The Bill Simmons Podcast - The NBA Trade Deadline Mega Podcast With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: February 6, 2020

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo 30 minutes before the NBA trade deadline to discuss the trades that have already happened as well as the one coming through at the eleventh hour. They point out desperate trades, teams who didn’t do enough, and more (2:08). They finish up by discussing the Red Sox's trade of Mookie Betts to the Dodgers (1:53:10). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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ZipRecruiter is so effective. Four to five importers have posted ZipRecruiter to get quality candy through the site within the first day. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. I did a rewatch of those this week about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Yeah, so you already did it, huh? Did it. It's one of my favorite movies the last five years.

I don't know, should I say ten years? It's unbelievable. I love that freaking movie. 8 to 1 to win best picture. Is that the favorite or is it Parasite? No, 1917 is the favorite. It is?

Yeah. It's good. Yeah. I'm going to watch Parasite this weekend. So we did that rewatch. The big picture is breaking down all the Oscars odds, all that stuff.

We also did, I did a book of basketball podcast about Kobe this week. You had a couple of podcasts this week. We're still in our mood. We're moving. We're basically going once a week, NBA all the way through the second week of July.

You're cutting down to probably two podcasts a week on your feed. Probably. Well, I'm not sure if it's this week or next week. Um, I guess we'll talk about it later. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But you're going to do two and then a third one with me. Yeah. Right. Right. I'll be at the all-star game by the way. Oh yeah. We got that too. But I'll be coming back.-Star game, by the way. Oh, yeah, we got that too. But I'll be coming back.

I don't like watching it. To me, it's unwatchable. And we wanted to give a shout out to my old Grantland team, Andy Greenwald. He wrote TV for us forever. And now he is the showrunner of a show called Briarpatch, which premieres on USA Network tonight. Watch it, if only for Grantland.

Coming up, Ryan Rosillo and I are going to break down the trade deadline. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. We are taping a live Trade Deadline BS podcast. My name is Bill Simmons. I'm here with Brian. We did this last year. I can't remember. Did it work out last year? Yeah, it went great. Do we have any fun trades?

What was the most fun trade last year? I think that was the... Was that the Joe Johnson trade? Joe Johnson. To Phoenix? Let's go through the trades. The ones that have happened. The biggest one,

Golden State takes a flyer on Wiggins. They get a top three protected 2020 pick. Minnesota gets D'Angelo Russell. I'll start with Minnesota. This is just a complete panic trade by Minnesota because Towns is so unhappy. He's lost 100 games in a row. He's starting to send out feelers around the league

that I'm aware of that he's bummed out. He doesn't want to stay there. And I think Wiggins was a part of that. And it was one of those, look, you got to do something. Do you think it was directly, you got to get Wiggins out of here? of those, look, you got to do something. Do you think it was directly you got to get Wiggins out of here? Or was it, do you got to do something? I think it's both.

Good answer. You know, when you look at like tanking and not saying everybody tanks the same way, but this was kind of the version of it where you go, hey, it actually is working for these guys. Yeah. Like these guys are getting picks.

Now, granted the Wiggins pick was the Cleveland thing we love, but, you know, whenever you tank for a few years, you hope to have these two pieces. Kind of like right now with Memphis. You hope with Ja and Jaron Jackson, you're like, okay,

we've got these two things that we can build on. And you have to go two for two with those high lottery picks. Absolutely. I mean, and even Philly probably whiffed on two of the four. Right.

But they ended up with two guys that we still don't know. It looks like they're less likely to be able to play with each other. So that was very early. We got to the Sixers problems. Wow. That was the drinking game.

People already had to do a shot. Minnesota was that thing. We go, look at this. Like we've got this incredible wing guy who at the very worst is like 20 points a game is going to play lockdown defense. And honestly, like he gets 20 a game, doesn't play great defense.

And then Towns, who two years ago in the GM poll was the number one choice of who you'd want to start your franchise with. It's amazing. And now you're like, look at these numbers and they keep losing all the time. They have the worst record since the 10 and eight start in the NBA.

So- Well, you named him to your all miserable, all NBA team at the halfway mark, captain. Yeah. Which Bradley Beal, I just heard from some third parties, was upset he wasn't the captain. He vowed to up the stakes. Was he upset or was his

girlfriend upset? Maybe both of them were. But Towns, the last week or so, really started to look like he actually had appendicitis or something on the court. It actually looks like there's something medically wrong with him. Just had this crazy, unhappy look on his face. You watch it and you go, oh my God,

like this guy's absolutely miserable. But, you know, I think the irony of this is, is that, is D'Angelo Russell the fix here? And I'm not meaning fix like, hey, you're now contending for titles. I'm talking about like, if Towns is this good and Wiggins was the disappointment and you think Russell, like the perception of Russell now

is that he's a much better player than Wiggins I think that's something we could even talk about yeah uh Russell's completely revamped or I don't know I would say the redemption of his career started last year where two years ago I thought he was just sort of a high usage you know kind of like a almost a pig right like and then last year is like wait a minute this is going to work we know why golden state did it to have an asset instead of zero assets so we'll get to their side of it but this reeks of panic and all the other moves around it also two ca guys and i but i still don't know what it means for them as a team like if they're if this is really like something that's supposed to work they should be a locked playoff team. It's probably too late this year, but next year.

Go backwards. Golden State gets Russell in the Durant trade. They are really smart. They actually out-thought some teams there because they were looking at this situation. They realized Durant's leaving. And they go, is there any way to salvage this? Russell seems like he's heading to Minnesota.

We all know that Brooklyn's going to renounce Russell to sign Kyrie and KD, which will then allow Minnesota to just sign Russell. Golden State gets proactive. They grab Russell. A borderline all-star, a guy who's 23, 23 a night, and kind of fits in with where the league's playing now. Golden State just got a free look at him for 50 games.

And they're like, we're good. We'll get rid of this guy for Andrew Wiggins. I look at that and I'm Minnesota. I'm like, why are they so anxious to trade this guy? Is a more intriguing thing to me. And look, I think we can talk. I really liked Russell last year. I actually thought it made more sense for Brooklyn

to keep him than do the Kyrie thing because of Kyrie, all the baggage stuff that he brings. Russell ties into this problem I'm having with basketball in general right now, where he can do these specific things really well, but that's all he can do. You can set him a screen and he's really good at, he can move up that, do a little pop or whatever, or he can do a little ISO. He's always 25 feet from the basket. He doesn't get to the free throw line at all.

I think he's a good guy to have on your team, and he seems a good character guy now. I'm not sure he'd be that fun to play with. And they obviously assessed this and said, this guy doesn't fit with Klay and Steph. So that's a really good point because, you know, when you watch D'Angelo when he was in college, I think the great thing was some of the stuff that he,

the decisions he made with the basketball. Like it wasn't just, hey, let's run this high screen and roll. Let's do all these things. And when, again, two years ago, he had this usage rate where you're like, this is like almost borderline Westbrook level usage. And you're not as productive as Westbrook. And he plays a little bit like when Harden used to play in a lot of that pick and roll stuff. It's the kind of basketball we hate. It is.

It is. I have about 30 feet from the basket. You guys all stand here. I'm going to do stuff. And it's the kind of basketball we hate. It is. It is like 30 feet from the basket. You guys all stand here. I'm going to do stuff. It's productive. But I think for them, it's like, what is this ultimately when Steph and Clay come back? This isn't how we want to play. Well, that's a real thing. And it's a good question because I did talk to somebody earlier in the week going like, what do you think Golden State's trying to do here? And when I first heard like Wiggins, and by the way, the piece pieces they move out here, I'm assuming they got under that repeater tax thing by moving out Evans and Amari Spellman in this deal too. So Golden State wanted the tax relief, although I

don't believe it was a mandate based on people that I talked to, that they were still going to be okay going into this summer with their own pick and Russell. By the way, that was bullshit. They wanted to get under the tax. No, I know they wanted to. They tried to trade Mookie Betts and they realized he wasn't on the team. Do you think the Mookie Betts thing is just a Hulu ad? Is there any chance? All right, just checking with you.

We'll have a Mookie Betts breakdown a little bit later. So this is the part that I think, like it's guilty because like when the Warriors do it, that they're smart. But, like, nobody, everybody was, the basketball community was collectively off of Wiggins. Yeah. But I really think from just a basketball fit positionally, based on people I talked to, that Golden State liked Wiggins with that backcourt better than D'Angelo.

By the way, same stats. He's also 23 a night. That'd be a really sneaky... Like, if you did a vote right now, who's a better player, D'Angelo or Russell or Wiggins? If I just did the player A, player B with the stats, you'd be like, wait, they have the same stats. He's only...

How old is he? 1995. He's 24. I think he gives them... Are you talking to yourself into Wiggins right now? I'm not. I think he gives them talking to yourself and awakens right now. I'm not, I'm not just making sure. I think he gives them more flexibility when clay and Curry come back though. And if I'm going state,

that's what they believe, by the way. So that's not you just guessing it's, it's true. Yeah. So if you're going state and you look at it and you go, all right, we just got a 50 game sample size of Russell.

Here's Wiggins. When clay and Curry come back and we have Draymond, what kind of person do we want in that third spot next to those guys? We want a guy who's a wing, who's interchangeable. They want a small forward. Play defense. He can play up as a small forward. I still don't know how good his defense is, but he's passing more. I mean, you know. But if you're, but if you're going state, you look at Minnesota and you're like, this is a top three team you'd want to trade for a talented guy from. This guy's had how many coaches?

He had Tibbs. He had the guy before Tibbs. He has Flipskid, who I'm not really sold on. And dysfunctional team. Town's certainly not the guy who can be the best player on a really good team, I don't think, just based on his personality. And you're like, you feel like this is a distressed asset that you're grabbing. You put him into your golden state system. You have him with all the shooting coaches. He's got the best locker room. He's around guys who play their ass off every day, like Curry and Draymond and Clay, like

real pros. And you put somebody like that with those guys. And it's like embarrassing if you're not working as hard as them. It's embarrassing if you don't give a shit during the game because those guys really give a shit. So I actually think it's a good bet. I think it's the one team he could have gone to that maybe he can be salvaged as a real impact guy. And they get minimal protection, top three protection in 2021 on that pick. They get the second rounder. So they ended up getting extra in here. There's also a Warriors bet that it's like you added Russell. You added all these different pieces. They've revamped a lot of the second half of their rotation

with all these other secondary deals that they've done outside of this big one, the Covington deal, and then the other Memphis deal, which came through. But they're probably looking and being like, hey, you guys are still going to be bad in this pick. Maybe the fifth pick. Right. So they could have two top five picks. And the other thing is you need a big contract

if you're going to make a trade. And that's all this is. So Wiggins could be a piece where you're like, we'll give you one of these first round picks with Wiggins. Now give us somebody who's actually better than Wiggins and you're back in business. And they had no flexibility, in my opinion, if Durant leaves and they get nothing.

So the way they've played this, this little Jenga stack they've built, it's pretty good. It's really smart. Now they have an extra first round pick with Wiggins. Wiggins is tradable. Somebody else would take a chance on him. But he might actually be good for them. Yeah, that's how everything in this deal

has to be looked at, is that the dumb organizations go, oh, we lost Durant. Right. We'll see what happens. Let's kick the tires on who's left over in two weeks. Or the really dumb organizations on June 30th would have been saying,

I don't know, Rich Kleiman said he'd call us at three. You never know. He might change his mind. That's like the really dumb organization. Why is he on the boardroom with a Knicks hat on? Why is he interviewing David Falk? They knew where this was going. And I think the fact that they proactively

were able to get an asset for him was really impressive. And Russell's good. I like Russell. I just don't know for that team, if it makes sense. This is his destiny. With Towns, we're a team. Marbury and Garnett, 22 years ago.

Now it's us. Two guys who can put up 30 in any game. They'll be more fun. The energy will change. They'll start killing Wiggins, and they'll start leaking stuff, right? In a couple days. I don't think they have to leak stuff.

I mean, you could watch Wiggins over the years and go, hey, we need a little bit more out of you, man. Like you can't be the invisible man. Oh, we have a trade. Oh, all right. Shabazz Napier straight up for Jordan McCray. So LeBron couldn't get him? Yeah, where's LeBron?

LeBron was so in on Shabazz Napier. So in on him, they drafted him and he left. More trades we got to go through. Okay. Clippers got Marcus Morris. Nick's got Harkless and a first. It's basically the first. As somebody who has Clippers season tickets

and was really rooting for them to get to the finals, I hate this trade for them. I watched Marcus Morris on the Celtics for three years. I think on the right team, he has a purpose and has real value. He is a ball stopper. The ball goes to him and it stops. And if you watch the Clippers really carefully, George is a ball stopper in a lot of ways.

Kawhi is a ball stopper, although he's Kawhi. The Lou Williams, give the ball to him. Harold sets a pick. That's a ball stopper. It Lou Williams, give the ball to him. Harrell sets a pick. That's a ball stopper. It's a team where nobody's moving ever. And now you're adding a guy who's basically a statue. And if you throw him the ball, he's going to take seven seconds to decide what to do. So now I have Kawhi, Paul George, Harrell, Lou Williams, all standing in different spots while Marcus Morris is deciding what to do. And the flip side, they'll be like, well, he's a good open three-point shooter.

He was never comfortable with that in Boston. He wanted to, the problem with having a guy like Marcus Morris is with a minute left down one in game seven of the Western Conference Finals, he'll think he should shoot. Yeah. He'll be like, actually, Kawhi, let me take this. That's why you can't have a guy like this.

I don't like the trade. I can't believe that we agree. And you had such a bad time in Morris, you had an, let me take this. That's why you can't have a guy like this. I don't like the trade. I can't believe that we agree. And you had such a bad time at Morris. You had an extra year as Boston run. He was only there two years. It felt like three. I'm like, wait.

No, honestly, it felt like three. He was a really nice contract too when Boston had him. I actually thought it was kind of like a low key, like, oh, that's kind of a smart deal because you know this guy's in your rotation. You know that he can play. He is shooting the cover off the ball. He's 44% from three right now on six attempts per game in a bunch of games that mean nothing where he's getting a ton of touches i get it it's 20 touches

but he looks right now like the best version of him yeah but i do think it's a byproduct of like what that team has so you know the knicks get back to his first rounder it probably as we learn more about and that's probably one of the hardest things doing this in real time, is like, oh, it's actually this kind of protection. Oh, this is actually what the deal is. Well, let's call it what it is. It's probably the 24th pick in what might be the worst draft in 20 years. Yeah.

So if they were getting all these calls. Remember, too, it was like the Knicks don't want to trade him because he feels like a Knick. He feels like Oakley. He feels like Mason. He feels like, okay, you now. Did you believe one inch of that? No, I didn't. But I just, these are the things but i just these are the things we never trade this guy means so much

that to me that's like you're putting them on the block yeah uh a lot of a lot of teams like when the clippers were maybe linked to some other people and you're going to can move landry shamit and i like landry shamit like the sixers would love to have landry shamit still for for what he is but like sometimes you go like, how high are you rating the seventh or eighth guy that you have on your team? Morris is... Well, it's 1145. Yeah. So we haven't had all the trades yet.

To me, Danny Green is a guy like that. I don't know if the Lakers would trade him or not, but it's like, oh, they can't trade Danny Green. He's great. It's like, they'll trade Danny Green. They'll trade whoever they can get if they feel like they can get a third star. Whatever it takes, they'll do. The Lakers rumors with Morris is like, okay, it starts with Kuzma and now we have to, and you're like, wait a minute, why would you want Morris more than Kuzma? I don't. No. Also, why would you want to trade a guy

who has a $2 million contract for a guy who's a free agent who makes 15? Yeah. I honestly, like, I think Morris is really talented. If he keeps shooting like this it'll be worth it he's not going to put up the same kind of production but i think the biggest problem and maybe it's more marquise but marcus had it in him a little bit too like toughness to me is facing adversity it's not shoving another guy when you're down 20 and you lost and fair those guys i look i've watched it enough maybe it's more marquise when he was with the wizards but it just go, you know, I know you guys are big, tough guys and you're physical, but being mad is not always being tough.

And there'll be times you're like, oh, okay, you're just taking a cheap shot at somebody right now because the game's already lost. Like we need you to be tough in the first quarter. I actually thought Denver was the team that made the most sense for him. And I do like Morris on the right team. I'm just saying he's on the wrong team.

The Clippers, where he's going to really have to take a step back and be a complimentary guy. And I don't think he wants to do that. But if you're on Denver, where that team is going to ebb and flow in a playoff series, depending on whether Jamal Murray is feeling it or not, as we saw last year. He was awesome. He had 28 through three quarters last night.

So you watched him yesterday and you're like, I get it. I see the path to Denver winning the title and all the stuff they're doing, then Jokic down the stretch. But I wish they had a third guy who, when Murray doesn't have it in game four of the second round and they're playing somewhere and Jokic has three fouls, you kind of need that guy who's like, I got it. I'll take some shots. And that was the best Marcus Morris quality. Like you saw when Kyrie went out that

year during the playoff run, there were games when like Tatum had deer in the headlights, Brown had deer in the headlights, Rozier can't make anything. And Morris was like, I got this guy and he'll actually make some shots. I don't think that's what the Clippers needed. I actually thought if I was going to use that Harkless thing in a pick, I'm going one of two ways. Either I'm improving the Harrell spot, because I don't think they're big enough in a Lakers series. I just don't.

Yeah, but they keep beating them. And I would improve the Schamett spot, because that was the one where it's like, I want a better version of Schamett. Who is that? Is it a J.J. Redick type? Is it Spencer Dinwiddie? Okay, but JJ wasn't going anywhere.

It doesn't look like Drew was going anywhere. Dinwiddie's name was all over the place the last couple of days. So I don't know what that is. I mean, we could add him to all miserable team as the starting point guard, because as soon as the Kyrie stuff in and out, you could just see it like,

hey, this is way more fun when I'm doing this and we were winning games. But maybe you trade for a guy who's got a contract next year too, because if you're the Clippers, you have no way to improve next year's team either. You have all these contracts that are packed a certain way and you have Harrell as a free agent and you don't have really the ability to grab anybody. But if you grab somebody who's making 15 a year for next year too, now I have this other asset. This is a problem the Celtics have had the last couple of

years where they don't have that one tradable contract and they're not in any of these trades for next year too. Now I have this other asset. This is a problem the Celtics have had the last couple of years where they don't have that one tradable contract and they're not in any of these trades because they don't have it. They never were able to roll it over where, oh, next year we have the Georgie Dang contract. He's 15 expiring. Don't try that one again.

Gorgie? George? Georgie? No, it's a tough one. I screwed it up all the time. You know I have pronunciation dyslexia what's going on with the princess bride

look out of you today I grew up for the thing I knew we had a big straight deadline thing I wanted to wear a hat and look like one of the three musketeers I almost didn't change

into something nice so you thumbs up or last verdict thumbs up or thumbs down for Marcus Morris on the Clippers to me it's a meh

like I'm not I'm not so much it's a meh yeah there's times where I watch the Clippers? To me, it's a meh. Like, I'm not so much... It's a meh. Yeah. Like, there's times where I watch the Clippers and I go, I don't know, like, is this Lou Williams thing always going to work in the playoffs?

Like, are all these pick and rolls always going to work with Montrez? But Montrez's energy level is so high that he's, like, already at playoff energy level, so I don't really worry about him. Would you have rather done that or Zubac, Harkless, and a number one for Tristan Thompson, who could actually play for me in crunch time against the Lakers.

Yeah, Tristan still moves really well. Like, it's something we just ignore because we're not watching a ton of Cavs games. Yeah, because I think Zubach is absolutely unplayable in certain playoff matchups, and we're going to see that. Yeah, I love that they're like, he's an asset. Look at the stats. His PR, it's 22. I'm like, all right, good luck. PR for bigs that don't play a lot is always...

You're not going to be able to play him in the fourth quarter of a really important playoff game. He will not be in the fourth. I actually really like your Denver call because the Millsap thing, like he didn't play last night. They had a really short rotation. Ended up getting a really nice win against a Jazz team that, you know, you're going, all right, the Jazz are going to win this game. They're up again.

They have another run. And then they ran all this two-man stuff. I mean, they always run two-man stuff with Jokic and Murray, but last night was so exaggerated where it was like, hey, you three guys go stand over there. They had no Porter Jr. So if Denver really has a chance of coming out of the West, I would have loved to add a scorer like Morris. So I completely agree with that about what a better fit would be.

But every one of these trades, man, like, hey, would you have rather done this instead? I do think we make that mistake a lot of times. We're like, oh, I don't like this trade. It's like, okay, but what else do we know that was actually even obtainable? Right. And I think we make that mistake a lot.

Well, so let's go back to Utah for a second. Yeah. The Conley thing's not good. Well, last night, offensively, it was good, but it was so bad defensively. I always thought he was pretty frisky defensively and you think about those those Grizzlies teams in 2012

13-14 him and Tony Allen and I always thought like it was pretty high level perimeter D what we saw last night was alarming and the fact that Denver was basically torturing him

and they're like where is he let's go get him on offense if I'm And the fact that Denver was basically torturing him. And they're like, where is he? Let's go get him on offense. If I'm a Utah fan, I'm alarmed. And I was wondering if he was a possible trade target today. Like if they went to Oklahoma City and they're like, we'll give you Conley for Chris Paul. And we'll take that extra Chris Paul year off your hands, and we'll throw in our 2022 first.

In Utah, it's like, all right, that's a lot of Chris Paul. He's going to get two years after this, 44 million bucks. He's playing great this year, though. At the same time, it's like, that guy's one of the best 22 players in the league? Right. Conley is not. When Paul showed up, they were like,

look, we're going to rest you. We're going to do this. We're going to, you know, we want to, and Chris Paul's like, hey hey your whole rest plan nah like I'm not doing that he's like I'm on I'm finally on a normal basketball team for the first time in 10 years they were like they had this whole thing mapped out for him and Paul was like yeah fuck that right like see it I loved hearing that story and it's worked there but that's so when you talk about like let's give conley a little bit more time before we're ready to write them off but it was so bad that they

actually switched it up where they put ingles on murray and then denver was really smart because then they ran morris off some like wing screen where they ended up with morris on conley and then he worked him and i was like oh man like this is this is bad and uh it was really really impressive what denver did last night to close that game it was it was a bad. And it was really, really impressive what Denver did last night to close that game. It was a little like a playground thing where everybody's throwing the ball. There's the one kid in the middle,

and they're throwing the ball over his head and playing keep away with him, where it's just like, all right, this is cruel, guys. Can you just stop? You're torturing this poor kid. That's how I felt for Conley yesterday, where just that he was at this specific point of his career, which a lot of NBA players hit,

where you're like, oh, I'm that guy now? I'm now the guy that's, I have, he's like the nickelback on the playoff team that's just every play is being run out. Are you reading my tweets for content? I said he looks like a corner that was called it from the practice squad. I didn't read that one.

Yeah, that's all right. You've been busy. Can we give Conley like another couple of weeks though before we're ready to ask him to retire? How hurt do you think he still is? He was really good on offense last night. Yeah. So I actually feel like he's got to be 90 plus percent healthy. Yeah. It was.

Well, Utah and Denver are probably going to cross pass in the first two rounds and i would be alarmed if i were them but you know i did one of those classic like observation versus prediction thing and gobert early's dunking on him yeah dunking on yokich and then you go yokich hit this absurd step back that even for him you're like wait a minute are you bored and you took that shot or Or did you just go, hey, I want to see if this goes in. And then he ends up with like 30, 20, 10, triple, double. Jokic, weirdest year of

any good player this season. If you catch him almost by the quarter, you're like, is this guy, is he hurt? Is he about to have knee surgery? And then you watch another quarter, you're like, oh yeah, he's one of the best eight players in the league. And it just really depends on the quarter. And he has like five or six goofy moments every game where like if he touches the ball when he wasn't supposed to he's like oh you know sorry here's a

question for you though do you think that during the course of his his game his arms get so red from just all the all the interior play that his passes become harder to detect because the ball is the same skin color as his red arms. Has anybody else pointed this out? It is like he is in the Hall of Fame of... We got to trade. We gotam trade. Marcus Morris and Isaiah Thomas are the Clippers.

Jerome Robinson is one of the Wizards. Mo Park is one of the Clippers. Okay, so that's a three-teamer now with Isaiah Thomas going to the Clippers. Mixed reviews on him this year. Yeah, you know, anytime you talk about Isaiah, it's almost like, oh, you know, one of those deals. Yeah, it is. So there was a tweet, the Celtics basically, Keith Smith, at Keith Smith NBA.

He said one of the teams heavily engaged around the league in trade talks is the Boston Celtics. Not in Capella though. I was told that that was a- That was an anger. It was a Maury special on that one. Can you imagine running a team where you're just like sitting in your office having lunch at 1230 and then some tweet comes out, you're heavily engaged and talks with Clint Capella and you're like, fucking Daryl. What a dick. Why does he do that?

I bet you. Well, you know, because you know what happened? Like the deal was close. The four team deal with Capella. And then my favorite Capella anecdote was, is he the lowest-ranked player to ever be somebody classified as we need to send this guy to the other conference? Like, who's been less talented?

I kind of like Clint Capella in certain spells. So you're saying Clint Capella they weren't afraid he was going to come back to haunt them? I think Clint Capella should be the floor of, if we do move this guy, there's no fucking way we can go through him in the playoffs.

Who had more red blotches on their body, Larry Bird or Nikola Jokic in their prime? Jokic, I think. I think he slaps himself a little bit. It looks like he's had

a physical where he's had blood drawn and he accidentally fell down the stairs. When you watch Jokic, though, and I've done this comp before, he looks like this sort of heavier kid

that doesn't have any friends at recess, like, in fifth or sixth grade, and he's bigger than everybody, but the cool kids still pick on him. And then he just decides, like, one day at recess, he's absolutely had it and starts beating the hell out of four kids at the same time.

And he's red, and he has boogers coming down his nose. And he ends up on one of the fight video accounts that Kyle follows. Yeah, right. Those are still... 30-second fights that Kyle follows. Yeah, right. Those are still- 30 second fights. The best. Kyle loves those.

Big playground brought it in, 30 second fights. That's definitely one of those things as you get older, you go, okay, I can't watch this. I follow at least five of those accounts. And I actually think I have a better sense of what works and what doesn't work now if you're fighting somebody outside. Do you like, you're a better fighter just based on technique. I feel like, yeah, if it ever happens, I know what, you don't want to go backwards. You don't want to keep your hands up like this. You want to be forward and fast. Right. That seems like what works. It's like my bike videos.

We'll be back after this. Oh, okay. We'll take a break to talk about the evolving worlds of Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Online which had a record-breaking holiday season more players than ever to celebrate Rockstar Games

is offering huge bonuses to players in both GTA Online and Red Dead Online which is your group GTA or Red Dead I'm a writer now so I haven't played

video games in two years starting January 30th get a cash bonus I love both though I love both titles GTA is an all-time hall of fame. It's just top five greatest game of all time.

I might get back in. If I do sell a script, I'm going to be right back in a Grand Theft Auto. Get a cash bonus of up to $2 million GTA by playing once each week before February 12th. Red Dead Online players will receive free gifts of items, including the Gunslinger's Cache, the Bounty Hunter's Kit,

and more with loads of new gameplay across two thriving living worlds. There's never been a better time to play GTA Online and Red Dead Online. Wait, we got to talk about what Houston did. Sorry, Sean, you. Houston traded Clint Capella and Chris Paul in two first round picks for Russell Westbrook, Robert Covington, and Jordan Bell. And they got rid of Jordan Bell.

If you look at those two trades together, I think Chris Paul is the best player in the trade. I'd rather have him than Westbrook, the way Chris Paul's playing this year. They basically got the second and fourth best players in the trade because I think Capella is more valuable than Covington.

So the four players they got, they got the second and fourth best players this season and gave up two first round picks. And now they have no size. I think it's idiotic. I don't understand it. I don't know if the owner is telling Daryl to do this stuff. This stuff is so, those trades are so uncharacteristic

of how Daryl has built that team since 06. We're just throwing away first-pound pick. Daryl hoarded first-round picks like the fucking uncut gemstone that KG had. He never wanted to trade first-round picks unless it was a shitty one. He certainly didn't want to not put protections on them and all the shit they did. He was the guy that was coming up with like middle protection. Like Darryl was inventing stuff.

Yeah, he was inventing stuff to not get burned on a first round pick. And Covington, who in a Celtics Sixers playoff series two years ago, was one of the MVPs for the Celtics. Because it was like, can you, I really hope Covington shoots this time and the ball doesn't go to the guys who are the good offensive players and then he turns into this alleged uh massive asset which i agree he's good defensively but that seems like a sideways move to me at worst i don't get it okay i don't think there's anyone who knows daryl and he'll never admit it because he works for people and he's never told me this like as i you and i joke about it's not like we're that close. Yeah, you guys are almost feuding. Yeah.

It's like a borderline feud. There will never be anyone that will convince me that he wanted to trade for Russell Westbrook and that contract. It just doesn't make any sense. Like, hey, Daryl, who do you want? You know who I'm really looking forward to adding to this team is somebody that's like a massive, like, historic high usage guy that's getting less efficient who can't shoot. When everything is about shooting now and my whole roster is about shooting. I want to add a guy that can't shoot. And we can talk about off ball cuts and all this stuff, but Harden and Westbrook are two of the least interested off ball players that are really good that I've ever seen. Like once they're off the ball, it's like, I don't want to do this. So I don't think that that was a

call at all. I think he said all the right things. That's my educated guess. And then with this, I'm sure there's still another thing to drop here for Houston to add some kind of big depth post Capella. Good luck. But I imagine that they just thought, Hey, we're just going to keep spreading this whole thing out. But I do think it's a fair question to ask because Covington become kind

of overrated through all this. Oh, a hundred percent, right? A hundred percent. Like he was nice to Philly the Philly-Boston series two years ago. He was a detriment to their team.

He was. When's the last time like he really stood out? By the way, he's almost 30. He's 29. Yeah, this kind of feels a little bit like Gerald Wallace, but Gerald Wallace

was like filthy at one point. I'm so jealous of that. If you tweeted that, I would have stolen that for the podcast and pretended I didn't see your Twitter. That's a really good one. Can I ask you this?

Oh, there's another trade. Georgie Dang? Georgie? Going to Memphis for James Johnson. James Johnson on another team. I like that Georgie Dang. I thought he was a guy I was kind of secretly hoping the Celtics would get,

and I couldn't figure out how the contracts, because I like that he's an expiring next year, but his stats weren't bad this year. I actually thought he played half decently next to Towns. Yeah, and he's been mad in Minnesota for a long time. Can we talk about the Dave Jacoby trust triangle for a second? One of Dave's, Jacoby's great theories of all time. Sure, love it.

That have stolen liberally. There's three people and they all know each other really well. At some point, two of the people's loyalties is going to surpass the third person. Okay. So let's take me, Jalen and Jacoby, for example. I was very close to both of those guys. That's a tough one because I think we all kind of trusted each other. But let's take like me, you, and Kyle. Okay. Yeah.

I'm actually related to Kyle by marriage. Right. Trust triangle. If you tell Kyle something, odds are he's going to tell me. Yeah, I knew that. But you know that. Yeah. But some people, you might overpower, you might empower Kyle, be like, hey, don't tell

Bill this. But he's still going to tell me because I win the trust triangle between the three of us. Trust triangle, Daryl Morey, Tillman Fertitta, James Harden. I can tell you who's third. If Harden is telling the owner, we got to get Westbrook, we'll be better off. Which he did.

And then the two of them overpowered Daryl in the trust triangle and is like, you got to do this. James wants this. It's very important to me. We make James happy. I think we should really go get Russell Westbrook. And Daryl's like, all right,

I'll talk to Sam. Maybe they'll do a straight up. Andrell's like, all right, I'll talk to Sam. Maybe they'll do a straight up. And Sam's like, I want some picks. Darrell's like, well, we're not doing that. Goes back to the trust triangle.

And they're like, no, you didn't, you misunderstood. We, we want Russell Westbrook. And now he's giving up two first round picks in that deal. One of the things he did say though.

That's just a theory. Right. Which was just a, right which was just uh i obviously i'm friends with daryl but he i've never talked to him about that i swear on my kids yeah i don't he's he wouldn't share with me and some scuttlebutt around the league that maybe he didn't want to make that trade well because he i don't think that he did i don't i don't feel like i have to hear from him directly that he was like hey actually i didn't want to make that trade and part of being a good employee would be never admitting it to you,

his friend, anyway. Yeah. Well, we saw him in Vegas, and he seemed pretty pessimistic. He was like, no, we're not doing the trade. What do you mean? When I told him they were going to trade Chris Paul, and he said, we're not?

Yeah. And he was like, we just almost beat the best team in the league. Yeah. And we won 65 games two years ago why would i trade chris paul he had a whole thing and by the way the westbrook deal like you had to give up picks because westbrook was considered the better player paul's injury history westbrook's never i mean like he's had injuries but like you feel like westbrook's gonna hold up

although his declining athleticism scares me at least what we saw this year but to be fair to westbrook like ever since it looked just abysmal, he has played better. He's had a nice scoring run here. I don't know if this is real. It's tough to bet on those two guys in the playoffs. But he's $39 million, $41 million, $44 million, and then a player option for $47 million.

So he's got that extra year. He has the extra year. Yeah, he has the extra year, and you gave up the first. But what Daryl, the one nice thing Daryl did say to me. I thought Paul had the lugger. Oh, that's brutal. No, no. Oh, my God. But Daryl was like, one thing you've been saying

that I don't think makes you a total idiot, Russillo, was he goes, your whole thing on how overrated the last, like the back end, the back third of the first round picks are. So that's something you're just seeing guys be like, all right, fine, like 27, yay. overrated the last like the back end the back third of the first round picks are so you know that's something you're just seeing guys be like all right fine like 27 yay but gms love going oh you know we have two firsts coming in you're like okay you're gonna be drafting a kid from like virginia tech look at the celtics they had three firsts last year none of them played more than 12 minutes a game yeah they had multiple years with these three picks and you just go oh my gosh this

is great and then speaking of celtics adam himmelsbach per league sources the Celtics did not make a trade before the deadline oh five minutes passed yeah exciting five minutes passed um seems like a good time for a break let's take a break to talk about our friend Chris Long who how about the year that guy had what a victory lap for him after an incredible stretch of Mondays on your podcast. America was into it. I miss it.

It's like, there's going to be next week. No you and no Chris Long. I know. I feel like I got to come out of the gates on Monday with like a big guest, a couple of things in the works. No,

don't worry about it. It'll be right after Oscar Sunday though, so you never know. I've been invited out. Carissa Thompson was a co-host this week. I heard. We just did a best friend pod. Yeah.

And I don't know. I don't know how people felt about it. She's a good storyteller. Great story at Fox. But she invited me to some Oscar stuff this Sunday. So who knows who I run into. Well, I'm sure that'll be on your pod. Yeah.

But Chris Long. Yes, back to him. Chalk Media. He didn't disappear. He is still on Chalk Media. You can check it out. Chalk Media. He didn't disappear. He is still on Chalk Media. You can check it out, their YouTube channel.

He also has his own podcast, which he's going to continue to do, right? Yep. Have you done that one? I have. Is it my feelings beheard that he's never asked me to do any media on Chalk Media? I can arrange that immediately.

I just feel like it should come from him. I don't want a middleman. If I'm not good enough for Chris Long, that's fine. I guarantee it's the opposite of that. It's him not thinking you would do it. So go to the YouTube channel. It's called Chalk Media. The interviews, like his Aaron

Donald thing, when he sits down with him and they start chatting, it's awesome. Like their first minute talking D-line technique, he and Aaron Donald, when I watched that, I was like, oh my God, this is unbelievable. So it's good stuff. Check it out. Chalk Media, Chris Long, great job. We love having you on The R this is unbelievable. So it's good stuff. Check it out. Chalk Media, Chris Long. Great job.

We love to have you on The Ringer. Let's get back to the pod. We're back. Can we talk about, let's get that weird Cavs trade out of the way. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Pistons trade what I would call cap crap. Yep.

John Henson, 40-14. I don't know how old he is. I think, wasn't he on the Louisville team with Purvis Ellison? He's a North Carolina guy, but I think they played against each other. Was he on the North Carolina team with Rasheed Wallace and Vince Carter? Yeah, he backed them up.

I honestly have no idea how long he's been in the league. He's been around, but he has like a weird like young face with old hairline. I went to a Celtics-Cavs game in Boston over the holidays, and I saw him, and I was like, John Henson, what are you doing here? Did you ever have a moment where you're like,

this guy just gets some more touches? Right. He could be the next Thon maker. Yeah, string bean centers are going to come around. So Pistons get a bunch of crap. Cavs get Andre Drummond. They're going to put Andre Drummond together with Kevin Love and basically try to break the brain of anyone who's ever believed

in any sort of modern basketball. So Drummond, this one, this is all speculation here, okay? He's a 28.7 player option for next year. But we know... There's no free agents. There's not many teams with cap space. And he just played on a bad team, i could trade it to a worse one i'm wondering if this is one of those deals where a front office is talking to the agent they go hey do you know what you want to do okay well how about you do this how about you opt in you give it another

year drummond's still young enough i watched the whole drummond sons game last night because i wanted to watch he and ayton and ititon. Even I didn't do that. I was trying to get ready for this. This is where you go to another level than me. Where you're like Aiton-Drummond. Pistons-Sons. I have notes. You want to look at some? Your fucking chater's like

the Pistons are playing the Sons? Rubio is great for Aiton. Aiton cuts hard. He says it right there. Drummond puts up these absurd numbers. I just go on through it. Seven straight years, the number one offensive rebounding player in the league. He's on pace to be the number one rebounding player for the fifth straight year. He's been number one in defensive win shares twice.

Three years of 17-16, and his free throws are gone from like 30% to 60%. And yet you watch it, and you go, he kind of just gets the ball, and he looks around. It's tough. You don't, like, would we have thought this guy was awesome in the 90s? Because this trade is like, oh, they got Drummond? Like, do you want him? And honestly, the Pistons got nothing for him, and it's only that one year.

There has to be some understanding, Colby Altman and the agent here with Drummond going like, what do you think your plan's going to be? And maybe we'll figure it out. I don't know. This is where I'm glad I'm here. Because this is one of the few things I'm really good at is tying in useless NBA history for the past 50 years into a current player.

There's always a center like this that puts up stats and you don't win with them. And you go back to like Walt Bellamy in the 1960s. It was like, Walt Bellamy, man, you look at those stats, man. Putting up big numbers. And there was this, I put this in my book, there was this writer, George Casita, who was like the legendary,

he was like the Woj of the 1960s. No kidding. And he said, Walt Bellamy was the skeleton of the 20,000 point club was one of his lines about him. Cause everyone during the sixties was like, well, that fucking guy, you're not winning with him. And it's like, you have Chamberlain, you have Russell, you have all these, and then it's like, ah, you have Walt Bellamy.

Teams are taking chances on him. I think the Knicks traded him for a debusher and then they end up going on their whole run. But he's like, so you go through the rest of the decades and it's like, yeah, in the eighties, it was Joe Barry Carroll.

We, we had early eighties, right? We had Benoit Benjamin, Benoit Benjamin, where you're like, oh man, man,

you look at Benoit's per 36 and you go all the way through. And now it's Andre Drummond. I don't think he's a bad guy. I just don't think you can actually win basketball games if he's on your team as one of the three highest pick guys. Bellamy scored in his first. You love this. Well, Bellamy, he was like 30 and 20 his rookie year 31 in 20 as a rookie 28 and 16 27 and 17 the rebounding numbers though when you go back to that era as you know like the shot attempts how quickly they brought it down like pace has definitely picked back up and i and i want to go back and compare some of that stuff but like anytime i look at rebounding numbers from that

era you go okay well this is just It's completely out of whack. Yeah. But the Drummond thing, I just don't know if he's going to be expensive. There's no recipe to him helping an actual playoff team. Like a real team that has a chance to go a couple rounds. If he's $8 million a year, if he's Montrezl Harrell money, if he's like in the Zubat spot making 7 million a year for three years, great. But the problem with these guys is he's not going to make that because somebody is going to be dumb enough to go. Yeah.

All right. 75 for three. Yeah. I don't, I don't. And where are you going? Once you do that. Today's game too,

man. I mean, I look at it and go like, would he work on any team? Like, would he work, you know, the 27 million is a totally different thing, but would he, would he work on any team? Like, would he work, you know, the 27 million is a totally

different thing, but would he, would he be a plus? Like you run down that resume as I was looking at it last night. I'm like, there's so many great, like if you're the GM and you're introducing him, you have that whole thing rehearsed. You can't wait to say all those things. That was like Chris Wallace when they traded for Vin Baker and he goes against the East. He was a 21 and 12 guy. And immediately I go home, barely had internet that worked. And I went through it and I was like, that was against 16 teams. I was so pissed. I was like, you, you, you misled us, Chris Wallace.

Unfortunately, it was 21 beers and 12 shots. He had his stats wrong. The, uh, no trades for the Indiana Pacers, no trades for the Oklahoma city thunder. Should mention that the Oklahoma city thing's important. Cause a lot of people thought Miami was getting Gowanari. Well, I want to talk about them in one second. We have to do Miami. Yeah. Let's, let's mention that. The Oklahoma City thing's important because a lot of people thought Miami was getting Gallinari. I want to talk about them in one second. We have to do Miami.

Yeah, let's do that. Let's put a bow on the Cavs, though. I just don't know. What does Kobe Altman, who I remember when he got hired and it was like a lot of great hire Twitter with the writers. I just think he's been bad. I don't really agree with anything he's done. I think it's all Gilbert.

Maybe it is all Gilbert. I don't know, but Gilbert's been in the hospital the last nine months. I don't really agree with anything he's done maybe it is all Gilbert I don't know but Gilbert's been in the hospital the last nine months I don't know how involved he is anymore there doesn't seem any rhyme or reason to the team they're putting together they have these two guards that I don't think can play together I don't blame them for drafting when they did with the two guys and thinking like hey we have two guys that can probably create

their own and get a shot going and they're both athletic but they're like it's a bad duplication the love contract which i defended at the time i'll take the loss on it i was like well then he's an asset you did it for pr it felt like but but it's like well they can flip that at some point they'll be able to trade but this has been one of the biggest disconnects in the league if you talk to guys it's like wait a minute i didn't know we're giving like we're hooking you up by taking Love's contract. Cleveland Forever was like, I mean,

one of my favorite things I heard this summer, like a beeline system, like Love, you're going to get a lot for him. People forget he's even on the team now. I had Celtics fans in my life texting me like, you think we could get Love for Hayward? I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that in 10 million years.

Where's Kevin Love? Where's he going to play? Is he going to be the five? Is he? And I think there's these guys that just have trouble fitting in with the way basketball is being played now. And he's one of them. Drummond's another one.

And they basically doubled down and were like, ah. But Love's like a really good example of some of these guys that we absolutely adore because of the stats. And then you go, okay, well, what's happening here? Well, well going back to minnesota he's your best guy right you're not winning ever and his numbers were insane yeah rebounding numbers then he starts stretching the floor i mean he was and then rambis rambis is like in the beginning remember what they did with him like okay that's great you're scoring all these points you have all these rebounds but you don't defend and we're not closing the game with you there yeah And then they didn't give him the extra year. I mean,

we're doing a Kevin Love biopic here, but, uh, well, but I think it's interesting that he wanted to get traded two months ago and they literally could not trade him. Yeah. People were like, no, we're doing you the favor. Like you're not trading us an asset. We're taking this off. So I didn't, I had never heard that. I listened to, uh, our friends, Windhorst and Zach a couple of days ago. And Windhorst was talking about their shopping love. Like we'll take a first and an expiring and teams were telling them, no, you'll give us the first.

Yeah. If we're taking that, we're not taking that unless you give us something. And I thought that's, that's a pretty big loss for, for Kevin Love. Okay. Let's talk about,

by the way, just, I just think it's worth mentioning like because kevin love the next two years is 31.2 29 you know i'm saying like we're we're still at 60 million plus i know what you're saying and what you're saying is yikes yeah that's a you know hey look we're just trying to feed the kids info it's a trade it's a trade piece that like michael jordan peak terrible michael jordan trade would have been like ah we'll take them info. It's a trade. It's a trade piece that like Michael Jordan peak, terrible Michael Jordan trade would have been like, ah, we'll take them. It's good. How about some expirings for him?

I'll throw in a first. I'll protect it. Top five. We didn't give up too much. And now you have this guy who's basically Nick Batum clogging up here. It's too bad. And I don't think this is necessarily Kevin Love's fault, but sometimes when you're that expensive, you basically priced yourself out of being on a good team because any good team is going to want to be paying $29 million for a top three that actually helps them win the title. You know, and then you think back to one of the most interesting, I think fork in the road moments of the decade, last decade, was Golden State with the Klay Thompson-Kevin Love thing. It's unbelievable, right? It's like he honestly did a documentary about it sets up the next five years of NBA history and how split people were, not just like publicly.

I thought they should have done it. But internally, where you had these two groups and you had one side saying do not trade clay thompson him and steph together this is where basketball is going and the other side like oh kevin love 25 and 13 put him in with steph pick and rolls yeah no we need a front court we have some depth and you know you remember clay like as much as like the siakam story is amazing um obviously yannis and another level like butler and kawaii like i always feel like guys that are great are great right away but we've had a nice handful of players they're like some of the best players in this game where you go it took a lot longer for these guys to develop

that's not normally how it works out yeah but clay to a lesser degree i think is overlooked in his improvement because he had he had a stretch there where it looked like he could not actually dribble like everything was very yeah and everything he got was dependent upon somebody else getting him set up now he got better at handling but i think one of the things that i know that i made a mistake with on him was that you know how amazing that is that you can score 30 and dribble seven times like some of these numbers that he's had over his career yeah like he had 40 and 11 dribbles like what do you think that's insane i mean what did he have 60 and three quarters or 51 and three quarters and uh i sent a tweet about how mad i was when they benched him miami it seems like they're only ending up with justice winslow for a good dollar it seems like

jackson is that right is that how this netted out? Yeah. Kevin, Kevin tweeted basically that they couldn't agree on the Gallo deal because Kevin Costner, Kevin Costner tweeted about it. So they wanted to re-sign Gallo for an extra year. Didn't happen. I was shocked when I saw this trade for a couple of reasons. And then all of a sudden I realized what happened.

So I'm going to walk through that process really quick. Don't take, take a long time to do. No, I'm going to go quick. I think a good dollar is at a really dangerous stage of his career physically. And I thought he broke down the last two seasons and I don't think he's the asset.

People seem to think he is. I think he's a great guy to have. He's certainly not somebody I would trade justice Winslow for. The counter with Winslow is that he has trouble great guy to have. He's certainly not somebody I would trade Justice Winslow for. The counter with Winslow is that he has trouble staying on the court. Just for whatever reason, you can't keep them together for eight months. I thought it was an incredible deal for Memphis, where you have this guy who doesn't want to be there anyway.

I'd much rather have a guaranteed guy under a good contract than the 22nd pick in the draft or whatever you're being offered. I didn't understand why Miami did this, and then I understood. So short-term, Riley thinks they have a chance maybe to sneak out of the East. And if Iguodala is resembling the old Iguodala, great. That's going to be a better asset for them in Windsor. More importantly, in the piece that I'm not sure people have hammered enough, he gets out of the third year of Winslow's

deal. I think Miami has been thinking about summer 2021 this whole time. They want to get to 2021 with Jimmy Butler's deal under contract. That's it. He's going to be making $35, $36, $38 million. I don't remember what it is.

I think they want to go for Giannis, and I think they want to go for Oladipo. Those would be my top two picks for them and whoever else is available in 2021. But I think this is about Giannis and about knowing that if you're going to try to get Giannis, he needs to be with a second guy, whoever that is. It's Oladipo or who are the other free agents available in 2021?

Um, I'll have to, I mean, there's some great ones, but to get Giannis, you need him to have his buddy, his buddy cop guy that goes with him. And you already have Butler in place and Winslow making $13 million that

summer is a problem. And they could have gotten rid of that contract. Now gives them more flexibility, the whole thing. So I think that's what they were thinking. All right. Winslow's played 11 games this year. And the only time he's ever really looked sort of unlocked is when he played point guard.

Last year. That has been the best stretch of numbers that I've seen from him. And I think we've all fell in love with like what Winslow could be. But, you know, if we do a part two of that NBA support group thing, like Winslow would be a candidate

for somebody being like, maybe it's time for me to give up here. So I know the smart teams are on him. Yeah. But because there's some advanced metric shit with him and how he fits in with the other guys that I think is actually really positive for him. Like when he's playing, when he's healthy, I do think he's, I do think he's an asset, but you're right. Kawhi and George can opt out. Gordon Hayward's up. Conley. I mean, you know,

I'm going through some of these guys. That's the Anthony Davis thing, depending on how he does the extension. And Oladipo, it was good to see him back last night in an epic collapse against Toronto. People got to understand, like, hey, Toronto's going to play their asses off

those last couple minutes. They're going to press you. Like, you got to put in some anti-press stuff, you know, like you ever watch a college game where you're like, did you guys never practice against the press? And it sounds funny that it happens to NBA guys, but it's the whole zone thing. If you played zone all the time, you get killed eventually.

You would. But when you do it to just screw somebody up, it really is. I don't care if you're 25 or 27 and a bunch of years in the league, it messes you up. Like, okay, don't dribble to the corner. You know, throw it back middle, throw it backwards, swing it to the other side.

And like the Pacers melted down. I want to see Oladipo get back to what he was where, you know, he's had some shooting stretches here where they haven't been great. I'm not necessarily holding that against him. I think it's a strange fit. With him and all those other guys?

Well, because they really established a nice offensive chemistry without him. I think it's a strange fit. With him and all those other guys? Well, because they really established a nice offensive chemistry without him. They're really fun to watch. I think the way Brogdon runs that team, the last time we were here together, I picked him for the All-Star team. Yeah, and then Sabonis, and you look at, like,

Miles is always a little... And they have heat check guys in the red spots. But, like, watching them last night, thinking they were going to get that win against Toronto, and Toronto goes an 11-0 run to close the game, I'm thinking this is a nice win from this group, man.

This is a really nice win. Now, granted, Norman Powell's out, but then Terrence Davis steps up. I want to talk about Indiana in a second. Wait a minute, where were we? We were talking about Justice Winslow in Miami. I don't think it matters for Miami. Because, look, the fact that Duncan Robinson is who he is watching that guy cut off the

ball. Like there's high school coaches in Indiana right now that canceled Pornhub. Right. And they're like, I'm going to watch this instead. Or they're searching Pornhub for Duncan Robinson. That Kendrick Nunn is a little bit like Lou Williams is my hero.

Okay. There's a little of none where you're like, but the fact that he is, that is insane. And then the fact that hero is that is insane and then the fact that hero who kind of looked like the odd man out early on like the heat have added if you include butler and bam's improvement bam's gone from like hey nice little guy to i can't believe the decisions that he makes as a guy playing the five in this game that's like five

new dudes that all help this team out right now and And that's where I think they look at Winslow going, yes. But your Iguodala concern is probably fair too. Well, I think they obviously decided Winslow wouldn't be playing crunch time for them in a playoff game. No chance. I mean, he's not playing now. Iguodala gives him the veteran, the potential lockdown guy. I'm just really dubious that he's going to help them. I think he, first of all, he's 36 years old.

I'm going to look it up too. A ton of miles on him. I think he's got like what? He's got like over 1,100 regular season games and over 140 or 150 playoff games. And those playoff games, I always count as like one and a half. Every playoff game counts as one and a half games because they're so intense.

I started to think too. And yeah, no, it was happening the last couple of years. And I'll go through the game logs here too. I just think that's a tough position to keep going at a high level. When you're 36 with all the shit that he's gone through and the various injuries he's had, to expect him to swing two playoff series for you seems a little unrealistic. I felt like he became somebody who, like, is a three-point shooter. Trade?

It's not a trade. but I felt like he became somebody who like as a three point shooter. Trade. Oh, congratulations. Jair Smith and Darren Carlson. Two more guys who think they should play on the lake. Carlson like that, that had been out there whether it was going to be the Clippers. So they wave Rondo. That. So they waive Rondo? That's been bad.

The Rondo stuff. I feel like I know basketball really well. I did not see the Rondo second half of his career just turning into like kind of not really an asset stage happening. Yeah, but remember when he had that revival though with New Orleans? And you're like, wait a minute.

And that was kind of the Rondo thing. It it's like you think everybody's critical of you you just proved how much you mail it in at times i mean he even on his way out of boston was like you know i didn't really play defense last couple years yeah admitted it you would just admitted it uh i thought physically he was moving around really well at the beginning of the year watching lakers games i'm like look at this guy he's Is he like guard Roy Hibbert where the league just moved against him in this really dramatic way

and reduced? This guy in 2010 was the best player in a series with LeBron James in a back-to-back MVP year. He outplayed LeBron James in a playoff series

and sent him home packing. Rajon Rondo. Remember his bowl series? It's not like he was just good. Right. Remember the bowl series before that? he was like just good right remember the bowl series he was fucking awesome

before that he was unbelievable what about 2012 like he was the best player on that team that team almost made the finals I don't understand it

I mean I understand it because I know the math has moved a certain way and who knows but it's weird since the knee injury was never really able to recapture

where he was but for somebody that everybody's always like look how smart he is look how able to recapture where he was. But for somebody that everybody's always like, look how smart he is, look how smart he is. I mean, he was somebody last year that just,

he becomes so defiant. Like, Rick Carlisle is probably one of the smartest guys that probably does the most with the least more often than not. Like,

I look back to the Mavs record last year, I'm like, how the hell did that team win that many games? And other people just go, look, Rick's that good.

And Rondo completely checked out on him. And and then last year it was like a mutiny against luke and then he sits down rondo sits down in the stands and then he like got pissed at everybody for pointing out that that's kind of a beat move like why are you doing that like you're clearly showing them up you've been in this league a long time i mean that goes all the way back to kentucky that is talented as rondo was he was somebody that was always a little difficult to get along with. So now, when you see the decline in play, I'm just, I had a moment in the beginning of this year where I thought, oh, okay, this makes sense.

And LeBron's always liked him. Like, LeBron's always wanted to play with him, always liked him a lot. And that's why they brought him back. I think he wants, he does definitely want a couple of those role guys that aren't going to be like, I can't believe I'm playing with LeBron James. Yeah, right. Right? So that, he's like that that boogie is kind of like that. But Caruso FaceTime, he hammered again.

Well, J.R. Smith, J.R. Smith's like, they could be hanging out three in the morning and J.R. Smith could look at LeBron and be like, I just want you to know something. I feel like I was every bit as good as you were. And he would be serious. Yeah. It was like, you know what? I, I just feel like I should get more credit for 2016. Like he would honestly believe that.

Do you guys want to watch my McDonald's high school game again? I was fucking great in high school. His McDonald's game is one of the all timers. The Miami thing, I don't think they did enough. I thought they were on the fringes if they could have pulled off the Gallinari thing. And I think it's really interesting

that they wouldn't agree to an extension with them because that goes back to my Giannis theory. I think it's really interesting that they wouldn't agree to an extension with him because that goes back to my Giannis theory. I think they're all in on Giannis. Look, maybe the Winslow thing works in Memphis. No pressure your way from all that stuff.

But it's not like Winslow is going to have the ball in his hands a ton with Ja. They cleared the money off of that. They changed the way they did the contract structure with Iguodala. I think they want a guy

that's a bit more of a warrior, even though I think Iguodala became kind of like a marginal closeout guy towards the end where there were warriors, where before it's like you've got to make sure you get a hand in his face. And sometimes you're like, all right, maybe we'll let him take a couple and kind of see where he's at tonight. He should be rested. He should be good to go.

And if it protects their future thing, and you throw in Jay Crowder, who I feel like everybody's like, we got Jay Crowder. And it maybe doesn't work out. He's a little Marcus Morrissey where he actually, when you have him, you go, Hey,

this guy's good. Yeah. Didn't realize. Yeah. And then he takes the biggest shot of the game with 40 seconds left. And you're like, what the fuck just happened? No.

Why did he take that? Winslow was just, wasn't going to play in this rotation. So it's a deep team. Um, I like what Miami did. And yet I would, you know, these buyout guys,

we get really excited about them. Like remember Damon Stoudemire towards the end? It's like, oh, the Spurs got him. So buyout guys, I had this as a list. Reggie Jackson, possibly? He's done, right? He's- Tristan Thompson?

Tristan would be, like, I haven't done, right? Tristan Thompson? Tristan would be... I haven't always been the biggest Tristan fan, but I'm telling you, I'm still so impressed with the way that guy moves around. Reggie... When I went to that Celtics game, I was like,

this is exactly the kind of guy who would be awesome in the Celtics. He rebounds, and he rolls to the rim with his hands up, which is basically what Tice does too. Yeah, but I love the fact that... Those guys succeed on the Celtics. Like which bigs can you keep on the floor

in certain playoff matchups? Like can he switch on a small guy? Who have been in big games. Right. And he's that guy. Reggie, I don't know. I think he's a guy that can put up some numbers, but I don't know that he's ever been...

He's shooting it better this year. Can I take a victory of that? From three. He's shooting it better this year. Can I take a victory lap? On from three. He's terrible overall. Yeah. I've been saying for four months that Tristan Thompson was a buyout candidate, and I keep getting emails from Cavs fans like,

fuck you. You're going to get first. Get to number one. Yeah. That's bullshit. Well, now they just traded for Andre Drummond, and they probably signed him to an extension. Guess who's getting bought out at the end of February?

Tristan Thompson. They'll save money. They'll, they'll dump him and he's going to become easily the most important buyout guy. I wonder, uh, don't you think he's still with clutch, right?

He's gotta be. I mean, they hooked him up with that incredible deal. I'm just thinking hooked them up is one way to put it. Uh, here, here's what I'm asking though. Clippers.

Now that's somebody on the Clippers. He's perfect. He's crunch time fire for the Clippers. Okay, but do they... Does he end up on the Clippers? To defy LeBron? Yeah. I mean, if he wants to play in crunch time,

he should go to the Celtics. That would be my advice to Tristan Thompson. I want to see it just for another lame Cantor tweet pretending he's happy with it but you find out

in minute 48 on his podcast that he's kind of bummed out like anybody that's ever watched any Celtics games goes

alright they need another big like they just need like Tice is a nice player Cantor has his moments can I can I push back on that

you think they're good no I don't because i look they're better than the sixers have been i do like the canner tice combo i think they need a third guy because i'm worried about injury and i'm worried about foul trouble right but like canner anytime somebody says like they need help up front like acts like it's this you know active she's personally insulted by it she's like okay i it. I would like to see them get another person. So we don't think Miami did enough.

Do we think Philly did enough? They added Alec Burks and Big Dog Jr. Gave up a couple second rounders, got Golden State some tax relief. Alec Burks was good

this year. I was actually really surprised Golden State didn't keep him. Alec Burks is somebody that you get for a couple weeks and you're like, wow,

how did we get this guy? Yeah, he's amazing. Yeah, he's amazing. Yeah, he's been on three teams now in a very short amount of time. I think they were desperate. I think they were desperate to add any kind of scoring depth. The weird thing is sometimes I think that they do have

depth, but we know their biggest issue. And I went through all the numbers. Now, whatever the offensive thing is, they're splitting up Simmons and Embiid more now and it's always weird tracking those minutes because Embb misses time so it's like what percentage of simmons minutes are by himself when mb's healthy and which percentage is it when he's not playing but now like they went from i forget what the number is like their pearl 100 possession three years ago was pretty good with the two of them on the floor yeah then it got worse and now it's like

almost below average offensively and then there's's Horford and Bede pairing numbers that are brutal. You left out the part that there's suddenly like a lot of shake Milton. Well, that's because Richardson's been out. I don't know how many games in a row it was. I just say maybe I would have, would have maybe, I just felt like, and maybe Burks, maybe they think he can kind of be the pseudo point guard spot with Simmons as the actual point guard. But I don't know.

That team seems pretty flawed to me. When they're bad, it's so, I mean, we already know this with them. But would you pick them? I mean, would you pick the Celtics against them if it's a 6-3 matchup? No. Because I wouldn't. I'd pick Philly. More talent.

But the frustrating part is. Is it more talent or is it just that a. It's just more high ceiling and I know what happened in the last game in Boston was great in that game defensively with the way they doubled

Embiid had just come back they were throwing stuff at him but I think the tragedy of this is that they were so much fun when Embiid wasn't there and it like

unlocks Simmons if I was a GM you're thinking this summer if this becomes panic town one of these guys has to go kind of stuff i'd watch those eight games you'd be like could could i build a high-powered offense around this

guy i actually think the answer is yes and i i said it before in a previous pod we did it's a little lamar jacksony like you have to construct an offense that fits what he does but i think if you did it he's gonna score 20 and get 12 and 13 every night, basically, with the right team and the right kind of usage rate. Yeah, the Heat game was bad. And then we'll see. The Heat game was, like,

kind of dangerous to me. In what way? Because that's a team that they destroyed earlier in the season. It's a pretty big game. You got your guys back. You already got embarrassed

on a Saturday night. And you get your ass kicked by Miami yeah like that game is over in the second quarter yeah I mean there's a little I mean there's always a little bit of a run now but like they were doing some two-man stuff where they were attacking like an Embiid Simmons switch I mean they only did it a couple times and I saw it I'm like oh man like Miami's so crisp like everything they do is crisp you know? And I kind of felt like that way about the Pacers a little bit last night, but I'm like, Philly's just going like what, like Philly would be trying to figure out what the switch was or where it was going or what the handoff was. And it was like, before you guys even recognize what the hell was going on. The shot was up. Well, that's a good conversation. Teams that just, because we're at 50 games now. This is where you're pretty much who you are at this point,

especially now after trade deadline. The teams that just, when you watch them, you're just like, oh yeah, they're good. Toronto, Indiana. Toronto, big time. I think Miami most nights.

They remind me of that. They're a little weird on the road. Not as bad as Philly. What's Philly like 9 and 18 on the road now? Weirdly Memphis, just the teams that know who they are and night to night, they remind me that they're a little weird on the road not as bad as Philly what's Philly like 9 and 18 weirdly Memphis no just the teams that know who they are

and night to night they're gonna do what they do the Dallas when Donchich is healthy it's a team that knows what it is and you go down

down the line there's a lot of them and I mention this because when Philly has all their guys I don't feel like they know who they are

I don't think they know. First of all, the first checkmark on the box is Embiid feeling it tonight. He's not, all right, what's our plan B? How much is he getting doubled? Like he needs to do, and I know it's the hand a little bit, but he needs to do a better job. And he was always so good at this. Like the thing that I thought made him special as a post player is like he had good awareness to skip it everything but he'll have these moments especially late

and that's kind of the knock against him be like should you give him all these touches well you should because he's really good but how well does he do against some of these doubles stagger double like hey i'll i'm not going to double you on the catch i'm going to double you on the dribble you know and it's like all right it screws me up and then if you don't have shooting around it like what am i doing passing it back out to ben simmons my favorite fake trade was conley for tobias harris utah wins the trade philly gets out of that harris contract and hopes conley's rejuvenated as their real point guard is tobias harris taller willie barton willie yeah i like to call him will. I like to call him Willie.

I like to call him Willie Barton. If you can drop 50, your name should be Willie. Can you read Tobias Harris' contract to our audience? Yeah. I would hate to for Philly fans.

I get why I did it though. You know. You do? I do. Who else did I want to compare him to? I sent you a text on this the other night. Taller Willie Barton

or more expensive... Jay Crow to? I sent you a text on this the other night. Taller Willie Barton or more expensive? Jay Crowder? No, no, no. Not Jay Crowder. Oh, my God. Look at all these texts from GMs. Mate, this joke, it's actually been built up too much now, so we're going to pass.

Look at all these jokes from GMs. No, no. I had a taller Willie Barton or more expensive somebody else. So I think there was a comp there. So I'm doing two things at once. I'm going to audible while you're looking this up.

Yep. I personally don't think Philly did enough but there you go well I don't know what they were gonna do I mean are they gonna trade Horford

can we talk about Atlanta getting Clint Capella and Dwayne Dedman yeah they got big to go with John Collins they got big what's the purpose uh by the way

Tobias Harris uh 35 million then 36 next year 37.6 and then an almost 40 million uh that's 23 24 and i had heard like tobias is like look i just all right that's cool i'll take this

and then we'll figure it out later tobias is like he's getting read the numbers is like 40 and you're far yeah 40 total oh 40 and if say yes right now, they can't back out, right? And remember, he wasn't going to take those extensions where it's like, well, you can take it now or make way more later on. Atlanta. Atlanta. Yeah. Clint Capella and Dwayne Dedman, who has two more years on his contract after this one

and who is just demonstrably unhappy. Fine. He tried to make our all-miserable first team. He's a backup. It was too crowded. We made him a backup. He tried to make our all-miserable first team. He's a backup. It was too crowded. We made him a backup. Apologies to him. But yeah,

so I don't know what Atlanta's doing. I don't know what to make of anything they're doing except for that Trae Young's been playing really well for them. Shout out to him.

Can I ask you- He's feisty night after night after night. He's a fucking handful. I still don't know- He gets officiated like he's been playing 10 years in the league

it's unbelievable I can't believe the calls that he gets now the Trae Youngites are gonna come out no it's fair the Traethers did you just come up with that

yeah I just did right now that's good the Traethers you're back is Bill Simmons back fucking back got that Swedish blood running through me

I'm feeling great so the Traethers yeah that's good. You should make a shirt. Trathers? Yeah. Can we make that a shirt?

Get on that, guys. Make it like an off-white hoodie and the kids are going to love it. Off-white was huge in South Beach this week. Off-white's great. The Clippers went for it. They made those awesome

LA Clippers sweatshirts. My Ben Simmons has a Clippers sweatshirt that he wears not because I like the Clippers because it's Clippers sweatshirts. My Ben Simmons has a Clippers sweatshirt that he wears, not because I like the Clippers, because it's a cool sweatshirt. He wanted to make that clear. Do you think that Ben Simmons will last longer with Embiid or your Ben Simmons will last longer with you?

Who's going to play more years with them going forward? I don't know. It's dicey. I feel like you have a longer term deal with your Ben. You know, the Simmons family still roots for Philly Ben Simmons. Do you? We do. That surprises me.

I was worried for about a year that he might be the next LeBron James and that would be weird for my son. But now it's in a great spot. He just has the same name as a frustratingly talented. You guys had like a cute little Twitter thing going on when he was in college. I was rooting for him. I didn't like when he laid over in the OSU season. I don't think he really did. That season was a mess. He kind of.

Yeah. But if you have that many rebounds, you're not some guy that's not putting in effort. I thought it was like four guys that all thought they were the guy. There were all these wings. The coaching wasn't terrific. Whatever. I have an incredibly important question for you. That's your OSU recap from four years ago. Do you think you could hold this podcast alone for three minutes while I go pee? Yeah. Yeah. I think I can do that. This is great. Guys,

we're making history right now. Rosillo solo. I'm still trying to find, I'm still trying to find that, um, that joke. That's just not going to be funny enough to go ahead and do this. So I guess that's it.

So I guess that's it for the trades. Um, I just wanted to do a quick recap on the Mookie Betts trade. So it's two players, Verdugos, who's just one guy. And anytime you can

sign or trade for a reliever that weighs 270 plus and has already had a blown out elbow for two plus years, you obviously have to go ahead and make that trade um this is the mookie segment though for all the baseball writers out there they're far smarter than i am about this because you remind us all the time if the best you can do is verdugo and a prospect who's already blown out his elbow there's a really good chance you can do

that well again during the all-star break. And that was talking baseball. I want to talk Celtics when Bill isn't here, just to bum him out a little bit and be like, oh, what did I miss? Do you want something, Ursula? Do I need something? Yeah, Boston made several strong offers for Davis Bertons, but the Wizards wouldn't budge.

No, Davis Bertons is not somebody you just give away. I had heard Philly was hot on him, but Philly didn't really have a lot of trade assets outside of their main guys. And a lot like, like Philly has this thing where I guess you could still kind of hold out hope that if everybody's playing together all at the same time and you figure out these rotations, I don't know. Look, I picked them to come out of the East. Philadelphia is easily the most disappointing team in the NBA. I don't really know how that's even debatable. I guess you could say Houston a little bit, but obviously you guys know that I'm not the biggest Rockets guy in California.

But the Celtics, this rotation, this turnover of guys never being... Do you remember when Wu-Tang toured with Rage Against the Machine? I think it was in the late 90s. I don't think any of the staffers here are going to remember that. But at one point, Wu-Tang and Rage toured together. And what ended up happening was when you saw Wu-Tang, you didn't know who was going to show up. Like Wu-Tang would just...

Like they walk into. No. I'm comparing the Boston Celtics to Wu-Tang when they toured with Rage Against the Machine. So what happened was they canceled. I think they ended up canceling this whole tour. 97. Yeah, 97.

Because I remember that because it was the year I was supposed to graduate. And they were like, all right, enough. Because Wu-Tang was 10 deep, 13 deep. And they thought, look, if six of us show up, that's still sort of like getting Wu-Tang. Yeah. And yet the Celtics feel a little bit like that. I'd like to see a 20-game stretch where all those guys play together my Tatum ceiling was revisited probably a month or so ago where I go Tatum the the true believers and even I wavered last year it's so you think it's good now it's like he's no more doubt

of Tatum is allowed because you know what stat i'm just gonna sorry i have to finish this part go there was a stat i think it was he's like hey his longest stretch ever of 20 plus points per game six games doubling his previous longest stretch and i go that's great but isn't that a little weird that his third year he had never had more than three games in a row with 20 points. Yeah. So, I don't know. That's what I feel good about. I think... This is it. He's turned the corner. I think he has elevated his

ability to finish from eight feet and in, which was the flaw in his game. He would either lose the ball. Last year his ball handling wasn't great. Or he'd make the perfect move and the ball would go off the backboard. Or he'd roll in and out. Twanitis.

It's starting to happen. I'm just telling you. It's starting to happen. So this is it. So he is going to be the face of a franchise on a good team. Sometimes when he would drive to the basket, it was like it had never happened in his life before. The way he would, you know, he'd go a little too fast.

Now there's like a calm about him when he's doing some of this stuff that's starting to look a little t-mac ish oh yeah yeah he's i my big thing with him is like if he's just never going to be able to finish you're never going to be a great scorer i what we're starting to see there's no way he shouldn't be able to finish. He's got... And he can go left or right. He's got long-ass spider arms. Spider-man arms. I have some bad news.

The Clippers will not be keeping Isaiah Thomas. Jeez. Do you remember the Isaiah Thomas thing? Look, if we would do a quick revisit of the Isaiah Thomas timeline,

what he did for Boston was incredible. I still think people have to understand that the second best offensive player on the team was Avery Bradley, so everything was set up for Isaiah. Every single possession, high screen roll. But he did it. He produced. And they beat that Wizards team that they probably shouldn't have beaten. I mean, when you looked at that Wizards team, you go, you guys are just mentally not tough enough.

I'm not saying like curious, mentally soft close to it tennis reference and so my favorite my favorite male tennis player oh are you serious i'm always it's like watching somebody walk on the third rail of a subway but you're a big mackinac guy right no i'm right now the guy the guy i like watching the most is curious i'm just rooting for him to put it together and I know he never will. Yeah. He's just going to melt down in a match at some point. And each time I watch, I'm like, this is the time he's not going to melt down.

And then he melts down. No, you're right though because there's like, okay, that's the point you lost and now you're going to break something. Now you're going to yell. And now you're going to lose the next 11 points. And the thing that sucks about tennis is if you're mentally soft, you can't hide. No. Like there's guys playing in games all the time that we don't really get to notice like oh because football there's a million dudes out there basketball basketball a little bit here there golf's like that too by the way if you bogey 15 i remember you're just shot

for the last three holes because you had a bogey of the red socks in 03 after the fact when they had that yankee series we all know the the game. The Boone walk-off. Yeah. They traded Mookie Betts this week, by the way. He was like, I would sit there and pray the ball wasn't hit to me. You imagine being a major leaguer, like a good one. You're like, I just don't want the ball hit to me in Yankee Stadium. We're ending the podcast with Mookie Betts.

I have a tweet to read from you. From Andre Drummond. To me? He just did this tweet to read from you from Andre Drummond. To me? He just did this tweet to the world. Oh. If there's one thing I learned about the NBA, there's no friends or loyalty.

So that was a good clubhouse. I've given my heart and soul to the Pistons and to be have this happen, typo, to be have this happen with no heads up makes me realize even more that this is just a business, exclamation point. I love you, Detroit, dot, dot, dot. Wow. It's emotional. It's like a 30

for 30, maybe. What if I told you a guy was traded? Did Andre not have the internet? Oh. I have more bad news. LeagueSource says there will be no buyout for Tristan Thompson

in Cleveland I just said 20 minutes ago I guarantee the buyout Kyle edit that out never happened oh shit we're taping this fuck why wouldn't they buy him out

I don't understand is that posturing I don't understand why wouldn't you save like two and a don't understand. Is that posturing? Oh, I don't understand. Why wouldn't you save like two and a half million bucks? All he's going to do is help you have a better record. So you have a worse draft pick. Why wouldn't you get rid of them? Yeah.

I don't know. They go twin towers. They're going to zag the ultimate zag Thompson and Drummond. That would be funny. Elbows double up. Like Colby Altman's got his guys in his war room. And he's like like guys have an idea let's go everyone's trying to get shooting yeah what about rebounds yeah if we win the rebounding

battle every night get 30 rebounds a night between drummond and love what does that look like what if our new thing is boxing out they miss a shot the other team we miss one chance we miss a ton of shots we're gonna have a lot of offensive rebounds right two guys pounding the boards going back old school bring back the 80s

alright we have to talk about this Houston 4 team trade that happened I don't know what to make of Atlanta what was weird to me is Bates D up was one of those guys when you watch league pass

and you go, wait, which one's Culver and which one's Bates D up? Which one's the guy they drafted? I feel like Timberwolves six pick.

The Timberwolves like uniforms at times I'd be like, oh man, Culver's moving pretty good. Oh, that's Wiggins. Like I would get so confused all the time.

Yeah, because they have the high camera angle. I don't know what the hell was going on. All the wing guys on both teams. But Bates Deop I liked. And Denver just kind of sneaks him into the trade. And he's just a throw-in.

And people, you know, he's the guy with the hyphen. But I actually feel like he could play in a playoff series for them. I can't believe I'm saying that. Yeah, I don't know. I just liked him. He's a classic 3 and D classic like the Denver ball in that deal you're like wait what they got a Rockets first that's fine but I'm just saying for like a team that and Bates the app for basically they gave up Malik Beasley who they weren't going to sign

anyway because he's a restricted free agent he's going to leave yeah they could forever they couldn't work that thing out and I actually think Beasley became a little overrated. So that four-team trade was really weird because you're just going, what is this again? It seemed like the four GMs were at a hotel bar at 3.30 in the morning

and had too much. So do you just want to trade something? Yeah. What do you got? Can I get Bates DM? Sure. Yeah. Text her.

Here he is. No, text her. That'd be cool. Text her. You got that like 10 seconds later. No, text her. That'd be cool. Text her. You got that like 10 seconds later. Thanks, though. Guys who didn't get traded. So I have a list.

I'm sorry, guys. I've done a terrible job of throwing to the graphics. We had graphics this whole show? We had some graphics. Yeah, my bad. I got excited. I had a list of the ballsy trade assets. Yeah, yeah. Porzingis, D'Angelo Russell, Drew Holiday, Victor Oladipo I had on that list, Aaron Gordon and Miles Turner.

Those were like the six guys where, oh man, they fucking threw their balls on the table with that one. Russell did get traded. Out of those other guys, I guess Holiday was throwing a lot of stuff. If I'm New Orleans, the way Zion's playing, we should talk about Zion. I'm not trading Drew Holiday. If Drew Holiday, Brandon Ingram, and Zion Williamson, and all this other stuff, I'm not trading away people. If anything, I'm going to try to acquire people.

I was surprised he was in trade stuff that much. The guy that I thought was going to go was Bogdanovich in Sacramento. And I thought that was going to be Denver's trade target. I was telling Winhorst and Zach, I was like, why is everybody talking about Drew Holiday with Denver? It's going to be Bogdanovich. But then once Sacramento made that Dwayne Dedman deal, it was clear that they were clearing space for Bogdanovich for the summer. So that wasn't going to happen. But did you think there was any chance Holiday was going to get traded?

Because I did not. The price tag I heard on it was massive. Well, the smart teams love his stats and stuff. And that I think in this game, you know what I, as much as I look at some of these offensive players, and this happens with Toronto a lot, where if you're not warding people off with your off-arm as an offensive player,

if you're not chucking people to the ground with your off-hand, then you're doing it wrong. What you're allowed to do now with your off-arm is ridiculous. So you can talk about not hand-checking defensively. You're basically allowed to hand-chuck. And Siakam has it where he wards you off. I mean, Giannis has been carrying the ball and doing this stuff for a while uh kawai a lot of that shoulder but it like doesn't look like he's

doing it lowry dribbles straight into you as a running back right but what i do like about lowry when he's not complaining the entire game is that he does a great job with van vliet of kind of like you run it i'll run it where that can be problematic for a lot of teams. Chris Paul's another one that's good at it now. They're so good at it in Toronto, and that's what I think you get when you get a Drew Holiday. Because he's had to do it with Alonzo. We know he's good defensively. That's why we're good together.

Yeah. I just took a piss and I came back, you were talking about the Wu-Tang Clan. It was great. I wasn't worried at all. What if I had just come back and be like, hey, we're done with the deadline. We're doing 90s re-listenables. You were just sitting here like this. I got nervous.

I did that once on an ESPN news bump. We used to have these two-minute bumps. Yeah. And they were always brutal. And you were like, hey, what do you want to do for TV? And we'd look at each other and be like,

I don't know. And it was never as good as you want it to be. I go, hey, I'm just going to freeze. Like Scott was gone. He forgot to come back. Yeah. He forgot to come back for it.

So I just went to Stanford Steve. I'm like, hey, I'm going to freeze. I'm going to pretend I'm so nervous because I'm in here by myself. Who cares? Let's just do it. And I was like, oh. Trying to get on the internet. Yeah, producers are like, go, go.

Like, what's he doing? They didn't see the humor in it. When I did Countdown, we had those 20-second breaks during the game where they come out of commercial and it's like, in Philadelphia, Ben Simmons had 32 points tonight and it's got to be 20 seconds exactly and it ends with, let's go back to Hubie and Mark Jones in San Antonio. And you would do it?

You would voice it? So it was the year it was me, Wilbon, Jalen, and Magic. Magic wasn't going to do it. Right. Wilbon was, you know, at his desk. So it was me or Jalen. So Jalen would do a lot of it.

But then I was like, I really want to start doing these. I want to help out. And I would do them. And I can't tell you how incompetent I was. It's actually harder to do those. But the funny thing is...

It's so hard to do. But you have to do it in the 20 seconds. Yeah. And I would be like either too soon, too late. When you get caught too, it's the worst i forget i get into it i'd forget who i was throwing the game to and i'd be back to you guys um it's really hard because a couple analysts are good at it yeah then what happens like the industry will go hey you know what's

really cool is the analyst is tossing a break now so let's let's do that and then i couldn't read highlights i just was bad at it but it's harder to do than you think. I could host by the end of the first season. I could host the show. I could bring you in. I can introduce people. I could set up, I could drive it. And then it was the highlights were like my kryptonite. Let's go to Miami. So we used to do, we used to do call sheets where we would call it my sports center tryout for these stupid TV segments that we did. Yeah. And Van Pelt's like an anchor man.

Right. Right. It's like a special DNA. Right. So they take it kind of seriously. My whole point was I was going to screw with that and be like, all right, we're Nats Cubbies. You know, Matt Joyce, test him for roids.

That one is gone. I just started, like, doing all these stupid things. Pita cup! Right. Yeah, man. Like, oh like oh wow he's not going home alone tonight boom um anyway can we go ballsy trade assets cheaper there's that list marcus smart didn't go anywhere would you can i can i ask you that if there was a nice player that they liked a big that made sense would you be in the camp of you can't trade Marcus Smart at all because of what he means spiritually to the Celtics? I would have traded him for Miles Turner if that was on the table. All right.

If it was Miles Turner and Aaron Holiday together for Smart, whatever, one of the picks, whatever that version is. Is Langford untouchable? Did you see him last night? I didn't watch a ton of last night's game. I do like Langford. I mean, I don't feel like a lot of people are untouchable on the Celtics except for Tatum and Brown and Kemba.

I would say there's three untouchable people. I honestly would keep Tatum and Brown above everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's what this league is. Multiple position wings, man. The thing with Smart and KFC and I have done a lot of texting about it and I really like

Marcus Smart and I think he's an awesome Celtic and he's a guy that when he retires, there'll be a night for him and if he plays his whole career, he'll have his number retired. That seems a number retired? Well, if he's there for 17 years or something, I could see some complete overreaction. Maybe a pamphlet. At least a number retired. Well, if he's there for 17 years or something, I could, I could see like some complete overreaction. At least a long video.

Yes. Longer than, longer than the Dwight Howard Houston Rockets return tribute video. The problem is when everybody's back, he kind of has to be out there because he's Marcus Smart and he's got this kind of hold over everybody. But now you're playing with Kemba. That means I can only play two of Brown and Tatum and Hayward, and I need a big, or I could go small. I just don't think he's one of their best five players. Or I guess I should say one of their best four players,

if you assume that you need a big. I always want them to play the three wings together in the last seven minutes of a game. I know all the stuff Marcus does, but I think the advantage that this Celtics team has is the interchangeability of those three guys at the wing. The fact that all of them can create their shot, all of them

can play slash and kick, and you put Marcus in there, and he's just not as good of an offensive player as those guys. He's not. He can have streaks. He can make 11 threes in a game. He took, what, 22 threes in that Phoenix game when a bunch of guys were out? They lost. And it's one of those things where...

He made a bunch, too. But when he's doing better and his usage rate is up, I actually think that's in a bad place for the Celtics. Totally. My dream game for him is two for four with, like, eight assists, nine rebounds, and three steals. That's what I want from him. But he's one of those guys.

He's kind of overqualified to be that guy. And I don't know. I just think for the destiny of that team, it's those three wings on the court at the same time with Kemba and a big. And that's when they're the hardest to play. I hit the wrong tab on Marcus Smart here. Do you want to guess what his total fines paid

for suspensions and technicals and everything is? Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, I'd love to guess this. $132,000? $280,000. Oh, my God. I had. What did he do?

Well, he got $50,000 for the Embiid thing last year. Oh. He got. The Bembry fight was $35,000. Fight's strong. Fight's a strong one. Right, right. But obscene gesture

during the Chicago playoff game I couldn't believe I hit the wrong tab I'm like oh my gosh like every technical is two grand so

out of those Bozzy trade assets oh it's two grand if I were the Nets I would have traded Dinwiddie because I think ultimately

if you're going to keep Kyrie and KD together I don't know where Dinwiddie plays he's not a complimentary guy. I think he wants to be a real guy. And I thought it was interesting they didn't trade him.

I had Van Vliet on this list just because he's got a year left and it's the kind of weird ballsy Maasai move. We're like, wow, they traded Van Vliet. He won them the title, but they end up winning the trade. By the way, it's a player option, but to have, yeah, I don't know, the Dinwiddie thing, I just wanted to double check that contract

because it's a nice number because it was a good extension, but it isn't. He has only, he has the player option going into, you know, I honestly think Dinwiddie

at his production at 11.5 for another year, you're not in a hurry to trade that. Yeah, you're waiting to see. That's a good point. Joe Harris is a free agent. I was wondering if they just packed it in this year.

Could somebody get him? Do the Van Vliet thing again? Because I'm going to ask you, would you rather keep Lowry or Van Vliet? Well, I have to pay Van Vliet. Yeah. I'm eventually going to have to pay him. I wouldn't, if I were Toronto,

I wouldn't do anything. I think they still have a chance to win the East. I don't think this 12 game winning streak is a fluke. It's what we talked about with teams that just look crisp and know who they are. That team knows who they are. People love Nick Nurse too, man. Other teams.

And they managed, we talked about this the last time we did a pod, they managed to replace the Kawhi stats and then the Siakam stats from last year with Siakam basically replacing the Kawhi stats and he plays more. And then all those other guys replacing the Siakam stats from last year with Siakam basically replacing the Kawhi stats and he plays more and then all those other guys replacing what Siakam

gave them, the math just has worked with what they did, which I think is, I wasn't prepared for that. You would have thought, oh, they'll definitely be worse without Kawhi and they're just for regular season, they're not. For regular season, let's see. For regular season, they've not been worse. Because when you look back at Siakam's game logs for the playoffs, you're like, oh playoffs that would be worse let's see for regular season

they've not been worse because when you look back at Siakam's game logs of the playoffs you're like oh that was better than I remembered it but watching it

I felt like where is he game seven Philly which we did a rewatch that whole game was ugly though and I thought Harrell was the other one

that if I was the Clippers and I'm just now staring at three seven game series in a row in the West followed by the finals, can I win the title of Harrell as my crunch time five? Or is he somebody that should be a matchup guy?

I thought it was something that they were very, like that's a front office I respect a lot and that they may have thought, hey, is there a way to flip this that we feel like we're different but at the same level, but we like where we are next year instead of worrying about the Montrez thing.

But that's a harder, that's a harder like hold a thread, man. It just is. Like, you know, that's a clear example of, okay, fine, you want to do that? Then what are we talking about? Real quick in Toronto though,

there's second defense right now too behind Milwaukee's like so far ahead of everybody else. Toronto is number two the point you made about how they they fight when they're down too yeah and there's just certain teams that are I think that Stevens whoever he's had in the Celtics year after year they're down seven with 42 seconds left and he's diagramming plays at a timeouts and doing little mini presses and things like that certain teams are just going to keep fighting until the game's over. I didn't expect Toronto to be one of those teams. They won the title last year.

You would have totally understood if it was like, all right, we won the title, cool. Yeah, to get back to it, you know who doesn't look like that? It's Philly. Well, you know who else doesn't look like that? It's the Clippers. And the Clippers would be like, well, Kawhi didn't play tonight. Well, this guy didn't play.

Yeah, that's why I kind of still— The lack of urgency with them is really weird. I think it's a real flaw. I know we're going to—you and I are doing NBA podcasts every week the rest of the way. And I know we're going to dissect the Clippers endlessly. They're acting like a team that won the title and they've never won jack shit. They're having like the championship hangover season. It's a hangover of the fact that you just

signed these two guys and gave away 700 draft picks. Go fucking win something. I don't like what I see from them. I went to the Kings game last week and I just... Did you watch the Heat game last night though? I didn't see that one. That was like one of those things they're down and you're like, oh Miami. And again, Jimmy

ended up leaving the game. But they came out and like everybody hit shots in the third quarter. And they're just like, see ya. You know, like we're good here. But for Miami to lose Jimmy is different for other teams than their best guy. I don't like having an on-off button

when I've never done anything as a team. Now, Kawhi deserves to have an on-off button, but the other guys don't. Paul George, I can promise you. But that's what's kind of interesting now about what this league is, is that we usually have one or two teams that you, by default, believe in a little bit because of something they've done before.

And it's why, you know, look, I've gone off on the Milwaukee thing, but like, hey, guess what, Milwaukee? Like, you lost four in a row after being up 2-0 when everybody thought Kawhi was hurt. You haven't done anything. It's scary to see how good you are right now, even without Brogdon. Like, the stuff that they're doing, and like, Giannis is in a, like this, this taller Harden who obviously can't shoot like Harden, but it's all set up around him. But I just like it a little bit more because it doesn't seem like so ISO heavy. And

Giannis just doesn't seem as disengaged at times when he's not involved. And yet they haven't done anything. Denver has never done anything with this group. This Lakers group has never done anything. The Clippers group has never done anything. Philly can't get out of the second round. This Boston group hasn't done anything. Like the Pacers thing, that's a nice story. Toronto, without Kawhi, we don't know what it is. And, you know, it is very, it's very similar.

Like when Memphis was up 2-0 on Golden State, because that Golden State team had only beaten a Denver team that had a bunch of wins and then lost to San Antonio. This isn't specific to Denver or Milwaukee or Toronto last year. It's just how we operate. It's not crutch time. Until you've done something that we can bank on, we have a hard time believing in you. It's just so hard to go, hey- It's Sixers Celtics two years ago. Exactly. Like, hey, you've never done it, but I'm all in that you're going to win hey six or south six two years ago exactly like hey you've never done it but i'm all in that you're going to win a title or even just come out of your conference and beyond you know

golden state with the it's even more so now like the east was new last year but it was a kawaii you still had golden state before all those injuries now it's just a free-for-all of teams that were going i don't know what you're going to be like and that's why i think the lakers throughout all of this um and the kuzma thing never really made any sense for all the pieces that you'd have to do because of his contract. That's why I think there's still a default part of believing in this version of LeBron going, I know you've lost the Clippers a couple times,

but in the playoffs, I could see everybody picking them. There's a physicality that they're going to have in the playoffs that I think is the X factor. And if I'm the Clippers, I'm the most scared of that. Those two guys physically, what they're going to be able to do when everything slows down, when the refs are going to be deciding every game by how much contact they're going to allow versus what they're not going to allow. And just what like Davis and James can do in a game.

But if I'm on the Clippers, the camera would be like, hey, do you want me to show you the Kawhi tape from last year? Right. So. I'm looking, I called up the Milwaukee stats because I wanted to mention this to you. Their point differential

is the best in history so far, right? Well, they're 43 and seven. And if they win, I don't know, seven more games and they're 50 and seven. And you start thinking about the 73 and nine and all the shitty teams are going to be playing

in the East down the stretch. There's only six good teams in the East. Everybody else will be doing whatever. And it's like, what if this team only loses two more times? Or what if this team's in the conversation for 70 wins? And you look at their stats and the advanced team stuff and all the defense, all the three-point shooting. But like, George Hill's shooting 51% from three.

And you said like, I can't believe they're doing this with Brogdon gone. And I felt the same way the whole year. Yeah, wait a minute. By the way though, like I just did, they'd have to go 30 and two to tie it. Yeah, but teams,

teams have gone on 29 and two streaks though. It's conceivable. But they were able to replace. Everybody's so obsessed with rest. They won't. They were able to replace... Everybody's so obsessed with rest. They won't. They were able to replace the Brogdon thing with this weird George Hill, Wesley Matthews. Better Bledsoe.

And better Bledsoe. But like, I thought Wesley Matthews was done as a reasonable rotation guy. DiVincenzo, I think is worth mentioning. Yeah, but the Wesley Matthews thing seemed like he was headed toward the end of his career. And then George Hill was available for anybody last trade deadline. Anybody could have had him.

And they were like, ah, George Hill, he's not good anymore. Meanwhile, he was— Remember Hill couldn't get on the floor, I think, during that Cavs series a couple years ago? Right. Wasn't that like— Well, he also missed a big free throw in the JR timeout game. Yeah, but Van Gundy was like, whoa. He's not even playing?

I'd have to go back and look at something, but I remember that being something. He's playing—Ge saying he's playing. George Hill is playing 21 minutes a game, right? Brogdon was probably around 28, 29. The 21 minutes he's playing are as good as the 28 minutes Brogdon was giving them. They have to make up the other seven. But yeah, I'm with you that the resting might not might mean that maybe it doesn't happen. But at the same time, like these guys are just killing people.

And at some point, you got to think like, is 30 and 2 even realistic? All right, some last thoughts. We had the blow it up trade pieces list. If the team was like, fuck it. I had Chris Paul, Gordon Hayward, Al Horford, LaMarcus Aldridge, Steven Adams and Golinari three of those guys

are on OKC if OKC was just like fuck it I actually like that they didn't do that I wish they had gone the other way and traded for a wing guy

yeah because they have this collection of like wings where you go who is that again they have this weird wrinkle with them though where if the pick the pick is

one through twenty protected otherwise somebody gets it. Can't remember who. It's in one of the trades they made. So it's in their interest. Is that the Miami one that they wanted unprotected?

Yeah. So they wanted to change the language on that. No, that was the pick. I think Miami is sending them down the road. Oklahoma City's pick is going somewhere. Maybe Philly? Philly or Denver. One of those two teams, Jackson, find this out, find out where Oklahoma city's pick is going to,

but it's one through 20 protected. So if they play themselves into the top 10, then they lose their first rounder. I don't know if that's a factor for them, but the one that, it shouldn't be because of the stock and the stockpiling of first rounders. How many picks do you need? The one that surprises me going through that list, Horford, I'm not sure there's a market for him. Yeah, but we're talking protection, not lose it outright. We're talking about it than just being kicked down.

If it's 1 through 20, they keep it. Right. But if they're 21, they lose it. Lose it that year. This year, this one in June. That was a good segment. Well, we are at like hour 37. The one that surprises me is if I thought San Antonio was going to secretly trade Aldridge.

That was one of my, every year there's one random guy. Nobody knows he's available. And then all of a sudden he's on another team. He makes 26 million this year. But they gave him guarantee for next year. And he's got his contract next year. Yeah. But I'm just saying.

25, 24 million next year, 35 years old. If you're the Spurs, why are you running this back? You're going to run it back next year. You're going to pay 57 million, 55 million, whatever, for DeRozan and Aldridge as your two best guys you're not a playoff team what why where was the incentive for them to just say do you think we're good let's roll it over to pop that he wants nothing to do with like hey we really need to tear this down we really need to see what we have in DeJounte and he was it you think Derek White would be considered a better player if he changed up his look. What do you mean?

Like whenever I see his hair, beard combo sides, I'm like, if he just tightened that up, I think guys would be like, hey, you know what? I want to get a Derek White t-shirt. But yeah, I mean, he single-handedly was like insane in some of those Nuggets games. Right. And you go, okay, now he has two points again. They're 22 and 28. Yeah, they're not good. And we knew last year, like that team

making the playoffs last year. And it was one of the biggest slides, like this isn't even a knock on San Antonio. You go, okay, eventually like year 20, this had to happen. But defensively, they slipped in a way they hadn't slipped before. They still make the playoffs. They still scare Denver a little bit, which, you know, scared me off of Denver. But here's my question. They're 22 and 28. New Orleans has 20 wins. Phoenix has 20 wins. Sacramento has 19 wins. Minnesota just traded for Russell. There are seven games behind them, but who knows. There's 32

games. What is New Orleans? Six games out? New Orleans is two and a half games behind San Antonio. No, but I'm talking out of the eighth, out of Memphis. Yeah, New Orleans is, Memphis is 26 and 25. So everybody is within striking range of Memphis potentially. If I'm San Antonio, I would have actually maybe tried to make the move.

Hope you fall backwards. Now you're in like the top eight. Now I don't have to worry about Aldridge and DeRozan next year. I don't know. I thought it was weird that they just were like, we're good. We're just going to be depressing as always. We're going to take some. Honestly, this was long overdue, though.

This was so overdue for this franchise to actually have the moment of malaise and trying to figure out what. They're in no man's land. But, you know, and DeRozan is not, he's a player option this summer at 27.8. He probably picks it up. Oh, fuck yeah. Yeah.

He's never seen that again. And honestly, like anybody that goes, hey, you need to trade DeRozan. And this is the selfishness, the lens that you watch. Where that goes, hey, you need to trade DeRozan. And this is the selfishness, the lens that you watch. Where's it going? When you're trading for DeRozan, all you're trading for is a bill

and a guy that's proven, despite the offensive stuff that you can see at times and the consistent like, hey, look at these numbers, look at these numbers. It never works. It doesn't ever seem to add up.

And people will tell you historically over the years, the plus minus with DeRozan, you go, oh, wait, so like you're worse every time he's out there? I wonder what the Grizzlies, they're eight seed right now.

They basically have a two and a half lead over, two and a half game lead over everybody, including Portland. Portland Dame is like flames are shooting out of his ass. They have to be taking seriously. One of the great runs of all time

for a guard. He averaged eight straight games, 45 a game from the guard position, which is like you're now in a different stratosphere. And that was kind of that Golden State game when you were talking about D'Angelo Russell and the basketball we don't really like, where it's like, hey, D'Angelo,

we're going to set four versions of a high screen, jump over one side, and then you jack up a 30-footer. And that's when Dame was like, okay, but I'm also going to do it and make every single one of them. Right. And just completely cut the heart out of their team.

But Memphis traded Crowder today. And they got Winslow back in the deal. But as you said, he's played 11 games. And Crowder, if you watch Memphis, was weirdly important to him. Like he was playing crunch time and he was doing stuff. I think you always need one guy that at least pretends he's going to fight.

Real or not. Yeah. I think every team needs a Matt Barnes type. I thought he was important for them for what the team that they had become. That was a really fun league pass team to fight. Real or not, I think every team needs a Matt Barnes type. I thought he was important for them, for what the team that they had become. That was a really fun

league pass team to watch. And now they lost him. They didn't really replace him unless Winslow comes back. My point is, I think New Orleans or Portland is probably going

to catch Memphis. I don't see this Memphis thing continuing to go. Just in general, I think the fact that they were like 14-5 over the last 19,

they're not that good. I'd bet you if I went through too, cause like when Utah was turning this thing around and it was like, oh, okay, cool. Finally, like you're winning games and you went through it and you were like,

the only time you had a good win through this whole thing was, I think there was a Clippers win in there, but it may have been without one of the two games. It might've been a non-Paul George. It probably was a non-Paul George win. I want to talk about Fat Zion at a later date. And I call him that affectionately because I think there's some serious Barkley shit going on.

It really reminds me a lot of mid-80s Barkley where it doesn't really matter what he looks like. My favorite player of all time. Oh, my God. I mean, he's athletically, all that stuff. And, you know, last week was all about Kobe, and rightly so. But Zion's out there putting up 20 and 10 and these games he hadn't played all season and is a complete mismatch against everybody

anybody that was like oh well he gets against men you're like no you don't you don't understand what this guy is the biggest man it's there's some lebron late 2000s kind of shit where it's just like oh he's just more of a specimen than anybody who's guarding him. And the thing I've learned just through six games is you can play him at the five. You can. Well, that was where he always should have been.

Like, you know, Mike Schmitz, I'm going to give credit for the ESPN draft guy. And like, you know, I'm going through and I would, I would text him like,

I think I'm right on with this five thing. Point five. Right. And he would, he went out and get up and he sat down and it was like three ex-NBA players

and like Greeny and like here's, you know, Mike Schmitz with his notebook out and he's like, yeah, he should be a center.

And all the NBA guys that are analysts laughed at his face. Get off the set. It was like when I said Donchage reminds me of Harden on a TV show and an ex-player was like,

oh my God, this idiot. Right. And you just go like, first of all, I know I put way more work into it than you have. Yeah. But whatever.

Like you played, I didn't. You're like, sorry, Damon Jones. But he was like, anybody that watched Zion was like, if this league is smaller, then why wouldn't you guys, like who cares about Jackson Hayes? Shout out, by the way.

Right. Not a knock on any of those other guys. Like the best version of Zion at least right now is the five because he's gonna work the hell out of anybody else like it doesn't matter that he's shorter when he posts up whether they put him at like the foul liner the lower block the extra size that he has just from being adult maybe there's some baby fat on there whatever it's like if he does this and plants himself, he's getting the ball. Yeah.

You're not going to be reaching around him. And his feet in the second jump. The second jump leaves everybody in like, what? He's already up. The second jump looks like some Matrix shit. Right. Now, then when it's like, you just jumped. You're jumping again?

I just was watching your first jump. Okay, but then there's never been anybody I don't think I've ever seen that every time he's subbed out, I'm like, is he hurt? Just when he's like... Yeah, true. He walks like he's 80 years old. What is going on? He has these moves where it looks like somebody's fast-forwarding him.

Levine had that. Or has it still? Oh, my God. Right? Like Westbrook had it, but then the times where Levine, you're like, oh, my God. I feel vindicated because the jaw was doing really well zion was hurt and there was this

little like i mean you know zion jackson said it within four minutes you don't know is i mark jackson first game when it was fat zion the first four minutes when he was fat shame the new greg odin and it was like everybody was like this guy's so fat. Look at, he's hurt. And then Mark Jackson was like, shit, eight minutes into the first quarter, I would have taken jaw. I was like, oh my God, dude. I'm like, this kid isn't even, he's not even sweating yet. You and I never wavered. I thought he was one of. But then people made fun of us for being like, oh, you know, thanks, Captain Obvious.

Like, is it? Because I feel like there's a lot of people that didn't quite get him. I remember I went on Francesco's show and I thought, I said something like, he's one of the biggest, the three biggest sure things of the past, like, 30 years. Out of all the guys drafted first. Good for you. Something like that. I was just

like, the guy's a sure thing. The only thing that will hurt him is if he gets injured. But by the way, watch Memphis. Watch all the crazy fucking shit Ja does. I think Ja is just as big of an injury risk god bless it i hope it doesn't happen yeah but jaw doesn't look like he blew an acl but jaw's going horizontal sideways getting undercut and somehow landing perfectly every time but it scares me like that's just all the all the collagen like being young and landing. He's so fearless. Gordon Hayward, I thought, blew out his knee helping somebody up the other night.

And I was like, oh, no, this again? Zion is absolutely jaw-droppingly incredible to watch. I play in my week around him. One of the few guys that when you're watching him, you just kind of go, I don't know what they, what they're going to do when he really figures this out. Like, what's, what's the mood?

It was great too. Because if you double him, he makes the perfect pass. Well, that's the best part of his game, I think. Well, it isn't the best because the physical part of what he can do

when he's near the block. That's the thing. Zach's been blown away by the passing because Zach doesn't watch college. Oh, he didn't watch it? Yeah. When you watch him get going

and Duke can transition, it was awesome. Yeah. He's a fucking awesome passer. Even though his three-point numbers weren't great, but oddly, they were better than RJ Barrett's, better than Reddish at Duke. He was a better three-point shooter than his teammates who couldn't make any shots at the end of the year.

But for him to hit those four and the fourth one, you never make it when you're like, should I shoot? Oh, I'm not going to shoot. Oh, hell, I'll shoot. And then it goes in and i'm just at home laughing because it was it was such a great 180 because you knew what was going to happen it was going to be a bunch of dudes who do what we do in line to be the first guy that next morning after that spurs game to be like i don't see it and you just go well he's too fat too fat. Too much weight. Does he want it? It's going to break down.

Does he want it? And it's like, first of all, his body is unlike anybody else's body ever. And I don't know what it's supposed to look like. I've never seen a body like this, except for Barkley. Barkley was four inches shorter than he is. Yeah, I think Barkley was actually,

like Barkley didn't walk around like he was hurt all the time. So I'm worried about, like when I think of Odin, I get into these arguments all the time with my friends. They're like, Odin's a bust. No, no, no.

Like busts, like Dragon Bender's a bust. Hashim Thabit is a bust. Hashim Thabit's a bust. Greg Odin was going to be awesome. Yeah. He was, when it started clicking

and coming along. That game's on YouTube, the national title game and he's playing with like a broken wrist and he's still fucking dominating Horford and Noah. And he's showing with like a broken wrist and he's still fucking dominating Horford and Noah. And he's showing, he's coming all the way

to the three-point line to meet guys. It's a bummer. And he had a Portland run where you're like, okay, this is going to be awesome. And then he was hurt and then he didn't trust anybody. And then he was more hurt than we thought. I just, I don't want, look, obviously we all, but I don't want to hear like if Zion's hurt.

I just don't think a bust is if you're hurt. That's my rule. Okay. No one agrees. We're going to leave, but I want to do M hear like if Zion's hurt. I just don't think a bust is if you're hurt. That's my rule. Okay. No one agrees. We're going to leave, but I want to do Mookie Betts for two minutes. Hey, we're taking a break to tell you about Briarpatch. That is a new show on the USA Network that launches tonight, 10 p.m. USA Network. Did you see this out of Andy?

Were you like, this is going to meet? No, but like when you were working with him at Grantland, who's the showrunner here? He was writing about TV. It never occurred to me. i didn't realize that like you he's a writer yeah i well you know what's funny is i went to i think it might have been hbo um sorry that i met with him but they uh they they had said something like hey do you know andy at all and i was like no i didn't you know we didn't really cross paths because he was out here and they're like you know he had this script a couple years ago and we read it and we all just sort of looked at each other and were like, he's really good

at this. So it's a cool story, man. It should motivate people. Well, he created his own show. It's called Briarpatch. He did it with Sam Ismael but from Mr. Robot who was kind of his fairy godfather with the whole thing and really believed in him and pushed him. It stars Rosario Dawson. It is set

in Texas. Is it based on a book? Yeah, it's based on a book, right? Right. And, uh, Jay Ferguson's in it,

a whole bunch of people, but, um, we're really proud of Andy Greenwald. That's unbelievable. And we, it's a great success story. Somebody that was one of our original writers back in the day.

So Briarpatch, USA Network, 10 PM. I know Nephew Kyle's going to watch. Yes, sir. You've always liked Rosario Dawson. Big fan. For your know Nephew Kyle's going to watch. Yes, sir. You've always liked for Zara Dawson. Big fan. For your entire life.

This is the rundown. Yeah, there you go. Back to the pot. The Red Sox, who make $500-plus million a year in revenue, who have a $200 million salary cap. Documented. And still, they still are, whatever their salary is, they're making money every year.

I just got to burn their saddle to trade Mookie Betts. They still are, whatever their salary is, they're making money every year. I just got to burn their saddle to trade Mookie Betts. I'm sure they're going to leak like, oh, we never could have kept him. He was going to leave. He wanted 400 million, all that. And it's like, well, he should get 400 million because that's what it costs to have one of the best outfielders the last 20 years. He's the best position player they've had since Ted Williams. He really helped them win the 2018 World Series in ways beyond just him being awesome. Mike Sherwood, we were texting about it.

He was saying the throw that he made to throw out Tony Kemp in the Houston series, he said was the greatest story he's ever seen in his life. I actually agree. He had a huge homer against the Dodgers. He was just a guy like, if you're trying to win the World Series, he's the guy you're trading for, not the guy you're trading. And I'm just stupefied by the whole thing. I don't understand it.

I didn't understand it as it was happening. The trade wasn't that good. I don't understand the point of saving luxury tax money for next year. So then you can go try to get a guy almost as good as Mookie Betts. And then on top of it, like, I just thought he should have been a meaningful guy in the city. You know, I, I think he's just a really good guy who is different than a lot of red socks players in a lot of ways. Um, who's certainly the best black baseball player they've ever had.

And I think that matters for a variety of reasons. And I was just so upset. Like, it honestly makes me not... I know I'll talk myself into the season again. I know I'll start watching it because that's the habit of baseball. But this is the first thing they've done since I was like a kid that made me kind of not want to throw myself into the season. And I have not,

I just have not wrapped my head around it. I just can't believe they did this. So, uh, I would always start with this. Like if Mookie deep down didn't want to play here, I don't know the answer to that. Jim Rice said yesterday,

he was like, Mookie wanted to stay in Boston. And I believe Jim Rice. Um, I want to, I want to believe that then. And when I went through it and I did it on my podcast,

there's been 19 contracts north of 200 million in baseball history. We've just started to like hit some serious numbers. I would argue considering A-Rod signed for 252 million in 2001 that maybe some of these bigger contracts

were long overdue. Yeah. If you look at some of the revenue split stuff and the percentage of revenue going to the major league players and owners argue about, oh, no, no, no, we have to pay for all the minor league stuff too, which I do understand. You know, it's not a bad split, but it's going down.

I just don't understand, like, how are some of these contracts happening? How was it almost a Manny Ramirez $200 million contract happening? A-Rod 252. That was 20 years ago. How was that happening 20 years ago? And now we've only had 17 other ones since then? Like, that's weird.

How is it not happening with the team that paid Evaldi basically like a tip at the end of the night at a wedding? They gave him a $60 million contract

and then nine months later they're like, oh man, the tax. Yeah, it's four years, $68 million. But no one complained about it because of

what he did in the 18- Well, because we just assumed they were going to spend money every year because of the fucking Red Sox. And they're a cash cow. The Evaldi deal wasn't great. The sale deal seemed to be premature. But the price deal is the one that absolutely drives me crazy. They offered price 51 million more than the next best offer.

They're a drunk guy in the fantasy league. For a guy that didn't want to play there ever. He never wanted to play in Boston. He was miserable the whole time. He gets kind of that J.D. Drew pass because of what happened with the World Series. But for the most part, they didn't.

Price, the whole thing was a bad deal. He was the third highest paid player in baseball the year he was signed. World Series champ. Whatever. 2018 World Series champ. Those deals, whenever fans go,

who cares? It's not my money. No, no, no. That deal, you paid Zach Grinke money. You paid Clayton Kershaw money for David Price. Yeah. For a guy that didn't even like being in the city. And that set these things in motion.

So now all of a sudden you're going to be cheap with Mookie Betts. And then the other part of it. It's the all-time poor planning of seven different things leading to a equally terrible decision. I've seen all of these things where it's like, OK, well, he owed it to the union. Who cares? OK, he's going to get paid. Oh, he he this allows the Red Sox all this financial flexibility. What to go get somebody who's not as good as him.

That's a terrible, terrible. There are poor man's bookie bets out there that we could spend $200 million on? If you're looking at Verdugo, who is a one-season guy who might not be bad because the splits are pretty good. With a bad back. But missed the last two months neck and back pain.

Yeah. And then... Attitude problems in the minors. Gratterall, who's blown out his elbow, missed all his 16. Seems like a medical risk. Half his 17.

And I love that Boston Globe was like, facts about him signs autographs until everybody is done you're like okay what about the part where he may weigh 270 pounds and he's 21 years old facts about him his elbow ligament is made out of his hamstring the whole like oh well you couldn't go into the season with mook who gives a shit these are pro athletes and i know it's not great to be in the trade rumors but like every single nba player thinks he's getting traded the whole time.

The only person who can't handle a trade rumor is Jamal Adams. So, you know, if Mookie Betts like has to go in and like it's unsettled, then let it be unsettled. If the best that you're doing is that we don't know if Verdugo is an everyday outfielder and a guy that's had this injury history who's out of shape, if that's the best you could do, you could definitely do that before the trade deadline this upcoming year. So that was my argument. That's the thing that doesn't make it. Anybody that says you had to do this now because it was the best deal you're going to get, if this is the best deal and you're Bloom and everybody thinks maybe Friedman worked

you because you used to work for him in Tampa, which may be completely unfair. If I'm Bloom, I go, hey, you know what? Most of us get fired in this job anyway. I'm not doing that. How do the Dodgers not give up a prospect in this deal and only Kent Maeda when you get Mookie Betts likely in a spot where you know you're going to resign him? That's where you have to be like vigilant and going, I'm not doing this. I don't care.

I'm not doing this unless we're getting one of the Dodgers top fives. Go back to your point though. Pau Gasol, 2008. One of the reasons, yeah, 2008, February. One of the reasons everyone was so upset about that deal, other than nobody knew who's on the block, was they did it two weeks before the trade deadline. And Wallace was like, well, I really like the deal.

I want to take it. That deal's still sitting there two weeks later. Guess what? The Lakers aren't going to go, you know, on second thought, Kwame Brown, Javars, Crittenden, 30th pick, and Pau Gasol's fat brother. It's too rich for our blood now to get Pau Gasol. We've actually cooled off on this.

Yeah, people don't realize, like, there wasn't one guy that I talked to. Yeah, he's 420 pounds. Teams were so mad because they were like, this is a Memphis Jerry West thing. It was. It was a total hookup. It was a fucking 100% Memphis Jerry West thing. It was. It was a total hookup. It was a fucking 100% Mifest Jerry West thing. So the thing with the Mookie thing, because I've argued with Red Sox fans about this. They're like, well, start the season with him.

You can't trade him. And I'm like, okay, guess what? Guess who we could trade him for? Alex Verdugo and this fucking guy in the twins whose hamstring is his elbow ligament and who's a medical risk already. I'm positive that trade was still sitting there in July. Dude, no gyro ball?

It's so frustrating. It's really frustrating. Why now? Why now? I know that people outside of Boston be like, okay, so let me get this straight. You losers. You won four World Series.

You went 80 plus years without this. You would have sold relatives to get one. This ownership group comes in and gets four in less than 20 years. And now you're so mad that you think that like, you don't like this ownership group. And that's the part from the outside where I think all of those get, but like, they don't get it. Like this ownership group is buying up every piece of property around that park to the point where I think like the city had to be like, you guys need to chill a little on this stuff. Yeah, they've killed every sort of traditional

thing that's been around there to build their whole mega complex. Sweet Caroline sucks. You know, it sucks. And like, there's a lot of Red Sox fans who are just like, thanks for the rings, but then to do this, like, this reminds me of the insecurity and the inferiority of being a 90s Red Sox

fan. Like, this is what it was. It was like, oh, we're going to do this stupid shit. I get it. Would the Yankees ever do this? In 2020, for the Red Sox to do something that the Yankees, like, Yankees fans should be like, oh, this is what it was. It was like, oh, we're going to do this stupid shit. I get it. Would the Yankees ever do this? In 2020, for the Red Sox to do something that the Yankees, like, Yankees fans should be like, oh, this reminds. Yankees fans were cheering this. Like, oh, this reminds me when you guys were idiots. Right. Good job. Despite the fact the Sox have won more rings.

The four, here's my counter. Recently, not total. 27. We got it. Here's my counter to the four-world serious thing. Look, once they won an 0-4, it's my counter to the four world series thing look once they won in 04 it's house money

for the rest of our lives I just really wanted to win them once so I never had to think about the fucking stupid curse again I did winning the other ones

were awesome they were great sports experiences the 18 one was such a surprise too it really was I honestly care more

in baseball specifically and especially about having a guy that I love for 20 years. That matters to me more than like, oh, we won in 2018. That 2018 was a year and a half ago. I can barely remember what happened that playoff series anymore. But for six straight months, baseball is fucking boring.

I still like it because I'm an old white guy. I'm the audience. I like to put it on. I like to watch Red Sox games and have them in the background as I'm doing other things. And one of the certainties I had in life was I love Mookie Betts. I like Devers. I like Bogarts. And I like Ben Intended somewhat. Three and a half guys that I liked watching. I was like, this is great. These guys are in my life every summer until for the rest of the decade, I'm going to have these three guys. I'm going to have Devers,

I'm going to have Bogarts, I'm going to have Betts, especially. Fuck. Isn't that why we follow sports? And it's so rare, like in baseball to go, you're going to have this guy who's basically second to Mike Trout,

who is going to go down as one of the greatest players of all time. Sorry he's not as good as Mike Trout, who's like fucking Mickey Mantle. Right. To go, I mean, this just isn't, I just think the Red Sox, I don't know if the Red Sox ownership's, like if they get it, I don't know if they go like, hey, we won the four rings. I have a theory. Want to hear my theory?

Whether they're piling up assets to bounce on this thing or they're putting all their money into soccer. I think they're going to sell. I think they didn't want to pay the luxury tax this year. Well, that's even grosser then. I think they've gotten everything they've wanted out of this franchise. And more so. And I think they're going to sell.

I do. I don't know that it would make sense. But you know what you should do then? Do whatever. Like, who cares? Then Mookie would be on somebody else's tab. Can't you cover the luxury tax? That's what Paul Gaston did with Vin Baker trade.

He was like, I know I'm going to sell. I need to get under the tax. I'm getting flashbacks to that. He was always like that. This trade is so stupid. There's no other explanation for this trade. This trade is so stupid. It makes me think they're selling the team because,

and the other thing, they're so tone deaf. They've lived in this city for two decades. I don't understand how they don't get this. They're so tone deaf to how this stuff is received because this happened a couple times where they shanked terry francona and then the globe piece comes out a couple days later murdering him and it's like yeah this looks bad you guys did this incorrectly the way they handled theo all this stuff it's like they just don't get the city is mind-blowing but i always thought the theo thing was very a very common

thing that happens they pick Theo mentor mentee thing yeah there's some Luchino shit when you pick Theo you're like look we we looked out for you and then Theo's like I'm good at this I'm out of here Francona's the best manager I've ever seen and I mean that is like a day-to-day thing like I'm not gonna sit here and say I understand other managers but until you watch a guy every day for years it's when you're like hey this guy kind of sucks. And that team was like the weirdest, quirkiest team ever, and he managed it. I don't really like

Francona, but I think he's a great manager. I thought Cora was awesome in 18. I didn't have as much of a problem with some of the Francona criticism. I had massive problems with the Theo criticism because a lot of it was ageism, too. If he had been 45, they would have been like, hey, we'll give you whatever you want.

Like they brought in Mike Port to like hold his hand. And you're like, no, no, you've got like a guy that's going to change the way we look at GM sitting right here. He doesn't need his hand to be held. The whole Billy Bean thing that fell apart.

And then afterwards, like, Theo's like, no, I'm going to bounce. Like I'm good. I do think this ownership thing is just like, it feels so stupid to go, oh yeah, what's wrong with these guys when they've been so successful?

But isn't that part of their attitude though? Where it's like, we brought you four World Series. I think that's exactly, that's exactly what I think. We'll do what we want. Are they right or are Red Sox fans right? I think the owners that we had up until them were so atrocious. And we all saw the potential in the city and the

franchise for how much people love baseball. And if somebody could figure out the park and the surrounding things, put that revenue back. And they, they, we all knew it was gonna be a cash cow. It was like the, the worst house on the best block. And it's like, man, if somebody buys that house and makes it nice, that's going to be like a $12 million house. That's what they had. They did it. I don't think they're the only owners that could have done that. There are a lot of good owners in sports. Like look at what the Warriors did with Joe Lacob. Is Joe Lacob, I know he's light years ahead of everybody,

but honestly, was he that good? Or was he just not the terrible shitty owners they had before? And with the Red Sox owners, it's like, these guys are obviously really smart. They've leveraged the land and the fan base in 7 million economic ways that have been beneficial. They put a lot of it back in the team. Why draw the line at Mookie Betts, the best position player we've had in 60 years? Why would this be the guy where you're like, all right, now it's time to cut bait?

And here's the problem. Much like, I remember they did some sort of stupid poll that was like, what are Red Sox fans like? And it was like, good players, stars. So they spent way too much money on Karl Crawford, who hated it. John Lac like, who are they going to spend like $150 million on this guy and like $120 million on this pitcher? Like, who are going to be the two B-minus guys that they signed for a ton of money thinking like, hey, everybody, pay attention to us. The difference is when the Yankees had their run, they didn't screw around with it. Like, we're not going to sign.

They didn't screw around with their core guys. We go like, who's the best pitcher? Is it Mike Messina? Okay, well, like, do we want him or do we want Pat Rapp? Because Pat Rapp's cheaper. Yeah. going to sign their core guys we go like who's the best pitcher is it mike messina okay well like do we want him or we want pat rap because pat raps cheaper you know it's like no let's just go get messina and considering who the red sox have become after all those years in the 90s being told that they were a mid-market team being conned by distrust and dan duquette who you know was a great talent evaluator but was was kind of like, I ended up getting along with him.

He used to come on our show all the time. But like his end was like, get this guy out of here. It was like a serial killer. Right. Because he couldn't sell it the right way. It was like Hinckley being forced to talk was Duquette, you know. Especially in Boston. And so you're like, what is up with this guy?

Even though he was, again, really good at evaluating baseball players. But we were just tricked to like think less of ourselves. You know what I'm saying? Like, don't think you could ever be that. It was like a damaged relationship. Yeah. And then it happened. But you made the key point with the Yankees.

Why did the Yankees have that run? They kept Bernie Williams and Jeter and Rivera. Number one, the Sox made an offer to Bernie Williams. And then he went back to the Yanks. Yeah, that's why he went back. Yeah. And he was like, I was really impressed by your presentation. And people were like, oh.

What do you think? Do you think Bernie Williams is really going to leave the Yankees and sign with the Red Sox? I just feel like Betts, Devers, Bogarts, I don't care who else is on the team the next 10 years. I get through for those three guys. That's the foundation you spend around. You make smart decisions. You're always going to be good. But ultimately, Mookie's going to go to the Dodgers this year

and he's going to be incredible. And people are going to watch him at Dodger Stadium with that huge field and him and Bellinger basically patrolling this fucking complex that they have out there. It's so spacious and so wide. And those guys are going to be chasing down everything. He's been in every big spot. He can handle not just Boston, but playoff baseball. And he's a fucking legitimate superstar at the age of 27. Ben Lindbergh wrote for us, said this trade had no precedent in the

history of baseball. Nobody's ever traded this specific player at this age. And it's a bummer. And it really makes me wonder if I'm going to care about this Red Sox season. I know I'll rally. I know I'll go around, but it just really hurts. I was surprised like that I'm 50 and I still care about sports like this. And I heard on Sunday. This fucking hurts. Like I texted you on Sunday and I was like, hey, I'm hearing it's done. And you're like, yeah, me too.

And then we're just trying to figure out like what it was. You knew it was inevitable for weeks. It wasn't just inevitable. Like, well, I was like was like hey is this thing done and somebody's like yeah it's done it's done and they're waiting to announce it for a bunch of different reasons but um yeah honestly like boston should not be in the category of city nobody wants to hear boston fans whine about it but it's just it's me it's not just about the titles it's about having somebody in your life beginning middle end of end of their careers. I thought he was going to be one of those

guys. We grew up with Yaz. Yaz in 1983 meant something to me. He was in my life for the first 14 years of my life. I was there. Smoking cigarettes in the press conferences. I wasn't smoking then. You weren't smoking? I was eight. But yeah, I think that shit means something. I think it means something

that Ortiz finished with the Red Sox and what he meant to the city. And I think Mookie was going to be that guy. And they said, no, uh, we have to go. Thanks for doing this trade,

trade deadline pod for Ryan. So thanks to the crew. Thanks to Kyle. And, we will see you on Sunday night. All right. Thanks to Rossello. Don't forget about the evolving worlds of Grand Theft Auto Online,

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this entire neighborhood and it's going to be all pink. Thanks to Pepsi with the New Year officially here and everyone vowed to restrictive resolutions. Pepsi wants to usher in

the new decade a bit differently by encouraging everyone to unapologetically do what you enjoy, even in the face of others judgment. Rosillo and I enjoy turning on the team that

won us four World Series titles because they traded our favorite player. I love those division titles, 86, 88, 90. Good ones. Those were fun.

And the A's just steamrolled us. Well, we're not afraid Those were fun. The A's just steamrolled us. Well, we're not afraid to criticize the owners that brought us four World Series titles. Pepsi, that's what I like. We're also brought to you by RedSox.com where Mookie Betts jerseys are now 50% off. Are they really?

Because we ripped your hearts out. No, they probably should be though. Everyone at the first Red Sox game should show up with a Mookie jersey. I can't wait to get a Johnny Cueto jersey next summer thanks for doing this see you soon I don't have a few years

with them on the wayside on the wayside never on We'll see you next time.