The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Harden Dilemma 2.0, Milwaukee’s Big Move, and CP3 to Phoenix With Raja Bell and Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo and Raja Bell to discuss James Harden’s desire to be traded to the Brooklyn Nets (2:00). Then, Bill and Ryen talk about the Bucks acquiring Jrue Holiday and Bogdan Bogdanovic, the Suns trading for Chris Paul, the Warriors' path to continued success, Boston's Gordon Hayward dilemma, and more (30:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Remember those days? Coming up, gonna be talking all kinds of NBA stuff and it's got a timestamp. We're recording this. together. Remember those days? Coming up, going to be talking all kinds of NBA stuff, and it's got a timestamp. We're recording this. It is one o'clock Pacific time. God only knows what's going to change over the next 24 to 28 hours, but we'll take that risk. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Ryan Marcillo is here, and Roger Bell is going to be here for the first 20 minutes. We're grabbing him for a specific segment that we wanted to lead the podcast with.

This is a crazy NBA week. What else is new? The offseason, shit goes down. The James Harden stuff, though, where he's in Houston for eight years. He is the franchise guy. They come to the precipice a couple times of potentially winning the title. The Warriors end up getting him. Last year, they make the Westbrook trade, which he pushed for.

They gave up these first-round picks. That doesn't really work out. And now he's got two years left on his deal. He's incredibly expensive. And now he just wants to go to Brooklyn and he's just decided I'm going to Brooklyn. That's what I want to do. Now they react that you're Robert Covington. I don't know if they're trying to save money. I don't know if he doesn't like the owner, but just the principle of where we are in the sport of basketball, which is something Rasil and I have been talking about for a while, but it feels like it's getting worse,

where guys just feel like, whatever, I just want to go here. And I know how I feel about it as a fan and as a member of the media, ostensibly, but I want to get your perspective as a player. And then we'll bring in Rosillo of what is this like, if you're on this guy's team, what is this like, if you're like PJ Tucker and you've been through wars with this dude, and then all of a sudden you hear, he works out with Katie a couple of times in LA.

And then he's like, I'm going to Brooklyn or else who knows what'll happen. I don't even know if he wants to get paid. He's got to keep playing. But just let's start there first. If you're on the team, what's your reaction? Yeah, I think that's an interesting question, right? Because like my gut is, you know, pro player. You know, you should have the option.

You know, you're a commodity in a lot of senses to these teams and they'll shuffle you around however they see fit regardless of anything else going on in your life. Right. So given the opportunity to leverage or to have some leverage of your own, like pro player, I'm always pro player. But when you pose the question in the way you did is how it would feel if I was on his team, that would fucking suck. Like, especially, you know, especially if I were at the point in my career where a PJ Tucker is, uh, or someone like that, where, where, you know, you're, you're either a deal coming up and the season's, uh, success is going to hinge on whether you get the deal or, you know, I'm late enough in my career and I'm on the tail end of a deal in my, and I want to win a championship.

And that's what I feel like I have left to do. Like people in those different situations, it would be really shitty um a really shitty feeling but i still think though at the end of the day guys understand because most of us have been traded most of us have had the rug like pulled out from under our feet um so as shitty as it would feel i think i would still default to like hey man if that if that's what makes you happy if that's where you think you have the best chance of winning like i i get it um it would kind of be an indictment on on us me personally but i i think most of us understand the name of the game well quick follow-up question on that so you're on the suns in 07 you get damn close you could argue if if not for the horrid shove maybe beat the spurs

we you and i could debate about that for 10 hours. I still think that Spurs team was great. Nash gets... Let's say Nash gets mad that summer. Right. Because Sarver's not spending money. And he's like, you gave away these draft picks. You're not committed to win. I'm giving my heart and soul to this team. You don't care.

I want out. I want to go play for the Knicks. And now you're on Nash's team. You just went through all these wars with them. This is your guy. This is your leader. And now he's like, I'm fucking out, guys. Fuck this.

What's your feeling there? Pretty shitty. Like, again, I would be pissed because, you know, Steve helped lobby to get me to come over from Utah to Phoenix. Like, he was, I had played with him in Dallas. So, like, I had talked to Steve about it. You know, I, he was one championing like what they were doing there in Phoenix.

And not unlike, you know, James Harden with probably some of the players Houston's got. And like he, like you talked about him, you know, stepping up for Russ. And so when you asked me to come there and then you bail on us and say, you don't want to be there anymore because we're not getting over to home.

Yeah, that's, that sucks. So that's why it's really interesting the way you posed that question because my gut is to be like, hey, man, power to the players. If you have leverage, use it. But for teammates, that's pretty shitty. Or a shitty feeling, I should say. Russello, what's happening to basketball? I struggle with this all the time

because we know when the owners hated the seven-year max contracts that they wanted to make them shorter. And every time the players went to the owner's negotiating table, it went from seven years and 12.5% raises every year, where you added those up, especially what the max numbers were back then.

You know, when you're at 15 million, all of a sudden it's 12.5% raise over seven years. We're talking about serious, serious money. So guess what? Then it's six, and then the raises are less, and then it's five, and then it's basically like four, and then they reset the mid-level. They reset the draft pick slots because they can't have that escalate for 20 straight years. So every time the players go to the owners, they lose. It's just a matter of how much they lose. And the players were like, okay, so wait, you want to make these deals shorter. And then we have this massive spike in revenue. So now a guy's like, I don't care if I make 38 or 32, like I want to go somewhere. I don't care about the extra year. And I get the players being like,

you know, this is sort of backfire on the owners because now we can force the movement. Because again, when you sign these extensions, you're like two years away from almost being up again, especially with how many times they give out the player options. But I don't think we should be in a mode where because of that history that we should always say, oh, the player's always right. The player's always right. Because if you look specifically at the Harden situation, and I'll get to Giannis later, but Harden had the entire franchise tailored to him.

All right? It almost worked with Chris Paul, and then it didn't. He and Paul didn't like playing with each other. And then he gets Westbrook there. Daryl didn't want him there. Harden wanted him there. Ownership wanted him there. They gave up potentially

four first round picks and it's going to be four if Harden's out of there because now you're looking at Houston going, we can't even trade you and rebuild because we don't want any of our fucking picks.

And so when the whole thing is tailored to you and you play in a style that makes you probably 25% more productive, and I'm just making that number up, but that style brings Harden% more productive. I'm just making that number up. But that style brings Harden into a historic echelon of production

that you just wouldn't have unless somebody else said, hey, it's your ball, and you get to dribble it every single time and take every single shot. And he's terrific at passing. But the whole thing has been tailored to him. And then what? Because you weren't consulted on the Steven Silas hiring? That you want to tie Lou that badly that you're like, nah, fuck this.

I'm out of here. The team shortcomings are on you more than anyone else. And so there's a part of it where I think specific to the individual situation, I'm never going to blindly just say, oh, I'm pro. Even though I am more pro player than I'd ever be pro owner. I feel like you can still be that way and look at specific cases like this with Harden and Houston, where you go, this is a mess. And I think if I were stoned the new GM and saying, hey, you got two years in a player option and I can't rebuild

because if I do, then all those picks are gone. Like, guess what? Oh, and by the way, you want to move, but you only want to go to one team, which has destroyed your trade market. Like, no, like enjoy, enjoy being mad next year

because you're playing for the Rockets. Well, I think the Davis thing was the most important moment. The more I think about this in a big picture context, Davis being able to basically push his way to the Lakers using the same agent that LeBron had,

leveraging LeBron's player option. So now it's almost like collusion in a way and, and saying, look, Hey Celtics, you want to trade for me? That's great. I'm still going to go to the Lakers and B and he's targeting his team and it works. And then they win the title. And I think that makes all of these guys think, all right, well, I'm going to do that. AD did it. It worked out. I I'm torn on this because on the one hand, I look at what happened to Ricky Rubio this week, right? Ricky Rubio this week, right? Ricky Rubio signs with Phoenix last year as a free agent,

plays pretty well for them, three-year deal. And then the first chance they had to get Chris Paul, he's out. Now he's in Oklahoma City. I guarantee when he was shopping free agency last year, he was like, hey, man, a year from now, I hope I end up in Oklahoma City. Guaranteed that wasn't on his list. You have stuff like that.

And you also have, you know, players get traded all the time with the Celtics. Isaiah Thomas, he's playing hurt in those playoffs. Turns out he's really hurt. And then they're like, hey, we're going to throw in this Kyrie Irving trade. There's no loyalty on either side. I think what gets lost here, though, is the fan. And I don't know where the fan stands with the way basketball is now. Because if we're going to say this is cool,

everybody can jump teams, whatever. Well, if I'm a Rockets fan, what am I rooting for now? You know, like when I was Celtic fan for the entire 21st century with Paul Pierce, that became our guy. They could have traded him a bunch of times. They didn't. And now he has this meaning that is kind of outsized compared to the typical guy that a franchise would have is that

just gonna go away and does that even matter Raja um yeah I don't think it's gonna go I think fandom I think is a little different than it was when when I was growing up I'm you know we were loyal I was a huge MJ fan but I was a Bull Bulls fan, right? And MJ was the Bulls. The Bulls were MJ. So when MJ left to go to Washington, like I didn't, I didn't really love MJ anymore. I was still a Bulls fan. I think in today's fandom, you have like two factions. You have like your, your local team diehard fan.

And then you have a general NBA fan who's more of a fan of a player. Do you know what I mean and they'll go with LeBron from you know Cleveland to Miami and now they're back to Cleveland now they're Laker fans right and you just gotta they show up and they're part of your fan base now they're not going to get turned off I think that the local you know fan of your Philadelphia 76ers or Houston Rockets diehard yeah Yeah, man, that's going to be, that's a low blow. It's pulling, you know, it's pulling the rug and the championship hopes, you know, out, out from under them. Um, you know, I was one of those guys, but you just talked about it. Like when I signed in Phoenix, you know, I expected to be there.

We set up shop. We had just bought into a business, uh, bought a brand new home. My wife had just had our second child like a month ago. And then, you know, you're, you're traded. You're not even given a phone call. Like you're on the road and your friend calls you and says, Hey man, you're at it. You got report to Charlotte. And you're like, well, fuck Steve Curtain, call me and tell me, you know what I mean? Like, so that's how you get treated as a player sometimes. And that's why I say like, even if it's, even if it's like 60, 40 me for the player, because I agree with Ryan, there are certain situations where you've, as a player, been accommodated to and been

given everything you've asked for. It's not then fair for you to get up and walk. But I'm still going to side with the player. And then what the players don't realize, in my opinion, is you got it now. It's like juice like you got the juice now bro the power's yours but if you guys keep wielding this shit like with with no regard the next time you get to that table there are going to be some huge ramifications in the next cba like they're not going to let you just keep dictating how the league runs i'm cool with you

doing it now but you have to kind of have a little bit of foresight when you're doing that too, in my opinion. And Rossello made one of the key points is that they were so scared of these seven-year deals that they shortened them, which was really smart. Good business, right?

You're not stuck with that Steve Francis contract where the last two years of it, he's luggage. But the flip side of it is now you've created this world of crazy turnover. And that point you made about,

I first noticed when players started, or when fans started following players instead of teams, the first time I really noticed that, I remember I went to the second game of LeBron, Wade, and Bosh, where they played in Philly the night before, then they went to Boston, or maybe it was opening night. I can't remember, but they played in Boston that first week and I flew back for it. I'm like, this is going to be awesome. KG, Rondo, Pierce, this LeBron thing. LeBron's such a villain at that point. What a great sports experience this can be. I'm going to go. And you go and there, there are people with heat jerseys and people with LeBron heat jerseys. And I remember my dad and I were like, what the fuck? Did the heat have fans? And what we eventually realized over the course of the years,

these were LeBron fans that just followed him to Miami, which is the way my son treats the league. My son plays 2K. He doesn't care what team he's on. And he heard about the Harden thing. And he was like, wow, those guys, that'll be like a 2K team was his reaction. Russillo, do you feel like the kind of fandom that we grew up with, with fans loving the Celtics

and basically rooting for the laundry that we're transforming into just this different era that is not going to resemble that at all? Absolutely. I mean, it's already happening. I mean, the reason why July was such a big deal, I'll never forget, man, radio, doing radio every day in that afternoon slot at ESPN for almost a decade. And they would like tell you, Hey, take six weeks off in July and August. Just go ahead.

Cause you know, there wasn't really any other time for me as a football and then an NBA guy, like once it started up the end of August, September, I wasn't going to be free again until after the draft, but they were just like, look, you know, take that time off. And then that 2010, it changed when LeBron went to Miami. And then we started getting insane ratings in July. And management's like, I can't figure out what's going on. This is because this July, what we have now in the NBA is the best topic for radio, for podcasts, for television shows.

So now this generation has grown up with this transactional league where we laugh all the time, Bill. We'll be doing the pod. It'll be like, hey, it's been quiet for three or four months. You're like, all right, so that means we're 60 days away from the next superstar to be pissed off. And it just happened with two of them in a span of like 48 hours. Like it seemed like, hey, who's going to get mad? Who's going to want out? Oh, Westbrook and Harden within two days of each other okay so this is this is what the league is and part of it I think is

always kind of exciting like it is exciting but I wonder and Roger probably brings up the best point is that the owners will probably start proposing some stuff too and if they're smart about it they'll propose it away where the current players because people can be selfish the current players would be like all right we're not going to agree anything that makes it like a franchise or we're not going to do it but if you want to kick in something that takes place like five years or six years from now maybe we'll agree that baseball did that like 20 years ago when they imposed the tax and they did it as this scaling thing that would hurt future generations as long as they were able to protect their money

in the moment. So I've heard this, Bill's heard it, you mentioned it. You've heard that there could be this day of reckoning if this keeps happening, but unless they want to get back to seven-year contracts, I don't know what the mechanisms will be. I've heard all the rumors and the mechanism. Maybe Bill, you can touch on that because the seven-year thing wasn't just bad and the money you were committing, but then you became the seven-year guy by default by being the best player on a bad team. So all these guys that were like the leading scorer for a team would just get the seven-year max because you were afraid to lose them. And then you'd be like, I can't believe we just paid seven years for a C plus guy. You know who loved that the most? My guy, Jalen Rose. Perfect timing. Seven years, 105. He's still celebrating

it. Uh, Roger, what was, what was the most unhappy you've ever been as a player? Cause obviously you weren't a superstar, but had you been, was there a moment where you were just like, I'm out of here. I need to leave and blah, blah, blah. But what was it? Utah or Charlotte? Yeah, no, it was Utah. You know, Charlotte, we, you know, I wasn't happy to be there at first, but we became kind of competitive, right? Like we were like burgeoning on making a playoff run and kind of playing down. I signed to go back to Utah. Although the money was better in Utah than other places, it was still a really competitive situation with Darren, Andre Karolinko,

Memedo Core. They had signed Al Jefferson. It was a young Paul Millsap. So, you know, that's a playoff team every year. And I thought we were going to be competitive. Like, you know, I'm competitive. I like to play in the playoffs. I had always played in the playoffs.

And that year we just kind of fell apart, right? And Jerry quit and Darren got traded and quickly the wheels fell off. And I was unhappy, but that next year I was miserable. Like, and we talked about it on like the NBA pod on Monday with Logan, with Logan Murdoch. Like I, it was a really toxic environment for me and the team was bad. And, you know, the coaching was subpar. Kevin O'Connor, the GM was getting long in the tooth

and it was miserable. But I, you know, I didn't and it was miserable um but I you know I didn't have the type of weight where you know I could ever even if even if the league was where it is now where you could leverage a situation like I certainly wasn't gonna be able to do it but it was it was it was tough for us you know that Darren Williams point is interesting because he was the last generation's example of the unhappy superstar, right? He was clashing with Sloan. Sloan finally was like, fuck this. I'm out.

I'm too old for this. I'm too old for this guy. And then Utah did something that has rarely worked in the history of the league. They pulled one over on all of us. They just got rid of him. And they did that Brooklyn trade. It came out of nowhere. There were no rumors at all about it.

They got these two awesome picks. I was sitting with Darren in the training room it was a hotel room set up as a training room in dallas we were playing in his hometown and we were sitting side by side on the couch and sports center broke darren being traded and i looked at him like what the fuck and he looked at me like holy shit and he got up got up, ran out, got on his phone, and no one said a word. He just got moved. And that's usually how trades happen.

But yeah, so he was the, you know, nowadays with Twitter and the way the whole infrastructure works and Instagram and leaking stuff to the woes or whatever, you can get it out there and happy. Back then, it was like, whoa, what's going on with Utah? It didn't have the same mechanism. I feel like, Ryan, we knew that Hardin was unhappy basically even before Daryl left. There were a lot of rumors. But then you look at it and you go, well, you're the

fucking dude who brought Westbrook in. That was your idea. You're like the dude who said, hey, we should put an addition on our house. And then the addition sucks. And you're like, man, we got to fire that contractor. And it's like, man, we got to fire that contractor. And it's like, you're the dude who made the one of the addition. Our house is fine. That would be like Harden was leasing a room from the owners of the house and convinced them to put the addition on and then said, hey, I want to break my lease. True.

That's what he's doing. And this is where, again, I struggle because I try to have an open mind about all of this stuff. Because Rajit, and you understand this, the level of players that you played with. When you're this good, your whole life you've been special. You are accustomed to, I don't care what the heck. This shit's just supposed to work out for me. Because that's the way it is. It's supposed to work out. So there's no part of Harden where he's going, man, I can't believe they're going to be stuck with Russell Westbrook at $47 million in a couple years.

Man, I can't believe they're going to have to give up. They had to give up four picks, and two of those pick swaps are probably, depending on what Oklahoma City does with their 20 picks, but they could end up losing four picks and paying $47 million extra in the third year of Russ's's deal which is a player option which i imagine he's gonna go ahead and pick up so do you at any moment go wow maybe maybe i can't like i'm not happy but no i really do that no i don't think any of these guys are programmed that way and i'm not even criticizing him for i think it even happens in bill and i's industry you like, what does that guy ask for? Sometimes I admire it. Sometimes I admire the complete, like, zero consciousness whatsoever to say, yeah, okay, you know, this is, and I think this is what we've been looking at now for years in the league.

Where any one of these guys that are special, they look at it, not contracts, scheduled payments. This is what I, hey, I'll sign for the money and then I'll figure it out. And if I want to leave, I'm going to leave because that's what everybody else gets to do. Yeah. That's what Davis did in New Orleans. He knew that wasn't the most awesome situation. Roger has to go in a second. I have to ask you this though. If this Harden trade does

happen and Harden and Durant and Kyrie are on the same team, there's a guy that both of us care about, but you care way more than I do because he's a good friend of yours by the name of Steve Nash who's going to have to coach those three people I think I saw a stat

I don't know if any team has ever had three higher career usage rate guys on the same team in the history of basketball if you do usage rate you can add up whatever and usage rate adds up to 100% and both of those guys all three of those guys are like at you know high 20s early should Nash what does he do does he just start drinking now what happens yeah he needs to sign

up for like a three on three league or something like that because there's like no one else on that team is gonna first of all I you know I talked to steve a lot about building this team and the way he thought this team um was constituted at the time and what they needed and so um you know playmaking in today's nba is at a premium so you know steve and they had a wealth of it was even saying you know it'd be cool to have some more playmaking like james harden certainly fits that bill but i'm of the you know of the camp that that can't work. It's just one ball. Skill sets are what they are,

but just needing of the ball. You think Kevin Durant is coming back to watch Kyrie and James Harden 20 seconds per possession dribble the ball? He's not coming back to do that. When he's healthy, he's probably the best player on the planet, him and LeBron. I don't think that works, and I feel awful for Steve, if you can do that. And when he's healthy, he's probably the best player on the planet, him and LeBron.

And so I don't think that works. And I feel awful for Steve, if you can believe that. Like I'm talking about a guy who's probably favored to win a championship. Like I feel terrible if that happens

because that gets miserable. And Steve, I think, is going to be great in a lot of capacities. And I thought, and still do, that he can navigate personalities really well. But when you throw three of them that are big, big egos in that room for the first time together,

I don't know that even he pulls that off. And he's great people. You know that. He's great with people, but that's too much. There are too many personalities and egos in there. Only one ball. It's funny when you think about the history of the league, because people have put the three guys together many times over the last 50 years. Somebody always has to sacrifice. And sacrifice big, like big. Yeah. We saw it with Chris Bosh. We saw it in a lot of ways with Ray Allen, who was a guy who at his peak was a 26 and now just kind of turned into like how JJ Redick is used now. But you go on down the line, it's happened over and over. Kevin Love is probably a bad example, right? Because I think it pushed his career almost in the wrong direction.

But Celtics and Lakers in the 80s, Parrish had to sacrifice. The Lakers, a guy like James Worthy, who I think would have been like 27, 28 a game. He's basically a role player in the Lakers. Lonzo's had to take a step back. So I just like, out of those three, I guess Durant would be the one that takes a step back. But now I'm not using a guy who, as Roger pointed out,

is one of the three best players in the league if he's healthy. So, yikes. Yeah, he's the only one of them that could play without the ball, theoretically. Because he did. We saw that first Warriors year when they actually had movement, and he was able to do it. But he's better than the other two.

So, like, how do you do that? He's the only one that can play without the ball, but he's way better than the other guys who need the ball. I don't know. Roger, last question. Are we sure this isn't Durant, the equivalent of somebody who's dating somebody but starts the text relationship with the next girl

just because he knows he's going to break up? Like, is Harden the Kyrie replacement? Has Durant seen something with Kyrie where he's like, I'm going to upgrade this now and then when it doesn't work out, we'll just get a Kyrie? Or am I too maniacal about, like like too Machiavellian about this I wouldn't put anything past like today's NBA player um and their ability to kind of navigate to where they want to go here's what I would say

I would absolutely hate that for my man Kyrie because I'm a Kyrie fan I think he's you know got some growing up to do and some some uh proving of, proving of doubters wrong. I think he can do it, but boy, if, if that flames out there and he can't play with Kevin Durant, that's going to be a real, real tough one to, to get over. So I hope you're wrong. I hope you're wrong. Yeah. I mean, Kyrie's only been in the league, you know, a decade. So, you know, still give it some time. All right, Roger, are we, are we going to see you tomorrow night post draft? Yeah. As soon as I get get out of watching my high school kids miss layups, I'll be there. All right, great.

We'll see you tomorrow night. Thanks for popping on. Later, guys. We're going to take one quick break. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't

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Instead, you can think about how your engine sounds, how your stomach feels as the RPMs build, how your wheels hug the curves, and how with the Pennzoil Platinum up to 15-year, All right, this is fun. There's a little drama here. It's now about 1.30 Pacific time. The Gordon Hayward deadline is coming soon and we're going to find out where he goes with the Celtics. So we'll be able to react to that in real time. Let's talk about the two trades last night.

I wanted to get this podcast out earlier just because we rarely get two NBA blockbusters. Well, one NBA blockbuster, but more like a blockbuster of a team basically announcing whether or not Giannis leaves. We're going all in this season and hopefully he won't leave

because hopefully we'll win the title. The Drew Holiday trade, I thought was the most stunning collection of assets ever given up for somebody who I don't feel like is a top eight guy. They basically were paying an Anthony Davis Kawhi type premium for somebody who has made an all-star team in seven years.

And the counter to this is he is a beloved guy in the advanced metrics community. He is the best defensive guard in the league. Every sort of high-level thing you can look at is like, this guy makes his team better. You put him in Milwaukee, he's going to be an upgrade on George Hill and Eric Bledsoe. You can run pick and rolls with him. You can put him on whoever the other guy's best playmaker is. And he makes them better, unquestionably.

But it is so risky. They also lose all of their assets going forward. And to me, the big question, why not just make the Chris Paul trade? And you don't have to give up any of these assets. You could have had Chris Paul for Bledsoe Hill and probably a future first that's protected the same way Phoenix did there. Why go so much further for Drew Holiday? Is he that much better than Chris Paul for two years? I don't think he is. I like Drew. I love his versatility in the way you can

play him on the ball. I mean, with the ball, off the ball, we've seen his defensive versatility. When he's right defensively, it's terrific. But I think he's played one full season, two if you count a short year this year, since I think 2012, 2013 injury and missing some time. Obviously, some of it was dealing with his wife, which is commendable, but the other times he wasn't healthy. I really like him, but you say not top eight. He's not even top 20. Is anybody arguing that Drew Holiday is a top 20 player?

You trade all of these pieces for one year of Drew control, unless you already have something figured out, I don't quite understand it. The one thing I'd push back on, though, is when people compare it to the Anthony Davis trade, there's no Brandon Ingram coming back here. All right. So even though Brandon Ingram had the medical problems, which made the Lakers package where there was a version of it, we were like, hey, this could be really good. It also could be a complete disaster. And now it looks like it's going to be pretty good because you anytime you're doing these deals, you hope there's like that one piece that has a chance to be something special and i'm not even talking like a top 10 player but something really good and ingram looks like he's on that kind of trajectory and that's not anything in

here potential all-star yeah i got you like so i was thinking more of that like giving up multiple future first and the pick swap which we learned from the brooklyn trade unless you're certain that your trade's going to work, you have to be really careful with that stuff. And the Lakers are like, look, we're getting one of the best eight guys in the league. You can't name a price that we're not going to pay for this because now we're going to have LeBron and AD. The Clippers did the same thing. Whether that was right or not, we both were like, wow, well, this is how they got Kawhi and Paul George. You probably have to give up all that stuff for most of it.

In this case, I just thought they had better options. And, you know, Drew Holiday right now, he is, I think, yeah, he's 30 years old. So he'll be 31 by the time the playoffs start. He's been in the league a while. You know, this is year 12 for him. And, you know, one of the alarming things, just looking at statistically,

he has dropped off a little offensively like his three-point shooting he's basically 33 percent for the last three years total i also look at free throws when i look at guards especially older guards and he's three free throws a game you know and i know that's like a stupid way to look at stuff no i don't think it is when i want an impact guard's going to be the second best player on my team, and you're not that great of a three-point shooter, and you don't really get to the line, that tells me you're not a special offensive player. Now, I think he is a special defensive player,

and there's some good offensive rebounding numbers with him and all kinds of stuff. But to me, he's like the most awesome kind of third guy you'd ever want. I don't think he's a second guy. And he might even be the most awesome fourth guy you'd want. If he was such an elite player, why didn't they ever win anything with Davis? That's the part I don't get. He was just never around.

I mean, that entire Davis run, the biggest problem was health. And there's been articles done on it. New Orleans over those years had like one of the worst training staffs and just nobody and i don't know if that's true or not or if it was just that a bunch of guys just never stayed healthy i mean there's there's such a thing as bad luck but i think what we have to do is we bring this all up is that the argument for it's like well wait a minute just like all the picks that you move for paul george which now seem excessive well it was because you were getting paul george and kawaii and the milwaukee argument as i even saw it play out last night which i feel like i'm taking fucking

crazy pills here is i go this is an absurd amount of stuff to give up for one year of drew and it's like well it's not drew it's also yannis okay but here's what i'd ask because the momentum seems to be and maybe everybody's reading this wrong but the momentum last night and going into the end of the week is that yannis is super max this is all part of it. He's happy. They get Bogdanovich too, which we'll get to a little bit later. But this disconnect between star and front office, where somehow the front office and ownership can only execute through fear. Wouldn't it make, I don't know, way more sense for Giannis to go, hey, you know what? I'm probably leaning towards staying.

Like, what do you have as options? Hey, well, we could get Drew. Okay, well, what do you want to give up for Drew? Well, we're thinking about giving up three picks and two swaps five picks potentially now again maybe it's three if yana stays it's probably three but to give up an unprotected 2027 pick that's seven fucking years from now you have no idea what's going to happen in sports that to me is irresponsible yeah even though i was the first like I'm one of the first guys that started, because Daryl even said,

hey, you're actually onto something as much as you hate everything else I said. Like late first rounders, that stuff's super overrated. It sounds cool. It's like, hey, we have all these firsts, but a lot of times it doesn't play out. I have some lists that I go to.

But why couldn't Giannis and the Bucks just get more on the same page where he's like, you know, I probably don't want you to move all of these picks potentially because other trade deadlines, if I sign this extension, I'd want to have like, shouldn't we want to keep some of these unless the bidding for Drew was such that you had to kick in all these extra firsts, which we don't know all of that, but it just seems like a lot

and a lot of dangerous, unprotected and potential swaps when things can go south of these franchises in a really long time. So I was surprised at the total package. Well, you raise a good point here. We don't know what the other offers were and I'm surprised they haven't come out yet, but we know the Celtics were kicking the tires hard on Drew. The only way that's happening is if Hayward is involved or Kemba's involved, because that's the only way they could have matched

the salaries back. Plus they have all these picks. So we know they were a suitor at the very least. We know Denver was a suitor and we know Golden State was a suitor. And it's funny. I listened to Zach's podcast two weeks ago and he had, I can't remember. Yeah.

Zach Galifianakis had his NBA pod, but he was talking about whether the Warriors would give up number two for holiday. And I can't, God, I'm sorry. I can't remember who he had with them, but they were like, well, is it wind horse? No, it wasn't wind horse. It was, it was, uh, two weeks ago. Anyway, he was like, wow, that's a lot to give up. If it was drew in the 12 for two, you're giving up, you know, a chance to really have the extension of

your dynasty to the next, you know, next generation for a guy who's in his thirties now, who's only under contract for a year. And that was kind of how I felt too. It was like, all right, if it was, if, if I'm doing two for Drew, I have to get 12 back and you have to take Wiggins. But I don't even know if I'm the Warriors, if I'm necessarily doing that because now all my core is older. But now from 10 days ago to now where it's like Milwaukee is like, here are all our picks. And here's George Hill, who was good last year.

And Bledsoe, who I do feel like had a little bit of trade value. It's not like they stuck them with two complete stiffs either. I just hated the trade. I really thought it was one of my least favorite overpays maybe in the last 10 years. I did not understand it. Am I on an island here

though that it seems that everybody is following the LeBron 101 process of tell the team that you play for nothing. Let them operate in the dark and you know i'm not saying lebron enjoys teams fucking up their future finances right when he decides to leave and lebron will never tell anyone he will not tell you what his plan is when he is with the team in cleveland like to the last minute they're like oh great like we brought it and we can get some of that money but i feel like the reaction is oh no Oh no, no, you know, you got to do

this. You got to do this because the assumption made that like these front offices don't show up to work and be like, Hey, do you guys want to get better today? Nah. Do you guys want to do a trade that we like? Yeah. There's no pressure on us really. So, you know, let's just, let's just mail it in. Whereas all of a sudden it's like, Oh, a good player may leave. Okay. you know let's just let's just mail it in whereas all of a sudden it's like oh a good player may leave okay well let's now try to make the team a little bit better i feel like i'm on this island where i can't believe it can't be just a touch more collaborative of you know because if i'm the honest and i'm staying in milwaukee i might be like hey did we have to give up all those picks for drew also like what does he honest know about what's a right or wrong trade he's like a 26-year-old

guy. It's not like he's been in a front office for the last 20 years. You bring up a good point with LeBron. And I don't really necessarily blame him for this, but in the late 2000s, you saw the Cavaliers continually trying to make these big swing dumb trades where they're mortgaging any semblance they had of a future for these like win now guys like Antoine Jamison and Shaq and even earlier than Ben Wallace. Do you want the numbers? I have them all. Okay, let's go through it. Go through it quick. They took on Shaq and 20 million. They took on 40 million with Antoine Jamison. They took on 26.5 million with Wally Zerbiak. They took on 30 million with Ben Wallace. They took on another 25 million with Larry Hughes. They took on 24 million later on with that Jordan Clarkson deal where they took on all

that other money to give the Lakers the cap space to go ahead and try to do that. Well, no, save that because I want to get to 18. I'm just talking late 2000s. And it was like, why are they doing this? Why are they so frantically? And the answer is always, well, LeBron wants to win now and they don't want to lose LeBron. And that was one of the reasons Gilbert,

who never should have sent the Comic Sans letter, but he was furious. He had spent way more money than anybody knew behind the scenes and letting those guys fly in his private jet, all that stuff. And then LeBron's like, all right, I'll see you later. And just left them basically with the bar tab. But then in 2018, fast forward's like, all right, I'll see you later. And just left them basically with the bar tab. But then in 2018,

fast forward to that same thing, right? Um, LeBron wants all this stuff. And they're like, you know what? We're trading Kyrie Irving. He's threatening to have knee surgery,

which is the alleged story. We got to get something for him. We got to get this pick back to get the pick back. And LeBron's like, you got to trade that pick. We need assets. Wanted him to trade the pick desperately. Pushed it. was mad about it. Got them to sign Dwayne Wade. How did that work out? But then they wouldn't trade the pick because they knew he was leaving.

And so it actually didn't win. And they're like, oh, you know what? We're keeping the pick just in case you leave. And as it turns out, had they traded that pick for a good player, that team might have at least hung with the 2018 Warriors a little more than they did. Wasn't it for DeAndre Jordan too? I think that was the big rumor. It was like, oh, let's move for DeAndre Jordan. I would still tell you that.

I don't think Cleveland was 100% sure he was gone. I think they were hoping they were going to get like one more year out of it because the East was so easy. And I know a lot of people have... He was 100% gone. Yeah, that's what everybody said after the fact. I feel like nobody said 100% before. I said it like a year before he left.

I don't know. I've just heard from a lot of people that cover the league that were like, oh, that was... I was like, wow, that's funny. None of you said that before. But go ahead. With the Giannis thing, Why wouldn't he just like, I assume he's coming back now and signing the super max. There's been rumblings. Why wouldn't you just announce that

right after the drew holiday trade and push you get the Bogdanovich, which that that's another fun one that we can talk about, but they really didn't give up anything for Bogdanovich. And there's odds are they might be overpaying them compared. There's some people are split on how good he is. I personally really like him. I'm a huge fan. Other people are like, eh,

you know, and, and I think he's been pretty polarized. I don't think he's very good defensively. Um, but why wouldn't this all be a package thing where then they're like, and we've signed Giannis. Cause that's the only reason this true holiday,

you can't take this kind of a risk and then keep your fingers crossed. Like, man, I hope we win. Hope we win. Then Giannis will stay. That can't be the plan. It can't.

There's a chance that 2027 unprotected pick by itself is worth more than drew. Like there's a version of that where like who knows what this friend all these franchises that within the moment they're like okay well this is who we are wow this is the next nice young team and look at them i'd buy all the stock in the world and you go oh remember when everybody really liked them remember that team was going to be awesome and three years later all these things change yeah 2013 okay see um wait i have a question for you yeah yannis drew holiday chris middleton bogdanovich um who else is still under contract for them brooke lopez

and probably a bunch of minimum you know free agent guys that take a pay cut for one year. Because Wes Matthews, people are saying the Lakers won. I don't know. I mean. Wes Matthews is out. But is that enough? Like, why am I looking at their team going, man, I still don't know if you have enough to even get out of the East, much less win the finals.

Do you think it could be the uniform where you just freaked out about the Bucs? He just liked it? What are you talking about or just the bucks have been so underwhelming i'll give him a pass you know you lost the eastern congress finals of toronto two years ago you blew the 20 lead all right whatever but i mean you almost you basically got swept by miami and it's it's like i'm just asking you do you think it has as much to do with the roster as it does with the uniform? Oh, like if they were- That's what I mean.

Like you're sitting here today going, hey, does that get it done? It's like, are you looking at the roster or are you looking at the franchise? I'm kind of looking at the fact that the league is better than it was a year ago in the top. I think the top tier of dudes, top tier of teams is stronger across the line.

I think the Lakers are going to be better this year than they were last year. You know, the Schroeder thing was a big deal. I know they're going to lose Rondo. I have a feeling Caldwell, Caldwell Pope will come back. I'm sure they'll flip Kuzma into something, but I look at them. I think they're better. Uh, I think Dallas is going to be better. I think Denver will absolutely be better.

Miami will be the same, but the younger guys, you know, might take a hero in Robinson. I think we could see them take a step up. Philly has to be better than they were last year. Celtics will be the same. So I just don't feel like it's like,

wow, we got Drew Holiday and Bogdanovich mark our tickets down for the finals. I don't even think that's possible. And if anything, there's going to be so much pressure if Giannis doesn't sign the Supermax that it could kind of mirror what happened in 2010 with LeBron, where that storyline just kind of overcame the entire team. Well, they better know.

They better know because then that trade is even more ridiculous for Drew. And I think this is going to come off as like, we don't like Drew. We both like Drew a lot. There's a lot of things I like about him. And clearly there was a market for him because that's the other thing I think we have to factor into these prices. As we pointed out two weeks ago, it's an absolute seller's market. There's way more buyers than there are sellers.

So that changes things. I do think we've seen more and more of the GMs go, you know what, screw it. I'll just throw a bunch of firsts in here. But these swaps, if you really think David Griffin was going to say no, if you said, hey, we can't do a swap in 2025, I'll give you three picks and one swap. I can't give you two swaps, but maybe the front office of Milwaukee is just so scared and that kind of gets back to my original point. Why does there have to be this disconnect?

Why is it accepted that, well, you better do this, you better be scared, you better do all these things or your guy might leave. What's wrong with Giannis going, hey, I want to stick around okay well cool maybe we don't have to give it as much because we know we know our guy's staying but i'm when you look at all the people like the bogdanovich thing for some dumb reason i always like ursan iliasova i'm admitting that i'm i'm i'm stupid about that defenzenzo's a nice player, but it's also Milwaukee system, which is a little Houston-ish where there's this bump

that you get playing in the regular season in their system. But he's a pretty good athlete. He was really bad, I thought, in the playoffs, like almost a little scared, little Shea Gilgis-Alexandri.

No, you're being too nice. He sucked in the playoffs. Sucked, sucked. He was bad. But maybe that's young guy playoffs, whatever, no problem. Bogdanovich is somebody you can actually have the ball

and figure out a way to get a bucket, which is what I love more than anything with playoff teams. But it feels like a lot of moving pieces, a lot of stuff going out where you go, normally does this mean you grab like a, not even to use the Westbrook analogy here, but don't you grab a guy that's sort of at that level like this move this move feels like such a muted version of some of these other big trades that we've seen when you think of what they've actually put together here

like this doesn't guarantee anything i do not think he is a top 15 guy i think there's does anybody argue he is i think it depends on how much you value the defense and some of the on-court numbers and some of the plus minus stuff with him. I think the health thing is a real concern for me, especially as he gets older and given the position that he plays. But he's a great guy.

So that's another thing. You're bringing in an awesome guy into the clubhouse. Although I think George Hill is a really good guy too. So you lose him, but you gain. So basically that's a trade-off. I do think that Bogdanovich, like if you're saying you're in crunch time, let's throw away who the bench is.

If crunch time, it's Brooke Lopez with Giannis and Drew Holiday and Bogdanovich and Middleton. That's a team that can be a lot more creative offensively than the Bucs team we saw last year. Because you can run pick and roll with Drew.

You can put Bogdanovich. You can have him running around. I went to one Kings Clippers game and he was having a good night, admittedly. But I was just into his style. He's just annoying. Like if you're the other team, you're like, fuck this guy.

Like he's running around. He's doing stuff. He plays really hard. He's like a classic. He's the guy that in the Olympics you'd be afraid of if he's playing America, if he started heating up. You're like, oh my God, Bogdanovich, we can't stop him. He's one of those guys.

The stats don't really reflect it though. And that's why I wonder, I always love trading for guys from bad teams because it's like, this guy was on the Kings. Great. This is like a distressed asset let's put him in a real system take advantage of all the stuff he's good at and now we could go a whole other level so that's why i liked it for them it feels like the bucks with this though and they're better they're better all right so they're better so that part of it's easy is that

it's it's guys that don't have to rely on everything they've done, where it's Giannis down the middle, space it out, let's hope this works. Oh, Giannis got cut off because defensively everybody's more locked into the playoff game, and now Giannis didn't get free, and now somebody's catching it, not off an open look with a collapsing defense. We stopped the Giannis part of it. Now everybody's recovered, and now you have 12 seconds to get a shot off.

And other than Middleton kind of dribbling into that pull-up, I think this version of it, even though Bledsoe, like he's turned into this guy that everybody probably hates too much now. Agreed. You probably trust Drew more on a drive to either score or still read what the offense is doing or ultimately reading the defense. And if Bogdanovich gets into the corner,

somebody closes out in him, and he has to put it on the floor and maybe create something. There's probably more creative offensive options that they have now, which is an improvement for where they had probably a lot of reliant system guys. One, one bummer for having him in the East is, you know, one of the best things about him. Like you look, you think about that Portland series. He destroyed Dame in that series. And they won that. Davis had a big coming out party when they swept Portland.

That was nuts. It was nuts. He just took out Dame. Dame's one of the best players of the decade. And he just took him out. There's not that many guys to do that in the East against. Kyrie would be the most obvious example. He is somebody who can guard everybody from one, two, and three. You can switch them on anybody, but, um, but it's kind of the West

where he would have been more of an asset. Like, that's why I was so curious to see if the Warriors could get them because he's the guy you throw in Jamal Murray and Donovan Mitchell on Booker. You know, you go on down the line, there's just more of those types of guys for him to be, have real value in the East. It's like, all right, can he shut down the line. There's just more of those type of guys for him to have real value. In the East, it's like, all right, can he shut down Tyler Harrow? You know. Well, Kemba. What about Shake Milton?

Is Daryl going to max out Shake Milton? I mean, it's a disaster for the Celtics because he'll take out Kemba completely, assuming Kemba's even still in the Celtics. But I did like him more as a West asset. I think the most fun team for me with him would have been Denver because I think he really would have elevated them in a way that would have made me wonder if they could get out of the West.

I would have loved him on Denver. Absolutely loved him on Denver because the best part of him is something we just keep hitting on, is that he's one of those guards where he's adaptable to the situation um more than other guys are he just he just is where i would love to see yokich and murray have another guy that they could trust and they don't have that they don't have well and then defensively somebody who could guard curry and every all the good guards in the east basically can i ask you something about the golden state thing because i am kind of fascinated on the whole wait can you hold on? Because we'll take

a break and then you can ask me. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Come on. You want to do a grainy tease? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know Drew is the new toy in Milwaukee, but is someone wearing a hairpiece wig in Golden State?

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Of all the different things you kind of threw out there from Zach's pod, I don't know that anybody's in a hurry to take on Wiggins in three years at 30 million each. So that would be a non-starter for me if I were David Griffin and the Pelicans. But I don't know that i have an answer did you have an answer to that would you move like would you be who are guys that are realistically on the move that you would do a deal with because whenever you're thinking about bringing somebody into golden state the reason why in the past when they had a chance to like trade you know clay was always in the mix and they were like no clay fits exactly what we do

durant's the rare superstar who'll be able to fit in with what we do where other guys and especially when it comes to draft picks you have to worry about like is this guy going to kind of understand what we do keep moving keep moving around keep thinking about other shot options don't don't stall don't hold the ball the whole time drew probably i'm sure he could figure it out but i don't know i don't i guess i'm'm sure he could figure it out, but I don't know. I guess I'm still struggling with you just automatically do it, but I don't think the Wiggins contract, that to me would be a complete deal breaker.

The problem is you have an end game now for that core because your four best guys are all around the same age. And Golden State's path for if they want to sustain this for a longer time would be, you hope Wiseman works out and you hope you can turn Wiggins into more of an asset. And a year in that system with those guys on good teams doing only stuff he's good at. Think about what kind of contract did Harrison Barnes get from Dallas eventually for being in that warrior system compared to what he probably deserved as a player. In a lot of ways, they made him look better.

And then when he kind of fell apart in the 16 finals, that cooled people off a little, but he still got the contract. So if I'm them, I'm thinking, I need people that as Curry and Klay start to move into a different phase of their career, can take over the franchise. The same way like a million years ago, the Celtics started to look at the big three. And then they started

to look at Reggie Lewis and Dee Brown and Brian Shaw as like, oh, these are the new guys. We'll move these guys in. Everybody's going to overlap for two awesome years. And then these guys will take over the franchise. I think that's what they want. And I honestly don't feel like there's somebody out there that would be a game changer for them that's available right now. We just saw two of them go. We saw Chris Paul. We're talking about one second. Paul doesn't fit with them, which we both know. Paul wouldn't fit anyway. We saw Holiday, but now we're looking at the Victorola Depot types, whose trade value has just plummeted by all accounts. And then other than that, I don't know, unless there's some surprise name i'm not thinking

of well there's always a surprise name but let me um let me ask a couple things like just because if you grabbed a drew and now it's oh you don't have anyone to inherit the success like that's that's so far down the list of problems like oh now you're on the championship contender for another three years like chances are when curry and clay are on the downside it doesn't matter who the fuck you drafted you're you're probably not in the true but i just think they're thinking big picture sure we want to be great for the entire 2020s how do we do that right right and they would hope if it's in edwards or a wise mineral you know i've i've definitely have more of an open mind about who they would end up taking by the way with that second pick like i. I never thought Lamella would fit with his approach to the game,

but now I'm kind of up for believing anything, which is a huge departure from where I was at with them in that pick before. I just pictured Draymond undressing him for four practices in with about 17 F-bombs and just a week long of stories of LaMelo Ball has not returned to Warriors practice yet. You know, this guy has been catered to for three straight years. He's, you know, been treated like a rock star, been able to do whatever he wants.

Now he's going to fit into their system? Seems far-fetched to me. And the only guy who seems to be pushing the narrative is one guy at ESPN and that's it. So I don't know what to believe anymore. I actually think it was going to be. I thought there was a chance LaMelo could fall if he didn't go by a certain time. And now I don't know.

I don't think he's going to go outside of the top four. But I think if he stops the bulls, that's it. Let's talk about the Chris Paul trade quickly, because I. I said on my podcast, I was like, I don't think they're actually trading him because I don't think Phoenix is going to be dumb enough to give up a good pick for a guy who is, as we covered in it, we did a book of basketball about Chris podcast about Chris Paul that has not run yet. It's going to run a couple of weeks. And one of the things I had a nerd corner was like, what he did in year 15 has never happened in the history of the point guard position.

This is not just unusual. It's historic just to average a 15 and six in your 15th year as a point guard has never happened in the history of the league. And now you have them for two more years. The signs would be no matter how great the air advantage air specific advantages are now that he's going to have to tail off one of these years. It's just going to happen. It's like drew breeze right now in the saints. It's like, yeah, physically, you know, it might look okay, but physically you're going to start breaking down. It's just the rule of point guards, quarterbacks, everyone else. I would not have given up the pick.

I thought it was desperate. I think Presti knew he could get them to break because of the Booker piece, which goes back to what we're talking about with Raja. The Suns are so worried about Booker and the possibility he might leave, even though he's under contract for another four years, that they're like, cool, take this 2022 pick that in three years will be unprotected if it keeps rolling over. I just didn't like that piece of it. I don't think it was worth it for them. What are they going to do? Be a seven seed? Congrats. As much as I agree with you, I don't think you're being fair to the reality who Phoenix has been now for a while. They are one of the most stale franchises, even though we both really like Booker

and Aiton. And when you're a stale franchise where we can talk about Milwaukee being desperate or, you know, what are some of these other teams? I feel like Phoenix is going, Hey, you know what? If we just get this Chris Paul deal done, we know we're in the playoffs. So we buy some time with our fans, basically. Yeah, we buy some time with our fans. And I think, you know, even though I got so much, it was incredible the amount of pushback I got from outside of the world when I'd mentioned that like there's always been these rumblings about Booker and whether it's the Knicks hiring all these assistants, hoping that some of these younger guys that they had recruited eventually

will say, hey, you know what? Like I want to force my way to the Knicks, which is probably wishful thinking for the Knicks. Making your stars happy clearly should be a priority. And now all of a sudden, everybody has Phoenix in the playoffs, which they should be a playoff team. If Booker is really this good, if Paul can come close to duplicating what he did with OKC. I think it's debatable. Yeah, but Aiton doesn't get nearly enough credit for how good he is. I think Aiton is so under the radar.

And when I think about that pick, I guess they want to take another guard, too. And I don't know if it's RJ. I don't know if it's Kyra Lewis, who I now love. He's kind of my guy now. I'll be screaming about him all day. You have a guy. I got a guy now. Oh, that's exciting.

I have him way higher on my big board than other people do. He's my Killian Hayes in a way oh i have tyrell terry who's gonna go way later than both of those guys yes tyrell was i was like oh no phoenix wants to keep it because they want tyrell all these different things i think you'd admit when yes we can argue about all these little pieces and all this kind of stuff but when you're phoenix you go hey as soon as we if we say yes we hang up the phone we have chris paul now we're a playoff team. I think that's what happens to some of these franchises that are in this kind of rut. So here's why it makes more sense to be now that they gave up the pick because clearly Milwaukee was jockeying for somebody and it was

either we get Chris or we get holiday. And they probably did offer, I think it would have been kind of irresponsible if they didn't offer OKC Bledsoe Hill and at least one good first round pick. So once that's on the table, then new Orleans is like, um, all right. So now, so you don't want drew and, but you know, it's basically as a backup plan. And then Chris Paul goes out the window, Milwaukee doesn't get them.

And now they have to get true holiday. And I think maybe that's what happened. Once Phoenix caught wind that he might go to Chris to Milwaukee, then they feel like they have to put that tick on the table. But I, you know, I I'm surprised they weren't able to get the 10th pick if they're getting a draft pick,

but that one, they gave up. I mean, that could could be a disaster booker could be gone by then but see i think that's what presti's looking at here now granted it's going to feel like the 2025 mock is going to be 14 oklahoma city picks like this is going to be crazy if some of these swaps happen and i'm exaggerating a bit but i feel like there's going to be five teams that have 50 of the picks in one of these things like this is unprecedented amount of like this is this is spring break lack of protection do you do you think presti he's he's like the guy in the in the born identity movie who got burned seven years ago and they in the movie it's all going happy and They cut to him in his small apartment, just doing pull-ups,

getting ready. Like the hardened trade. I love that guy. Getting burned. And now he's just like, I will have my revenge. I will have all the picks. I will have all the picks in every draft.

And that's what his mindset is. I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I think you're right on. I think he's so pissed about Durant. I think he's so hard. And trade think he's the heart and trade about durant yeah the heart trade the heart and trade doesn't go their way because of finances which never made any sense they couldn't run it back at least one

more year and then the durant thing i'm apps i'm positive he's pissed about the durant thing and i don't know that that means now he's out for vengeance like in the movie character but you know presti whatever you think about Presti, Presti's not going to get worked over ever in this kind of stuff. Not after the heart of trade. No. And he's, you know, he may lose a trade, but you're not going to like, he's not going to just do something. Now he doesn't have to do anything.

He doesn't have to do anything desperate. All he has to do is stockpile all his stuff. So if he said, ah, this draft, we don't really even like it that much. Go ahead. You can have your new piece at 10 in the, in the 2020 draft. I'm going to bet on this pick being even better. If Paul gets hurt or something else happens down the road. I mean, he's so long game now. It doesn't surprise me. And I kept saying the whole time, like Presti's going to have to get something back. He really likes to take on the Rubio money. Yeah. And then if we're comparing

GMs to movie characters, Griffin, he's more like Robert Redford in Indecent Proposal. He's just like, how much for your wife? No, she's not for sale. How about a million dollars? No, I can't do it. How about $2 million? That's what he's doing with these trades where it's like, hey, what do you want for Drew Holiday? Three firsts and two pick swaps. Now I can't do that. Well, that's the price. And he like Jedi mind tricks. These people, the amount of assets he got for Davis and drew holiday is inconceivable and unbelievable. It really is Davis. There's no other suitor. Davis is already like, I want to go to the Lakers and the Lakers are like, we're the only suitor. We're going to get him in a year anyway. But fuck it. Here's every asset we have just to make it happen. And now Griffin is actually building the Pelicans

correctly. We haven't seen this where you have a young potential superstar with a franchise that's going long game and has picks and young assets to put around them. And they're going to actually build with him, which is how you're supposed to do this, FYI. Especially in a market, too, where it's not a destination market. And that's the same thing with Presti. Wait, though, is Drew Holiday,

is he Demi Moore, though? No, I think... I feel like if Janine Garofalo were in that movie, that would be... I think Milwaukee is... Milwaukee is Woody Harrelson. I don't know. Maybe that analogy didn't totally work. I tried.

I did my best. I still kind of like it. I'd like to do more of these. Do you have... Danny Ainge? Do you have a Danny Ainge movie analogy? Danny Ainge is the guy in the rom-com who's just completely unfaithful at all times.

And the protagonist knows it. He's Vince Vaughn in the weddings. But still gets involved. And then at the end, she figures it out and dumps him and goes with the other guy. That's where Danny's... Danny will trade anybody. Everybody in the league knows it.

And he's been doing this for 15 years. And guess what? Now it's not working as well. And this is what led to whatever happened with the gordon hayward situation where hayward knows they were shopping around and investigating and kicking tires on things and he's like well fuck this why am i why wouldn't i just opt out do you have any gordon hayward thing because i think that this has taken uh many a turn to where it leaves us now by the time it publishes. But the decision on the option is already supposed to be made,

and now it's extended, correct? It's 210. Yeah, so you saw the report that they're working on an extension on the decision for the option, which tells you that, as I had said before, I think Gordon wanting out and getting out are two different things, and that as much as you're saying the Celtics shopped him around, I think that led to Gordon shopping himself around and trying to figure

out, cause you're not opting out of 34 million unless you know where else you're going to land. But was it really about the money versus situation? Would he really want to go play with Atlanta to get the more guaranteed years or play with the Knicks? Or was this all a big game where it's Bartlestein is a terrific agent and Hayward staring down age and trying to try to just make the deal better for Gordon in Boston I mean

honestly this thing has changed so many different times that it's been hard to keep up with it I think it was a game of chicken with two guys who have known each other for a long time age of Bartlestein where? Well, Gordon might go to Atlanta and say, well, you know, and they're just going back and forth. The extension, this is funny because this could be irrelevant the moment we post the podcast,

but the extension indicated to me that they're trying to figure out a sign and trade. And if they're trying to figure out a sign and trade, my guess would be it's Indiana. Right? Because that's where he's from.

We know he loves it there. He's a hero there. He had a really emotionally scarring three years in Boston where he had the worst injury you could have as a basketball player, other than your head getting ripped off your body. Which hasn't happened yet. That hasn't happened yet.

He just had bad luck left and right. He became a fourth option on a team that when he signed with, he felt like he was going to be the number one option. Right. And then the Kyrie trade happens and then Tatum turns into what he turns into. Then Kemba happens and he's,

you know, was, Hey, you'd be the glue guy, Gordon. I don't know if he wants to be the glue guy. I think he at least wants to be a second option. So maybe there's not happy.

He's not happy being a fourth. I mean, hell there's times when you would argue to be a fifth option if they wanted to close small but obviously you know they're a pretty small team but that wouldn't make a ton of sense i don't well and then there's also the history of of just all the bad stuff that happened where at some point you're the haunted house you just want to get out anybody that think that somebody as talented as gordon hayward and remember like whenever you're as good as gordon hayward he thinks that it's just a matter of let me get healthy and then i'll be that good again and i still wouldn't completely give up on him. The Celtics should want to keep him to keep the

asset for some other kind of deal because him just straight up opting out and leaving and going somewhere else screws them up from an asset standpoint. But- Well, hold on. Hold that piece because that's really important. And let's take one more break and then we'll finish. Hey, not that long ago, going out with friends was a little complicated. You'd worry about where you'd go, what you'd look like, who you'd invite. Now, getting together for a beer with your closest friends may be not as complicated. These days, it feels a little more like it should.

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Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. All right, quickly, you talked about Hayward as an asset. I think the piece that even people like my dad haven't fully understood, if he leaves, that's it. You can't replace the asset because they're too far up on the cap. It's so much better for them if they can figure out either how to keep him, redo his deal longer term, or sign and trade him. Losing him is the worst case scenario. And they built this team where they have 700 guys making 2 million a year and the Tatum extension, which is coming and then super expensive guys and smarts the only contract in a reasonable kind of trade machine way where he makes like 12. So just the way they structured it was incorrect and they need Hayward, whether they keep them or eventually trade him or sign and trade him. It would be really bad to lose him.

They can't replace it. It's a little like when Milwaukee lost Brogdon. And the reason I hated that was it's like, you just lost an asset. I don't care that you got this mediocre pickback. Like that's somebody who's an actual asset. I had a front office person check in after you bitched about the brogdon thing and he just was like will you remind bill that brogdon had one of the worst medicals of anyone that we had in that draft class i also heard people that that's fine right um

you're right and i can't believe you just brought this up because i almost texted you last night to be like hey have you talked to your dad about gordon hayward because i tried to talk to my dad about it last night and he had the exact same response. He's like, ah, whatever. I go, no, no, it's actually bad. Oh, you don't have to pay him that 34 million. I'm like, yeah, but you want to pay him the 34 million. And he just was like, I go, Hey man, you're not listening. And then I start feeling bad as I get older. I'm like, my father doesn't understand the minutia of the salary cap right now. So, no, but, but that's why dads are great though. Because what they remember is like, but that's why dads are great though.

Because what they remember is like, my dad's like, remember Hayward when he short arm that layup in the Miami game, I knew we were going to lose. Like, yeah, I'm out. I don't trust him in playoff games. He can go where he wants. That's what my dad said. He goes, I don't trust him. He goes, I don't trust him.

He goes, Hey, save that 34 million. I go, yeah, but it, it doesn't work that way when you're in it for everybody listening. Just again, when you're over the cap and you lose the asset, you don't get the $34 million to go spend it on somebody else. And you don't even really get the cap space to go ahead and do it. You'd rather keep it. Do you think they're trying to do it so that they sign and trade him and then they just get the trade exception? Because that could be a possibility too.

I don't know why Atlanta would do that. Why would they help out the Celtics? But these teams do favors for each other like that all the time. And maybe that's what this is. Maybe this is, we'll do the sign of trade. We'll send them to you along with Romeo Langford. We'll give you an extra asset. The Romeo Langford?

The Romeo Langford. But maybe that's what they're doing. They're trying to create a trade exception so then they can go get somebody else. I don't know. I have no inside info on that. I don't know either, but I would say that the history of trade exceptions, trade exceptions to me are the thing your team has that everybody brings up all the time and the GM brings up all the time that's never used.

What's the history of trade exceptions? Because think about what it is. Oh, man, I so badly want to prove you wrong on this, and yet I can't think of a single one ever. It doesn't happen that often. It has happened. Would Golden State do it with Iguodala? Or was that part of the trade and extended it?

They had 17 million. All I'm telling you is if you really wanted to nerd out and do a history of trade exceptions, the number that are actually used for a significant transaction, it might be less than 10%. So I think Ainge and what I do like about Ainge is that he likes trades because he goes, now I know exactly who I'm getting.

This thing to be extended for Gordon is not as simple as him just saying like something has to be in the mix because, you know, even if he, if, even if he wants out, which I think he'd like another experience here to just opt out and go all right now i'm gonna go play for some bad team with less money like he may just still opt in but the extension on the decision makes me think they're all trying to figure out some moving there's something with all these moving parts they need

two more days to figure out i don't think it's as simple as him just going and they need two more days to figure out. I don't think it's as simple as him just going, Hey, I need two more days to say yes or no to 34 million. Is that fair? I think it's fair. We'll find out what happens now. It is two 16 PT. So at some point we'll find out the answer before we go. Uh, and we have to go, we're going to be doing the ringer post draft. You're doing pre-draft too. And then we're doing the post draft together. We'll probably pop on 20 picks and it'll be on Twitter. You can watch us do a live podcast. Give me your one, two, three right now. Go on the record.

Let's hear it. Dude, I hate this because I feel like it's going to change tomorrow. I'll give you mine. I think Golden State Minnesota flip picks Minnesota gets something a token for their troubles

nothing major Wiseman goes one Minnesota dangles two around for a little bit then settles on Edwards last second dangles their pick around for another day for another day.

For another day. For another five minutes. They're excited. We bought five more minutes of time to not make this pick. We've had it for months, but now... We got five more minutes. So I think Wiseman trade up Golden State to one. Tiny asset.

Minnesota just kind of says, fuck it, and takes Edwards and crosses their fingers at two. And then Charlotte at three, I had them with the USC kid, um, a Congo, but then,

then I heard he might have a shaky medical and I, I don't know the answer to that, but the way I had it in my head was he goes third. LaMelo goes four to Chicago. Denny. He goes fifth to Cleveland. Denny Avigda, he goes fifth to Cleveland. Avdija. Atlanta goes rogue at six

and takes like Patrick Williams. Seven, Halliburton, and eight, Obi Toppin falls to the Knicks and the Knicks fans lose their mind. And they're like, we got Amari back. We did it.

We got Amari back. I love that. We got Amari. Amari 2.0. He's here. And then after eight, I don that. We got Amari. Amari 2.0. He's here. And then after eight, I don't think you can predict anything. It's the only thing I went on Sal's podcast

that did against all odds. And I was like, my only prediction is that RJ Hampton was like even odds to go in the top 15. And I was like, RJ Hampton will go in the top 15. That's my one lock of the draft.

He will be one of the first 15 players selected. Too many teams are intrigued by him and like him. Yeah, I'm worried about RJ from 10 to 15, though, because I feel like he's the second guy for all of these teams. So that means that the first guy's gone, obviously. But you hear him at Phoenix. You hear him at Boston. You hear him at Orlando. He's the best athlete in the draft. So it's hard to imagine that somebody that's that athletic and the New Zealand stuff, he just didn't get the same opportunity that LaMelo did. That team was better. It was a more mature team.

And he just wasn't going to get the freedom that LaMelo got there at all. He fits the Danny profile, by the way. Danny loves those guys who had the high pedigree in the high school top 100 the year before. They had a weird situation and then you feel like you're buying low on this awesome stock. So you're not doing top three? Come on. Just do it. Edwards,

Lamello, Wiseman. You think Lamello to the Warriors? I feel like you know shit. You have that same look that Jalen used to have sometimes when he knows stuff. So LaMelo and the Warriors would be the most fun outcome of that pick. Because it could go any direction.

And then they'll start floating out right away. People don't realize the guy's a potential superstar. You put him in our culture, Curry's going to take him under his wing. There's a whole narrative that would go from the moment. It would almost like print boom leaks. Here we go.

Let's hand the leaks out. Who are 10 guys? We're leaking stuff to LaMelo. We're blown away. Steve Kerr wanted it the most. It'll be a lot of that stuff. You were, you were big on the leaks last night.

We had, we had some good texts going late last night and then there's dudes going to bed and i'm like how are you guys going to bed and i'm calling people back in the east coast i'm forgetting how late it is but well this is then we left out the one piece is the bradley beal piece we're going where now the market's been established with the drew holiday and washington's like we're not trading bradley beal fuck off but maybe golden state all right, Wiggins, all of our picks, pick swaps, more picks, have this too.

Just the Drew Holiday trade on acid, basically. And I think Washington, at some point, Washington has to look at that and go, what are we doing? I've heard Washington wants to give it a shot with everybody and see how it goes. I have to. Get the backcourt back. Add a big. Joe House reported that, actually. Joe House reported it?

On the Joe House podcast. That's what House thinks. House is pretty confident. Oh, look at you wearing the Cardinals hat. I'm an Arizona Cardinals fan now, so that's my only Cardinals gear. I'll see you tomorrow on the ringer. I look forward to seeing how this all plays out with this goofy draft.

And thanks for popping on, on short notice. All right. Thanks, man. That's it for the BS podcast coming back Wednesday night, post draft show. We're going to be doing it live on Twitter,

and it's also going to run either on the ringer NBA show or, uh, Ryan Rosales podcast, or maybe even both, as a live podcast. So stay tuned for that. It's going to be me, Rosillo, KFC, maybe even Raja. Who knows? And then I'll be back here on Thursday's pod. Don't forget about the Book of Basketball.

Julius Irving, that podcast is up. Don't forget about Recipe Club. Don't forget about Gamblers with Dave Hill. And that's it. See you next time. On the wayside On the first side of the road I don't have to ever