty good, but you're not from Massachusetts, so that's weird. No, you thought I was from New Hampshire. I don't know. We talked about it 20 years ago. I knew you were somewhere in New England. I had a one in seven chance of guessing.

I wasn't born there, but I mean, I grew up there. My family's from there now. So it's been like 30 years. We were both there last week. And I hate to start this podcast with the Celtics, but I feel like we have to. You have to. It is one of the most fascinating and stunning and just shocking stories that I can remember, not just with Boston sports, but in basketball. You have this franchise that I would say as late as September, October, if we're doing a draft pick of which NBA team situation would you want? I think the Celtics would have been the prohibitive first pick. Maybe Milwaukee and Giannis would have been the only other contender,

but I think they would have been the first pick. If you could just steal anyone's franchise situation heading for the next five to 10 years, who would you want to be? People would pick the Celtics. You have young assets. You've almost just made the finals without Kyrie and Hayward. Now they're coming back.

You have all these draft picks. Man, everything is coming up roses. And then we get to last week with the Sloan Conference there. So you have just a ton of NBA people there. Celtics have three home games, Monday, Wednesday, or Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, and they end up losing two of them, which isn't a surprise to anyone who follows this team. But the thing that shocked me, talking to just everybody, is everything is in play now for this summer, where before it's like, oh, they're going to get AD, really go for it. Or they might not get AD, but they're still in good shape. There's now a scenario where they're just rebooting this summer,

where Kyrie leaves, Horford opts out, and we're just starting this over. It's 2015 again. I'm in disbelief. What is your take on the reboot scenario, which is now an actual scenario for the Celtics team? There's so many different scenarios here, you know? So I want to try to not do them all at once. So if you're just asking me that, the reboot thing,

I think they got to get Kyrie away from this. And I do think that it'll be a blessing in disguise down the road. And I know people are going to listen to me like, oh, it's just because you guys don't like him now. No, no, no. Because I never really quite knew what Kyrie was going to be on his own team as a leader anyway. Like my instincts two years ago

when he wanted out of Cleveland was that great. So he's going to lead the league in scoring and win like 30 to 35 games. And then because it was Boston and it was Stevens and it's Ainge and it's just a good franchise despite the disappointment this year,

you kind of thought like, okay, maybe he's capable of something else. And with his knee injuries at this age, I think not having to pay him what you're going to have to pay him may hurt and hate losing the asset for nothing. But I think it's going to be something that's going to end up being a positive for the franchise. That's just how I feel about it today. Maybe I'm too caught up in the fact that he can't seem to get it right.

And he wants to be a leader. And he's literally, he's just not wired that way because I don't think the other guys respect him. And this isn't all all on him either because there's a lot of guys individually I've been pretty disappointed with but if the 80 thing's not going to happen because you can't trade a piece now that Kyrie has left because you can't do a year with him I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to do that either because their whole play was like we'll convince people once they're here and it's like okay well it didn't work with this guy you're going to try it again with a guy with one less year yeah it may make the most sense of just going, okay, this is now Tatum's team

and you need to be the aggressive guy that we see in spurts that somehow disappears and we'll see where we're at because, you know, maybe it's moving Jalen for somebody else,

but I don't know what his value is now even though it's coming back around. Like, I understand why they would do it, but it's so far away from penciling them into facing the Warriors back in October. It's just a crazy, it's just how sports reminds us all the time that we just but it's so far away from penciling them into facing the Warriors back in

October. It's just a crazy, it's just how sports reminds us all the time that we just, there's so many times that things happen that you would never have thought were going to happen. And it's just two completely dramatic summers. I talked to, I talked to a bunch of Celtics related people, both people that work for them and then people just who are peripherally attached. I can't remember another situation in my lifetime, at least with the Boston team. I'm sure it's happened with other teams where people are just so stunned by how something played out, you know, where it's like, not only do people not really have answers for what's happening, they kind of can't believe that this has happened. You know, we're conditioned as sports fans to expect anything

and any scenario makes sense. And like even LeBron going to the Lakers and they're not going to make the playoffs now. I'm not shocked by that because I think there were a lot of red flags from the get-go. I'm shocked by how unhappy the Celtics situation is. And also how willing people seem to be just to accept the idea that Kyrie might leave this summer

and that it's okay. Like think how crazy that is compared to where we were in October. And then even like a month ago where the first time the Knicks stuff started to come out and he started to be like, ask me July 1st. And I think everybody's reaction was, oh my, wait, what?

Do it now we have to worry about this? And now in the course of a month, it's like, yeah, maybe they're probably better off if he leaves. This might be a better situation than paying this dude five years, $200 million or whatever it is to be just the unhappy leader of this underachieving team. And then you trade everything else for AD and then he leaves in a year. And now all that's left is just unhappy Kyrie. Like that sounds like a nightmare. And the word nightmare was

just not being used with the Celtics team for really the last three years. Because even when it was disappointing, a lot of it had to do with their standing in the East because Milwaukee clicked. They've been great defensively. Giannis took it to an even further level. And then Toronto replaces a good player with a great player. And other guys step up around them. So you go, okay, you know, and Philly's still good

despite some of the concerns you have about them. And here's this Pacers team still. I mean, imagine if they lose to the Pacers in the first round, if the Pacers fall to the four seed and the Celtics lose to the Pacers in the first round, if the Pacers follow the four seed and the Celtics lose to the Pacers without Oladipo in the first round. Yeah, but- Like I'm open to it now.

Here's the thing. It's realistic. Yeah. And by the way, it's something that over and over again over the years in basketball has happened where you have the unhappy team that has a ton of talent

playing the team that's missing somebody that's overachieving, but actually plays well together. I'm not betting on the unhappy team with talent in that situation. We've seen that too many times. And I think, you know, the Celtics state, their first 20 games are 10 and 10, right? And then they started playing better. And there were all these stats. I think they were like 25-9 over their next 34 or something like that. Yeah, there was a thing from like December 1st on. They had the second best rating or the second best record. And I was like, man, why do they feel like a disappointment?

Yet they've actually been playing better basketball than anybody else. I'm like, that didn't even make any sense, even though on paper that's what it said it was. Right. But then you kind of look at those games a little more carefully. Just even in that 25-9 stretch. They lost to Milwaukee by 13. They lost to Houston by 14. They lost to San Antonio by nine. They beat Philly, but in overtime in a game that they could have lost. They lost the back-to-back Miami-Orlando-Brooklyn games, which was a bad sign. Basically, their best wins were, oh, they lost the Golden State one as

well. They beat Toronto in that game at home. They beat Toronto. That was the one where I thought, okay, maybe it's finally happening. And then they immediately lost to somebody bad, I think. Yeah. So basically, their three best wins were Toronto, Philly, and OT, and they beat OKC by five. But then you go to this latest stretch where they lose to the two LA teams. They barely beat Philly and it was one of their better games. And then it cratered over the last couple of weeks. But the schedule is getting harder is my point. And as the schedule got harder, it kind of broke this team.

They lost a close one to Milwaukee. They get killed by Toronto. They lose it home to Houston. Well, now they have a road trip coming up at Golden State, at Sacramento, at the two LA teams, home for Sacramento, home for an Atlanta team that's playing really well, home for Denver, at Philly, at Charlotte, where they always either lose or almost lose. That's kind of a gauntlet. And if things are cratering now, imagine what they might be, you know,

halfway through that West coast road trip. Like this might be become a full fledged dumpster fire is my point. Yeah. I'm over to it. I'm totally open to it. Cause here's the other thing too, is despite what we thought this team would be, you know,

when golden state struggled against the rockets and it felt so on warriors light for a long stretch, I'd be just baffled after the games. Yeah. How can they not play offense now for a game and a half? Like, what the hell's going on? But I could always go back to, you know what, though? I've seen this group figure it out before.

I haven't ever seen this group figure it out. So there's nothing for me to go on. Not this specific group. And there's lineups that kind of work where they have this lineup that begins the fourth quarter where Jalen and Tatum are both out there with Tice and Rozier and I think Hayward. And they kind of play well together and it looks okay. They have a lot of lineups that just don't play well together anymore. And the biggest thing, if you want to get super nerdy about it,

Marcus Morris has been horrible the last six weeks. And he really overachieved, I thought, the first three months. If you look at the way he played the first three months. He was awesome. Yeah. He was the second best player. He was like a borderline all-star contract year. All the signs that it might not have been sustainable. I think this team made two huge mistakes from a roster standpoint. One is that they absolutely should have traded Rozier. Kevin O'Connor reported today in the ringer that they were very close to a deal with Phoenix, which I had heard rumblings about really

for all of training camp. And the battle was over the protections of a pick and whatever Danny wanted and whatever Ryan McDonough wanted, they just couldn't agree on the protections. That trade falls through. Phoenix protects picks? Apparently. Apparently, Phoenix had some sort of semblance of sanity for once. They're like, wait, you can protect him?

Yeah. He's like, hold on. Hold on. We got to call you back. We just found out about this. But I think trading Rogier really would have helped this team and just kind of uncluttered it a little. And then the other thing, the other mistake is they clearly should have traded Morris like in January because it would have been an addition by subtraction in a lot of ways. Now the case against it would be like, wow, we need him.

He's such a good defensive player. But really like the guy, he's kind of a black hole. And I say that respectfully. I think he's a good guy to have in a playoff series, but he's a black hole. And you have him out there. You have Tatum who's kind of a black hole. And playoff series, but he's a black hole. And you have him out there. You have Tatum, who's kind of a black hole. And you have Kyrie, who's definitely a black hole.

You have those three guys out there together. It's like, no wonder the ball doesn't move. It's kind of logical, right? Well, it is. And I've never been a huge Morris twins guy because I feel like they talk a lot for guys that haven't really done anything. You know, like Marcus is terrific this year. and I didn't expect him to sustain that.

I have to know what was available in a trade for a guy that's expiring anyway. Like which team is trading you a piece that makes sense for you. But maybe you don't even get anything. Maybe it's just like you get a pick swap in the first round or you get, you turn him into a bigger body. Like the point is addition by subtraction trades actually made a lot of sense with this team versus just hoping that 11 guys would all be happy together i don't think that's realistic no but they just they need to figure this out like this is the part where

kairi it's not on him like some of the guys trying to say stuff that's the stuff i'm like gosh you guys still haven't figured this out like every time you go public with this and try a different negative spin on it, it just makes it worse. But there's too many nights where I see Tatum disappear. And I don't know if that's with Brad. The whole point, nobody watched Tatum his rookie year and in the playoffs going,

hey, I bet you he's not nearly as good in his second year. That's just not what's supposed to happen with somebody that looked as good as he looked. And that's been a disaster. And Jalen Brown, I understand his frustration. Some of the plays he made at the end of that Portland game, it's like he might be the only one out here fighting. And then Kyrie screwed it up twice trying to go at everybody.

And then they give him an easy one back. Marcus takes another terrible shot, meaning Marcus Smart. Awful, awful shot. But you're around it. I mean, you were in the city longer than I was. This is not just miserable, but guys are kind of waving the, I wouldn't, I don't know if it's waving the white flag, but the tone, some of the stuff I hear is they're just resigned to like, this is just going to be a bad

year. Like, I don't know how drunk you would have to be to eventually talk yourself into, you know what? Actually, I could see this working out because there's no evidence. There's no evidence of it. No. And I think they've've been the Celtics are trying to spin the whole look. If you think this is bad, you should have been here in 2010 and 2012. I mean, you want to talk about bad chemistry and then the switch went on and we were fine. It's like,

yeah, well, the 2010 team had Rondo who was great. I mean, he was in that Cleveland series. He was the best player in a series with LeBron James in it. Think about that. KG who was great. I mean, he was in that Cleveland series. He was the best player in a series with LeBron James in it. Think about that. KG, who was still a top 25 guy at probably the end of his prime,

but still, you know, a really relevant... They'd already done it, though. That's the point. They'd already done it. They'd won a title together. And the year after, that team was even better,

the 0-9 team. And they had a pedigree. This team doesn't have a pedigree. They just have a bunch of young guys who think they should be doing it, but really probably should have lost to Milwaukee. If Milwaukee has a normal coach in that series last year, does Boston get by them? If Coach Bud is in that series last year,

does Milwaukee lose to Boston last year? Should Philly have lost to Boston last year? Philly shouldn't have lost to them. No. That was what was so funny about it is like for the love of, for all, you know, for Brad Stevens and I'm going,

do people realize what this roster is right now? It's a rookie in Tatum, a second year guy in Jalen who we didn't even know if he could make outside shots, who's been incredible. Rozier, who looks terrific, who I still was like,

okay, is he really a starting point guard on a team that's really good? And Horford, who is a matchup guy now. Like, Horford can exploit certain people, and other times, you're going to forget that he's out there. And I'm not knocking Horford, but that's the reality of who he is as a player at this point. And to have that team a couple buckets away from playing in the

NBA Finals, that's incredible. Speaks to how bad the East is, but really speaks to how disappointing that Philly series was. Those guys could not close those games. And they had the two best players that we think, like at the time you're going, well, if you're one,

two, like who's the third. And then all of a sudden it seemed to be that now everybody in Boston was really good. And I'm like, wait a minute, how did that happen? Cause they're not.

Yeah. And I think, and I was saying it on the podcast last, last spring, I thought Philly was better. And they just couldn't figure out. They didn't really totally know who they were yet. And I didn't think they were very well coached.

But think about that Bellinelli three. If his foot is two inches back, they win that game. And then I don't really know what happens in that series after that. They probably win game four and who the hell knows. They definitely had more talent. Yeah, and that's the thing is like, oh, well, those guys are young and you go, well, it's not like they're losing to the Utah Jazz here on year 15 with their guys. Right. Yeah. This is, they're losing to another young, supposedly less talented team. So I think that's a good transition now into the Brad chirping, right? Where are you

with the president? I'm going to tell you Where are you with the president? I'm going to tell you where I am with the president right after this break. Let's take a break to talk about Hulu. Hulu is paying some of the league's best players a lot of money to do some crazy stuff. Joel changed his nickname from The Process to Joel Hulu Has Live Sports and Bead. Damon Lillard got a tattoo that says Hulu Has Live Sports. Clearly, they want you to know that Hulu has live sports and bead. Damien Lillard got a tattoo that says Hulu has live sports.

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You know what else is going to be on Hulu this week? The Ringer did a TV show for Hulu. Yeah. I think I'm breaking news right now because Louis K is going to be mad at me. But yeah, get Hulu this week because there's a Ringer show on Hulu that's going to launch midweek.

I'm not going to tell you what it is. You have to find out on the next podcast. But put it this way. If you like The Bachelor, you might be happy. Yeah. So check out Hulu.com. Hulu, where the ringer, might have a show this week. I would say there's a 100% chance.

Check it out. Let's assign blame here for this Celtics season. Sorry to keep talking about the Celtics, but I swear this is, other than the Lakers debacle, which we can talk about a little bit, this is by far the most interesting NBA subplot right now. This is the thing.

I think everybody in the league is watching which is complete disbelief and then also wondering, shit, if it can't work out here, maybe there's just no way to ever make a long sustained run work in the NBA. Because you think about it, Golden State's now had a five-year run, right? They had two really fluky things happen during that run to sustain it where they've been able to play at an exceptionally high level now for five years. One was the Steph Curry contract.

He was the most underpaid superstar of the last 15 years, right? They signed him to, I think it was- Four for 40 plus. Yeah, it was like 11, maybe 11 and a half a year. He had the bad ankle, signed this deal. And now they have this guy who should be making $30 million.

He's making 12. It's the equivalent of in the NFL when you have like Patrick Mahomes making $5 million a year. It's just like the biggest gift you can have. So you have that. And on top of it, you get the second gift where the summer of 2016, the cap for the first time in the history of the league just goes to some crazy number. And everyone has gobs of money to spend, and Durant falls in their laps. And that allows them to have a five-year run that's really meaningful and really matters. I don't know if we're ever going to see that again.

And this is one of the things I talked about with Adam Silver at the Sloan Conference thing on Friday. With the way this league is built now, with the constant player movement and guys jumping from here, and I'm not 100% happy here. Maybe I'll be happier over there. And just the way this is all heading, I really wonder if five years is going to be the max we ever have for a run. Do you think Porzingis and Luka Doncic are going to be together for 12 years? Do you think Simmons and Embiid are going to be together for 12 years?

I think if you have five, it's a miracle. So let's start there with that. Like, is it just even realistic to think you can have a dominant semi-dynasty at this point? No, I don't think it is at all. Because, I mean, the other thing that I think you and I were very early on, if not first, was just running down the list of top players that are unhappy. Yeah, we were first on that, I feel like. This is a very new thing and it's a very different thing like if durant isn't happy in golden state yeah where are you gonna be happy dude i understood why i wasn't

happy in okc but if you're not happy in golden state like what part sucks all the open shots not having too much pressure on you playing with two of the best shooters ever, winning all the time, getting, get max money in a good city. You know, like what? Sorry, man, that sucks. Right.

It's ridiculous. So I watched, I watched game six of the OKC Warriors 2016 recently. And man, he should, he should just watch the tape of that game and decide whether he's happier now, because every single time he had the ball he had

no spacing whatsoever and two guys clogging the lane and it's a debacle two guys who couldn't shoot that no one guarded Robertson in the corner just by himself might as well could have had 10 feet

basically of free space in front of him so if Durant thinks he's unhappy now and i don't who knows if he's unhappy or whatever um and then you look at like kairi we i mean we should we really we we have to assign blame go ahead then just jump in here and do your blame no i think like to call it blame pie. Oh, blame pie. Is that a thing? Oh my God. Blame pie? Oh, let's play some blame pie.

I'll steal that from First Take. Blame pie. The Kyrie, just the post-game interviews, his general demeanor behind the scenes, which by all accounts is not great.

People are bummed out about it, right? Is that fair to say? I think it's extremely fair to say that a lot of, it's one of those situations, you know how this happens? A lot of times the, and we've,

I think we've even talked about this, where the guy leaves the team and then two days later, there's a story with all the stuff the beat reporter had wanted to put in his story. He's going to get destroyed. Kyrie is going to be the all-time most destroyed. Oh my God.

It's going to be worse than Manny. Oh my God. He's going to get destroyed. I'm just telling you. I'm actually looking forward to that article just because it's going to be so... Who's going to do it? Who do you think will have it?

I think what should happen is all the people who have been around the team, there should actually be like an auction where they have to bid on who gets to write the team, there should actually be like an auction where they, they have to bid on who gets to write the story. All, all proceeds go to charity because I, or maybe they divvy it up.

Maybe it's like, all right, here are 20, seven parts thing. Tomorrow, Steve, you get these four. I'll take these four.

You take the one. They have a draft boy. They have 20 anecdotes and there's a draft live on TV. They put it on Comcast Sports. It's a seven-hour show hosted by Tom Curran. If Kyrie, the best reason for him to stay would be to avoid that story, I think. It's not great. And I hate toiling in the whole gossip scene.

But look, man, this team's really unhappy. And when I was at that game Wednesday, I was caught the Tim Duncan test where you go see the Spurs. I've written about this in the past. And because of Duncan, those teams always had this camaraderie around them. And he was just so inclusive.

And every time out, he had his arm around somebody. He's talking to somebody. He's fist bumping people. He's slapping people on the ass. It's like, it was a very touchy feely team. And I think KG was like that too, depending on what kind of team he was on. But KG also had that effect, I think, on teammates.

Certain guys just have it. And the Celtics are the opposite. The Celtics, it's like, what was the Red Sox team that was the 25 players, 25 cabs? What was that? The 78 Red Sox? Gammons wrote that? Yeah, yeah. Gammons always talk about these guys. As soon as the

game was over, they just went 25 different ways. And I think that's what the Celtics team is. I think it's what the Celtics team is. I think it's a 15 cabs, 15 players type of team. I don't think- 15 car services. 15 car services. They have their headphones on. KOC wrote about it in his piece today. The locker room last year, it's like a lot of people talking, a lot of jabbering, and a lot of ball busting, all that stuff. And this year it's just like a morgue, apparently. I sat right behind the bench.

I sat right behind it, the first row of that same night. Oh my God. So I was on it. You know, I was trying to watch. Here's the thing. You can't hear a thing. You can't hear anything. Yeah, because they're blasting the music.

It's such a bummer. 20 years ago was so much better. I could hear every single Rick Pitino insult of every player. I couldn't afford it back then. And I bought a single ticket for just the Pitino experience. Yeah. I was in town. I go, this is way too much money, but I want to do a full-blown Pitino experience.

Oh, it was just the way the guys would bristle as he yelled at them. He talked to them like it was a junior high team. Oh, it was embarrassing junior high team oh it was embarrassing what was the body language like right behind the bench well i'll give you two highlights um i think when they thought they were coming back there you know they were trying to pretend that they were into it and maybe they were into it so i shouldn't say pretend right that's not fair but there was and if a camera had caught it kairi went to dap up Tatum as he came out, and Tatum totally ignored him. And it so easily was just that he didn't see him.

Yeah. But I'm going, if you ever had footage of this, you would just be able to say, oh, there you go, doesn't respect him. And I'm not even sure what that was. The best, though, was Kyrie at one point decided that he just wanted to sit on the table. So not the scorer's table, but there's a table where there's always like these four seats that are kind of behind the bench. Yeah. But then the table runs down. Guys scores table, but there's a table where there's always like these four seats that are kind of behind the bench.

Yeah. But then the table runs down. Guys get stretched out in front of it. And Kyrie, for a stretch, was like, I'm just going to sit

on the table. So he wasn't even on the bench. And some guy in a really quiet moment jumped up from behind and was like, hey, Kyrie,

I'm a Knicks fan. We can't wait to get you this summer. And it was totally honorable to everybody. Like, a couple guys did turn around and look and then Kyrie this summer. And it was totally audible to everybody. Like a couple of guys like did turn around and look and then Kyrie just stayed. And it was, the guy nailed it for like maximum,

you know, volume because no one else was saying anything. So my dad went yesterday and he is fucking miserable. He was just texting me like, oh my God, this is so bad. And as you know, my dad, 46 year season ticket holder, by the way, we were trying to figure it out at dinner on Thursday night. I think he's like in the top 10 of longest tenured season ticket holders. He's in the third row, right on the aisle with the direct shot of the bench. And as you said, you can't hear anything,

but you can watch how everybody's interacting. You can see the body language and you pick up a lot of stuff. You can pick up whether a team's happy, whether a team's angry, whether the team is just not getting along, whatever. He said there was this one part yesterday where Kyrie decided he was going to give Jalen Brown advice on something. And he was just like, just gesturing and kind of telling him, being like the big brother, telling him what to do. And he said Jalen Brown was just smoldering. And he was like,

he was like, it honestly felt like Jalen was just going to stand up and either shove him or punch him. And he was like, I've been going to these games in these seats all these years. I've never seen just a weirder interaction between two teammates and I'm like yeah the Boston Celtics everybody here we are

so let's do the Blaine Pie then so Blaine Pie I'd put Kyrie at the top because if you're doing this whole leadership you guys don't understand what it takes thing over and over again and you're not playing defense and you know you're basically picking and choosing

the ball hog routine and then all of a sudden last five minutes you're turning it on and everybody else is just standing around watching you. And you're a tier two guy. I mean, he's not an undisputed top six, seven player. You went to the Portland game. That was the shocking thing to me.

Shocking. The Portland fans. What's the Portland Blazers blog? What's that called? Blazer. What's that? I like that show called the outsiders with those kids that are just like, let's just, they lose their minds.

It's a blazer show. Yeah. They basically gave these three kids and I'm calling kids cause they're in their twenties. But the passion is just. Kyle, what's the blazer? Look up blazers.

I see blazers edge. Blazers edge. Blazers Edge. Yeah, okay. Did you say that before? I should have just said yes because I just get distracted about these kids. I watched them at Postgate one time

and they're like, yo, dude, he sucks though right now. It was awesome. So this could be a post at Blazers Edge. Lillard was better than Kyrie. And it wasn't like he's better in this game.

He was actually just better. He's like a... He just has more command quarter by quarter of what he wants to do, how he does it, how he uses his teammates, how his teammates play off him, interact

with him, all that stuff. I was not prepared for that, Ryan. I really wasn't. Did you think Kyrie was better though than Lillard going into that game? I didn't think he was better. I thought he was more talented. And I think

watching that for four quarters and seeing how Lillard runs the team and always has a balance of when am I getting mine versus when do I have to kind of get other people involved. It just felt like he had complete command of the game for four quarters. And you can't say that about Kyrie.

Kyrie floats in and out of these games. And this is why the more, I said this last week on the pod, the more I look at the situation he was in in Cleveland, it was the perfect situation for him because he's really a float in and out of guy, which is exactly who you'd want to pair with LeBron James. This is the perfect number two guy. This guy might take over for eight minutes or you don't have to worry about him for a quarter. That's who I want with LeBron James. And I was just really impressed by Lillard. I voted for him for second team all-NBA last year.

I think he's a lock to be second team all-NBA again this year. And if you're doing a hierarchy pecking order, I think he's got to be higher than Kyrie, don't you think? He has to be. No, look, I thought he was better going in, but it was one of those things just watching it, and I really watched those two for long stretches. Yeah, because they were locked up head to

head almost the whole game too I was kind of surprised how they did their defensive rotations but I'm not going to say that was a mistake

unless somebody explained it to me but there were there were so many times I'm like man they're still sticking with Kyrie on Lillard here

yeah this is a disaster yeah they can't hide him I mean Lillard cooked him Lillard cooked him and by the way

Lillard just I mean I didn't think Lillard wasn't better but it's one of those games where it was so obvious yeah he's clearly better is that like from now on until like infinity I don't want to hear anybody like

who's a Celtics buddy if Kyrie re-signs in Boston where they go actually Kyrie's better than Lillard because he's just he's just not he's that whatever the pecking order is he's lower and from a defensive standpoint just a quick aside, those are the type of guys that have just destroyed the Celtic team all year.

And you would think like Marcus Smart, who I do feel like is one of the best 10 defenders in the league, but there's a certain type of guy that even he can't totally handle. And it's always those smaller point guards. It's Damon Lillard. It's Devin Booker. It's Trey Young. It's Damon Lillard. It's Devin Booker. It's Trey Young. It's whoever.

It's those little shifty three-point shooting, herky-jerky stop-and-start guys is the guy that they can never stop. Now, Indiana doesn't have that guy. So they won't have to worry about that round one. Round two, the way Bledsoe's playing, Bledsoe, who was awful against them last year, I think

he'll be a problem this year. Bledsoe's been great. Listen, I killed that guy in this podcast last year. I thought he was terrible in the Boston series, and one of the biggest reasons Boston won. Because he was a head case in it, on top of everything else. He was taking

himself out of that series. He was a head case. He was taking shots he shouldn't have taken he didn't run the team well he got totally caught up in that weird battle with rogier that was strange and the weird thing about it too was like at that point blood so hadn't really done much except okay he can get your buckets and we know who he is but at that point like this is something that i i'm not trying to introduce segments that we're not going to do today, but there's a real... I don't know how you'd label this, but there's a lane of these players that can be

so overlooked because it's just all bad when in actuality, they're probably worth re-signing. And Bledsoe's a great example of that. Well, and they got him for an awesome deal. And I was actually surprised. They signed him this weekend, actually, for a four-year $70 million extension,

capitalizing on how well he was playing. At the same time, with all the teams that had cap space this summer, I really felt like he could have roped somebody into a four for 90. It did feel like they got a deal on that contract. So anyway, Kyrie Blampie,

that's number one for me. I'm not ready to put Stevens next. I'm not ready for that. I mean, we're going to sound like we're just protecting him. My point would be this. Do you think there's ever an example of a really good coach

who has shown he can be a great coach, has a roster that's really good, and they really underperform? Like it happens, and that's what's happening right now. Yeah, and so what's happening right now. Until next year, Jackie McMullen told me she was writing a story about him that is going to dive into a lot of this stuff. And I think it might even be up by the time we write this podcast. I think there's going to be some illuminating material in there that will make us all kind of feel bad for the kind of year he's had.

But just the fact that you're paying somebody $30 million a year who you can't rely on night to night, I think is a disaster. Beyond that, you have to bench him. Yeah. And then it's like, here's the thing. Ryan, we've played basketball. There it is. Drinking game. Ryan, we've played basketball.

We know what it's like. When your minutes get yanked around like that, that's brutal. When you're a guy who's played 40 minutes a game since you were in the sixth grade, at every point in your life, you've been one of the two or three best players in your team, maybe even the best player, and you're just 40 minutes a night. That's it. You're in, then you come out. I watch my daughter now in soccer. She starts, she plays the majority of the game. That's what she's used to. If you're not telling her you can only play eight minutes in this half, it's going to affect her. Like she's not, she's just not going to, you're trying to fit everything into

that eight minutes. Like it can just screw you up in so many different ways. And I think we forget that sometimes with basketball. And that was my biggest lesson for this season is, and I knew it too. I mean, I fucking have written about it. When you have all these guys that are used to playing 35, 40 minutes a game and you only have 240 minutes in a game. So how's everyone going to be happy? So anyway, Hayward,

blame pie, but I don't blame him. It's just, he has to be mentioned. Number three for me, you're going to be surprised by. I don't think I am's just he has to be mentioned number three for me you're gonna be surprised by I don't think I am because I think he might be my number two which is more surprising I'm so disappointed in Tatum that's my number two watching him in person on Wednesday first of all his ball handling is is like bad bad. The dude cannot dribble at an NBA level and loses the ball all the time on these moves

where at this point, it should be second nature. He's got such a good crossover and he's got all these different Dr. J moves. And guys now are just, the book on him around the league is just, as soon as he starts making his move, just kind of dive at the floor and you can either poke it away or you're getting his way or whatever. That's where he really needs to work.

Stop working on the 20 footers, work on your ball handling. He cannot create his own shot consistently in a way like that I expected from him last year. I don't want to say he's overrated. He's 21. he's overrated. He's 21. He's a baby. He's a work in progress.

But if he really, if you want to be like, I'm the next superstar. I'm selling shoes that have no shoelaces. Like you better be able to put like, you better be able to have some 35 point nights every once in a while. And he just hasn't. So now you go. Well, that was my second behind Kyrie. So you say it's surprising I I'm not surprised at all because I

think it's right and despite the love for him you got to take over games like if you're going to be the guy we thought you were going to be which seemed like a layup like look what he was doing in playoff games as a rookie and he had every shot it. Our big criticism was that he wasn't taking over games. It's like, you have the most talent of anyone. Take over games. And I actually thought that was on Brad a little bit. I'm like, I'd almost rather Brad have four or five play calls for Tatum just to let him go.

Like, normally we don't ever sit there and be like, you know what I'm missing? I want more isolation in this game. I want more one-on-five. But I thought for his development and his confidence, he needed that. So I can't tell if it's just his ball handling

or if it's something bigger where it's, okay, let's get Jason his touches and then we ignore him for long stretches. And then like anybody who's a scorer, you go, okay, enough of this.

Like, I'm going to take a bad shot even if it's a bad shot just because I need to take a shot. And then you start getting into that. I'll never forget the Jimmy Butler, Derek Rose stuff where they would just take turns. Like, okay, you shot it twice,

so now I'm due. Oh, my God. It had nothing to do with an offense. Yeah. Those are things that I see a little bit. So you could actually put that on Brad a little bit. I'm with you.

If Tatum is going to be someone that can be a one on a good team, which is saying a lot because I always remember, like, I say it all the time, but there's only like six or seven of those guys and maybe it's not even seven.

So maybe that's even stupid to suggest he's going to be that but like right now Brandon Ingram looks better than him and I never thought I would say that. Yeah but you know Brandon Ingram's gotten a lot more reps this year with just trying to create shots and that's they need to

figure out how to get, it's weird how to get Tatum. It's weird. How to get Tatum. I feel like he's got to get 18 to 20 shots a game or free throws or some sort of combination. His usage rate has to go up. I kind of want to see what we have because they're not getting Anthony Davis unless he's in the trade. And this might be a situation where the more reps and touches he gets,

the better he is. I don't want to find that out when he's in New Orleans or on some other team. I'd rather find this out now, which leads me back to the best thing that probably could have happened to this team is Kyrie with a sprained knee out for three weeks where all these guys all have to step up and they divvy up his shots unfortunately

he's healthy and that's not gonna happen but I mean so you're over it you sound you're accepting defeat here

there's no there's no 5% of you that thinks maybe some weird thing happens here where they get so mad at each other that that's their

driving force here no because it's like what Sean Grandy says maybe some weird thing happens here where they get so mad at each other that that's their driving force here. No, because it's like what Sean Grandy says, you know, you look at, Grandy makes this point about Golden State. That is a really good one where Golden State intentionally went after veterans for their role guys.

You know, guys who have won and have made money or know who they are at this point in their career, right? So you have Iguodala, they get, he's already been a max guy. He just wanted to win a title. Then he kind of figures out how he fits into that whole dynamic and he's totally fine with it. They get Sean Livingston, they get David David West like they have these dudes that just kind of know who they are and like you look at

LeBron in 2016 when they won the title and it's like he got Richard Jefferson there who just who just wants to win and has seen every variation

of every basketball situation Kevin Love was on that team too right? Yeah and Kevin Love is like I just want to prove that I'm a winner I'm okay giving up shots you're asking dudes who haven't done anything yet to sacrifice.

And that gets really dangerous. And I think we've seen it with Jalen and Tatum specifically. You're asking them to sacrifice and be glue guys when they still want to prove who they are. It'd be like if you were at 1510 The Zone when you're 25 and you have a chance to host a show for three hours a day and somebody's telling you, look, it's better for the station if you just do these flashes. You're just going to have to trust me. Just kill these flashes for us. You're not going to be happy. I did say no to that. You did. Somebody once was like, hey, if you want more hours, because I was hourly and not working every day, they're like, it wouldn't

be a bad idea to work the board and learn how to use that. And I went, yeah, I'm not doing that. Right. And they were like, what do you mean? I go, because if I learn how to do the board, and that means next time there's a board shift and an on-air shift, I won't get the on-air shift because I know how to do the board. That's how management works. Well, Jalen Brown is being asked to do the board. That's part of the problem. It's a really smart point to make. I'll never forget the first time it dawned

on me when a GM... I go back when I used to go to Portsmouth. Chris Wallace. Now with the Grizzlies. He used to be the Celtics. He was awesome to me. Always great to talk to. And he said, and he was right about this, he goes you have a team you know after eight kind of after 10 the rest of those guys better know exactly what they aren't yeah and i'm not going to sit here and blame age because he didn't trade more of the pieces but this is it's not predictable that it's this much of a

disaster but as it's happened it's not that hard to understand when you have 11 guys that are kind of thinking about what's next, which is also why the Lakers are a mess. Yeah. Because it's one guy who's secure, surrounded by about another 10 that are worried about who they're going to be. And that's either a vet on a one-year deal or a young guy wondering what his contract's going to be after his rookie contract. So by design, it's hard to pull off. And it's something I think numbers can miss. And if you're around it every day and you go, man, this team, this team isn't. Yeah. It doesn't even matter what we see on the bench or guys not high-fiving.

Imagine being around it and traveling with them every day. Oh, my God. That's when you know. Well, and there's just silence. That's the thing that the people who travel with NBA teams, it's the silence is what becomes alarming when there's no interaction at all. And it's just put my headphones on

and let's get to the next stop. That's when you know you're in trouble. To clarify something I said earlier when I was talking about, you know, the best thing that could happen to this team is Kyrie sprains his knee for three weeks. I don't, obviously don't want Kyrie to get hurt. My point is,

it's like the old Mike Lombardi analogy. Sometimes you're an injury away from being a good team. And last year with the Celtics team, I don't think that was the case. I really think they actually would have been better off if Kyrie had been in the playoffs. I think they actually would have made the finals. I think they almost made the finals more because Philly and Milwaukee screwed up and they just kind of took advantage of mistakes and stupidity from the other teams. This time around leads to something that Daryl Morey made fun of me about recently on Friday,

which I'm going to get to right after this break. Let's take a break to talk about Hotel Tonight. This winter is an especially good time to check them out. Whether you want to take a spontaneous ski trip or escape to a warm beach, Hotel Tonight makes it easy to book a room with one of their last minute deals. God, there's so many empty hotel rooms out there

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And it's not just for last minute bookings. You can play things by ear. You can use them to book in advance. You can join Hotel Tonight's HT Perks program. The more you book, the better deals get. I got to say, I feel like for me, Hotel Tonight is like one of those indie bands that you loved and now it's blown up.

And now you're kind of nostalgic for the old days. People just like Hotel Tonight. I had a soccer trip last weekend. I was in Temecula. Thought about getting a second room because there was a chance my son might come, went to Hotel Tonight and there were no rooms at our hotel. And I was just like, man, Hotel Tonight has really taken off.

The Temecula Hotel Tonight scene is not looking great. So I feel a little guilty about blowing up Hotel Tonight. It's one of my favorite apps. Anyway, start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels. Go to hoteltonight.com or download the app right now because it is awesome. So a couple of years ago, Daryl had this team. I can't remember which year it was. And we always text.

I was weighing on, you know, I've known him forever. I was weighing on my thoughts with who he did, what he's doing. And this one season, I can't remember what season, I felt like he had too many guys. And I'm like, you screwed up this year. You have too many guys. And he thought that was like the dumbest thing I'd ever said. He's like, what do you mean?

How do I have too many guys? What are you talking about? I want to have as many good guys as I can possibly have. I'm like, yeah, but you have too many this year. They're not going to be happy. They're all going to, there's 240 minutes

in a basketball game. It's going to get screwed up. Nobody's going to be playing the right amount of time. There's not going to be enough shots. Your team's going to be unhappy. It comes out, the team's unhappy.

I think it was the first, maybe it was the first hard in Howard season. Whatever it was. So like two months. Howard can do that to a team by himself. Howard can do that, but yeah, maybe that doesn't get. So two months in, we were on the phone

and he was so mad. He's like, you're fucking right. I don't know if he swore, but he was just like, I hate that you're right about this, but it's so stupid. It makes no sense. You shouldn't, too many guys shouldn't be a problem, but you're right. It drives me crazy.

So I saw him on Friday and he's like, ah, the Celtics, you're too many guys problem. Now I'm going to get him in trouble because fuck it. But he was like, you're too many guys theory. Kind of interesting how it comes around on your team. And I saw him at the mall. We didn't talk about that. You're too many guys theory. Kind of interesting how it comes around on your team. I saw him at the mall. We didn't talk about that. I started trying to heckle him behind the escalator.

But I think the too many guys thing is a real thing. Because you look at the Celtics last year, where they play seven guys in a playoff game. Maybe the eighth guy played three minutes. But those seven guys are all playing enough and they're super happy they're getting their touches they're in the mix that's basketball you have 11 now who's happy when you have 11 guys

you think Semi Ojale is happy he's just in the weight room fucking cranking no he should be happy he even gets minutes because as soon as he comes out it's like are you this not sure of your shot? Like, what happened to the guy that got 20?

Yeah, you scored 20 a game at SMU, didn't he? And then it's weird because like when Yabasele comes in, it's the game disaster. Yeah. You're almost like,

hey, try less. Try less. This game's over. You know, that sounds, that's the wrong message for the kids listening to the podcast.

Ignore that part of it. No, he's the dude in pickup where it's like, settle down. We've been here for three hours. Somebody's getting hurt. Stop. Don't yell out horns. It's horns. By the way, great moment in the Portland game.

Tice missed a couple. And Tice was like 0 for 6. He was like an abomination in this game. But in the second half, he was on the baseline. And he's like 15 feet away. And he was a little open. And somebody missed an assignment. So Kaner was coming at him.

And Kaner goes, shoot it! Said to Tice. And then Tice missed it. And I was like, what's worse when you play basketball? When someone derisively tells you to shoot it, and then you feel like you have to and you miss it? It's really like the, it's basketball emasculation. Especially when it's Kanter too.

Especially Kanter out of all people. I know, I know. And the thing is not like Tice can't make that shot, but I got to need that from Kanter. The Celtics should assign Kanter. How about that? I don't think so. I think the team chemistry is bad enough.

Yeah, but at least make it like the Con Airplane at that point and just have a bunch of lunatics. If the chemistry is not there anyway, you might as well sign in as Kanter. He's not going to make the chemistry worse. I think he could. Yeah, I do. I think Kanter could make it even worse.

How? What's going to happen? He just doesn't get it, man. He doesn't, he doesn't get it. They don't need another bad defensive player. Okay.

Uh, blame, blame pie. Brad Stevens would be, uh, would be probably fourth for me just cause. Oh my God. We're still doing blame pie.

Yeah. We, we, we never talked about Stevens. We just, I just wanted to get him. We did a little on it. No,

it was just like, come on, come on, Brad. This really turned into a Celtics podcast. It really did. Well, I'm ready. I just wanted to hit him for it. We did a little on it. No, but just like, come on. Come on, Brad. This really turned into a Celtics podcast. It really did. I'm ready to move on. Are you ready to move on? Yeah, about 10 minutes ago.

Okay, sorry. The replies to this one are going to be incredible. Ah, come on. Oh, I'm into it. This is the best basketball story right now. Second best basketball story is the Lakers. And they're four and a half back with 19 to play. I actually think it's underrated what a disaster this has been.

Where you come off last season where you had these two great months with all these young people and these assets and kind of actually feel like you have a direction. You have two cap spots for max guys. You get LeBron and Paul George. They just get LeBron. LeBron has this half-assed press conference. He doesn't even seem that excited to be a Laker.

Almost seems like it's a business decision where he's acquired the Lakers. Right. It's like the Lakers didn't sign LeBron. LeBron has agreed to acquire the Los Angeles Lakers for four years. Comes in. They don't get the second guy. And now they're going to have a losing record and miss the playoffs. Paul George, the guy they thought they were going to get, who they don't get,

who they probably, now knowing what we know they would have been better off just putting all their eggs in the Paul George basket and ignoring LeBron Paul George is now the number three MVP candidate and

it's a bigger debacle than the Celtics it's probably a little less interesting because it was a little more predictable, but holy shit. I mean, are you stunned by this? I was probably more surprised when it looked like they were fighting to be a top four seed

because I still felt like when all the teams were established, Houston had that terrible start. Oklahoma City's trying to figure themselves out. We weren't quite sure what Denver is. Portland, we figured it'd be good. Utah was disappointing. And I go, are they really going to be able to pass

like a couple of those teams? So to see them in the 5-8 is what I always thought would happen. But now to see them this far out, when the Clippers basically said, we don't even care about this year. And Sacramento has been real this whole time. Even if they have a tough loss like Milwaukee, you go, man, you can't sleep on this team.

But I never really understood the roster. I've been over this. Yeah, we talked about all this. We've done it too many times. But what's very predictable is that in this new territory for LeBron as a vet, where this is going to end up being a real disappointment, I think he's already kind of creating this thing where he's detaching himself from it. And it's like, man, you can't really do that Like you missed two free throws at the end of the game against the

Suns. Those were huge free throws and you missed them both. And we know that LeBron for all the greatness is somebody that's a bit too concerned with the perception of him. And I think that leads in being really theatrical. And I think that that's what we're seeing. I think we're seeing like this, this act of the play where he wants to know that this is he wants all of us to know that this isn't on him and it's like okay but you're gonna get blamed now in a way that you've never been blamed before fair or not some of it's fair some of it isn't and as I mentioned this on Jalen Jacoby Jacoby's like look we already forgotten we've moved on from the fact that after they lost the Warriors he walked out with a cast on. Right. I didn't forget.

That's weird. Yeah, I didn't forget. The lack of leadership from him this whole season has been strange. In the first month, you could have chalked it up to he's still feeling it out. He doesn't know these guys. New city, new uniform. Laker fans felt a little strange about it, it seemed like, that first month. It's like, wow, LeBron James is on our team, but he's not like a Laker fans were felt a little strange about it it seemed like that first month

it's like wow LeBron James is on our team but he's not like a Laker yet yeah but a lot of that's the Kobe people that are 100% 100% those guys are tough to talk to

he said he'll never be a Laker like Kobe but then he started winning those people over and then he got hurt and then when he came back it was that's it

and now I mean it all goes back to the people over and then he got hurt. Then when he came back, it was that's it. And now I mean, it all goes back to the fact that his best friend tried to trade half the team or one of his best friends. It's an insurmountable monkey wrench for the season. There's no way his hands aren't on that.

There's just no way. And if you're playing with them and you know that this guy tried to trade you, I don't understand how that's not weird. The other thing is, from the get-go, it never felt like he bought into whatever this version of the Lakers were. I never read the story about, oh, LeBron and Luke Walton, God, they can't get enough of each other.

They've spent the last five days mapping out shit. And it seems like he kind of showed up. They watched Netflix together. Yeah, it was just like, poor Luke Walton got the rawest deal out of anybody, it seems like. But just has felt like for this whole season, like, oh man, I thought Paul George was coming.

Magic and Rob told me Paul George was coming too. And should we try to get Anthony Davis? All right, let's try that. Now that's not working. And now he's kind of stuck. So we had a reader. I'm sorry, a listener had- Used to have readers.

Yeah, I don't really, uh, uh, yeah, that was a Freudian slip. So Jeffrey Wright listener said, uh, wrote in first of all, I wanted to know if you remember calling the upper crust for pizza back in oh six and And you called the Upper Crest and then he was gushing about Gerald Green to you. I don't know. Did you remember that or no? I do remember it. Okay, good. So he wanted us to play a game. What game will LeBron pack

it in and go home for the summer? You mean shut it down and not play. He's just done. Either real injury, fake injury, wear and tear. Can we say last Saturday? Even though he played?

But at what point do they actually start looking at this going, we're not making the playoffs. I'll save myself the wear and tear. Maybe do some pre-production for Space Jam 2. But it's all in the guise of this will really help our lottery pick. Can I stick up for LeBron on the Space Jam thing real quick?

Yeah. Like this thing making the rounds now that Space Jam's pre-production is supposed to take place like what, during the Western Conference Finals or something like that or the NBA Finals? Yeah. I have a feeling if the Lakers are in the NBA Finals, they'd find a way to move production back for Space Jam.

I think that's a doable thing. It is a nice little urban legend type thing that the Space Jam 2, it's one of the funnier ones going around right now. Right, and he knew they were going to stink, so he's like, let's get Space Jam 2 going. It'll be fine. That's so unfair, that one.

You want to go first? I'm going to look at the schedule really fast. I have it up if you need it. You go first. So we got Clippers, Nuggets, Celtics. So 30 and 33 right now. And... I mean, they could...

Their next game's tough, right? Yeah, they got the Nuggets this week. Then they got the Celtics. They got the mad. They got the hungry Celtics next Saturday. So they got the Clippers. They got the mad. They got the hungry Celtics next Saturday. So they got the Clippers. They have a lot of time off. They have the Clippers tonight on NBA TV.

Denver Wednesday on ESPN and then Boston ABC Saturday night. Hungry. And then after that, you have the five-game road trip. Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, New York, Milwaukee. So, isn't the move, if he was really going to pack it in, isn't the move right after that Denver game so you're not on ABC?

That's what I would do. That seems too early, man. That's way too early. That's way too early. Let's say they're 30 and 35. It's over at that point. They should beat the Clippers tonight. I don't know if they're going to beat the Nuggets. On paper, they shouldn't beat the Nuggets,

but you could see it happening. Something weird, Nuggets on the road. I'd give them a 0% chance of beating the Nuggets. I don't think they'll get to Celtics twice. You know who's a bad job for them is Jokic. This Celtics-Laker game on ABC is like the most dramatic two and a half hours on

ABC since the Desperate Housewives season five finale. Or maybe the Grey's Anatomy, one of the seven times the hospital blew up. What about Scandal? Scandal, like the ninth time the president got shot. That's going to be some, what a clusterfuck.

I mean, that's actually probably good for the ABC, right? Two unhappy teams tonight at 830. When misery faces off, who wins? We're going to wheel Paul Pearson on his wheelchair. You just made a really good point, though, about the LeBron leader thing, because that's what sucks for the rest of those younger guys and the difference between kyrie and lebron yeah is that if you're ingram and you're mad at lebron you probably just put on your hoodie and bounce where you could actually say to kyrie hey fuck off yeah right that's different like you

could because of their standing because of their age and because of those things and whichever one's having problems being a leader. And like the LeBron thing is a real thing there. A part of the pitch, if you're LeBron's crew, is that you say, hey, man, we're calling the shots in this league. Right. Wouldn't that be a positive to somebody as a potential client? Like, yeah, with us. And we're controlling things because there's some truth to it. But then if you're one of the younger guys, you're like, yeah, you control stuff.

Like we're almost out of here. And then Jeannie Bust has said it was fake news that there was an offer at Sloan. Like how did that go over? Were you there for that? I wasn't. It did make me, I read it and it made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. I guess she has to say that,

but unfortunately our current president has created this environment where when something happens, you can just say fake news and then it sounds like it didn't happen. But meanwhile, everybody knows Unfortunately, our current president has created this environment where when something happens, you can just say fake news and then it sounds like it didn't happen. But meanwhile, everybody knows that they were in advanced trade talks with the Pelicans and then leaking them left and right. Let's play a game. One of us is Kyle Kuzma's best friend from home and the other one is Kyle Kuzma.

And you're catching up. You haven't talked in four weeks. Do you want to be Kyle Kuzma or do you want to be Kyle Kuzma's best friend from home. You haven't talked in four weeks. Do you want to be Kyle Kuzma or do you want to be Kyle Kuzma's best friend from home? I want to be his best friend. Okay. All right. What's up, dude? Hey, what's up, bro? I've been DMing you. It's been horrible, man. It's been horrible. I just thought, you know, we signed LeBron and I don't know. He's one of the greatest

players of all time. I thought this was going to be really fun. I thought I was going to learn all this stuff from him and you know, tries to trade all of us.

He still doesn't know my name. Wait a minute, what's he call you? He called me Craig last week. He he he calls Brandon Ingram. He calls Skinny Guy.

He doesn't know. I think he knows his name's Brandon, but he's nicknamed him Skinny Guy. Him and Rondo are just on the side. They're making fun of us. Is he the reason why you were defending centers for no reason at the beginning of the year? Yeah, he is.

He was telling me. He was just telling me to do some stuff. I mean, we were carrying some water for him. I just feel like me and Brandon are playing really well, trying hard. We love being Lakers. He tried to trade us to New Orleans. It fell through.

He's on the bench during practice. He's not practicing with us. He's got this giant Space Jam script he's just reading from. Are you going to be in Space Jam? No. He thinks my name's Craig. I'm definitely not gonna be in space jam um yeah it's been pretty brutal man and then uh you know he doesn't like luke doesn't talk to him doesn't so he's got jason kidd and mark jackson on a speed dial right and i'm not an nba player but normally you guys do talk to your head coaches i mean we certainly talked to them last year. And then we have these meetings,

the pregame, the meeting, and then we go out and we do this huddle thing. And LeBron's like, all right, guys, let's do, he waits till the camera's on. Camera comes on, he gives us this whole speech, makes it seem like we're a team. It's just brutal, man. It's really tough. I'm not having a good time. Two things. Can I be your agent? And what's up with that IG girl saying you're afraid?

All right, I'm done being Kyle Kuzma. I like Kyle Kuzma. You sound bummed out. I like Kyle Kuzma too. By the way, Brandon Ingram's been really good the last month. I still am not positive where he fits in

on the framework of a winning team. But he is something. There are moves that he has. Yeah, he's something. That one finish of the hoop, I think it was in the Phoenix game. The Phoenix game was so weird because I was at a friend's house and I really want to keep my eye on Golden State

and Philly, which is still a little misleading because of the, you know, the rosters that were out there. So we got the peak performance out of it. Um, and then I was watching the UFC cause I was really into that card. And unfortunately, the last couple of fights that were the ones I wanted to watch sucked, but I kept going back to the Phoenix LA thing. And then it was one of the things where it's the third time I finally clicked on it. I was like, wait, the Lakers are down? Yeah. Like, why have I been watching this the whole time thinking they're the ones up? And maybe it was just the purple

and the graphics were messing me up. But Ingram had an incredible finish at the rim where you go, oh my God, like he just kind of went through everybody. And, you know, that's what you hope to see more of the whole time. And that's the part of this that's weird. Like I read something last week

after they had another tough loss. It was like LeBron can't do this by himself. You go, actually, Kuzma and Ingram have been at least getting you buckets if there are other flaws in their game. I understand it.

Like, Ingram's become a better defensive player. Kuzma's, you know, he's an effort guy, but it's not always great. But I do like that. I like that Kuzma, I think about that Philadelphia game

when they were there. I know that even though I probably don't want on a great team, Kuzma being my number two scoring option, I know that he's not afraid. Yeah want on a great team, Kuzma being my number two scoring option, I know that he's not afraid. I wish Tatum had that in him.

So Tatum versus Ingram, which I felt like was a slam dunk Tatum's way. As this season goes along, they're becoming a little more even again. Ingram, I think, might be like six months to a year older. I can't remember how that plays out. But he's definitely at least

his progression is heading a certain way where it would make more sense for him to be the centerpiece of a Davis trade I feel like I didn't feel like

it made as much sense I know and I'm trying I'm trying not to do the thing though like okay right now Tatum and how bad this has looked now for a stretch and how good Ingram's look

for a stretch here and they're still losing these yeah i'm just saying it's it's more of a conversation yeah i wouldn't have the conversation before i asked six front office guys ingram or tatum all six guys this is i don't know you can go back and look at the tweet i think feel like it's over a month ago i asked this question yeah because it had to have been before the trade deadline unless i'm doing bad content. That's not relevant. All six front office guys, I think it was six, said Tatum. And then I asked, okay, follow-up, is it close? One of the six was like, it's close. The other five were like, not even.

Like, don't even bother asking a follow-up. The irony is like LeBron is now, he's putting up big stats. The team's not playing well. He's the de facto leader of the team, unquestionably, and the team seems rudderless. The coach seems like he has no power. And it's

clearly headed for this big sea change. And he created all of this. And people, it's now in a position where people are like, well, LeBron's doing everything he can. That's like dumb basketball argument number one. It's like, this team is floundering because of what happened before the trade deadline when his buddy

did a very public trade demand of his client to go to the Lakers that there's no way he would have done if LeBron hadn't given his consent to it. I blame LeBron for all of that. If they were going to try to get Davis out of there, they had to do it that way. They had

to. So even though none of us liked it or people can be upset by it, that was the only play. They couldn't do the nice trade demand. The problem with it was, what if this doesn't work? I don't even think they cared.

I think you have to though because you might have to play with these guys anyway. Maybe Davis, maybe there's no trade that can send Davis to the Lakers and now you have all these young guys that now you just try to trade all of them. But think about that.

Try to get into LeBron's head here for a second. Do you think he signs up? Again, my understanding of it is oh, really? Okay, this is what we're doing with the rest of the team you know okay let's do this

you really think you really think they sign those other guys without LeBron's input the entire time I know that he liked Rondo there is no way he didn't sign off

on every single one of those guys you were not like this whole myth of superstars aren't talking to their GMs about what moves to make is one of the

to me one of the dumbest everyone pretending that's not how it goes but that's how it goes so you think he was in on every signing

endorsed every one of them I would bet my entire basketball card collection there's no fucking way they didn't they spent two years trying to get this guy.

There's no way they're not going to then just do all these moves and not consult him. It's impossible. No way. And by the way, there's some article written right after by somebody. I'm going to say it was Windhorst, but I can't,

it was somebody Windhorst or somebody in, in his, you know, in his sphere, but about the reasoning behind the roster they picked and how LeBron felt so limited by just being year after year, the book was like just surrounding him with shooters

and he just wanted to play with a more athletic team and be more of a point forward, have a second playmaker. There was so much thought put into the, who they, he wanted tougher guys and better defenders. They wanted they're more paced. They wanted to be able to, you know, more athletes, interchangeable guys. But sometimes I wonder

is that what they came up with after they ended up being disappointed with what they signed? No, because it was right after. No, because they immediately signed those guys. That was the funniest thing. It was like they were the dudes at the fantasy auction who just grabbed, you know, grabbed the starting lineup in the first 15 minutes of the auction.

Let me tell you something. JaVale McGee was still going to be there two weeks after they signed him. So was Lance Stevenson. Who were they competing against? And then the irony of letting Brook Lopez go so you can keep Michael Beasley or sign Michael Beasley. This was very basic, idiotic stuff.

Brooke Lopez wouldn't have been good with LeBron. What are they doing? Just a better player. The idea that you feel like you have to go get Beasley. I don't know. I don't know if I'm all the way with you that he was signing off on every one of these things or this was a convenience or maybe he's making a convenience of it now where it's like oh actually i didn't like all these guys

because everything's going south i thought there was a bit more reluctance uh this summer when when it all was finalized like this was the final roster i know part of that i love when we disagree i completely disagree well they never they never went after cousins well they didn't have time to go after you really think you really think the lakers were like you know who we need contavious caldwell pope well we all know what happened there i mean they did the pope trade lebron doesn't get lebron doesn't he doesn't get blamed for that that was 12 million they could have given the cousins they could have cousins right now cousins though pulled this thing on the nba where everybody's like wait a minute this is done he's going to golden state like when he

says oh i called around to everybody i, oh, I called around to everybody, I don't think they called around to everybody. I just don't think they did. I don't think the Lakers wanted him. I really don't. LeBron wanted him. I don't think he did. I really don't. I disagree with you on that one. He's always kind of,

you know, from afar been like, oh, I'd love to play with a guy like that. I also think some of these guys are really, no matter how good of a player you are, I think a lot of them are really bad as GMs. They think they're friends. Like we were talking about this the other night when we were in Boston, but there's so many guys that go,

I'd love a chance to play with him, or this is my dude, or this is my road dog, or like Durant and Kyrie. They barely know each other. Right. They're just texting. Yeah, they follow each other on Instagram.

And then you're like, wait, I'm around Durant or Kyrie every day. I actually want those guys to play together to see what happens to their friendship. They're like, man, you're kind of moody too. Didn't realize Durant was like this. Let's take a quick break. And then I want to talk about Adam Silver quickly. Hey, let's talk about Roman for a second.

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free two-day shipping. So look, talk to a doctor. ED is tough to tackle. More important to get it checked out than anything. And with Roman, it's easy to take care of. For a free online visit and free two-day shipping, just go to GetRoman.com slash bill. GetRoman.com slash bill. All right. So I did a Sloan Conference interview with Adam Silver on Friday and talked about a whole bunch of stuff. He was very candid about a bunch of different topics. He was awesome. What's interesting is I've known him for a long time and he used to be so uncomfortable in those situations. And part of it was just, you know, you get reps on being talking in front of people all the time and that helps. But I think there was also a real hesitation with him as long as David Stern was in charge of keeping a low profile and being the dutiful number two guy. And then when he became

the guy, it takes a couple years to learn how to handle yourself. He's really good in those situations now. What was fascinating to me, two things. One was how candid he was about the emotional state of his players. And it's a really important point to make that he distinguished that it wasn't just his players. He felt like a really important point to make that he distinguished that it wasn't just his players. He felt like it was a generational thing and he felt like it was something that

affects everybody of maybe in their 20s or early 30s down, something like that. What social media has inflicted on social behavior just like that people are kind of lonelier than they've ever been. And they feel like they're not lonely, but they are. He really deep, deep dived on a lot of this stuff and talked about how it's affected players and how the concept of a team isn't the same as it was 30 years ago when these dudes were just on a plane playing cards and interacting in ways that they were interacting because they were fucking bored and they had nothing else to do. And now you're in the locker room, you're putting your headphones on or your AirPods going right to your charter and just kind of landing in this new city. You go to your suite and you're like ships passing in a night. And he really seemed fearful about the effect

that it was having on not just his players, but society in general. But he's just noticing with his players, like, how are this many of my guys unhappy? And this is something we've talked about over and over again in this podcast. Were you surprised that he was this candid about that? Yeah, because it sounds like he's been thinking about this. This wasn't just a question and then let me figure out an answer

here. It sounds like he's had this conversation with people before, you know, I don't know what to what level I doubt he's calling up a head coach being like, Hey, you guys look really bummed out on Thursday night. Yeah. Anything I can do to help, but it is a bigger societal thing. And I don't know how much more I can add that isn't stuff. Like, I don't have kids so I don't hang out with a ton of kids.

You want to hang out with my kids? They're available. I heard... and play Fortnite with my son? Yeah, I was just hanging out with an 11-year-old

this weekend and I brought him some gear so he likes me. Great. Shout out to Sully. Yeah, just bribe kids. It's always the way to go.

Yeah, I showed up with a ton of gear and he put it on and he went upstairs. He's actually... This is a funny story. His name to Sully. Yeah, just bribe kids. It's always the way to go. Yeah, I showed up with a ton of gear and he put it on and he went upstairs. He's actually, this is a funny story. His name's Sully Miller. He's the son of Aaron Miller who played for the LA Kings, played for the Avalanche.

He's a pro hockey player. And the kid wants nothing to do with pro hockey. He loves basketball. And his favorite player is Lonzo Ball. But so we'll be driving around, the three of us, and then I'll say like, hey, how pumped are you about your dad? He's a pro hockey player. And Sully will be'd be like dude he didn't even score that much and I'm like yeah but he played the played the body not the puck he was a defensive

defenseman he's like yeah dude he had like 20 goals maybe so um I just I just love when he says it because he's so straightforward about it but you said something that was great with Sorkin and that was the lack of boredom how will that affect creativity from here on out? Like when I moved out to LA to try to do this writing thing, I left my Xbox with my sister. I go, there's enough of this. Like if I'm going to be serious about this, I can't come home and go, I can try to bang out a few lines in the next hour or I can try to save South America. So I, you know, I got rid of the thing. So I think there's a real question here.

Does lack of boredom, I don't know why I can't pronounce that word twice. Does the lack of boredom impact creativity negatively, but does it also impact relationships negatively? Yeah, you know, I can't, I think we talked about this a little on the panel, but these guys are connected to everybody and they're connected to nobody

you know if you're that's our whole point though like on the NBA we're best friends it'd be like are you right

that's a great point but you have this star like let's use Durant Durant I guarantee has just about every all-star on his phone and can text any of them at

any time and probably feels like some of them are his friends. And maybe they haven't hung out more than five times together. He's got all these writers and broadcasters and all these other PR people and all these other people he can text, but they're not really his friends. One of the things we talked about on the panel with Adam is like these guys get thrust in this situation where they're really young you know like Tatum just turned 21 and he's in this situation where now he's got all these people

in his life he has no idea who he should trust he has all these people that want to be his friends he has all these people that want to get involved with him romantically he has all these people who see him as some sort of, you know, potential focal point for this business they want to create, or he can be an investor and they want his money. You know, these guys are in a situation where they go from having nothing to everybody wants

something from them. And we're in a situation as fans where it's like nobody feels bad for players. Nobody feels bad for somebody. Jason Tame's going to make $7 million this year, $8 million. Kyrie's going to make $200 million on his next contract.

It's hard to feel bad when somebody's making so much money because as a society, we feel like if somebody's making money, that means they're happy. And what we find out over and over again is usually they're not happy. And if anything, they feel guilty that they're not happy when everything they ever wanted in their life, they're getting, and they're still not happy.

So you have all these dynamics in place. And the one thing that I think would really help a basketball team is just that you're all in it together and you're there and you're forging these relationships. And you're having dinner after games. And you're hanging out on the road and all this stuff. And I'm not sure that stuff happens anymore. So when we joke about Durant and Kyrie barely know each other, but they're best friends, that actually might be true. They probably spent time together at All-Star.

They probably see each other in LA, but they haven't spent like the day in, day out that people like McHale and Bird and Jordan and Pippen and, you know, from that era where these guys just had no choice but to hang out. And how that affects the basketball team, I guess we're going to find out over these next 10 years. Because from the outside,

as you say, like look at Tatum. Hey, you know, despite our frustration, maybe I should just use somebody else because we feel like we've talked about him too much.

Like say you're, say you're Giannis, although he seems happy all the time. No, Giannis is the only bad example. Giannis is like... But Clay's a bad example too

because Clay's just, Clay just rolls with everything. I'm just trying to think of any player. All right, so you're on your max deal. You're on your second deal. Yeah, who signed a deal recently? Let's use Andre Drummond. Andre Drummond.

Okay, fine. All right, so Andre Drummond is… He's like 25, 26. Yeah, and he's going to make all his money. Maybe he doesn't deserve it. He's making $30 million a year. He's a top five rebounder. He's never really make all his money. Maybe he doesn't deserve it. He's making $30 million a year. He's a top five rebounder. He's never really had playoff success.

People pick him apart online. He doesn't do this. He doesn't do that. He's one of the best 50 guys in the league. Okay, but this is the classic, like nothing's easier than giving somebody else advice that you wouldn't follow. So you would say to Andre Drummond,

like, what are you upset about? You're making all this money. You're playing minutes. You're one of the featured guys, even though you're not a star and you're going to have, you're never going to have to worry about money your entire life. This is an amazing thing. And you're going to play 15 years and blah, blah. And he's not thinking about, we don't think about the things that are great. We think about the things that frustrate us. And like, I know I did this personally, right? Somebody could be saying like, what do you care? You're on ESPN. You're getting paid every two weeks.

Like you're on a national show. Your name is on the thing. I'm like, yeah, but it's not what I want. I want the other thing. So Drummond, like my fitness videos aren't getting nearly enough views. So I think Drummond just goes, you know, this is like a lot of guys be like, I'm never an all-star. People think I'm, I'm just a rebounder that can't score reggie jackson takes too many shots we're in another coach blake is a bigger star than i'll ever be and i think that's what happens and i don't think it's just about

driven people versus not driven like sometimes i wonder like is it better to just accept things and not be as driven and then you'll be happier like Like that seems insane too. But yeah, I look at McHale and Bird. That's the classic like 1A, 1B situation where Bird was a three time in a row MVP. He was the best player of that decade. And it was the hierarchy was always in place. And McHale, everything that's been written about it, everything he's ever said was like, he understood early on how lucky he was

to be in that situation, playing with somebody as great as Larry that had complications. Larry's difficult. Larry get mad at him. Larry would wonder sometimes why he didn't care about, why Kevin didn't care about basketball quite as much as Larry did,

why he wasn't obsessed with it. It was all minor stuff. He always appreciated it. But now if you take that exact team and you move them into 2019 and McHale's in that situation, he'd be conditioned to think like, I need my own team. I need to be the guy. I don't want to be Larry's sidekick. That's one of the things that I feel like has been lost with basketball over these last probably 12 years is, and maybe it started with Kobe and Shaq, where it's like, I don't want to be your sidekick. I want my own team. I want to be the guy. And that's been this century. That's been the 21st century. Westbrook Durant, another example. Those guys should have coexisted forever. No, I want to be the guy. I'm going to

go here instead. So maybe that's just where we are. But nobody wants to accept being a two. And I don't know if that's a great thing. Like, would you tell your kid to be like, we want you to always be able to not be the feature guy? Like, look at your career. Have you ever not wanted to be the number one guy? Like, you're a number one in everything you do. I feel like I'm the number two on our weekly NBA pods.

I'm your Pippen. No, but think about your career, man. Like, I know you don't like to talk about yourself, but you're never, yeah, but you were never, ever going to accept anything where you weren't the guy. And if you weren't featured in certain things and you were behind somebody else, you didn't think of the thousands

that you were ahead of. You didn't think about the guys at me. You weren't like, I'm not competing with Russillo. I'm competing with this guy who they just gave a big contract to.

Yeah, that's true. Like, that's the way it's done. But in basketball, like, you didn't have to fit in with four other writers for your team to be successful. So that's an isolated thing. For basketball, none of these, like, we have Marvin Bagley entering the league You didn't have to fit in with four other writers for your team to be successful. So that's an isolated thing for basketball.

None of these like we have Marvin Bagley entering the league thinking it's cool to say I'm going to win the MVP this year. Right. Well, that's how these guys are. Lamar Jackson, not Lamar Jackson. Any quarterback, you could pick any quarterback. And like if they don't answer, they're the best in the NFL, despite the fact that we ridicule them if they're outside of the top 10. Like that's how you're conditioned to think. So I think it happens in basketball that everybody wants to be the one until they get old enough to realize, Hey, this one thing in losing sucks.

Right. And that's why, you know, not to bring it back to the three of Alan KG and Pierce, but if they tried to do that when they're all 25, they would have been a three seat. Yeah. And I think, I think they've admitted it. They have. And the NBA is littered with seem like they could have been a dynasty type teams where it just fell apart way sooner

than you'd ever imagine. And it happens over and over and over again. And that's why I like, to go back to the Dallas thing, Porzingis and Doncic, that should be awesome. That should work on paper. I love those two guys together.

Do I think they'll be together in five years? No. I think at some point, one of them goes, I kind of want my own gang. I kind of want my own team. I want my own city. And I think when Kyrie, now that we know Kyrie's definitely a little more complicated than maybe we thought, but when Kyrie looks at a LeBron situation and says, I'd rather be on my own team as the guy versus playing with the second greatest player of all

time, it's pretty telling. When Durant looks at this Golden State thing and says, we just won three straight titles and we are one of the four best teams of all time now I'm gonna go to the Knicks that's fucking crazy or Kawhi well I'm with the greatest organization in sports along with the Patriots the best coach in the game they're always smart they develop everyone probably is look let's just say the Spurs develop their roster guys better than anybody else does. But I don't like what they did with my quad, so I'm out of here.

Bizarre. The clips with Chris Paul, Blake, and DeAndre on paper, that should work every time. Every time. Three guys that actually complement each other. Completely implodes.

So, I just think that's where the league is. Is the new formula less stars? Well, it might be more teams. We might just need to have 64 teams. Everybody gets to be a star. That'd be great. I thought, you know, you think about the other commissioners in the league, though. And obviously, I've been an Adam stand forever.

Why not? What's the counter to liking Adam Silver? Just think about him versus Goodell. Adam and I were in front of 1,500 people. And he's talking very seriously and very thoughtfully about this thing that he's worried about with the league. That isn't really a major thing. It's not like a PD scandal. We're not talking about domestic violence. We're not talking about anything criminal. It's just more like his general feel for his league at this point in time and all the players that he's talked to

and he has just a general concern about this generation and just how they handle stuff and are they emotionally cool? Are they good? And then you look at Goodell. You think Goodell in a million, trillion years would ever even

go one inch toward thinking that way? Ever? Well, no. the easy answer the quick answer but i also think with goodell he's gotten so beat up now for a while and i'm not no look some of some of it what are we doing here no i'm kidding yeah he's been beat up for a while i'm agreeing with you well i know i know that i mean there's no but but then i guess the way i phrase it that way you'd kind of be like well wait a minute he's screwed up he's screwed up i'm not saying that he hasn't screwed up but it's got no point with goodell like no matter what he does kind of like bud selig now no matter what he does yeah there's no way out right people just find the flaws in what he said and the way he executed it like no

matter what and i actually think some of it's ridiculous but so he's just given up he's just given up and he's like there's no point of even doing this stuff like he used to talk to people he used to do stuff everybody loved him the beginning linebacker shoulders bro hugging guys of the draft yeah and then once it went south because of the he started by the way suspending players that agreed to this policy because every single night it seemed like a new guy was getting into trouble in the NFL and he's like hey we need to fix this and the league was like the players association goes yeah no problem and they're like wait a minute you're actually gonna start suspending us

for doing stuff wrong and like that's the other thing too is that some of the anger is displaced where we get madder at Roger Goodell than we do at Ray Rice and you go how did that happen like that's what's going on there so I don't think Roger is capable of humanizing in the way that silver is because he's just not as good as a public speaker. He just isn't. He's not as good at it. Some of the guys that coach him up, I know who a couple of those guys are. They're right out of this playbook. That's very predictable. And it's either it's really boring. And I think it's made him worse. But I also think he's kind of looked around. It's like Mark Emmert, NCA president. He used to talk to everybody and he goes, everybody hates the NCAA.

Everybody hates me. This is pointless. I'm just not going to talk to any of you guys anymore. And I think for the most part, that's what Goodell's done. It's fair. I don't, I think there's a humanity that he's lacking though. Oh, I'm with you there. And I just feel like, I don't even think it's on his radar.

I don't think he cares. I think he cares what he gets paid from the NFL and that's it. And I just don't think the welfare of his players and how they're feeling and checking in, I don't think players are texting him. Now you could argue Adam, there's a criticism of Adam. Maybe he's a little too close to the players now. I don't know.

I can't speak for him. But it's a criticism of that and maybe he's a little too close to the players now. I don't know. I can't speak for him, but, um, you know, it's, it's a player's league. He clearly understands that. I think he has a really hard job and I think the longer that he's done it, the more obvious it is that Stern was just really, really, really bad those last seven, eight years and was responsible for a lot of problems that the league was having. And I think now between Adam and the owners, these new guys that they have in, that's another advantage they have with the NFL. They're bringing in these younger, just more sophisticated,

where things are heading in life kind of owners versus the NFL, which has Bob Kraft at the Orchard Spa four hours before a KC playoff game. Are we getting your position on that yet? Or are we just leaving that one alone? I think you brought up a good point, though, on the Stern-Silver thing. Because what used to bum me out with Stern was that he was, like, he works for the owner.

So it's always important to remind us of that. Yeah. But Silver has this thing where it feels like he's this conduit to the players. Yes. And owner. And that's really hard to pull off. Now, we'll see how successful that continues when they have the first labor thing where it's like nope this isn't working out and that could all be over like that you know like when people go oh he handled

the donald donald sterling thing perfectly i'm like what were his options retiring his number like he like that was actually a really high approval rating move yeah he did something that actually was a win despite the fact that he'd have a ton of experience but i'll never forget like the last labor thing that stern was was handling was the one you know we didn't get games until around christmas yeah and all the existing contracts he threatened publicly to say that the nba would go ahead and void him yeah and i was like what and then you know i immediately go check on that and every single lawyer was like look there's gray areas and all sorts of things that what he just said is impossible and can't happen.

And you go, why would you say something that. I get the lawyer background and I get all that stuff. And there's there's far more great with Stern than there are critiques, even if you don't like his personality. I kind of get a kick out of it at some point. But like that was the kind of stuff towards the end where I go, why would you say something that's so incredibly false to try to just sway public opinion or scare the players into what? Coming back to work because they were afraid the last three years of their deal were going to get voided? Yeah, he was off the rails.

I think it started with the way they handled the Donahue stuff in 2007 and the way they handled the Seattle stuff in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Did you get anything good out of the Donahue stuff? No, I didn't. I you get anything good out of the, uh, the Donahue stuff? No,

I didn't, I didn't bring that up only because, um, I, my goal with that stuff is I actually want to get stuff out of him that is interesting and stuff that he wouldn't normally say. If I ask him about the Donahue thing, shut down. Yeah.

It's like, it's the old thing of, uh, you thing of if we're on the outside the lines, it's like, how do you not ask him about the Donahue thing? It's like, all right, here's what happens if I ask him. I'm happy to prove that I can be the tough guy who asks him about Donahue, but here's what he says. I know what he's going to say. Donahue's a liar. We hired an independent investigator who investigated it, and we found that he had this one thing. No other ref has ever come out. And every time anything happens about Donahue,

Donahue lies about it. And we're not in business with him anymore. What do you want us to do? We changed our referee system. We hired better oversight for it. We're very wary. We've added better instant replay. And you know

you know what that four minute spiel is going to be he's not going to actually say anything so to me that's like a waste of four minutes

just because we're doing the pod we like each other I think but I know that you weren't you're not the type of guy to say oh I don't want to do it to shut him down

I'm just explaining I don't think you're being defensive I'm saying I understand where you're coming from here. By the way, the Donahue thing, like he, once I saw the 60 Minutes thing, and then I interviewed him once he was doing the rounds all those years ago with Scott, and I like just, I won't have him on the podcast. 60 Minutes did the worst job with him.

It was so embarrassing that I'm like, how can you guys be 60 Minutes and not have one person that understands sports enough to tell you where the holes are and what he's saying? And then your questions are falling for the holes. He blocked you, by the way, huh? Yeah, he did. Well, I've said he's a pathological liar. Seems like that was it. Yeah, that might have been one of the reasons.

The thing with when you have like an hour with somebody like Adam, my goal with that is always like, how can I get an hours worth of material of things I haven't really heard him say? So like we could have, especially in that room. I didn't ask him about tanking. And I said in the thing, like, I'm not asking about tanking because you've already talked about tanking 20 different times. And we

could talk about it right now and we would just say the same things you've said already. And I don't, I honestly don't feel like there's a solution for tanking. I've looked at it at every angle. Other than relegation, which I don't think they would ever do, you're never going to be able to... There's the incentive of landing somebody like Zion who can change your franchise for 20 years

is totally worth throwing away two months. It just is. They can't fix that. What if they play 10 on 10? More players, 11 v 11, bigger courts. We got to wrap it up. I never want to like have a, I never, I always want to save stuff for next week, but I do like, so you can email us at themailbagattheringer.com.

If you want to be like a, the listener of the week, Jeffrey Ray, and not only tell an upper crust story about Rossello. Shout out to the upper crust. Good pizza, by the way. Good pizza. One of the first good Boston pizza places. But if you want to suggest a topic for us to talk to. You think he's still there?

No, I think he's stepped up. No, I don't mean it like, I just hope. No, I think he's, they promoted him. I think that stepped up. No, I don't mean it like it. I just hope. No, I think they promoted him. I think that's what happened. All right. So you're back East all week. When do you come back? I have a couple of days in New York City

and then I'm going to Chicago for a charity event. And then I have to go back to Boston one more time. And then I'll be back in LA, hopefully middle of next week. Okay. All right. So we're doing in LA hopefully middle of next week. Okay. Alright. So we're doing this again at some point next week. I think next week we have to do... It's time.

We're in the range now. There's going to be about 15, 16 games left. I would like to do a full Tankapalooza 2019 breakdown next week. I think that's on the docket for us.

No problem. This is really, we're now hitting a really, really important time for all of this. All right.

Ryan Russillo, safe travels. A pleasure, as always. We'll talk to you next week. All right. Thanks, man.

Enjoy it. All right. Before we go, right at the end of this taping, we found out that Luke Perry had passed away. And I'm just so shocked and saddened and bummed out. I'm going to gather my thoughts on this. Maybe circle back with some sort of podcast later in the week or something, trying to figure out even how to handle this.

I can't believe it. He's only 52 years old. He had a stroke last week and did not survive it. And I just can't believe it. Probably one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite shows ever, but also a really good guy who had been on this podcast when I had the BS report. And it was really fun to talk to him. And I thought it was a really thoughtful, interesting hour and just liked him. So really, really bummed out about that. So best wishes to him and his family.

And we'll try to figure out how to talk about this in some form later in the week. Thanks to Ryan Rosillo. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Hotel Tonight. They make it easy to book awesome hotels at amazing rates. They're like a matchmaker between top rated hotels with unsold rooms and people who want

to book those rooms. Hotel Tonight, not just for last minute bookings, book for tonight, tomorrow and beyond. Perfect for planners, procrastinators, everyone in between. Find sweet deals at cool hotels you'll actually want to stay at. Go to hoteltonight.com or download the app right now. Back later in the week with two more podcasts. Until then. On the wayside, never on set I don't have feelings within On the wayside, never on set

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