The Bill Simmons Podcast - The NBA Mega-Redraftables (2012 & 2013 Combined!) With J. Kyle Mann and Joe House, Plus Portland vs. “El Cheapo” for the Blazers With Justin Verrier

Episode Date: August 2, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by J. Kyle Mann and Joe House to have a mega redraft of the 2012 and 2013 NBA draft classes. Then, Justin Verrier joins the pod to break down the standoff between Trailblazers owner Tom Dundon and the city of Portland. (0:00) Intro (2:36) NBA 2012 & 2013 Mega redraft (01:33:52) Trailblazers vs. Portland Host: Bill Simmons Guests: J. Kyle Mann, Joe House, and Justin Verrier Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo SAP GROW. AI cloud ERP for any size business. SUPER TROOPERS 3, only in theaters August 7. Get tickets MEOW! https://www.searchlightpictures.com/super-troopers-3#get-tickets The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Wayfair, every style, every home. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new rewatchable is coming on Monday. Kyle Brandt and I did Karate Kid 2. A way better movie than I think it gets credit for, but more importantly, the gateway for us being able to do Carotidic Kid 3 later in the year, which is the funniest movie of the 1980s whenever it came out. I think it was late 80s.

Carotidicid 2. You can watch out Netflix. You can also watch Speed on Netflix in August. And that's important because the next rewatchables will be the re-speed. Speed was one of the first episodes we ever did on the rewatchables. We had four people and I think it was less than an hour. So we needed to redo this. We blew out speed.

It's the OG crew, me, Sean, Fantasy. and Chris Ryan. So that's a week away, and you can watch Speed anytime you want. Coming up on this podcast, it's evergreen content time. What the hell else is going on other than the baseball trade deadline? I've been watching a lot of Red Sox. I've been enjoying the Red Sox, but really nothing's going on. So it's the perfect time for the first time ever, NBA redraftables. We combined two drafts and we had a mega draft of 2012 and 2013. That's with me and Jay Kyle man and Joe House. And then I brought in just a barrier for a very special one question mailbag segment about the Portland Trailblazers

who are in flux all of the sudden Portland. We're going to explain what's going on there and how El Chippo factors in to all this. That's all next. We'll take a break and our friends from Pearl Jam. This episode is brought to you by SAP. Hello, mid-sized business. We see your big ambitions. But how do you achieve the wins you want when your technology is. holding you back. Hmm, I wonder. Well, how about SAP grow? It's built to grow with your business, no matter its size.

With AI embedded at its core, working across every system, all ready to go from day one. So you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow. AI Cloud ERP for any size business. All right. We have done some redraftables on the Bill Simmons podcast. We have done everything from 1997 through 2000. We did a couple other ones as well, 18.

We did the COVID draft 20. You can find a lot of these on the Book of Basketball Podcasts as well. We have never combined two drafts. And Joe House is here and Kyle Manhattan is here. And we are combining the 2012 and 2013 NBA drafts because both of them are terrible. And even when you combine them together, you get only six all NBA guys. You only get three guys who made my top 100 revised pyramid that nobody's seen. but me and House.

Only nine guys won a title, but four of them were KCP, Azeeli, Crowder, and Snow. You have some iconic bus. You have two of the three worst drafts of the 21st century back to back. You have 14 guys who played a combined 20K minutes. You had 20 guys who started 400 plus games.

And really, House, the only major thing of this was the last draft diary ever was 2012. And then I was on the broadcast in 2013. Wow. Yeah. That's right. Right, 2013.

And you were in the 2012 draft diary. You and Jacoby watch it with me. You were the peanut gallery. My mom came over halfway through the draft with meatballs and rigatoni and all this stuff. And the writing, like, can you chart the writing getting like sleepier and more space? Because I was smart enough not to eat until after I finished the diary. House was not. You can kind of see House dying during the diary.

Yeah. House just started eating. And that was it. Anyway, Kyle, why do drafts not work? If you had to give one reason why we have a bad draft, would you say it's just bad luck with talent? Is there a cluster theory that all of these guys are moving up the ladder and playing together and just not getting better because the other guys aren't that good?

Is it situation? What is it in your opinion? Honestly, it's probably just the wrong people were having sex the 19 years prior at the right honestly at the end of the day you were talking about the guys

for as bad as it is I mean we have two guys by my count that made the NBA's top 75 oh yeah and yeah and then in other drafts

I mean 09 had Hardening Curry 84 had Hakeem M.J. Barclay stocked and 96 at Kobe Nash Ray Allen Iverson

so I mean it is kind of crazy that we got that and then also just the the incredible defensive talent that came

into the league during these two drafts. I mean, with AD, with Draymond Green, with Rudy Gobert. So, you know, is it deep? Absolutely not. My first order of business was just a huge cutting of the chaff of the field. I was like, all right, only these guys are draftable, period. And I just kind of went from there. Yeah, I remember. So I did TV for the 2013 one. And my favorite player was Oladipo, who went second. But when you go through 2013, it's probably the bus. other than the drug draft in 1986, it's the bustiest you're going to get. Anthony Bennett goes first, which if you go on YouTube, I screamed out, whoa, twice, not knowing my mic was on, but it was just so stupefying because they already had a power

for it. They had Tristan Thompson. And then they took Bennett, who played the same position. They're going to play him at small forward too. He had been in college for a year. It was nuts. He went first to Cleveland, Oladipo, second Orlando. Joe House's Wizards took Otto Porter.

Cody Zeller 4 to Charlotte. Alex Lent 5. New Orleans Noel dropped to 6. He was supposed to go first all the way down to New Orleans, got traded Philly. Ben McLemar, 7. Catavius Caldwell Pope 8th, who's the second best player I've mentioned.

Tray Burke 9 and then C.J. McCollum 10. House, an all-timer. Although you had Otto Porter stock for a while. while. Yeah, he ended up being a good role player. And he's still in the league, right? Isn't he a mentor on one of these teams? Or is he? In some capacity. I'm sure he's around the league. He's not playing. Yeah, I don't think he's playing. So that one, and then that one gets better later, which we'll cover. The other one was just your standard bad draft where Davis goes one to New Orleans, kid go crest two to Charlotte, Bradley Biel three to Washington. And there it goes, Dionne Waiters,

Thomas Robinson back to back. Dame Lily. Six. Harrison Barnes, Terrence, Terrence Ross, Andre Drummond, Austin Rivers, Myers, Leonard, Jeremy Lamb, and you're like, oh, when are the good guys coming? Kendall Marshall, John Henson, Moe Harkless, Royce White, Tyler Zower, Terrence Jones, Andre, Andrew Nicholson, that's our top 19, Kyle.

I don't know what our draft guide would have looked back then, but it really, really gruesome. And I remember the Celtics had 21 and 22, and I was reading for Jared Selinger to fall to them at 21, which he did, but he had bad back issues. And then they took Fab Mello, the 22nd pick, who played a total of six games in the NBA. And was the center who averaged, yeah,

and a center who averaged less than six rebounds a game in college. So these two drafts together, House, you remember more for Janus and A.D. and Dame, or for all the busts? I mean, it's very busty. the true recollection for me going through this exercise of looking at the players or whatever

didn't feel like at the time there was, I mean, Anthony Davis was humongous at the moment and then he delivered, but otherwise it was just a lot of oddity. Upon reflection,

I'm impressed by the defense out of these two classes combined, and that's the best sort of attribute out of all of it, in my humble opinion. And some 3-&D guys as well. It's right as the league shifting to. We're not sure what we want. Exactly.

Right? This is 2012-13. Curry takes off in the 13 playoffs, basically, and during that season, then next year it goes even up a level. But this is right where, I mean, I got to be honest,

I love Thomas Robinson in that 2012 draft. To me, it was like, oh, he's a power forward banger who can shoot. a little bit. But those type of guys just don't exist anymore, Kyle. These six, eight guys who can't really shoot, they're not great rebounders. It's like, what are they? But for some reason, they made sense before this decade. I guess in one sense, you could, you could say that the analytics movement, which was getting, it had begun, it was getting ready to really explode and be driven by the tectonic kind of shift of the Curry era kicking off. And I think analytics started to inform,

archetypes of players that we just would never get taken there. Like an energy big like a Thomas Robinson just absolutely there's no way. The analytics hate those types of players. I was going to bring up that I don't want to move on from the 2013 broadcast because you were right, you had a ton of wins on that broadcast.

I did. I had a good telecast. People should just rewatch it because it's intertent. You got to screw up through because it's a long thing. But there were a couple of moments where there was a point in the draft where I guess it was between six and 10, and the only thing on the board, similar to this year's draft, where it was implied that you should take a guard at that spot. And you mentioned that all the teams in that range all have guards.

It's like, well, I don't think that they should. And Jay Billis comes at you and says, like, well, if they're the best player available, don't you think that they should take them if they're a guard? And I cannot imagine a more perfect comedic behind the back alley you pass to you at that moment than a chance to dunk. on David Conn because you did not miss a beat. You were like, that got David Conn fired. There are just so many good moments from that broadcast.

I mean, it was, it was such a train wreck as it was happening. And it was also David Stern's last draft, which was the other thing. But it was, you know, and Jaylon and I did the interview stuff that year. We interviewed all those guys. And that made us feel worse about the draft, not better. Joe House was very prominent during this 12, 13 range for a different reason. this is about a conspiracy bill. I don't know if we want to bring him in.

You want to come in? There were some interesting lottery results all in a row here. Oh, okay. Now we're talking. The decision happens in 2010 after the draft, after the 2010 draft. 2011 draft, which we covered Cleveland, who had lost LeBron. They got the number one pick. 2012,

New Orleans, which was owned by the league. Lockout ends. They have to trade Chris Paul. They trade them to the Lakers and falls through. They have to do this

Clippers deal instead, which... Well, it didn't fall through. David's turned. He blocked his own people. For basketball reasons. Yeah, basketball reasons. The legendary,

he had basketball reasons. So they take this Clippers thing, which people at the time felt like wasn't as good of a trade. I like the Cooper's trade a little more, but whatever. And then they're trying to sell the team. And I'm pretty sure they sold it before the draft. They did.

It was to the Benson family. This is true. That's what happened. And then they got Anthony Davis. They did. Yeah. They got the number one pick in the, wait a minute. The number one pick in the draft, New Orleans.

It was just an amazing how it worked out. Meanwhile, Charlotte was like minus three and 63 in the lockout. season. I think they somehow negative wins. 2013, who wins the lottery? The Cleveland Cavaliers. 2014,

who wins the lottery? Cleveland Cavaliers. Who goes back to Cleveland two weeks after 2014 draft? LeBron James. What do they do with the first pick that they just got, which was Andrew Wiggins? They trade it for Kevin Love.

I'm just saying there was a lot of conspiracy talk on phone calls with House and I during this stretch. It's just about like the result always favored what the league would have wanted, I think would be a way to. The best outcome for the league. Best outcome for sure. For the league over and over again. I would argue Anthony Davis going to Charlotte probably in 2012 probably would have been a

better outcome than him going to New Orleans. And even if you look at the, the 2000, Washington had three. I think Davis going to Washington would have been better for you too, right? You ended up with Bradley Beal, which was, I think for the most part, a really good pick, especially when you consider what this draft was.

But, but Wall and Davis. Yeah, that's, that's what would have been amazing. Though two Kentucky guys, yeah. You know, Wall came in in 2010. And then Davis shortly,

thereafter and that was the run that propelled Washington into you know, hey, we make, we're making the playoffs a handful of years in a row. That's neat. Kyle, another thing that I loved about looking back at these drafts, and we talked about it when we all did the

the post draft podcast on this feed after the 20206 draft, the heroin teams just made terrible decisions with the draft. Like really horrible, where they were just they had a power for it already, they were just double up with another one. They would take the wrong guard over a guard that goes,

you know, four picks later who's much better. They would take guys who clearly weren't ready for the NBA and put them in the worst possible city. I got to say, going through all this stuff, it really made me nostalgic for an era when nobody knew what they were doing, right? Could you feel that as you went through it? Definitely, definitely. I mean, like Alex Lynn, there's some pretty painful ones. I noted, too, that, you know, Cody Zeller, which he was okay, but, I had this written down. Let's see.

In 20, because I charted this for another project I did. In 2011, 12 in the league, there were 68 guys in the league that were over 610 and weighed over 250 pounds. And by 22, 23, that number had dropped to 36. So the type of bodies in the NBA were really starting to change because of the pace and the space movement. And you're just not going to see a Zeller or that type of guy get taken in the top. five. So, I mean, that's, that's part of it. But yeah, you just, you just don't see that anymore. And even Kig Gilchrist, I don't even know that he would go number two today just because of the way the shooting issues are. It's just not as, it's like they just didn't see the movement coming

at all, you know. I like Kidd Gochrest heading into that draft and so did House. We thought he could be like this kind of monster defensive something. And it's like if he could ever learn how to sort of shoot, it was going to be a bonus. But I do feel like, now he had some injuries. He had some stuff happen. I think he had some bad luck. But I don't know. I thought that was either him or Beale was a really good argument for the two versus the three that year. But you mentioned the white guys and the big guys. So in 2013, Zeller goes four, Len goes five, and Noel goes six. And the Noel thing was a big deal at the time. And I talked about it when I did the telecast because he was going to go one and maybe

two. It seemed inconceivable he's going to drop out. And after Phoenix passed him up for Len, it was like an official, what is going on? Like, is there some injury we don't know about? This ended up being the Philly took Michael Carter Williams

11th and then traded Drew Holiday for the Newell pick and another pick with New Orleans and officially started the process. Which is now, by the way, guys, done full circle. We are now at the of the process with the LeBron signing. This is it.

The first day of the process was 2013. The end of it was when they got LeBron. So that was weird. And then we had this Janus element to the draft, which I've talked about on a bunch of pods before that he, you know, he was, first of all, he was three inches shorter than ended up being. He was 6'9 and just seemed like little T-Mackish, a whiff of Kevin Durant, crazy athlete, but you're,

also watching these videos of him playing in in Greece and these weird places. And he always seemed like five years older than everyone who was playing against. And I remember Fran Frashella was the foreign draft pick analyst at that point. And was bullish on him, but nobody was like, this guy's going to be amazing. Milwaukee takes him and the rest is history. Not only was he immediately like, oh, there's something here, but then he grew. And once he grew to seven feet. So Kyle, if he's seven feet heading into this draft, is he the first pick? Is he the second pick? What is he?

I don't know if it's, would, would it be that much different, really? I mean, was it, that he, I'm forgetting the timeline here. Was he, did he come to the combine and he measured shorter than they had claimed? Oh, he was shorter. He was six, nine. And so the feeling was like he was going to be this perimeter, really athletic, like, scoring, you know, and that's why all of these, like, best case. and error names were being thrown around, but nobody kind of really knew what he was.

Didn't seem like he could shoot, but seemed like he had this up and down, crazy up and down. He was a good passer. He was athletic. So there was something there, which is when we did the draft, we thought he was going to be somewhere between 12 and like 16, which is where he ended up. But him growing was, I think, one of the biggest things. One guy I really liked in the draft was Ben McLemore, who just had all the prototypes, but was a classic, couldn't handle it off the court. And then Gobert was 27th House, one of your

favorites, and came out of the stands to shake David Stern's hand. My memory of that. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah, that was really fun. It was kind of the era when all of a sudden guys started doing that if they weren't invited in the green room. In Denver gets him and immediately trades him to Utah for the 46 pick and cash. They didn't have them. very high on their board. Tough one. Apparently not. So that was the big one from Gobert was the big later guy from that draft.

And then 2012, Dremont ended up being the guy who fell out of the first round. And that one was weird. I got to be honest. That one was weird as it was happening because we had watched him in college and he was just an excellent college point. And was clearly something. Golden State, he falls to 35. And Golden State takes them. They look like geniuses, right?

Well, they passed them up at 30 and took Festusisil. They said they didn't know. And even the stuff that he was known for in college, he didn't, that he reinvented himself in a way where it was just like perfect place, perfect time, and it just clicked. I mean, he deserves all the credit for being brilliant. We can get into that more later. But yeah, even the stuff that he, he was a back to the basket like crafty big in college. And heavy.

He had a lot of weight to him that he kind of shed. Yeah, look, this is the Patriot. took Tom Brady in the sixth round. I was like, what a pick. They also passed on them in the fourth round and the fifth round. Jay Crowder was the other one from that draft who went right before him at 34, which was another one where it was like, wow, that feels a little late. But that's what happens when you're taking Bob Mello.

I remember at Grantland, we had Grantland that year for the 2012 draft. There's a lot of Perry Jones people at Grantland. We, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, he had a lot of stock. and it was like crypto in 2019. It just completely fell apart. But that was when OKC took him, it was like, oh, that's an interesting one. But in retrospect, they could have easily just taken Dremont that they were picking 28th with, you know, coming off the finals.

That would have been a fascinating pick. Any, house, any other things you want to hit before we hit the mega draft? No. I am glad that we combine these two drafts so that we can get to 10 good players. Okay. Can I ask a question, really? Just a quick sliding doors thing. What happens if Cleveland doesn't screw up that pick?

What if they, because on the broadcast, you suggested they take Oladipo. Ola Depot has an all-star peak at one point. What ripple effect does that have? Because I'm like, they probably still include him in a trade for Kevin Love, right? I would imagine because, you know, Bennett ends up in that swap with Minnesota. And I'm just like, it probably ends up like a brighter timeline for Minnesota. guess, but then they did they get Carl Towns? I just was kind of like working through the,

because the fact that he wasn't, you know, a glowing prospect at that point made it easier to get off of him so quickly like they did. Yeah, it's, it's. So I'm going back and looking at the calves. So that would have been the 2013-14 calves, the year that they got LeBron. I thought I was pretty adamant on every show and all the prep and on the telecast. I couldn't believe Old Depot wasn't the first pick.

because to me he only felt he felt like the only sure thing in the draft like he he was clearly he was good in college in Indiana um the team was good he he was a little castleish where it was like i i feel like he could maybe there was there's more there with him on the ball but he was a good defensive guard super athletic they finished 33 and 49 the next year and got nothing from Bennett. So you could argue maybe he would have knocked their pick. Like it wouldn't have been as good. Maybe their records, like a couple wins better.

Then they don't get the number one pick. Then they're not able to get Kevin Love. There is somewhat if pre-percussions, right? That would be the only thing I said. I thought it was weird. The Bennett thing was nuts. We thought Bennett was going to fall heading into the draft. Like, for real.

We thought he was going to fall into the 8 to 10 range, which was the reason I did the the woe thing. All right, we're going to take a break. During the break, our producers, Gahau, and Eduardo,

are we figured out this number system because we're making this draft competitive. We're trying to win this draft. We're going to have people vote on social media. We're going to draft

eight guys each from these two drafts and try to put together the best possible team. So this won't necessarily be a traditional redraft. There might be some I need a center.

I got to take so and so here. So when we come back, we're going to do the mega draft. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures. More than ever, America needs a laugh. Enter the Super Troopers to the rescue. The cult comedy classic returns in the most offensive installment yet with Super Troopers 3, a debauchous bachelor party,

an over-the-top wedding, a dangerous drug smuggling ring. All of them are threatening the troops' future. Fill your leader of cola and roll up to the multiplex with Super Troopers 3, only in theaters August 7th get tickets me out all right

during the break we figured out a convoluted way to figure out the draft order Gahau had some numbers we shouted out numbers

and miraculously I got the number on pick um house is second j Kyle weird how the draft order is favoring

the host of the show yeah Gahua I'll ventmo you later but you have snake you get three and four

Kyle which is key for this draft. All right. So with the first pick of the 2012, 2013, two draft mega draft, Bill Simmons will select Janice and Tetakupo. One of the single most amazing draft stories

in the history of the NBA falls out of the lottery. Philly, who knows they're doing the process, passes on him at 11. And I think it was probably the right move back then. I think if he went 11, we would have been like, what the, he went 11th? Jesus. OKC passes him in 12, took Stephen Adams instead.

Can you, they had a chance to have Hardin, Durant, and Westbrook and Janus. They still had Hardin on the team. They end Westbrook. They could have just said, fuck it. That's one of the greatest one-ifs of all time. Well, they took Adams, which was, I think, the right pick, right? Because they need. they needed one more big guy,

but Dallas is at 13, two years removed from winning the title. It was one of those things where the articles and stuff after were like, we really liked them. It's like, well, if you liked them, you'd have taken them. They end up trading, doing some convoluted trade, trading back.

Utah's at 14. They pass on them. They take Shabazz Muhammad, which everybody should be fired for that. and Milwaukee takes them at 15. Now, what's interesting is Dallas took Olinick at 13. Boston traded up to 13 for Kelly Olinick and not Janus, who they could have put with Kevin Garnett and the Paul Pierce and the Ray Allen team. So anyway, and you know the rest.

He's 10 All-Star teams, 21 finals MVP, two-time MVP, seven times top four, seven. all MBAs has only made the conference finals twice house. Traded to Miami last month

and then and then LeBron didn't sign with them. Dan Levitard tried to do a fanatics conspiracy thing. That was the single most ridiculous thing I've watched on social media this month. I'm just saying

okay. Michael Rubin sold the Sixthier's stake. four years ago. Good try. Janus, first, you agree with that Kyle, man? Because you don't have the second pick. Yeah, thanks for reminding me of that.

Yeah, Janus, probably the best handling big guy of all time, I would say. Best driving big guy of all time, I think is fair to say. Four players have had NBA seasons of over 30 points per game, over 10 rebounds, over

five assists at over 60% true shooting. And he did it three consecutive seasons. Embed is the other one. Yeah, you're just talking about a pretty incredible story about just kind of where he came from. His first rookie deal total was worth $8.6 million. And his current five-year deal is at almost $230 million.

So, yeah, and he deserves it, man. I mean, he's just an incredible, he's an incredible player. When I was revisiting the stats, it was making me be like, man, I mean, it was, it definitely made me think, like, I should probably go check this Miami thing out a little bit more on a granular level again, because God, Damn, he's good, man. I mean, it's a simple thing to say, but it's the right thing to say. Yeah, and you figure he'll have two more, and this was the case,

as I was trying to talk myself if Boston got into him, two more really high-level seasons if he's healthy. And then after that history, we'll say he's going to drop. House, one of the things I was looking at, I was looking at my pyramid, which only you have seen the list of the top 25 guys, of which Janus is one of them. And so many of those top 25 guys are just pedigree. guys that we would have bet the ceiling of this was top 25, right?

If you go through top 25, Kobe's the first one where if you had said at 96, this 17-year-old kid coming out of high school and you would just said he is going to be one of the 12 best players of all time. That would have been insane. But he did have the pedigree. He was the number one guy in high school. But then you go through the rest of them,

somebody like Moses was the single biggest high school recruiter the 1970s. Everybody was trying to go after him. He ended up going right to the ABA. Dirk, I would say is one. And Yokic is the other one. Is Yokic or Yonis more unbelievable to you? Yokic was the 37th pick in 2014. What's a more unbelievable?

I can't believe this guy was a finals MVP and is now a top 25 story from you for when you remember them in the draft. It's Yokic and the reason for that, part of the reason for that is, do you remember what he used to look like? Right. Like that guy. Freak has always been a freak. And then freak got freakier because he got more muscular and he got taller. But there was nothing when you looked at the Joker to suggest that the career arc that we've all enjoyed.

Some people claim that the ringer enjoys it more than anybody else on planet Earth that There's a lot of Joker love. And I think it's well deserved. Yeah. We're weird for that. Sorry. Sorry. Like awesome basketball.

But yeah. I'm just throwing a match on that one. The Joker feels a little less likely. That's, that's it. Yeah. Even if I go through the top 30, you know, like Kauai, who I think is a top 30 all-time guy and he fell to 15. And that one's a surprising one because nobody saw. the offensive side of him coming the way it did.

But he was still a lottery. Like, Yolkaj, I think, is the right answer. But I think Janice is second. Even I look at a guy like Barclay, you know, Barclay was the top five lottery pick, was the most famous cut from the 1984 Olympic team, was awesome in college and was the only question on him was he's going to stay in shape.

So, yeah, anyway, Janus is. You mentioned something interesting, though, but the pedigree thing, because in 2012, Anthony Davis was coming off of one of the best American prospect years in history, where he comes out as the number one player, wins every player of the year award in college, gets a gold medal, goes number one. And if you'd said in the next decade, there's going to be a lanky power forward that dominates the NBA and gets an MVP and wins a title.

He did end up getting one. But he didn't, Janus had the career, I think, that we thought AD was going to have at the end of the day. I couldn't agree more. I think out of the last 15 years, I think that two guys I would have bet anything on were Davis and Cooper Flagg. Like, just like, I know those guys are going to be good. But Davis, I remember House and I watching Kentucky that year and we're just like, holy shit. This guy's like, Mikhail crossed with, I don't even know what, but it just seemed like the only way thing stopping him was going to be an injury. And if anything, I think it's weird because he's won a title.

It's like mildly disappointing. he's not first on this list. I think he's a top 75 guy all time that had top 25 potential house and he never got there. That's fair and reasonable. I might as well just go ahead and take him right now since we're talking about him. I am going to take him second overall on this draft. I'm not going out on a limb. He did arrive with the highest pedigree. We did love watching him immensely in college. He was definitely a can't miss. And yet he's on his fourth team. Now, of course, this was a long time ago when he was drafted, but that tells you something, right?

Janus, only one team for his career until this most recent trade. I do wonder if some number of years removed, just to finish the thought on Janus, we'll look back and be like, why tell me again why Milwaukee had to trade Janus? Can somebody explain to me why they felt like? Because the thing is, he's only 31, Janus. Now, for sure, you've done the work,

the legwork in terms of window guys of this side, eyes tend to fall off, windows, you know, and it's off of a cliff. But that kind of also applies to Anthony Davis potentially, and he's two years older. He's 33. Right. The thing that Davis has going for him that makes him, it's a no-brainer, obviously, for him to be number two. But the all-defense stuff was really meaningful.

I mean, that's for him to make that his calling card, because when he arrived, I thought that the inside-outside game was going to be the thing. I thought he might be a prolific score. He faced the basket and shot the ball in a way that was confident. And, you know, his three points shooting. I don't know if the numbers support this. I'm telling you the eye test. His three points shooting early in his career was excellent, I thought.

So, you know, easy pick for me at number two. I think during the 17-18 season when they made the playoffs and upset somebody, I think, Portland. But I remember during that year on pods and I can't. remember if I was writing or not. There was like a moment when it seemed like he was becoming the best player in the league during the basically post-all-star in 2018. It was like LeBron was in his last Cleveland year and was he'd miss some games and he was trying to push them to get traded.

And then LeBron took that title back like a motherfucker in the playoffs. He was like, no, actually, I'm still the best guy in the league. But I don't ever, like if you told me in 2012, of Davis is only going to have two top five MVP finishes in his entire career. I would have assumed he had some dramatic major injury because it just seemed like he was so talented. It seemed inconceivable that he wasn't going to be an MVP and he never made it. Highest he ever got, he was 2018, he was third in the MVP. And there was that other moment he had in the 2020 playoffs when it felt like he was going to win

finals MVP halfway through that series, right? And they were up 3-1, and I think it was game five. And it was like if he kicked ass in that game, he was probably going to win finals MVP legitimately, but he wasn't good in that game. And LeBron ended up winning and had a better series. But he never won defensive player of the year. His four-year peak was 27-11. House, he's played at 807 games and missed over 300.

I mean, there's a reason we've called him every other Davis. And it has been, you know, now he's on your team. Coincident with the playoffs, I welcome him with open arms. I do. This is a situational thing. Like sometimes when we, we all know people with kids that we like and families that the kids, but and sometimes you're like, oh, man, I wish that kid didn't have that mom. I feel like that kid would have a better chance.

You're like, oh, man, that guy, that kid's dad sucks. And I do feel. You think that? Yeah, sometimes you're like, ah, I'm not sure how much of a chance. These parents are going to allow this kid. I do feel that way with the NBA teams sometimes. Like, Davis goes to New Orleans. What's the worst fucking team to go to than New Orleans in 2012?

Like, you're changing owners. They're owned by the football team. They had more weird injury medical stuff than just about any team. And, you know, this is a good, put two drinks and barrier. And barrier has some good stories about New Orleans during that time. But yeah, I just like if you do his career 50 times, this isn't the worst version of it, but I don't think it's in the upper echelon of what I would have said.

All right, Janus won, Davis 2, Kyle Mann, now on the clock with two picks in a row. We know who the first pick's going to be, but I don't know who the second pick's going to be. You could probably know and me guess who it's going to be,

but my nerdy ass. My pick is going to, my first pick is going to be Damien Lillard. Damien Lillard, top 75 all-time guy. I think in this era of Drew, shooting that kind of changed basketball in the way that we were talking earlier. Was it just shooting?

It was ball handler, shooting the ball, changing pick and roll coverages, changing the way bigs need to perform. Lillard just kind of has the misfortune of playing in the same area as Curry because he's just one of the best shooters of all time. He's a winner. I'll go

and spoil. I kind of had this, between these two classes, I had written down like the best moments and the worst moments. And the best moments, I mean, it's hard to argue against dames. He's got two series game winners. As we talked about before, he put out the Thunder,

and then he put out, blanking on it, but he's done it twice now. It was the Thunder twice. Well, it was, Chandler Parsons was guarding him on the first one, and I was thinking, that might have been the Grizzlies. Maybe it was the Rockets, yeah.

Never made a finals, never won a round three game. Western Conference Finals once got swept. All-MBA, first team once. Second, fourth, third team twice. Fourth MVP in 2018. Five-year peak house, 28, 5, and 7, 38% from 3. I thought it was the right pick. He's also, there's a chance, and we're going to talk to Vary,

or I'm going to talk to Varyer later about the Trailblazers. There's a chance he's Portland's last great player. Like if something bad happens to that franchise, this was their last thing. I'm just going to read you some highlights from my draft diary because I've got this about as wrong as you can get. I still feel like I had a winning percentage in the draft diary, but forgot to mention the Blazers picked aim sixth because of the Gerald Wallace trade, which might have been the worst trade of the 2010s, all things considered. Brooklyn trading a top three protected pick to Portland for Jared Wallace, who was about to become a free. agent. And this was, I killed Billy King over and over again, and he deserved every bit of it. It's like pound for pound, the worst trade of the decade. So they end up getting six.

They have to give Damien Lillard that pick to the Blazers. And it's like one of the all time, of course, even if it had been a top 10 lottery protected, they're probably doing that. What are you guys doing? But anyway, I wrote after the pick, we're watching highlights. It's Meihouse and Jacoby and I wrote, these are jokes I had. What conferences Damien Lillard from again? Has any top 10 pick ever had more highlights that happen against white people? Is it Weber or Weber? Has anyone ever picked a backup point guard this high? Did they just pick Jared Bayless again or am I crazy? Are these highlights from Division I games? These are all quotes that I wrote down that one of the three of us said. And then I wrote later, I was saying Broussard was saying how they needed

someone to stretch the floor for Lillard for Aldridge. And I said, Lillard can shoot. I might talk myself into this pick by midnight. I need at least two more drinks. And then Austin Rivers got picked later. And I wrote, I'd rather have a 20-year-old Rivers than a 22-year-old Damian Lillard. Tough, tough draft diary for me and Dame. Everybody was excited about Austin Rivers' parents. with AD, though. I mean, to be fair to be fair to you, I recall a lot of excitement about that combo. And I think in Austin Rivers goes back to what I said about Davis before. Like, that's just, he went to the wrong franchise.

That guy was the best part in high school. And I think you end up just, you go down a road and then New Orleans quit on him. And I don't know. I feel like there's another version of his career that's more interesting. But anyway, what did you think of Dame? Do you remember back then, Kyle? as a prospect. Oh, God, I was working for zappos.com back then.

I was just kind of, I was just some dude who liked to talk shit about basketball. I liked him. I mean, you hear stories about him that he had, like, one of the best workouts. The people acted like they saw Christ when they came away from that workout. They were like, this guy has it. Yeah, I mean, he's an interesting developmental story.

You know, Weaver State, I guess he was Mountain West. I'm trying to remember what conference they're in. Anyway, yeah. I remember going to see him as. his rookie year and he was going against Chris Paul at his peak. And I had really good seats. And Chris Paul just destroyed him for two and a half hours. And I was like, uh, no.

That's what Chris Paul did. I don't know about this Dave Miller guy. Yeah. And then it's like, oh, he just went to Chris Paul college. And a couple years later, he's flipping it on Chris Paul. All right. Now it gets exciting. So the top three went how we thought.

But the fourth pick, there's some good options on the table. Who do you have? I'm taking Draymond Green. Yes. knew you would. I had him on my board in the fourth spot as well. Okay, make the case. Dremont Green is one of the more interesting. We were talking about like a player having a sober sense of who they are. I think he realized what he needed to be in the situation that he was in. He's one of the best screeners. He's an incredible passer. He happened to play with,

he's a high, high level processor on both ends of the floor. He's been, he had one of the best defensive stretches for any player in the league. Starting from like 14, 15 to 2019, the run that he put together, I think he might be one of the best post defenders of all time, one on one. He's really difficult to score on. Yeah, I just think Draymond's one of the smartest players, one of the smartest players that we've had in NBA history, honestly. I don't have him in my 100 for the pyramid house, but he came closer than the next guy. who I think is going to get taken in this. I did write down the five best non-center defenders ever.

Scotty Pippenhouse. Okay. Dennis Rodman? Sure. Kauai Leonard? No argument. Andre Agudala? Interesting. Okay.

Dremont Green? Speaks for itself, in my opinion. Would you put Gary, Gary Payton, above any of those? probably have probably have the glove ahead of Iguidala that's the spot I think draymond is has to be one of the first four and Steve Kerr has it's been interesting he's he kind of dances around it because he's always been very pro-pippin like extolling his virtues all the time talking about we're an unbelievable defensive player but he's had a couple moments where he's like I think draymond's might be one of the best of the best offensive perimeter guy ever he's in the conversation so I think

Kyle, I think that's the right pick. What were you going to say? These are different species of defenders, though. You're talking about Peyton. He's a point of attack guy. You're talking about Iguodala and Kauai. Those are like assignment switchable like perimeter score matchup dudes. What's interesting about Draymond is he's not a rim protector,

but he's a rim deterrent to a certain level that he doesn't really have to be because he doesn't block a ton of shots. He's like a deflection machine. He just plays middle linebacker better than like hardly any play. that I've ever seen. Like, he's so, he's so smart. I made a video about this one time. His timing, he could snuff out plays.

He had a really incredible discipline about, like, I'm going to stay completely still so that this guy doesn't know that if I'm about to make a play on the ball. Yeah. And then make a play on the ball at the last possible second. Like, he's one of the best ever at that. So I'd say he's a little different to those guys, just that he guards up the food chain a little more than the Pippins and the Iguidala types.

No question. Made a second team, third team on NBA. 2017 defensive player of the year, five first team all defenses. In the playoffs, five-year stretch, that incredible five-year warrior stretch they had, where they, he played 104 playoff games, got suspended famously for one of them, 13, 10, and 7, 3.2 stocks, 38 minutes a game. And I always thought the 25-game winning streak to start the year, I love winning streaks, as anyone who follows this podcast knows.

I love the Miami 27 gamer. I love that 25-0. You need somebody like him on the team to win that many games in a row. He's just a maniac. He's an absolute competitive maniac. And sometimes it tilts over the line. I think it's had real repercussions for them. It had repercussions when he punched LeBron and the balls did the flick up.

It had repercussions when he punched Jordan Poole. He's had, he's gotten dumb technicals in games. But that's just how he's wired. I'm a huge historical Draymond defender. I think he's right on the cusp by being one of the 100 best guys. I couldn't get in there just because we've had almost 80 years of great players

at this point. But when you think like OKC passing on him, then Cleveland passed on him at 33 and 34, and when LeBron came back two years later, he could have already been on the team. So, all right. Kyle has Dame and Draymond. That's a pretty good start.

I'll be really interested to see what House does here at five, because two of his least favorite players the last 15 years are on the board. I'm dying. This is going to be great. I'm so glad House is in this spot. What do you have, House? This is going to come as a surprise

in this sense. I actually have come around on this guy. What is getting ready to happen? I like Rudy Gobert. I'm a Rudy Gober fan. I'm coming all the way around. Guess how many conference finals? This is like the Tony Romo

DUI video all over again. You know the answer. He's played in two Western Conference Finals. You know who else only has two Western Conference Finals? Anthony Davis. Rudy Gobert, eight-time all-defensive first-team member, four-time defensive player of the year.

Would you say he's the best defensive center of the Steph Curry era? I think he would. Yes. Yes, I would. I would say that. I think since. Since Joaquin Noah, he's been the best defensive center since. I think in a certain sense, Minnesota and Tim Connolly have been vindicated in terms of, you know,

the trade that they made and what it did in terms of propelling Anthony Edwards forward. I do think that there was a role that Gobert played there. And he's the face of COVID. So, of course, I'm taking it. He's the number one pick in the United States of America. Who announced COVID to America? Rudy fucking Gobert. Yeah, we have the Rudy Gobert game.

Yeah, you're right. One second team, two third team all-MBAs. In the playoffs, 96 games. He's averaging in a 12th. 3-3-3-3-3 teams. He's been all-N-B-A four times. In the playoffs, 12 and 10, one and out blocks a game,

96 games, two conference finals. So your team right now has Anthony Davis with Rudy Gobert. So you're going size. Geez. Yep. Not great.

What did you think of that pick, Kyle? I mean, Gobert is one of the, he's a great elite rim protector for most situations. And I think just the thing that he's run up against in his playoff history is that when you're trying to paint a masterpiece, you just kind of need to iterate one step further than Rudy Gobert because he just is problematic. And AD doesn't have the same issues. just like he can't get played off the floor in the same way. He's offensively super challenged.

Yeah, you mentioned just him as a teammate. He's run into that different times over his career. I had the best moments and worst moments. We've mentioned two of the worst moments for these two classes. Draymond punching Jordan Poole, Gobert touches all the mics right before COVID. The other one is Kelly Olinick, injures Kevin Love. That's the other one I had turned down.

That's a good one. I rewatch that one. That was brutal. So yeah, that's Gobert. I appreciate him, but I'm not, he wouldn't be somebody I would reach for. I am up with two picks. And there are two picks that I actually wrote, this is a great argument and didn't know who should go first. I'm not going to cop out and just take them together.

And now I'm wavering. Well, I'm going to end up with both them anyway. I'm going to take Bradley Beale with the six pick. Okay. Might be another, I wish he'd gone to a different franchise guy. I got to see a few of those Wizard Celtics, 2017 playoff games. And he didn't shoot well in that playoffs.

But I really liked the competitive spirit he had. And I remember talking to House about that after. I think House, did you go to Game 7? Did I bring you to that? No, I did not go to Game 7 in Boston. I just, I thought, I left that series thinking, this guy has a chance to be pretty,

pretty special. Like he was really comfortable in this game, in this atmosphere. And if anything, the Wizards, I thought, made the mistake, which I talked about at the time of, like, the Celtics just weren't guarding John Wall. They were letting him shoot threes. And I actually thought if they'd run stuff through Beal,

they would have beaten us. That was also the Kelly Illenic game, which we'll get to later. But that kind of turned out to be the peak for him as, like, a competitive player. He's never made it to round three. He's only played 49 playoff games. His individual peak,

he averaged 31 a game and 20 and 21 combined. He's made almost 350 million a year. And my friend Joe House during the draft diary said when he got picked third right player right spot.

It was a very un-wizard-like pick. We needed a guy who could shoot at the basket and nodded his teammates. It was a Joe House joke. Good joke. Oh, really. That's a really good joke.

I wrote, hey now, after I quoted you on the joke. Look. you pay these guys sometimes, you know what's going to happen. And I think that contract ended up being the worst than that happened to him, unfortunately. But there's,

feels like there should have been more here, Kyle. The arc of how this has gone down for him, you know, some of this has happened. I know since I've been working at the ringer where, you know, in the post John Wall injury wake that we had, he put together a four-season stretch

that was pretty incredible. You mentioned that, I mean, overall 27, points over five assists, 1.3 steals, you know, 35.8% from three

gets the line a ton where it was looking like, okay, this guy, we need to get him, find a way for him to play serious basketball and he'd sign that huge contract and he had the no trade clause,

and he had a no trade clause in there as well. That is famously, yes. On and on. And it's, I just remember thinking about that. I'm like, this guy's developing and improving, but he's just,

it's wasteful just because he's in such a bad, situation and then the injury stuff starts. So he's kind of had a sad arc. I mean, you know, he'll cry all the way to the bank. He'll wipe his tears with $100 bills, but it has been an odd arc for him.

House, you watched him a lot. He really was like an absolutely high level elite score for years. Yeah, really hard to stop. He finished outside. Yeah, like just could get 30 basically anytime he wanted. And I think could have been a score

on a really good team. Just never had the right team. I appreciate your restraint, though, House. I thought you'd be a lot meaning right now. No, I mean, in terms of this exercise that we're doing, I have him lower because what was revealed in my own experience with him was that he couldn't drag winning basketball out of a situation. Right.

You know, as soon as John Wall got hurt. And, you know, the franchise was in disarray because directionally, the owner and the general manager were kind of stuck about what was the right thing to do. So they gave him a once in a lifetime contract. We'll never see a contract like that again. The combination of...

It was a slow motion car crash. Yeah. We knew it was happening. It was like, you have to do this, but you shouldn't do it, which we see in football sometimes too with the quarterbacks.

Yeah. It's like, ah, I don't want to give this guy a 50 million a year, but what am I going to do? The money is fine. The no trade is, will never be forgivable.

Yeah. It will never be, there'll never be an explanation that makes sense. I'm taking Chris Middleton with the other pick. I almost took him six. 39th pick

in 2012. Went to Milwaukee, he played there for a while. His career, like if you go basketball reference, his career is a little better than I even realized that I was always a fan.

2021 NBA champ. He was the go-to score on that team. I know Yana said more, points. But when they needed baskets, they ran through Middleton. 2021 playoffs, Kyle, 24, 7, and 6 for Chris Middleton, 44% shooting. He averaged 20 a game for basically five years from 18 to 22 and was, you know, a good defensive player too before his body started to break down.

I just thought he was a winning player and he proved it because they won the finals with him. So I really did think about him over Beal, but I couldn't get there because of the talent of Beal. So anyway, that's... If you swapped places, if you put Middleton, if you put Beal and Middleton situation, it does make you wonder and he plays next to a Janus, because he was the perfect

archetype of player to play next. Janus collapses the, you know, the defense and everybody's, you know, freaking out as he drives the ball. Middleton just had this incredible, he was one of the best isolation pull up scores in the league for two or three years there, you know, the injury started to catch up with him in age.

But man, I think, I honestly feel like People forget kind of how nasty of a scoring bag he had. People forget. Is this a Twitter video? Chris Middleton was a problem. You want a gold medal. That's another award. A team USA selection tells you.

I really like this game. And the Celtics made the 22 finals partly because Middleton was injured in that playoff series. And that was probably in the push over the top. All right. I already won the draft. So we're going to take a break. I have Janus Bradley Bill,

Chris Middleton. And you guys aren't winning. It's over. We're going to take a break. Come back with House Hasnard. Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings with the Scotia high-interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-Sa to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. Whether life serves you an ace or an unexpected backhand, the high-protein yogurt, Oikos Pro, is there to feed your strength

and help you turn every challenge into a smash. Oikos Pro helps build strong muscles and support muscle recovery with high protein and contains no added sugar, because true strength isn't about being able to take the hits. It's about being able to bounce back. Oikos Pro, feed your strength. Visit oikos.ca for more details. Next pick. All right, House is on the clock.

He has Anthony Davis and Rudy Gobert trying to figure out how to play them together. And, um, Anthony Davis wants to be out of the pain anyway. I feel great about that. Are we going to the Patriot League for this next pick? You know, I gave that a nice, hard look. And that is one of the things on C.J. McCollum's resume that does commend him. But surprisingly, the career of C.J. McCollum, will outpace the guy that I'm actually going to take.

Okay. But the high of this guy, if this poor guy didn't get hurt, yeah, was superior to any high that C.J. McCollum experience. And so I'm taking Victor Aladipo. It was going to be a question of where he went. Two-time All-Star. Yeah, underrated injury, what-if guy. Right, exactly.

The defense is the thing with him especially. made all defensive first team, led the league in steals, made one all NBA third team, one most improved player, um, all rookie first team. So like he came in with that at that number one, I mean,

number two overall pick in, in the draft and I think he, he kind of validated it. Like he showed us. He did, um, lead a team in, in,

uh, scoring in, in a, uh, a playoff series. So it just was, you know, never promised fulfilled because of the injury situation. 2018, 23, 5, and 5 led the league in steals, 37% from 3. So he gets picked by Orlando.

O'KC ends up stealing him in the Ibaka trade and then takes him with Subonis and flips him for Paul George. And Old Depot goes to Indiana and becomes a star. I actually deep, I went on a rabbit hole with the Pacers Cab series from 2000. 18. Do you guys remember this series? It went seven, didn't it? Seven games. Went seven.

There's a game five that's on the last five minutes of it on YouTube. It's in Cleveland. Series Tide 2-2. They get a LeBron turnover with like 26 seconds left, and they call time out, and it's basically Old Depot to win the game. Oladipo is at the top. They've been trapping him the whole fourth quarter, but it's just LeBron and Ola Depot.

He beats LeBron, goes to the game. the basket and LeBron fucking stuffs it off the, and blocks it and gets the ball. This was like, I think LeBron and that 2018 playoffs was the greatest version of him. Timeout, comes down, LeBron hits the game winning three. Block three. And then it goes to seven. And they hung around in seven, too, but the Cleveland won in seven. But he went toe to toe with LeBron that whole series.

I think he had 30 in game seven. But you left that series thinking, like, what an incredible trade. They got Oladipo and Subonis for Paul George. Like that was in everybody wins trade. But he made the All-Star team the next year and then he got hurt. And I started having knee problems. They fucked up the surgery on it. And he was never, never the same.

Where'd you have them, Kyle? Did you have him around here? Tours Patelerton and too, didn't he? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just because of the arc and the body of work. Yeah, I ended up with him at 13. But I'm kind of, I guess it's something about the spirit of this exercise. is are we doing this like a battle world type scenario where the peak version of this person

is on a team? No, you get the career he had. You can't. It's the career that the career he had, you're basically saying this is probably what would have happened. Now, in his case, bad luck with the injury, but, you know. What's interesting is we were talking about like how many guys are left from this class, like still active.

It's crazy you go back like 2011, six guys still active. It was amazing to me as I was going back to years. You mentioned LeBron. And I got to 2011. I was like, Jesus Christ, we get to go all the way back. And LeBron is still, it just really hammered home. You were talking about all the different and like whether or not AD was the best player in the world. There's so many different years where we would argue about like, oh, yeah, this guy's the best player of the world.

It's like, LeBron, it just further submitted it to me. It's just like, God damn, LeBron's unbelievable, man. He has so many. I'm formulating a LeBron Zag case. There is a case the career Dorff's the peak of Jordan. Did you read what I wrote? No, I know.

Yeah, yeah. I've had the same revelation recently. Yeah. Because you go through and there's just so many crazy games. I was looking through his advanced metrics. And there's just, there's years where he's just like plus 21 on off. You know, like crazy, crazy shit. in a lot of playoff moments.

I had so many playoff moments that I literally forgot about the 2018 Pacer series, like a block to save the game and then a game-winning buzzer beating three in the other end and then happen in a row. Kyle, you have two picks. Well, let's see. I have good bookends here with Draymond and Lillard. I don't really know what we're going to do with Janus, if we're imagining these teams literally playing each other.

Maybe Draymond can take that assignment. But I need some print. I feel like I have to take CJ though. I feel like. The reunion of Dame and CJ, they're back. I'm trying to trade them already. Patriot League in the house. Here will be my argument for this is that if you look at like the way that

CJ Dame played with Nurkich, you'd get a better defensive player than Nurkich at the same kind of fulcrum playmaker. Because they talked about trading for Draymon at one point, right? He thought about going there. There was some conversation about that. Yeah, I think if you paired Lillard and C.J. with Dane, that would be a good offensive start. I've got other questions to answer,

but he's too good to pass up here for me. So I'll go ahead and since House took O'Dipo, I'll go ahead and take C.J. House, I was surprised with C.J. Just steady 20 for like 13 years. He's 19.5 points a game, regular season 20 in the playoffs. Like, that's, if he's on the court, he's getting 20.

basically. Yeah, no all-star appearances, no all NBA teams, a most improved player award, which is not nothing. But, you know, the coming from the Patriot League, it's a hell of a career. Plus, you know, the esteem that his peers hold him in. And what he did with the basketball, you know, the Players Association. And you can see him going from, you know, at these end of career moments. He was awesome in Washington. Not only was he good for the, the, the, young guys. He was tremendously complimentary of the organization in a way that that

really, you know, built up excitement in Washington for what Washington was doing. C.J. McCollum did that. I like them as a playoff guy. I don't like him as a should we have a second apron or not vote. Because you know, he was

involved in that second apron thing, which is really bad. Okay. So you took C.J. McCollum with one pick, Kyle, man. who's the other pick? Oh, I'll go, but we can't take another non-shooter. I think I'm going to go with Harrison Barnes with my pick. I had it next.

All right. Really solid career, Harrison Barnes. Right place, right time, too, in the Capspike 2016, where the Warriors decide they're going to go up for Durant. And Dallas is scrambling. they're like, we'll give you $90 million for four years or whatever they gave up. I think it was a sign and trade too. But yeah, still around now on San Antonio trying to get a ring.

Can I read you what Joe House said during the draft diary? Absolutely. Harrison Barnes gets taken seventh, so we make a bunch of, he's got to be ecstatic. He didn't go to Sacramento jokes. This is what I wrote. Jacoby and I both noticed that Golden State starting five, Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Barnes, David Lee, and Andrew Bogot looks sneaky good on paper.

Right until House says, quote, you left out the part that Curry and Bogot will get hurt. They're paying $25 million per year to Richard Jefferson and Andreas B. Adrains. And their coach was just involved in a sex extortion scandal with a stripper. That was Mark Jackson. And then I wrote, yeah, but still. So, House, you were not a going state believer in 2012. of.

I stand by it. Put it on your resume. I stand by it. You stand by it. Okay. Yeah. Well, how about this? Did I know that they were going to acquire Steve Kerr and make him the head coach immediately on the heels?

Sass. He didn't believe the record states for itself. I didn't believe in Mark Jackson. I can tell you that much. You have the next pick, and I'm going to guess you're not taking Andre Drummond. I kind of want to. because pedigree-wise, he's impactful,

like two all-star appearances, four-time led the league in rebounding. He has an all-NBA team. I was stunned looking at his red team. He was four rebounding titles. Yeah, he's... Yeah, four rebounding titles. I actually think he could be an elevator. I think, I mean, the problem

is I'm immediately conceding. I have the worst team in this. And then the reason is because the number two spot in this draft format that we have is a dead man. Here come the excuses. You guys are getting two guys at a time. Here they go. And it makes no sense whatsoever for this team, except for Andre Drummond is a three-point shooter at this stage of his career.

Pretty, look at man. He's standing in the corner knocking down threes. I'm taking, I'm taking Andre Drummond. He went. He went ninth in 2012 to Detroit. And he's going to house his team right now. And in my draft IRA that I wrote, he was dropping a little bit. And they showed him, it's really funny.

The camera just stayed on him. And he kind of looked at the camera and had this sad smile. And all of us liked him after where he had this smile like, I'm a nice guy. Can't somebody draft me? Everybody likes him. And we were all kind in on him. And then from my draft diary, Billis mentions that Drummond shot 29% on free throws last year. What?

Jacoby Yelps with the mouthful of meatballs, mouthful of meatballs, I'm out on Drummond. How, 29% in college. It's like, he, yikes. He was on a Yukon team that should have been a lot better that had Jeremy Lamb. Yeah, that was that was not a great sign. But yeah, I was going to say, do we get the youthful athleticism of, of Andre Drummond with the sage wisdom of the corner threes? But then, how, I was going to say it's going to be a crowd. I mean, it's kind of a crowded phone booth you got going there with Rudy Gobert.

And you better hope A, he's shooting development comes around under your wife. I've got all three levels because I got AD in the mid range. Gobert is there for offensive rebounding. And Drummond's my corner three guy with the Hola Depot kick and shoot. Yeah, plus there's a lot of perimeter guys left. House still might be in this. I don't think House is done. I'm taking Contavius Caldwell Pope with my pick.

He went number eight in the 2013 draft. two rings. 2020 Lakers, 2003 Nuggets. The stats for him in those series in the playoffs combined, 11 points a game, 38% from 3, and basically played like 32 minutes a game, played real minutes.

So we know for a fact, this is a guy who can be the 3-D guy on a championship team because he did it twice. Six-year stretch for he was 11 points a game for 39% and somebody that I thought I thought clutch and the ringers Rich Paul did a masterful job just continuing

to get him money and leveraging the Lakers and other people. But I know I can compete with him. And then I'm just gonna do this. Hold on. Let me oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Can I do this? You know what? I need Yeah. I'm going to take Dennis Schrooter here. Oh, wow. Only because I need one more guard for my team. And there's a couple swings left, but I have swings.

Dennis Schroeder, 17th pick in 2013. He's been on 11 teams. Did any of them ever end up liking the experience after the fact? We're going to find out on mine. Two OKC years, 17 points a game for them and pretty good shooting stats. That was kind of the peak for him. and a really great international guard. Somebody that anytime we were playing Germany internationally, he was always just terrifying.

I've always kind of liked them. And even in the playoffs, he's annoying, like he's got a lot of confidence and he's going to fit him perfectly with my team. So Caldwell Pope, Schrooter, two guys who have been in a lot of playoff games house. Yeah, I don't mind Schrooter at all.

I thought that he was one of those, the more fearless guys on Cleveland in that playoff run just last year. Like those those shrewd or struhe's minutes were kind of vital for them competitive-wise because those guys were like out there getting after it. And I always hold him in high regard for what he did for Germany. I'm not, I know it's kind of a silly thing, but he's a dog. We both like a dog for Germany. We both care about that stuff.

Your thoughts, Kyle, man? I just love Al Spine Happy. feet for Germany. I didn't expect that. No, I mean, Schroeder. Schroeder has like the, the Rod Strickland and Robert Pack thing going on. The IMDB is just like, like, it's a different,

it's just like an anthology show where he leaves town at the end of every episode. It's like, that was fun for one episode. And then somebody else talks himself into him. You're right. It's like the Ted McGinley thing. Even Sacramento is like, oh, look at on Detroit.

Here's a weird contract. And almost immediately they're trying to get out of it. All right. House, you're up again. I have absolutely no idea what to do here because all that's left in terms of pedigree guys that I like are all big guys. And I can't, I can't take it. What do you talk about?

There's some other perimeter guys. I know, but, but I mean, in terms of who it should be and who I'm stepping over, I don't know. Do I really want to do this. Do it. Do the dumbest thing possible. So you can definitely lose the draft. I think I know what's good right to happen, but yeah.

I mean, it's, it's all big guys. You're doing another big guy? No, I'm not. But I think that there's two or three big guys I have ahead of whom I'm about to take. I can't do that. There's no way. I didn't realize House was going to take so much time trying to figure this out. This is hard.

And I'm the indecisful one. Yeah, here we go. Yeah. Well, I put myself into a corner with this one. because you might as well lean into the bit. It's the same guy. It's the same guy. Like it's either Robert Covington or Jay Crowder.

That's where I'm at. I have to choose between one of those two. That's not what I thought you were going to say. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I guess I'll take Crowder. I guess I'll take Crowder. That's where I'm going to land.

You need a guy that can hit threes and can guard some wings. And there are some unanswered questions. But no, yeah, I like Jake Crowder. I mean, he's got a crazy playoff. I had it written down here. He's 115 playoff games in 11 seasons and over 3,200 playoff minutes. That's near the highest in these two classes. He was just on competitive teams over and over and over again.

Another giant defensive impact guy, too. Like, I love the defense on my team so far. So I have a great defensive team. So he took Crowder. I did. I took Crowder. Listen, I had him close. we saw him in four seasons

be a legitimate 3-and-D guy for good teams. 2016-17, Boston. Boston made the conference finals in 17. He was 14 and 5, 37% 3-pointing. He could guard a bunch of different guys. I liked him when he was on the Celtics. And then he was on teams that lost the finals back-to-back gears. Miami 2020, Suns, 21, and played big minute.

He played 32 minutes a game for those teams, hit threes. And, you know, it was, very similar to Caldwell Pope. I thought him and Caldwell Pope, I had trouble trying to figure out who to take between those guys. All right. Kyle,

you have the, the, you'll have a starting five after this pick, so you're out next. I'm going to take Stephen Adams. Yeah. See,

that's who I wanted to take, but it didn't make any sense for my team. I almost took them too. You should have, you should have just done it because that would have just been your team would have been

a rugby team that would have been not fun to play. Well, it's not too late. There's still some big guys that I like. No, I think with the shooters that I have, especially with Draymond and Stephen Adams, it'll be a little interesting. But he's like one of the best offensive rebounders alive. So I think he's going to be a good fit with those with those guards. 17 through 20 was 13 and 9.

Somehow he's still only 33 years old. I don't, when he came into the league when he was like 17. All right. So here are our starting fives now as we head toward the benches. Kyle has the first pick of the next round. I have Janice, Beal, Middleton, Caldwell, Pope, and Schroeder. It's a team that actually makes sense together. House has Gobert, Davis, Oladipo, Drummond, and Crowder.

So needs some more perimeter. And Kyle has Adams and Dremont, C.J. and Dame and Barnes. So that looks like a basketball team. But this is a big pick right here. Who are you taking Kyle? I feel like I need a wing. So I am going to, you took Jay Crowder. I really hope you take somebody that I don't want to take when I'm up.

There's a guy I just don't want to end up with. I think I'm picking between two dudes here. Based on this guy's peak, how good he was at his best. Do it. I think I'm going to take Robert Covey. Oh, I wasn't expecting that. I don't feel that bad about it. Yeah, that's a pretty good pick.

He's going to, I think defensively I'm going to have a pretty good team too. Granted, he fell off a cliff, but at one point. Robert Covington somehow undrafted in 2013, even though we had a slew of bus. So he, I didn't remember this. He was fourth in the defensive player of the year voting in 2016. Somehow didn't make an all defense team, but then made first all defense in 2017. And from 15 to 19, was 13 a game, 36% from 3. And was a legit defensive guy.

I remember on the Celtics played the Sixers in 18. That was kind of the unraveling of the Roco was a really big guy for like the basketball ball community and the advancement. And then we just left him open for the entire series in 18. And he couldn't make anything. And I thought that was where it was like, eh, we're sure this guy. guy's good. He ends up being in the Jimmy Butler trade the next year. Never really got it back. But his peak is defensively. He was a little Jada McDanielsley there for a couple years.

I'm having a little remorse as you were saying all that, but I still like him. There's not a lot left. House, please take the guy I don't want to take. Do we, we're still going with this thing? Yeah, we have more pit. We're taking eight each. Like there's 24 good players for these two drafts because, you know, I'm not, I can't do it. I'm not going to take that guy. It would be super funny, though. Anthony Bennett? Definitely not Anthony Bennett.

Just take your guy out of Porter. I know. I just looked at it. The problem is that Covington presents better than Porter over the body of work. Yeah. And Porter's best trait is. a high three point average. Yeah, 40% for his career.

I was shocked by that. He's just going to stay in the court. Those were the two I was picking between. Yeah. The leaving open thing made me feel queasy like I made a mistake. But yeah, he stuck around a long time. I don't have it handy in front of me. How many playoff games do you play in?

It wasn't very many. It wasn't very many. Played 527 games total. Yeah. So that's the issue. Had a really good one season on the Bulls after the Wizards traded him. Yes. And then they kind of died after that.

Who are you taking house? Auto Porter. Oh, that is your pick. You seem so begrudging about it. Okay. I think that was a fair pick. God, this sucks. I'm just not happy about this.

Crying on the yacht over here with your Janus number one pick. And come on. No, I just hate this guy. I don't hate him, hate him. I sports hate him. Oh, man. God damn it. I don't even know who it is.

I don't even have a guess. I'm going to take Evan Fornier. Yeah, okay. I looked at him for a minute. What's there to hate? He played 19 playoff games and won three in his entire career. It's three and 16 in the playoffs. Just was a classic from 17 to 21, 17 points a game, 37% from three.

And another guy who when you watched him internationally seemed way more dangerous. than he did in the NBA. Who was the Knicks GM that gave him that contract? The Nick, uh, who was it? It was before Leon and, and, yeah, it was whoever there was it Walsh? Scott Perry. Or Perry? Yeah, that was bad.

Well, anyway, we're you only asking him for some six-man stuff? I had that written down too. He had a few years in a row there where you look at the numbers and if you didn't know about him, you know, I feel like, you know, years from now we'll have to contextualize that for the younger generation. Like this 48 guy seems pretty good. And then there's another guy who should go over this guy, but I'm going to take only because I need,

I need another big guy. I've seen him in big games. He killed Joe House's team wins. Kelly Linick. He did do that. From 2015 to 23, he was a 10 and 5, 37% from 3 and 22 minutes a game. And he was basically the seventh man on a conference finalist in 2017.

So you could win with him. my daughter, one of her first favorite players, used to call him Father Kelly, thought he looked like a priest in a kid's show. And then he tried to break Kevin Love's elbow for some reason in 2015, which was pretty weird, and probably changed the course of the finals. But I forgot that he signed with Miami as a free agent, too.

He culture tried to step in on him. You remember this? left the 2017 Celtics heat culture came flying in off top rope farm okay oh yeah yeah in fact I had him on House of Carbs you did when he was playing for for Miami yeah and he was there oh no it was just after he left Miami he really liked playing for Spoh he really liked playing for Spoh he's like that guy is smart everyone loves Spoh all right house you're up again you have Davis Gobert, Ola Depot, Drummond, Crowder, and Porter. Well, I have a couple guys that have a tendency to miss some games.

I have some. I'm not going to do it. Nope. I need some front court fill in. Wow. And I'm looking at my list. The guy that's played the most games of anybody on here remaining is. Jonas Val-Juransky.

Oh, yeah. Jonas Val-Gurton-Juris. No, Yonis was in this. He was in the 11 draft. He was a stash. We don't get him. Oh, okay. Damn.

I fucking knew. I fucking Newhouse was going to cheat in this. It's like, go figure. No, you have him on this, this, this, this warp list. I know, but he took a, he took a year. He was in the 11 draft. Okay. He was drafted in the 11 draft we did.

Yeah. I wanted that to you for that team, but that, yeah, can't do it. Okay. Then I'll just take Patrick Beverly. That's fine. I have a certain key counts either, does he? Doesn't count either. Wait.

Oh. Wait a minute. I need to look at who's in these drafts then. It was his first year. House, just take Tim Hardaway, Jr. Okay. He's the best guy on the board. I'll take him. Another shooter for you.

Weirdest team. Tim Hardaway Jr., career 14 points a game, 37% from three. Your team needed some shooting. He's there to help Miami now. He's the shooter for Miami. But how did he get to Miami? I'm just asking. Just asking.

how did he get there on a short deal that's weird excited for the response to this Kyle man you're up well Tim Hardaway's off the board I'm so crestfallen I don't know if I can continue I have five draftable guys left so this is perfect there's a sneaky one that we haven't

mentioned that is on here I don't think I'm going to take him I don't think I should take a big I should probably just go BPA here I'll go with I'm going to go with a microwave guy you would not have expected me to do this I don't think I'm going to take Terrence Ross

Oh you just stole him from me I liked that pick Damn it I thought that I was going to get away with it Terence Ross this is one of my awards Yeah this is Most likely to resurface With a social media clip Was a problem

Oh yeah I was going back that guy That's true And I actually I actually started making the highlight so I'm going to put that out here soon. He was just a lather score, man. He could get going.

I'm not going to lean on him hard. Come in and score some points, you know, spackle for me. That's all neat. He played 11 years and average 11 a game and was a good 36 points percentage from three. But I think his most famously was just thrown into every fake trade rumor for like four years.

When he was in Toronto, it was always like, and Terrence Ross and if they, and just always seemed to be floating around. his contract was, he was making $10 million in air for like five years. And his contract always fit with other contracts. And now this is the right time to take him. Who's your other pick?

With my other pick. This is going to be your last pick. You have Dane, Draymond, C.J. Barnes, Adams, Covington, and Terrence Ross. One more. I wanted to take Seth Curry. Do you have a Kentucky guy yet? No. I'm not that biased.

If it's the right pick, it's the right. pick. Nerlin's... You're taking Nerlands? No. No, I'm saying... You were talking about the draft footage.

It was... The Nerlin's sad-faced draft footage was pretty brutal during that broadcast. I was... I got to say, I was not a fan heading into that draft.

I didn't... Even though I knew the talent was there, I didn't... I just don't like skinny big guys like that. And it didn't seem like he could shoot at all. He was a shot blocker,

not a rim check. He just chased everything. It's like, Will Barton? I don't think so. let's see it's a shit sandwich here I'll

I'll take Mason Plumley is my backup Oh man I want to thank God I was going to take them No interest whatsoever I was going to have Because then Kelly Olinick would add somebody to live with

Mason Plumley And I think we had both Plumlies were available In the mega draft Because they were in the one was in 2012 And the other was in 2013 He was in 2013, drafted by Brooklyn. First 10 years, 9 and 7, House, 23 minutes a game.

Yeah. He would have fit in on your team. All right. I agree. House, your last pick is what? Good. Seth Curry. I like the character.

I like his golf game. He's the worst curry at golf. That makes me feel better. I know that he and I would get along great. His three-point shooting percentage is effing phenomenal. I mean, this guy has. had a, you know, a single elite skill. Yeah.

It was making mostly open three pointers. Yeah. That's a really important role. And he played it for, you know, he turned that into a lengthy career for himself. Seth Curry. I feel good about that as a last. Really good pick. Married to our beloved Callie Curry.

Beloved. Son-in-law of our beloved Doc Rivers. Beloved. Brother-in-law of Austin Rivers, who we also love. But yeah, that's a right spot for him. And honestly, I couldn't be happier because I like the team that I have. I was really hoping I could take this guy as the last pick. He's lived on beyond his basketball career in other ways.

On the rewatchables, we have a category named after him, the Dionne Waiters for Best He Check. He was a beloved Grant Land guy and a beloved Ringer guy for a couple years, too. 13 points a game in eight years. They only played 419 games and won a ring on the Lakers as a bench guy. Dion Waiters. I thought it would be great if he was the last pick in the draft and somehow this worked out. I wrote in my draft diary, Cleveland took him fourth. I wrote, they just tabbed the explosive Syracuse guard, Dionne Waiter, setting themselves up for an easy.

Anytime you could take the Biggie's six man of the year with the fourth pick in an NBA draft, you have to do it, joke. That was kind of it. He was always destined to be a six-man. And I still like his game. I actually think his career should have been better, Kyle. And like physical scoring guard. I remember when I was doing all the pods with KD, we talked about him for like five minutes on one of the pods

where I was like, because he played with him in O.KC. I was like, why isn't Dion Waiters? Like, why aren't we talking about him as like an all-star? I think he was one of those guys, all the other players really respected, but could just never put it together. There's like that Chuck Eackens Award where you talk to other players. Yeah.

I'm dropping some random 90s names on this show. But like you listen to other players talk and they'd be like, yeah, Chuck could play. You'll hear NBA players be like, Cam Reddish is another dude like that. And then they just don't stick for whatever reason. I feel like the ultimate culmination of all of this for the ringer is if we could get some film director out there that that listens to this show to put Dionne Waiters in a movie in one scene. To be the Deon Waiters? Yeah. he really goes for it.

I think it might tear a hole in the spacetime continuum, but this is great. It seems like a good idea to me. Honestly, that's a great idea. So the two guys that didn't get drafted that I thought might were Jeremy Lamb and Will Barton.

And Will Barton probably should have been drafted, but it was more fun to take Seth Curry. What about Aaron Baines? Role player? Oh, interesting. Yeah. If we've gone 10-man rosters. All right, here are the final rosters. Kyle Mann, Dame,

Draymond, McCollum, Barnes, Adams, Covington, Terrence Ross, Mason Plumley. So you have, you have size, you're shooting. I guess you're

turning the team around the two Portland guards. Covington as a shutdown guy, I kind of like that team. House has Anthony Davis and Gobert, Ola Depot, Drummond, Jake Crowder,

Otto Porter, Hardaway Jr. and Seth Curry. I think he's tanking for the 2014 draft. I want to be in the relegation zone like Brooklyn. Oh, wait, they can't, they can't get the pick. All right, go ahead. I have, I have, go ahead, Bill. Janice, my team is Janis Beal, Middleton, KCP, Schrooter, Fornier, Olinick, and then Dionne Waders. That's my eighth man. So we're going to have to, we'll do a social media graphic. We're going to open up to the people. And we'll have votes. My team can beat your team.

I agree. I like Jake Kyle Mann's team is the best team. It's a pretty good team. And my team is definitely the worst. We'll see if people agree. I think we can get you guys. You're good. You're good.

I have a very good defensive team. This is fun. I mean, how sad is it that we had two drafts together and by the end of it, the last round was Plumley, Seth Curry, and Dionne Waiters. Like, we couldn't even get the 25 guys. Then Jeremy Lamb, we forgot. to mention was the lynchpin of the James Hardin trade. He's Jeremy Lamb, Kevin Martin, and the 12th pick, which turned out to be,

which turned out to be, did I screw that up before? Yeah, Hardin was gone already. I screwed that up. When we were talking Kyle about the 2012 Thunder. Yeah. No, he was on the 12th team. He was traded in 13, right? Adams was in the 12th.

Adams was in the 12th. I didn't screw that up then. no Adams I did screw that up Adams was in the 13 yeah so they had already they already made that trade because they made that trade in the 2000 after the 2012 finals it was going into the 12 13th

that 12th year that 12 pick was one of the things they got in Houston trade so I'll clarify that all right any last thoughts house no I'm glad to be done with this you didn't have a good time Jesus Christ. Huh? You didn't have fun?

What do you mean? No, I had a great time. I'm just saying we got to a point in this draft. You just read the names off. Like, what are we? Is it Cody Zeller time? Honestly, it could have been. We're just guys naming dudes.

It's right. George, dang. Can't believe he didn't get taken. I can. I can believe it. Michael Carter Williams won the rookie of the year. Didn't get taken in a 24-pick draft. Incredible.

I'd rather have Bo Harkless. Anthony Mo Harclos didn't get taken Anthony Roberson didn't get taken Austin Rivers didn't get taken John Henson Mike Muscala Yeah Tomas Santoransky

yeah Kid Gilcrest a bunch of people All right I have a minute Guys a true pleasure Thank you as always for being on the mega draft We're going to take a break Come back with Justin Barrett right after

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Sign up now at Disneyplus.com. This mailbag is brought to you by Chat GPT, the Bill Simmons podcast AI sponsor. Yeah, you heard me. Chat GBT.GBT helped me very recently sift through this Portland Trailblazer situation that we're about to talk about with Just a Barrier. And I was going to do a mailbag segment

just all the way through for this, but I'm going to read one Portland email and then we'll talk to Verrier. This is from Fred. Huge kudos for continuing to call attention to Tom Dundon's extremely transparent. parents plans to cheap out on the Blazers, piss off the good people of Portland, and eventually move them somewhere else. But there's a lingering big question for you. What happened to your

regular use of El Chippo when referring to Dundon? This is one of the most elite nicknames we've ever had for a sports team owner and every time he made it laughed. Why did you retire it? Did Dundon send you a cease and desist? Only it was a low-budget lawyer, a male cease and desist printed on a square of single-plagged sherman just keeps going going. I did not retire El Chippo. I actually forgot to keep calling him El Chippo. So we're going to bring Varyer in, and I'm going to make a bunch of El Chippo comments. So this is a one-question mailbag because we're covering the Blazers in El-Chippo.

All right, just the barriers here. You can hear him on the Ringer MBA show. He pops on the Ringer website for fun of time. We've been working together for a long time. And a couple of years ago, Varyer moved to Portland, Oregon. And I talked about on a mailbag recently, I'm really horrified by this Trailblazer situation. I'm not against relocation if basketball just doesn't and hasn't worked in an NBA city and if the history is messed up or there's real reasons to do it. Portland, I used to call them the soccer moms.

It was the only team in town. They genuinely loved them. They won the 1977 title, which I think once you win a title, you should never have to leave. And they get this new owner, Tom Dundon, aka El Cheapo, buys the team, just had a lot of success with Carolina Hurricanes, wins the Stanley Cup. At the same time, he is seemingly torpedoing his relationship with the city of Portland and trying to get out of a lease. that ends basically right before the season would start in 2030, and we could talk about some ramifications. Before we get in anything, just give me the mood in Portland right now, because I know this

is a big topic. Yeah, I mean, the Blazers are obviously a huge deal here, and I think there would be more excitement about the upcoming season if Dundon started to serve Dead Cat and the concessions, and that was the only option, because he has just taken what was a pretty good momentum going off of last postseason going into this season. The team is really competitive. We'll see about long-term ceiling. But there's clearly something brewing

after a couple years of just going through the tanking process. And all of that is gone to the point where on a daily basis at this point, everyone is fearful that not only is this guy trying to screw them over, but also trying to do anything that he can get a good deal. And if he doesn't get it, he's going to go wherever he can get it. And he's done all kinds of money-cutting stuff.

which if we did case by case, some of it, it's like, all right, yeah, maybe coaches should make $30 million for five years and you fire them after one. But he's zagged the other way. And it's like, I'm going to pay my coach for one year. We're not going to have a lot of assistance. I don't really want to pay a lot for my broadcasters. Why do we have this many salespeople and just goes through and just chops it, which is what he did in Carolina. the difference here is the arena and the language that he's been using. And the phrase, first class experience is the phrase we're using where it seems like they're latching onto that as a way to get out of this.

And there's a backstory with it where the Allen family that owned it, they gave the arena to the city of Portland. They sold it to them for $1. It's Portland owns the arena. it's allegedly not a state-of-the-art arena anymore. You've been there a bunch times. I haven't been there since 2010. You can see, if you see the arena itself,

their suites are pretty high. I don't know. Do they that badly need a new arena? What's your take on that? I think it depends on who you talk to. If you're talking to NBA players and people throughout the league who are used to a certain metropolitan lifestyle

and like just a sort of class of new stuff going on. I do think it probably pales in comparison to that. I'm on the same mindset as you probably. I actually think the Zag in modern sports is actually to go something with a little bit more history and just like you could feel the weight of previous teams that have gone by because they put new big screens in there last year.

Yeah. And certainly that adds a little bit of luster to it. But like, it's fine as an arena. I just don't know what people expect from an arena experience. you're going there to see the game, not to see all these flashing lights and these big screens there. But if you were to talk to people who are used to going to other arenas, they would say, all right, it hasn't been renovated since I think it was built originally. And it probably is behind sort of where things have been moving.

Right. Mid-90s, there's a whole new wave of arenas that are better and more sweet-friendly. I remember, I think I remember this correctly. They built it so the seats are closer to the court because of hockey. So it's tight. And I like that they weren't, I just thought like you're surrounded by fans because the sweets are higher.

I thought the experience itself would go in there was great, but obviously he's not going to care about that. There's been a lot of good stuff written about this, and I've tried to read as much of it as possible. Basically, can they relocate and what are the rules

to that? And could he just do it and basically be like, come sue me like Al Davis, basically in the Raiders? The biggest thing that seems to be working against him is that that lease expires literally right before the 2030-season start, 2013-31. The lease expires on like October 11th, but you have to file for a relocation before that if you're going to switch teams.

And there's all this stuff in the lease that's like, if you file for relocation, huge penalties, we can sue you all this stuff. So he'd almost have to figure it out. And I remember Seattle and Oklahoma City, we're in a little bit of a situation somewhere where you had the limbo year in the arena, but everybody knows you're leaving. And if he's going to leave, I think that would be one outcome.

The other one is he could just be like, make up shit and just be like, we're moving and then test the NBA, which nobody has done for a long time. Nobody's just been like, we're moving. This is my franchise. It's a free country.

I'll do what I want. We haven't seen that in forever. Yeah, that's where I wonder where the NBA's position in all of this is. I don't think that they can come out publicly because Adam Silver basically answers to the owners. They are basically his boss and come out and basically undercut Dundon's leverage in negotiations and basically put out there that he's not going to let them go to Seattle or Vegas. I think the assumption is that those are off the market.

And then the other options just don't seem all that attractive. But I don't think Silver can come out and say that. I'm curious how much soft power he's wielding behind the scenes, how much other owners are saying things to perhaps chill the situation. but in a weird way, I think the most optimism I feel is that Dundon has proven to be such a transparent cutthroat maniac. Because ultimately, he's looking for the best deal. And I think that Portland isn't in a position. They really don't have any leverage to not give him that.

And so there's been a lot of bluster suggesting that they're going to try to push back on certain things. You've seen in recent days this first class contingency that, like, that became a big sticking point. it was in the previous agreement. So it really doesn't hold much bearing on things going forward. As you mentioned, it's part of the bridge agreement that they signed in 2024 under the Allen ownership trust in order to just get them to the next deal. But if anything, it seems like Dundon is just causing a stir over anything because he just wants them to, like, be, commit to the deal that he thought that they had a handshake agreement

with to begin with. And so it's tough to really reconcile because on the one hand, your logic brain's like, well, Portland's going to concede and give him $573 million to renovate an arena that, by the way, he said wasn't first class, which is why he needed the renovations to begin with. But on the other hand, he keeps bringing up these nuts-selled things

just to throw them off, like, kilter, and to just sort of make things messy and chaotic in order to get his way. And maybe his way is just to go out of town. So it's hard to really reconcile the logic of it and just his general approach to things. It's tough because ultimately he has the nuclear bomb card. Yeah.

If I leave, go look at Seattle. Seattle hasn't had a team since 2008. What is Portland if we don't have the Blazers, right? This happened to the Whalers in the NHL where the Whalers left Hartford. They moved to Carolina, ironically. And then Hartford, it's like, well, now you have AAA baseball and you're kind of near ESPN and that's what Hartford is. You need these teams.

They give you this credit. Look at what happened in the OKC, just getting the thunder. Like it completely transformed that city. So Portland has that piece. They also have a ton of history. They've had the team since 1970. The greatest sports book of all time was written about the Trailblazers. They've always had moments of relevancy.

They made the finals in 1992. They had some fun stuff that happened like during the Dame era. They had some Brandon Roy, a cup of coffee, maybe something happening. And pretty famously, a lot of bad luck with Bill Walton, Sam Bowie, Greg Oden. They've just been in the mix in all these ways. If I was a Blazer fan, I'd be really nervous because there's two things that conspiracy bill is noted. One is that you said the word chaotic, which I think is a good way to frame it. he also hasn't said anything or done anything, like literally not one thing that would

endear himself to anybody in the city, right? It almost seems like he's, it's like watching like marriage story with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, where they just, both of them want to break up and are just being as mean as possible to each other, except in this case, it's only him. He doesn't seem to care about perception repercussions of anything. And then I think you said the NBA had to stay quiet. I don't know if I agree. Like I like, where's Adam Silver being like, look, we don't want the team to move out of Portland. We've had a team there since 1970 and they have awesome fans. Like that is not going to be an acceptable solution for me. He just hasn't said anything. And it's very similar to the Stern thing. Stern, you could see where he was thinking in the mid-2000s.

And I was talking about it in the moment, writing about it, where it felt like he almost wanted to make Seattle an example. Like, if you don't invest in your arena and your team, they might leave. That might be how this goes. Like, they kind of did that in Sacramento too. They brought this, but Beck came in and committed to building a new arena or else they would have left. And it just feels to me like a little bit of a hostage situation. How badly do you love your kid? Here's what it will cost or you might never see your kid again, right? Like, this is like really brutal stuff, I think. Yeah, one of my favorite things about sports is just kind of the relationship between the community and the sports team itself. Yeah.

Like, it's one thing if the Grizzlies are successful. It's another team when that team, like, embodies the spirit of the city and the grit and grind thing. And they're basically had this almost symbiotic nature where, like, they're playing off of each other. Like, that's a special thing. And especially in modern times where, like, community is pretty fragmented at this point. That really only is internet sort of community and culture and, like, some of the. particular quirks of food and just the way dialect and everything else have almost been sanded down to like you don't really have anything. Like I honestly believe, and this might sound polyanish,

like sports are really the only thing that we have left. And that matters everywhere. It matters particularly in Portland where the Blazers is really the only game in town. No offense to like the timbers or the thorns or the fire who just started playing this year. It's like this is a Blazers town and it courses through the vein of this city, especially when they're good. Like, dame has a relationship with Portland. And like I've never seen it before. It's more small market Kobe than it is a typical superstar with your team. And Dundon has proven that he does not give a shit about any of this stuff.

All the things that we all care about as sports fans and his now customer base and his consumer base that he's going to have to, he does decide to stay, try to get them to buy back into the team when he's proven that he doesn't want anything to do with it. He's just pissed off everyone and pissed over all of the history and everything that anybody cares. about. And he brought the Whalers before the first day after they ratified his agreement, he has the team in his possession. He goes down to L.A. to watch them play against the Clippers his first game as the go-to owner. He's wearing a Whalers hat, which is just like a such a fuck-you symbol to everybody. He wasn't the one to move the Whalers, but anybody who knows, as you just laid out, that was such like a craven pull of a team from a city that got left in the dust

and hasn't been able to recover ever since. I was asking around trying to figure out, why would he even buy this team? It's a good question. Like, he's rich, right? He has a bunch of money. Obviously, he's a competitive guy, and he's done, it seems like a good job of the Hurricanes,

which is a completely different league. All these leagues are different, right? The challenges of owning a WMBA team versus an NBA team versus an NHL team. You're just dealing with completely different things. I don't understand why you, would buy this team if you weren't buying into the community around the team in this city. It's basically like, it's like somebody buying a house on a street because he likes the street,

not the house. He's like, ah, right. As soon as I move in, I'm knocking that thing down. But as you're buying, you're like, no, no, I love it. I love the, I love the upstairs. The backyard's great. But in the backyard mind, you're like, I'm going to fucking take this thing down. And my fear for people in Portland is that he looked at what the expansion numbers would be, which everybody's saying between seven and eight. And he's like, ah, I could just steal Portland for 4.25, whatever it ended up being. And then I'll just move them somewhere else. And I think Kansas City is, I mentioned them a couple weeks ago. And I think I was the first one to mention it. First of all, Kansas City can make an argument. They maybe should have a team. Like they're, they've really grown. They're, they've really grown.

have a state-of-the-art arena. They've hosted big events. I think the city's grown. They're in a part of the country that they don't really have. Like, you know, I think they would help. They'd help with conference alignment. But I wouldn't, wouldn't be Portland. And what's dangerous about Kansas City is they'll take any team, right?

Seattle, Portland's not moving to Seattle. Seattle doesn't want the trailblazers. They have a long rivalry and a history and they know what it's like when you lose a team. I don't think they're going to want that. They didn't really want Sacramento either. They want like an expansion team. But I think Kansas City would be the one I'd be worried about, especially one of the minority owners is a St. Louis guy.

Dundon's from Dallas. That's another thing that doesn't add up. You're from Dallas. You own Carolina. Why are you buying the Trailblazers? Right? So that conspiracy bill, there's just a lot to work with with this. And none of it is really that good for the city.

Yeah, I would always be like if there were only 30 houses in existence. and you just wanted one of those houses no matter where it was. And he's just decided that, like, I just want one of these, and I will take it wherever best suits my preferences. That was okay. That's what they did with the Sonics. They were like, we're able to get in and we'll move them back to this is our master plan all up. Yeah, and it just like really brings up a really chilling proposition for the NBA,

where everything has gotten, the money has become so big now, where everything is bigger business than it even was when I first started covering in the league almost 20 years. years ago. Yeah. It just, it just feels like we're getting with, especially with all this VC money coming in, all the Saudi money slowly trickling into the league and some of this other stuff happening, where it's just becoming more for profit nakedly in a way that I wasn't really ever familiar with in sports. And it's almost like, what do you want from a franchise? Maybe Kansas City deserves a team. Maybe Austin deserves a team. I know that they've been mentioned. I don't see how that would work with San Antonio being right there.

Austin's not getting a team. I think the spurs are more like. they expand into Austin and play games there. They're not putting a team 75 miles from the spurs. It makes no sense. And so, like, I get that there might be slightly more attractive markets, but what does the NBA ultimately want? Portland has driven revenue when the team is good. These are, like, diehard fans that support the team.

This isn't somewhere like New Orleans, where I was for two years covering that team, where they had to try so hard just to drive interest to get people out there. When the team is good in Portland, people show up. It matters here. And so, like, maybe if Seattle is coming, they're just like, oh, we don't need two Pacific Northwest teams. That's the really only case I can make for it.

Otherwise, this is a shining example of a small market franchise. And as we've seen with this new CBA coming in, Adam's whole position is like, I want to make it so everybody can win. How can you strip out a small market team and go to your other small market owners and say, like, hey, this is for everybody. It's not for everybody. It's actually then just becomes about the biggest market and the biggest profit. Yeah, I've had people ask me over the last couple weeks.

because they could tell I was kind of mad about this Portland thing. Like, well, why don't you stick up for New Orleans the same way? And I think the difference is we still don't have evidence that the NBA works in New Orleans. And you could blame the owners. You could blame the city. It's not a big enough market. Whatever you want to say, but it's just never worked. And despite the fact that they have, you know, a good handful, I don't know how many thousand fans,

I don't think the franchise has ever been successful there and we're going back to the 70s they moved there already. You covered the team and we've talked about this on pods before together. There's no, nothing you can point to

and be like, see, no, no, for those three years, that's when it was kicking ass. It's just never worked and I'm not sure they should have an NBA team. I feel way differently about Portland. Even Memphis, you mentioned earlier, like Memphis, if you're doing this over again, Memphis isn't going to get a team. That team's in Nashville. That's just the way it's

going to go. But Memphis has proven that they can be a really awesome small market franchise, and that team is ingrained with that city in a really unique way. And I, you know, I don't, I wouldn't say they should move either. New Orleans would be the one I think you have to look at, unfortunately. Yeah, New Orleans has the pride, but it never really had the bones in basketball or any of the success needed to drive any sort of energy in that city. There have been like flirtations with being a good team. But the best they've done is that team with Brandon Ingram where they, they challenged the sons in the first round.

And they were fun and scrappy and young, but then that quickly petered out. And so they really never hit the stretch of success that they would need in order to get people engaged regularly. And so there have just been a lot of teases that haven't amounted to anything. It's a football. It's pro and college football is what they care about in New Orleans, which is fine. Yeah. But when I was there, like LSU gymnastics sometimes would rate better than the pelicans.

Right. It was brutal. Portland, but what? That one thing I did here was that, um, because I, one of the things I was fascinated by is like, why did they let this guy buy the team? Why, why let El Chippo get in there? And apparently they only had two offers. Because, um, because the price of these teams in general have gone up.

And then the arena deal was dicey. and it's a smaller market. And then the city has definitely, you know, it's been a little topsy-turvy there for the last 10 years. And I just don't think they had a lot of people that wanted to buy in. Yeah, and that gets into the whole conspiracy theory

about how much the real villain in the situation is really Jody Allen, who took over for Paul Allen after he died because she was kind of the steward of the trust here. And there was an offer years ago from Phil Knight, obviously a local guy who wanted to invest in the area, and is getting up in age, and as you've seen with Oregon, really wants to inject money into the area into the sports team.

It's really all he cares about, seemingly. And it petered out quickly because the trust viewed it as a low ball, and it was also leaked to media, and they didn't like the approach that he took. And that was kind of the end of the story. Otherwise, it was just this most recent patch here, where it was the Dundon Group and Raj Sports, which also owns, I believe, the thunders, and the thorns and the fire. and I think they're minority orders for the Kings as well.

And they went with Dundon, and you have to wonder if the bridge agreement lease, which didn't have any protections in it to keep the team in Portland, to make sure the next owners would still be in Portland, was set up so that someone could do exactly what Dundon is doing. And you have to start to wonder what was really in it for Jody or the trust, because all that money is just going to go to charity. And so why did she set this up so that the team, wouldn't just be here in perpetuity.

Well, they obviously got snookered a little bit, but this is so similar to me to Howard Schultz in Seattle in the mid-2000s when he just decided he had to sell the team and he was frustrated with the city and he sold it to this group that clearly was a dangerous threat to move it to Oklahoma City

and he said, fuck it, I'll do it anyway, I just want to get out of this. And when we did the Sonic Boom podcast, he was the secret villain of the Sonics leaving because he kind of knew what he was doing. It's like if you're selling your house or your condo to somebody who's clearly going to knock down the house, you're going to have a moment where you're like, do it. How much do I love my house?

Like this guy's going to come in and knock it down. Conspiracy Bill also enjoys the Dallas piece of this with Dundon and is wondering if there's any possibility at all of a franchise swap, which we had not had for a long time with Dallas. and that whole situation, which has been terrible. Maybe it says maybe he switches, somebody buys Portland and the Adelson family ends up getting the Vegas expansion team. But I just wonder if he bought this team partly as like a chess piece

for some bigger move, whether it's moving it to Kansas City or St. Louis. I don't see, MBA and St. Louis make zero sense to me. Apologies to people in St. Louis, sorry, but I don't see it. But Dallas is, that's the one there I'm like, huh, this guy's from Dallas. This is Dallas is. Also, why didn't he just buy Dallas? Well, does that mean that we in Portland get Cooper flagged?

I can tell you the one thing. Just swap franchises? Yeah, because one thing that would energize the local economy would be the great white hope coming to Portland. Bill Walton 50 years later. Yeah, could see it's right. Happen. Yeah, so only two people wanted the team. apparently. And the arena thing is the biggest obstacle. You mentioned something earlier,

though, about the new types of owners that are coming into the league. And this is, this happened in soccer. Football is a little different because it's almost like it seems like these super rich families are moving in because it's, but in basketball, if you have the most money, you can basically make this part of your arsenal. This is something the Fenway Sports Group, did where they bought the penguin, they had the Red Sox, they bought the penguins, they bought Liverpool, and they're just kind of these rich stewards of the team. You saw the Premier League almost get upended by all the money came in of people who weren't like traditional owners. And what you said earlier, like I do wonder, is that where we're heading in the NBA? People who they want to sit

courtside and seem like a big shot and they just had a shitload of money to spend and they know the one thing that always goes up is the sports franchise. And is this just who we're looking at next 20 years? People that don't care about a connection to the city. It's also in direct contrast with what Silver is proclaiming he wants the league to be about, which is these small markets we're putting in the second apron so that you don't have to spend over a certain limit. And that's the thing I don't really understand about this whole Dundon scenario because

they keep proclaiming like that they can't make money here. The area is dealing with economic struggles, which is very, very true and like not something that I think anyone here would dispute. But one, the team has always done reasonably well considering its market size and the passion of his fan. And two, they're not spending money on the team. Like they brought in John Morant in a cash neutral deal. They didn't spend their mid-level exception. He's not going above and beyond. They're not even at the tax. It's not like it's not the first apron or the second apron. He's not even at the luxury tax at this point. And so it's just like his whole thing was coming into subprime money and like that's his

business. He's operating it more like someone that needs to really ring everything out of assets, which is why they went and swung the John Moran trade. They saw someone they can get for cheap, hopefully, that he could turn into something down the road. This isn't like big money coming in and we're just going to muscle everybody around. If anything, there were real concerns and rumors about whether or not this guy actually had the money to buy into the first place because I believe he had to sell a piece of his NHL franchise in order to do it. And so it's just really all over. the place, and I just don't know who this serves other than Dundit. All of this goes back to him getting what he wants and getting the best deal for himself. I don't see how anybody else,

the NBA, Portland fans, Adam Silver actually benefits for him being in this position. It's one of the most perplexing things about professional sports is when people buy a team and either don't take care of it, don't have the proper TLC, or don't, have the proper TLC, or don't seem like they seem like they care how they're perceived by the fan base. And the answer is what we said before. Like, he probably thought this was a good asset. He probably leveraged himself to buy it. And now is trying to wring out all the, all the fat costs so that he can try to make

a more profitable. This is something somebody said to me when the media deal happened that knows shit about, like, these rich guy circles. It's like, these teams are becoming so prohibitive. expensive to purchase. And this person was telling me, I think we're going to see stuff we haven't seen in the league in a long time.

Like that almost like back to the 70s and 80s with some of the cost cutting and weird trades. And by the way, we've been seeing it. And I honestly don't think that's why the Celtics traded Jalen because if you look at the money standpoint, it didn't save the money for two of the three years, right? It's just they get out of that money in year three.

But it was, It was weird, you know, and the stuff with the Lakers, even what they just did and the stuff they put together, then the Wall Street Journal reports that Mark Walter definitely seemed like he had a stroke or who knows how serious it was two years ago and people are wondering. And that's like a heavy leverage team. I just, I don't know who's coming into the league. It's the weirdest time for owners since like the 70s when basically you and I could have bought a team in the 70s. We'd be like, I met this guy at Dan Tannis. He has money. I think we can buy the Quippers.

But now it's, I don't know. I don't know who these owners are going to be. And then those are the guys who are on the committees. They're on the relocation committee. They're on the media committee. They're on the expansion committee. They're on the rules committee. And in the old days, they were people that really cared about the league and the sport.

And I don't, are we still going to have that next generation of owners? I don't know. Yeah, it was like, it was stark when Para bought the Grizzlies originally, because that was like one of the first instances of tech money really filtering in beyond the big markets. And I think people took note of that like, oh, things are changing here. This isn't a mom and pop shop. But I think the Walter deal with the Lakers was like the clearest indication of a family-run business, one of the last few we have in this league, feeding it to a guy who is just ungodly wealthy and also backed by other money where we have to really start to question the source of it. And that's the whole thing. Things have been nipping at the fringes of it.

this for a very long time, just kind of under the shroud of darkness. And like the leak has restrictions in place and so that VC money can't be a certain percentage of this and all this other stuff. But it's clearly eating away at things. And I do have to wonder if we're reaching a tipping point where we have an owner coming in without the money in order to really perhaps do this. And then just completely strip mining it in order to run it as if it is a bare minimum proposition. and then complaining about not getting enough money to renovate an arena or else he'll just go wherever he wants. Like, this is a pretty bad black guy for the NBA.

And honestly, this is a pretty troubling stretch for the NBA pretty much this entire year with the tanking and everything like that. Honestly, Adam Silver has been on a crossroads for a while. I think this is really the moment where we really figure out if he's long for this position and, like, really what the rest of his legacy is going to be like. Because he came into this with a lot of fanfare by kicking. out Stirling and doing a couple of things that I think a lot of people celebrated, which were in retrospect pretty easy wins.

He's had a lot of big problems, and frankly, I've disagreed with practically all of them, and this one more than any of them. Yeah, and it's, as a commissioner, the bigger legacy here is, what do you stand for and who do you want to be, right? Goodell and the NFL is pretty clear from day one. He's like, we are, you know, the most unstoppable business in America. And everything is going to be above profits. And if we have to add games and jeopardize our players, we're doing it.

If it's 17 games, 18 games, we're going. And that's work for him. And at least we know who he is and what he cares about. So over the first five years, I really thought was more in the I'm not Stern. I'm not like David Stern. I'm going to be more of a connector to the players and the owners. and here's my phone number, Ben Simmons. Right.

I'm going to go. I'm going to do, I did the song conference thing with him in 2018. He was talking about, you know, really being concerned about the player's mental health. And lately the last couple of years, it just seems like revenue money, finance driven is the job. And I don't know if that's the job. I think the job's a whole bunch of things. In this case, you should. care about Portland, a team that's about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the title.

And a city, honestly, that kind of needs the team. You mentioned some of the stuff that's happened in the last 10, 12 years. Like, I don't know. This would be a really bad one. And I don't have a good feeling about it. I don't have like an incredible amount of inside info, but everything that's happened, this doesn't feel like posturing to me. This feels like somebody who's already decided I either want to get the team out of

here or bend them over a barrel and get them to pay all this stuff to basically make me want to stay. And those are the two, those are his two moves. And neither move is good for Portland. Yeah, I think the only case for optimism is that he's just like sort of a craven carpet bagger who only wants a good deal. Right. I do think that the Portland will ultimately concede because I just don't see where they have any points of leverage. Because as you mentioned, like, what is Portland without the Blazers? point. Yeah, they are. There's, there are companies just leaving left and right. Things just haven't been great. Downtown's kind of a ghost town. I still love Portland's why I moved here to begin with,

but it just seems like that is going to be the inevitable case. And so if they do end up signing the 20-year release, that will be something. I wonder like what the relationship with the city and the team will be from that point forward. And I also think that I'm most concerned about what pounds of fleshy picks up along the way. Because it's one thing if in five years, they, you can be sued for going out. But if he managed to wrangle provisions in this next deal, let's say that they sign a 20-year lease, but there are outs and there's no longer a threat of litigation, and he can leave in 15 years or 10 years, and it's just easier for him. I am starting to worry that that is ultimately his long-term goal, because ultimately he just wants the best financial

product. And if he doesn't think that's going to happen in Portland, then I think he's going to find his way in order to get that. Now, I hate to say it, but just fundamental. for your life, it doesn't make sense to own teams in Carolina and Portland and be based in Dallas. That's right. Whereas like if you move the Blazers to a place like Kansas City, everything's a little closer to the stuff I care about. So I don't know. It feels like he bought the team because the price was, you're buying in four billions around a good price for just buying into the league with the media deal with the expansion fees coming. you're buying up in a league that the arrow still seems to be pointing up.

And he just, he got in and probably fooled some people. We'll see how it goes. We're staying on this one because, and if you go and you Google those stories about it, there's like new stories basically every two or three days of like some new revelation or something. We'll see how it goes. All right. What was your favorite move of the NBA move of the summer? Oof.

I mean, LeBron for the minimum, probably. Not counting LeBron for $4 million. Everything that's happened, I haven't been like, whoa. It's more minor stuff. Like the Clippers just getting really Hachamora for a two for 14. I was like, ah, solid deal. I like that one. But nothing like life altering.

I mean, am I allowed to mention Jalen Brown going to the Sixers? Yeah. It's also. I would say that's, I would say that what the Sixers did is pretty unimpeachable, considering they paid virtually nothing. I agree. From last year, we were, wondering whether or not VJ and Maxi would just be cool together.

Like that would be a fun product to watch as we waited for NB to come back onto the court. Yeah. To what could possibly be the best team in the Eastern Conference. So they probably checks that box. Yeah, there's been, it's really been more of like, I don't understand why that team is playing it this way. I don't understand what that team just did. Like there's been way more of those than, whoa, I see the vision.

I liked what Atlanta did. I thought just kind of building around the fringes and bringing everybody back. but grabbing people from OKC. And now we're in the stage now as we head into the Iads of August. What's the dog days of August? What do we say for August? Dog days of August? Iads of March.

We're now in Benetton Mathurin. Benedict Mathuron, Peyton Watson territory. Update, Matherins met with. So, yeah, it's time for the NBA to go away for a little bit. All right. Kaminka Zone? Yeah, comminga. Can we get comminga on the minimum? We'll see how it goes. All right, Verrier, we can listen to you on the Ringer NBA show with the crew. How did I have the first year

with Kyle Mango, new guy. It's pretty good. Yeah. I thought everything worked out really well. Learned a lot about synergy stats that I never would have been able to uncover. He loves those synergy stats. Kyle's right on it. Yeah. All right. Sad, everybody and pour them for us. Thanks for coming on, Verrier. Yeah, thanks for having me. today's mailbag, which we will have another good one next week, was brought to you by chat GPT work. Chat GPT work helps you work even harder while chat GPT works on your projects. You still call the plays, so you're always in control.

Put chat GPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Try chat GPT work and chat GPT today available in Plus and Pro plans. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Howes and Kyle and Barrier and Eduardo and Gahal. Don't forget, new rewatchables coming on Monday, Karate Kid 2. 40th anniversary, by the way. I forgot to mention that part as well. How has it been 40 years since we wondered what the hell was going on with Miyagi and Danielson, for real, for the first time?

That's it for the pod. I'm definitely going to have one midweek. So stay tuned for that. And we'll slowly ease back into, we'll start doing some NFL. My prep's feeling really good. if you miss me, I'm Mina Kimes' this podcast. That was fun. And I'll be back midweek with one more ceiling. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game in problem, call 100 Gambor or 800,

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