The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Cinderella Clippers, Mailbag Questions, TSA Stories and Gym Corner with Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: March 13, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the rise of Steve Ballmer's Clippers, the Lakers' meltdown, free-agency factors, what-if playoff matchups, mailbag questions, and a new segment called 'Gym Corner.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the rigor podcast network brought to you as always by ZipRecruiter. The best teams start with great talent, except for the warriors who have great talent and haven't been doing that well lately. We're going to talk about that in a second with Ryan Russillo, but no one knows the importance of talents more than ZipRecruiter. They deliver qualified candidates fast, so effective. 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in

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the world's greatest website. Right now, breaking down all of the crazy NFL moves. I think I'm going to talk about this on a podcast on Thursday. Everybody has cap space and nobody knows what they're doing is my early takeaway of this. We also have breakdowns of The Bachelor, Justin Charity wrote about Beto O'Rourke. I know we have some stuff coming up about the big A-Rod J-Lo. Somebody's breaking down what's going on with that wedding. Victor Luckerson wrote about

what exactly is going on with 5G as syllabus. Some good stuff on there today, the Ringer Podcast Network as well. On Winging It, the Vince Carter podcast with Kent Baysworth and Annie Finberg. They had DeMar DeRozan talked about mental illness in the NBA. That was a good one. JJ Redick has a big one coming this week. Is that up yet?

Hold on, I'm looking right now. That is not up yet, but he has one coming up this week that I would keep an eye on as well, as well as all the other awesome podcasts we have in the Ringer Podcast Network. Coming up, Brian Russoassel, and I, we still haven't named whatever this weekly NBA chat is,

but it is happening right now. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Tuesday morning here in Southern California. Ryan Rosso is here every week during the rest of the NBA season all the way through July, which I think is going to be a fascinating July, which I want to talk about a little bit. Before we get going, there's a lot to talk about today, even though this is probably the worst time of the year

for the NBA. The three best names, listener suggestions for the podcast. Oh, yeah, I like these. People like the double shift, which I think I threw out last week because we both bartended once upon a time. Staggered Minutes was another one.

Welcome to Staggered Minutes. And then the No Trade Clause, I kind of liked. I still like Masked Ball. Masked Ball? Yeah. Oh, with the two S's? Yeah, like Mass Holes. All right, we'll do a Twitter poll.

The other thing I'm really excited about, I'm dropping this on you right now, and it might derail you for the rest of the podcast. Me and Sal did Parent Corner every Sunday night during football season. And, uh, somebody asked if we could do gym corner at the end of the pod where each pod ends with you telling a story from the gym. And I was like, I don't know if we can do this every episode, but I kind of want to pilot it today. Yeah, we can, we can come up every episode, but I kind of want to pilot it today. Yeah, we can come up.

We can pilot it. We pilot it at the end. I'm always observing stuff. But you know what? I've always felt a little bad about. Yeah, it'll be fast. But you remember when we first started hanging out here when I moved out here and then I told that story about Toby from The Office working out?

Yeah, gym corner. Yeah. And then it turned into a thing. Like it went, it was everywhere. And they were like, Toby works out just like you would expect Toby to work out. And then I felt bad for Paul. Right. I don't know him.

And then I've like, I've have rules now when I go to the gym, when I see different famous people working out. Like, I don't know that I should tell these stories because, you know. Well, maybe you could just use pseudonyms. Right. I feel like Jim Corner, half of the stories would be about somebody who forgot to wipe off the bench after they worked out. Yeah, there's etiquette. I don't care. I got something for it.

Naked people in the locker room. Yeah, Jim Corner. Old people love being naked. Maybe we'll get a sponsor. As soon as you turn 60, it's like, here it is. Deal with it. They back out of the driveway and they like being naked. Those are two things.

I'm coming out. It's the Seinfeld joke. I'm going backwards. All right, so this is the worst time of the year for the NBA. It gets worse, I actually think, in a couple weeks. Yeah, I think that. I always going backwards. All right. So this is the worst time of the year for the NBA. It gets worse, I actually think, in a couple weeks. Yeah.

I think that, I always kind of call it like. So we only have 15 games left. Yeah, but, well, I really feel like that April Fool's,

like, you're talking to the end of this month too, but I always look at his Gerald Green season. Like in the beginning of his Celtics career, he put together that stretch

the last 10 games of the season. Very exciting. And you're just like, this guy's going to be awesome. Yeah. You're like, nope. This guy's Tracy McGrady. No one cares.

Yeah. We went to the Clippers Celtic game last night and the Clippers, the entire team had a heat check. It was really incredible. Lou Williams and Gallinari were like 23 for 32 or something combined. They play really well.

They compliment each other really well. They brought out a starting lineup. And I turned to the people who sit next to me at the games when I go. And I was like, do you guys have somebody hurt? Like, is that really the starting lineup? They're like, oh yeah, that's our starting lineup. And then Lou and Trez come in off the bench and it's been great. I'm like, wow, really?

That's, this is going to be a playoff team. And then you watch them and like, oh, this makes sense. It's Doc Rivers coach of the year type stuff. It really is. I thought that last night. They play this well. Like I still think, you know, Boone Holzer is probably your guy. Cause he, he takes this team to the next level.

Yannis next level. So I'm not saying like coaches, coach of the year, I'd vote right now for Doc. But so it's Zubach who comes out, which is still an incredibly overlooked, stupid trade by the Lakers. I was going to say, when do you want to talk about that? I was watching that last night going, they just gave this dude away.

He's like, he could at least have been thrown into the Pelicans trade. At worst, he's an eight guy rotation backup center. Who's young. It doesn't make any sense. He's tall and coordinated. Like some of these Lakers controversies that are going on now,

which I think is a bit like the Hugh Jackson. I liked every quarterback where it's like, no, we wanted to keep this guy. Like, we wanted to know, we wanted to keep this guy too. Like the coaching staff fighting with the front office. That front office, like some of those things, I'm like, I don't know if I'd beat up the Lakers front office for this one.

They should get more criticism for giving away Zubach. Gallinari comes out and you're like, wait, side note. And I know we may get into this at some point, just a working theory I have with this Gordon Hayward article and Boston fans, the whole deal. nicks do the nicks hate white euros is there something going on there a bias against the white euros is there a weird prejudice going on in manhattan that is not exposed yet get that on vice media jesus um yeah that's a that's a big piece. Gallinari comes out

and you're like, is he a Max guy? He's nuts. I was sitting next to my friend Ben who you met at dinner last night. Good looking guy.

And so the game starts and I'm like, Gallinari always kills us. Gallinari has like 15 points. Dude, like three minutes into the game. And then Lou Williams came in and I was like,

Lou Williams always kills us. Lou Williams had like 34 in 23 minutes. And then Har Williams came in. I was like, Lou Williams always kills us. Lou Williams had like 34 and 23 minutes. And then Harrell was running. I'm like, guys like Harrell always kills us. Harrell has like, I love Harrell. I love him. I loved him at Louisville. You weren't sure you didn't know. And then as soon as Darryl liked him, I'm like, okay, there's some out there the second round. And then he, then he's, you know, like he's even better

now. Go ahead. It's just so funny how these Celtic teams that the players can change, but the same types of guys kill them. Anyway, the clips right now are 39 and 29. How? They traded Tobias Harris. They traded Blake Griffin last year, which was

supposed to be a rebuild. It seemed like they were going to be a player. I bet against them to make the playoffs because I just felt like they were going to tank. And Alexander was terrible last night. He didn't even do anything. And I liked him so much. And there's just movement stuff with him

where you're like, man, this guy just kind of floats around. And I don't love Beverly all the time. Like Beverly went from somebody who I watched in college. Like, how come he doesn't get a little bit more love? You know what though? He's effectively annoying. Oh, he's so annoying.

Because you could just see it on Kyrie's face last night. I actually thought the Celtics played hard. They just got their asses kicked. But just like during dead balls, like, you know, the inbounds pass, and there's that five seconds where guys are kind of jostling. And Beverly is just so annoying.

Like, his hands are all over you. Yeah, I always feel like a little guilty sometimes with Beverly because there's sometimes where it's a little extra but that's the whole thing that's the whole package and you know when he's checking you

it has to be the worst it has to be the worst it's not like oh this is going to be so it's just this is going to be so annoying he's the guy in pick up

where you're just like settle down dude stop what are you doing and that's like part of his game I told you when I was there for the Warriors game right like he I was on the court i don't know an hour and a half two hours before tip

because i wanted to just you know mingle and i know some of the guys on the staffs of these two different teams and i was standing in the corner and i was standing like i was talking to like a couple front office guys and he looked at us and he was like wiping his feet like a bull and he just goes are you guys good you guys good and we're like wiping his feet like a bull. And he just goes, are you guys good? You guys good? And we're like, huh? He's like, get the fuck out the way then. Jesus.

We were like, what? But I think the reason I want to start with the Clippers is I really think this is one of the great basketball stories of the last 15 years, how they reconstructed this team. You think 2015, they come within one of the worst collapses we've had in the last 25 years of making the conference finals. They have this foundation of two top 12 guys and then DeAndre Jordan, who we all felt

like was a borderline max player. JJ Redick, was a contender. They were a contender for the decade at least. It all falls apart. They spent all this money on Blake. They sour on Blake really quickly. And I think there was way more souring

than maybe they let on after they traded him. I think after he got that big contract, there was a lot of stuff they just didn't like. So they sent him out. I can never figure out historically who was the bad guy in the clippers history because depending on who you talk to there's like these factions where it's not blake was the worst no chris was the worst you know who really was the worst was deandre

i never know i i mean i've heard deandre is like he's he's frado in this scenario how can he be the worst how can he ever be the reason whatever i's whatever. I think the Chris Blake thing just seems like it was a really toxic, bad match. So they trade Blake, and it really, at that point, just seems like this is a full reboot. Here we go. And then it turns out it's not a reboot. Gal Nari gets revived.

They get Lou Williams on this crazy contract. Everybody thinks Kawhi is going there this summer, unless Toronto wins the title. So you thinks Kawhi is going there this summer, unless Toronto wins the title. So you add Kawhi to the nucleus they have and the picks they have. SGA wasn't great last night, but I do think he has the potential to potentially be an all-star. It's a really nice team. I mean, that's one of the better on-the-fly rebuilds, reminiscent of what the Celtics were able to do with the Isaiah Thomas trade and some of these other things, where all of a sudden, they just kind of figured out a way to stay relevant when nobody thought they're going to

be relevant. To win 50 games with this roster, trading Harris mid-season, I think is incredible. It is. I don't really know what else I can add to that other than it is the structure of these teams and the way that job is and what you'd say as a gm to your owner you know for for a lot of people to be like okay you know we're going to do three or four years here we you know like i gotta give you if you're asking me for a timeline i'm giving you a timeline and then it's just some of these teams the celtics were ahead of schedule when they did what they did yeah oh wait a minute we're actually way more competitive than we two years ahead of schedule like what's going on here and then we have all these picks

coming but we're good like we thought our own thought. Two years ahead of schedule. Yeah, like what's going on here? And then we have all these picks coming, but we're good? Like we thought our own picks were going to be better. And for the Clippers to do this, you know, the Spurs in a way, you know, they've just done it differently. But like this isn't really the way it's supposed to happen. It's not supposed to happen this way. And it's not just Blake. It's okay, so I'd heard, you know,

they didn't want to give Tobias the contract this summer. But I don't know if a lot of teams would still do that, would go out, you know, a lot of teams would probably be like, okay, we still don't like him, but you know what, let's not, let's just keep him for the end of the year. So it looks like we care and then we'll figure it out. And they're like, no, we're picking up some assets here. And, you know, even though I think for Philly, Tobias makes a lot of sense, especially if they want to move on from Jimmy this summer, you know, they still gave up some real assets to go ahead and get him. I think that was a bad... The more

I think about it, I just didn't like that trade for what they gave up. I can't believe they just threw Shaman in that. Watching him last night in person, that guy's good. He's a rotation guy. I don't know why he's in that trade. Shaman's like a classic... Philly fans loved him, and then

I'm like, man, I kind of like him in your rotation. You can actually leave him out with your closing group because he's good enough offensively. The guy knows how to play basketball. Like,

you watch him, like, move without the ball and the way he can already run screen rolls. defenders, because he would just reposition himself.

Yeah, he's smart. And so, you know, when you talk about the Celtics getting smoked last night and that they played hard, I think they were stupid

for long. There's so many little things I was looking at and I'm going, wow, there's just so many dumb things. Structurally, they were stupid, but I actually I think they were stupid for long. There's so many little things I was looking at, and I'm going, how are you doing? There's just so many dumb things. Structurally, they were stupid, but I actually felt like they were playing hard.

They just got completely decimated. But Shamit's looking at you going, okay, so if the ball's opposite, you don't pay attention to me repositioning on the three-point line, so all I have to move is like three feet to the left or right. It's like five times that happened.

And you just, you know, then the ball swings, and then all of a sudden, the Celtics defender's chasing the wrong area because he stopped paying attention. You go like, how are you still doing this? It really shows it doesn't take that much

to be really good in the modern NBA. You have some shooters, you have one rebounder, and you have two guys that know how to run a screen and roll. And with the clips, like, Lou Williams is just devastating now. I mean, he's really, like,

when he's really feeling it, he carves people up now. But that he set him that pick at the top and he's just like, you know, and then if it doesn't work, he'll just run back out to mid court. They'll reset it and he'll do it. He'll just keep doing it until it works.

And then Gallo, who's really in shape, was terrible last year. He's just in shape and is really good when he's healthy. He really is. He's a good basketball player. He was so good last night. I know.

So if you put Kawhi in this team, and then with all the acumen, which brings me to my other point, you know, Balmer buys this team. He has no idea what he's doing. It was obviously like he flames out at Microsoft after making a shitload of money, needs his next thing, throws himself into the Clippers, and makes all the typical new owner mistakes, tries to be splashy, doesn't realize Doc Rivers is running a game on him, being the coach GM, all that stuff. And it's just on down the line, dumb thing after dumb thing, but then really figures it out and starts surrounding himself with smart people.

And now I think they have a really good organization. We know, I, we used to think for years and years, like, well, the Clippers, what the fuck are they doing? And now you look at it and you go, all right, Jerry West is there.

Lee Jenkins. Now you're laughing about Lawrence Frank. I was laughing about Lee Jenkins. Lawrence Frank. But they just, they have a good organization now and they're well run and they know what the F they're doing. So I don't know

nice story and I think the legacy Winger too to also just to bring him up I just want to make sure we all

we mentioned because I'm I'm so impressed with them okay and you're right and to plug in Kawhi if it happens

and the flexibility like if it's not Kawhi well what do they have two cap they have two max cap spaces now you're gonna have to look it up for me right now because i know that whenever we do that stuff it's always like is it on paper today too or is it easily shavable down to two and so i think people talk about them as having uh they can get to two but i don't i don't have in front of me well the other reason i bring I bring this up is because the Lakers have been relevant for the opposite way.

They're really poorly run. And I think when you look at the way they decided to do what they're doing with their organization versus what the Clippers decided to do, it's really funny that the Clippers were the one that figured this out. The Lakers basically went for relationships. They were so embarrassed by the

2016 summer. We couldn't even get Durant to consider it. We need networkers. We need people who can be the face of our franchise. And they basically get two guys who, it seems like what they are, like guys who are good in press conferences, they obviously aren't good basketball guys because the Zubach thing is a great example. That that's, you know, it doesn't even make any sense. Relevant trade.

It doesn't really matter. He's a guy who has a chance to be a starting center maybe, but just to give that guy away tells me that they don't know what the F they're doing for Mike Muscala. What's Mike Muscala going to push them over the top and make them a finals contender. Get the fuck out of here. I swear to God,

it was like they had a meeting one day and they were like, which shooters are available. And they went like Muscala. Didn't he hit some threes in college? Like, yeah. Like, wait a minute.

Look at this guy. I don't know. I don't, I don't really. And I don't really get, okay, let me push back a little bit on the Lakers thing. Look at this guy. I don't know. I don't, I don't really. And I don't. Okay. Let me push back a little bit on the Lakers thing. Let's do it.

What's fair and what's unfair? Because. So the. LeBron was the goal the whole time. Okay. So they got him. They actually got LeBron James. So that worked.

That thing's a little overlooked now. Like it's acting like. I don't think you can give the Lakers and Magic an F here when you actually close on LeBron. Now I know that the counter to that's going to be like, oh, it doesn't matter. He always wanted to go there anyway. It's not because of Magic. I don't think you can give the Lakers and Magic an F here when you actually close on LeBron. Now, I know that the counter to that's going to be like, oh, it doesn't matter. He always wanted to go there anyway. It's not because of Magic and Plink. I don't care. Like, this thing's hard enough. Let's start giving people, I guess, zero amount of credit for landing the number one guy that you would want to land. Right. So, I think that part is, it's unfair to act as if you're not supposed to get any credit for getting him. Is that fair? I think that's fair. Okay. They had, those guys took over and their big task was

land somebody famous and they did. They did because that was the whole point is that we don't have magic. We can't close this. I don't know if magic closed him or not. Maybe LeBron closed himself, but I just don't like you're the guy on record of your tenure. you added LeBron James, okay? You added LeBron James during the twilight of his prime. Okay, so from that point, I think another thing that's unfair is the Anthony Davis thing. I don't think they were ever getting Anthony Davis, no matter what they offered.

So yes, it became public. Yes, it was embarrassing. You think they weren't getting him after the Rich Paul ploy to start the news cycle? Or do you think even before that, they weren't getting him after the Rich Paul ploy to start the news cycle? Or do you think even before that, they weren't getting him? I don't think they were getting him. I still feel like this part of the story is understated or not even told enough. Negotiating with the Pelicans is the most challenging situation you could have in the NBA.

Of all the other 29 teams you could try to close a deal with, the Pelicans would probably be the most difficult. Because you have an ownership structure that is... Gil Benson. There's a structure? Well, sort of. And then Mickey Loomis was maybe calling shots and he runs the Saints and Demps was maybe going to stay. And then he's on the outs because he ends up being fired essentially when Paul and Davis leave. So to sit there and be like, the Lakers should have found a way to get that deal done. I don't know that there's any way it was possible to close that deal with the Pelicans, at least before this trade deadline. And now we're in a situation here with Brendan Ingram,

who, you know, he, this, this blood clot thing he has is really serious. Imagine if you had said yes to that package, you were the Pelicans and Ingram's the number one piece and now you're dealing with this? And it really sounds serious. I don't know where this goes. Yeah, what's the package now? I don't know how he can be in a trade package because after what we went through with Chris Bosh and I know some of the clots,

there's different ways they can affect your body, but it's one of the scariest things, recurring themes that happens with NBA players when this happens where you're like, oh shit, does this mean they have to retire? Or can you fix this? What kind of medication do you have to take?

So I don't know where this heads. And it sucks because he was, not only does it suck for his career, but he was playing really well when this happened. I thought he was starting to at least show some signs that, oh, this guy could be the lead guy in a package. So all of this, would you officially call this the season from hell for them? Because then Lonzo sprains his ankle,

and he's going to basically miss half the year with a sprained ankle? Yeah, I get it was a bad sprained ankle, but that part I don't get. And I do think there's a lot of truth to, you know never i never quite understand like i i don't envy the beat job but the beat guys know like to be if you're around a team every single day you know okay this drama is real and is impacting the stuff on the court this drama made it out but it really doesn't mean like whether or not there's wins or losses i feel the drama is very real and the disconnect between lebron and those younger dudes yeah because of the trade and because a younger guy today isn't waiting around for his. The younger guy expects it today. And we can get into different generations and all that stuff,

but it only makes sense that because of their access to everything that's going on and the way they're being talked about all the time, that it's kind of like, look, am I your teammate or am I a poker chip in this thing? And I believe it's pissed off a lot of those other guys. Well, especially you talk about that generation where they need some love. The 20-somethings need love. But this is not a phenomenon that's unique to LeBron. We've seen this with just about every major star that has ever been in the NBA.

They hit a point where they become so famous and they're so good at what they do. And they've been around for long enough that now they're playing with these dudes that, you know, LeBron's 13, 14 years older than some of these guys. They grew up idolizing him. And he's, it's hard to think of that person as a teammate. I've always been impressed by how a six-time Superbowl champ, Tom Brady has navigated this. Because you would think he would be the ultimate example of this guy who's just made

nine figures and he's won all these titles, but seems like he's still- His wife makes a lot of money. I don't know if you were to bring that up. His Brazilian Super Bowl wife has made a lot of money.

How much money she made. Lives in this giant house, has nothing in common with really anyone on the team. And he's like, you know, 20, 15 common with really anyone on the team. And he's like, you know, 20, 15 years older than everybody he plays with.

And yet, all his teammates really seem to respect. He's like still a great teammate. I think it's easier. I think it's, you think it's easier in football? Football's so different.

Because you need the other guys so much? Yeah, and it's a business meeting. You have a couple meetings during the week and then you have the big presentation on Sunday and then you're out.

You're not, football is a business meeting. Hot takes from Ryan Russo. But it's serious. I'm totally serious about this. So you think the basketball guys are around each other way more? Right. A locker room in baseball and basketball, there are real things there.

There are things that are fragile. I'm not saying it's 0% of the football thing, but it's just, oh, sweet. I'm going on the road for a couple nights, eight weekends. We're on the road together. I just think basketball and baseball are so different that way.

So when there are fractured locker rooms or there are clicks and there are all of these different things, again, not to say that it doesn't exist anywhere in the NFL. I just think it's easier to navigate through the NFL. So when it's bad in basketball, like it is right now with the Lakers,

you can see it. Well, it definitely happened with Kobe his last few Laker years. It definitely happened with Michael Jordan when he was on the Wizards, which is, it's tough to compare that to anything. Is that their fault though? If we want to flip it the other way. No, that's what I'm saying. I'm not sure it's the star's fault. Famous. I remember Bird with the last two Celtic years where it was like this is my teammate but this guy's also

like one of the five best players we've ever had playing with this giant back brace like how you think Rick Fox is like hey Larry wanna go get a sandwich

like they have nothing in common with him at that point one of my buddies who played on the Avs Ray Bork ended up on the team yeah

like another young guy on the team was like hey Ray you know can I can I grab your your phone number and Ray was like why so you and you know, can I, can I grab your, your phone number? And Ray was like, why?

So you and your buddies can call me drunk in the middle of the night. Cause Ray knew like, right. I'm a God in this locker room. Yeah. But you know, at the same time, like,

you know, I'm not, you know, I'm still your teammate. You know, it didn't seem like it was a problem for LeBron in Miami. If you go back to Cleveland in the 2000s, he was one of the best teammates in the league.

That was one of the best things about him. He was the focal point. The camera shots. Focal point of everything. And now he's at this point where it just seems like, I've said this before, but it seemed like he acquired the Lakers. They didn't acquire him.

So, let's do the things that they should get killed for then. Are we already sort of doing them right now? Because that's, like, as you say that, that kind of goes against me being like, hey, can we give them any credit for actually closing LeBron here? Because I feel like nobody wants to do that anymore. Give credit for closing LeBron. They needed to figure out in July what the three-year arc of this team was. I think the mistake, if you're looking back, if I'm in a

meeting with Poenka and Magic, I'm like, here's what I think we did wrong. If I'm Jeannie Buss, if I'm the Laker, here's what I wish we had done. If you're bringing in this, it might go this way, it might go that way. We might trade these guys, who knows? Once that's in the locker room, you're screwed. Once these guys are like, I don't know if I'm here in three months. Oh, I'm in this trade room. Like, the uncertainty is just a killer with basketball.

And we've seen that over and over and over again this decade. So I think they had to make these decisions in July. Especially when every guy's a young guy on his first deal. They had this young team that actually looked really good last year. You have to look at it and go, all right, now we're bringing this guy in. Are we trying to win the title? What are we trying to do? Are we going to try to win 50 games?

We're happy being the sixth seed getting knocked out in round one? The whole thing was a holding pattern. That's the whole thing. It was like they just kind of moseyed along. Oh, we'll see how it plays out. And I don't think you can do that in basketball anymore. I don't think you can do the

let's see how it plays out. Because the best case scenario is what we talked about earlier with the Clippers. We'll trade to Bias Harris. Let's see how this plays out. And it played out well because those are all competitive guys.

They have a lot of veterans on their team. I don't think you can do that with young guys. Well, especially whatever, because they were all coming in the league the exact same time. This whole group feels like

they're all on the same timeline, which is a completely separate timeline from the best player on the team. And I guess his timeline is aligned with the front office and ownership here. So I think it's important, well, I just, I think it's important though, if you go back to last summer, what were the other things that they were supposed to do? Because once the Paul George thing went south on him, then it was a wake-up

call, like a holy shit to everybody, to LeBron, to the front office, to other people around the NBA, although the Thunder were always very, very confident about being able to bring him back. But that kind of gets back to like the Ainge rule. Like I remember, you know, when I was still in Boston and I would talk to Ainge and I would ask him about like the Ray Allen trade or something like that. Cause I wasn't, you know,

Ray had a lot of money that was due and his ankles had been an issue and he'd fallen off defensively. And you thought they were getting KG, but when it didn't happen on draft night, it fell apart, which actually is a huge bad play by McHale cause he had been getting less assets

because he waited until after the draft to go ahead and make that deal. But Ainge said something to me that I've never forgotten. He goes, you know, all you guys in the media freak out about cap space and cap space and cap space and cap space. He's like, when I trade for somebody, I know who I'm getting.

Yeah. And I'm not getting somebody that another team decided to not re-sign, which should be a warning sign to you, the new team that's acquiring him. So if you were the Lakers, and this is really easy after the fact, as bad as this has gone, knowing the apology, but you should have just gone to the Pacers and said, what do we need to do to get this deal done?

What do we need to do to get this deal done? So when the Paul George signing doesn't happen, I don't know that there's this list of three or four other things. The Kawhi thing wasn't going to happen. I think it's pretty clear too with the way the Spurs operate and the way the NBA operates. There's an anti- three or four other things. The Kawhi thing wasn't going to happen. I think it's pretty clear, too, with the way the Spurs operate and the way the NBA operates. There's an anti-Lakers thing out there. There's so much concern about tampering through magic

and in all of this stuff that goes on. And I'm not, you know, look, we already know that he's been finding this Paul George thing, that I think it's pissed off so many other teams, real or not, to have this anti-Lakers bias. And so I don't even know if Kawhi was even an option if they backed up the trucking assets to San Antonio for Kawhi. So if George isn't coming

and Kawhi isn't obtainable during the trade, we do this sometimes, but I don't know that there's this long list of all these other amazing moves that the Lakers just said no to. So this goes to something the Patriots do in football, where a lot of times you have the cap space, you feel like you have to spend it. And sometimes in basketball, it actually makes sense not to blow your cap space in July if you

don't have the greatest plan for it. Because what can happen is in August, September, October, you just never know. You can use that cap space to your advantage in all these different ways. It's something Brooklyn was able to do to revitalize their team. It's something Cleveland is trying to do right now. And I just, those Lakers signings never sat right with me. And you know, I, I think people really like Jeannie bus. And I think you and I are aligned on this. Like there's just no evidence that she's a good owner. There's certainly no evidence that her brother was a good owner either. Um, the reason they own the team is because their dad owned the team and then he died. Sometimes we forget like these people are thrust in these situations where

they inherited something. It doesn't mean you're a good owner. And I just haven't, I know she's really well regarded in the NBA community. I know Adam Silver really likes her. She's on some of the different committees. I think the owners, other owners really like her. I think she's smart. I've talked to her. I just don't have any evidence yet that she knows what she's doing as an owner. And point number one to me is this Magic Johnson, Rob Polinka combo, because I combo. Because I wouldn't want those guys running my basketball team. Would you? If it's about this city.

I'd want one of them, not both. Now me being out here in this city and all that stuff. I used to, when I was younger, I'd be like, does it really matter? Does it really matter about relationships and all those different things? I do think it matters. And I do think it matters. For one of those guys, not both. I still need a basketball dude. Who's your basketball guy? Who's your dude who sees the

landscape? Who's your guy who's at like- Is it Jesse? Who's on the staff? You think Magic or Palenka were at like the WAC conference finals? I don't. WAC conference quarterfinals in Las Vegas. You think those guys are like flipping over rocks? This goes back to the Doc Rivers thing. When Doc Rivers was coaching GM, it's like, how is he going to be a GM? He doesn't have time to be a GM. And I think Magic has a whole other life where he's got a business

and he owns the Dodgers. This is not somebody that should be running a basketball team. He could be the face of it. Yeah, I thought, and I know this sounds ridiculous, but I feel like there's been guys that I've talked to with other teams who are like, oh, Jesse's pretty good. But the Jeannie point is a good point.

Jesse busts the other busket. If Jeannie were Jim, she'd get crushed. Yeah. And I don't know if that's just a sign of the times. Well, she's very well-liked and she has good media connections. No, there's some media people that absolutely, no matter what happens that's wrong with his team, it's not her fault. At some point, it should be her fault, though. But I've seen

guys destroy Jim. Destroy Jim. I'm not going to sit here and defend. Oh, yeah, maybe I will a little bit because when they added Gasol and Nash and they had Dwight and they had Kobe, even if you don't think it's a great basketball fit, everybody else would do that. And he did it. And he traded the picks

and they thought the picks would be in the 20s and ended up burning him a little bit. That's what got rid of Bynum, which in retrospect was a smart move. I know, huh? How funny is that deal that if all of those moving pieces, like that Dwight, eh, doesn't really matter. Bynum doesn't really matter. Hey, hold on.

I want to take a break and then I'm going to talk about who I think is the key trade piece of June 2019. Perfect. Any guesses? It's somebody who's not an all-star. Not an all-star. I'm stumped. All right.

You'll find out right after this. Hey, we are heading into what is maybe the best time of the year to be a sports fan. Spring training wrapping up. Basketball heating up. College basketball. It is time for the madness. And that starts pretty much right now. Speaking of which, I have a ritual.

See who's in, complain about who's out. Then go to Yahoo Sports to fill out a free bracket. This year, the best bracket in America is worth $1 million. Wow. To win that $1 million, you don't have to be perfect. You have to be the best. And there are nine quintillion possible combinations.

That's a one followed by 18 zeros. So you don't have to have the perfect bracket perfect, just the closest. Somebody has to win, might as well be you. If you want to see some of America's most interesting ways to fill a bracket out, check out Best Bracket Millionaire at Yahoo Sports. There is no wrong way to fill one out, except we're not filling one out at all. Go to Yahoo Sports, sign up, enter to win. All you have to do is get ready for brackets coming out that Sunday. It's free. You can do it anyway. You don't have anything to lose. You have a million dollars to possibly win. And you have one shining podcast. You can listen to get all your tips to help you fill it out. Check it out right now. All right, back to the podcast. All right. So did some digging on this. Talked to a couple of people.

J.R. Smith's contract might be the secret weapon of July free agency. And here's why. They can trade it this summer and take back up to $20 million in salaries. I think it's like 15.6. You can then waive that contract, which is a partial guarantee, 3.87 partial guarantee. It becomes a 1.29 million cap hit. And what's the waive date? It's later in the month, right? Yeah. The waive date is...

Yeah, you can wave it before July 1st. So here's the thing. I think that we keep hearing about the same teams in free agency or with Anthony Davis, and it's always like, you know the teams. It's like, could be the Lakers, could be the Clippers, could be potentially the Knicks. There's a couple other teams that could take that J.R. Smith contract back and create some cap space for themselves.

For instance, the Miami Heat. They have the white side contract. Well, they have some of the worst contracts in the league. Well, they got rid of Tyler Johnson. Right. Dragic has a player option, but I'm okay with that. Waiters and Olenek are like $25 million combined. But the Hassan Whiteside one is the one they would try to get rid of.

Kobe Wade? So, potentially, you could have J.R. Smith and Del Vidova, and you give them Hassan Whiteside, and you give them another asset. Now, it's tough for them to trade draft picks because they got screwed with the Dragic trade. But they could potentially create $20 million more in cap space if they wanted to. And I think that's important. I think Miami... My point is, I think Miami should be considered a suitor, even though it doesn't seem like

they're a suitor right now, their cap space. I hesitate to say this. I say this with no inside information. I say this only based on the history of what Danny H has done. I could see them dumping the Hayward contract if they felt like they could create cap space for whatever other endeavor they wanted to do.

If they really felt like this Hayward thing wasn't salvageable. And if you went last night, you know, there's been good, good Gordon and bad Gordon. He's, he's getting last night.

He was abominable last night. He's approaching national TV game. Rondo. Like he's national TV game. If you catch him. Yeah. Catch him on the right night. He looks great,

but he's on, on the books for 32 million next year. And the calves are going to have calf space. And if they could get J.R. Smith's contract back and another contract, but somehow create another 20 million, for 32 million next year. And the Cavs are going to have Cav space. And if they could get J.R. Smith's contract back and another contract, but somehow create another 20 million with also Horford potentially opting out too, there's a chance the Celts could rebuild on the fly.

Again, no inside info. I don't know if that'll happen. And then there's a couple other teams out there too that could just take that contract back, dump a bigger one, and all of a sudden have cap space. Dallas is another one, ironically. So Dallas could dump the Courtney Lee contract for JR, throw in something, and then all of a sudden have even $15 million more than we thought they had for this summer. I'm interested to see what happens with that.

All right. So I'm trying to think about all this stuff. I know I'm nerding out here no I love it I love it because it's worth bringing up I mean it's been mentioned but when you really figure out okay who would be who would be I'd have to look at the

whole thing because Horford has to opt out and that means you're moving on from Horford too right if you were to dump two years I think if I'm Horford especially watching him last night because he doesn't seem 100% healthy to me, you might opt out and try to get the four year for 80, something like that,

where you're guaranteeing yourself 50 million more. I think it's conceivable. Yeah, the thing we thought Wade was doing when he opted out. Right, right, right. Adding in just my reporting, when we were at the Portland game,

I don't know if it's maintenance for Horford, but he was getting... Remember when Time Lord got thrown into the game against Portland and he didn't even know he was going in? It was because Horford was getting stretched out and he wasn't ready. And they were like, get in there. And he was in for like 50 seconds. And then Horford was like, okay, I'm ready to go. There's real concern with Ken Horford play.

Does he have a hundred game season in him this year, even though he's already taken some? But does he have eight straight months, especially when you get to playoffs when it's like every other night, basically? Can he handle the grind? So who is that guy? I mean, does that mean you're just going big fishing here?

And you think, because Boston's not getting... Oh, I don't... Right. I just think the JR thing is a game changer for people that we don't assume have cap space. And I'm going to throw one more team. But you'd have to throw in what if you're Boston? You'd have to throw in the Memphis pick?

Well, that's the thing. They have three first round picks this year. Yeah, they all ended up not. But if you're Cleveland, it's like. What you thought they would be versus what they're going to end up being unless the Memphis one just carries over, which it looks like it will. There's one more team I was excited about here. And the math doesn't quite work because Steph Curry somehow makes $40 million next year. Well,

because he ended up getting... He deserves it. Yeah. But I was trying to figure out if there was a way... And Antonio Brown rules, if you were reading some NFL writers,

it would be, he's owed it because poor Brown... Yeah, poor Brown. ...didn't make enough because he was drafted so late. He made like $75 million. Yeah, I know,

but it was against his will. Yeah, I was thinking, was there a way if Durant left and then they dumped Draymond Green $5 million. Yeah, but he was, he was, it was against his will. Yeah. I was thinking it was, was there a way of Durant left and then they dumped Draymond Green for the JR contract. Guess they would probably have to dump Livingston too. It's just too complicated. But see, I'm just going to stop in the Draymond thing.

I think they're resigning Draymond. I think it's a big number and I think they all know that. Yeah. Would you do that? After we did, so we did the sports rewatchables about OKC Golden State and it was one of the things

that jumped out to me Chris and House It's very good Thank you How much it seemed like Green was more athletic three years ago

in like a noticeable way It was like Oh Draymond Wow He's really moving around It should be an exercise for all of us that do this every day

Just go backwards Is that we're assigned a player that we have to go backwards, just jump in the time machine and watch one game from three or four years ago. When you had mentioned you thought Westbrook had dropped off athletically, it just seemed inconceivable. The premise of him dropping off. And then you were like, oh, Stephen Adams doesn't look as athletic.

And I'm like, man, can you guess how old Stephen Adams is right now? He's like 26, right? Yeah, he'll be 26 this summer. Yeah. He had a dunk in that game that I just don't think he could do at this point. Westbrook. I think Golden State keeps Draymond, especially if Durant bounces, and they know the number's big.

They know that it's a problem, but they just go, okay, we'll figure this thing out and keep that group together and see what kind of energy they have going into next year in a West where, you know, I don't know how the West is going to look. None of us do. We could go over all the rumor stuff again, but I don't think they're going to want to lose Durant and Draymond, even if the Draymond number is one that's scary. But it's a little like the Kyrie thing. Like, I'm starting to think more and more if Kyrie bounces, it's going to be a blessing in disguise for the Celtics.

I think it'll be this thing where they go, you know what? We hate losing the asset for nothing. Nobody ever wants to do that in this business, but 200 million, the knee injuries, the attitude in the locker room, which, you know, when you apologize for being a jerk to everybody and other people have mentioned this stuff the entire month, we're not making this stuff up. You're admitting it to us. I know. I felt both vindicated, but then also hopeful because- And horrified? Well, and a little horrified. But they had this plane ride

and he basically fell. I talked about it last week in the pod. He fell on the sword in a real way. But then he's backed it up. Even last night they got killed. I thought he played hard. I thought he was engaged. I thought he seemed much happier, much more of a leader than the game that we both went to

two weeks ago where it just seemed like he was a ship sailing away. So, he definitely seems re-engaged. The team seems re-engaged. I don't know what it means and we promise not to talk about the Celtics. You seem more anti, I can tell you're more anti-Dreamon than I am.

I think you would just let him, you wouldn't want to get off the 18. Who cares about 18 now? I think he— You would just let him— You wouldn't want to get off the 18. Who cares about 18 now? I think these guys can really sap a team over the course of these volatile teammates that it's just a constant rollercoaster. I don't know what the shelf life is for it.

We saw it with the Pistons, right? In the mid-2000s, where they had Rashid, who is a beloved teammate by all accounts, but also is really up and down. Highest teammate approval rating ever, by the way. Really, people just love that dude. But by 07, 08, I felt like that team was kind of burned out.

You develop like this on-off switch where you have to feed off that emotion to kind of get to the place you want to get to. I don't think it's sustainable. But at least the Pistons figured it out and kind of salvaged their run by signing Ben Gordon and Villanueva to a lot of money.

Yeah, and trading Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson at the tail end of his career. I want to do playoff matchups really fast just because I like this as a recurring theme for us. This is where we stand right now. Bucks Heat, 1-8. Toronto, Detroit is our 2-7 now. Detroit has really reinvented themselves as something. And I don't really know what it is, but they're weird. They just have the drum and Blake thing. Blake's playing really well. I mean, Blake's arguably having the best season of his career.

Isn't it so funny how Blake, how somebody's story can entirely change where Blake's this guy, you're like, man, how good can he be? And then there's a stretch where you feel like he's a top five player in the league. And then you're like, I would hate to have Blake. And then some of it's the contract

and then he's never healthy. And then it's the Clippers shortcomings in the playoffs, which really had far more to do with injury. Most of those exits than anything else. And bad luck, yeah. And now like he's really good in keeping a Detroit team

that seemed like a lost cause competitive. And Drummond who I don't like we understand who Andre Drummond is. We know the good and the bad of it

but He's playing hard and he's doing stuff. He's averaging 15 rebounds a game in this game. What's weird is they made some trades at the deadline that made me think that they were just throwing the season away. You know, they basically just got rid of swing guys. They didn't seem like they had any...

You know, every team wants to have like four or five of those switchable guys, the Jalen Brown types or the poor man versions of that. And I just thought when they did those trades, I was like, oh, they're punting. And instead, for some reason, it sent them on a hot streak. I don't fully understand it. Philly, Brooklyn is our 3-6 now, and that is wonderful.

It's great because— That's a wonderful series. Brooklyn will give them everything they can handle. Do you trust—who do you trust on Philly to guard D'Angelo Russell in the last five minutes of a playoff game? Butler? But see, at least you can do Butler and you can

also throw Ben Simmons on him. Like, why can't you just throw a ton of size on him and change it? Could Russell out-duel those dudes in a playoff game? I feel like he could. I might be the biggest Russell crunch time fan there is. I think that dude is like might be the biggest Russell crunch time fan there is which is saying something it's like James Harden won Russell too he was seriously one of my least favorite

unstoppable right him and actually Lou Williams to D'Angelo Russell's three that's our crush I had D'Angelo Russell like in my Reggie Jackson category there yeah wow where you just go oh yeah right you're trying to tell tell me I'm supposed to trust you at the end of the game? That's not happening. So I like that Brooklyn, like this is, this is in a, I guess this is a mental state matchup because will Philly be fragile enough still as an unproven thing that's supposed to be really good? Yeah. This was supposed to be Philly's East. Right.

And Milwaukee and Toronto are just better and more consistent, but I'm not saying it's impossible for Philadelphia to get out of this thing. Although, every time I watch a Jimmy Butler thing, it just doesn't... I don't know. How many more games do I have to watch to see that it doesn't really fit? We think two years for him, free agent. The market's just not

nearly as strong, but as you were talking about these teams that maybe should do the one years or not spend all their money in the beginning of july carry that over see what's available in trades and all that kind of stuff because you don't have to get to the floor right away does a team that strikes out on all the a guys which is going to be most of the league or b guys do they say ah whatever like our fans still kind of think jimmy beller's a star so we'll just give them the four years i think fans are too smart. I really feel like they're so educated. No, I just feel like

between basketball, Twitter, and all the writing and all the podcasts and just the level of discourse is so much higher. Everyone sees through the Jimmy Butler signing. If like, let's say Philly flames out either in round one or round two

and it becomes a chemistry disaster again. And now you look at this guy and you go, wow, this has now happened in three different places. How do you give him more than a two-year deal at that point? I mean, really, it's probably like a one-on-one prove-it-to-us type thing. And you know who's going to give it to him? Might be the Lakers.

Oh, see, I think the Lakers, and then I think the Lakers would do more than the one-on-one. I think that they would go, okay, you know, this is still sort of like getting a B guy with LeBron, which, you know, hey, we're at step two. Step two in the plan. Got it.

Got two stars now. Got two stars. Well, you know, Magic does the same thing. Mikhail has a famous quote about this that I can't remember, but basically, remember when he kept acquiring

like just nutcases in the mid-2000s? He'd get like all the candy and Ricky Davis. He just went down this road. Was Trent Hassel a nutcase? Trent Hassel. Gary,

no, Gary Trent wasn't there anymore. But he, I don't know. There's this four-year run of just him going after these. Shout out to Hassel because I don't want to, if he's listening.

Yeah, shout out to Hassel. I'm not sure if he was or not. Who else am I forgetting? Sprewell was there. Sprewell was there. But he kept getting these kind of sketchy locker room guys. There was a stretch there where they had like three wings that all had the same haircut.

So it's really hard to remember, everybody. There's one other that I'm missing right now. I'm sorry. I just smashed my microphone. So anyway, Mikhail had this quote, and he was basically like, it's fine. I've played with a lot of guys like that. It's fine.

And I think that's a great player thing where they go, well, I played with crazy dudes and it was good. And it's like, yeah, but you had Larry Bird on your team. That's why it didn't really matter that Brad Lohaus was a weirdo. And I think I could see Magic talking himself into Jimmy Butler and be like, oh, we had crazy guys on our team. I played with Maurice Lucas. That's what I think, Hart. Let me hear.

We got, I don't think Richie Fromm was who you're thinking about. Troy Hudson was the other one. Troy Hudson was a little sketchy. They had Rashad McCants on the team. Oh, Rashad McCants. Back to that series, though, no one's, you know, I don't think you're going to pick Brooklyn. I'm not going to

pick Brooklyn. I don't think Brooklyn in a seven game series Brooklyn I'm not going to pick Brooklyn I don't think Brooklyn in a seven game series I'm not going to pick Brooklyn but I'm not surprised if they're up 2-1 in the series and up five in game four

with three minutes left and that's when that Philly group could combust where I'll go who are you guys really yeah because on paper

this shouldn't be close you really should be able I don't think Brooklyn has enough balance scoring where you know if you really want to in a series clog somebody up especially a ball handler you can you can figure out a way where it's like somebody else has to go ahead and create.

And they're so big. Philly's going to be so big with those guys out there, at least four of them. They also have the Brett Brown shadow of late game situations. The moment anything falls apart with that team, everybody in that organization is going to be like, yeah, well, it was the coach. That's exactly right. That's exactly what will happen. anything falls apart with that team, everybody in that organization is like, yeah, I was the coach. Our coach sucks. That's exactly what will happen. They're just, all the dominoes have been stacked

to then push over toward Brent Brown's way and make him the fall guy for whatever happens. Yeah, I think it'll be, okay, guys, you're still young. You haven't done anything. Yeah, we'll get you a better coach now. Look at Milwaukee last year. But that's where I think the doubt,

like I wonder, when you've never been through it and now you're down 2-1 to Brooklyn if that were to happen, do those guys go, hey, enough of this shit. Enough of this. Are you kidding us? Like, look at who we're losing to. Look how good we are.

Or do they go, oh, here we go again. Where it's, I mean, here we go again. It's only the second year. That's going to be a fun series. And then Boston, Indiana is our 4-5. And I don't understand this Indiana thing. You know what? They'll dig into it. Look at the schedule. When they first lost Oladipo

and who they played. It seems like it's about to crater. I think the Celtics are going to get the 4th seed would be my guess. And they need home court in one round. The Pacers were still really good without Oladipo. I kind of was banging that drum for a little bit because I felt almost guilty overlooking them constantly as they remained in that seed. But if you look at who they've beaten

and who they haven't beaten, it's not as impressive as the record would tell you after all the deep work. And if you're the Celtics, would you rather play Milwaukee or Toronto in round two? Because I would rather play Milwaukee

because they haven't done it yet. What does Toronto do? Well, Toronto has guys that just I'm scared of. By the way, I don't really want to play either of those teams. By the way,

in a weird know weird way like I'll hate if they beat the Pacers in the first round and then it's like hey look at this like here we did and it's kind of like that what was it the art was it who was the Richard Jefferson interview recently where he was talking about how awesome that Cavs team was that lost to the Warriors and he was like well we we smashed the East we beat the Celtics by 30 we beat the Wizard for you're like I don't know that we even realized how bad the East was the last couple years in the moment as it was happening. And now

as you look back on it more, you're like, God, was that terrible. Ray Herbert almost made the finals. I actually have a mailbag question about that in a little bit. All right, so the West right now is Golden State, Utah. That's crazy to me. That's not a good draw for Golden State. No, and it's going to be the thing is,

like, you know how Tristan had things with Golden State where he destroyed him in 2016. And then a year later, you couldn't have them on the floor. Yeah. I wonder if there'll be a Gobert moment where it's Gobert's killing them or it's like,

I call this the Roy Hibbert. You like, you're all over Roy Hibbert. No, it's just like Roy Hibbert was, Kurt Goldsberry writing 7,000 word pieces for us at Grantland about how he's

changed verticality and then a year later some team figured out it was Atlanta Atlanta figured out wait if we take what was that guy's name

the center the guy the the Piero Antic oh yeah yeah wow they were like yeah we'll stretch him out and then hibbert

won't be able to guard anybody and i was like voila and then that was it for roy hibbert yeah we can't have you out there so i know there's people listening right now be thinking like there's no way gobert's not on the floor um some weird stuff happens in this stuff where all of a sudden it's like wait a minute we're stretching you guys out a little bit further or if they can figure out a way to keep Gobert on the floor, that becomes a problem. Right. And let's face it, though. That becomes a problem for Golden State. As great as Mitchell is,

because he's so dependent upon, he has some bad habits as an offensive player. Where there's shot attempts there, they're Westbrook-esque. Westbrook-esque. Westbrook-late. You're going, what's going on right here? And at least Westbrook hasesque uh west westbrook yeah where westbrook late you're going what do you what what's going on right here and at least westbrook has another guy who's an all nba player who can score buckets for you so i you know i don't one score versus three as

entertaining as that could be because i i kind of like utah but one score always scares me denver san antonio is the two seven right now. Houston Clippers would be our 3-6. That series is amazing. That's so crazy. That is an amazing series where they have, you have all these ex-Rockets on the other team. And then Chris Paul coming to the, I mean, to me, that is like the dream Western Finals matchup

for round one right now. OKC Portland is still the 4-5. That should be on ABC every night. That's so, Houston Clipper? I feel like Beverly could actually could cross some sort of line. Absolutely. You think? Yeah, I really do. I feel like he might

do something to Chris Paul in that series. Like five years from now, a video's released of he and Greg Williams in the locker room. Going like, you know what you gotta do. Yeah, 50K. So that'll be fun the poor Kings they're 4 back now I bet on them to make the playoffs

a plus 400 like right after Marvin Bagley got hurt you bet on him right after Bagley? no before I wouldn't have done it if I knew Bagley Bagley was a 2010 guy for like 10 games there but once he went out I think the ship sailed on them because a talent tipping point

kind of happened. That's fun. Can we just spend a little bit more time on Houston? Just because this is the thing now, is that if you look at who they are, and they've had three different versions of themselves.

You and I talked about this before the season even started. Can you be as emotionally tuned at your emotional peak knowing what you just gave away? You basically gave away a chance at a championship. We decided it was worse than football when it happens. It was awful. And they played that way at the

start of the year. Then they have these injuries and for however you feel about Harden, it was necessity. And to me that whole thing was successful because they were winning enough games. It's the best case for him for MVP other than the other stuff is that he saved their season

during this three-week stretch where I think they would have been a lottery team. Absolutely. No Paul, no Capella. So now with Paul being back, Capella being back, Tucker, who's continuously phenomenal, and I think the best role job

in the NBA is the Houston Rockets. Like if you're a role player, you should want, if you're an agent, you should want your guy. Like, hey, is he going to be in the rotation? Austin Rivers has been resurrected.

Absolutely. I actually think being a role player for the Warriors sucks now because those guys are so good that when you're somebody who's like a lot of the role players other than Iguodala and Livingston and some of the other pieces we're talking about, but you can almost see that they're freaked out

because the guys are playing with are so great. Like I have this new warriors theory on that, but with Houston, everybody that shows up there, you go, oh, wow, what a great pickup because that guy's actually producing. So everybody's back on them now. I feel like not to the 67 win version of the Rockets, but don't you feel that right now with the way they've played and all the pieces back and whatever they look like now? Like the first two acts don't matter anymore.

That feels like, oh, wait a minute. Like you and I have always been on this Thunder thing because there's some mental stuff there where I can't wait if the Thunder play the Warriors. I'm so proud we never talked about Westbrook, by the way, but keep going. Yeah, I can't, I kind of can't wait to see what Houston looks like here because everybody's in love with them,

and part of that anti-Warrior stuff is because defensively, what, they're 15th right now? I was going through it all again this morning. They said, wait a minute, you're anti-Golden State because they're slipping defense? As good as Houston's look, and they kind of seem to be the trendy thing right now that they're back and all those things, they're 21st defensively. But maybe those numbers don't mean anything

because again, they had all these guys missing. This goes back to something we've talked about before. Identity. And I think when you hit mid-March, you have to have a real identity. And Houston has took a while, but they have reclaimed their identity from what they were last year.

And I think the fact that Chris Paul is playing a lot better is really from the games I've seen. He just looks like he's better than he's been in a year. And I look at this Warriors team from an identity standpoint, the on-off button, which we've talked about forever, it's now often a way, like when you're losing these random games to like the Suns, that's a cry for help for me. You know, like this Warriors team for how talented they are to be 45 and 21 is unconscionable.

Like that, that may, they're going to end up being like 53 and 29 this year. I think that's a huge red flag. And then if you throw out the first 15, 20 games for the Rockets, they're playing at a 60-win pace ever since. So I just, I like. So what are you saying here? I like when teams are heading up instead of down at this point in the season. Now, I think we also overreact sometimes.

If a team's playing too well, sometimes you can peak now. But I think Golden State needs to go on a run before the playoffs to at least show like, hey, can you guys snap your fingers and turn this on? Because we've seen you snapping a lot lately, and it's not going on. So at some point, we need to see it. Because that's

exactly what they're doing. That's exactly what they think they're going to do. But it's not going on anymore. And the boogie stuff, the stats now, we have enough statistical evidence to say that it's so funny because I watched them those first couple games. I'm like, holy shit, this is opening up this whole new thing for them. Teams watched him for five games, and then they were like, okay, here's how we're going to attack this.

And he's kind of borderline unplayable now. And I don't know how they fix that either. Because what happens during the playoffs if Boogie's playing eight minutes in a playoff game from a chemistry standpoint? Well, if he keeps playing like this defensively, that's exactly what's going to happen. You're not going to be able to play him.

Right. When they first had him those first couple games, totally with you. You go, you know what looks different than a Kavon Looney and a Durant pick and pop? A Cousins one. And now, look, there's no Kavon Looney pop where Durant pick and pop a Cousins one and now look there's no Kavon Looney pop where it's like oh I gotta make sure I close out on Kavon Looney at 25 feet but when Cousins would would get it or Cousins would then make a play and initiate the offense

and pass and like I don't like Cousins but I get how talented he is and I'm like this is going to be sick this might be weird yeah and now it isn't and I don't know if it going to be sick. This might be weird. Yeah. And now it isn't. And I don't know if it's, I think part of it's what you said, the adjustment from like, okay, we don't have to show on them as much and we can attack the hell out of them. And they seem slower with him.

Yeah. Because he's lumbering now. But they're not really doing much with him. They're not, like they'll, do you feel like when you watch them, they, maybe they don't feel like it's a wasted possession by getting him involved?

I honestly don't think he's going to. From what I've seen, I don't know how you can play him like in crunch time of a playoff game. I have heard a lot of like, you know, guys I work with say, well, their bench isn't as good. They did a bad job of that.

Like, that stuff to me drives me nuts. Because you go, okay, so wait a minute. Let me get this straight. They have no cap space at all. They have this guy and then they get cousins for a mid-level, which was gifted to him because he wanted to go there and rebuild his image and see what it felt like to play for

a good organization and have a chance to win. But the guys they're missing, Nick Young, David West, Zaza Pachulia. Brooke Lopez would have been a good one for them. JaVale McGee. I just keep hearing that their bench stinks and it's somehow an error in their judgment. One, it was almost an impossibility to add anybody.

And if you add up the names that they've lost, what are we talking about here? And by the way, you're as good as your top five. If you're doing an anti-Warriors argument, there's stuff I'll listen to, but the fact that the front office did a bad job on not building a deeper roster is the dumbest shit ever. So this would be a good Colin Coward segment.

Whoa, I'm having dinner with him tonight. Oh, give him this one. Tell him he can borrow this one from us. Although maybe we should make this segment on this. Questions or answers? When you look at a team, do you have more questions or answers? I look at the Warriors, I have more questions or answers I look at the Warriors

I have more questions oh my gosh I look at the Rockets it's like I wish we had some I have mostly answers can we get a piece of paper where you hold up

and then reveal it do you have more questions or more answers yeah I look at the Rockets it's like kind of know what they are I know what they're going to bring

to the table I have a good feel for them I have more answers than questions Warriors. I have more answers than questions. Warriors, amazingly, I have more questions than answers. So give me all your questions. Let's do it. Line them up. What the fuck is going on with the chemistry and the on-off button and whatever happened with Durant and Draymond? Is that over? Have they buried that yet? All these guys are going to be free agents. Are they still listening to Steve Kerr? Can they play boogie more than 10 minutes against any good playoff team?

What's their crunch time five? What two bench guys are going to come off the bench for them and actually make something happen? I have nine questions. Jerobco's your guy. I'm answering. Where's Jerobco Ben? Well, maybe he'll, maybe he'll revive himself, but I just have more questions. I think it's amazing that they're 45 and 21. I don't understand it. This team has three of the best,

two of the best 10 players in the league and three of the best 20, in my opinion. You could probably put Clay even higher. Seriously. I love Clay.

So, yeah. I'm just not, I can't, I don't know what they would have to do like two guys would have to retire in the next week for me to be off of them i just i just would i'm not off i just have questions it sounds like you're off them a little i'm not off the record thing is weird but clay sucked for two months draymond was worse even longer than that i think they missed Steph after Steph looked like he was sneaky having his best season ever.

And then that always screws up everyone. And then when Steph came back, I don't think it was right. And Durant's had these stretches where he looks like OKC Durant. Dude, all these guys are healthy now.

Their top four is 100% up. Except for Durant. What's wrong with Durant? The ankle thing. He just hurt his ankle in Phoenix. Oh, but I mean, that just happened. They were already losing that game.

And the Draymond stuff, I feel like the Kerr lip reading thing is like hearing about somebody getting arrested and then you see the video and you're like, oh my God. And like, well, did you read? The guy did something wrong. He got arrested.

So like to see Kerr be annoyed with Draymond, we've known this for years. And Kerr, who knows he's on camera at all times and knows better. Now, it's weirder when you see it. We're so visual that you see the thing and you go, oh my God, I can't believe this. That didn't, I already knew.

We all knew that. We all knew that. Do you think Draymond's fun to coach for 82 games? No, and I think this goes back to what I said earlier I think when it's been six years of it

I think it starts to wear on people you know I think teamwork and chemistry is such a fragile thing and you can you can definitely

see it during these games these guys know these games are televised and there's 20,000 people in the stands but sometimes you can't help yourself. You can't hide behind shit in that kind of fishbowl.

Dude, if you and I were on a bench for two and a half hours, That'd be bad. 82 games a year, you're just going to, you can't be Bird, you know?

No one can be as stoic as Bird the entire game when he was coaching the Pacers. Should the Warriors ever lose to the Suns? Ever? No, but dumb shit happens. It really does.

It does. I know they're supposed to look better, but because this is year five, year six, however you want to frame the start of this thing, they are bored and they're not playing as hard. And I know what it'll be. A year ago, this almost killed them. They were bored last year and basically the Rockets had to go 0 for 27 from 3

to blow game 7. Oh, I know what it'll be. So now we've made this even worse and we're even more bored and even more ready for somebody to take them down. I just don't think they've recovered. They're not in a better place than they were last year

and they should have lost last year in my opinion yeah they should have lost if Houston hits anything yeah that's ridiculous if they even have

just a bad shooting game Houston wins so are they this overrated dynasty like should they have more holes I think they've been amazing

I just don't understand how you have those four guys and on any given night anybody anybody can beat you. It's fucking crazy. How do they not have like a... I just think they're bored.

I think they're bored and it's their fault. I'm not making... It sounds like I'm making excuses for them. I just... I think the expectation that you have of them and that so many people have is that they're supposed to be this incredibly crisp thing all the time.

And it's just not the way it is. How do you think the Bulls would have looked in that fourth year after all the shit that they were going through with Pippen, Jordan, Phil Rodman and all that stuff. Yeah. But they still had Jordan who had just had this maniacal will to win every night.

And you go and read the book on, and I'm sure that's going to be in that documentary. What's the best Jordan book, by the way? I think the Halberstam book's really good which is basically the sequel to breaks of the game but just kind of spells out i mean jordan the crazy jordan said of all time in my opinion is do you want to say the book again so that people don't i think it's called i can't remember the name of it it's called maybe oh i just screwed you just screwed you up. I'm sorry. I didn't even mean to do that.

I just make this joke about anytime I reference a book on a podcast, I'll get all these mentions being like, hey, what was the name of that book again? Well, it's whatever the Halberstam Jordan book is. But the craziest stat from Jordan is his team never lost three games in a row during either of the three Pete seasons.

Like, think how nuts that is to just be like, we've lost two in a row. We're not losing to that guys. I'm Michael Jordan. Then you just win again. How fucking nuts he was. And I just don't think the Warriors have that kind of whatever.

That little extra. Best ever? Better than LeBron? Who are you taking? Stop. The other two that I have more questions than answers for are Philly and Boston. Just way more questions than answers for both.

I think I have all the answers I need with Boston. You're just out. Oh, I'm out. I'm so out on them. I love it. No, I just, I don't,

what else am I supposed to do? It's a group that collectively has never done anything together. And now that they're all together, and the weird thing is I was going through all the analytics again. If you just looked at

their analytic profile, you'd be like, yeah look out and you watch them they're i'm sorry to say it but they're kind of a dumb team they're they do so many little things in a game like last night's a great example i can't believe we're talking about them again i'm just gonna do this real quick all right do quick like marcus smart thinks he's the guy he thinks his shutdown defender well i don't that at least i'll i'll like good go ahead think all those things but it's like okay we need a bucket oh he thinks exactly marcus time and he took a three last night after i think lou williams had hit another one and he brought it right down and is like bucket and it's clank and then they had another play pretty soon after that where Lou because he I think he you know because he's gotten going there a little bit

and this is part of basketball I mean it happens with Curry all the time where everybody freaks out but they had two with Lou already with a big man screen and the big man rolls and Baines is the third guy stays with with with the ball handler. And it's like a free run at the rim for, I don't know if it was Montrez or whatever, but it was just like, you guys, you need, how are,

how are you? Like, I understand mistakes happen in all these little things, but they do it all the time. They do it all the time. We know the team doesn't like each other. Brad can't seem to like each other more lately. That's right.

Uno on that flight. Oh, they played Uno for like three hours. Brad can't seem to put the pieces together. They like each other more lately. That's right. Some Uno on that flight. Oh, they played Uno. They played Uno for like three hours. Brad can't figure it out. I know why Ainge didn't make any trades. That's fine. Gordon has nights where it's unacceptable. It doesn't work. It just, like last night, it just didn't seem like he should

take them out after three minutes. You know within three minutes. Yeah, but with no Tatum, I guess you had to. They had to figure out how to get his minutes there. So yes, I'm totally off of him. You know what's funny about the Celtics team? There's a specific type of guy that they can't stop. And meanwhile, they have Marcus Smart and Rogier,

who's allegedly good on defense. But like those Lou Williams, Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, any kind of scoring a little bit undersized guy who can play off a screen, pull up, those guys just destroy the Celtics over and over again.

I know, but the Celtics you would think are equipped to defend those guys. Because I always hear about how great of a defender Marcus Smart is. It's like, why can't he guard those guys? Why can't anyone on this roster even come close to containing Lou Williams? That's weird. We can't talk about the Celtics anymore.

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Go to simplisafe.com slash BS to learn more. That is SimpliSafe with two I's, a longtime friend of this podcast. SimpliSafe.com slash BS. All right, mailbag time. Just quickly, is LeBron going to make it all NBA team? Because we're 15 games left. He's shutting it down.

They're going to win 35 games. I have Giannis, Paul George, Kawhi, and Durant ahead of him. No question. I think Blake Griffin will be ahead of him by the end of the year if Detroit makes the playoffs. He'll get on. He still can get that six forward spot. Is there anyone who can bump him out? I think he's 13th in the NBA

this year, though. If he makes higher than 13, it's a joke. It's a fucking joke. But he will because of the voters. But I'm telling voters right now, if you're listening, that's embarrassing if LeBron makes first or second in the NBA at this point. They're going to win 34 games. All right.

But he's going to. You think he's going to? Yeah. So who does he bump out then? Kawhi or Durant? God, is he going to bump out Durant? God, is he going to bump out Durant? Does Kellerman have a vote? If he bumps out Durant, that's embarrassing.

All right, some questions. Marcus Gray asks, if Atlanta wins the Zion sweepstakes, are they the next NBA dynasty? Yes. They certainly would be a league pass god at this point Jay Young

Collins Zion yeah Herter Herter I love Herter Herter is like how do you defend him

he gives you everything is Herter the best player in the league he's got just a he shows up to every game of the toolbox it's a great pick what do you want an all

I'll use an all I got a wrench semi-related question from Evan in Fort Smith, Arkansas. If Atlanta wins the lottery or combines Dallas' first and their first to trade up and get Zion

or whatever happens, is there a chance Atlanta can win that trade long term? Trae Young and let's say it becomes the seventh pick in the draft for Luka. I still say no. I think Luka is a generational superstar. It feels impossible that they would ever win it.

But boy, is it going to end up- It's at least more fun. Right. I'm glad they didn't lose it in a dramatic way. In a Brooklyn Nets type of way. Yeah. That's the thing about trades, man. I mean,

think how many times how you felt about the announcement. Like when you, there's like three different trade grades. The announcement, social media,

talk show. Oh my God, these guys are idiots. Yeah. And then a year later, it's like, oh, there might be something here.

And then there'll be a three year later grade where you're like, wow, everybody was incredibly wrong when that thing first happened. Right. Do you remember the Oladipo Paul George thing? Yeah. I was in the, we're like, wow, everybody was incredibly wrong when that thing first happened. Right.

Do you remember the Oladipo, Paul George thing? Yeah, I was in the middle of being like, what the fuck? This is one of the worst trades of all time. I had a front office guy who like didn't want to talk

to me anymore because I was like, I don't think it's that terrible. They were kind of screwed. He's like, are you kidding me? Oladipo's contract? He's like,

dude, do you watch anything? I was just getting shit on in a text message over and over again. I was like apprehensive now to reach out. I have a lot of regrets with my Oladipo stances because he's my favorite player in the draft.

He was in a terrible situation in Orlando. He went to OKC. He was in a worse situation. And those are actually the perfect guys to gamble on. A young, talented, high lottery pick who's been in bad situations. You're like the Vivek. Like, hey, we're going to just Warren Buffett this NBA market.

You guys don't like Rudy Gay? We'll give him an extension. Yeah. Yeah, we're zigging when other people are zagging. I like when guys do that in the NBA. You're like, sometimes you're zagging because you're an idiot. D'Angelo Russell is another good example. Oladipo, though, just to be entirely fair about that, Oladipo also turned himself into a guy after

OKC where it was like, it wasn't like it was just always being used wrong. Hey, I got to figure some things out. It sucks you got hurt. It's funny because like a week after or a week before they traded him, there was this big article online about how Oladipo had gotten this personal trainer and did the whole thing and gotten in just insane shape and was like next year's. And if I had read that article before I'd heard about that Paul George trade, I think I would have been a little more nervous about it. So you read this article and you're like, oh shit,

that guy's going to be heard from this year. But that's, but how many times you've read that article and it doesn't mean anything. Do you remember when I did the Grantland draft, the anonymous draft? Oh yeah, yeah. It was, I mean, that was one of my favorite things i've ever done and i had this one scout who was talking about okafor at duke yeah and he i mean this one guy is really good too and he he was like you know he's like he's out of shape he's like he's a college kid and he can't run the floor great hands great feet he's like but in this league man he's like i don't know he's like but granted this league man he's like i don't know

he's like but granted he goes a couple weeks before the draft you're gonna be hearing about how he's with a new trainer he's changed his diet he's eating fucking berries yeah that was his quote fucking berries he's like he's gonna have it all figured out like i there's for every one oladipo like i got a trainer i'm gonna turn my body into something else there's 10 other ones where i was like the thing with oladipo was even I got a trainer, I'm going to turn my body into something else. There's 10 other ones where I was like, no, you're not. The thing with Oladipo was even in college, he was a really, really high level athlete. Crazy athlete.

And the fact that he wasn't in the right shape and eating the right stuff and then revamped his body, it definitely was a portent of what might come. Some high level lottery guys, I would at least think about dealing for. Would Josh Jackson you interrupt? New team?

He had a little stretch this year. Is he stretch four? What is he? I still think for him, I don't know if he's a good enough ball handler

to be a three. Like the three you would Seems like he's an undersized four, right? Yeah. Remember when there was when the Phoenix Suns had that seven seconds or less in like every player you go, Like the three you would want him to be. Seems like he's an undersized four, right? Yeah. Put on... Remember when there was... When the Phoenix Suns had that seven seconds or less

and like every player you go, I'd love to see him on the Suns. Imagine if he was on the Suns. Yeah. So... The Suns would save him. I don't want to say, oh, Josh Jackson in the right situation.

I'm not sure. I was always kind of surprised like that people thought it was close for he and Tatum. I mean, I just... I really liked Tatum. That was when I got right. Malik oh yeah too too early i would i would try to be stealing that guy constantly if you go back and look at some of the shots he made at kentucky and you started looking at the draft and you're going this guy's gonna go 10 like what i want to

see him on the kings with fox and buddy i just remember fox and monk after they lost crying in the locker room i've always wanted them to get back together. They were just so close. I love when you get sensitive on the pod. A couple other ones. So are you still in on Josh Jackson? No. Yeah.

Dragon Bender? Fourth pick in the draft. No. Speaking of huge white guys from Phoenix Alex Len lately yeah what's going on with that fucking killing it bro stress fractures are better apparently I think we know what the Bender thing is

I mean shout out to our guy Chad Ford but if Bender had come along in 2004 there'd be a 30 for 30 on him Saeed wants to know is the goat debate dead if LeBron misses the playoffs? That's a great question because from my sources, the GOAT debate will be decided in the next couple of weeks.

Great. Great. Sources are telling you. Did Antonio Brown just accomplish the reverse mellow? What better way to force your way out of town by driving down your own value through dickhead antics, thereby leading the team that trades for you, only having to give up a third and fifth round pick

while getting a huge cap hit as well? I wouldn't be surprised to see other athletes go this way. The reverse mellow is here to stay. That's from Anthony Flum. The reverse mellow. That's fun. What's he proposing here? He's saying more athletes should just be like,

be a huge asshole until your team trades you for 40 cents on the dollar. But how is it the reverse mellow? I don't know. I'm just reading the email. I didn't really understand why mellow was involved. I think he's saying that they're the same things as you force your way out.

He called it the reverse Mello, though. Oh, is he saying it because Denver actually got good pieces back? Yeah. All right. Okay, so I see what he's doing there. You know what I'm realizing?

I think you're breaking down Anthony's email. Yeah. No, I just want to make sure I get these right. We always appreciate the content. Do you have more questions or answers for Anthony's email?

They really are the warriors of emails. I'm finding more topics that are out there where I don't want to take anyone's side. And it would be terrible as a TV panelist to be like,

all right, we're going to go to Russillo, Ben Roethlisberger, or Antonio Brown. I'd be like, they both suck. They both handle this thing poorly. If I was on TV today with the Westbrook, Utah Jazz thing and it came to me, like I'm like the fourth guy,

I'd just be like, I think everyone is wrong. Sorry. It's a perfect example. I think Westbrook acted badly, and I think the fan acted badly, and I don't think there are sides of this. I think everyone acted wrong. That's it. Why are we talking about this?

But as soon as it became a race issue, it no longer became a violence against women issue, which was actually like a really, like I don't know what the guy said or didn't say. I saw the video of the guy, the jazz fan, after the fact. I don't know that I believe him. I don't know if I believe Westbrook.

Like Westbrook is a confrontation with every single person. And, you know, the video of him going at somebody's phone who was filming him, he's headed into the tunnel, like Westbrook's wrong there. Like Westbrook's looking to fight with everybody all the time.

And sometimes I like it on the court, sometimes I don't, but I don't want to take anybody's side. My only thing is like, if it had happened in Boston, first take would be like, can we get Russillo here for the week? Right.

Imagine if that happens in Boston and it turns like, I don't know what that guy said. I'm not going to believe the guy. I don't know if I believe Westbrook or not on on the definition of of what it meant him icing his knee or not you know like I don't I don't I'm with you I don't want to take either guy's side yeah and that's what all these topics become like all right are you fans right it's like no they everyone acted terribly and the one thing, the big picture takeaway of this is that Utah has, their fans have the worst reputation in the league

for doing this stuff. And if you talk to anybody around the NBA, it's like, what's the worst place to play? It's like Utah, because they'll yell shit at you and they get super personal. And that's, everybody says that. That is not, it's not one of those things where it's like,

Simmons accuses, like, I can see the terrible blog post being written. It's just a fact. Go ask anyone in basketball what's the worst place to play. They'll say Utah. No, there's no debate on that. It's been known forever that it's just another level of nasty in Salt Lake. It's so weird because they're so nice there.

I was just there for Sundance. The Utah people are like super duper nice. I don't know why they don't know how to behave at a basketball game. Cops, Kyle, you said are friendly? That's good to know. Hey, speaking of Utah crowds, of the playoff teams, which we just went through earlier, Sam from Madison wants to know,

who has the least intimidating home crowd? Both conferences. Just give us one. I would say Brooklyn only because I think if they play the Sixers, there's going to be like 40% Sixers fans there,

which will just naturally make it not that intimidating. Even though I like the Brooklyn fans that go to the games. I just think that'll be overrun by Philly fans for that game,

for that series. Yeah. You know what would be weird? Houston's pretty hit or miss. I'm'm gonna give you one that seems incredibly wrong because how awesome the atmosphere has been there but if there's any malaise from golden state i'd love what you're doing here right that that whole place is so spoiled that and look it's just hard to get like you have to be a certain level for them to be now engaged in this. They're just kind of bored waiting for you to have this 40 point third quarter.

So if they have anything that's weird or it doesn't look right, it doesn't look Golden State-ish, it's going to be dead in there. I got to say, I remember when this happened in the Celtics and it wasn't nearly as bad as this Golden State thing, but near the end of the Bird era in the late 80s, the expectation for greatness every night, it's just the bar keeps climbing for how the crowd has to be impressed and it becomes tough to match. You've seen so many great things. The playoff games, the intensity is so different

that if it's some random game against the Suns in March, the crowd's just not going to have the same energy. Right. People ask me college football all the time, right? And they'll go, it must be amazing in Tuscaloosa. And you go, yeah, like seven years ago, it was awesome. Right. You go to an Alabama game now.

I mean, Saban's mentioned it numerous times. When it's a Saturday afternoon game and it's not a big matchup, that place sucks in there. And that sounds horrible to say because I love going to games there. But now when you go, it's a letdown. I mean, they have game day there so much that they don't even notice it. Right. They're like, oh, Herb Street's here?

Cool. Yeah, I think the saddest thing about this incredible Warriors decade that they've had, just transforming into the league's model franchise, is the tickets got, you know, 10, 20 times more expensive and they priced out a lot of their fans. And if I was lucky enough to go to games there in the late nineties and then

two thousands, and they had the most diverse fan base of anybody, you went to the games and it was like, wow, this is awesome. There's all types of people in this building. And now I don't think, I don't think you'd say the same thing.

I feel a little bit like Memphis before it was Memphis, like that old school. It was just cool. It just felt, it just felt like I wasn't at a game where like the lower bowl was all just rich people

or rich people who gave away their tickets. And then the middle bowl was just sweets. And then all the real fans are way up there. Golden State, the real fans were everywhere. And I think, you know, as happens sometimes with this stuff, they got priced out. Oh, another question. Sam from Madison also wants to know,

which non-star role player do you think could swing a playoff series that people should be concentrating on right now? Swing a playoff series is a strong word. Swing a playoff series that people should be concentrating on right now? Swing a playoff series is a strong word. Swing a playoff series? Swing a playoff series. Is P.J. Tucker, isn't he kind of too famous and almost we're too aware of how great P.J. Tucker is to even nominate him for this?

I think that should be an award. So we have the six-man award with the MVP, with the rookie. With Gary Glenn Ross. It's like best supporting actor. But even less supportive, but also the best. The best, not that supportive actor. Right, because there have been some great supporting actors.

Best role player should just be an award. P.J. Tucker has been the best role player this season. Right, because is Pascal Siakam a role player? No, I think he's like a star. I know, how good is he? He's like a star now. Think about Toronto. They trade for Kawhi.

Great. Okay. And then, oh, by the way, like Pascal Siakam is going to be a guy you can actually get some offense from. He's going to be like a max free agent. Right. When other things aren't going well, you also have this other dude who's like completely doubled his production. Who's gotten twice as good in the last nine months. You're not saying Marcus Smart yet?

No, I think Marcus has been up and down this year. There's probably no one on Philly. No. I would think. Although their bench now that I've watched them play more. Harrell. It's better than you think it is. I wonder if Harrell's in this conversation.

I love him. Could Harrell swing a playoff series? I want a jersey. I haven't bought a jersey in a while. I'm just going to walk around Hermosa and get a neck tat with a Montrezl Harrell tat. Maybe a tat and a jersey. I haven't bought a jersey in a while. I'm just going to walk around Hermosa and get a neck tat with a Montrezl Harrell tat. Maybe a tat and a jersey. These are great ideas. Kyle, write these down.

One of the things I like about the Clippers and especially Harrell, I like guys who know exactly what they're good and not good at. Harrell's like, I'm good at these four things. I'm just going to do them over and over again. I'm not doing anything else. You'll never see me shoot a 17-footer ever. I'm not doing it. Right. If Montrez was in your crew of guys and you went to this really fancy

Brazilian steakhouse and the hostess is dating let's just say Xander Bogarts, Montrez is not going to hit on her. Every once in a while, you just try to re-engage Kyle into the podcast. You know what I mean, though?

You're like, come on, dude. We're just trying to get a table. Sam also wants to know, what's your Celtics crunch time lineup in the playoffs? And I don't have an answer. Who's your five? Horford, Tatum. Horford, Tatum, Jalenum I'm Horford Tatum

Jalen I'm in on Jalen again now me too Jalen's been really good for two months and is a legit trade asset we haven't said Kyrie yet that seems stupid

yeah Kyrie's probably in there Kyrie's in there Marcus Morris we don't have Smart in there I mean I don't know can we just play fours?

Can you ask the other team? Can we go four on four full? This is more questions than answers. Right. The Boston Celtics. Which franchise will win the most NBA titles in the next 10 years? Not counting Golden State, Scott Smith.

So I guess we're starting right now. I thought we said Atlanta earlier. No. Atlanta, if they win, if they get Zion, Atlanta wins the next 10 titles. The next 10?

I would just follow Giannis. I would say Giannis will win the most titles over the next 10 years would be my pick. I don't know how many teams he'll be under in those 10 years. You know what we need to do then? We're going to bring this back. I used to do this.

We're going to do ring totals over-unders for all like, it's great. It's the best game. And then- So Giannis two and a half. You would take the over on Giannis two and a half rings right now I think I would

that's so hard that's three rings I think he and two and a half you're right three rings is hard so one and a half would

just be like yeah I'll probably win three titles no big deal he's like look I think Chris Paul probably win three titles. No big deal. I was like, I look, I think Chris Paul, when Scott and I first did it like five years ago, we set the number at like one and a half rings.

And I'm like, over. I'm like over. Yeah. Best point guard in the league. That's stupid. Well, do we think Giannis has a chance to be like one of the best 16 players of all

time? He can't shoot. And he already like is the best 16 players of all time? He can't shoot and he already like is the best player in the league. It's hard to bet against with this guy. Do you want to put a ceiling on this guy? I don't, you know, I know you don't. I know you love him. I just feel like he's Shaq.

I don't know what his game- I feel like this is Shaq again. Can you pull up his game log right now? Can you look at his three-point shooting? I was looking at his stuff, you know, in preparation for this pod, and the rebounding numbers, you're like, oh, my God. This guy is nuts.

But I feel like, and I don't know if the numbers are going to back this up here, because I was looking at Trey Young's stuff where he took a lot of threes, and then he had an awful month shooting threes, and then I go, wow, he scaled it back taking threes. And I'm like, that's actually a sign of maturity there from a dude that looks like he guns from from wherever he wants um i feel like when i've watched janice take threes now it looks better it looks dangerously better and now the game the game log is going to come back and he's gonna be like 16 from all right so i have last 24 games jan Giannis, 36% from three.

The eyes did not deceive me. But I'm telling you, it looks good. It looks smooth. Giannis since mid-January, so two months. Last 24 games. 58% shooting. 28-12, six assists and a block. He's getting the free throw.

He's getting nine and a half free throws a game. If you take Giannis' stats this year and just put them in a Shaq, just take Shaq, five Shaq seasons from his prime, and just mix them up, you won't be able to tell which season is which season. Unless you looked at the threes. So take the threes out. But he's basically Shaq. I'm still not sure.

I think he's Shaq. I feel like he's late 90s Shaq, but he's not a center. But he's still bringing I feel like he's like late 90s Shaq but he's not a center but he's still bringing all the same production same rim protection same overpowering like he's just like this force of nature

nobody knows how to deal with him so okay I'll do this so two and a half titles for the thing I'll go under but I don't feel good about it

you talked me out of it because there's so many there's just so many variables how about one and a half titles over dude way over so two then you get two

he gets two yeah he gets it's just two titles how about Davis 0.5 yeah that's the thing it's like you got to do a half ring on Davis

I'll say yes I'd say over for that because he's still young enough but you put a half ring on LeBron I'd go under with LeBron I think it's unless unless he gets traded, which should probably be a topic for next week's pod.

Van Gundy's just giving content away. I love it. I hate when Van Gundy's on my corner, just starting conversations about ridiculous topics. I wonder if Van Gundy knows like, hey, you know what? I haven't had a moment where, like his whole premise was great.

Like actually why, that's why I love Van Gundy on the calls because he has a great instinct of the game where he'll he'll find a way to like throw in

a talking point that they'll spend a few minutes on. Right. And it's not bad. Like you're not missing out. It's actually brilliant. He'd be a good talker.

He'd be a good talker. He'd be a good talker. He'd be a good talker. He'd be a good talker. He'd be a good talker. He'd be a good talker. He'd be a good talker. He'd be a good talker.

He'd be a good talker. He'd be a good talker. Yeah, that's what I mean. But he's brilliant in the way that other guys that try to do that it's like, dude, the game is on right now. Yeah, stop it.

And Van Gundy has a way of doing it where it actually kind of works and then it's content for everybody for the entire week. James from Oakland just wants us to read his response to Clay Thompson's question about how the home crowd that he needs a little more from the home crowd at Oracle. Get the fuck out, terrible word. You are the most passionate fan base in the country situated in Oakland

for 30 years you were fucking shit and those working class people attended every game you finally get good and increase ticket prices by 3500%

now no terrible word in Oakland can afford a ticket blah blah blah even if they could afford a ticket why the fuck

would they you're taking the team away from them next year and then they have the audacity to say we're still the Golden State Warriors we're still a part of Oakland get fucked, bad words the people of Oakland fucking hate San Francisco they just lost their NFL team

now they're losing their NBA team and you want them to come cheer you on against the Suns before you jack up the prices to $4,000 for the playoffs and leave them watching from the streets just call yourself the San Francisco Warriors and fuck off right back over the bridge you jack up the prices to $4,000 for the playoffs and leave them watching from the streets, just call yourself the San Francisco Warriors and fuck off right back over the bridge. Sincerely, James from Oakland. That's some truth in there.

What if the Celtics moved to Brookline? I'm trying to think. Brookline's probably to Boston. No, it'd be like if they moved to... What's the equivalent here? No, it's because Boston doesn't moved to... What's the equivalent here? No, it's because Boston doesn't have an inferiority complex with a bigger city.

Oakland is an inferiority complex with... You don't think we had an inferiority complex with New York City? But that's what I mean. It would have to be the Celtics would have

to move to New York. Oh, all right. All right. Yeah, I don't know that you... Like, it wouldn't be Manchester, New Hampshire. There's nothing quite like

this Oakland-Gold State thing where you have, like, these two cities that are right next to each other and one city is now taking the other city's basketball team. What's going on in Minneapolis though? Is that? Scott Smith also wants us to play the Kuzma's friend game with somebody else. I don't know if you want to be.

Oh, wow. People liked the Kuzma friend game last year. Some people really liked it. I don't know if you want to be. Oh, wow. People liked the Kuzma friend game last year. Some people really liked it. I don't know. I don't know if you want to do it again or just wait till next week. I feel like it'll be better,

but sometimes, you know, you never know. Improv. Do you want to be LeBron or Rich Paul? You be LeBron. I'll be Rich Paul. Okay.

All right. I told you. It's fine. It's fine, man. It's fine. I talked to Magic two hours ago. It's fine. We're going to be fine.

This is all fine. The lottery pick is going to be great. We have a lot of stuff still to trade for Davis. It's all fine. Davis is coming. We're going to get Clay. I'm going to get Draymond Green. I don't know how we're going to fit all these dudes under the cap, but's all fine. Davis is coming. We're going to get Clay. I'm going to get Draymond Green. I don't know how we're going to fit all these

dudes under the cap, but it's fine. Does Pope know he's out? I haven't told him yet, but he's fine. It's all fine, man. Calm down. I told you I got this. Was this Mitch Muscala your idea? What happened to Zubach? I liked him? What happened to Zubach? I liked him.

What happened to Zinich? Okay. Let me see. I'll do. Are we done? We're good. We're done. Scott Schult wants to know,

with all the LeBron Kyrie controversy recently, how close were the Cavs to actually pulling off a Paul George trade for Kyrie? And what would the Cavs look like now? Here's what I heard about this. No, but there's one thing out there that I don't think people realize. They almost had Paul George where they would have kept Kyrie and LeBron. There's two different versions of the story. The story I heard was that Paul George would have signed off on it

in signing an extension in Cleveland if he knew LeBron was staying there long-term. But LeBron was obviously not willing to say he was staying there long-term. That's the whole problem. Right. However, the two versions have been told, the reason it didn't happen is always the same one,

is LeBron was never going to tell them what his plans were long-term. Paul George, LeBron, and Kyrie? Cleveland fans hate this part of the podcast. Wow. Because it's not, like Griff has talked about this. Windhorse has written about this. So whether it was the Kyrie

going out and Paul George and Bledsoe ending up there, or whatever moves that were going to happen where they were able to keep Kyrie, if LeBron had said he was staying long term. It changes all of it. They had the Brooklyn pick to trade. Connor Johnson sent a really long text about how he watched DeAndre Ayton at Arizona State and how, I'll just, it was a thousand word email.

Here's one paragraph. Good stuff. Short answer, he's LaCroix. Depending on how you look at it, either a healthy, tasty, and refreshing beverage or sketchy bubble water that is willing to go to court to keep its ingredients as vague as possible. He's not a huge fan. That's an incredible analogy.

I thought it was great. It's topical, a little finer. LaCroix took it on the chin. I think they lost $500 million worth of their market. He said, in the face of a historically productive rookie season by a player's strengths or a penultimate important stability in championship level team, that possibility of greatness is only a source of depressed sighs and lies you continue to tell yourself as a fan. LaCroix.

This guy, is he trying to get a job? That's tough. That's a really good email. He might have to send us some comments. Last one. By the way, first year Aiton, know one year out a high school thing for me what I see and I'm not watching every night like

your man there but I feel like this is a win for Aiton like there's nights where I watch Luka Doncic is your bigger win yeah but Aiton

I'm not looking at this going oh no yeah no it's not bad right I think it's actually been more good than bad considering everything that's going on

Mitchell just wants to know Mascala on. Mitchell just wants to know. His name's Mitchell. Oh. Wants to know if we have to reevaluate LeBron's greatness now that he's gone down in flames in the Western Conference. Question for you. That he was in an easier conference in the East,

and that's the biggest reason he made eight straight finals. LeBron or MJ? Who's the go? Coming up. Coming up, we're going to talk about that with NBA Hall of Famer Jason Kidd. Do you have Kidd booked for this week? I do think West versus East

was beneficial for LeBron. Of course it was. I don't think he makes eight straight finals if he's in the West. It doesn't happen. No, but it also doesn't make the accomplishment irrelevant. It's still impressive. It's okay to say, yeah, right. He got through the East. That was why there was still some thought that you ride it out one more year with Cleveland.

But imagine if he had stayed with Cleveland this year, and then it's Giannis, and then it's... I mean, would Cleveland be a top four seed with LeBron in the East? Not this version of LeBron. What about Colin Sexton? Phillip starts his email. I am interested in the double shifts take and then has a question. But I just like that he called this double shift, even though we hadn't named ourselves yet.

Did you work a lot of double shifts? Because I always said no. No, I don't even know how we came up with double shift. Last question. Is Iggy a Hall of Famer? I'm not ready to answer this yet. I think we should talk about it in detail next week. My instinct on all... You think everyone's a Hall of Famer.

Well, because they are. Yeah. But I would say no. I don't think Andre Goddard is a Hall of Famer. I mean, to me, if you're a Hall of Famer... Spencer Haywood got in. Okay, but that's also, like, this is another thing. We do this thing with the Hall of Fame. We're like, what's the worst example?

Spencer Haywood. Okay, so now everybody who's better than him should get in. Like, that's not really the way it should work. I don't think that's the case. They've ruined the Basketball Hall of Fame. I tried to blow it up in my book 10 years ago. Nobody listened to me.

All right. You know who was a big proponent of that? You and Hollinger. John Hollinger. Shout out to his. He just did a bad job with it. If you want to send us questions, send it to themailbagattheringer.com. Last thing, gym corner.

Gym corner. Yeah. Here we go. All right. Gym corner. Wow. Let me see here. I'm a really, really good member.

Yeah. I put everything away. Yeah. If I am sweaty that day, depending on on the pace i'll wipe it down i'll even get you know the the antiseptic going smart i just feel that way about it yeah um but there's a lot of bad members out there and i think i don't know what it is when you turn old and i guess we're all gonna do this but you just could give a fuck about anyone else. Yeah. And whether it's just a gray forest staring me down in the locker room and just, you know,

like you're going to shower and that's fine. Like I don't have a problem naked in the gym. Was that like a pubic hair reference? You interpret it any way you want. Great. But like, I'm not frightened 13 year old in the gym. Yeah. You know, we're like like some guys are really freaked

out and it's towel and it's, it's, I'll go into the stall. Then I take off my compression shorts or whatever. Like that seems to be a little excessive. Like I'll, I'll drop it and then I get ready. You know what I mean? And then I get ready, but old people like they're nude as soon as they get in there. Yeah. And then it's, I'm going to do stuff while I'm here. Well, their saggy balls have to stretch out. That's why they have to get naked. Maybe that's the pre-workout for them. Yeah. I don't know what it is, but like a newspaper.

And then we have like a little bit of a TV lobby. Yeah. In ours. People are naked in there. Just nude, newspaper, no towel. And that's always what I think of. Sitting on something naked? Sitting on stuff.

Naked? Right. What kind of gym is this? Is this a bathhouse? I get worried about even putting my bag down on the benches now. Because I go, there was a 70-year-old ass on this minutes ago. Oh, that's disgusting. I actually think that should be like illegal.

Shut that like a towel on there or something. Yeah, I'll start something up. I don't, I just want to know. I think there's the meeting that they have where like as soon as you turn 70 71 they pull you aside and they're like hey we saw your birthday we we got the alert here's how we do it just nude all the time oh you think there's an alert with the 70 they get together and i'm 20 years away from this i get an alert big thing and it's kind of like the jordan meme where they look they look at each other and the guy's like really just nude all the time just whip it out yeah like make it

uncomfortable don't even ask somebody to get out of your way if you if your thigh rubs up against their thigh that they take the l and it's you just go and then the guy ends the own your nudeness and the end of the meeting the guy goes fuck them kids so my theory on this is that kids and old people are almost exactly the same so like a theory yeah my son when was little, was just naked all the time. You know, age four, just like we're on the beach, he's running out naked. And then when you hit like 70, 75,

it's just you do the same thing. You're just at the gym now. You can't do it outside because it's illegal. But you revert back to your old ways and eventually you start going to the bathroom on yourself like you did when you're a kid yeah but it's all benjamin button absolutely and it's kind of like when you're a kid you have no patience because you just don't know you're like i'm me and i want the thing that i want and everybody just get out of my way yeah it's the same thing like 70

like the way people work on an airplane or an elevator when three people are on it getting off and the old guy gets on before you get off and you just go this can't be your first time on one of these right? I love old people on TSA going through the TSA line always trying to play dumb with when they tried to get the 19 things

through the metal detector that they realized last second they couldn't get through. But you knew they knew the whole time. They were just trying. They knew the whole time. They knew the whole time. I didn't think I had to take my shoes off. Oh, I have to take my belt off?

Yeah. 9-11 was in 2001. You take your belt off. We've done this before. Yeah, we have. We have 18 years now. The TSA is a great subject. Gladwell should get on this.

TSA? Because who is wrong? The TSA person that has to deal with thousands of people every day that are constantly screwing it up? Or am I wrong for looking at the TSA person going, wait until I screw it up before you get on my ass about something? Okay? I think you're wrong. I have no no problem. Like people that complain about,

I can't believe I took my shoes off. I can't believe I did it. Shut up. Shut up. Okay. I know it. I know it's like, there's kind of a big reason why we're doing all these things. I think it's okay. I think it's okay to take off your shoes just to make sure everything's in order here. But I don't like when I get kind of the stare down hardcore instructions at 6 a.m. from the TSA person. And it's like, if you see me already with my shoes off, belt in hand, laptop coming up. Yeah, I haven't had coffee yet. Right. But it looks like I do this every other weekend because I do. Wait until I make a mistake before you're on my case. Especially because you haven't had coffee yet. I don't drink coffee. You don't drink coffee? What do you have in the morning?

That's so weird. I like a nice ginger lemon cayenne juice. What the hell is going on? Really? I just hated the smell of it. My mother had it in the car all the time in the morning, and I just hated it, hated it, hated it. I think somebody gave me chocolate ice cream once

and it ended up being coffee, and I gagged as a kid. You want to hear a great nephew Kyle story? Yeah. Related to TSA? I hope it's long. Nephew Kyle, we had a clear as a kid. You want to hear a great nephew Kyle story? Related to TSA? I hope it's long. Nephew Kyle, we had Clear as a sponsor. They gave us some things. Clear is the best.

I love Clear. Because no one has it. I wish they would come back. Yeah, nobody has it. So Kyle signs up for it and it's like six free months or whatever. And then after seventh month, now he's paying for it.

He doesn't realize it. That's a luxury item for a kid like Kyle. Well, Kyle, let's just say Kyle treats his cap the same way the Lakers did. And so if you're changing the cap on Kyle's credit card, and all of a sudden you're adding this $250 fee, like there's going to be ramifications. Like the credit card will not work anymore. No, I understand.

You're right. I'm well aware of this game from back in the day. Now Kyle's paying for Clear, which I love. It's your best luxury right now, right? It's the only luxury. Now we go through airports. We're flying through. We flew a couple places.

I'm always waiting, getting mad. I was mad he didn't sign up for TSA. It's like every, if, if at this point, if somebody hasn't signed up for TSA, I feel like there's something wrong with you. Well, why would you want to wait in longer lines? Well, yeah, but the only thing with the TSA thing, like for me to have to go back up to the Hartford airport and find a way to get a day off to get all that stuff cleared. It didn't matter.

So I have total misnomer with TSA. TSA is now like you go and it's a half hour and you get it. No, TSA cleared. It didn't matter. So I have clear. Total misnomer with TSA. TSA is now like you go and it's a half hour and you get it. No, TSA doesn't work. It's so easy. The only thing about clear that I wish they could figure out a way to massage is because no one else knows what you're doing when you have clear. It's almost a fight for me every time. Well, because they bring you right to the head of the line.

Right. But it isn't the separate TSA. It's such a fuck you. Right. So it's this TSA thing like you get it okay and every time you know the line is so deep i cut everybody i paid for clear i do the finger press thing and then you have this escort that brings you up it's the fuck you escort just and you you cut everybody else that's in line and the person waves you over and because people don't know what it is there's all the the people in line, but what the fuck is this? Who's this guy? And then it's like, I try to do the thing where it's like, if you're at a certain point in the line, I'll

still let you go ahead to me. And then the next guy thinks like, oh, well, so I'm just like, well, look, I didn't get escorted up to the front of this whole thing for no reason. You should just say I'm a celebrity. But do you watch Get Up randomly? I was on Get Up two weeks ago. You didn't see me? My hits on Tuesday and Thursday were killer. I was in the A's and the B's. The other thing I love at airports is when the plane's about to board and they have the sections and it's like first class and platinum members and they get to go first.

Military. There's always the old couple in the front. Absolutely. That pretends they don't know about the zone one thing and just try to get on. And half the time it'll work. It works all the front. Absolutely. That pretends they don't know about the zone one thing and just try to get on. And half the time it'll work. It works all the time. Half the time that people are like, all right, just, you know, it's not zone one yet, but go ahead.

But then half the other half, the person will say it's only zone one and they, and they just get shoved back. Yeah. They just start looking around. Yeah. Then it's like when it doesn't work, it's embarrassing. You know, what happens there is that's when you grab a guy and you go hey you know what i don't really want to walk from this terminal that terminal do you have anybody who could just maybe push me around in a chair like

myself like i i don't know if the person who doesn't need the wheelchair is winning or losing you know what I mean? I'm afraid to say anything. Did you ever hear my coffee idea for airports? Because you know how surly everybody is at 5.30, 6 in the morning and people need coffee? Yeah. You need coffee and it's always the one line

and people are waiting and there's always somebody, five people ahead of you who decides to order like $48 worth of stuff and a bagel. And everybody's just like, can I have coffee? I think these coffee places, there should be a special airport coffee pass where it's like $20 a year. And it's like clear. It's like clear for coffee.

You just get to bypass everybody. You get escorted to the front of the coffee line by some clear person. Okay, but do you think- I get the coffee right away. And I don't care if you hate me because I haven't had coffee yet. I'm ready to fight everybody. Yeah, that's a good call because the clear thing- I would pay it by the way.

It would have to be clear because if there was a TSA coffee thing, then you would just be in line with everybody else. They should combine the coffee and the TSA and clear, and it should all be one thing. Yeah, so if you're in that line, there's actually somebody waiting and it's the one liquid you can carry through security. Yeah. It's a barista who makes you a latte as you're taking off your belt. I'm thinking about the t-shirts right now. You're cleared for coffee. I'm on a streak right now. I've been recognized at 38 straight TSA stops.

Are you serious? You keep track? No, I'm making up the number. Oh. But being on Countdown for two years, it has raised my street cred with TSA. Everybody's like, hey man, how's Jalen? Jalen in airports is the most popular person who's ever lived.

If you walk through an airport with Jalen, it is like walking into China with Michael Jackson in like 1988. He is, he is every single person at an airport loves Jalen to, to alarming degrees. Yeah. These dudes that have a hard time with all the celebrity,

no one's. And Jalen's the best. Yeah. Jalen just kills it. Cause you know what Jalen also is great at? He's great at, at, at playing along,

making you feel good. And he's also really good at being like, okay, now this is great at? He's great at, at, at playing along, making you feel good. And he's also really good at being like, okay, now this is over. He, cause he keeps, keeps moving. Yeah. The secret, he taught me this early for how he handles it. He's, he never stops. It's always, there's always motion. Cause the thing he gets the most is I named my son after you. So he'll meet people wherever, because Jalen was this name nobody had ever heard of until 1992. And then it became like the fifth most popular baby name in the next four years. So he meets all these people like,

I named my son after you, or my nephew's named after you. And that's what he gets half the time. Jalen Rose. I never thought of that. Did you think about naming Ben Jalen? I did. No, I actually didn't.

It's a great name though. It is a good name. Jalen? I did. No, I actually didn't. It's a great name, though. It is a good name. Jalen. It's just a strong one. Jalen Rosillo. Jalen Rosillo. Maybe your first kid. All right.

That was Jim Corner slash TSA Corner. And Old People Corner. Old People Corner. This is great. I still like more old people stuff. You love more than anything when it goes off the rails. Absolutely. Yeah.

Because I always felt like when we did the radio show, it didn't matter what I said. I remember one year I was on Mike and Mike and I literally laid out piece by piece, how the warriors were going to move pieces, which guys they'd keep, which ones they wouldn't and how they do the Durant deal. Yeah.

I had literally like step-by-step. I had the whole thing done a week before it happened. Yeah. And nobody cared. And then I did this whole thing with van pelt where we talked about how he bought a mavado watch with a sears credit card when he had no money and because he got approved like pre-approved remember when they used to save you credit cards in the mail that were early you didn't have to do anything just buy something yeah and he was sleeping on somebody's

couch and the guy was like what did what's what do you got in your wrist there he's like oh dude don't worry about it and he's like what he goes yeah he's like he's like did you get in your wrist there? He's like, oh, dude, don't worry about it. And he's like, what? He goes, yeah. He's like, did you buy a Movado watch? He's like, yeah, but yeah, it's a Sears card. We're good. And the guy's like, you don't have any money. Yeah.

He's like, yeah, but look how sweet. Remember how sweet Movados were in the early 90s? Yeah, it's had a nice run. And we did that segment. It was like one of the most popular things we've ever done. So I always think it's good when it goes off the rails. All right, well, we'll see how people feel about TSA and coffee. Ryan Rosselli, you can hear him on

Dual Threat on the Ringer Podcast Network as well as his own podcast done with my old employee ESPN. By the way, that was funny last week when I got it was like a two-day news story about me pointing out how they edited me out of that I guess

first take or get up? It was get up. And I wasn't mad about it. And I get along really well with ESPN. Obviously, we got along because we're allowed to do this podcast together. Yeah, it turned into everybody was petting it all the time. I'll tell you, I was in the room for get up in the pre-show when it came up. The person that did it was like, that was the last thing I was doing.

They didn't think. They were like, so i can vouch at least for one person one day it was not intentional petty anything i think i believe the person in that room that told me they were like oh my god i feel terrible but like literally that's not what i was doing to bill and cutting him out of the video yeah and i never felt like i was i was making fun of jalen because that's his show and he's my good friend. Yeah, right. And I was like, hey, man, what about why I'm on there? And it became a thing because people realized like, oh, ESPN Bill, I can get traffic out of that. I think one blog called it the Bill Simmons problem. It was really like a dramatic.

Everyone I had a problem with is gone. I have no problems with anybody at ESPN. I root for a lot of the people there. Yeah, but you said that... No, I'm just kidding. By the way, we will have part two of the Backup QB stories. Yeah. If you don't mind me doing that.

I don't know if you heard part one with Drew Linson. Yeah. So we're doing these things where I talk to guys that it didn't really happen for them as a pro quarterback. And we have four slash five guys that have signed on to do it. So we're doing another one. I'm very excited about this idea. Brian Rissell, always a pleasure. All right. Thanks to Ryan. Thanks to everybody who wrote in for our mailbag. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to SimpliSafe.

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Don't forget about the rewatchables with broadcast news as well. That is up if you want to listen to that. Until Thursday. I don't have feelings within on the wayside I'm a bruised soul I never want to say I don't have feelings within