The Bill Simmons Podcast - The NBA Takes a Beat, Plus the 2007 ReDraftables and Oden-Durant With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons talks about the concerns some players are having about the return of the NBA, and some of the parallels to 1968 (1:55). Then Bill and Ryen Russillo revisit the 2007 NBA draft and discuss some of its subplots, draft comedy, and NBA legends before redrafting the top 14 lottery picks (18:52). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's episode of the BS Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network brought to you by ZipRecruiter. While a lot of things may change as our world opens up again, there's one thing that won't change our presenting sponsor, ZipRecruiter's mission. They'll continue doing what they've always done, helping growing companies hire for their teams and helping people find jobs. I had a good friend of mine just recently asked for some ZipRecruiter information because he needed to hire some good people. He heard us talking about them on the podcast and was like, send me the right way. So I did. If you're actively hiring, ZipRecruiter will invite candidates to apply to your most urgent roles, making it faster and easier to reach people you need by bringing employers and job seekers together.

ZipRecruiter is working to help all of us. ZipRecruiter.com slash work together. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network. If you like soccer, I would keep an eye on The Ringer FC feed over the next couple days. We are injecting some fresh blood in there. Very excited about that. That feed has been quiet for a little while, but soccer is back and we're going to be livening it up in a whole bunch of different ways. So keep an eye on that if you like soccer. Coming up, I'm going to talk a little bit at the top about the situation the NBA is in right now. And then Ryan Rosso is going to join us. We did the 2007 redraftables on Friday.

We carved out a whole Friday afternoon to really dive into it. So we're going to run that right here. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, taping this 7 o'clock on Sunday night. Wanted to talk quickly about what's going on with the NBA these last few days. So you had everyone thinking that we were headed toward Orlando at the end of July to play a few regular season games in the playoffs. We thought everything was settled. There was a big Ramona Shelburne piece on ESPN.com about Adam Silver and Bob Iger and Chris Paul coming together and figuring this whole thing out. And then I think over the past week, two things happened.

One, it was unclear by all accounts, just how much of a bubble this thing was going to be in Disney, because it seemed like, you know, the players and coaches and team employees are going to be quarantined, but then Disney was also going to be a little bit open too. And what about those people? So all of a sudden, from a safety standpoint, it didn't seem a hundred percent. And then on top of it, it really started to come out, like how long people had to be there, the quarantine thing, when, when families could come, they couldn't leave. So all that side got, I think just a little more serious as we got a little bit closer. But then we also had a lot of the players talking amongst themselves, wondering if they should keep going with the season.

Whether the moment that this country is having right now and the position that they hold, both with fans and with people. And, you know, in a lot of cases as African-Americans, whether it was more important for them to do the things they need to do with their platforms for the country than it was to play basketball. And you had a whole bunch of different positions kind of coming out of this. And, you know, you have Kyrie basically saying,

this is what Sham Sarania quoted him as saying, I don't support going into Orlando. I'm not with the systemic racism and the bullshit. Something smells a little fishy. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are targeted as black men. Every day we wake up, you had Steven Jackson, one of my favorites.

He said, quote, none of these white owners have spoken up. None of them are taking a stand. Playing basketball ain't going to do nothing but make them money and take attention off what we are fighting for. But then you had guys like Austin Rivers who pointed out 99% of the players haven't made the money Kyrie has.

I love Kyrie's passion toward helping this movement. I'm with it, but in the right way and not at the cost of the whole NBA and players' careers. We can do both. We can play and we can help change the way black lives are lived. And then you had Patrick Beverly who said, Hoopers say what y'all want. If King James said he hooping, we all hooping. Not personal, only business. Hashtag stay woke. There was also a lot of stuff that came out about concerns of players who have a chance to sign big max extensions.

Are they going to be insured? Real pressure on the players right now about if the season does get canceled, that allows the NBA to invoke the force majeure clause. It causes $1.2 billion in losses for the players and for the owners. It has a dramatic impact on the salary cap. It completely changes the history of the league in the sense that we won't have a champion for a season for the first time. There are all these different things. The moment that America is having right now, the tension, the protests, the platforms of some of these guys are just more important than basketball. And that should win at the end.

So I don't know how this is going to get a little more contentious over the next couple of days. And then eventually they'll end up playing because I think the prevailing wisdom will be that the stage that they'll be able to have for nine to 10 straight weeks, playing games, capturing the country's attention and all the things that they can do with that stage as they're playing is the best possible use of their platform. But if they decide that that's not the case, and if guys don't want to go, or if ultimately the whole thing falls apart, that's okay too. I think what's cool is that they're talking about it and they're talking about it in real ways, which brings me to 1968, even though the circumstances were completely different. And as crazy as this sounds, they were even bleaker and sadder and more disturbing than

everything we're going through now. But Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4th. It was the day before the conference finals were going to start. It was the Celtics against the Sixers in the East. And I think it was the Lakers against the Hawks in the West. So game one was the night after Martin Luther King gets assassinated. The players are in shock. And I went, I deep dove.

I tried to read everything there was online about this. There's not as much information as I remember there being when I wrote my book. But all the relevant stuff's out there. The black players were completely devastated and shocked, and they assumed the game was going to get canceled. Nobody on the Philly side really did anything, or they didn't really hear from anybody. They woke up the next day. There's stuff about Chet Walker called Hal Greer. Couldn't figure out,

neither of them could figure out what was going on. Wilt Chamberlain, who's playing for Philly at the time, he called the Sixers GM, Jack Ramsey. Jack Ramsey told him the game had to be played because all the tickets had been sold. It was on television. They couldn't kind of call the game back. And then Bill Russell, who was not just the best player in the Celtics and the best player of the first 25 years of the league, he was also coaching the Celtics at the time. He calls Wilt and the two of them tried to figure out what to do. Neither of them wanted to play, according to all the information.

There was a feeling. Both teams are telling players, and I think the players probably felt it too, that there was rioting going on all over the country, and the players were being pressured, like, hey, if we cancel this game, that could make it even worse. Maybe if you end up playing, it could take people's minds on this for a couple hours. Auerbach called a team meeting. The Celtics talked it out with Russell leading the way because he was the coach.

Apparently, it was a tense conversation. And one Celtic wondered, Billy Howell wondered why the idea was even being discussed. He was quoted as saying, what was King's title? Why should we call off the game? Some of the black players took that very personally. But Russell said later, they worked through it.

They were all really close. And remember back then, the guys are just hanging out 24-7. That Celtics team in particular had been through a ton of stuff and it really led the way in all kinds of different directions with civil rights in the 60s for the NBA. You know, Russell was the first black coach. It was the first team that started five black players. Russell was the most important guy in the league you know and and they were going to figure this

out and russell said that he reminded him he reminded the team quote this isn't black and white it's an american problem so they got through it they decided they were going to play wayne embry was was Russell's backup center and we came up huge in game seven. He was also the first black general manager in 1972, but he remembers it as quote, they wanted to keep people off the streets or at least delay it. They thought the arena would be packed and people would be glued to the television. Of course, our immediate reaction was we didn't want to play. We were stunned in the morning and angry, but we understood we could serve a greater purpose. So then Wilt wrote about this in one of his books.

He said, Red Auerbach called the Boston players together. They talked about whether or not they should play the game or ask for postponement. They agreed to play. Day of the game, they came to Philadelphia together, united in their grief and in their determination. But Alex, who's Alex Hanna, the Sixers coach at the time, but Alex didn't think to call a player meeting.

Most of us didn't see each other until we got into the locker room that night. Remember, no cell phones, nothing. I mean, it's a completely different era. Like Boston, we were grief-stricken, but we were confused, bewildered, uncertain. It showed that night. And then the Celtics, they ended up winning by nine. A couple other notes about that game. The commissioner was Walter Kennedy.

He led the decision of whether the game should be played. He left that up to the two owners. And somebody said at one point, if this was the president, it would be one thing. Remember, a few years before, the NFL had decided to play after JFK was assassinated and took a ton of shit for that. The Sixers, Wilt actually called for a vote about an hour before the game. And the players voted 7-2 to play.

Wilt and Wally Jones were on the side of postponing and Chet Walker refused to vote. And Wilt was quoted as saying, I would personally like to see the whole day taken off as some kind of memorial to Dr. King, but I'm only one individual. I don't want to instigate anything. I'll follow the majority. So they ended up playing New Yorkork times leonard coppet was there and he wrote that quote it was the eeriest most subdued sporting event i've ever seen meanwhile there's not any information on what was going on in the western finals but in algebra he wrote a book called hang time autobiography he said quote this is how he felt at the time I frankly don't know how I'll play the next time. I feel stunned, angry, and deeply sad. Our voice has been stilted. I feel the NBA should postpone all

playoff games. I call Bill Russell, player coach of the Celtics. He tells me some players want to play, several want to postpone. I don't ask which players want to play. I don't want to know. I picture certain players in the Celtics and even guys on our team, mostly from the South, who I doubt can understand what Dr. King meant to me, to us. I hear comments, quote, he wasn't the president or anything. Why should we call off the game? End quote. The games go on as scheduled. And then President Johnson declares Sunday, April 7th, the national day of mourning. And that lifts my spirits somewhat. So the funeral was, they postponed game two and Russell and Will went to the funeral in Atlanta. And so I knew about all this.

And I spent two days with Russell in 2012, did it for a documentary that NBA TV did. Also did a podcast about it on the Book of Basketball feed about a lot about it on the Book of Basketball feed. A lot about that day. And just really probably the most amazing experience of my entire career. But at one point I asked Russell about that whole week and what it was like. And here's what he said.

We're talking about 1968 and when Martin Luther King got assassinated. What do you remember now? It's been almost 45 years since that happened. Well, you know, I had met him at the March on Washington. And you were there for the I Have a Dream speech. Yes, yes. In fact, I was invited to go on the stage, but I respectfully declined because they had been working on that for more than a year, and I had done anything. I didn't think it was right or fair to me to go up on the stage and say, see, I'm one of the guys. Yeah. And so I sat in the first row.

So you get the news that he's been killed. You're about to play the Sixers in the 68 playoffs. Well, they asked us, do you want to call the game off? And someone pointed out that 2,13,000 people on the streets with emotions off the chart. And if we play the game, that gives the folks a chance to cool down. And that's the reason we had the game. So you're glad you had the game in retrospect. It seems like it was the right idea. I don't know.

I don't know how I feel about that. We did what we thought was right at that time. So when I asked him that, it was 44 and a half years later. And he still didn't know the answer. And I think that's an important point. This is one of the three best players of all time. One of the most important athletes ever. And this was a really big decision and he was a thoughtful guy and he had been thinking about it ever since. And he still didn't know if they should play. So when I think about the moment that the NBA is facing right now

and these guys who I think this is the best generation of players from, I don't know, a maturity standpoint that we've ever seen, and I don't really fully understand it, how guys who are 22 and 23 can be so thoughtful about all this stuff. I just know what I was like in my early twenties. I was a jackass. I'm just constantly impressed by, you know, a lot of the guys in this league. It's a really special group of guys. And I think it's important that they're taking this time. And however this plays out, I don't think this should be, you know, a sports take type thing. And what'd you think Kyrie? Like, this is not

about that. This is about a decision that they have to make, not only to be away from their families for this long, but also something that 44 and a half years from now, they're going to look back at and wonder if they made the right call. So if that takes a few days to figure out and you need more dialogue and you need maybe a couple of calls with some people screaming at each other, I think all that is great because if you go back and read, you know, a situation that's similar in a couple ways, but dissimilar in a whole bunch of other ways,

what happened in 1968, they kind of rushed it. And they had to rush it. The league wasn't in the same position of strength that's in now. The players couldn't communicate the way they can communicate now. But the aftermath was that 44 and a half years later, Bill Russell didn't know if they should have played or not.

So I'm glad they're taking the time. I think, you know, I know just even from my head, I've taken a lot of time in the last two and a half weeks, just thinking about everything and, you know, reevaluating, which I think is super important. And with this, like if they end up deciding that they shouldn't play, that this is the wrong moment to do that, that other things are more important, then that's what they should do.

But I think the important thing is to keep talking, keep batting it around, and get to the right place with it. So I just want to say that. We're going to take a break and then we're doing the 2007 Redraftables. All right, before we get to the 2007 Redraftables, if you're doing more searching than streaming these days, check out HBO Max.

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The 2007 NBA Redraftables, Odin versus Durant. Oh yeah. We're reliving it. Here we go. 2007 NBA redraftables. This is the Odin or Durant draft. This was the most fun I think any of us had in the 21st century in the months leading up to a draft because you had the hype heading into the season. You had everybody taking sides. Then you had the season play out. Odin gets hurt. Durant looks incredible playing center for Texas. Odin has a crazy comeback near the end and really looks good in madness. And then for the next couple months, we're just arguing. And we all agree that at the very least, there are two franchise superstars in this draft and the way it played out

was not the case. Your first thoughts when you think of this 13 years later. You, I think of you because I just read your stuff from 2007. I spent a lot of time researching what you had to say about this. And this was the first draft where I started becoming a little arrogant about my player evaluations because I had a good draft on this one. But I was wondering, because you were as pro Durant as any voice in the country, you were 100% right. The jokes that you were making about Odin are oddly, like, perfect. And I wonder,

did you want to just do an hour on Durant yourself and I'll jump in at minute, like, 61 or 62? The Odin thing was tough because I think if he doesn't get hurt, he would have been, you know, a multi-all-star, really good career. But there were just these red flags that I just wasn't ready to overlook considering the history of the NBA and what had happened with guys who had had those red flags.

And Durant, to me, it always came down to this. I thought Durant was a sure thing. I think very rarely can you look at a guy coming into the league as a rookie. And I felt this way about Zion. Sure thing. He is a sure thing. He is going to be incredible. Now, Zion, you get a little worried because he's up in the air so much. He's already had a knee issue, something like that. Durant to me was unassailable. There was no doubt in my mind. You didn't feel that way? No, I thought Durant was a lock, but I think I

still, in 2007, we weren't ready. Like, you always kind of have to remember the mindset then, and we were still a center league. We were a league about centers. This was the beginning of when it was transitioning away from you needed a big man. And, you know, for the longest time, it was like, you know, I mean, look, the Jordan years are different just because he could do whatever he wanted

with all the people around him, and they never had anything close to a star center. But we still felt like, okay, you needed that kind of player and odin was so good and i remember going back and watching his high school stuff and talking to thad moda i remember asking that i go why why do you let odin get himself into these situations where he's out in the perimeter on these switches because don't you think he's going to get in foul trouble he goes because he's the best big switch i've ever seen now garnett's probably the best i think i've ever seen over a long period of time, but Odin had those things. And there were all these other really good players

on Ohio State's team, so it wasn't like they went to him all the time. So I was guilty of, there was nothing about my Odin-Durant thing where it was against Durant at all. Like, you know, look, he couldn't post. He was sort of weak. Like, in a way, he's like that quarterback that doesn't have that perfect body. Like, you don't want the quarterback to be ripped. You don't want him to be Brady Quinn. You want him to be more like Trent Dilfer's body. And Durant had this like, yeah, I'm just

going to go out there and ball and dribble and pull up from three and be seven feet. And who cares that I'm not the strongest guy and I don't have a post, but I still was so fascinated with all the different things that Odin can do that. Yeah. If Odin doesn't get hurt, Odin is, I think a hall of famer. And that's why I hate, I hate talking about it. Cause anytime a guy who I think is going to be really good as hurt, and then he's labeled a bust, I just don't think we should ever look at guys that are hurt because he did show signs too. And I remember talking to front office people in Portland when they thought he was coming back and they're like, you should see this guy right now. It's insane. Like he's going to be awesome. And I hate, I hate the Odin story. And then

I got to meet him not that long ago. And it's tough to find a nicer guy. So I hate this happened to his career. But ultimately, everyone that had Odin was wrong. And everybody had Odin. 40 years of basketball. So we're going back since 1980. I think him and Ewing, the ceiling of them as defensive athletic centers were the highest of anybody I saw in college. And I was Durant all year, like almost like to a fault. I was just like, it actually made me mad. You were. So far on the Durant side.

But then in the title game, when he went against Horford and Noah Oden, and you really could see it. He, he went toe to toe with, I think probably the best college team of that decade and was just great. It was electric. He was electric to watch. He was playing hurt. I think he either had a, he had a recovering risk that he was playing with. And after that game, I really, I really wavered a little. I still was the ramp, but not as, not as certain. I remember I wrote an ESPN magazine. They asked me to do a feature and I did a Dr. Jack breakdown. Odin versus Durant.

I had to hand it in probably two weeks before the draft. And I didn't even totally make a pick at the end. I listed all these different categories, made a bunch of jokes. And then at the end, it's like, ah, maybe Durant. But then by the time we got to draft week, I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I got to go all in. I feel like this is going to be one of the most memorable debates for years later. When people look back, it's going to really matter which side you're on. And I was like, I'm going all in on Durant. I wrote, uh, in that Chad Ford piece, I wrote that I thought he had a legitimate chance to go down with Bird, Magic, MJ, Baylor, Oscar, West, Duncan, Pettit, Havlicek, and every other great non-center who ever played in the league.

2020, I think it's fair to say he at least achieved that 12 years into his career, right? I think he's one of the 10 best non-centers in the history of the league i think that's an unassailable point yeah and if he wasn't the achilles like we you start tacking all these numbers together and you know it's weird when you go through and look at these redrafts like oh yeah that guy how long has he been gone like i'm looking up rodney stucky i'm like oh rudy fernandez only played four years and you're looking at all these different guys and you're going hey when durant's right like he was on the on the cusp of being maybe the undisputed best player in the world and some of these guys haven't got an nba paycheck in years so that's that's where the durant i just

want to jump back to the odin thing real quick though because i remember yeah the semi-final game against georgetown and i know like as many times we get frustrated about fouls like the refs didn't get the memo on that one because i think hibbert also was in foul trouble and that game like he played 20 minutes and you go okay cool so we have a final four game with georgetown who's a 30 win team in this a great ohio state team and like here we're sitting like already they're just calling fouls on everybody the whole time um and hibbert ended up playing like 24 minutes yeah he ended up with four foul, but he went 25 and 12 with a few assists in that loss against that amazing Florida team, which I don't even think it's like the best team.

You could argue that Florida team is one of the greatest college teams we've seen in modern history. So he was great. And so I can see where, even as the strongest Durant guy, which it's hard to think of how many other guys were as aligned as you were, where you watch

how Odin was finishing up. And there were just the in-between stuff, like the in-between things. Does this guy understand things? And Odin did. And I talked with a couple of GMs and guys in front offices that were with teams leading up to this redraft. So I was like, hey, let's go back to 2007. Let's talk about it. One GM told me that kevin pritchard who was gm at the time the trailblazers asked every other team who would you take and i guess it came back 29 of 30 teams said they would take odin which is just the mindset that's that's what it was and i know the celtics you you know more about this than i do but the celtics it is it's always been like they're the team that's saying i don't know according to this random poll that I'm referencing here that wasn't even official.

But I think the Celtics had always kind of argued after the fact that they were going to be the team that would have taken Durant. I don't know what you believe. So I have a lot of inside info on that, both at the time and then afterwards. And I think they were quiet about it because they really liked Odin as a guy. So they didn't want it to seem like, you know, they were negative. But two things. One was Danny was in love with Durant.

Like just in love with him. Like just thought he was going to be a superstar and absolutely would have taken him one. Now, Danny hasn't been right all the time with the draft. But on this one, I think he really felt strongly about it. The other thing was they have a team doctor, at least they did back then, that they really used to listen to.

And that guy looked at Odin's legs and his knees and all that and was like, I can't let you do this. So I think they were just gravitating toward Duran. I think they wanted the sure thing. When I was writing about it back then, I put probably more thought into this debate than any other draft debate of my life. And I went back and I went through all the franchise centers and it's like, dude, you know, the best ones ever, Russell and Kareem and Hakeem and Duncan, Moses, Shaq,

if you count Duncan as a center and just like, did these guys have anything in common? And the thing over and over again was like, they had to love basketball and they had to have a will to dominate. And I thought that was the one thing if you're going to be like, all right, if I'm taking a center and this is going to work out the best it can possibly work out, is this guy going to go on a court and be like,

I'm fucking destroying everybody today. And I just didn't feel like Oden was wired that way. He seemed like such a nice guy. He seemed more on the David Robinson side than anything that was before. Like he had the legs thing was a real thing. I mean, his legs, we knew before the draft were an inch and a half different sizes. We already knew he had a surgical repaired wrist and it just, to me, it was too many red flags when there was a sure thing sitting there i didn't feel good about it and that was it yeah it's really easy now when we're talking about one of the great scorers that we've ever seen so i don't i feel like i interrupted you as you were going to kind of go more of a durant resume riff there i can do i can do that now it's just

that well what were the what were the knocks against durant right it was too skinny he didn't post he didn't post you know like when there was talks about like what he was going to be a three or four and now all that stuff seems so stupid like we were so married to these positional like lanes and now it's it's it's you know that's part of the evolution of some of the ways we look at the game where you go why did it take us forever to just say hey why don't we just put better players out there right well. Think how simple that is, and yet how long it took for the game to accept that. And there was a whole thing about he didn't lift enough weights.

He only lifted like 180. Zero. He never lifted it. I think the combine is 225 for the NFL one. I think back then, and I don't know if it's changed or not. It was 180 for NBA, I think. 185. I'm just going to save you here with the lifting community.

It's 185, and he got it zero times i think but who cares like if you don't lift and your arms are that long and you've never benched you're just you're just bad at it even if you're like sort of strong it's just a different kind of learned strength and so you know guys these young kids that have never really lived that have these insane wingspans they throw them them on a bench. They can't. It's so unfair to be like, oh, this guy's a weakling. So we're also this is heading into the 2007-8 season. This is, you know, still pretty. The NBA is still pretty physical at that point, dating back to the late 90s, going through the 2000s.

The 04 Pistons have just won the title with the Wallace brothers. Then in Oh five, you got a lot of Duncan going against Detroit. Um, the league, the, the offense was slowing down. It was more, it was still more physical. You had a couple of outlier teams like the, uh, the Nash sun teams, but for the most part, there was still this mindset, like a franchise center is always the best thing to have. And what we didn't really fully realize in 07 was actually, we should have learned from the Dwayne Wade finals. The best thing to have is actually an unstoppable offensive player in the perimeter, a non-center, somebody that where the league was going, you know, you could just funnel everything through this person,

then run and then put a team around them. And the guy was going to be a lot more reliable than a center. We didn't know. We didn't fully know that in no seven. I think Danny was starting to think that way though, because this was the same year where he traded for Ray Allen. He was just starting to think more perimeter offense and it really doesn't start kicking in until the next decade. But within five years, it kind of became crazy that everybody would have been like, wow, Durant 30 points a game, potentially, of course, that's the guy we should take. But we weren't, we just weren't there in oh seven. So this was not a con. I don't really don't feel like this was a controversial pick with Odin. I think like what you said, it really was like all the GMs pretty much, except for maybe one or two outliers, were taking Odin. That was it.

I mean, to sit back and go like, not only is Durant going to be able to score, he's going to be a seven-footer that we still in 2020 don't really have. I mean, he's Giannis with three-point range and a better handle. That's nuts. I mean, that's how special this guy is. So anything that we're saying now back then, you didn't understand it. You didn't understand the three-point revolution that was

going to be coming. And you didn't understand that you're right. I think the most valuable thing you can have right now is somebody that can create off the dribble, but then also complement it with shooting. And then on top of that, we're talking about somebody who might be like 7'1", and you just can't contest a shot. And the reason I would back you on the Ainge thing here is that I remember, I think it was before the 05 draft, I was at the Waltham facility, and there was a presser. So it wasn't like I was on the beat, but I just showed up and I asked Ainge a question. I was like, is there one skill that you go, this is the skill that I prioritize over every other skill? And he was like, yeah.

And he gave me like an honest answer. It was weird because it wasn't like a practice dance. He just goes, yeah, shooting. Because there's just not enough shooting. He goes, I wish I had more shooting. He goes, I always, it's almost like whenever your favorite baseball team before the deadline, you're looking at what's available for the trade deadline. And every single fan base is going, if we could just get one more arm out of the bullpen because we just had one more guy bridges to the ninth or something and it's like yeah because

there's just not enough of those guys and and he had said that about shooting and to think that there'd be any debate about somebody but you have to go back to 07 to understand the consensus easily the consensus was odin because he was really good like you didn't know this was going to happen and there's so many times too with portland where they thought he was coming back and it's like all right he's ready to go he's ready to wait until you see this and he did have and i'm not saying it's the the robert swift glimpse that i get made fun of for bringing up all the time but there were there were some stretches with odin where you go okay yeah this this is not and that's why i always i'll it again. Busts are guys that get drafted high who can't play. Not guys like Odin. just taken over the Rockets. They had no chance at Durant, but he had the model that anytime he's

been on the podcast, I've always joked about because I basically figured out what the model was to study college players. But in 06, 07 was advanced metrics, stuff like that. There are only a couple of teams even looking that way. Well, what's the model? I'm curious now. Well, I'll just tell you this. I was watching Durant Durant that year, averaged 25.8 points a game and 11 rebounds a game, 40% from three. And he shot 82%, uh, free throw. He also got to the line about eight times a game. This is in college. And I was looking at the stats and I was like, God damn 26 and 11 as an 18 year old in college. Like, so I went and I looked at, I forget how I looked it up, but I was trying to, trying to find other comparisons of guys who had

even had stats close to that. And I just asked there, I was like, this is the kind of guy that breaks your model. Right. And he's like, ah, it's just like mumbling. Um, now Evan Turner was another guy who did really well with the model and Evan Turner, you know, did make it as a pro, but I just want to point out like 26 and 11 as an 18 year old in college, like playing a real schedule. He's playing at the university of Texas. He's not, you know, he's not at Merrimack. Um, and he's playing out of position. He was playing center that year. And it was a really fun team to watch in general. College basketball was great that year, but man, it's like, you look at his stats now and it's like, oh yeah, of course. What was really nuts is he goes to Seattle. He gets drafted by the Sonics RIP and PJ Carlissimo

is going, you know what this guy really is? Two guard and plays them his whole rookie year, completely out of position at the two guard. And it was one of the dumbest things ever. And it was like, he had this great natural resource and I have no idea why he did that. And by the way, Durant has no idea why he did it either. So there you go. So you think it's because of Ronald Dupree? Well, um, there's more tragedies with this draft. Zach cramp from the ringer points out Greg Oden played just 105 career games. The fewest for any number one pick since Mark Workman in 1952. Even I don't know who Mark Workman is. Durant has made 10 all-star games in his career.

According to Zach, the rest of the players picked in this draft made 10 all-star games combined. And then Durant, obviously, two-time finals MVP, won an MVP, four finals trips, two titles. This is about as big of a disparity as you can have. But here's the true tragedy. He falls into Seattle's lap. Seattle's picking second. Portland takes Odin.

Durant falls to two. Wait, I have him 15th all time and his career is not over yet. This guy falls to them at two and they move the team in a year. This has no parallel to any moment in basketball history to land a top 15 all time future double finals MVP guy. And a year later he's packing and he's out brutal. I mean, absolutely brutal. It bums me out. Yeah. Not enough is like, it's always, it's always rough. I remember, you know, certain radio shows, you know, summertime and you're going over stuff. You'd be like, which city do you feel the most bad for you know another a smarter way to say which cities do you feel worse for the worst for and you would just keep getting back to cleveland you're like my god this is before lebron's

comeback against the warriors but you just go have you done any research on that stretch for all of those different teams but this is so different because it's meaner it's nastier it's it's like a it's like somebody that you like that you maybe know doesn't like you and then you get a missed call from in the middle of the night and then you check in and they're like sorry that was a mistake like oh so you weren't really saying i was calling i was calling my sponsor i was calling i was calling somebody i actually like this is so nasty to get a glimpse of him and think about what it is. And I was going through that roster.

You're right. Like Chris Wilcox, Jeff Green, because he came over in the trade. Watson was the guard. There's all these big players that Seattle was playing. But to see him for a year. But they have a top five pick coming. Yeah.

They take Westbrook. They still haven't left Seattle yet. So now they have Durant and Westbrook and Jeff green, and then they leave. And I, you know, there's so many different reasons. It was awful that,

uh, Seattle lost the Sonics. And we did a whole podcast about it at the ringer called Sonic boom, about how it was a straight stealing. It was a hijacking, but the, the, this alternate universe where they just figure it out,

you know, you think like in New England where the Patriots almost go to St. Louis and then at the last second they don't and they stay and all these Super Bowls they win. There's this alternate reality where they just figure out the Seattle ownership situation. They stay and he becomes the biggest athlete in the history of Seattle.

And Seattle is the team that wins some of the titles. And he's bigger than Russell Wilson there. And at the same time, there's all this Amazon money and all this stuff pouring in. And it's basically like there, what happened to golden state in the 2010s with Curry and Joe Lake up, all that stuff could have been happening in this parallel universe in Seattle. And instead the bat, the team's just gone anyway. It's a, it's really weird to think about that Durant played for one year on the

Seattle Supersonics and then was gone. Yeah. I just get sad thinking about it. I really do. Um, but you know, there's a couple of lessons in there. Whenever this new ownership thing comes in and it's,

it's like iffy immediately, you know, and you go, wait a minute minute and then like when somebody's from somewhere else and they buy the team you know that's not always a great sign i'm not saying it obviously isn't happening all the time but another lesson too is when the pats threatened to move to st louis that was a little more real but when they threatened to move to Hartford, the rule should be there is that if your franchise threatens to move to Hartford, you're probably good. Yeah. The St. Louis thing, it seemed like they were leaving and not just that, but I think, you know, Boston, I was living there at the time and I was certainly really devastated at the

thought of them leaving, but it also almost felt like a mercy killing in some ways. If they left the team had been such a train wreck that it was like, ah, you know, maybe it just wasn't meant to be here. That was not the case with the Sonics. They had great fans. They had the legacy of the 79 title and just, and two years before in the old five playoffs, they'd had a really kind of fun little two round run where it was just like the place was electric. And, uh, it's, it's really sad. So one other thing with Seattle that is important with this draft, they make a big trade that ends up paving the way for the 2008 finals championship team. That was not Seattle. It was the Boston Celtics, a trade that I despised at the time. I am not saying I batted a thousand with this draft. I got the Durant thing right.

I missed a lot of other stuff. I hated this Ray Allen trade. On draft night, the Celtics trade number five, Delonte West, Wally Serbiak's semi-expiring contract for Ray Allen and a high second round pick that became Glenn Davis. I wrote at the time, I wrote, I just spent the last 20 minutes on basketball reference.com trying to find one great shooting card that didn't decline significantly in years 12 through 14 of his career. Here's the list, Reggie Miller. That's it. Um, I also ask, are we really contending for the title in 2008 or 09 with Pierce Jefferson,, Ray Allen, Doc Rivers, and nine unproven young guys?

And then my dad's take was, make sure you put in your column that we traded the fifth and seventh picks in consecutive years for a point guard who was too short and a shooting guard who was too old. Put that in your column. I hate this trade. All right. I have, I have a two-parter on this one. I was in the building. i was at the garden for the

draft party they had a draft party at the garden that wasn't at the practice facility that year and i was there doing tv for comcast so this was like the stretch when i was doing all the celtics tv seasons and i sat down with mike gorman and gorman's like what do you think and i was like i don't get it like i don't get it because it was all, it made all the sense in the world once the Garnett thing happened, but like it made sense, like positionally, then you're going, okay, like this is how it's going to work out. And the weird kind of secret about the Ray Allen part of KG and Pierce being there is that it messed up Ray. Cause Ray wasn't just somebody who you stuck in the corner. He had always been kind of shooting with the ball in his hand. So it was really hard for Ray Allen

at first to like, it wasn't this perfect fit. He had to do, he had to do it differently in a way that he'd never done it before where Pierce could still do what he wanted to. And Garnett could always do what he wanted to. Cause Garnett was always a guy that would still actually as great as he was, was more willing to defer than most superstars of his era. And so when it just felt like it was Ray Allen and all the money that he was owed and that he had had these ankle things and that he was a bad defensive player and that Pierce hadn't really wanted to play much defense because the team was declining it just felt like okay you're gonna have Pierce who's probably underrated throughout much of his career but at that time like he didn't know

if he wanted to stay he had signed a longer contract I had interviewed him where I said you know did you want out and he goes no I never wanted to do that and had signed a longer contract. I had interviewed him where I said, you know, did you want out? And he goes, no, I never wanted to do that. And then I just don't think he wanted to make it public because back then actually guys cared about making it public and didn't seem like the bad guy. Now no one cares, which I'm not saying one's better than the other. But it was when it was just Ray and Pierce bill. I don't think it was wrong to go.

What is this? What we didn't realize is that jeff green was going to be every franchise's new hope and trading jeff green despite some of the numbers that i know we'll get to it wasn't really that big of a deal because this was a four-person draft well actually to be fair it was it was well you know i don't know it depends on where your cutoff is but there's four guys there's four guys and so moving jeff green at the time maybe six nine you can handle all these that you know you liked him but you didn't you weren't really giving up something as much as maybe you thought in 2007 at the time it was two guys then al horford and then it dropped off again. And there was some Mike Conley, Joakim Noah, Jeff Green,

Yijin Lan. People like Corey Brewer. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that was, he was in the third tier. The thing, the thing we didn't realize,

just because I don't think a lot of us were sophisticated enough about some of these numbers yet. First of all, Ray's four Seattle seasons were looking back like kind of amazing. He's almost 25 a game. He's taken seven F threes a game and shooting 39%. Um, his, his shooting percentages were 44, 39 and 90. And, you know, he was, he was either at the end of his prime or hitting whatever he was going to become. But Reggie Miller was a really good parallel because Reggie Miller was somebody who was able to extend that part of his career in a long way. Ray Allen did it better than Reggie did. So that

was one thing. The other thing, and Danny, I, I, I hesitate how much credit to give to him for this, but he clearly deserves some because he knows if I have Pierce and I have Ray Allen, I might have enough left to get KG. Cause at this point we know KG is on the block. We know he's getting shopped. We know only a couple of teams have that have a chance to get them. And so the reason I hesitate to give credit is because GM sometimes it's third and 16 and it's the Mahomes Super Bowl play, right? Where you're just like, all right, Tyreek Hill, just let's run that button hook play and I'm just going to heave it and I'll take my seven step drop. I'm heaving it. Hopefully you'll catch it. I feel like that was the KG trade and it was brilliant, but there was also no guarantee they were going to get him. And if they didn't get him, I don't know what this Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Al Jefferson nucleus ultimately is for the next couple of years. And you're treading water with a 48 win team. So it sets up the Hail Mary. They completed the Hail Mary, but there's also a very good chance the Hail Mary would not have been completed. So Ray had played 55 games a year

before that. And then three years before that he played he played 56 um so that's 56 in his 28 year old season 55 in his 31 year old season so the celtics getting him at 32 and at that time i mean he had to have been a max guy i mean he was 16 18 19 yeah so i mean he was making major money at the back end of the extension that he'd signed in seattle and i was like, I don't know. I don't know. But the Garnett part of it, he had to have known. He had to have known because it was McHale. And the thing that always gets forgotten in all of this is how bad did McHale screw this up? Like KG wants out, but KG didn't want to be the bad guy in Minnesota. And as we've learned now, what, a decade plus later that KG was told like he'll be part of this thing

and that fell through that he was going to maybe be brought back in some ownership role and so he was like you know he's mentioned recently he's out on the tailored but if you're mckayle you have to get that asset like forget what jeff green ends up becoming or the picks beyond that you end up trading garnett after age has already traded a lottery pick right what what are you doing and you know there's no way age at that point can say hey i'm trading for kg but i'm not giving you the fifth pick like you're doing whatever you can so um that's a mistake on mikhail's part but i'd have to think that age because we had i think you and i we were just kind of we'd been talking very very infrequently but i think even you and i, we had just kind of, we'd been talking very, very infrequently, but I think even

you and I were emailing prior to that one where I was like, I'm hearing this KG thing is done to Boston. But again, it was, it was a moment where it was before. And then it was a moment where it was after. And so in KG, by the way, he got a three-year max extension from the Celtics site unseen too. So that quickly changed his motivation for how little or how much he wanted to be in Boston. So I'm going to defend the trade McHale made with the Celtics. Has anyone done that before? Well, I've talked about like what the other options were because people have made it out to be that McHale just hooked up his buddy, which definitely happens in this league, but go ahead. So Al Jefferson was a legit commodity. We talked about him in a previous redraftables, but he was really good. I mean,

and he's somebody, he hurt his knee and he still made it all NBA team after that. I think he was a guaranteed 21 and 12 guy for a long time. So he wasn't chopped liver. The biggest thing with that trade, there was Gerald green was in there who still had a lot of value from the year before he was a lot of value, a lot of value. I think he was considered to be a first round pick, right?

There was another first round pick. Right. Okay. But here's the big thing. And this is the part everyone forgets. The Celtics had Minnesota's first round pick that they could roll over in either 08 or 09. That pick eventually became the number five pick in the 2009 draft, which was Johnny Flynn. So part of the motivation and part of the reason Minnesota wanted to trade with Boston is because if they're going to get rid of KG,

they're going to rebuild. It's hard to rebuild. If you don't have your own top five lottery pick in one of the next two drafts, Danny was had that from the Ricky Davis trade. Remember that trade? Um, and,

and was dangling that. And I think that ultimately got it done. Other than the fact that honestly, Mikhail just didn't want to trade with the Lakers. It would have been, what was it? Bynum and Odom for, I don't remember.

And maybe some future first round picks, something like that. And he just, he would, he was wanting to trade with the Celtics. The team that screwed up was Phoenix. Phoenix screwed up. They would have had a Phoenix was the one that should have had him.

He wanted to go there. It would have been perfect. I mean, he and Nash, who knows what would have happened because. Phoenix was the one that should have had him. He wanted to go there. It would have been perfect. I mean, he and Nash, who knows what would have happened because Garnett's the kind of guy that you don't really appreciate as much unless you're watching him every single night. And then you watch him every night and you go,

okay, this is like, this is just different. Um, but I think, I think the issue is KG had a trade kicker. I've talked to Nash about this in the past. It was Stoudemire was in the trade.

I think it might've been Stoudemire and Marion together. Cause they had to add up the salaries for the KG trade kicker. And then Minnesota had to throw in something else. And, and I think Phoenix just didn't want to take on the money was what it came down to, but they ended up giving away Marion or not giving them away, but they traded him for Shaq the following season because Marion was making

like 17, whatever Amari was making, whatever he was making. I think there was some weird sour thing, but it easily could have been KG on the Suns, you know? And then I don't know what happens to the Celtics team. So anyway, all right, we put a bow on that. Couple other plots from this draft.

Yi Xinlan, or Yi Xinin Lan I think you pronounce it E He He I'm not positive he worked out against a chair I remember seeing it There's a lot of chair jokes in your Chad Ford piece I made a lot of jokes about it And then it might be half urban legend

But I definitely saw it He definitely worked out and there was a chair And my dad and I saw it But it turned out he The chair won the second round him, but I definitely saw it. He definitely worked out and there was a chair. My dad and I saw it. But it turned out he was... The chair won the second round. The chair definitely fought back. He dominated the 19 and under championships,

but was 22 at the time. Seems like a red flag. Was another guy... Are you saying he's the Danny Omonte of international basketball? Little Danny Omonte-ish. There's a specific type of guy that teams have missed on in the draft

really for 40 years. It's the Ejelon type of body where it's like too tall where he has to be a power forward basically or maybe even a center but not aggressive. Can't rebound. can't play defense.

Potentially a good scorer. You don't really know what he is, but this guy from Brad Sellers, going all the way through to Yijin Lan, these guys always pop up and nobody kind of knows what to do. And now in the draft, I think they get penalized. Nobody wants like the six foot 11 scoring forward, who is just a zero in every other aspect of the game.

We didn't totally know that in no seven, right? No, because I still think there were, there were parts of, of you where you were like, you know, all of these things were positives.

He was, he was a perimeter player, but you where you were like, you know, all of these things were positives. He was, he was a perimeter player, but he was big. Um, and I'm not talking about jacked Jillian. Cause later on you were like, this guy looks like lady early, early nineties,

Oakland A's. But, uh, there were, there were work. I mean, you're right. I mean,

he wouldn't work out. He didn't want to go to Milwaukee. Um, which is ultimately where he ended up. There was all sorts of stuff. Dan Fagan was his agent back then, and Fagan was really putting the pressure on certain franchises, being like, don't even show up. Like, he's not going to play there. There was a lot of – I was calling around on this draft because it's it's more recent memory as opposed to some of the other ones but the amount of agent power that was

going on back then still probably stronger than today i mean the agents still were controlling so much of this and they wanted he in a bigger market they wanted to do all these different things and it just didn't work out even though he had like an oh i mean is it okay to say that his rookie year was somewhat promising or was it the kind of thing you looked at went wait a minute this is a huge mistake um because his rookie year was his best year and it's not like it was some amazing advanced stats year but i think there was still this foreign. I got to be honest. I was out the entire time.

I was never at any point enamored or interested. He couldn't, he couldn't shoot three pointers, but was it really a post? I just didn't know what he was. He just didn't. But what were you watching? What were you watching to be able to,

are you saying you were out because he was the unknown? Cause I still think there was a little hangover of the unknown here where it was considered Eastern Bloc guys. It's like, all right, let's start drafting unknown Asian guys really high. No, I'm saying when he was actually on the Bucs and I would see him on League Pass and I would just be like, what is this? Even you look at his stats,

he's a 42... For his career, he's a 40% shooter and wasn't a three-point shooter either. And didn't really rebound. So it's like, so what are you? You're 6'11". So you have no low post game.

You can't shoot. And you're not a rebounder defender. I don't know. I thought it was really a bonkers thing. We forgot to mention, talking about the Celtics, this is— Yeah, we should do some more Celtics. No, no, just quickly. They have, what,

a 40% chance to get one of the top two picks, something like that? 33% chance? Was that it? Are you asking me to confirm? They change the percentages

like every few years, so I don't remember off the top of my head. It was at least 33%, and everybody's hopes that, you know, it had been a really bad run dating back to the Reggie Lewis dying, the whole thing.

And then when they got the fifth pick in the lottery and they had no chance to get Odin or Durant, it was like rock bottom. I have a really sad column in my archives where it's just like, oh my God, are the Celtics ever going to be relevant ever again in my lifetime? it's just like, oh my God, like are the, are the Celtics ever going to be relevant ever again in my lifetime? It was one of those. And that fifth pick ironically turns into Ray Allen and then number five KG. And within a year they win the title.

I'm telling you, this was inconceivable in May, 2007. It was, if you told me 13 months later, you're going to be celebrating the title. I would have been like, what, it was, if you had told me 13 months later, you're going to be celebrating the title. I would have been like, what happened? Did, did the other teams like leave the league? How did we do this? So I was at Comcast that night for the lottery and the excitement in that building that day leading up to the lottery was unbelievable. And Kevin Miller, who I referenced before was just the guy putting all these shows together. And a guy became a close friend. And he's just going like, all right, it's just for business. What does this mean? Landing Odin or Durant.

And then there's a bunch of younger employees there where it's like, hey, they may add 10 head counts to the company this season. And people, I don't know if you ever watch Christo Doyle's Gold Rush, but I've always been a huge fan of the show. Although one of the minors started annoying me enough that I kind of was out on a checking out a little bit, but early on the Hoffman crew would always screw up, but the grandfather was always so optimistic and they'd have like another bad day sluicing and they'd be around the campfire. And the grandfather would like, look at all the people and all the families that were staying there and their RVs. And he'd be like, you're all millionaires.

It's just in the ground, you know? And the kids would be like, does that mean we can have shoes? And like, does that mean we're going to get a new truck? You know, and everybody be so hopeful because everyone was so positive. And after they landed five in the lottery, the looks on, and I wasn't full-time either, the looks on the faces of the employees who were going like, if it went one or two, I get health insurance. I have a steady paycheck. I have like, I can finally stop living.

And we're looking around going, this is over. Like nothing. And for it to go from that to a title is, as you said, impossible, but always a great reminder of how often in sports when you think you want, I mean, look, it can apply to life. How often you want this thing or this job or this move, or you need something to work out for you. And when it doesn't work out, it ends up being the best thing that could have ever happened. I think five, the odds of them getting the fifth pick in this draft were like 2% or something.

Would you do this? Let me ask you this. You can't have the 2008 title, but you have Durant. Oh, in a heartbeat, I'd take Durant. Just see what you figure. I'd take Durant and the uncertainty. Yeah, I'd give up 08 for Durant. You know what's funny about that

whole month, though? The Durant, the Celtics fans, we were so confident that this was going to work out that there were actual talk radio debates and TV debates. It'd be like, who should the Celtics take? I was doing them. I was doing them.

They didn't even have a pick yet. It was like, who should they take? And then they get five. Five. Five, and you're coming around on al horford going oh my god like you know you're not even getting him you don't want to say it out loud and then you know they're conley had some concerns but you were like conley's clearly for the more you watched it and you know there were knocks on him so i think there was clearly you know the gap between Horford and Conley, but then you go five, five. To put a bow on this, it's in my office.

You've seen it. I have their envelope from this draft. Somebody at ESPN, he grabbed it after the lottery. He grabbed the number five with the Celtics logo in it and he mailed it to me. And he's like, hey, I thought you should have this. And I kept it. And it turned out to be a good luck thing.

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It's been my favorite beer since I was allowed to start drinking beer. Miller Lite, the original light beer. While you're home, enjoy a classic available for delivery today. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. Back to the 2007 redraftables. A couple other things from this draft.

Yijin Lan went three picks ahead of Joakim Noah, which caused me to write a few years ago. We're never going to run out of gasoline, internet space, or dumb NBA teams. I still feel that way. We're always going to have at least five really dumb teams. The Hawks took Al Horford at number three. We were so skeptical of any decision they were going to make with anything. We were, people were actually nervous. They were going to fuck it up. And then they actually did the

right thing. But it was like, it was one of those things where it's like, it seemed perfectly reasonable. They're going to take Asian line over Al Horford. We all knew Al Horford was going to be good. He was to be a short thing. I didn't think he was going to be a multi-time all NBA guy, but he was clearly somebody who could be like the third best guy on a title team. Didn't you feel that way? I loved him. And look, I like him still. And I know that, you know, people try to knock him at the end and he's taken the brunt of all the Philly criticism and he was never going to be good enough. I think for Boston fans, when he gets that, when he got that contract and it's like, well, wait a minute, if he's a max guy and everybody talks about how great he is, how come he can't make a

big shot at the end of games? And I think some of that stuff is fair. I think some of it's like wait a minute if he's a max guy and everybody talks about how great he is how come he can't make a big shot at the end of games i think some of that stuff is fair i think some of it's unfair look i i like al horford so much i have a cell phone number i've never texted him that's how much i respect him i i don't even i won't even text him to ask him if he wants to come on and do anything even though i've interviewed him a couple times they remember there were two other things um because all these florida guys it like, which order are they going to go? And you remember there was that leak thing of Billy Donovan supposedly saying between Noah and Horford. He was like, if anybody thinks that it's close, it isn't. And so I think I, because I was becoming pro Horford became a little anti Noah and we'll get to Noah later. So I'm not going to use all this stuff now, but I mean, I ended up loving Noah for a bunch of

different reasons, but Noah's agent at the time was trying to orchestrate where he was going. And a team that was in the lottery that I did talk to today said the agent actually told this GM about, I mean, Noah's his client and he goes, he doesn't love basketball. So just a heads up, you know, rich dad prep school, you know, he's not like to imagine think like imagine ever describing joe kim noah as somebody that doesn't love basketball because i would argue every time he's been on the court he's loved it as much as anyone that he's ever going up against and noah ended up being somebody that i i ended up liking a lot more but i i did have a bit of this anti-no thing and then no noah went from like could he be the number one pick the year before to, whoa, like this guy's going to go 10, nine

or two. Like, how did that happen? So it was like a weird correction on Noah. That's a good point. Cause he almost came out in oh six and he would have been probably a higher pick in that crappy oh six draft than he was here. Here was the draft order for the people listening. Portland was one Seattle was two. And it's funny because if they were going to fix the lottery, this was the lottery to fix for the Celtics, right? You wouldn't have gone Portland. Seattle is your top two. So all the lottery conspiracy people took a big hit. Atlanta was three. Memphis was four. Celtics five. Milwaukee six. Minnesota seven. And Minnesota coming off the disastrous where they flipped Brandon Roy for Randy Foy. And at that point, it's clear Brandon Roy is going to become something. KG's unhappy.

McHale, nobody knows why he's still there. They're a mess. Charlotte is eight. Chicago is nine. Okay. Why is Chicago nine? The Eddie Curry trade yet again, more another, another top 10 lottery pick for, uh, from the Eddie Curry trade. And as it turned out, there's a huge drop off after nine, it goes Sacramento, Atlanta, Philly, new Orleans Clippers, but Noah, who goes nine in this draft, and after that, it goes Spencer Hawes, A.C. Law, Thaddeus Young, Julian Wright, Al Fortin, Rodney Stuckey, Nick Young. I mean, it goes off a clip. Top nine was Odin, Durant, Horford, Conley, Jeff Green, Yijin Lan, Corey Brewer, Brandon Wright, Joakim Noah. One crazy note about this draft, which is even crazier than Durant having as many all-star appearances as everyone else in the draft combined.

Durant has almost 23,000 points career. He scored 10,237 more points than anyone else in this draft. He like lapsed the draft class, which I remember thinking. He doubles like in four. His win shares are bad. I mean, it's not even close. It's ridiculous. A couple comedy moments from the draft.

Jay Billis called Greg Oden the ultimate high character guy. Not wrong. Not wrong. I say to my draft guy, I might have gone with Gandhi there. I don't know. It's tough. Odin, Gandhi, I'm not sure.

Mark Stein, as I was writing the draft diary, sent me an email about the Ray Allen trade that ended, quote, it could have turned out worse. So that was like, thanks, Mark Stein. That was the celebratory email I was hoping for. It could have turned out worse. So that was like, thanks Mark Stein. That was the celebratory email. I was hoping for, it could have turned out worse.

The Celtics traded the fifth pick. Detroit took Rodney Stuckey at 15 and Bill has called him a poor man's Dwayne Wade. Well, it's if we use, you know, loved, loved Stuckey.

Chad Ford loves Stucky. And we were kind of like, we'd heard about that one. Stucky's not bad, by the way. He's arguably in this redraft in the lottery. Poor man's weight is a little strong. What if he's like broke outside all the time? Dwayne Wade. Somewhere in there.

Yeah, somewhere in there. He's always on the move, Dwayne Wade. He's relocating again to, I don't know, Oklahoma City. I wrote this in the draft. I was really impressed with myself. At 22, Charlotte takes my favorite sleeper, BC's Jared Dudley.

I like Dudley, Big Baby Davis, Torreon Green, and Aaron Brooks as my sleepers in the 20 to 45 range this year. I went three for four. You know what I loved? I loved reading edgy Bill Simmons from 2007. No wonder. I miss that guy.

I was like, hey, this is why this guy's career took off. Just edge, almost a bit of nastiness. You said Doc Rivers should be fired. I was writing that for two years. I know, I i know you were and then you said they should replace him with rick carlisle and then it got even worse because then chad ford rips rick carlisle and says that carlisle would never get a letter of recommendation from any of his previous employers including larry bird um i guess i'm just i'm just saying i as i as i read, and then you made fun of the Darko pick,

which you should have, and then Chad defended the Darko pick, saying that Orlando Magic was going to pay him $60 million, and then you were like, sweet comeback, Chad. And yeah, there was just nastiness and edginess all over the place in this. I think that was the first time we did it, and it definitely got contentious in a really fun way.

And then the next year, I think he had joke writers because he was coming back strong. I think he had help the next year. No, and Chad's smart enough too, because I remember it became like, it would probably be, you would know this. I bet you it was one of the five most clicked on pieces that ESPN would have over the course of a year.

There was a wrinkle with it. We were doing it in real time. So we would send the paragraph, send it in. So it was like this actual evolving piece over the course of five hours and people would just reload it and it would do like crazy traffic. Now nobody would give a shit. Um, all right. So we're going to do the redraft. You want the first pick or the second pick? I just think because you were so right about this, you know, we all get, we get plenty of stuff wrong and we get ripped all the time for it,

which is fine. But I think you deserve for you nailing this with the rant. Well, no seven. I took him first. I'm going to take him first again. Career 27, seven and four.

He's like a shade under being a 50, 40, 90 guy playoffs, 29, eight and four He's like a shade under being a 50-40-90 guy. Playoffs, 29, 8, and 4. 139 playoff games. An MVP, two finals MVPs, two titles. Six first-team All-NBAs, three seconds. He is three second-place MVP finishes.

And then there's also a really good. What if that, what if Portland had taken them? What does that team look like? Cause now you have him and the Marcus Aldridge together. You get a couple of years of Brandon Roy. Portland definitely is spending to keep him the whole time. I don't know if they stumble into the Damian Lillard trade at that point. So who the fuck knows,

but a lot of what ifs in every direction, but I would probably not on the the lillard thing probably not i mean it's just the ripple effect of this stuff yeah they probably don't get it one of the crazy things about this is the number two pick was always the jinx pick right that was always the pick where you know that was the sam bowie spot that was the lembaya spot it was just this unbelievably checkered history of bus and guys who got hurt and sad stories. And you go on down the line and Durant was the guy who was going to break it. And then his story becomes sad. They ended up moving from Seattle, Oklahoma city. So even him,

the number two pick who's turned out the best, I think of anybody probably in the history of that spot. Um, even that's a sad story because he didn't stay in Seattle. So there you go. That's my number one pick. Who are you taking second? Can I tell everyone who's on the board here? Yeah. Well, we mentioned Joe Kimno and Al Horford and Mike Conley

and Marc Gasol, I think are our four guys on the board. That's who David Aldridge just reported you were looking at your guys your team wow well david aldridge uh aldridge has it covered but i will go with horford horford you could argue should have been even better considering it felt like he played out of position his whole career um he was a straight up small forward, but he played center. And he I don't really think you can take Gasol over him. There's a Gasol argument that we'll get to here because he's going to go pretty quickly. He might even go next. But I just loved everything about Horford.

I loved him as a teammate, even though I didn't play with him, obviously. And one team that took him out to dinner right before that draft, they were hoping to move up to get because it was atlanta they're like atlanta will do something stupid you know they were just people circling going those guys would do something stupid and they went out to dinner with horford and they go this guy's already 30 years old in the head like he's already that smart already gets it that much and they're like there's no way we're going to be able to he's just too impressive it'd be one thing if you did a bad job breaking down the tape, but you're going to sit with him and you're going to want him to be the guy on your team

for the next 10 years. So I know he's not a superstar. I know he's not the guy that I think people have always kind of wanted him to be that next thing up, but I think there's a lot of stuff that goes overlooked with him. So I'll go ahead and take him. We left out a huge caveat with Atlanta taking him at number three in real life. Phoenix had their pick.

It was top three protected from the Joe Johnson trade. And during that season, which is the same season Horry shoves Nash into the side. And people think Phoenix could have won the title that year and who knows. And they had this pick that they could have traded and they could have packaged it with somebody else and tried to get one more awesome guy

and just risk this pick because they didn't know for sure they're going to have it. They kept it. Great decision until Atlanta gets the third pick. It just, it vanishes. It goes away. So Atlanta went from, we might not have this pick at all. So they ended up getting Al Horford who they get eight, nine years out of, uh, three conference finals for him. He made one third

team all NBA from 10 to 14 to 16 and 10, 55%. I mean, his stats are impressive. I think what's interesting about him is how he evolved as the sport evolved, right? He started moving out further and further and became this kind of stretch five in a lot of ways offensively. I loved having him on the Celtics. With all that said, I had Gasol number two on my board. So the case for Gasol. So you're taking him three? I'm taking him three. I would have taken him two. And the reason is this. I just think his ceiling was a little higher than Horford.

Especially you go to that 2011 Spurs-Grizzlies series. And I think those 11, 12, 13, and 14 Spurs are good teams. And the 12 team, especially Kawhizer, is a rookie. But you go all the way through all those teams or any of them had a chance to win any title each year. And, uh, and the Grizzlies really took it to them and it was really Gasol and it was Zeebo going against Duncan who still had most of his fastball at that point. Um, he made sec second team all NBA in 2013 and first team all NBA in 2015

that's pretty good 2015 defensive player of the year they won five series in five years at Grizzly most famously they make the 2013 conference finals and then he ends up with this late career thing where he goes to the Raptors and wins the title

a beloved teammate by all accounts, much like Horford. And, uh, you know, I think he went 48th in this draft and was past fat brother. He single-handedly saves the Pau Gasol trade from being probably the worst trade of the last 25 years. And the other thing that helps your argument is he didn't start until he was 24 and the first year he played he's playing like 31 minutes a game and you go wait what is this the similarities between the two at their peak their positioning and just understanding

of like half court defense and help rules and that kind of stuff incredible man incredible to kind of like you know look nobody's going to sit there and say hey i'm going to watch guys shading for help and see how great they are positioning but that's what they did but where gasol the argument from going to here is you probably feel like he's a guy you could dump it into in a big spot for a bucket more so than Horford. You know, what's crazy. Horford played 846 games so far. Gasol's played eight 31. Gasol's basically averaged 15 and eight and three Horford averaged 14 and eight and three Horford slightly better shooter, but their careers are about as similar as you could

possibly get. Even when shares Horford's 90.7 and Gasol's 82.2. Vorp, Horford's 35.4 or 33.4, Gasol's 35.4. It's razor thin. I think the edge has to go to the All-NBA. If Gasol is a first-team All-NBA guy, I have to give it combined with the 2011 Spurs. So you're on the clock at four.

Fourth pick. There's no debate. It's Conley. Do you want to guess what Conley's career assists per game are? I was wildly unimpressed by his career stats. I couldn't believe it.

I had him fifth on my board. Wow. Wow. So I'm not him fifth on my board. Wow. Wow, so I'm not going to get my guy. All right, well, I'm taking Conley. I mean, Conley, I understand the all-star resume thing. It hasn't happened. That's not because he's not deserving. It's because it just didn't happen.

The league is loaded with point guards, especially the West. What do you think of the years that Conley played? I love Conley. I know right now with the Jazz thing, it hasn't been good. That's not what we're doing here. I really, I'm surprised you think that it's a debate at four. Um, but longevity wise, I'm going to take Conley over. What I'm assuming is you going with Noah at five. Hold on. I'm talking to my guys. Just want to make sure we want to do this. Um, yeah,

here's the thing with Connelly. I think it matters that he didn't make the all-star team. I think it matters that his career stats weren't that impressive or that even look at the playoffs, he's 17 and seven 41% shooting. Um, you know, he won five series, obviously, cause he was on Gasol's team. I never felt like he was one of the six or seven best point guards in the league at any time. And I kept coming back to Noah, who I think has been unfairly stigmatized by everything that happened from the moment he signs with the Knicks in 2016, right?

It's just like now he's like contract bust. All the Knicks fans turn on him, all that stuff. But I think his nine years were really good there. And, you know from 10 to 14 i'm taking him fifth by the way is there any way i can trade you six and eight yeah wait wait wait wait no you can trade me six six eight and ten i'm keeping noah um i would trade you every pick i have to take noah next because I don't want to take, go ahead. He was double, double constantly in the, in the playoffs from nine to 14. He's basically 11,

11, almost three stocks blocks plus steals. I was doing countdown in 14 and he was the first team all NBA. And I remember arguing on the show about it where I was just like, this guy's the best center in the league. Like he, there is no other choice. He has to be, he's 13, 11 and five that year, five assists a game. They really tapped into something special with him. And here, here's what I think is the important point. He is probably the biggest victim other than Derek Rose and that Derek Rose knee injury in for how he would have been remembered this decade, because you think like that 2012 bulls team, which I think would have gone toe to toe with Miami in a lot of ways. And then 13, 14, 15, Noah stays there. He's in the mix that whole time as like a final four playoff guy. And I always thought he was better in big games and you could see the seeds

of it in the Oh nine bull Celtics series. He was awesome in that series going against the KG list Celtics. Um, I just really liked his game. And, you know, I think like one of my favorite regular season games ever was when they ended by him is 27 game winning streak. And it was basically him. it was little Jimmy Butler, some Luau Dang. That was when Jimmy was little. And he was just a gamer. Gamer? Gamer. He's the ultimate gamer.

Yeah. And when he first comes onto the scene, he's six points a game the first couple years. And you're like, yeah, you know what? Why were people even talking about this guy? You know, number one is I've already been over the timeline. Like I had a, I had a challenging timeline with Noah. Noah was fourth in MVP voting in 1314 and it wasn't wrong. He won defensive player of the year. I still remember him running up and down the court in that wizard series when the bulls beat him and i thought he was going to die in the game like he was done so there's a way to argue that he goes even higher

if you wanted to say is is tibbs's coach or is it is it somebody else where maybe the end of noah's career is different because he was never going to want to come out of a game he was never going to tell you he was hurt and look lebron deserves all the praise in the world but the fact that noah's like i don't give a shit right like i don't care i know i'm noah and i know you're lebron but like what am i supposed to worship you when you're out here like i'm trying to beat you and i don't give a shit and all of these things about him where when I watched him at Florida I'm like what is this guy's deal and then you I don't know if it's it's us getting older or us appreciating more I go hey what's the most important thing do you care do you want to win he is all of those things you want every basketball player to have that Noah DNA and for for him to care and for him to play that kind of defense and then not even care about shots.

On top of that, he probably could have scored more, but he didn't need to. And then the assist numbers are so good. I am just like you. I'm a huge Noah fan. It just sucks that it was basically over at like 29 years old, maybe 28 years old. I think there was a little burning the candle hard

on both ends that probably didn't help. That probably sped up the career there. Or some would say that it was good that he could get his mind right things that probably didn't help that probably sped up the uh the career there but now or some would say that he was it was good that he could get his mind right and you know get away from the stress of uh nba life oh there you go i would just rather have nine years of noah than 12 years of connelly now yeah but the noah thing even though noah's coming back with the clippers like it's been done now for a while it's been so and connelly still going and one thing also to be fair about the connellley assist numbers

that are incredibly underwhelming, and people are going to listen and go, 5.7 a game for his career? They did run so much stuff through Gasol. It wasn't like he was coming down the court every single time, dictating everything they were doing, too. It's fair. You get three extra Conley seasons.

If you take him over Noah. I just like the ceiling of Noah a little bit more. All right. You're on the clock at six. We, by the way, for everyone scoring at home, get ready to fall off a cliff with the 2007 draft because it's about to happen. Hey, what's the number one sign of a bad home security system? A home security system that's so complicated.

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Head to simplisafe.com slash BS. SimpliSafe with two I's. Get a free HD camera. If you're one of my listeners, simplisafe.com slash BS to make sure that they know our show has sent you back to the 2007 redraftables. This is so funny. Um, cause I'm about to take somebody I don't want to take because literally

everybody is somebody I don't want to take now. Um, I would, my feelings would be hurt if you didn't take your guy here. I'm not taking him. I'm not taking him. I'm not taking him. I'm not taking him. Who are you taking?

I'm taking his twin career brother and Thaddeus Young. That's who I had here too. Now, I don't want to because you sent me a text today saying, Thaddeus Young. That's who I had here too. Now, I don't want to, because you sent me a text today saying, Thaddeus Young, much better numbers than you would think. And I go, no, no, no. Continue to think that he wasn't that great.

Because every time you got Thaddeus Young, you're like, look at the range. Look at how he could shoot a little. Give me a couple boards. Lefty. Thaddeus Young's still only 23 years old, by the way. I don't know. range look at look at how he could shoot a little give me a couple boards lefty if that he is young still only 23 years old by the way i don't know he's only 31 okay that he is young is only 31 years old but you know he had a couple years with those bad philly teams couple of those philly

teams were close to 500 the rest of them were bad and then hinky took over and it got much worse but he was like 15 to 18 a game he's got a couple like 18 to 19 per seasons so you know i think everybody always wanted to be a little bit better because of the eye test because of the tools because he could shoot he's all these things i feel like he was underwhelming but i can't really argue for any of the guys to jump him here in the six pick i think i changed my opinion on him probably 230 times over the course of 10 years. Cause there'd be some games where you'd watch them and you'd go, man, that is young's really good.

I always forget. And then you, and then there's another game and you'd be like, Hey, is that he is young? Has he been out there the whole time? Or did he just get here? Did he just show up for the fourth quarter?

Was he here the whole time? He's just one of those guys, which is so funny that he's in the draft with Jeff green. Yeah. That is young. Could have been the, the, the support group.

He could have been another one of these guys. Cause you know, right now you're Jeff green. You're listening going, Hey, did you know that he has scored like 17 a game last year? And you're like, Oh,

what are you shooting from three? Oh, 34%. And how tall? Oh, that's amazing. And just like you said, he is, he is, Oh, what are you shooting from three out 34% and how tall? Oh, that's amazing. And just like you said, he is,

he is, uh, invisible for, for too many stretches. So, well, amazingly, this would have been a good trivia question for the people at home.

Who is the second highest? I already knew it. I already knew what the answer was. Career points, second highest career points guy, this draft. And it was Thaddeus young. He would. Second highest career points guy in this draft, and it was Thaddeus Young. He would have been like my seventh guess.

So, yeah, crazy. I can't remember a single Thaddeus Young moment other than the 2012 Sixers Celtics series. Can you? It's not a knock. I'm not against him. I just, like, if you were like, give me your top three Thaddeus Young moments,

I'd be like, I don't know. You know what'd be a great series if you were an artist like a painter where you would just paint the first like the blink image that comes to your mind of a player's career and i'm not talking like lebron you know throwing it down maybe let's lebron lay up against the pistons i mean look it can be a million other things from miami but if i were an artist and a painter i would just have a painting of thaddeus young standing in the corner with his arms on his hips just waiting for waiting for the ball to swing yeah waiting for a corner three yeah 50 career shooter oh shit so i'm up now at seven do it

i so badly don't want to do it you have to or you could do something else I have to do it because I have to stick to our job is to represent how the draft should go and there's no way to avoid it so somehow I end up with Jeff Green

here number 7 he's back in my life he's played for 9 teams. Nine teams, 70 million. He, from 2009 to 15, averaged 15 and five. He was involved in the watershed, but not really Perkins for Jeff Green trade that if you undo that for both sides, I think both teams are probably better off because then OKC doesn't feel like they have to integrate perk. And then, uh, and then Boston doesn't end up keeping their fingers crossed with Jeff green. He also isn't there in 2012, which always gets forgotten when LeBron and the heat finally get by the Celtics. They got Michael Pietras playing for the Celtics, like big chunks

of time because Jeff green had the heart issue. He misses that whole season, which really hurt the Celtics because Jeff Green actually used to play well against Miami. So he was involved in the Ray Allen trade that we talked about. He was involved in that Perkins trade. He was involved in that incredible Tayshaun Prince and a first round pick for Jeff Green, Boston Memphis trade that seemed like it was going to give Boston a top five pick. And then John Morant shows up this year and ruins the picks. And now it'll be between 14 and 17. And then was traded to the Clippers for another first round pick that they eventually sent to Philly that became Matisse Thibel.

So somehow every time he gets traded, it turns into a huge carrot. But one of the most frustrating players I've ever rooted for, there would be a night where he would just look like the best player in the league. And then there'd be another night where he would have two points and three rebounds. And you would just question everything. And I can't believe I just took him. Yeah, you have to. But game seven, Celtics 2018, 19 points. Yeah, you're right.

And eight boards. And that's the other weird thing about his career. His second season, he averaged 16.5, seven boards, two assists, 45% from the floor, 39% from three. And then he just stopped rebounding. He just stopped doing it. And so whenever I think about like that Cleveland game, like he'd always have one dunk every few months to suck people back in.

He could be coming like left wing to dribble hard up poster three guys. And you'd be like, I'm back in. And it was just, he's like a drug. And yeah, I remember, I remember Tommy would go, he would have like one of those dunks and Tommy would be like, I'm back in. And it was just, he's like a drug. Yeah, I remember Tommy would go,

he would have like one of those dunks, and Tommy would be like, he reminds me of James Worthy. And I'd be like, yeah, you're right. You're not wrong. He does look like James Worthy. If we were going to say what player looks the most like James Worthy in the league right now, it would be Jeff Green. Except for the part.

I would have, every time he ended up on another team, though, I would talk to somebody with the team or I talked to somebody in the family. So instead of like saying I talked to whichever teams, I'll just like Chris Vernon. Right. When they got him in Memphis, he's like, no, no, no. I go, no, no. I get it. Like, you're excited. You're you're a huge Memphis fan and you want this to work.

I know you do. Deep down in your heart, you feel like this is going to work. know you do deep down in your heart you feel like this is gonna work but i've been watching him more than you have and i'm just telling you you're gonna end up being really disappointed no no okay i was just like everybody would do it because i did when he went to orlando i talked to a guy down there and i'm not talking like this was actually somebody with the team and every time he'd go to another team the person that would just acquired him would try to talk me into why it was awesome and i would just go yeah yeah okay cool no i got yeah let me know just just you can text me in two months let me know how you feel and people

would always talk like by all accounts great guy oh everybody him. I remember watching him in college at Georgetown. One game that I remember just being like, wow, this guy's really talented. This, this, it'll be really interesting to see what he becomes, but it really could be something great. And then you would see him the next day and be like, see a lottery pick. So it was like, even in Georgetown, it was still this yin yang with it. And you know, I, he just could never totally put it together. But I think that 2012 season is probably the big what if for him. You're on the clock at number eight.

Okay. My guy is ninth in career points in this class. Wow. He is 10th in win shares and i always thought he was pretty good and that's uh aaron aflalo he had a stretch from denver through orlando to even well i mean you know the knicks he had that one year there but But he could shoot it. For his career, he's 39% from three. He could defend. And I think he's a little underrated.

And I'm going to go with Aflalo. True or false, I once wrote an entire column about him. True, because wasn't it, did you either want him on the Celtics or was it in the aftermath of the Bynum trade where everybody ended up with a million different pieces? Okay. During the end of the 2011 lockout, December 2011 at Grantland first year, I decided to do a series called like the 12 days of NBA Christmas. I tried to write 12 columns and I don't know how many days it was. It might've been like over the course of two weeks.

12 days. I hope. No, it wasn't. Cause I didn't write on the weekends. Um, and one of the columns was about Aaron and Flalo is going to get over $50 million a year.

And here's the case. Why? Not a year, but the new deal, a new contract. Yes. Um, and the case was first of all that we knew the cap was gonna you know teams are gonna be in there but also like

and if you go back and you read the column i'm spelling out how bad the two guard position is and it was like we this is not the days of michael jordan and clyde drexler those days are gone like here here's what this position actually looks like now. We have no good two guards. And I'm laying out all the guys. Like, Hugh McCasey is like one of the fourth best two guard in the entire league. And what's interesting is over the next, I would say,

four or five years, that completely flips. And that becomes this loaded position again, right? Because Harden enters the league and Klay Thompson starts making an impact, so on and so on. But at the time, it seemed really justifiable to overpay Aaron Aflalo because that was like a position that it was really hard to find good guys.

So I'm with you. I thought he was better than people remember. And actually, I'm not sure why his career didn't last longer at, you know, he was like at his, at his peak, probably like a 16 points a game near 40% three. He was a good defender and I'm not sure why that didn't last. I don't know if he had health issues or what.

Yeah. I would rather at this point, you know, as we're going to picks nine to the end of the lottery, give me what your five peak years are over an accumulation of 12. Right. So that's why I'm taking Wilson Chandler with the next pick. See, that's smart. I have him on my board.

From 09 to 17, he was 15 and 5, 34%. Just an early 3 and D guy. You never felt awesome if he was closing a game for you and you were a playoff team, which he was in that position with Denver. But he was a guy who could be, you know,

a seventh man on a really good team. So he's the best I'm going to do there. I think that was an Isaiah Thomas pick, by the way. All right, you're on the clock at 10. I think it's worth mentioning a few names that could be out there where we're not giving away each other's board. Uh,

Rod, Rodney Stucky is still there. If you want some peak Rodney Stucky, uh, I think he's better set as a poor man, Dean on waiters. Yeah. But then you got Rudy Fernandez who was good.

And maybe if you draft him in this scenario, he doesn't go back to Spain after four years. Frustrating. Yeah. Four years in, he's like go back to Spain after four years. Frustrating. Yeah. Four years in, he's like, I'm out of here. Rudy was, by the way, that was when the Portland fans really started to lose their mind as the internet was really forming

and Blazer's Edge was taken off. And they were so mad about the Odin Durant thing. So I would put like some Rudy Fernandez trade rumor to mailbag and it would be like coyotes coming out of the wilderness fuck you we're not trading rudy go fuck yourself like they were lunatics but they loved remember how much they loved rudy fernandez yes i do portland's um i actually you know what i love about portland fans is that they have all the edge of the jazz fans, but without the death threats.

Yeah, they're lovable jazz fans. The lovable anger of jazz fans. They get mad, but they still kind of get it where there's other fan bases where you just go, what are you doing? And of course, the funny part is that they ended up trading him anyway right after three years but he he was good i'm not telling you like he was sick but you could see like this guy you're not taking are you no no no no i'm just saying like it's at least it's worth it you know another guy who i love who would have been if he had gotten his act together sean williams would have

easily been a top 10 redraftable if he had been peak Sean Williams for much of his career. Yeah, but we knew heading into that draft, do not take him. I think Tiago Splitter is somebody that I'd like to bring up Al Thornton because I was so right about that. I watched him so much and I went, none of this shit is going to work in the NBA.

None of it. But we also have Jared Dudley, Corey Brewer, Big Baby, Carl Landry, Anthony Tolliver. Anthony Tolliver, undrafted. You know what I'm going to do? none of it we also have we have uh jared dudley cory brewer big baby carl landry and anthony toliver anthony toliver undrafted um you know what i'm gonna do i think i'm good i think i'm good with nick young i just worry about you know how is he gonna not that i'm anti nick i just worry about the younger guys today's generation i'm gonna go with bill and ellie at 10. ah that was my next pick yeah i just did that did that to you to mess with the whole. I just named everybody else,

and then I knew I wasn't going to take any of them. Billinelli's good. I was going to take him over Chandler, but I thought I could get him two picks later. Damn it. I did my work on this. Oh, man. Yeah, Billinelli averaged four threes a game in the 2010s,

38% from three, 11 points a game. And we know he could play on a good playoff team. Cause he did. And what I liked about him is at first you're like, what is this stuff? Like, I remember breaking down his, his Euro stuff and he would dribble like full speed out of bounds and

throw a three pointer in. And I'm like, what the hell is this? You're like, this guy's going to need a little like horse breaking to get this guy. And I actually, I remember, I think, you remember, I feel like when I first watched him, because I had some expectations for him, because I did like him, I'm like, wait, is this guy out of control? And then I think he had to kind of reinvent himself, which I was really impressed with.

Good heat check guy, good spacer, and looked like Sly Stallone. So all things I loved. Yeah, what else? I am on the clock. Is this 11th or 13th? 11. Wow, we got to make four more picks? Good Lord.

Take Al Thornton again. I can't take Nick Young. I'm sorry, Nick Young, but I can't take Nick Young I'm sorry Nick Young but I can't take you I'm going to take Carl Landry oh Daryl's so proud of you right now because we're now at the point of this process where

it's like if you had two really good years that's about as good as I'm going to do now Carl Landry from in 2010, average 18 a game. I guess he had one really good year. I feel like we thought he was better

because Daryl was always telling us how great he was. I thought he had two really good years. You know what? Hold on. I'm calling my guy back. I'm not taking it. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. No, no. I'm taking it back. I'm taking it it's never been done no no he's off no no he's

that no i don't care if it's your company i think you just drafted him no i recalled the pick all right i'll take no you know what actually go ahead because i want to know who else you want to take so badly that you're going to get rid of Landry. No, I'm going to keep him. He was a solid, you know, he was like a solid 13 to 16 points a game there for five years. Better today, probably, too, because he was an undersized big. Then what was it about? Was it his post-defense that Daryl used to just freak out about?

Well, he went he went was that chuck hayes chuck hayes is the post defense guy i think no landry was he had knee issues so he fell and then uh it was just the classic put him in and the guy could get buckets so all right i'll take him it's not like anybody else is good. Corey Brewer's still out there. Yeah, sure. Tiago Splitter, I feel like, needs at least to be mentioned here, but it's really down to a couple. I'm going to go ahead and take Dudley.

Dudley, who I would say he and Sean Marshall on those BC teams were probably my most disliked duo of any college basketball team I've ever seen that's still me peak St. John's well probably not even peak St. John's then but I watched those guys in person I watched them on and I could not stand just anything about them I couldn't stand them and Dudley did what so many players can't do. It's like, hey, guess what? I'm never going to be the first, second, third option. I need to figure something out. Starts making some threes.

And to this day, is still somebody that you feel like we're not going to get killed if we have to play him some minutes in a big spot, knowing, yes, he's older and he's been around a long time. I'm just so impressed with what Jared Dudley has done over his career, going even back to college and like, look, even him coming out of San Diego, people weren't a hundred percent sure. So it's pretty impressive to become that many different versions of a basketball player to keep cash in check. So good for him.

I'll go ahead and grab them. Even though there's probably some high end guys that I could still meaning their peaks are higher than Dudley that I could still go with here, but I'll take Jared. Well, you get a couple of good things with Dudley. Awesome teammate. Yeah. Beloved teammate, uh, played almost 900 games, 39% career three-point shooter. But the thing for me, that 2010 suns team that I really liked that came a lot closer to beating the, uh, the Lakers than I think people remember he played 16 playoff games that year. He played 23.6 minutes a game. Averaged almost, he averaged basically an eight and four shot 42.4% from three,

almost four threes a game. And that team almost made the finals. So he was the seventh man on a team that came within that goofy art test put back and maybe one or two other breaks of sneaking into the final. So I liked that pick. I kind of wish I had him instead of Carl Landry. I'm going to fire a couple of my scouts after this. All right. Last but not least, I have the 13th pick here.

And, uh, is it sad? Are you going to take Nick young? Can we really do a redraft and not take Nick young? I mean,? Are you going to take Nick Young? Can we really do a redraft and not take Nick Young? I mean, I'm not going to take him. He averaged 18 a game in 2014. We're just not going to take him.

That's great. I'm going to take a big baby. Good for you. I knew you were gonna. Well, here's the thing. We know he's somebody who could be in the rotation of of uh a championship team because he was we know in uh in 2009 he was really good in that orlando playoff series remember he was like the dwayne howard and uh i'm not anti this

i'm not i'm not giving you a hard time for it. 2011, he played a full season, played almost 30 minutes a game and averaged 12 and 5. Let me look at his playoff stats. Hold on. Yeah, 2000. Oh my God. 2009 playoffs, 14 games in KG's spot.

He averaged 16 and 6. Not bad. Look look he was good i mean with the pick and pop with him he hit that shot like you had you had to defend him uh because you could shoot he really could shoot and then the way his his footwork was incredible because you'd always look at him and think like his body type no no actually like his footwork i remember before that draft one of my favorite guys was like now this guy's people are gonna whiff on him like this guy should be a lock first rounder but they're gonna look at his body and knock him and they go but if you look at his footwork he's he's special like this guy has like that pitter patter running back a really good running back and he's got all those things and uh all right go right take 14 so we can get out of here. Gabe Pruitt,

USC. Stop. I did like Gabe Pruitt coming out, though. You don't want to take Odin just so he can get the hat? I would because I like Odin so much, but I can't do it with three seasons. Stucky Tolliver or Corey Brewer is a fake 3 and D. Corey Brewer, who's had a longer career than you would think,

but Corey Brewer for his career, do you want to guess there's three point shooting numbers were, I mean, but there had to be under 30%, right? They were 27. He's 28%. And what I love here too,

is that like he was taking them in Denver and he was hitting 26%, 29%, 28% in Minnesota. Houston's like, Hey, you're three and D cause you're skinny and not a power forward. Why don't you take threes too? And he hit,

he took three and a half a game and hit 28%. So he actually had some double figure scoring. I will say in his defense though, he was on the court during that big Clippers comeback. When would this, one of the five strangest games of the 21st century. I like those things about it, but I, you know,

the more I watch it before, I was like, I just not quite sure what he does. So I never, I never gave up on him. And I think, I think now I have to, cause I don't know

if he's in the league anymore. It's Stucky or Corey Brewer. So no Tiago Splitter, no Joel Anthony for you. No, I mean, Joel Anthony. So like Tollitter no Joel Anthony for you no I mean Joel Anthony so like Tolliver Joel Anthony and then there's one other name what is it Gary Neal is the undrafted guys from this group or you could do Al Thornton maybe just fresh start no I was not I was not the I'll uh AC Law I loved him that senior year at A&M love him, but he was small for me and he couldn't shoot.

He like, he, I think he shot like 50% from three a senior year. I love that A&M team. And then he just couldn't shoot. Like I was looking at it again. I'm like, Oh,

that's right. Like when you're a guard who shoots like 26% from three, it's probably not going to work out. Do you feel like point guards are like quarterbacks where they can lose their confidence and just not get it back? I think shooting. He was an incredible college player. I specifically remember watching multiple games with him

going, wow, this guy's amazing. And it just didn't happen. You know what he had to, and this isn't the best comp because Tyler Uless is just so small that you go, all right. But when you watch Uless in college, and for those that really knew him going back to high school, because Tyler Uless is just so small that you go, all right. But when you watch Uless in college, and for those that really knew him going back to high school,

he saw the game differently than most players. These great guards that you go, all right, he's seeing stuff other people just don't. They're never going to see. They don't process it the same way. I always felt like AC had some of that in him when I watched him in A&M where I'm like, this guy is just terrific. I mean, Uless barely got to play, but the same thing with Law.

For the people listening, if you're interested at all, if you're even listening anymore, there's... I think there's two awesome Texas-Texas A&M games with KD and A.C. Law. One of them was epic.

One of them I specifically remember being like just incredible. It was about as fun as I've had watching college basketball in the last 15 years, regular season. So Tiago Stucky, give me Tolliver.

Give me Tolliver. Just go hit, hit me a bunch of threes in today's game and I'll find a way to get you guys. A five and D. Apologies to ramon sessions and uh apologies to ramon session and uh apologies to josh mcroberts josh mcbob did you think the celtics were going to take him because there was definitely that that out there well he went 30 went 37 so they easily

could have taken him um remember though he was going to be top five and when he was healthy he was an incredible combination of basketball skills his passing for a guy that size in his playmaking and then once his back went south and then everybody like the reports on him just weren't great that he was just people didn't like him and you know i don't know if that's fair unfair i mean hell i think we heard the same stuff about jj reddick so you know what does that mean it was it was it wrong or was jj a jerk and now everybody likes jj or was everybody wrong the whole time so it's always kind of one of those things especially as i get older i don't like doing this thing where it's let me just trash 18 year old 19 year olds but his back was bad. By the way, real quick, KD,

you want to talk the all-money draft? KD through 2023, $350 million. Some of these guarantees are partial guarantees in the final years of some of these deals. Horford will make $270 million through his Sixers deal. Gasol's over $200, too, right? He's $180 right now. Because remember, he started at $24,

and that's a big part of this Gasol story, and he's 180 right now and because remember he started at 24 and that's a big part of this gasol story and he was great right away conley will be at 215 million thaddeus young will be at 137 million a hundred and he's still like, but nine teams, a follow made 60 million. It's their skies banked out of this draft. 2007 redraftables. Ryan. So thank you. We will see you on the next one.

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Take care of yourself. Stay safe. See you next time. I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them. On the wayside, on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them.