The Bill Simmons Podcast - The NBA’s 20-Year Shift, a Sneaky Rule Change, LeBron’s Next Deal, and So Long Mac Jones With Ryen Russillo
Episode Date: March 11, 2024The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the noticeable shift in NBA officiating since the All-Star break, and which teams could benefit or suffer from increased physicality on ...the floor (2:30), Nuggets vs. Celtics, and some potential fatal flaws in the title contenders, including the Cavaliers, Suns, Thunder, Bucks, and more (19:34). Then, they compare the talent in the NBA from 2004 to 2024, and check in with some of the bottom-tier NBA teams (44:58). Finally, they discuss LeBron's next deal before touching on some NFL news, including the end of the Mac Jones era in New England, and the buzz about Russell Wilson going to the Steelers (1:23:04). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Coming up, Russel and I talk basketball, basketball, basketball, and a whiff of Mac Jones next.
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Oscars was tonight.
It was a really good telecast.
I really enjoyed it.
It felt like the Oscars again.
Jimmy did great, no surprise.
But just in general, it just felt like the Oscars I grew up with,
that moved, had some good moments.
The Ryan Gosling, Ken song was really fun.
Tina Turner was the last person in Memoriam.
I thought for sure it was going to be Ryan O'Neill or Burt Bacharach.
So that was an upset, but they didn't have betting odds for that.
They did have betting odds for Emma Stone.
And if you remember, Matt Bellin and I on this podcast a couple days ago,
that was our upset pick.
It wasn't that much of an upset.
She was like plus 130, plus 140.
But Emma Stone, best actress. So we got that one. I may or may not have been on it in real life.
Don't tell anyone. Before we get to the podcast, I wanted to mention,
Priscilla and I talked about the Rockets glowingly for a couple of minutes, actually,
in the latter half of the podcast. and we taped everything before the Oscars started
so we didn't know
Shangoon got hurt.
Got wheeled off. It was like a knee ankle
thing. They're going to find out how bad it is tomorrow
but just wanted to flag that because
it would be weird to listen to us praise the
Rockets and Shangoon and not mention that he got injured.
Anyway, the podcast
is coming right now. Let's bring in our
friends from ProJab.
All right. We're taping this a little after 2.30 Pacific time.
Doing a little early today.
I want to watch the Oscars.
I love the Oscars, Ursula.
It's all screwed up.
Daylight savings time today.
Then they moved the Oscars to 4 o'clock PT.
So we're doing hoops now.
Biggest thing.
You're going to watch the Oscars over Anthony Edwards against the Lakers?
I'm going to have Anthony Edwards against the Lakers on another TV. This is why we have multiple TVs. I have friends hosting the Oscars. Who's your friend?
Jimmy Kimmel, my old boss, is hosting the Oscars.
I want to start here. I was like, what?
We've been talking about the foul situation in the NBA.
You, I think, did multiple opening segments about this new era we were in with the NBA,
with guys diving into people, lurching into people.
You started getting a ton of feedback.
I was getting feedback vicariously just because we do podcasts together and I had people reaching
out.
We were on threads with multiple people.
And then over the All-star break, something crazy
happens. They actually change how they're officiating the games. And we're all watching
it and we're going, is this different? I went to two Laker games. I think I talked about in
a previous pod. I'm like, man, this is really physical. I'm surprised. Lakers nuggets game. I went to 17 free throws total.
Um, just in general, something has shifted.
Ethan Sherwood Strauss, our friend wrote about it for his, uh, sub stack yesterday too.
But, uh, you noticed right away, right?
When did you, when were you like, oh my God, they're actually changing this.
Just, I would say different freedom of movement plays.
Sometimes when you're looking for it, you find it.
As soon as I started thinking I was noticing it,
then I felt like I was noticing it even more because I was looking for it.
But there's just certain plays that we can get into which ones you like or don't like in some of the numbers that Ethan shared.
Even today with the Clippers,
Norm Powell hooks a defensive player's arm. Now
he exaggerated it pretty bad, but then he got called for the foul. And I was like, wait, okay,
that's a little different. There was a play last night with Durant going up against Jalen Brown,
where I couldn't believe Jalen Brown wasn't called for a foul. Durant hits the bucket
because he was incredible. I can't wait to talk about that second half. Durant was getting mauled.
Right. And so, and was still, and he And he had 45 points, but under the old rules, I think he would have had 60 because they would have called every single foul.
So the play, the single play that led me to lose my mind in a couple of pods was just the drive where the offensive player is parallel to the paint.
They're not even veering towards the rim and you're staying parallel with them as the offensive player is parallel to the paint. They're not even veering towards the rim.
And you're staying parallel with them as the defensive player.
And then they veer into you at the last second.
And then they kind of haul it up.
I mean, really, you know, Trey Young has done it a million times.
Well, it's like if you're on a highway and the car in the middle lane just veers into your lane.
And then they're doing the police report. And it's like, whose fault was it?
And it was like, the guy on the left.
The guy who was just going straight forward. It's his he's 100 to blame is he so i don't know you know
i don't know if this is the numbers bear it out like pre-all-star game teams are averaging 115.7
points per game post-all-star game it's 1117. Free throws are down from almost 23 attempts to 20 attempts.
But pre-All-Star, we're also talking 53 to 55.
And the offensive ratings are down too.
We had a bunch of people that were up that I think now there's still a top six or seven,
but then it's a pretty dramatic drop after that.
But you're also looking at 53 to 55 games pre-All-Star, like eight to 11 games,
depending on the time that this podcast released today.
So yes, I am noticing it, but there are other times where I'm like, man, it just looks like
the defenders being more, he's just being allowed to be more physical, cutting off the driving path.
That's the thing I'm noticing more. And it doesn't necessarily mean like foul, non-foul. It's just,
oh, wow. Like they collided there a little bit and they just let him keep playing. And by the way,
I'm all for it.
Well, there was another thing going on too.
The Sharps picked it up immediately and were betting the unders and the unders were hitting
pretty huge before Vegas realized what was going on.
I think started adjusting, but I have so many anecdotes from just watching basketball in
person and then on TV.
But the big play that jumps out to me the most is the end of that Celtics-Cavs game
when Tatum, when he had that last possession
and he dribbled up.
And Garland arm bars him and elbows him
and it was all stuff
that nobody was getting away with.
It was just more physical.
You think that was a bad overturn?
No.
Oh no, not the foul itself.
I'm talking about the way he was defending him
before Tatum even shot the shot.
What's changed now is when guys are trying to... The little player in that matchup physically is
going to be allowed to do whatever he wants all the time. Yeah, fair. I thought Tatum initiated,
but go ahead. Well, he did, but I noticed that. I noticed the game I went to, the Denver Lakers
game, Jokic, when he was doing his kind of back down, whirly bur burly thing. And the Lakers were just kind of clubbing them
and they were just letting it go.
I mean, they didn't even get to 10 free throws in that game.
And then last night, the Sun Celtics,
it made me start wondering,
what is this change going to do better or worse
for the Celtics?
Because defensively, especially Holiday and White now
can ratchet it up a level.
But on the other end, I thought it was way harder for Tatum and Brown to get to their
spots.
And they played really well last night.
But I was watching it going, man, if they were calling fouls like they normally did,
I actually think the Celtics would be winning this game by 20.
It's just a lot of work to get the shots that they wanted.
And when that gets to the playoffs, the reason I think this is so important is who wins from this? Who wins from this change? And it's like, guess who wins? The fucking Heat. The Jason Voorhees of the NBA. They're going to take advantage of this the most. And this is going to be more physical, Minnesota is going to be even with or without Towns, Minnesota is going to be really hard to score against if Edwards and
McDaniels at the top of the key are allowed to get a little more handsy with Gobert behind them.
Yeah, I think that's a really good call, especially McDaniels because he lives in foul trouble
and he's so aggressive. Now, I know Minnesota fans aren't thrilled with the way the officiating
ended the other night and maybe we'll get to that Cleveland game, but I don't think too many Minnesota fans were complaining about the officiating against the Pacers the night previous to that, the Anthony Edwards welcoming party to the rest of the world.
But McDaniels also had two really stupid fouls.
So the foul on Garland at the end of the shot clock when he reaches back across into him is just you just like the shot
clocks back to expire like you have to be
smarter than that in those spots but now if you're you
bring it out big picture I started thinking about it too this morning
just going all right wait if this is real
which I still think we need to see more than nine
to ten games of like okay everything's different
now the league is different yeah it's it's two
and a half weeks now right yeah
yeah I just
I just know that whenever that feels like something
becomes a priority the tendency seems to be kind of default back to like what you're comfortable
with and i don't know if this happened like the league's not i don't think the league's going to
admit it and then i also thought it was kind of funny that once it's happened then the complaint
becomes from the teams some teams depending on which side of this argument they're on of like wait you're just
going to do this in the middle of the season and i read that stuff and i'm like yeah fucking right
because it sucked before so what's what's your solution hey this thing that keeps happening that
sucks that puts defensive players in a helpless situation they have like literally no options on
drives your idea is just ride it out for the next few months and then maybe we'll get to it
this summer.
We'll change it in July.
Yeah.
Like be happy if the league did in fact do this, that the league was like, you know,
Hey, enough of this.
I also wonder like how much of just the all-star weekend, which, you know, I don't, I don't
have any time for, it's not for me.
I don't care.
I think complaining about it is probably more pointless because it's almost like people
forget it takes 12 months and then they forget how bad it was the year before. Like this year was not the first year. For me, I don't care. I think complaining about it is probably more pointless because it's almost like people forget.
It takes 12 months and then they forget how bad it was the year before.
This year was not the first year that this isn't fun to watch.
But whether it was just this point of frustration, I don't know if any of the things are combined with it.
But you're right.
Which teams, which players do you go, wait a minute, this actually now maybe ticks it their way a couple of points in advantage because of how physical they can be, especially with the
perimeter stuff. Because some of the teams, it looked like they felt helpless on the perimeter.
It was just nothing you could ever do. I wonder, I don't think this is a top three reason they did
it, but it might be in the top five. Knowing that the Olympics are coming for the NBA and for a lot of the best players in the league
that are going to be playing for different countries
and how drastically different those games are officiated
than what we're watching over here.
Like, especially if the goal of the NBA is like,
man, it'd be nice if Team USA
was able to pull off a gold medal.
This was not the training ground this NBA season
we have for how to play the FIFA rules,
which are completely different,
different flow.
Nobody gets a call ever in FIFA.
I don't know.
I thought I flagged that too,
but the biggest thing for me is
who wins from this?
Who else do you think wins?
Who else?
Because I think your McDaniels point
is a perfect one.
That might be the best example.
I think this hurts Denver a tiny bit.
Cause Jokic, I felt like was officiated a tiny bit unfairly to begin with.
It was a little bit of Shaq artist with how the referee is like, well, he's so big.
What are we supposed to do?
But he does get mauled all the time.
I think he gets his ass kicked all the time.
So seeing a game after this, so I don't know if that's necessarily any different in the lakers game than all the other times like as
much as we both love steve kerr i think his frustration after that denver game when he had
a lot of free throws was about some of the stuff the bigger picture stuff that we're talking about
yeah in reality like yokich isn't the best person to use the example because in comparison to the
other players like because he's in the post and because he's working slowly i think people are allowed to be way more physical with him because it's not out
in the open with the ball heading towards the basket i think it's bad for the knicks because
especially the the brunson centric when he comes back but the brunson centric offense they had
tough one the you especially if you're allowed to be really physical against that. I think that could hurt them.
Cerruti's magic.
We'll see.
We'll see.
You know,
now that they're going to be a four seed,
now they're going to have a home court in round one,
probably.
Now it's,
we'll see how it plays out,
but it's definitely,
you know,
even watching Durant last night,
who's having an incredible offensive year.
I mean,
his numbers,
I want to talk about that later, but his numbers at age 35 compared to the other seasons in his career,
like the percentages are actually higher. Now, does that have to do with how they're calling
the games, the free flow and play, all that stuff? Or is he figured out a way Brady style
to actually get better as he's hitting his mid thirts. I don't fully understand it, but he's like a 53,
45,
86 guy percentage-wise. This is the
best percentages he's ever had.
Yesterday, there was a point in the Celtics
game, and the Celtics played
well last night. That was about as
without
Porzingis, that's about as well as they could play.
And Durant was like 15 for 20
at one point. Did you see that? He showed his stats. Every time you're like, all right, Boston's got as well as they could play. And Durant was like 15 for 20 at one point. Did you see that?
Well, yeah.
He showed his stats.
Every time you're like, all right, Boston's got this.
Boston's got this.
And you're like, no, they don't.
Yeah.
And look, I was curious to see how they would look after the Cleveland loss.
And I think we should probably talk about the Denver loss at some point or the Denver win.
I want to do that next.
Yeah.
All right.
But staying on this, though, with the scoring part of it,
like in what motivated this stuff, whether it was complaints from teams
or just watching enough in the first half of the season where you went,
wait, is this what it is now for offensive players?
And you had the Embiid game.
You had the Towns game.
You had the Booker game in there.
And Booker's always good for like one crazy one. The funniest thing I think is like how the Luca one became negative. And I know Mavs fans turned it into somehow that this massive campaign to be against Luca when I, I think it's a simple, it was just, he was the guy that scored his points after the other guys did. And then it became not so much how great is Luka, but like,
what the hell is going on in this sport? Because I would tell you that I thought Luka's game is
the most impressive out of all of those games because he could have shot even more if he wanted
to against Atlanta, but he was actually making the right reads because they still had to win that
game. You know, as bad as Atlanta is defensively, like, I don't know what pop was trying to do to
Wimbanyama in that Embiid game. Like, game like yeah just we're just never going to bring a double and we're just
going to see like that was weird yeah i think pop had a dinner reservation like 10 minutes after the
game that he was trying to get to he just let like that's what was so scary about mbs that it was so
easy yeah when i looked at luca i went he still has to make the right basketball play with the way this game is
playing out.
But because Lucas was after those guys,
then I just know,
I think you know it as well,
how it works when you're at ESPN and it's okay.
What's the topic today for the shows?
The topic pivoted from,
Oh my God,
Embiid had 70.
Like how great is he to,
this is the fourth guy to do this in a very short amount had 70. Like, how great is he? To this is the fourth guy
to do this in a very short amount of time. Like what the hell's going on? And you know, a lot of,
a lot, I look, we've said for a couple of years. The fifties were as bad when it was just 50 used
to really mean something when somebody had 50, like, oh my God, that guy had 50? 50, I know.
And then 50 is just, I feel like, what? How many guys in the league would you not be surprised
by a 50-point game from?
At least 30?
Yeah, depending on the circumstance,
who else was hurt or whatever, because...
Like, Jalen Brown can have a 50-point game at this point.
It never would have been a million years
thought he was going to score 50 points in a game.
But it's probably going to happen.
Or maybe not now that we have these new rules.
Should we try to come up with how many guys
you'd say no to?
50?
Bones Highland?
Could Bones Highland get 50?
Maybe.
I think we could.
The right situation?
Playing for a lottery team?
The mere coffee?
I have Clippers.
I got Clippers on the mind after that game today.
Every team has two guys who could probably
have gotten 50 under these old rules.
Do you want to pivot to Boston-Denver?
Did we hit this enough?
We have to talk about it.
Well, do you have more on this
or do you want to go to Boston-Denver?
The only thing I would say on this
and then we can move to Boston-Denver
is the amount of private discourse
about what was going on with the rules
and how mad people on the different teams were versus what was being discussed publicly, I thought there was a pretty big disparity.
I really feel like the feeling I got, and I think you felt the same, especially after you started really talking about it and people reached out to you, is that people in the league felt like this was a crisis. This was like, if we don't fix this,
we might not be able to pull this back.
This might become what basketball is.
And I think people were just like, this sucks.
It's a bad product.
It's hard to coach.
It's making guys who are mediocre players look good.
And it's making good players look great.
And this is bullshit.
And we have to fix this. So I don't know if Adam went to All-Star Weekend mediocre players look good and it's making good players look great. And this is bullshit and we
have to fix this. So I don't know if Adam went to all-star weekend and was talking to a bunch
of people about it or what happens. He also has Joe Dumars is really important behind the scenes
now. And I think, you know, a little like how Theo Epstein was tasked with, Hey, can you,
can you help us fix baseball? Do you have any ideas? And then he really put time and thought
and energy into it and studied and came up with changes. I think Dumars has been involved beyond the scenes.
I wouldn't be surprised by that. And I know that there's always a reminder of when you think people
like you, like how often I would take calls from teams to bitch about other media members.
Right. I know you and I've talked about this. So I've never been
delusional enough to think that I haven't been the subject of somebody calling another media
member to be like, that Rasoola guy sucks. But having said that with the understanding,
knowing that it likely almost certainly exists, I didn't get one team to reach out to me to tell me I was wrong after I did my-
Yeah, nobody's like, you're crazy.
This is great.
No.
And there are people that I think I'm close enough with that have been like, hey, I think
you're off base on this or you're nuts or here's what you should look at.
It was across the board.
Keep talking about this.
Yeah, totally.
That's what made it so interesting.
It was like, please, maybe you'll make a difference.
Be picketing outside a silver's office.
It was going to be like year,
year 2029.
Just me at the center court heroes among us.
Right.
So his monologue on a January 15th podcast was the catalyst.
Let's take a break.
We'll do Boston Denver.
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All right. So I talked about Boston, Denver on my Thursday night podcast after the game.
You did not talk about it because you did not have a podcast the next day. So finish the sentence for me. The gap between Boston and Denver is dot, dot, dot.
Insurmountable. Okay. Explain. I don't think it's necessarily wide. I just don't think
that we were talking a little bit. Let me say it this way, about how many players can carry a team
for a night, right? How many players could carry a team all by themselves against a really good team?
And then I started thinking of the unsolvable question of who's playing today that's
unsolvable. Is Giannis actually unsolvable or is there maybe some little plan that you could put in?
And then it starts to become a really, really short list.
And I'd say Luke is unsolvable, and then beyond that, it's Jokic.
And Boston tried some different things.
Maybe they needed to try even more things.
They went to Drew late.
It just doesn't really matter.
And watching the two games they match up, we all know how good Boston is.
I just don't think that they're better than Denver.
I don't think it was fluky.
It's funny how people can pick and choose where it's like well tatum had an off night he's like yeah but jaylen brown went insane it's like i didn't make enough
threes like denver shot 19 from three all right so yeah whatever the gap is i'm not going to sit
here and say it's this massive gap it just feels like because of yokich right now for boston it's
an insurmountable gap is that so youurmountable gap. I don't have distance for
you. What do you think? Do you think it's fluky? Do you think it's solvable? Where are you at with
those two teams? I think the series would be very similar to what the Lakers Nuggets series was
last spring, where the games were close. And then in the last six to eight minutes,
Denver just out-executed the Lakers because they had better options
and they had the Jokic-Murray cheat code.
The Boston piece of it,
I just don't feel 100% comfortable
I'm going to love the shot
when it's 115 to 114 with a minute 40 left.
I just don't know if I'm going to love
whatever shot is about to happen.
And that's the hardest thing to get over.
I don't think Tatum's the player he's,
I still don't think he's a finished product and you really feel it in some of
these games.
Uh,
whereas Denver,
you'll get,
I don't know if he's a finished product,
but he's pretty goddamn close and he's super comfortable and knows exactly
what he wants to do.
Mahoney,
I don't want to repeat what Mahoney and I talked about on Thursday,
but it's like that guy just knows, oh, you're going to do this
and I'll do this. Oh, you're going to do that. I'll do this. And there's just no way to fight
it. It's the last time I can remember anything like this was the 17 Warriors, that first Warriors
team when they really figured out the Durant, Curry, Clay, the spacing, and just like, oh,
you're going to guard Durant with that guy?
Okay, and they'll ride that.
Oh, you're getting a little lazy chasing Curry around this ground?
Are we going to do this?
And there was just no way to stop it.
And Denver, you really have to hope that their bench sucks
or that Porter sucks.
You're hoping that Murray's going to take too long to get going.
But anything relating to Jokic, he's going to get to 32, 13, and 16
in any game he wants.
And in the end of the game,
he's going to have a 70% chance of getting a basket.
So when I think about what team can beat them,
maybe it's the Celtics if they're taking a bunch of threes.
But to me, the model is more like that Booker-Durant,
like that Sunday game a week ago, where it's like, all right, you're going to score, but we are too. And we're going to try to score more than you did. And you're going to score 20 points to win the title, but to me, they're almost prohibitive favorites.
I think it's going to be so hard to beat those guys.
Don't you?
Yeah, I'm there,
especially with the Clippers cooling here.
Granted, Kawhi and Paul George didn't even play today
against Milwaukee,
even though they're incredibly competitive.
And then they weren't going to keep up the 25-6 pace,
but when they got it rolling.
But throughout it all, their defense still wasn't necessarily that great. And yet when you look at Denver defensively, the profile of it
last year, it's like, well, it doesn't really matter. I watch basketball and I go hard or easy,
hard or easy. Tatum has that three. Boston almost steals that one because that's what that would
have been because for two plus hours, I'm like, man, this feels hard for Boston.
And for Denver, it just feels easier.
Well, you know why they almost stole it?
Because Drew hit two crazy threes in a row when the game was basically over.
And it was like, whoa, it was like he threw, you know, he did like the Superman punch to
get the Celtics back in the game.
It's like, where'd that come from?
And then all of a sudden the momentum flipped in like five seconds.
But yeah, Denver felt like
they were in control the whole time.
Right now, Celtics are plus 210 on FanDuel
and Denver is plus 420.
And that makes no sense to me.
But their job is to put the odds,
try to get public betting.
I know Boston's more of a public team,
but Denver should be the favorite.
They should be the favorite.
And I just know every one of the models, even going all the way
back to 22, all the way back two years ago. But when you'd see some of the stuff that was up on
Boston's profile, and it was like 88% chance of winning the NBA finals, and you're just like,
look, they're good. But whatever it is, it's been this group that's obviously been overhauled here a bit with Drew and Przingis and Smart not being involved.
They're a better team now.
And look at it this way.
I was going through the strength of schedule for remaining teams.
Denver's got the easiest of any of the teams in the top four.
Right.
OKC's going to have.
Minnesota just lost towns.
Right.
But if you're just looking at like
opposing schedule denver's got the 24th toughest schedule so you could frame it a different way
but boston they've got the easiest schedule and the winning percentage of combined opponents is
415 miami has the second easiest one and the combined opponent winning percentage is 446 like
there's a massive gap when you look at the strength of
schedule that's remaining for Boston. So Boston won 11 straight, and yet you can still find a way
after the Cleveland loss to go like, what is it? Oh, it was Dean Wade. Dean Wade who had zero
points two nights later in 33 minutes. Literally zero points. I knew you would probably be like,
give me Dean Wade's line immediately. I look at
the Cleveland box score every game because that was such a stupid loss where Dean Wade just leaves
his body for 20 minutes out of nowhere. When I went back and watched, I was like, you know,
you guys, meaning the Celtics, like you guys just decided to lose Dean Wade. Like after he'd hit
four and he's like, Oh, I'm not going to pay attention and be like, Hey guys. Yeah. I know
you want to blame Missoula. How about box? I him right joe drew holidays terrific keep an eye on the guy you
have to defend and yeah in that spot dean way to get the offensive rebounds so it's it's just
it's a constant cycle of boston they they lose to cleveland and then it's like ah this team and
you're like they just won 11 straight though but But I thought the Denver game was one of the most revealing games
of the season for the Celtics
because it just shows you,
you can say the gap is massive.
You can say the gap is thin.
I just think the best way to frame it
is that because of Jokic,
it's insurmountable.
Like if you keep Porzingis in,
clearly they stayed single coverage
with him with Porzingis
for a good chunk of the first half
of the game.
And like, you know, that's not going to work. But then if they bring in another big like Tillman or Horford
and then keep Porzingis out there, then now you don't have to have Jokic defend Porzingis to take
him away. So now he's not playing as much defense. And then they went with Drew Holiday. The biggest
thing is trying to figure out how to limit Gordon's threat in the dunker spot. When he's
running the baseline off all the shit you want to do with Jokic, you have to figure out how to limit Gordon's threat in the dunker spot. When he's running the baseline off
all the shit you want to do with Jokic, you have to figure out a way to limit his impact.
And Boston did a bad job of that. And I think physically, it might just be really hard for
most teams to have the second guy, whoever that is, whether it's a slow power forward or an
undersized four, like, hey, this beast of a guy who can jump out of the gym is going to get all these incredible
passes he's going to make the right cut he's figured out that role perfectly we saw it in
the lakers game yeah and that that dunk that he had where he caught it off the rim and threw it
like for an in-game dunk that's one of the best in-game dunks you're going to see totally agree
with gordon now we're doing that we're just agreeing with each other uh the thing with gordon
i don't know how long he's been playing with the Oak Age.
What has it been like?
Is it three years now?
Three and a half?
Three plus, yeah.
Yeah.
It's just nuts watching how attuned they are to each other at this point.
We've seen it with all the great teams that had extended runs going back to the 80s, where
the guys, they hit this
other level where there's a familiarity that becomes an advantage. And he now has that.
Jokic has that now with Gordon and with Murray, where he just, they've just had too many reps now.
And so when you're competing against him, you're also competing against the reps.
And Gordon just always knows what Jokic is going to do. Even when you're watching it live and
you're like, oh, he's going to shoot that.
Oh no, that was actually an alley-oop.
Like it's just, Gordon's the only one in the building
who knows it's going to be an alley-oop.
And they've just leveraged this dude who,
how many guys would you want in that Gordon spot
over the last 25 years who would just be like,
I don't care if I shoot that much.
It's basically what the Suns always wanted
for Sean Marion, right?
Hey, man, just play defense and be around the rim and run the break.
Remember, D'Antoni was like, I want you to shoot more.
And it was one of those things of the coach having the confidence in you to shoot more,
and then you become a better shooter because of it.
So I think you're right about early Marion.
But one of the great things about him is he evolved into somebody that like,
oh, wait, we actually have to go out to the corner with him. Did you ever think it was going
in? I thought he got, I don't know what the numbers are off the top of my head. I just thought
eventually he was like somebody you had to worry about out there. But Gordon, you know, you're
sitting there trying to think about like, what do you do with Denver? And now you're seeing teams
just ignore Gordon when he's positioned on the perimeter, like, cause they're just trying to do
whatever they can. It's like the only thing people can do with Oklahoma City
if Giddey's in with the starters.
It's like, all right, sag off of Giddey,
hoping the help is closer to this SGA stuff that you have.
But SGA is just surrounded.
When you go through the Thunder shooters, you just go,
wait, that guy's at 40? That guy's at 45?
Are you kidding me?
It's like six dudes you've got to worry about.
So it spaces out perfectly for SGA.
So the only thing you're noticing defense is doing
would be like, let's just sell out
and tell Giddy to shoot the entire time.
Gordon's at like 28%.
He had a couple years there where he was like 34, 35 from three
where it felt like he at least kept you honest.
That would be a good second spectrum sketch.
Who do you think has been left alone
by the most feet this season?
Gordon will have some where there's nobody within
seven, eight feet of him. They're just like, fuck it.
Go ahead, man. You think it's Draymond?
Oh, yeah. You're right.
It's Draymond. That would be a good all-star
team. And he's been shooting well this year, too.
So it's not
so much the percentage.
It's how many of these are you going to burn us
with, you know? Like, you can be like, oh, this this guy's at 40 percent really cool he's taking one point at a
game but it's really cool it makes you wonder like how many guys are over the last like since
we started watching basketball how many guys are like a gordon type that they just never found the
right situation and they kind of came and went and they had a solid career everybody wanted to be a small forward remember because of his athleticism he had looked like
enough handle and coming out of arizona i remember talking to teams going like man it's this guy
like if you right we get him in and we're like you've got to be kidding me with physically what
he's capable of doing but the idea of things loved him for years all right but it full you know
calling myself out here when he was the
hot name on the trade market, I kind of was like, have you paid attention to who he's been in
Orlando? Cause it's probably a little disappointing. I mean, there's a reason they're trading this guy
even after the next contract and what. And the trade was bad. You go back in that trade,
it feels like it's 30 cents in the dollar. It seemed, it seemed more reasonable at the time.
He was just stuck and it wasn't really working out and, you know, credit Denver, trade. It feels like it's 30 cents on the dollar. It seemed more reasonable at the time than looking
back. He was just stuck and it wasn't really working out. And credit Denver clearly knowing
better than I would have at the time that it's like, no, when you get somebody with Jokic,
if you put Gordon's metrics up against his Denver metrics, it's two different people.
So he turned into this because of him, but you're right. It's the perfect compliment.
So we'll cross off Denver.
Give me a,
I didn't tell you we were going to do this.
Give me a one word answer.
I love it.
On why each team will not win the title.
One word.
It's like password plus.
It's like a 60s game show.
One word,
Boston.
Why won't they win the title?
They won't have the best player on the floor.
That's not one word.
It's one word.
Insatiable.
Uh,
one word,
one word.
What is this?
Fucking one word.
It's a fucking sixties game show.
I should have prepped you. No that's fine i i don't i
like this it's like when i did it with chauncey billups and turned to a spoken word thing and
i jammed him up it wasn't the best interview i've ever done uh one word one word um
um let's run the truth let's run the audio chauncey uh limitations
oh i like it I would have said alpha
because at some point
in the playoffs it becomes alpha
versus alpha and I'm not sure
Tatum has the bag yet to match
a couple of the guys
that they might have to play in a playoff series
and it sucks for Tatum because it's literally a couple
guys yeah it's like oh no
you're not one of the three best
guys at the end of the game. But yeah,
if it's him versus Jokic, I'm just betting
on Jokic. What do you got for Cleveland?
I'll go first.
Go ahead. Go ahead. I
came up with one, but go ahead.
Clumsy.
Okay.
Sell me on clumsy.
I'm not sure they're five guys.
The five guys, they want to be their five guys together.
It still feels a little clumsy to me.
I don't know if it's a five that totally makes sense yet.
I think that's good.
Do you think Clumsy's as good or better for Phoenix?
Phoenix would be health for me
it's like
ah if we get him back
oh when he comes back
it's just that's
that's the team
they've been for five months
and Durant has been healthy
the whole time
he's put 57 games
it's like
ah we need him back
it's like eh
Beal's been injured
three different times
earlier this year
when you look at their
fourth quarter numbers
I mean they're horrifying
right
they're differential it's the worst in the league think, or at least it was going into the
fourth quarter. Yeah, Durant's clutch numbers are bad. But I don't never know what to do with any
of their numbers because you go, well, because they're a different version every couple of weeks.
Yeah. So what's their thing? Like when I watch Phoenix, I go, what's their thing that they go to
other than if Booker's initiating and the team's defending the high screen a certain way, then you know where Booker's going to get to his spot.
Like I can envision that.
I think there's a lot of times where Durant has to get it off the dribble because then if he's not, he's like waiting to watch it happen on the other side.
So I don't know that they really kind of know what their finishing move is because they're just, there's not a, uh, maybe continuity would be a
better word for Phoenix. Um, continuity is a good one. So Mahoney and I talked about them on Thursday
and basically came up with this, that there's talking about this Mahoney guy a lot. Well,
there's the four teams in the one, but the four contenders, and then there's six more teams,
right? And the question was, if you're going to rank those two groups,
would you put Phoenix just in the second group?
Or would you put them in kind of their own group
because the upside's a little different
than the other teams in that group?
New Orleans, Dallas, the Lakers, Golden State.
I'd put them in their own group.
I like it.
I think that's what you have to do with them.
Yeah, that's where we land in.
Because it's just,
I think the ceiling of what they can do where they're just like,
you're going to score 122, we'll score 124, is just a little higher with the Durant-Booker combo.
I mean, you think about the year they've had. I didn't think Nurkic would stay healthy this long. He did. I didn't like Grayson Allen at all. He's been awesome. I don't even know what
he's worth now in free agency. He might be like a 70 million for four years type of guy. And Durant has been healthy
and really good all season. So if you told me those three things for the year, I would have
thought we would have been higher on him, but we just haven't seen it. They just can't keep those
dudes together. What would your word be for Milwaukee?
Better.
Because they're better.
They just are.
The defensive numbers have spiked up.
I think even though it was weird tonight,
or today, I should say, against the Clippers,
once they figured out what they wanted to do with Harden
and get the ball out of his hands,
and then Harden waited way too long
to decide to become an offensive player.
I think he had his 12th and 13th points at two minutes left in the game,
and then Harden's like, I better start chucking my way back into this one.
But I was really impressed.
I'd say on the whole, what are they, 10-9 now with Doc?
There's a lot of good jokes to make.
When he had taken over, we knew how bad they were defensively and all that stuff.
Look, they're still going to have some problems on the perimeter defensively.
Like D'Angelo Russell's incredible night against them the other night, which was just an all that stuff. Look, they're still going to have some problems on the perimeter defensively. Like D'Angelo Russell's incredible night against them
the other night, which was just an all-timer.
But he beats Lillard on the perimeter
and Brooks kind of caught in that.
Like, I would love to know what their rule on that
would have been.
It's like, hey, at that point with Russell,
you know, just sell out on him
because Lillard's probably going to get beat
and you have to bring Brooke up.
The point is, is that I've just seen better defense
from them.
And that other game where Lillard didn't have anybody and he had to go off, he did. He ends
up with 40 in that game. So I just think that they're better and they need to be taken. I don't
care what the standings are. I think they need to be taken more as a serious threat despite always
having a really good record throughout how frustrating so many months of the season has
been because of the standard that they're held to. You know, I'm the body language doctor.
I know you've been great at it. I don't know what, what form of MD this is, but I'm also like
the quote, the quote doctor. I like reading the quotes, especially when a team has a change. If
you read the quotes that some of the Bucks players have have about what's going on, to me, it feels legitimate.
Lopez just had a long paragraph quote
about how everything's been simplified
and everyone's on the same page now.
And it's stuff you don't say unless you actually think,
oh, we've figured shit out.
Whereas when things are going badly,
the quotes will be different. And they were different
for the Bucks three months ago where it's like, yeah, we just... They were bad. I mean, you're
being nice about it. They were pretty bad. Yeah. It's like, we're just not good enough right now.
And we've got to figure out a better way to dot, dot, dot. And just things are like,
oh, that's not good. That sounds bad. And now they flipped that and Middleton isn't back yet. And they get
Jay Crowder actually looked semi-playable in the Clipper game today. So if they can get even 20
minutes out of him, Portis has been really good for them lately. Um, it's like two months with
Portis and the big Lillard game was the other Clippers game back there where they won, where
I think Jay only played 18 minutes in that game.
I'm not necessarily there
with you as Crowder as an option here.
Listen, they're going to
need swings in the playoffs.
They're going to need
probably three to four guys if they're
playing Boston that can at least
not get the shit kicked out of them by Tatum
and Brown. They're going to need Crowder,
Conantin. One of those guys is going to have to play better.
How many guys have had their best game of the season against Dame,
if you had to guess?
I kind of wish I'd looked this up.
Halliburton had a game against them where it was like,
send it to the Hall of Fame.
But I think guys, if I was a point guard and it was like,
oh, Milwaukee.
Like if I'm Darius Garland, I'm like, oh yeah, these guys.
Can't wait. I'm going to oh yeah, these guys. Can't wait.
I'm going to try to go for 50.
Yeah, he's just bad.
He's just bad defensively.
But their overall numbers are dramatically better now.
So that's, you already knew it.
And that was the win.
It's why this summer when they ended up getting him.
And of course you're in favor of getting Dame Lillard.
But there's always like some local reporter that's willing to write the,
you know,
Dame's not nearly as bad on defense as people say.
And then it's like,
no,
he is.
It's okay.
He's awesome.
Everybody over and over again.
He comes through and last three,
four minutes of these games.
And he did it today with the Clippers.
Again,
he has a knack for,
he makes the one or two or three biggest shots of the game.
What's your word for OKC?
I would go size.
I think that's pretty easy. Yeah. Rebounding there. OKC? I would go size. I think that's pretty easy.
Yeah, rebounding.
They're, depending on, I don't know,
I looked at it this week,
they're the second worst rebounding team in the league.
And there's just, the eyes back it up.
There's certain nights with them in a matchup
against another guy where you're like,
it's just really hard for them in the glass here.
And they also put a lot on Chet,
where it's, this dude's like 20.
Yeah, so if Chet has a bad game, you guys basically are going to get out rebounded by 20.
Now I'm not worried about his injuries because I'm like, he survived this season.
Right.
The number of times where I feel like he is twist.
What's the game?
It's like a game of twister on the baseline underneath the basket after the play has happened.
And it's just limbs all over the place.
And he's like getting up.
And I'm like, man, I just feel like I've seen that too much who are your top five oh no guys
because obviously porzingis is one for me but i think chet's too where it's like three times a
game you just feel like chet is just got hurt or is about to get hurt and he's always like he's
who is it wendy's definitely one oh wendy good one. Yeah, he's in the top three. Probably Durant.
Durant's a good one.
Durant takes some hard kind of stumble.
He had it yesterday in the second half of the Celtic game.
He fell backwards and he flung the ball forward,
but it looked like his knee.
He looked like Nagano in the Joshua fight.
He just kind of fell straight back.
You know what?
When LeBron,
when he's checking for blood,
I'm just devastated
on the edge of my seat.
And then when there's no blood,
I'm the most relieved person in America.
Every time there's no blood.
It just seems like
this is the time
where it's going to happen.
What's your one word for Minnesota?
I would say...
Well, it's two words, so I can't i this is really i need a thesaurus in front of me you can do two words i would just say closing closing closing closing and it's really about
closing offense i'm not worried about the closing defense whatsoever so even though you know cat's
not exactly my favorite player of all time, depending on his health. Like he provides some version of spacing.
And as much as we all love Ant,
like,
are you really going to be able to do this on your own?
Seven for 27,
the day after his great game.
In Cleveland?
Yeah,
that wasn't great.
It was a bad first quarter.
You know who was over for breakfast today at my house?
Jimmy Kimmel.
The Ewing Theory Committee.
Because they were in town to see Minnesota with Nas Reed
and Towns' spot.
They just wanted to check it out.
Towns.
Took me a bit.
Towns checks a lot of the boxes, man.
Wow.
It's like, oh no, they've lost Towns.
Whoa, their season's over.
It's like, is it?
Yeah, that's a good segment
if we have nothing.
If you have nothing,
like I'm on vacation
and you just go top five closest Ewing theory inductees.
So when I wrote one of my first columns ever
for page two was 2001.
And I wrote the whole Ewing theory,
which was from my old site.
Dave Cirilli was the guy who came up with it.
I blew it out, had all these like rules.
And one of the guys I picked in 2001,
like it was somewhere in the spring,
summer was Drew Bledsoe. And when Brady got hurt, I wrote the column right after. And I was like,
the Ewing theory, this is it. The test is here. Tom Brady, Ewing theory, I'm all in.
You can go back and read it. And then he fucking Ewing theory all the way to the Superbowl, but Nas reads good.
And it's like, I guarantee Nas read is, is like, Oh no, I have to play more minutes. Like Nas read is like, this is my time. He was unbelievable the other night. That game was awesome the other night,
but he was really great. Right. Yeah. And I think, uh, I think, uh, I don't know.
Obviously, it's not good to lose towns,
but there is some Ewing Theory stuff there.
Last one-word team, Clippers.
Health.
Yeah, I'd go.
Yeah, health is the right word.
That's fine.
Although they've got Norm Powell, 24 Savage,
filling up the box score.
So if he can play a couple games here and get some stats,
I think he plays himself into the six man.
Because it's him and Monk, I think, are the two best six men.
Just eye test watching games where it's like,
oh, that guy's feeling it.
And they can swing like two and a half to, like every two and a half weeks, they'll swing a game.
All right. We're going to do a 2004 versus 2024 thing, but let's take a break.
All right. So you wanted to do this, the talent now versus 20 years ago. And I was looking at the All-NBA from 20 years ago, and it actually made me do a little tester for if I had to pick the All-NBA right now, who would the guys be? Which led me down this Tatum versus Durant rabbit hole. Because I think everybody thinks the All-NBA right now would probably be Giannis, Tatum, Jokic, Luka, and SGA, even though we're not picking positions. But Durant's not that far away from Tatum.
If you're going to do the best record thing with Tatum,
they're going to be the number one team by five games.
And Tatum's stats are pretty close.
But I do feel like Durant could steal that first-team
NBA spot if he had a strong last 20.
Anyway, why did you want to do this?
Give me the preamble.
Why did you want to do this? I me the preamble. Why'd you want to do this?
I always like asking myself who the top five players are pretty much. I don't know,
beginning of the year, middle of the year, towards probably after the playoffs, which the playoffs
probably influences stuff a little bit too much. I personally need you, if you're going to be a top
five player, you have to do what you're doing and do it for a couple of years. Or maybe there's just
a magical playoff run inside of the two years of big regular season numbers so i think sga is kind of on the
cusp of this even though this year there's no question he's having one of the five best seasons
and i think the top four is pretty easy right it's it's yokich it's luca it's janice it's
mb i'd put it in that order and then maybe it's sga you know it's felt like durant's in there
tatum has been
argued. I think Kawhi during that stretch, you were like, dude, are you watching what this guy's
doing right now? A little reminder. But the whole point of the exercise was after I would get to
five, Bill, I'd be like, okay, so now I'm kind of at 10. I think we did this a year ago, right?
We said our 10 top five guys for, we did it it was that we had fun with it because it was like
there's nine top five guys so you know we haven't even mentioned ant um you just start going through
it i'm like okay so the league has never been deeper and then i went back and looked i just
randomly picked like 10 and 20 years ago this i'm so glad that you liked 0304 because when you go
through like who the guys were who the real shakers were in the league,
you're like, it is not even close. Now, maybe you'd find another random year where it would feel-
It's the perfect year to do it though because this was the season that led to
a little bit similar to what happened the All-Star break where we were like, we got to fix this.
This is crazy. We had that Pistons Pacers series that year. This was the year the Pistons beat the
Lakers, but they changed the pace of the games.
They did some rule stuff.
The Suns came in and stuff started to shift.
Sam Cassell was fourth in win shares.
Sam Cassell was second team All-NBA.
I'll give the listeners.
So it was Duncan and KG, Shaq, Kobe, Jason Kidd.
Pretty good start.
All-NBA first team.
That was the, wasn't that, was that the trial year for Kobe or was that the year before?
I think it was the year before.
I don't know off the top of my head.
Second team, T-Mac, who was in that last Orlando year before they ended up trading him.
Peja Stojakovic, second team All-NBA.
Jermaine O'Neal, big Indiana season.
Ben Wallace on the Pistons,
and Sam Cassell, who had just an awesome season with Minnesota. Third team was Ron Artest,
Dirk Nowitzki, Yao Ming, Baron Davis, Michael Redd. What's interesting about that top 15 is I think
at least four or five of those guys
were available in trades at some point
either during that season or right after.
TMAC was getting shot.
I wrote a trade value column that summer
and it was like, Baron Davis, could you get him?
Michael Redd versus TMAC.
What about Tracy McGrady?
Where's he going?
Kobe was, it was like Kobe versus Shaq.
Who's going to go?
Shaq did get traded.
So it was just a weird year,
but those were our best 15 players in 2004.
So if you go through it now,
right?
So Jokic and B,
Luca,
I'm just going off of like,
I'm going to go off a box score plus minus
here all right because i i don't think there's going to be a name in here where you're like
what the hell's happening we haven't even mentioned we we didn't even mention curry yet
which you know if you look at what golden state's record was before his knee injury
it was right up there with everybody um well can i give a temp a temp all nba three teams
just to separate it?
Yeah, yeah.
Do that.
Do that.
And by the way, when I'm saying Golden State's record, it was the 13-6 stretch of when I
was kind of like chopping up the season into different segments there.
I was like, wow, Golden State had like the best record in the NBA there for a few weeks.
Go ahead.
First team, Giannis, Tatum, Jokic, Luka, SGA.
That's probably it unless Durant sneaks in there. Second team, Durant, Tatum, Jokic, Luka, SGA. That's probably it unless Durant sneaks in there.
Second team, Durant, Kawhi. I'm going old school with the center guard position. I know we're
supposed to just pick five players. I'm not doing that. I'm just telling you now as a voter, I'm
still going to use positions. Durant, Kawhi, Anthony Davis. Guards are really hard. I put
Edwards and Mitchell for second team. Third team,
I had Palo and Butler,
Sabonis,
Halliburton,
and Brunson.
Can you do the third one
one more time?
I'm just writing it down.
Palo, Butler,
Sabonis,
Halliburton,
and Brunson.
Which means on the bubble
for all NBA
are the following guys.
Bam,
Booker,
Curry,
Fox,
Markkinen,
who's going to fade because Utah is starting to get a little
tanky. LeBron, who's starting to be banged up and I think is going to not make it. Jalen Brown,
who's actually been coming on, Embiid, who's not going to make it, Paul George. And then we go into
this other group of like Gobert, Harden, Towns, Maxie, Dame, Wemby, Zion, Jha, Kyrie, Triple J, Randall, Chet,
Derek White, Jalen Williams, Barnes, Ingram, Cade, Franz, Trey, Garland, Inanobi, Siakam,
Bridges, Pritchard, Shangoon, Bain, Porzingis, Holiday, Mobley, Gordon, Colby White, and
Murray.
We're 60 deep.
And the 60th guy in that list was Murray.
Who's 22 a game and is,
is probably going to get traded this summer for three first round picks or two or whatever.
Yeah.
I don't have any,
I actually don't have anything to add to it.
If you go back through all four,
um,
like you made the point.
Yeah.
All I'd be doing is just repeating it over and over again.
Cause when you're looking at some of this stuff,
you go like Richard Jefferson was ninth in offensive box score rating in 03,
04. I think he was like 22nd in my trade value list that year.
Right. James Posey's top 15. Brad Miller was 14th in this. The windshare thing. I mean,
if I'm just pulling up some of the stuff, I didn't really want to do points. But yeah,
there's good players. You're like, Hey, what about Steve Nash?
Well,
this is pre Phoenix,
Steve Nash,
the list of some of these guys that have some of the best metrics,
whether it's James Posey,
Kirilenko,
who was good,
but you know,
it was kind of a short lived thing.
Brad Miller,
Antonio Daniels,
Memito core,
nice player,
Eric Dampier,
Elton brands all over the stat lists, Karolenko,
these guys that young guys that clearly seem like they had potential. And then you had the guys who
were like kind of at the crossroads where you had Pierce, you had Vince. That was when we were like,
what's going on with Vince? Is he just not going to be a guy? Iverson, rumors he's going to get traded.
Powell, what's happening with him?
Does he have it?
Marbury, it's like, does this guy,
are you just 35 and 47 if he's your best guy?
Steve Francis, what is he?
Arenas, huh?
Ray Allen, is he ever going to put it together?
Odom, and it was just going through.
And then you had those kind of steady dudes, like the Ben Wallace,
Rip Hamilton, Billups, people like that.
But it just felt like from a talent standpoint,
you were really only going to be happy as a fan with maybe 40% of the list.
Now I look at the talent in that top 60 and you're really nitpicking.
If you're like, oh, I don't know, Desmond Bain, he's got to stay
healthy. You're saying stuff like that. These guys are all really good. And then for Wemby
to just be a bubble guy when he's been such a revelation the last month. I thought Zach Lowe
did a good job on Friday, just like, Wemby's here. What do we do now? If you're the Spurs,
this is no longer a three-year plan.
You have all these picks.
You need a plan for next year.
Why would you waste this?
Do you?
I think you need to be better.
Let's hear it.
Let's hear this ag.
I couldn't believe
some of the Wemby stuff from this week.
He really wants to win now.
Okay.
Well, cool.
You're on a team that had the number one pick. That means they
sucked unless it was part
of some of the transaction where you lucked out with the number one
pick. So you can want...
What are you going to do?
You're going to ask out?
If I was a Spurs fan, I'm like, are you guys
serious? We didn't even make it a full season
and we're going to start talking about... Oh, I wasn't even
talking about the Wemby side of it. I was talking about
the Spurs side of it.
I see what you're saying.
I was focusing on the media stuff from this.
You're right.
Okay.
I,
that was the story that I was,
I was thinking of because you brought up Zach.
Yeah.
You're right.
The Zach part of this,
meaning the Spurs part of this is that it's not a three-year runway of like,
let's just,
cause he's so good already,
but I don't know.
I mean,
here's what I would ask anybody that presents this kind of stuff when be being this good and having the
wiring that you want for what is now going to be his responsibility to carry this franchise
yeah if you're running the spurs are you going you know the joke i always make is like when the
player gets mad it's like as if the entire front office
is sitting around and be like, what do you want to do today?
Be like, I don't know, dude.
Yeah.
Let's make the franchise upset.
Yeah.
What do you want to do?
And then it's like, well, and then they show up to work the next day after the player complains,
be like, hey, you know what?
Let's try to be better starting today.
So I don't think the Spurs, like you could talk about like, all right, you've got to
maybe bring in a vetter a little bit
early maybe okay
but I mean it's also the Spurs too
and I think I trust them enough that
they're gonna make the moves
that are presented to them that make sense
for them as opposed to rushing into something
are you trusting past performance
from like the mid 2010s
what have they done in the last 5 years that make you feel like you should trust the Spurs?
I guess that's my...
Bottomed out after what usually teams do after a really sustained run,
except their sustained run was like 16 years, 17 years.
This seems like the right spot for us to apologize to Kelvin Johnson
for not including him in the all-disappointment All-Stars.
Can we make sure the breakout video isn't what's going on with Kelvin Johnson's ass?
You look thick in person.
Well, sometimes when you sign a contract.
What's interesting about comparing the 20 years apart
is how LeBron was just coming off his rookie year,
but we all saw enough in the rookie year.
We're like, oh God, this guy, this is going to be really special. It was just kind of no question.
Same thing for Wemby. And they're at the beginning of this rocket ship, but there's all these other great players around them. LeBron had Wade and Carmelo, who I think we were probably higher on in 04 than
maybe where we landed. Carmelo had a good career, but I just thought Carmelo was going to be like
basically what Durant did, where he's just going to be 28 to 30 a game for 15 years.
And it wasn't quite that. Let me get back to your original point,
because I derailed. I screwed it up there because I interpreted what you were talking
about as the media stuff that was happening. It's fine.
People like the tension, even though it turned out to be misguided.
What would you do? What would you do now differently after this Wemby Nyama season in comparison to, say, Wemby being like,
Oh, I'm not sure who he's going to be.
If there wasn't a certainty that we feel like we have after his rookie year, what, you know, I, you know, I'm not sure who he's going to be. If there wasn't a certainty
that we feel like we have after his rookie year, what would you do? So what changes maybe is the
better question. All right. So we're running San Antonio. They put us in charge. The first thing I
would want to do is I would want to go back in history and see how other teams handled the same
situation. Cause if you remember like Cleveland, they, they kind of panicked pretty quickly.
They thought they were further along than maybe they were. And all of a sudden, they were in the
chasing the assets thing and spending a ton of money. And that's what led to Larry Hughes.
They screwed up the Boozer situation. He left. That really hurt them.
Ben Wallace, Zodiac deal.
Yeah. They started chasing it. They had Shaq for a year.
And by 2009, they were in a lot of trouble.
And it was like the college kid who kept putting stuff on his credit card.
And then it eventually backfired.
But the Boozer thing really fucked them.
So I wonder if that hadn't happened, does it play out a little differently with him?
Kobe was in a different situation
because he was with Shaq, right?
Yeah, it was also just different
because we still weren't,
we weren't ready for a perimeter player
straight out of high school to become what he was,
which I know it sounds stupid,
but that's just how it worked in the sports world,
whether it was Garnett coming out
and people being offended by him even doing it.
But then once Kobe did it, it was like, who this high school guard thinks he's going to do this?
He's going to take shots in playoff games?
Yeah.
With crunch time?
Who is he?
It's just the way it worked and everybody was wrong.
So keep going.
I'll tell you, here's a good model.
I just thought of this.
So Wade, incredibly promising rookie year.
And then they said, fuck it.
And they went all in and got Shaq.
And if you look back,
that trade seemed like a no-brainer for them,
but it wasn't a no-brainer at the time
because Shaq, people thought he was out of shape.
People thought he was past his prime.
You had to give him the extension too
that the Lakers didn't want to give him.
Yeah, they gave up Odom
and they gave up Butler in that trade.
And people, both of those guys were in like the top 30 of my trade value, I think.
They were able to dump the Brian Grant contract in it.
I think they gave up a pick, but that trade wasn't a no-brainer.
Now it seems like a no-brainer, but the reason they did it was they were like,
we want to be good right now because we have Dwayne Wade and we think he's special.
And that next year he got hurt in the playoffs.
I still think they would have made the playoffs or the finals if he didn't get hurt. Remember that against the Pistons, he got hurt
like midway through that series. I thought they were ready to make it that year. Um, so maybe
that's the model. I mean, maybe they should look at how Miami handled that Wade situation, but like,
Hey, could we be, could we be good right away? I would not like, just be like, Oh, we're going to
like do the Presti thing. We'll stockpile picks, just be like, oh, we're going to do the Presti thing,
stockpile picks, build slow.
Because one thing,
they're going to have a high pick this year,
but the draft isn't very good, right?
So one of the questions is,
if you're them,
let's say you're in the top five,
do you want to draft a guy with potential on a higher ceiling?
Or do you want to draft a guy
who's a little further along,
a little more proven?
Do you want to hit a double or do you want to hit a double or you
want to hit home run i want to hit home runs i'm not going to be like one of the dumbest draft
arguments ever ever was when jordan was still with the wizards and they're like they're going to take
shane battier because he's ready to plug in right now and you're like no you're not you're not
taking shane battier number one i mean this is stuff that was actually proposed going back now
what 25 years this isn't
even me in the media just an annoyed sports fan being like that's so fucking stupid as i would
read it going but there was people that do we do now then making the argument that that's the thing
that made the most sense and that's a shit that that's that's not even a double man for a number
one pick that's a single so i don't think the spurs would necessarily do that kind of thing
and by the way back to the calves thing i know i've said this before but part of
the pressure of trying to make sure that lebron knew that they were committed that actually
influenced them to make a lot of those trades that actually were just more expensive with not
really much upgrade whatsoever well he had that one extension coming in 06 or 07 right so they
had to and they made it where i want to be all should
which we all should have seen the writing on the wall when it's like wait all of these guys did
this deal collectively like they all did them shorter except carmelo yeah that's right carmelo
was the one that he did the extra year and i i think he didn't he didn't get the memo maybe he
didn't look at his text that day when they were like here's the plan go to 2006 version
of whatsapp but no like look at if i go back at these i've done this before with with greater
depth but you know when they had when they had the larry hughes deal by the way when they signed
larry hughes i like that move for them because larry hughes was good i was another guy i don't
really know what happened to him after he got the last contract, but he was having
good moments on the Wizards.
I guess I would just tell you, go through all those Cleveland years when they're desperate
to try to make it work after it was clear a couple of years in for LeBron.
And when you say, well, definitely don't do that, it's like, well, they were doing it
because they were scared that he was going to think that they weren't invested.
And Gilbert didn't care.
He would always take on more money in these deals,
but it never allowed him the freedom for what Miami was able to put together
by having all that cap space because they were in such a rush with it all.
Now, when Minyama would have to be so good,
like I don't really like planning for cap space.
I think it's probably the worst of the three strategies, trades being the best, draft being the second best, which is its own problem,
and then free agency just waiting around for free agents. It's pretty stupid. So if a trade
presents itself that makes sense where you feel like you're raising the level of your talent-
I love the Trae Young idea for them. I've said that over and over again, and I just like it.
Why? Why do you love that? I just like the combo. I think it would be super fun to watch. I've said that over and over again, and I just like it. Why? Why do you love that?
I just like the combo. I think it would be super fun to watch. I don't think they're going to win
a title at Wemba Dama in the next three years, but they could be fun to watch and competitive.
And I just like the combo. I think that he needs somebody that, the same way Jokic looks out for
Gordon, he needs the guard version of that. Somebody who's like, this is my toy that I'm just,
this guy's seven foot five
and he's around the rim
and he's unbelievable and athlete.
I'm just going to get him baskets.
And if they don't find that person next year,
maybe it's not Trey,
or maybe it's somebody else,
but that's what they need.
It's not about like,
oh, we got him a power forward.
They need a guard who knows
what the fuck he's doing.
If I were them,
I would overpay for any guard like
Garland. Like, fuck it. What's your price for Garland? We're not trading him. Well, everyone
has a price. What's your price? What do you want for him? Well, no, we're not trading him. All
right. What if it's four first round picks and two swaps? Like, just fucking go for it. Get
somebody who's like a real guy. The lobs would be great. And you could also argue that Trey's deficiencies on defense, like maybe Wiminyama is able to cover those up, even though
that's ruling out a lot of the space on the floor that Wiminyama is not going to show all the way
to the three-point line over and over and over again. But I just think it'd be frustrating for
Wiminyama, who's going to be the face of this franchise, be like, okay, what play is this?
Be like, all right, this is the play where I dribble the ball until four seconds left in the
shot clock. And then at this point,
I need you to stop looking at me and then turn around to see if you can get
the rebound.
Right.
AKA the 2004 Paul Pierce.
I don't want to do that to Victor.
Last thing on that 20,
2004 verse 2023 thing,
looking at the list of guys,
one of the things that really jumped out to me was the
creative guards that we have now versus what we had in 04. I remember having a joke that Jason
Kidd should just have to play 48 minutes in the All-Star game because we had so few point guards.
But even you look at the guards during that stretch, that was the Marbury and Francis,
that era, that was Iverson as a point guard, but he wasn't really a point guard. That was the Marbury and Francis, that era. That was Iverson as a point
guard, but he wasn't really a point guard. He was a shooting guard. That was Billups, who was
sort of a point guard, but not really. It was really Steve Nash and Kidd were the only two pure.
Tony Parker, who was a scoring point guard. Now we have all these guys who are just sick creators.
And in some cases, Garland doesn't even have the ball enough on Cleveland.
I think that guy could be like Steve Nash-ish on the right team,
but we're not going to see it.
I'm super happy with the point guard situation.
Yeah, and when I was looking at that list from 20 years ago too,
Bibby's kind of the early version of what we're talking about now
because Bibby still had a couple more good years in him,
and then it was over.
It was coming,
but it was coming to an end pretty soon.
Yeah.
He was kind of one of those like,
wait,
is he a point?
Or like we used to get mad about it.
Like,
what is he?
I used to call it a zero,
a zero guard.
Baron Davis was like that too.
It's like,
he's not.
Baron's perfect for what you're talking about.
What is he?
Yeah.
Marbury was another one.
It's like,
these are guys that aren't going into games thinking,
alright, I got to take care of my guys.
I got to make sure I get this guy
going right away. Marbury would have
those stat lines where you go, wait,
can I say that he's
doing his own thing when he had another
35 and 11? Yeah.
But then, I'm sure if you look
back at some of the other stuff, you just realize
there's a pattern. Quick Tankapalooza 2024 update.
We have, we're taping this before some of the games today, but Washington to Detroit, they're going to be the battle for number one.
San Antonio has a pretty good grasp on three.
And Charlotte's four, two wins behind them.
And Portland is two wins behind them.
So that's like our top five.
And then we have Memphis and Toronto and Brooklyn kind of lurking.
The Big Tankapalooza storylines,
what do the Spurs do about Wemby if they decide,
you know, we got to make sure we get a top three pick.
Do they be like, hey, can you take a little extra time with that ankle sprain?
Do they start sitting him?
Because he's so good, he can fuck up two wins near the end of the season,
and all of a sudden they fall from three to five.
The biggest storyline is Toronto to me,
because Toronto gave up that top six protected pick for Pirtle,
and they're seven right now.
And that could be a team where,
where guys just start going away for the season pretty soon.
But it's like Scotty Barnes,
we found some tendonitis,
you know,
uh,
Hey,
quickly.
Um,
we're a little worried about your knee.
You're gonna have to sit down for a little bit,
but I,
I think getting the seventh pick
and then giving that to San Antonio is a disaster.
So if I were them, I might start thinking about, you know,
a version of what Dallas did last year.
And then they had a day off.
I mean, they lost important last night in overtime
and it didn't even feel like a fluke.
Right.
Brooklyn does not have a pick and right now they're eighth.
So they're going to be like, what are they? they're going to be guns blazing going for it. And then Utah, who's two and eight in their last 10 at 28 wins, who traded a couple of their glue guys, they seem pretty interested in maybe going backwards one more time here, which we were talking three weeks ago. We could never figure out what Danny wants to do. It seems like the unexpected Danny zag this time is let's actually suck.
Are we cool with that? Yeah. Because even if we're sitting here and we've been talking about it now,
people have been pointing to the 24 drop for a couple of years going, hey, by the way,
when 24 comes up, this is going to be really bad i've you know not started what i do for it but i would say that like
guys still would rather have the sixth pick than the eighth right it's just what they like
no front office is going to go ah this draft sucks anyway like just let's make sure colin
sexton and larry are closing games all the time. Because there's definitely some younger guys on Utah, too,
where you can tell.
You can get these guys some minutes.
I mean, Conte went off again, which I think is, for a rookie,
I don't really care about the inefficiency or any of this stuff.
But are you capable of having some moments
where it looks like you're taking over offensively?
And who knows?
The Conte and George redraft could be two years from now
where you're like, wow, like this guy went off.
Both him and Jaden Ivey have moments.
Perfect.
Where you go.
Yeah.
Where you go, okay, something's there.
That's my whole Ivey point.
Like I was.
Something's going on.
I won't use this now because we were talking about it this morning with the different stuff
we want to do.
But like, I do want to take like the bottom teams, do an aggressive bottom segment for the pod where you look at it and you go, all right, would you rather be Houston or would you rather be San Antonio?
Because Houston is way up there for me on league pass rankings now, especially with the Cam Whitmore piece of this taking over.
And I wish Tari Eason wasn't hurt because I felt like he just-
I know.
That was such a bummer.
He just gets in the game and you're like, I don't
know what's going to happen, but he's going to impact
it. And Thompson has those moments
and I'd say even Jalen Greens had a
couple like just nice games
recently. I mean, he had the best, probably
the best dunk of the year. I don't know. How
about that Brandon Boston one today against Giannis
and Portis. That was, that was
I'm with you in Houston. I don't know what they are,
but it seems like they all respect EMA.
I don't think they totally know who their best five guys are,
but they,
there's something.
And I still like Jabari.
You know,
I like Jabari.
I,
I'm sure like part of it's okay.
If you're developing something,
how do you,
how come you bring in Brooks and Van Vliet to take all these shots? But it's like, okay, but last year we got annoyed when Jalen Green
and Kevin Porter Jr. were just going back and forth and taking a million shots. So,
you know, you can't have it both ways. So when I look at Houston, I look at depth and we haven't
even mentioned the best player out of all of them and that's Shingun, which, you know, who knows
what he's capable of doing? Cause he's just incredible. Uh, how smart he is, all of the
stuff, how creative he is, you of the stuff, how creative he is,
and who cares where he's at defensively now,
because there was a time where it felt like Jokic might be the problem
defensively for Denver, like really making sure they could go all the way,
and that's not anything we even talk about anymore.
So when I look at Houston, I go.
I think you created a new segment, either or.
So would you rather be Houston or San Antonio?
The easy answer is just because basketball is about having the guy.
If you have a chance of having the
guy, then the conversation's over. But
the depth of Houston even allows
me to ask. So I don't want to do all because I have like
four of them. Of the bad teams,
we'll just go, would you rather be this team or that
team? Which I think we already gave away
the Houston-San Antonio one.
I'd rather be San Antonio because
of Wembley, obviously. Yes. But I did pause be San Antonio because of Wemby, obviously.
Yes.
But I did pause,
which would have been inconceivable, right?
Also, the Thompsons are another one.
We were talking about Ivy and Canthie George.
Ivy's the perfect example of it.
Both Thompsons are like, wait, what's this guy?
What just happened?
Because you didn't like Ivy,
and his last tournament game was bad.
And I was like, look, I'm just telling you.
I'm telling you.
I'm like, but I might not be right.
But I'm just saying physically, some of the stuff he does is very special.
And he's more of a basketball player than I would say even the Thompsons are.
Even though you might argue the Thompsons physically are just a slight tick above Ivy.
People can't stay in front of him.
Now, maybe they can with the new rules. But Ivy, when he wants to go by you, he's going by you. might argue Thompson's physically or like just a slight tick above. I can't stay in front of them now.
Maybe they can with the new rules, but Ivy,
when he wants to go by,
he was going by it.
That's that's it.
And he doesn't really know what he's going to do when he goes by you,
but he's going to go by you.
It's one of those guys with Wiseman.
Detroit's got five guys.
I'm still excited about.
I kind of like,
oh,
Fontechio.
He's just that motherfucker hasn't stopped shooting. I know heontecchio he's just
that motherfucker
hasn't stopped shooting
I know
he's
he's going for it
I think what's been fun
about the
Tankapalooza this year
is I
I like watching
every team
except Washington
like I'm surprised
by the league pass choices
because usually
those early games
in the east
always has more bad teams
than the west
and those early games that come on at four you're like ah this team against this team
this sucks but like i don't mind watching charlotte i bet on them a bunch of times
i i overdid it with charlotte in that bad west coast window so like i had to wean myself off
of it yeah because there's about a two or three year stretch
where I was like, four o'clock, guess we're
starting a day with Charlotte again.
And after the
Wizards live game against Denver,
I was like, we're good.
Although I'd say there's some Kispert
numbers in there that you might get excited about.
I think Denny Avdia
live is a different experience. I like
both of those guys. Those,
both those guys are going to be on a good team at some point in their lives.
Don't you think they're going to be in the league a long time.
They will be on a contending team out there in a big playoff game.
You're like,
Oh,
I remember when that guy was on the wizards and they went 10 and 65,
whatever they did.
Um,
I like all the,
all the crappy teams except for washington i can't watch them
even memphis some of their young guys are like fun to watch memphis brings it man yeah now
when you're watching memphis you got to be connected to the internet because there's a
couple times there you're like wait what's going on going on here? Yeah, who's that guy?
Yeah.
Chicago had one the other day.
Two weeks ago, the guy who's been playing a lot.
And I was like, I don't know who that is.
Is that Andres Dosiotis?
Is he back?
It was like an overtime game.
He played like 30 minutes.
I'd never heard of him.
No, he's only been with them like six games or something like that.
Eight games.
Is it Bidum? Yeah. Yeah. heard of him i guess no he's only been with him like six games or something like that eight games is it um bid him yeah yeah turkish rookie 24 crunch time now there's a huge guy on memphis and i can't believe i i let this go because i was like wait what's going on you know what's
interesting about houston by the way no well yes i do oh tre I do. Oh, Trey Jemison. Jemison, just out there
beasting on people.
Matt Hurt out there,
eight games into his career,
was like,
green light?
I had a green light
out the womb.
Brooklyn's got Houston's,
Brooklyn is sending Houston
their unprotected pick,
which we've discussed
in the past.
But Houston has all these assets,
plus probably not making the playoffs. But Houston has all these assets plus their
picks are going the other way. That's another thing.
There's like this three-team parlay here
happening where everybody's just going to keep playing hard
because they don't have their own pick. Houston sends their pick to OKC.
But they're getting Brooklyn's
pick, which is going to be the best of all the picks.
Before we go to break,
let's play this out.
You're running the Spurs and I call you and I say,
hey, I think we're going to trade LaMelo.
You guys interested?
I am.
Okay.
I am.
I'm not, you know, what are you thinking here?
Couldn't help but notice you have two of the top eight picks
thanks to the Jakob Pertl deal
and your own first.
Yeah, we'll take back Kelton Johnson.
Do you think, has he tried gluten-free
lasagna?
Now see, this might turn into something. It could have been
just a bad alternate
uniform. I just thought
he looked a little thicker in person.
I don't know. I don't know what to say. How many picks for Lamello?
It starts at three, but then it depends on like, you know, all right.
To me, it's two and a half. I don't think, well, if you want to tell me because of the injury
history, that's fine. But the other problem is that you're Charlotte and there's nothing
exciting about your basketball team. And you have somebody that is that exciting. This is
basically the Trey Young argument from Atlanta in Charlotte.
So I don't know if they would do it because he's such a huge star for that
fan base in a place that's done nothing.
I mean,
to me,
I'm I,
if I was a Hornets fan,
I would be so much more excited about Brandon Miller than I was about
Lamella.
Brandon Miller is like a real guy.
Kudos to KOC.
He crushed that one.
I think that guy is
going to be a potential
all-NBA guy someday. I'm
really impressed by him. I like how he carries
himself too. I think he's got it.
Real quick though, just imagine if this
were a better draft, like if we thought
man, this draft, and who knows with the way that
everybody talks about drafts and they're like, hey, remember
everybody thought 24 was going to be terrible and three years later they're like, look at all these guys. I think the problem is for this draft in particular who knows with the way that everybody talks about drafts. They'll be like, hey, remember everybody thought 24 was going to be terrible,
and then three years later, you're like, look at all these guys.
I think the problem is for this draft in particular,
if you do look at the top guys, you're like,
I've got to pick one of these guys, number one,
because we've been so spoiled through the last few years.
But the Thunder having, if this were a better draft,
and the Thunder having two lottery picks to go with whatever they do this year
in the playoffs, and who knows, maybe Presley will just nail it with one of the two and you'll go, I can't believe that team
got somebody in the lottery. Well, that leads us perfectly to the retradables.
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Visit Workday.com to learn more. So Joe Smith, you're talking about, oh, we ended up with the
number one pick and we didn't even maybe get somebody who was awesome. Joe Smith, you're talking about, oh, we ended up with the number one pick and we didn't even
maybe get somebody who was awesome. Joe Smith, number one pick in 1995.
The guys that went after him, Garnett went after him, Rasheed Wallace, Stackhouse,
there were guys, but Joe Smith seemed like the safest bet. He was a good college player.
He's a 2010 guy in Maryland. Ended up playing for 12 teams and was involved in six trades that I want to rip through really
quickly.
But the one we're going to talk about is the 03 trade, which was Joe Smith and Anthony
Peeler from Minnesota to Philly and Sam Cassell and Irvin Johnson going to Minnesota.
And at the time, Sam had bounced around a little bit, but everybody liked him.
But it was always like, oh, we can get that guy for Sam Cassell. Done. And he just started
kind of moving around. He was a little bit older, but he had the Houston Rockets pedigree. And this
trade led to Kevin Garnett's one great Timberwolves season where I thought they had a legitimate
chance to beat the Lakers. I think Sam Cassell got hurt in that Lakers series. I think they would have beaten them if he wasn't hurt.
But it's kind of crazy to think that's all they had to give up for Sam Cassell.
Probably worth letting younger guys know that it's Irvin Johnson from New Orleans.
Good point.
This was center Irvin Johnson.
This was Milwaukee Bucks, 2001 Eastern finals
on that team that got robbed
against the Sixers
when they had over 100 more fouls
than Philly.
That series,
that Irvin Johnson.
Can I read you some
of the Joe Smith trades though?
I want to hear them all.
1998.
Don't leave out any.
Make up a few.
1998, Golden State, Philly.
Joe Smith and Brian Shaw for Clarence Witherspoon and Jim Jackson. A two for two. 03, the one I mentioned.
06, Milwaukee and Denver traded straight up for Reuben Patterson. 07, Iverson goes to Denver.
Coming back, Andre Miller, Joe Smith and picks. 2008, the trade we mentioned earlier in the podcast.
Ben Wallace, who is not Ben Wallace anymore. Joe Smith, who is not Joe Smith anymore. Wally
Zerbeck, who is not Wally Zerbeck anymore. And Delonte West, two Cleveland for Larry Hughes,
Drew Gooden, Ira Neubel, and Daniel Marshall. Eight for eight. I think there might have been
more people in that. And then in 2008, he was in a three-team trade that landed Mo Williams in Cleveland. Damon Jones went somewhere
and Joe Smith went somewhere. So he was in six trades that were all kind of meaningful,
except for the Reuben Patterson one. But the Cassell one was the one that mattered,
I think, the most out of all those trades. Iverson to Denver was fun for a year and a half.
Yeah.
It was fun.
It was over pretty quick.
Yeah.
Because it was, oh, you're just going to go now,
and then I'm going to go, and then you're going to go,
and then I'm going to go.
The banjo.
And it felt like Philly was more motivated to make sure he wasn't in the East on top of everything else.
Because remember that summer,
there was a ton of smoke with the Celtics Iverson thing.
It was,
it was a fire.
They were like,
here's Al Jefferson and multiple first round picks for Iverson.
And I think there was a point,
I don't know if Angel would say that it was done,
done.
Cause it's never done unless it's done.
And then it wasn't,
but it felt like there was a couple of days there where it was like,
Oh,
this is actually going to happen.
But that the front office was like, we just can't have Iverson in the Celtics Jersey. Like, even if we get people back, was like, oh, this is actually going to happen. But that the front office was like, we just can't have Iverson
in the Celtics jersey.
Even if we get people back we like, we can't
have that happen.
You know what I
love about the Garnett part of this though?
Is that somebody that I think is the
ultimate winner
was considered a loser.
And the difference of
playoff results where I can sound like I'm not
being consistent, where I'm like, I like this player, but he doesn't have the playoff success,
or I don't like this player and look at all of his playoff failures. And it's like, wait a minute.
All right. It's like, yeah, but I'm not like, I'm also going on every other thing that I saw.
And yet Garnett labeled with this when then his career becomes like, you can't fathom watching him in the second
act of his career going, imagine when people thought this guy led to losing basketball games.
His team sucked and he had the worst luck. I don't know how many columns I wrote about it,
but even like that Joe Smith, when they legally, ironically, Joe Smith, they legally signed him.
Joe Smith's on fire today.
Big Joe Smith fight.
Big usage for him. Remember they lost three first round picks. Yeah. Joe Smith's on fire today. Big Joe Smith pot. Big usage for him.
Remember they lost three first round picks.
Because they had paperwork on it.
It's just brutal.
And then the Serbiac thing was always weird.
Anyway, that's it for the retradables.
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Be a finance and HR rockstar with Workday.
To learn more, visit Workday.com.
All right, coming back.
So there was a LeBron.
He wants a max deal, three more years, big salary.
And that became a news story over the course of the week.
And it seems like it's going to happen.
There was a picture of him with Jeannie Buss.
I just want to talk this out, whether it makes sense, if you're the Lakers, to pay LeBron
three years, basically a max deal.
Are you doing that because he's a star?
Because you value him as a Laker?
Are you doing it because you actually think this is a way to win another title?
What are the motivations? I mean,
obviously you're going to talk yourself into, oh, if we have him and Davis and we can fit some other and make one more trade and we have three first round picks to trade. I'm going to go through
some of the evidence in a second that that might be a mistake, but what is the goal of one more
max for him if you're the Lakers in your opinion? I've said this before, but I imagine it's close to their rationale with the Kobe deal
when he had the torn Achilles.
They gave him the two-year extension.
They didn't want him to become a free agent.
That extension was $48.5 million over the next two.
It was an absurd number.
Now, technically, it was a bit of a pay cut, but the reason it was absurd is they're like,
wait, what are you doing?
And their talking point, which again, I think I just talked about this last week,
was we want stars to know they're taken care of
with the Los Angeles Lakers.
It was a very bus-driven thing.
And that was their whole point.
And that the other stars will know
that if you come here, we'll take care of you.
So I guess we're going to put that thing to the test
10 years later.
Because that deal doesn't make any sense.
You can be the biggest LeBron fan in the world.
It doesn't make any sense.
I do wonder if there's a bit of the Boris leaking the number number thing where boris is like hey bryce harper is
going to be a half a billion dollar player and then you get him for 330 million you're like man
what a steal we lucked out so it doesn't it's it'd be smart rich paul or lebron to be like yeah we're
looking for 160. that's what we're looking for well that's that could be what you're looking for
but the lakers would be like who are we we bidding against? Are you signing with Utah? Are you going to sign with Detroit this year?
Are you going to go to any of those teams with cap space? You're not going to go to any of those
places. You clearly love LA and what LA and retiring a Laker will mean to you to continue
to be out here, which is a real thing. And yeah, sure, you could leave and then always come back
and then we rekindle this whole thing. But as great as he is and as far as he's gone beyond what we could ever expect
for somebody his age, that contract makes absolutely no sense.
So I don't even know if I believe that 160 is actually in play
or if it just got Boris'd out.
So I'm glad you brought up the Kobe thing because his rationale at the time
for doing that, which killed their cap and made it basically impossible
for them to win a
title was he was like,
why should I take a pay cut?
I've been selling out this building for most of the century and I'm going to
make as much money as I can make.
And it's up to them to put a good team around me.
It's not my job.
That's,
that's their job.
My job is to get paid the most and to do really well.
I guess the difference in this case with LeBron is if he
wants to win another title and he takes like 50 million a year when Davis is making 50 million a
year, it basically means they're not going to win another title and he's going to be stuck at five
or four. And that's it. Like, here's some numbers. This season in the last two, what do you think their record is?
When LeBron plays.
This season in the last two.
Would you say 500?
Way over 500?
Below 500?
I would say it's right around 500.
85 and 82.
His on-off net this year,
47th out of 93
for anyone playing
over 30 plus minutes a game.
They're plus 2.2 when he plays.
Their best lineup with him
is LeBron, AD, Reeves, D'Lo, and Rui
plus 3.5.
LeBron, AD, Reeves, D'Lo, Prince
minus 4.7.
The big question for me
that I would be trying to figure out.
That might be a Prince thing.
It might be a Prince thing.
Although he's been better
the last couple.
The big question for me is, That might be a Prince thing. It might be a Prince thing. Although he's been better the last couple.
The big question for me is,
so if LeBron wants this contract again and I have him and AD
because they just signed him new extension.
So those are my two expensive guys.
I'm paying a hundred million plus a year
for those guys with salary cap,
second apron, all this stuff.
Do I actually have a chance to contend for the title
if those are my two best guys?
Last year you would have said yes. This year, so their offensive rate in this year is 17th in
the league. Last year, 19th. Year before, 22nd. Year before, 24th. 2020, 11th. They've been a
below the curve offense with LeBron and with Davis for an entire presidential term now.
And I was looking back at some of the, like Kobe's last two Laker years after the Achilles,
24th in offense, 29th in offense. MJ's last, his two Wizards years, they were 15th and 17th
in offense, this offensive rating. Kobe in 2012-13, his last two really good Laker years, he was 10th and 8th.
So the question for me, Russolo, is if you're giving LeBron this contract,
you're basically saying he's Tom Brady.
The age, none of this applies.
He's superhuman.
He's going to keep going into his mid-40s.
The difference, Brady, when he was on the pass, 2016, second in DBOA offense, 2017, first, 2018, fifth, 2019, last patch year, 11th, 2020 on Tampa, third, 2021, first, 2022, 18th, his first bad year.
Brady was always impacting his offense as a top five offense, really all the way through until he
hit 45 years old. And you can't say the same about LeBron. So the question is why? Because
his stats are still the same. The eye test, he still looks good. Why? So it's everyone else's
fault. But who are you trying to get if I'm already paying 110 million to two guys? Who do
they expect to get as role guys? Because D'Lo
is a pretty good player.
He's a good offensive player, I think,
for that position for making $17 million a year.
Reeves is a pretty good offensive player.
Rue is a pretty good 6'10",
3-point guy who
can guard people. Their team's
not that bad, and they're a 500 team.
Well, they've been
better lately, so maybe there's that um this
stretch where they don't leave california they're playing teams all above 500 was kind of like well
what's going to happen here but there was always a break in between the game so like you kind of
felt like coming out of this there's there's reasons why it should be a challenge there's
a reason why it isn't but they've been better look they right like would you agree with me
would they've been beating better teams i mean the the D'Angelo Russell part of this is remarkable
because he's somebody who went from,
hey, remember when he got his contract last year
and it was 17.3,
but then there was a player option
on the next part of this.
With a big trade, flashing trade sign next to it.
Because we figured, hey, if we trade you,
this will give you the protection
because it felt like even that number was really high.
He has been incredible.
I would say, offensively.
I'm always going to be worried about him
just falling asleep defensively,
even in the biggest moments.
He's been better defensively
than I think he's been in years past.
Okay, maybe.
But offensively, what he's done,
what he did the other night against Milwaukee,
I mean, it's just all-time stuff.
So the funny part was,
is when you heard about D'Angelo Russell's name
mentioned in trade conversation, which it certainly was, I mean, it's just all-time stuff. So the funny part was when you heard about D'Angelo Russell's name mentioned in trade
conversation, which it certainly was,
I mean, they would have traded him if they got
something back they liked. The other team's
hang-up was like, well, he's going to pick up his
$18.7 million player option,
and we don't want to trade for him.
Minnesota couldn't wait to get him out of there. It doesn't seem
like he lasted anywhere very long, so
maybe it's all new and it's all better after
these two months. I obviously don't believe that, but I'm not going to say that he hasn't been great when he's been
great but the fucked up part of it is is now he actually might opt out of this thing right
because another team with all of this for two two months yeah maybe or likely he's going to opt out
because he knows what's out there,
not because of his feelings being hurt, despite what he had said recently about it being public
humiliation for it all. Your greater point is the right point though. What are you actually
signing up for if you're just running it back one more time because you're not going to have
a ton of freedom? And Kobe, it was weird going back to those Kobe years, because if you look at the stats, they're terrible. He just took a ton of shots. He was below 30% from three.
The last year he wasn't passing it to anybody. And it was just kind of a big farewell. And I
think there were Laker fans that care more about Kobe than they ever cared about the Lakers. So
I think everybody was kind of cool with it out here. Yeah. It was like last chance to see Kobe.
Yeah. He's going to put up shots. We don't care if we win. Good for you. But you remember one of the talking points
in the media to that was, is that because Kobe, right? Cause it's Kobe. It's like, he's not going
to settle for anything less than championship. It's like, man, I think he actually took the
most money he could knowing that like, yeah, it's going to be really hard. And I'm not saying
anybody should be taking pay cuts here. Kobe was like, I won five. I'm good. Cut me some checks because I'm going to retire in two years.
But that's not how it was talked about.
It was like as if it's almost like the Wim Benyama stuff we were talking about earlier,
that Kobe's standard was so extreme and his work ethic and the way he saw things that
everybody had to be in on it.
And it's like, yeah, actually, like the last year, especially, it was like, let's get some
shots up here.
The bigger question to me is why would a team with LeBron and Davis not be that successful offensively for a four-year stretch?
I think we have a pretty good sample size now that something about those two, no matter what kind of shooters and people you put around them, it just hasn't really worked.
And they've tried every type of player and every type of whatever.
It would seem like... I don't think they've tried every type of player and every type of whatever. It would seem like...
I don't think it's been every type of player.
I think it's a lot of different looks with limited options because...
What type of player haven't they had?
They've had the Schroeder type.
They've had the Caruso type.
They've had the Rui type.
They've had the Prince type.
The really good type, maybe?
But that's the thing.
Those are nice players.
But if you're paying $110 million a year to two guys,
you're,
you're done.
I have trouble.
Yeah.
You're done now.
Right.
They gave away all their draft picks for,
for David.
They're going to get them back.
Like that was the whole point of not making a trade.
Now is that maybe that guy's coming with those three picks and they go,
okay,
we were able to move.
So there was like,
so there's Trey young buzz with them,
right?
Does Trey,
does Trey young change this destiny? If it's Trey Young, LeBron, and Davis?
And do you think Trey Young and LeBron would be a good combo?
Because I don't.
I think Trey Young would drive LeBron crazy.
Peak LeBron, which let's just say it's like most of the years.
Yeah.
No.
I wonder if he'd be like, hey, I'm good with this.
Like you can take a bunch of shots here in the regular season.
I'm not going to care about the scoring numbers for me.
And then at least we have another person that, you know,
obviously everybody knows how I feel about Trey,
but like come playoff time, I know that guy's ready to go.
Right.
That's why he's got to go to the Spurs.
I wonder, so I was thinking,
because the last couple of birds Celtic years weren't happy.
The MJ Wizard stuff, there was a lot of stuff about how hard it was to play with him.
Kobe's last few years at the Lakers, same thing.
I wonder if somebody becomes so famous as an older, older superstar.
This is what Doug Collins always used to say when I did TV with him.
He's like, oh, coach, man, you don't want to coach an aging superstar.
That's the worst place to be.
You don't want to do that, coach, man, you don't want to coach an aging superstar. That's the worst place to be. You don't want to do that, coach. I wonder if it's just hard to play LeBron for two reasons. One is that he's
LeBron. So it's like, all right, there's four minutes left. Well, obviously LeBron has to have
the ball. But then the other part is if you're a supporting cast member and it's like, if your team
loses, it's your fault. The team wins. It's LeBron. LeBron's the reason they won.
There's some psychology to it.
You're playing with this dude that you grew up idolizing.
You're a young kid. You're like, I can't believe
I'm playing with LeBron. You're not going to stand up
to him. I wonder if it
does something. It's not just him
because it didn't happen with Brady and the Bucks,
but football is also different. You need
each other. You have to rely.
There's really no way.
You're also getting out.
It's like a corporate desk job.
It's offense and defense.
So I just wonder, like, I don't know what type of team you would put around LeBron and Davis, I guess is my point.
Wait, are you suggesting that the offensive numbers are just, like, even though, cause I've talked about this too, is like,
you didn't even have LeBron missed time this year,
you know,
like you normally would.
All right.
You had a D for all the talk about like who they were or weren't last
season,
like 80 figuring it out and closing strong was the reason they're even
competitive with Denver.
That's it.
Okay.
Yeah.
The Rui trade was nice and Reese developments,
you know,
a nice part of it.
Davis was awesome in the playoffs. Yeah. And especially when you get to go up against golden state you're like
oh wait this is the whole reason we spent so much time talking about this guy because for a while
there at least like when i'd listen to local radio and laker stuff it's like what can you get for
anthony davis it's like well if you're thinking about trading them and that means the market
couldn't be that great because the guy just couldn't seem like he could stay healthy
and part of me wonders if you play enough games
where you are getting beat up physically
that you're not as likely to get injured
because you're used to taking all these bumps.
Where on the fall ranking of guys going down,
I used to be worried about Anthony Davis all the time.
He got elbowed like crazy the other night against Giannis on that drive.
And look, he looked legitimately hurt and was obviously limited afterwards.
Last year, I'd figure, okay, what does that mean?
Is he going to be out for three weeks?
You spent more time analyzing him probably than any.
I've defended him so much, like so much.
Maybe it's the cowherd dinners or maybe when I've gone on where he tried to call him Rashid
Wallace.
And I was like, I think he has the third highest PR in playoff history.
So I don't think that that's true.
I think that Portland, New Orleans series,
when he was still with the Pelicans and what he did against trailblazers and
that, like in the hope of like, could this guy be the best player in the NBA?
There's still that Memphis regular season game that I was just so excited
about. I've always loved him,
but now I'm a little disappointed that there's a limited version of it,
but whatever it is, it's still really awesome.
And I don't have a good answer for what I think is a really insightful point
by you of like, wait, if you're getting this piece of the pie, which is checking the box with AD, and you're getting the back of the baseball card numbers with LeBron that are here, and you feel good about Reeves, the Rui thing works.
Granted, they need Vando back.
Russell outkicked his coverage.
Russell has been on fire for two months here.
Two and, yeah, almost three.
We're heading toward.
The other problem.
I didn't mention this.
So one of the things you can say is what LeBron should do is just take a minimum deal,
make it spend that money on other players.
They're at one 41 next year.
Um,
that's assuming LeBron takes the,
the player option.
I think I have that right.
So they got Davis at 43.
They have Rui at 17.
Reeves at 12.
So that's 72.
Vincent and Vanderbilt, that's 21 each.
So now they're at 93.
There's really no scenario where it could be like,
oh, I'll create cap space for us by doing this
because you can't do it.
So I don't know.
They're kind of stuck with where they are, right?
But on the other hand, you have LeBron James
and you have one of the most famous basketball players
of all time.
And it's like, we won the title in 2020.
We're good.
We're going to ride this out.
We have the chance because we've done it before.
Who knows?
We might strike oil with a couple of these role players.
It's still LeBron James. Maybe we can do it. But I just think the data doesn't done it before. Who knows? We might strike oil with a couple of these role players. It's still LeBron James.
Maybe we could do it,
but I just think the data doesn't back it up.
I wouldn't do it.
I don't care.
I would just go in like,
you can think,
oh,
well,
you don't own the team or the Laker thing and all that stuff.
There's no way I'm going like,
Hey,
this is good.
I also think that this price has floated out as a negotiation and that he
wouldn't end up making $60 million a year at age 42.
But we would have said that with Kobe 10 years ago.
We would have said, oh, there's no way they're going to pay him 40.
And they did.
I think Jeannie's kind of, she's like weirdly loyal with this stuff.
Yeah, but Kobe was like 36 and 37, but granted it was coming off the Achilles.
So maybe you're right.
Maybe you're right.
But like the other point of this too, I looked at these numbers.
Do you know where the Lakers are in defense since January 1st?
What is it?
25th.
Oof.
Yeah, I mean, I'm on record.
I don't love the LeBron, Rui, Davis, all three of them at the same time
as a possible closing lineup because I just think there's certain wings
that that's like they just can't guard wings
with that.
You saw with the Boston
the Christmas game.
Tatum and Brown
they had no chance
against those guys.
So,
we'll see.
It's a fascinating one.
I was surprised that
that story came out
when it did
and it was tied to Bronny
and whether he
might end up in the draft.
All of it,
the timing of it
was pretty weird.
Anyway,
all right,
we're wrapping up because I want to
watch the Oscars. No, I have one question. Yeah. How will you remember the Mac Jones era?
Oh, thank you. It's funny. I was talking to my dad about it today.
I think one of the strangest rise and quick falls I can ever remember from a Boston athlete.
I was thinking like a guy's like Phil plant here and like D Brown,
his rookie year,
when it really seemed like we might have this all NBA guard who's playing in
big moments and playoff games.
And he was so exciting.
Like there's been guys that he's flashing the pan guys and they never went
away.
But this was the most abrupt was like,
this guy went from a playoff quarterback to unplayable and less than went away. But this was the most abrupt. This guy went from a playoff
quarterback to unplayable in
less than two years, right?
Yeah, it was over quick.
When he was okay
that first year, and he was okay.
It was just funny because it was like, hey, he's
average, slightly above.
Game manager. You know who was slightly
above average?
Who used to man these streets back in the day.
And then he was second place behind Jamar Chase in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting.
Nobody thought that Pats team was going to do anything.
And the first, what were they?
Eight and two or nine and two or something?
And he was good.
I feel like the Colts game changed his legacy a
little bit for not his legacy, his how teams played him. They had that, I think it was a night
game and the Colts just stacked the line and were like, we dare you to throw over us. And he couldn't
really do it. And then that was it. And that's every team played them that way. They're like,
oh, cool. Their receivers can't get open. We'll just press. But I really feel like that second year, they fucked them up. And I'm obviously in a very pro
Belichick mode these days because of that Apple documentary. But I think this was one of Belichick's
massive mistakes was just not hiring an offensive coordinator and QB coach that
could kind of treat Mac like a plant that needed to be watered and needed to be put in the sun and
just take care of the asset. And I don't think they took care of the asset at all.
There's no disagreement on taking care of it. It's like, Hey, you know what we're going to do
to you? We're going to make it even harder. You're going to, you're going to appreciate
this when you're older. It's like, no, can I just have a receiver like all the other rookie
quarterbacks on their, on their on their first contract uh and then the
patricia part of it like it was just indefensible you know i mean it's still so weird money or
belichick was afraid to bring somebody in but it was just the absolute weirdest yeah strangest most
inexplicable thing he did when he was the coach there's about him getting traded, though? Like that, does that mean, you're like, wait,
you had to give up something for him?
Because this got so bad.
Like he was so bad this year,
I wonder if he's ruined.
And he'll never have the same opportunity.
My dad thinks he's ruined.
But sixth round pick, it's like nothing.
Yeah, but I don't even know
why I'm giving up a sixth.
Like I watched 2023.
Like I'll just wait.
I got to outbid somebody? Does somebody offer you a seventh why I'm giving up a sixth. Like, I watched 2023. Like, I'll just wait. I got to outbid somebody?
Does somebody offer you a seventh?
Okay, here's a sixth.
It's so hard to find a quarterback, though.
And there's good history of guys with some pedigree
who just completely fell apart and then changed teams and put it back.
I mean, Baker got $100 million today.
Yeah, but that's actually really rare, okay?
Yeah, Jim Ponca. Doug Williams. All right, so 50 years. a hundred million dollars today yeah but that's actually really rare okay what he done jim okay
so all right so 50 years and then okay so i'll give you 40 years uh
jim harbaugh it's actually pretty rare and he was so bad this past year like it kind of surprised
me when i do go back and look at his rookie stats.
And I personally was kind of like, are you guys all going to like my buddies?
Are you guys going to talk yourself into this because Brady got off to a slow offensive start?
Do you have the next Brady because you get a white guy back there?
I was all in.
I liked him.
I thought.
I'm aware.
I'm aware.
I remember.
I listened to the episode after they ran it a million times against Buffalo in the cold.
And you were like, I don't think the Bills can recover from this as a franchise.
You were really close.
Well, now the Bills are done.
What did they win?
They never made a Super Bowl.
Maybe.
Was I wrong?
Who knows?
We need more data.
Yeah, it's too bad.
I would love to slide indoors the Mac thing and come out of that rookie year.
And Belichick's like, Mac, I got you this.
I got you this.
The other thing that's interesting is I really think he wanted to trade him last year and sign Mayfield.
Like by all accounts, that really does seem like it was one of the breaking points with him and Kraft.
I don't know how many there are.
Maybe you're right about that.
But I was thinking about it.
Wickersham reported it.
And Wickersham's pretty dialed in.
Well,
then that's all I need to know.
Because if,
if Bill were still there,
this has Russell Wilson written all over it because he's cheap and he did it
somewhere else.
And that checks to bill boxes like,
Oh wait,
I can prove because it's all offset language.
So you go to Russell Wilson being like,
Hey,
whatever you make from us,
you just have to pay them back.
So take as little from us as possible.
Keep our cap intact.
I actually think he's a good asset, Wilson.
I don't know.
Here's what I would say about the personality part of it,
which I've already done.
Is I going to know what I'm getting?
Am I getting a humbled Russell Wilson
where it's like enough of this bullshit,
this propaganda and the whole marketing of you
and everything. Can you be just a slightly more normal guy? And I don't even know
if he's capable of doing it. It's not a bet I would want to make. So I kind of want to see it
happen for him in Pittsburgh. I kind of want to see it, but I don't think Pittsburgh deserves that.
I cannot think of a worse personality fit, but just think about that. Can you imagine a worse
quarterback personality fit than in Russell Wilson in the city of Pittsburgh?
That'd be like having Kirk Cousins
in charge of the Freak Nick documentary.
That'd be amazing.
Right?
I was thinking Atlanta made a ton of sense
if they took, you know...
He might be toast, by the way.
He might be like, done, done.
It looked like he didn't want to get hit anymore, was my read
after watching,
especially in the late games, because they were on a lot
and there weren't a lot of late games. So it just seemed
like he didn't want to get hit anymore, which happens.
But if you're just
going to get him for free, I think you got to investigate
it, you know?
Yeah, because I think there's eight or nine teams. You figure four or five of the eight or nine teams that don't know
who their week one starter is. Yeah, you're right. I want him to go to a team that has a quarterback,
but they're not happy about the quarterback where he can be in a QB battle like the Giants,
where it's like Daniel Jones or Wilson. Who's it going to be? And the Giants where it's like Daniel Jones or Wilson who's it going to be and the
Giants fans are like this sucks you know what that's how did we get in this no you just you
just hit it it has to be the Giants because then he can leak stuff into the New York media yeah
and every day they're talking about who got more Jones poor guy he's going to be miserable and
then it's just going to be oh yeah I want like an incredible apartment yeah about like a 45
million dollar apartment he misses practice because he's filling in with uh Kelly Ripa Oh, yeah. And he bought an incredible apartment. He bought a $45 million apartment.
He misses practice because he's filling in with Kelly Ripa.
He's working his media career already.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Giants are the best.
All right, Russillo, I will see you next Sunday.
See you.
All right, that's it for the podcast.
Thanks to Russillo.
Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti.
As always, don't forget, you can go to youtube.com slash Bill Simmons for clips and
videos from this podcast and from the rewatchables. New rewatchables come on Monday night,
Risky Business. And I'll see you on this feed on Tuesday. On the seat there, on the way so I never want to say
I don't have feelings within
On the wayside, on the way so I never want to say
I don't have feelings within
Must be 21 plus in President's like states.
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