The Bill Simmons Podcast - The NBA’s Almost Club, Denver-Miami Picks and Taylor Swift’s Iconic Year with Joe House, Raheem Palmer, Nathan Hubbard and Chuck Mindenhall

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss the history behind perennial NBA playoff contenders that never secured a title, and what that history says about the Brown/Tatum Celtics (2:36), before they are joined by Raheem Palmer to run through some of their favorite NBA Finals bets (48:30). Then Bill talks with The Ringer’s lifelong Nuggets fan Chuck Mindenhall about rooting for the Nuggets for the last few decades, Nikola Jokic's NBA journey, Heat-Nuggets thoughts, and more (1:13:42). Finally Bill is joined by Nathan Hubbard to get some context on Taylor Swift's concert tour that is setting record numbers while morphing into a cultural phenomenon (1:43:56).  Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Joe House, Raheem Palmer, Chuck MIndenhall, and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kyle Crichton  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, a Megapod, NBA, little history, some Taylor Swift, the Nuggets. It's all next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey.

And it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday night hockey deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best. They're all on prime prime Monday night hockey. It's on Monday. It's on prime. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill

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So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I did not put up a new rewatchables on Monday because we ended up doing the BS pod with my dad. It was sad Bill Simmons and sad Dr. Bill Simmons. And we moved the rewatchables. We're recording on Friday and we're just going to put it up. So stay tuned for that. Friday, rewatchables. We're doing a James Bond movie. That's your hint. So there you go. Coming up on this podcast. So on the plane home from Boston, I did a ton of work on

the NBA Almost Club, the teams that just couldn't get over the hump and tried to figure out, is there some sort of historical parallel between them that we should be looking at with the Celtics as they decide if they hit their ceiling or not. So it's a Celtics thing, but it's not really, it's really a history thing. I brought Joe House on, my buddy, my NBA history conciliary to talk about it with me. And then we talked about the finals, came up with some props with our friend Raheem Palmer. He joined us and we tried to break down what we thought would happen in the series. So then as a little sorbet, a little cleanser, I brought Nathan Hubbard on to talk about the Taylor Swift phenomenon of 2023.

It's a good one. You'll like that part. And then finally, last but not least, wanted to hear from a Nuggets fan. So Chuck Mendenhall, who has written a bunch of stuff about MMA for the ringers, the best MMA writer alive, and also hosts the Ringer MMA podcast

with Ariel Helwani and Pete Ciccaro. He came on to tell us what it's like to be a Nuggets fan and what the last three, four decades on to tell us what it's like to be a Nuggets fan and what the last three, four decades of Nuggets, not even pain, just more like boredom and it was okay. And then all of a sudden Jokic showed up and everything took off. So that's the pod. It's a mega pod. It's the last one for the week. You won't see me again until Sunday on this feed and rewatchables on Friday. And if you missed my thoughts

on the succession season finale, that's on the Prestige TV. There you go. Let's bring in Pearl Jam. Let's bring in Joe House. Let's go. All right, taping this late Tuesday afternoon. Joe House is here. He was drunk four hours ago, House,

but now I think he's like relatively sober, House. A little golf today for House. I'm more sober now, And I did play golf. I don't feel like I should name drop, but it was with some very important people. But speaking of the drunk one, you said it's Tuesday afternoon. It's Wednesday, buddy.

You're right. I know you're in Boston, but I am more sober now. I'm not 100% sober. I'm a meme now. This is a great week for me the celtics lost but i became a meme i'm so fired up i love sad bill simmons this is like the best thing that's happened to me this year i i knew you would love it i we talked about it on east coast bias and i said he's gonna love it i know he loves it it's the best thing ever you you you and kendall all. All the greats.

There was one picture where it was me next to really sad Kendall and we looked like equally sad. And Kendall had just lost Waystar and I had just lost a game seven with the Celtics. I knew it was a big deal though when both of my kids mentioned it. They barely know what I do for a living.

They're like, people at school are talking to you. You're like, sad Bill Simmons is a meme. The big difference is that you didn't shit your own bed. The Celtics shit the bed. As opposed to Kendall, who did shit his own bed. Kendall shitting in his bed was the Celtics on Monday night. And I was the proxy of the shit. That's it.

Yes, you were. We're going to talk about, I brought you on to talk about the concept of NBA eras, and then we'll do some finals in the end. But for the people listening, this is not just a Celtics statement. House is my NBA historical conciliary. We've known each other for 35 years.

We've talked a lot about when we watch current basketball, how it relates to the basketball we've already watched, the teams we've watched, the players we've watched. And the Celtics are at a crossroads house. And it's not just about them. It's about what do you do when your franchise kind of falls into this specific situation? So I went back and I sent you all the research I did. How unique is it to be five conference finals in seven years? What's that list?

Or who's close to the list? What are the types of teams? And it's really interesting what the research says. The window is basically three to eight years historically where you have like on the shorter end, you have the Drexler Blazers who made the conference finals three years around 90, 91, 92. They made the finals in 90.

They made the finals in 92. And then MJ took Drexler's heart and he pulled it out. Indiana Jones, Temple of Doom style. He just pulled it out. He waved it to the crowd. And we never saw them again until the late 90s. They were done.

True story. So that's the shorter end where it was this team that was just really, really relevant for a short period of done. True story. So, so that's the shorter end where it was this team that was just really, really relevant for a short period of time that actually house, which I mean, you, you could probably do this compare and contrast the Drexler Blazers to the, uh, to the Jason Jalen Celtics, some similarities, like incredible talent, found a great way to shoot themselves in the foot at the worst time, lost some close games, a lot of coulda woulda shouldas, but you know, we always watched those Blazers teams in college and we were like,

God damn Blazers, stay out of your own way. And they just never could. Right. Yeah. And I honestly think, um, and this is part of, of, of the bias, the old guy bias, but I think that, that Blazers team was super talented. They really were. I would put them up against the current version of the Celtics and feel pretty good about it. Yeah, I'm with you. It was, as we've always talked about, that's probably the best stretch of talent for the league ever. That 90-91, 92-93.

They beat the Lakers in a series, right? They went toe-to-toe in that Detroit Pistons 1990. They lost in five, but it was a really good series. And then, you know, they go, they stumble into MJ in 1992. What can you do? So that's the short end. The longer end, you're talking about teams

like the Julius Irving Philadelphia team. And then a team that never even occurred to me would be a team that would be in the discussion. But it's kind of the clear comparison to the Celts is this basically 94 to 2000 Indiana team, which I would call the Reggie Miller Pacers, their early edition. So they made the conference finals in 94, 95, 98, 99, and 2000. They made the finals in 2000. They had a little bit of a reboot in 96 and 97 where they lost first round, no playoffs in 97. And then they kind of, they kind of kicked it back. They had three game seven Eastern conference finals losses, and then a really tough 2000 finals loss that I think you and I both feel like that series has been kind of lost

in history, a lot closer and a lot more competitive than I think people remember. Now this is like Jalen and I, this is one of the first things we bonded on. It's like, God damn, you guys were like a couple of plays away from winning the title that year. Like nobody mentions that. But, but look at that though. It's a seven year run, five conference finals, one finals, very similar to the Celtics, right? Yes. Totally agree.

Again, a pretty deep team. I mean, they, they, they really had talent, front court talent, back court talent. Reggie was the clear leader. But, you know. They're physical. They had the Davis brothers. They had. They could play a lot of different ways.

Yeah, there was like Chris Mullen was there for a little bit. They had Mark Jackson. Yeah, they could play a lot of ways. They had the young guys with Jalen and Best. So, the reason they're interesting to me is in 99,

they were thinking long-term big picture as they're competing. And they traded Antonio Davis for the number five pick who turned out to be Jonathan Bender

who turned out to be a bust. Now, I think he might have gotten hurt, but he was like one of those seven-foot small forward guys. Those guys, I'm out on almost instantly. Yeah. Not ready. Yeah. Um, and then the next year they traded Dale Davis for Jermaine O'Neal to Portland. So they, they were always like competing, but thinking ahead. Um, but when I look at them, that's a good example for how do you extend your window while still competing? And we've seen all these teams like just going through, like we'll go back to Philly in a second. Cause that's the most interesting one, but the Milwaukee Bucks, the Don Nelson era, eight years, they were

competitive, three conference finals. They lost three game sevens in round two. They were in the same conference with Philly and Boston. They did some stuff we'll talk about in a second. Phoenix had the KJ Barkley era. That was seven years. They made three conference finals in the finals once. They lost two game sevens in round two, or three actually. Oh, two. And then Utah was the other one where they just kept it together for 10 years. They made the conference finals in 92, 94, 96, 97, 98, made the finals twice, made three round twos. They went the other way. They're more similar to the Celtics where they really only made one big trade, which was Jeff Malone in a first for Jeff Hornacek. Why all of this is relevant is the Celtics have to look at this and go,

all right, we keep these guys together and we're going to get over the hump. But the entire NBA history says teams like this don't get over the hump. They actually go the other way. That the one exception was the Philadelphia 76ers who made the conference finals in 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85. Eight times or seven times in nine years they made the finals in 77, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, eight times or seven times in nine years.

They made the finals in 77, 80, and 82. But it wasn't until they made the Moses Malone trade that they got over the hump. My question for you, House, is it a Moses Malone type trade that would save the Celtics? Do you have to kind of do what Indiana did, a better version of it where you try to do your John Bender, Jermaine O'Neal while staying competitive, but thinking

like almost like a second era opening up. You got Tatum was only 25. You got a lot of time left. They're a younger team. The other downside team that would be possible would be the OKC team, which four conference finals, 11, 12, 14, and 16, made the finals in 2012. And they didn't do a lot, which I want to dive into, but all of a sudden it was over, right? KD leaves and done. And the Celtics are at a crossroads here because if they do the Jalen Brown and they trade into Houston for number four and all these picks,

and be like, we're going to stay competitive, it might be the OKC thing where it just never happens again. Or you try to trade, you know, some of the lesser guys, keep Brown and Tatum. Do you agree with me that this team is at the crossroads? I do think they are at the crossroads because of the collective bargaining agreement that is staring the entire league right in the face.

It is about to be a radically different competitive landscape. And the particular challenge that the Celtics have right in front of them right now, which is why it's the crossroads moment, is can you afford to pay two players max money? And look two players one two three four five five conference finals do you believe in your heart of hearts that those two guys are capable of actually winning a championship with the right role player so in this era the thing that i'll I'll put to you is what's your level of confidence that the guys doing the drafting for Boston and the guys doing the, you know, looking at the roster are going to be able to grab some of the Miami mojo and find super inexpensive players who can

play meaningful minutes in playoff games and make a meaningful difference in terms of the outcomes of playoff games. Because that's the environment that I think we're about to be operating in. You can afford two all NBA players, but that's it. You must surround them with super cheap guys that are capable of making contributions. And the window is not very, you know, it's not a long window. You're going to get maybe like two years, three years max out of these inexpensive guys. I think that's like the size and scope of the problem that we're looking at right now. Did you agree with that?

Yeah, because you think two years from now, you got two max guys, basically, if they keep Jalen, you got white making like 18, 17, 18 million a year, you need him. There's three and you probably can get away with one more guy in the 14, 15 range. And then after that, you're just trying to get lucky with the Caleb Martin types, or you're trying to get lucky with your second round pick or your end of the, uh your end of the round, first round or whatever it is. The white trade, if you're just going backwards and you're like, who are the unquestioned keepers? You would say Tatum and you would say Brown, you would say white. And then the rest of the roster is kind of TBD. And I don't like Rob Williams every year gets hurt. There's always

like a different story. Even in game seven, it's like Rob Williams was sick. He was running back to throw up. It's like, well, it was game seven. Is there, do we have a lot of evidence that Rob Williams is going to show up in big games? So you start looking at these people like, all right, am I better off playing Rob Williams 14 million a year? Or can I do a stopgap free agent center?

And that's the other thing is on the market are going to be all these guys because the, the CBA, the players union is going to destroy the middle class. Basically. You have a lot of guys like basically taking much cheaper money to play for, for good teams,

which put, which would be an advantage for the Celtics, right? It'd be an advantage for Denver, a couple others. The bigger question for me and my dad and I talked about a little is just like, did he hit the ceiling with this team? And that's why I went back and did all the research because

in a lot of these cases, the team hit the ceiling, you know, like Philly in 1982, they got their asses kicked by the Lakers. And it was just clear, like, this isn't going to work. Dr. J is getting a little older. We have a Caldwell Jones, Daryl Dawkins center combo. Um, we just don't have enough. Like we're always, we're always going to get overpowered down low and we got to do something. And the Moses trade stumbled into their lap. They only gave up Caldwell Jones and a 1983 first for the best guy in the league at the time. Um, Milwaukee was in a different point where they lost, you know, they lost in round two in 80 and 81 in game seven. They lost the conference finals in 83.

In 84, they make a pretty ballsy trade. They traded Marcus Johnson, who was great, who was just an awesome forward with Harvey Ketchings, a junior Bridgman. And they got back young Terry Cummings, Craig Hodges, and Ricky Pierce. And they rebooted and they were able to go conference finals 85 and 86.

They lost a heartbreaker to the Celtics in 87 in round two, in seven. And they traded for Jack Sickman, 86. But they were on the fly going, we've hit our ceiling, We got to make a move. And when they traded for Terry Cummings, I think all of us were like, holy shit, they got Terry Cummings? That guy's awesome.

So he'd only been in the league for like a year. Then you look at a team like Phoenix. So they had the, before they got Barkley, they made the conference finals in 89 and 1990. And in December 1990, they made their move and unfortunately it was a terrible move they traded our guy Eddie Johnson our dude

who is now known as Justin Termini's sidekick that's how he's officially introduced in restaurants I'm kidding Eddie they traded Eddie Johnson and two first rounders for Xavier McDaniel and McDaniel comes to Phoenix and he bombs

like you go look at his playoff stats he averaged like nine points a game in the playoffs they suck it ruins their 91 thing kind of ruins 92 too and then that leads

to the Barkley trade so sometimes House when you make the the kind of big move it can go sideways you can end up with the Xavier McDaniel thing. Portland set up the Drexler era. They traded Sam Bowie and Mookie Blaylock,

who is going to be a rookie for Buck Williams. And that kind of ignited them. Then they traded a first for Danny Ainge. But then they started fucking up. They traded Drazen Petrovic for Walter Davis, who was on his way out. They gave away Robert Pack for a second rounder. They kind of fucked that up. The more recent examples, I really have trouble putting Phoenix in here.

Phoenix is another one like this where they had a specific six-year run. Conference finals, 05, 06, 2010. Two brutal Spurs losses in round two in 2007 and round one in 2008, where those were really the Western Finals for the most part. Or the Lakers in 08, obviously. But for the most part, all their moves were to save money. So I don't even know

what we can learn from them, other than that, don't have Robert Sarver on your team. OKC is a good one, because they make the four conference finals and the one finals. They didn't really do a lot OKC is a good one because they make the four conference finals and the one finals. They didn't really do a lot to improve that team. Like if you're talking about Presti is one of the great GMs,

which I think he is this resume of moves here where they traded Jeff Green in a first for Perkins in 2011, they did a lot of like around the fringes. Then they trade James Harden for Kevin Martin, lamb and Adams. Basically they, in Adams, basically. In 2015, they traded first for Dion Waiters. And then in 2015, they also traded Perkins and Reggie Jackson in 2018 first for Enos Cantor and Steve Novak. Pretty rough. So they couldn't kind of figure out a patch together. And yet they almost won in 2016. They're up 3-1. Klay has the heroic game six. And I think that was KD going,

we've hit the wall. I can't win here. And I wonder with the Celtics, if they're looking at what's happened to them, do they see a wall or do they see bad luck? Do they see Curry in game four last year leaving his body in the second half and just fucking single-handedly switching the series. Do they see Miami where they just kind of fuck up the first couple of games and then it's just

too hard to beat them four times in a row? Can you excuse what happened or is it a symptom of something that's missing from this team? So it seems to me it's more like, and I think Oklahoma City of all of these teams that we're comparing is like the most apt comparison because those guys are younger yes exactly right so you you have that added element of uncertainty about you know sort of team building you you you know what you have in in kd and and westbrook and we thought they knew what they had with james harden but apparently they didn't know what we we knew what they had with James Harden, but apparently they didn't know what they had. We knew what they had.

We knew. We at least knew he was going to be an awesome six man for them. We didn't know he was going to be an MVP. Well, but, you know, I think there is something in between bad luck and hitting a wall. And I think that in between space is what Boston occupies right now. Because, you know, they had, there was no question that there was a lack of

just sort of like hoops maturity. It's not, I mean, now, you know, I'm not calling Jason Tatum immature. He wasn't ready last year to be the lead guy on a team that beats the Golden State Warriors in the finals, which is, to his credit credit part of what motivated him to show up this most recent season the beginning of this season the 2022 2023 regular season he was effing awesome he showed up with with muscle on his body that we hadn't seen before he showed up resol resolute. And, you know, the Celtics went out

and kicked ass for a couple months. And there was a good argument to be made for Jason Tatum as potential MVP this season. So, you know... I think you might have even

sprinkled a tiny bit on him. Oh, of course I did. I mean, you know... That's not saying much. You're like James Harden at the fucking strip club at three in the morning. You'll sprinkle it on anybody.

I touch them all. MVP bets. I touch them all. Come on over. I'll take a dance. Oh, Jason Tatum, MVP ads. Here's some. There we go.

Just let me put a ten dollar bill inside there. But yes. So with the Celtics, the crossroads that I think they're kind of confronted with is this has to be it for the Horford Williams frontcourt. You just cannot run those two guys out in the upcoming season and say, this is how we're going to do it. Are you telling me, flip them for DeAndre Ayton? Is that where you're walking me into?

Well, look, you're the maestro of the trade machine. You have the trade machine. We can't trade Horford. He's the coach of the team. I went to the game on Monday night. He coached more than Bizzula did. So we can't lose him. We need him in the huddles. Keep him on the bench

where he truly belongs. If you want him on the... There's room for assistant coaches. They had to play him on the, you, you have, there's room. They had to play him too many minutes. That was the problem. I mean, if they could have played him 20 minutes a game, he would have been great, but they're playing him 35.

That's a personnel problem. You can't roll into the next season with that same personnel conundrum. If you have Rob Williams, you have to understand he is a role player. The most that you really legitimately can hope for out of him is 22 minutes in 60 games in the regular season. Don't

ask for more. Just have him reasonably healthy come playoff time and make sure you have a backup. Make sure you have a reasonable plan B for whenever he gets dinged or there's a tweak to his ankle. He's lost my trust. I understand. I can't do another text from my dad at the game going, Rob just left.

Can you find out what happened? Check Twitter to see what happened to Rob. I just had it. I think Rob, if you're going to look at the because they have to, they can't bring back the same team they cannot so you you think we're in agreement they have to they have to choose between brogdon and smart i mean they have to be smart i i i'm sorry to tell you smart you you can count on we'll play i mean you you got exactly you got the very best version of brogdon. Sell high. He's the sixth man of the year. And yet in game six and game seven, he didn't play in game six

and he probably shouldn't have played in game seven because he's always hurt because he's Malcolm Brogdon. Yes, he's hurt. That's fair. Sure, he's hurt. That's Malcolm Brogdon. Welcome to the Malcolm Brogdon experience.

I love Malcolm Brogdon. I have no defense. I need to consult with my legal firm here. Do we have a Malcolm Brogdon defense? Oh, we don't. Let's just move on. Let's hear the rest of your arguments. He should be a legit, you know, a candidate in any kind of trade, which means that smart is off the table as a trade candidate, unless there's some kind of incredible package that you're building. But I mean, you need front court help. But ultimately, with the way that the league is currently competed, the basketball values of the current iteration of the NBA,

you have two wing players that are under the age of 28 that are all NBA players, I think you have to keep running them out there until... Oh, so you're keeping Jalen. I'm keeping Jalen. I am. I don't think that there are tremendous options out there and what you risk in trading Jalen, unless you get somebody that is of, you know, very, like, mature NBA stature right now, is you can't waste any Tatum years. Because Tatum is a legit MVP candidate. He's a legit, you know, top 10 player in the league,

maybe not top five player in the league. This is not true. I don't mean to demean Brown's all-NBA thing, but to be fair, so many guys were hurt at that position. Nobody is making a... All-NBA means I'm one of the six best forwards in my position, and nobody

is making a list where he's one of the six best forwards. Because KD didn't make it. Kawhi didn't make it. AD didn't make it. Did LeBron make it this year? I don't even think he did. You voted him for third team. I did. I thought he should have made it.

I'm going to retire from voting for the NBA team like LeBron. I'm thinking about retiring. Can somebody write that story? You and Mark Jackson should retire. That's what I should have done after I became a meme. I should have announced that I'm retiring from going to Celtic games. I could have thrown everyone off the scent of the meme.

The problem with Jalen is... Actually, let's take a break and we'll talk about him quickly. Make a fast break to Fandul during the NBA playoffs. Right now, new customers can get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000. That is $1,000 back in bonus bets if your first bet doesn't win. We're going to bring on Raheem Palmer in a little bit, and we're going to talk about all of our favorite finals bets and props. We even did some special ringer bets that you can find.

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or 1800gamber.net in West Virginia. So many of us lay awake at night going through a list of what ifs. What if I get into an accident? What if I need to change my home or auto policy? Or if your house, what if the Wizards are gonna sign another non-All-Star for $50 million a year?

The good news is that State Farm is there to answer your what ifs anytime. You can reach them 24-7, file a claim in the State Farm mobile app, or simply call your agent. And as we get closer to the US Open, Joe House and I will be attending. I can't help thinking about your golf game because I have been playing golf lately. Honestly, I wish I had a resource for golf questions that are as accessible as State Farm house. I know you like to, uh, I think you play better when you, when you have a caddy, that's when you play the best. Oh, always. Yes. I love playing with the caddy. Caddy in a cart. No caddy on a walk. Caddy to walk. How about

a buddy who, how about a buddy who can, who knows the greens and can give you some tips on, is that good or bad? Do you like the tips or you just want to hear from the caddy? I crave the tips. No, I enjoy the walk with the caddy. I build a nice relationship. He answers all my what-ifs. Would you say the caddy helps with all the tricky what-ifs scenarios

with skill and experience? I would say he looks at my game and is like, what if you just hit one down the middle one time, you filthy animal? Well, that's what happens when you have the right person when you're playing golf. By the way, that's what also happens with State Farm. You might never be sure about your golf game, but you can at least find certainty in your insurance policy with State Farm. You're pretty certain with your golf game lately. You feel.

I feel pretty good. You had an elective surgery and now you're feeling great again. I do feel pretty good. With agents that can help you over the phone in person or on the State Farm app, you'll get your questions answered when and how you need. So call or go to statefarm.com for a quote today. So I flew back from Boston. I had a really sad, I can't believe I flew cross country for that flight where I cheered myself up by watching a couple of movies on Delta. But I kept thinking like, is Jalen Brown going to get better? I kept coming back to that. I was texting a couple of people. I was like,

is there another level? Cause I think Tatum's going to get better. Like, I really feel like there's a lot more there, especially when he, uh, and I think he was going to have an awesome game seven. I don't know if that, I don't know if they're going to win. Cause I think the, the, this is something somebody mentioned to me late on Monday night that I really underestimated and almost like that. What was Miami plus seven and a half? The money line was like plus 300. I wouldn't have bet it, but I would have told you like, Hey, you should think about this. Although you had a lot of money on Miami and seven anyway. I think we all underestimated the ignominy of losing a three

nothing lead. And in a weird way, it's a game seven. It's important for everybody to go into the finals. But for Miami, that was like fucking life or death. And that was what it felt like watching them walk out, how they conducted their business. They were just, Spoh, the whole thing, they were like, we're not fucking gonna be the first team ever that loses a three nothing lead.

And they were just locked in and played really well. So I don't know, even if Tatum had been awesome, I don't know if the Celts win. They look super tight. The crowd got. So I don't know. Even if Tatum had been awesome, I don't know if the Celts win. They look super tight. The crowd got tight. I don't know. We'll never know. I mean, the problem

with any kind of injury to Tatum is he's really, truly your most reliable ball handler. He's the guy. And rebounder. He's our best rebounder, too. He's like our best basically everything.

I mean, I listened to the pod with your dad where you guys were pleading with, know where is the plan b who's the i mean god forbid you you put tatum at the free throw line and let him be the guy to yeah anything yeah there's right there's no easy plays and that goes back to the jalen thing where you put him next to tatum and it just becomes harder and harder my instinct, I was really sobering looking through all these teams because really that Milwaukee was the only one that went eight years, but they made a massive trade right in the middle to extend it. Utah was 10 years, but talked about this a million times. The league just got super,

super lousy there in the mid nineties for a variety of reasons. Like we didn't have that, that does a lot of the rookies from the mid eighties, like our guy, Lenny bias, like just a bunch of people got wiped out. And it just, all of a sudden there weren't a lot of stars. That's how the bulls won 72 games. It just wasn't a very good league. And you had this Utah team that didn't feel any different than they did five years ago, all of a sudden make the finals two years in a row, really only making the one Hornacek trade. So history tells us it's about seven years is your best case scenario. And then either weird shit happens or salary stuff comes into it

or somebody gets injured or something like that. And it really does. Like if they were asking me what I thought, I love Jalen, I'll root for him on any team, but paying him and Tatum a hundred plus million a year, I just, I can't get there mentally. I can't, like I heard first, I watched the beginning of first take today, which was one of the great, uh, morning moments of my year

because Mad Dog Russo tried to pronounce Luka Doncic. It was unbelievable. What'd he call him? I don't know what, I actually don't know what he said. The whole show kind of stopped. I think he called them Locky Jokic. And they were all like, what? And then he's like, Dallas kid, Luca. It was hilarious. But JJ was making the point like, this is the price for an

all-NBA guy. It's like there's Jalen's a top 25 guy in the league. This is the price. The new CBA is determined. These guys make between 45 and 50 million a year and you have to pay it. And I get that. I think that's correct. Somebody will pay him 45 to 50 million a year

and it'll probably be the Celtics. Whether he takes the contract and then nine months from now is like, hey, maybe I'm not that happy. Maybe you should trade me. I don't know if that'll happen. But my question is the, once you're in, there's no going back. Nobody knows this better than you. Nobody knows. Nobody knows this better than Joe house, lifelong bullets, wizards fan. Once that contract is inked, that's it. You're married. It's a true story.

And as I've said on this podcast many times in any other forum where anybody wants to ask me about the Wizards, the one sin you cannot commit, you just cannot overcome this if you make this mistake, is to pay a very good player like a superstar. And it is something, it's a mistake that the Washington franchise has repeated multiple times going all the way back to Juwan Howard. And, you know, God bless Gilbert Arenas. I mean, he legitimately earned the contract, except for they paid him knowing that he had a debilitating knee injury that he would probably never recover from. That was hilarious in real time. You're just talking to you about that. that era was that Abe Poland, God bless him, who built the stadium downtown and really revitalized

a portion of Washington, D.C. through his own initiative and his own contribution. It was really an amazing thing that he did. He gave out contracts as though they were bonuses. Like, you had a great season, so now let me give you a bonus. the bonus is the contract but the contract I mean the bonus you have to pay for that in the future it's not you don't just get to say great job we're going to give you extra money for the great season you just completed it counts for the future

and it hamstrings you for the future yeah he was just like I just want to be good right now I can't really think about three years from now. It's always dangerous. With the Jalen thing, I think he's not as good of a two-way player as he was because I used to think he was an elite defender,

like elite, like really, really, really, really good. Not quite the same on that level anymore. He's never been a good passer. He makes a ton of turnovers. He doesn't get to the free throw line and. He makes a ton of turnovers. He doesn't get to the free throw line and it takes him a lot of shots to get his points. You know, so just fundamentally the advanced stats have never loved him. I love him because he's durable. He's been in a bunch of big games and I just, I ride with that guy. But once we

start getting to 45, 50 a year, it makes me think like, are you just better off trying to get somebody basically to play who could be 80% as good as him for a lot less and then get some awesome asset, you know? And like, I look at like, like Houston, we know he loves Houston. He stands the fourth pick in the draft.

And is there a way to get that fourth pick? He could, he loves EMA. He. E-May loves him. Is there a way to get the fourth pick back and a couple of the other picks that they have, because they've stockpiled a bunch from OKC and Brooklyn, and kind of reboot with some of those assets and then use the assets to try to make a second move that you're good now. And then you have some more assets and you have some more salary cap flexibility. These are the conversations the Celtics are having right now.

Reasonable conversation, but you're talking about jumping into the great unknown. Like, you know, the risk is sacrificing prime years of Jason Tatum. And, you know, you know what you have with jalen brown and jason tatum together multiple trips to the conference finals you know how you know what you have you have the sad bill simmons meme that's what you have well there are there are lots of reasons though that this season ended the way now it's it's true it's been great we've made five conference finals in seven years.

The Wizards, you'd take one of them. One. Give me one. You'd literally take one. You would have been the highlight of your decade. A trip to the conference finals. We literally were in game seven against the goddamn Celtics and my god damn Kelly Olenek stuck it to us. I mean, you know, at least he

ate some sushi with me afterwards to make the piece, but I cursed him all the way up until then. Yeah, I love Kelly Olenek. I'm glad we're talking this out because I think you're right. You know what you have. You don't know what you don't have. And yet, if they could get in the top three, I would do it. Like if Portland put that pick on the table

and it was like sign and trade Jeremy Grant for Jalen and you got the number three pack back and you could talk yourself into Jeremy Grant, you know, being 80% what Jalen is and I get a pick out of it. Like what's Portland going to do? How are they going to simultaneously have this shade and Sharp, Simons, number three pick direction, but also have Jeremy Grant, Dame Lillard, and Nurkic. I have no idea what's going on with that team. They don't either. That's their problem. That's not your problem. This is why my recommendation would be shrink the size of your problem. You have personnel issues in other spots that it feels like could be addressed um including the coaching situation like you know joe maz after this

season if you can can you know gird him with some genuine nba support you know some real not guys that work at the store 24 that's not nice to whoever those assistant coaches are, whose names we could all look up. Listen, three of them just went to go to Houston. There was a report today and I mailed it to my dad and he's like, they should take Joe with them. Who's to say that won't ultimately happen, but there is, look, look at the glaring areas where you can build up. why not take the two guys that you can kind of count on the guys who have delivered these series of conference finals and smart and then you know you have to do something in the front court that that to me is the like a job one kind of thing that i would be looking at as a celtics fan i feel like and i love white and i

actually thought they were stumbling into something with him in game seven for a split second where they were just spreading the floor and let him beat people at the dribble. Remember when we were in college and we played basketball five times a week and once a week treated herself to barbecue and that was, and occasionally studied and that was basically what we did in college. Um, yes. And we would play pickup. And it was all the same, like, 25 guys over and over again that we would run into. The best. And one guy that we used to love was Sean O'Neill, this point guard.

I knew you were going to say it. Was he in your class? He was my class. Yeah. Sean O. And it was like, if you got on Sean O'Neill's team, it was like, this is just going to be a fucking awesome two hours. I can't, I'm going to have such a good time. I'm going to get the ball in all the spots I like.

If we have a fast break, I'm going to run the wing. I'm going to get the ball back. It's just going to be a delight. The Celtics don't really have a guy like that. And even like you look at Miami, you don't think of Butler as like a quote unquote LeBron like creator, but he creates good shots for people. Like over and over again, he was able to get into the paint and dish out and create open threes for whoever. He was able

to tilt the court, you know, over and over again. He's on just one side of the court by himself. And it's like, fuck, what do we do with this? And if Tatum can't get to that level, they're going to need somebody. They need like the, the guy who makes it more fun for everybody. Otherwise it's just going to be what we've seen the last couple of years. These guys just dribbling against these extended out pseudo zones or actual zones and diving at their legs when they drive to the basket. Um just think if for a season to end the same way in 20 and 22 and 23, that tells

me this particular team is at the ceiling. Maybe so, although the circumstances are pretty different in each instance, and the teams that you lost to were pretty different in these instances. Not defensively, though. One of them was Miami.

But look, not being able to solve Miami, it is true that Jimmy Butler does tilt. He also plays within a discipline, a Miami discipline. Count the number of possessions where more than two guys touch the ball.

Just like a very simple barometer of fundamental offensive scheme. And compare that to the number of times that in game seven, Boston stuck with their best player being hobbled. How many times did more than two guys touch the ball on offensive possessions? It's like sometimes it can be that simple of an analysis. Miami is effing disciplined. The ball moves, moves, moves, and there are good looks. It's the reason why in the advanced metrics, the average amount of space that the Heat had for the three-point

attempts they had was seven feet. The closest defender on average for Boston was seven feet. And all Boston had was contested threes because of the offensive scheme. So a lot of that, like give Tatum the opportunity to play inside of a scheme where the ball moves, touches multiple hands. You have the caliber of wings capable of this, right? I mean, the ball moved pretty good

once out of every six possessions when Tatum wasn't hurt. The game six, the ball moved pretty good. So it's that kind of thing. Here's the thing. At some point in playoff basketball, as it gets harder and harder, you need the thing. At some point in playoff basketball, as it gets harder and harder, you need your thing offensively.

What's your thing, right? Miami. I don't understand it. I don't understand how it always works, but they always had either the Butler ice. I was on one of the sides with three shooters on the other side and you kind of had to watch all of them or bam at the top of the key with

these little picks going each way and guys bouncing off left and right. And then occasionally somebody loses concentration for a second and they get a wide open three. And those are two things they did. Those were two better things than anything. True story. Like, I don't know. What was our thing? I watched them all year. It's their thing was basically the Tatum pull-ups or, you know, like once in a blue moon, they would post up Marcus, and that was fun.

And he would actually get somebody a good shot. Or they would just ISO somebody on one side. They'd try to beat somebody off the dribble. But we're going to watch this Denver-Miami finals, and it's two teams that have a thing. Like, Denver's thing is the best thing. That's why I thought they were going to win the West before the playoffs

and before the season. Did you make enough money on Denver, by the way? I made a decent amount. It was healthy. I didn't make enough. I cleaned up on the Lakers series. I think that was the most profitable single basketball series I've had in a while. We should have done a lot more on that series. That was, I think, I think that was the most profitable single basketball series

I've had in a while. We should have done a lot more on that series. I'm mad at the Phoenix one. The Phoenix one, I'll never forgive myself. I got spooked by Durant and Booker together.

Eh, it's reasonable to be spooked by that. The Lakers one was the one. I won some, but not nearly enough. Denver was plus 100 heading into that series. I made a nice amount,

but not nearly enough. But anyway, all right. So to put a bow on this, because we're going to bring Raheem Palmer in, your cohort on East Coast Bios. My guy, the dream. The dream is going to come in. To put a bow on this, even though I laid out all this history for you, all these different teams, you're saying year eight, Brown and Tatum run it back. I would.

With some actual coaches on the sideline. That would be one good thing. Can Al Horford still coach the team during timeouts or would you have an actual coach do that? Just let him coach. Don't put him on the floor anymore. Al Horford as player coach? Not player.

He's just coach. He can't move. Did you watch him in game six and game seven? No. He was good against Philly. I'm pro Al. I just thought they'd put too many miles on him. All right.

If I asked you to play 36 holes with no cart, you would be able to play about 20. 20 sounds right. Give me to the end of the summer. I'll be able to do 36. You could play 36. But then if I asked you the summer and I'll be able to do 36. You could play 36, but then if I asked you the next day, you got to play 18 again, you'd be a fucking mess. That was Al Horford.

Al Horford can play 18. He needs a cart. It needs to be one of those four and a half hour rounds where you stop halfway through and maybe get a turkey sandwich. Nice. And then you play the other nine. That's the stage of his career he's at. He has to do too much. He then you play the other nine. That's, that's the stage of his career is at. We asked him to do too much.

He fucking guarded Joel Embiid. He had to hold off the Atlanta guys in round one. Look, it is a personnel problem that he's had all that mileage. Just to finish this, the couple, couple era teams that didn't get there. Cause I think this Tatum Brown thing will now remember it 20 years from now.

It's like, Oh, that Tatum Brown Celtics. My fears will go, yeah, they can never get over the hump. The same way we remember the KD-Russo-KC and the Nash era and the Reggie Miller Pacers, Malone and Stockton, Drexler Pistons, the KJ Suns, Don Nelson's Bucks, and then the Julius Sixers. But just before we bring Raheem in, a couple other ones. Oh, Raheem, you're here. What's up, Raheem? A couple era teams that never got there. We're talking about all these teams that made a bunch of conference finals, at least, like the Celtics, the CP Blake Griffin Clippers, the Mark Price Cavaliers. We love those teams. They're just bad luck.

They were just born. That was like a classic born in the wrong era. Exactly. The pre Duncan Spurs with Robinson, they were like lingering for, you know, six years there. Could never get over the hump.

The Ewing Knicks are a great one. They made two finals. I feel like those were two different Knicks teams though. Because you had like the Bruiser Knicks teams in the early 90s and then the late 90s out in Houston Spree Knicks. LeBron 1.0 Cavs, that 2007 to 2010 run. And then Harden's Rockets. Raheem, quickly,

would you run this back another year for the Celtics or would you do a big move? Do you think this team's hit the ceiling? It's tough just because Jalen has that Supermax coming up. So I think that's the real issue.

Yeah, we just discussed that. Yeah, I think you might... Yeah, we just discussed that. Yeah, I think you might just have to make the trade now. Oh, man. I can't believe we're here. I was so psyched on Saturday. I was like, here we go, man. Game seven.

Although I never was super confident because I'm so scared of Miami. I've been all year. Okay. Raheem Palmer, we've got the finals coming up. You guys did, uh, on the ringer gambling show, you hit some, uh, you had some picks. JJ seemed your, your cohost, JJ, who we didn't invite. Cause frankly, I didn't like his tone on the podcast. I didn't like his tone. And guess what, JJ, you didn't get to come on today.

You seemed a little too gleeful that a Boston team went down. And you know what? You're not in the Zoom. Sorry, buddy. But you talked about whether this would be a short series or a long one. I'm FanDuel. We did all these bets on FanDuel, all these props, all these specials. And we got to pick some of them. And one of the props I wanted them to do was Denver wins in four or five.

So basically, Miami will win zero or one games. And that's like basically, I think, minus 110. Raheem, what's the case for a long series? The case for a long series is if Denver continues to be bad on the road, as they've been most of the season outside of those Lakers games. And, you know, Caleb Martin and Max Struess and Duncan Robinson and all these guys just hit a million threes. I mean, that's what's been happening.

I mean, they've been shooting, you know, almost 50% from three. So that's the case for this being a long series. You know, I was telling you guys all playoffs that the Celtics at home was, was the greatest like underdog possibility, money line possibility of all time. And then I think we had a losing record three rounds at home. There's never been anything like this. This team that made the finals and the conference finals in consecutive years, but had a losing record in the playoffs at home. When will that ever happen again? Miami beat them three

times at home on the Denver thing though, House. They kind of won me over as a road team in those two Laker games, because I thought, especially game three, was hostile territory with the way it was getting officiated. When LeBron knows he's getting calls, how hard it is to play him in that.

I think you and I are more aligned on a shorter series. Yeah, we are definitely aligned on a shorter series. Part of what will inform... I've already bet on short series I bet on Denver to win in five I put a smaller amount on Denver to win in six because I mean I can tolerate

the idea of three point variance and it's plus odds it's still fine but you know and Dream made the case very well for how Miami might extend it beyond a longer series. But to me, I think we'll know right away whether Miami has a solution for the Joker. We'll see what they do in terms of trying to get the ball out of his hands,

and we'll see how comfortable he is with finding his wing guys in the perfect spot. Just the way, you know, I never, I watch all those. We'll see if one of the best offensive players of all time is comfortable. I'm going to bet on yes. No, but look, you know, what he showed us against the Lakers made, you know, really at the very beginning of game one, they got out to, I mean, the game three.

They got out to a great lead and Lakers came all the way back. But I never really felt like that game was in doubt, you know, for Denver. And they just have like too many solutions. So I think the solution set continues to be too expansive. And that's why, you know, I'm, I'm pretty confident with, with Denver as a, as a, in a short, serious situation. Raheem, here's the thing I keep thinking about, and nobody is more afraid of Miami than me. I mean, I would, uh, me and Mike Shore were like the boys who cried wolf all season. Um, they're still scotch, scotch taping and duct taping a lot of what they do Miami. And it worked because they got a great coach. They're really smart. They know who they

are, but when you're playing zone that much, you're, you're hiding something. Right. And they, they were able to do it because the teams they were going against, they're playing Milwaukee in round one. Plus Giannis gets hurt, which now, shout out to Ben Thompson who was just like, can you just mention when you talk about the Bucs Heat series that Giannis basically broke his back and then came back two games later. I'm like, you're right. We should probably mention that a little bit more. But that was one of those teams that their offense could get super stagnant, right?

Which is perfect for like Miami switching up defense and zone. Same thing for the Knicks in round two. Perfect one to just like throttle them because ultimately that was just Brunson trying to go one-on-one. And then the Celtics, same thing. Denver doesn't do that. Like Denver just gets good shots. I don't know.

And all the numbers back this up. I don't know. And all the numbers back this up. I don't know how you play zone against Jokic. So they're going to have to guard them differently, which then opens up all these other things that happens. What did your numbers say with this, Raheem? Well, I mean, the biggest thing is that when you look at the Denver Nuggets, I mean, they are first in offensive rating

in the postseason. And, you know, when you like this zone might have impacted other teams, but the Denver Nuggets are the number one team against zone in the regular season and the postseason. So I just think that puts Miami in a bad spot. And then when you look at the fact that Jokic, when he's being defended by Bam, he's shooting 63 percent. And then when he's not being defended by Bam, he's shooting 68% as a whole. So, you know, they could decide and say, look, we're just going to let Jokic score one-on-one.

And Jokic would go out there and put out 40. And then if you send a double at Jokic, then you have all these open shooters. And this Nuggets team is the number one three-point shooting team in the league in the postseason. So it just feels like they're drawing dead. Yeah. And then you have I didn't think the Celtics attack gave Vincent enough, but I think he's going to have a lot of problems against Jamal Murray.

I'm sure this will come back to haunt me because now I'm going to be on the list of people who have counted out the heat. But I just think this is an awful matchup for them. This reminds me of how Raheem and I are big football fans. I'm not sure if you ever caught a football game or gambled or anything on football.

But it reminds me of one of those football matchups where you look at it and you're like, wait, this one team loves to run the ball and they have this awesome running attack. But then this other team is the single best run defense in the league and this is going to be bad for the

team that loves to run the ball, and they're not really going to have a plan B, and I don't see how they score. And then you watch the game, and it's like, oh, yeah, they're punting again. I just don't see how they're going to stop Denver offensively. And so then it's going to come down to the three-point variance, which, let's be honest, like round three, round one, they were hitting them. Round two, they weren't.

Like they weren't making anything against the Knicks. And during the season, they were 34% three-point shooting team. And they lose hero and they get better at threes. There's stuff that doesn't add up. Now, if Caleb Martin is, I mean, if he has another series like that, we have to investigate deals he made with the devil and shit like that. Because have you ever seen anything like this? Caleb Martin is a fucking turned into Kawhi Leonard

in game seven. What was that? No, it's absolutely insane. And then to make matters worse, J. Cole, of all people, discovered him. Like, did you guys read that story? That made Raheem the maddest. He's like, I don't care if Miami costs me money

this J. Cole thing is bullshit I guess he played 45 minutes in game 7 he's not going to be able to do that against Denver if Hero came back in game 3 does that make you more scared on the short series house?

Definitely not. No, I think reintroducing Hero, honestly, would be a mistake. And I don't think Miami is in experiment mode right now. They know who they are. They have a great identity. They have great flow. They have great cohesion.

Why would you mess with that? I mean, if you want to get... If you were to tell me you'll give Hero 12 minutes and it's going to cut into some of the Duncan Robinson time, okay, that's fine. I'll live with that. But, man, I would not be messing around with starting Hero or anything

crazy like that. Yeah, I think that's the worst thing that they could possibly do. I'm actually... I have some prop bets to where I'm kind of banking on them bringing back Hero. And it kind of, you know, helps out those prop bets. Well, let's get to those prop bets. So Raheem, you've been doing a gimmick on the Ringer Gambling Show, The 100. How are we doing? What's the record? are 50 37 and one plus 862 dollars we're about 57 that's that's good that's like almost 60 percent yep we love it we love that i'm a little disappointed at the record i can i can do a little bit better i'm gonna be honest with you i just um i had a rough go of it

for a little bit we also had some bad luck um we could blame your celtics for some of that game two we went heavy on the Celtics. I mean, we lost about four units on that. Yeah, what did I tell you? Don't bet on the Celtics when they're home.

What are you doing? The price was out of whack. I thought every Celtics he came just should have been even odds. Like, just no points either way. All right, so what do we,

we did all those Spandau props. I asked you to pick three, four, five that you really like. So let's hear them. This is... By the way, House, do you want to put on like a lobster bib or anything? Like you love nothing more than hearing somebody reveal favorite props. I have my red pen and my highlighter sitting right here. So I'm ready to roll.

Okay. All right. So let's hear it. Because I think my biggest one, I like the Denver Nuggets series. Props, bets, whatever. whatever yeah whatever you want okay i like the denver nuggets series price minus one and a half i love that i think i'm giving i'm still going to give the heat some respect for you know being the zombie heat and being able to wake up and win two games but the nuggets should be able to easily win this game the series and six so going denver nuggets minus one and a half on the series price so what are my first bet. So, what are the odds on that?

That's, it was minus 160. It's up to minus 175, but I still like it. So, basically, no game seven and Nuggets have to win. Why is that? I would have thought that would have been like minus 200,

minus 220, something like that. Yeah, it opened really low. It was minus 160. I think you actually get minus 150 at one point in time. So I just feel like the Nuggets are being disrespected there. Okay. I'll take that. All right.

House signed off, and I see Drool coming down his lip a little bit. All right. What's next, Raheem? What's next? We're going to go with Michael Porter Jr., three's leader. This is down from plus 380. I grabbed some plus 380. Yeah, it's now plus 240.

And the reason I like this is because when you look at Jamal Murray, I mean, him and Porter are pretty much neck and neck in their ability to shoot threes and how many they've taken in terms of their attempts. However, look at the guys on Miami. You got Max Strew, 6'5", Caleb Martin, 6'5", Tyler Hero, 6'5", Lowry, 6'6". Michael Porter Jr. is 6'10". He's going to shoot over all of these guys. They don't have anybody to guard. Can I correct you? Caleb Martin grew to 6'9 over the last week.

I don't know if it has been reported yet. He's now 6'9. He grew four inches. He's growth spurting right now. It's whatever. Okay. But I mean, for the most part, I just don't think they have anybody to defend him.

And I think he's going to get open looks. So I like his May 3s leader for the series. All right. So the price is what now? Plus 240. House, I didn't talk to you about Michael Porter Jr. We never had like a late night call after I went to those two games. He's kind of shocking how big he is.

Yeah. It's a dream for the point. Like you really feel it. And when he's coming around screens shooting at these weird angles, like nobody's hand is near him. He's just shoot. It's honestly like watching six foot 10 clay. That was like younger clay,

not clay now. That's how I felt. I don't think he's as good of a shooter as clay, but, um, just watching him in motion with the size he has, he's really impressive. And I felt like there was some ego stuff with him,

but last year, definitely. But even in the first part of this year, but now I think he's really impressive and I felt like there was some ego stuff with him but last year definitely but even in the first part of this year but now I think he's like I know exactly what I am I know exactly how we can win a title and what I need to do and I was really impressed by him alright what's your next prop my next prop is

and people aren't going to believe this but I'm going Caleb Martin under 15 and a half points average. I mean, this is a guy who... Regression. Yeah, you got to bet on that regression. I mean, this is a guy who, you know, he averaged 10.8 points per game

up until the Boston series. And I think, you know, a lot of his offensive surge had more to do with the Celtics, unfortunately. And, you know, I think he could see less minutes if Tyler Harrell plays. So I'm going to go with his under. I'm also going to go with his... What's the price on that? unfortunately. And, you know, I think he could see less minutes if Tyler Harrell, please. So I'm going to go with his under. I'm also going to go with his. What's the price on that? Is that

around even? Yeah, it's about even. It's like you got to pay like minus 113 juice. But OK. And I'm also going to go with I'm also going to go with Caleb Martin under six, six point six rebounds average. Wow, shorting Caleb Martin house. I love it. It's a great zag. It's a great zag. This is unbelievable. The guy's just flame shooting out of his ass,

and Raheem's like, I am not scared. All right, those are good. Sometimes you got to zig when everybody else zags. That's it. I love it. Well, but as we know with the props, the props are set for dumbass people like me and house who just go into a series going, well, Caleb Martin's hot. What's the price on that? I'll go over. And they just

juice it up by 15% hoping to rope us in. And the only time it doesn't work is with the yokage points, rebounds, and assists. Like I honestly, they can't make it high enough. It was at 53. I'm like 53. That's low. Yeah. I just always feel like he's getting at least 55. What do you got next? Okay. Next we have Michael Porter Jr. Over seven rebounds.

I like, I mean, I really like this for his average just because, I mean, we've been betting his overs. I mean, a ton on the hundreds. So I think he should be able to rebound on this team. So I really like that one. I like that one because if Jokic isn't rebounding, it's either him or Bruce Brown because Bruce Brown will come flying in and get some.

But yeah, you're right. Nobody else on that team's going to rebound. All right, what's your last one? Okay, we got two more actually. So we got Jokic to lead the series in total points slash Nuggets to win the series. That's actually, that's under the ringers props. So I like that one.

I think that's plus 160. Yeah, I really like that one. Plus 160. So, House, who beats him? Murray. So, but it could also be Butler, right? It could be anybody? It could be anybody, yes.

I worry a little about Butler in that one, but they do have a lot of guys to throw Butler. But that's my thing. And actually, you know, that correlates with my next one. This is a long shot. Jokic to outscore Jimmy Butler in every game, 20 to 1. I mean, this is like a roast. Yeah.

And I know it sounds crazy, but when you look at the last series with the Lakers and the Nuggets Jokic outscored LeBron James in every single one of those games and you have Aaron Gordon to throw at Jimmy Buck now you guys have heard me spoke about my game seven trend all the time you know teams who come off a sevengame series are just 36 and 50, 41% straight up in the following series. We all know Jimmy Butler. He hasn't played the same towards the end of the Celtics series as he did at the beginning of the Celtics series. So I think he's fading a little

bit. And now you throw Aaron Gordon at him. I think you have a slower-paced series. I think it's very reasonable that with the advantages that Jokic has, if this is a short series, if this is a four or five-game series, Jokic can outscore him in every game. So it's a long shot. You're speaking House's language because House loves nothing more than

a big, fat, long-shot prop that then you can bet against once you're halfway home with it and try to protect yourself. So you can bet that one and Jokic outscores Butler in the first two games. And then you could get a little,

you could just bet that as a straight up prop in game three and just try to remove some of the weight while still trying to win it. I like that one. What do you like? What do you think, Gus? I love that one,

especially in the context of how we think the series is going to play out. You know me all too well. You start talking about 20 to 1 kind of bad. I mean, that's I got to shout out my guy, Brandon Anderson, for that. He was he was like, you know, we speak every day. He's one one of those guys who kind of helps me out with things.

So shout out to him for that. Shout out, Brando. House, do you have any? No, I mean, I played pretty vanilla. The only thing that I did that's outside of what we've been talking about, I played a little bit on Jamal Murray to be the MVP of the finals. I heard you talk about that. That's just classic dumb house money.

Well, it's fine. Come on, house. House, you're just donating. It's a double-digit odds kind of thing. That's all. I like the price. That's why I'm playing. Cool.

Jokic is going to be the MVP. Probably. Can I give you a couple that I really liked? Let's hear them. Yeah, I want to hear them. So, this was one I suggested. It's one of the ringer bets. Jokic, 50 plus

points, rebounds, assists in the series. Minus 110. He's been comfortably over 50 in the playoffs. He's been at like 53. And I just, he just, every game, even if he's not shooting well, it's still like 23, 14, and 15, 23, 17, and 10. He's always like near, but then he'll have like the one game where it's

like 28, 17 and 20. Um, I just think he gets to 50 plus. I like that one. I was on the Murray most threes bandwagon, although your Porter case was compelling, but Murray most threes, Denver wins the series is plus one Oh five. And then, uh, the one then the one I really liked was Denver wins in four or five is plus 110. I think I like your minus 160 more. And if there was a way to do Denver wins game one

parlayed with Denver to win in six or less, I think that would be my number one recommendation. I also like if you're not allowed to bet on the finals MVP with a parlay, but I would have loved the finals MVP for Jokic with triple

double as a combo, but they couldn't do that one. I actually like your Denver to win the series in four or five games because I mean you're going to be in a spot where if they just win games one and two, you're going to be able to hedge at some point. Right.

And you think like if they're up three, one heading into game five and I have Denver at plus one 10, then I can just take Miami at plus, plus eight and defray some of the, whatever I can do an adjusted line with Miami, like plus three and a half or whatever it is. I, I'm scared

how confident I am in Denver, especially when Miami is made up of zombies and, um, people who practice in the dark arts. What was that lady in game of Thrones house? Oh yeah. The red witch lady. Yeah. You liked her cause she got naked a few times. No comment. But while being covered in blood. No comment. How can we not remember the witch lady? That shows. I can barely remember the characters in Succession.

What was your final Succession, Great House? Yeah, solid B. It's fine. Enjoyed it. They killed the best character. Oh, Melisandre, Cerruti says. That was the witch lady. That's right. You liked Melisandre. I did. Not your favorite thrones.

There was a couple other ones you also really liked. Much earlier. Much earlier. Yes. So B for succession. You called the Tom Shiv thing halfway through the season. Thank you for that. Gotta give you credit. Alright, Rahim. We'll see which ones are those hits, but you're going to be doing... So how many you're up to in the hundred? You have 87? So you got 13 bets left?

We have 88, but we have one push. So maybe I'll just give a bonus one. Well, if it's a short... So you got to do at least... We're trying to get it exactly to 100. So I think you got to do like 3 a game now yeah because what if it's a sweep then we never would have gotten to 100 now we got to do like NBA draft props or something oh that's crazy

I got some ideas if they get to 3-0 then we'll know load up on game 4 I mean I'm going to have I'm going to have a game 1 pick and I'm going to have a game one pick and I'm going to have a series pick. We're going to be at 90. My pick is

Denver in five. That's my final answer, House. And I don't want to take shit from the Miami fans because I fucking said all year that I was terrified of you guys and that everyone was sleeping on you. So, fuck off. That's my take. Do that meme.

House, I have another bet for you before we go. And I don't know if FanDuel has it yet. Do they have draft bets yet? Oh, the NBA draft? Yeah. Why? Because you have Scoot going too now, huh? I think Scoot's going to go too.

Yeah. I can feel it. I could feel where you're going with this. I think Charlotte's just going to go too. Yeah, I can feel it. I could feel where you're going with this. I think Charlotte's just going to look at it and eventually go, what are we doing? Let's just take Scoot. We'll figure it out with him and LaMelo

and maybe, you know, if we have to trade one, so be it, but it's a safer pick. So I don't know. Are there NBA draft odds yet, Raheem? I haven't seen any NBA draft odds. The only thing I've seen on FanDuel thus far is you can bet

Wimba to win rookie of the year at minus 230 versus the field at plus 172. Seriously? Gotta plow into that. The only thing that... Do you realize what you just did to House? He's gonna go to the bank at 11 o'clock today. That's exactly right. It's only 930 on the East Coast. He's going to go to the bank at 11 o'clock. That's exactly right. It's only 9.30 on the East

Coast. Here's my hot take for that. I want to bet the Spurs to make the playoffs next year. If that was a bet, I would do that now because I think they can they have like 45 million in cap space and I think they can have like a decent team around him. I think he's going to be

unbelievable defensively, like unbelievable like people are going to be in disbelief how many shots he changes, alters. And then on the other end, like, if you put the right team around him with that framework, like, I could see them going 40-plus. It's not inconceivable. He was in a pretty good league last year, like, doing really well. He's still playing right now.

I know. I know know I was impressed by him I liked how he handled himself I liked his interviews he just seems like a really mature he might be the first French person I've ever liked trying to think oh I liked I liked

Joe Kim Noah's dad remember when he had a run in tennis Yannick Noah I didn't like Tony Parker I liked Joe Kim Noah's dad. Yeah, sure. Remember when he had a run in tennis? Yannick Noah. No. No, I didn't like Tony Parker. I like Yannick Noah. I thought he was a good one.

All right. House, thanks for talking it out with me about the Celts. I feel like we landed at an okay pace. Raheem, good luck with the 100. We can hear you guys on the Ringer Gambling Show, East Coast Bias, which is which is also on fando tv which has been really fun to watch uh when are you guys taping that by the way what time of the day is it tuesday night it varies sometimes during the day sometimes at night but we we got it up and ready to rock out on wednesday morning so everybody can sit down with a coffee and and get their their yeah it doesn't look like you had a coffee house. It looks like I had a couple cocktails house

on Fandle TV. It's my favorite house. Depends on the time of day, that's all. All right, guys. Good to see you. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey.

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so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See? Safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. This message is brought to you by Metrolinx. Alright, I don't know a lot of Denver Nuggets fans.

I don't really know any Denver Nuggets fans, but Chuck Mendenhall, who has written a bunch of stuff for The Ringer. He's one of the hosts of The Ringer MMA show with Ariel. Who's my other guy? Who's the average guy? Pete C. Carroll. Pete C. Carroll. I'm blanking. I flew

cross-country and then back in 24 hours, and I think I might have had a slight brain aneurysm. Um, Chuck, the nuggets. Yeah. I've never made the finals in your lifetime. Have never made the final since the 1976 ABA finals,

which was the last ABA finals ever and had teams dropping out of the league as it was happening. Yet they almost won. really never, you can't really say going back, oh man, if only this one thing had happened with the franchise history. A couple of close calls, but not anything like fork in the road-ish. And now all of a sudden you're laying waste, kicking ass. When did you know with Jokic that this had a chance for him to be the best guy in the league? Well, man, first of all, can I just say that like you had mentioned, I think it was in a tweet,

you'd said something along the lines of this might be the biggest in game three against the Lakers. You said this might be the biggest Denver Nuggets win in history. And I was thinking, ah, man, I don't know. A Celtics guy shouldn't be able to make that call. But then I started thinking and I'm like, man, let me really think about this. And I think that is why it has felt so surreal, is just the fact that they have not had a history. They've had a past, a colorful run-and-gun past, but they haven't had a history. They haven't had anything you can really hang your hat on and be like,

this team was great, at least during these moments, or anything. They've had good players come through, but they've never had a moment like this where you can say we've done something. We've done something other than make the Western Conference Finals. So just starting off the bat, man, you made me think about that. And I have to say, when they clenched against the Lakers, it was as the closest I've come to like having like a feeling of watching your child be born or something in sports where you're where you're watching something happen that you never thought you'd see, and it's very surreal. But to get to your question, man, watching them, I went to a couple games during the season.

They could be down, kind of listless, and just not all there. And plus, Jamal was coming back from the injury. There were some things going on. It was slow to gel. But they could be down 15 points with four minutes to go till the half and then be up by six at the half. I mean, they were doing that type of thing all year. They once they turned it on, it was a full orchestrated thing of beauty. And to watch Jokic kind of use the new pieces with Caldwell Pope and, you know, Bruce Brown coming in has been tremendous. But watching those and then watching Murray kind of get it back, watching Porter play defense and rebound, there was just an inkling when people were saying that

the West was wide open that it wasn't. I think for the guys like us who would never say it out loud because we've been so brow beaten as a franchise that there was just a moment where you're like, I don't know, man, it's going to be tough to beat Denver. And that was kind of in the December, January rage. Yeah, I never wavered. I had them before the season. I remember. I had them before the season. I remember.

I saw that. I had him before the playoffs because I felt like people were really discounting the home court and also the fact that Jokic in the playoffs is just going to play eight to ten more minutes a game, which, you know, during the season, these guys, Giannis, same thing. They're playing 32, 33 minutes, whatever.

And in the playoffs, you can play him 42, 43. Now in the finals, you get extra days between some of the games. He can go even more than that. I did, I was doing the draft for ESPN when he got picked and he went 41st. 41st, yep. And it was,

and I remember nothing about it. You know, like every year there's these centers that get taken. There's either, you know, there's those rim runner type centers. Then there's the foreign guys. You just, you have no idea. We also, we, Rudy Gobert was another one. I think he got picked and he came out of the stands cause he wasn't in the green room, but you just never know what the foreign guys, he's somebody I wish I had watched the YouTube clips of, because I think he

always had the passing. But the question was what the hell with his body? Like nobody with that body will can ever be a good NBA player. Like maybe you have that one skill, but it's never actually happening. Do you feel like it's, he actually gets a bad rap now for both the body and for being in shape? Cause that's something Mike Malone talks about a lot where he's like, this guy's in phenomenal shape. He runs, I watched the nuggets more than any team other than Celtics this year. The thing that it was always jarring about them was how hard he runs the floor. He fills the wings. He runs and is, I think, more athletic than people realize, but that wasn't always the case, right? Yeah. And first of all, when he was drafted,

you got to remember too, it wouldn't even register in Denver. I can remember Mark Kisla, who's a columnist making some, some remark about this woodwork figures coming out and how he'll be playing overseas or whatever, something along those lines. Uh, but they had guys like Timothy Mozgov and they had, you know,

way back in the day that skid is really when Vandeway was running the, what was running the team and he was taking European players. They had a lot of guys come through, man. They had that Greek guy. I can't even remember his name, but a lot of foreign players that came through, there were tall, white, stiff looking centers. And so you really didn't distinguish. They even, they had Nurkic too,

in this time. And we all thought he was going to be the stud, you know, nobody really thought. That was an argument, right? Wasn't it for like two years? It's like, who's the keeper out of these two? Exactly right. And I think that the debate, that was the big debate. Everybody was like, oh, it's a nice, it's a good dilemma to have because you have these two guys who can both fill it up pretty well um but it was only in the in the as you watched Jokic as he got some minutes and you'd see him kind of station himself at the top of the key you remember the game Tempest I point this out all the time like the game Tempest where you're in the middle and you're shooting around like all around the perimeter um That's what it was like.

He would get the ball and he would operate. And there was something very, and this is from a Nuggets, a long-suffering Nuggets fan who you're looking for any identity most seasons. And he would stand up there and just kind of operate. And you could see it early. You could see the seeds of what they could do early on. And by whatever it was, the second season when they understood, it was almost cathartic that they understood that they could do early on. And by whatever it was, the second season, when they understood, it was almost cathartic that they understood that they could use him

as a passer, as a distributor, as a facilitator, as a guy, wherever the ball was going, he was action off the ball. Suddenly got action off the ball over the place. And even though he had that physique you're talking about, I saw it fairly early. And I think that most people did. But it's been

so fun in a weird way and so frustrating in another to watch kind of national media who are basically casuals about the Denver Nuggets because they haven't really studied the Denver Nuggets very long. So they're seeing it and they still see the lumbering, slow, flu-like looking guy who doesn't look like he can get up on the court. But if you really watch him, dude, he's up and down the court all night long. He never fatigues. In the series against the Lakers, I forget what, he was putting up a lot of minutes, man, and he was not fatiguing at all. So it's one of those things that has been an evolution.

I think he was out of, like, you talk to Malone, and he'll tell you, like, he was out of shape early on, but he dedicated himself a couple years back back to get it coming in and shape. And since then, man, it's just been lights out. Well, that doesn't inspire Luka Doncic. I don't know what does, because I think they were similar, right? They're both great players, but you couldn't say they were in the most incredible shape. I just thought Doncic was running stairs.

So maybe he's taking his cues from Jokic. Maybe the light bulb went off. I remember the first person who alerted me to Jokic in a real way was a friend of mine at the NBA who's always on this stuff early. So I was like, hmm. And I didn't really watch. And then Zach texted me and was like, are you watching Jokic? He's your kind of guy. And this was like five years ago. And that was when they started sneaking on my league pass a little bit. Obviously my, my brand of basketball guys moving, um, the bird magic

kind of stuff that I grew up with. And he clearly had it. I thought what he did, I mean, I've talked about a million times, but what he was able to do without Murray was almost more incredible than what he does with Murray. Um, theyading into this season, Murray coming back, and they had I think the sixth or seventh best odds in the West. And they had the two-time MVP, and they were really

lined up for a run, and yet nobody believed in it. They weren't in a great division. That's such a great point. Oh, my God. Did you feel like they were being discounted? Because Jokic had won two in a row, but it still felt like the national fans and the normal

basketball fans were like, eh, whatever. He's not that good. 100%. I told people to bet on this because I saw you actually, you did predict fairly early because I remember doing a fist bump at the same time. I was like, hey, let's keep it a little quiet. The thing was, when they acquired Aaron Gordon a couple years back, right before Murray went down,

they were something like 8-0 when he first came on. So the healthiest version or the clearest cut version we'd seen of the team that they fielded this year was a couple of years ago when they made that trade. They were undefeated. Then Jamal goes down in Golden State and it kind of alters everything. And I feel like everybody just kind of moved on, relegated, you know, Nuggets went relegated to the back again, not really thinking about him. They lose a couple of playoff series without Jamal, one of them without Porter. And that's kind of where they

were. So the perception was based more on what had been happening in Jamal's absence and all that stuff. But you were watching those teams and they were really untalented. It was kind of amazing that people weren't factoring in, hey, just take away the number two and number four guys from every other team. What happens? This is one of the things. Denver's never been a destination

for players. They've tried. I remember Jason Kidd. They were part of that sweepstakes. Couldn't even get him. They tried with LeBron, Hail Mary. There was no chance they were going to get him. All this stuff. But if you're a player now, look at the guys who are going to cash in. Bruce Brown will cash in because he came through Denver. He's going to cash in now. He's going to go someplace else. And he came in like the mid-level exception, whatever it is.

He came in and he signed just to have a place to play. He's going to go and make a lot of money. Jeremy Grant came through Denver, made a lot of money by leaving Denver. Gary Harris, he was like, he was, I think he had an extended shelf life because of Jokic. I think that we kept him vital for a long time. It's crazy to me how he can lift up guys

who would be fairly pedestrian throughout the league and make them into something. That has been fun. Like in that series last year against the Warriors, they scrapped pretty hard. They lost in five games, but they scrapped. They really fought. And it was all because of Jokic. And your next best guy, the number two is Aaron Gordon. They had no chance.

But I felt like by watching that, you tell me, man, because you've had teams like this, Larry Bird. I feel like when he has the ball, and this probably goes into the Patriots too, you have certain guys, you just feel safe when they have the ball. You feel like you're going to be okay. There should be more drama right now for me through this process, but it has not been as dramatic because as long as he's touching the ball on offensive possessions, you just feel good. And the times they go up and someone will advise 27-footer or whatever, Jamal waits for the shot clock and throws up some crazy thing. So often, one-handed, he gets it, puts it back, little pogo step, and he's right in there. And it's just, I can't describe what a security blanket he is for all mistakes and how he makes everybody around him better, which should be the definition of an MVP. Because if he falls out, I mean, it would be a meteor-sized crater.

Like in their lineup, they wouldn't be able to fulfill. They don't really even know who they're going to have. What's his face? I don't even, I can't even remember. DeAndre Jordan's best enough. Yes, that's it. I'm like, he hasn't really played

other than garbage time. I mean, they have nobody else. So it's, he makes everybody better and he did that with those two teams the last year.

So that's why I had the hunch just like you did that once all the pieces are together, as long as they come back in versions of themselves that they were before, they'd be fine.

Yeah, I compared him to the baby's binky blanket last week. Because you can really see it when, especially that, I've talked about it before on the pod, that game three Lakers thing, which I went to, where it just felt like the refs were completely against him. And it was like, oh, the NBA's going to do this thing. And they just fought it off.

And one of the reasons they fought it off was he just always gets them a good shot that's why I look at this Miami series I just feel like you can't play zone against Jokic and it's always like the really really great players they get to this point

where you're basically like picking your poison with whatever you're trying to get them to do you'll be like alright I guess we'll try to stop you but we're trying to get them to do. You'd be like, all right, I guess we'll try to stop you, but we're going to give up open threes or we're going to take away the threes, but you're probably going to torch us. Like you're just losing no matter what you're choosing. And that's the level that he got to. And that there's really nobody like that as great of an offensive player as Curry is, you know, a lot of that comes

and goes with if he, if the shots are just going in or not. But the great thing with Jokic is even when he's not making shots, he can just barrel down and do it going backwards with the nuggets. I remember, um, we traded Eric Williams to you guys like 20 plus years ago, we got this future pick and it was, we had the choice. It was a future pick. It turned out to be the 2001 draft. And we had this choice. We could have kept like rolling it over and eventually it became like unprotected in 2003 and the stupid Celtics, of course, it ended up being the 10th pick in 2001 and they grabbed it and they picked Kudrick Brown and they could have just rolled it over. And two years later it became Carmelo Anthony number three.

But I remember back then talking to my dad about it. And we would argue about, should we roll this pick over? What would you do? Cause we had the 11th pick too, which took Joe Johnson went. And the theory was, well,

Denver is terrible. Like, of course we should roll that over. That picks only going to get better. What's going to happen with this team. They'll never make the right decision. Like you ended up in the 1998 draft. You ended up with Braveful Friends.

Hall of Famers left and right. Don't get me started. They were supposed to take Paul Pierce. They were going to take Paul Pierce that year. You passed on Pierce. You passed on Nowitzki. I think you passed on Vince Carter. But this was the kind of team where the great moments were basically,

Oh, the couple of years David Thompson had before he became a drug addict. Uh, you had to come in with a tumble beating Seattle and in a, in a first round coming back from Oh two. Yeah. Almost came back from three Oh against the jazz. I'm surprised you remember that.

That's cool. And then, and then there was like a split second with Carmelo and Chauncey Billups there where it seemed like they might win the title, and it was 2-2 against the Lakers. I would say I had when I listed the greatest Nuggets win ever, there was a game two where they won in L.A., a game that I actually weirdly went to.

I was there too. I was at that game. It felt like, oh, shit, the Nuggets might actually do this. And then they end up losing six, but what are the other good memories? Remember they should have won game one, but Anthony Carter threw it to Trevor Ariza like three times. And remember that the inbounds pass? They should have been up 2-0 in that series

on the road, but yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure you weren't better than the Lakers that year. It was pretty even, but they had the experience, whatever. But what other memories jump out from your lifetime as a Nuggets fan? My God, man. See, this is the strange one. I know you were asking me about the top five Nuggets.

It's kind of tough because for you, if you're going through the Celtics, you're going through this rich history, that's going to be very difficult because so many players would stand out. For the Nuggets, it's almost picking through a lineup and saying, well, they didn't really do much. You're kind of qualifying with each one. You're saying this, this or this. But I guess this guy, you know, it's more like that, which is a bizarre sort of.

So it's like little mini eras where it's like, yeah, the Kiki Alex English era. Yeah. Oh, it's fun when we had Fat Lever. So especially during those Doug Moe years, right? Like those Doug Moe years where they would kind of, you know, hang 120 points and still lose by six you know like those types of games make like the second round of the playoffs maybe exactly yeah constantly constantly second round stuff like that i mean you could go through those types of eras man but um the biggest highlights for me honestly the dikembe one being number one because down oh two to that team they had never

they had never you know know, at that time, before the Knicks had went all the way as the number eight seed, nobody had upset the number one seed. So this seemed like something, a part of a history that you could start. Like, oh, here's something that we can say we did. So that was one of the big moments. And that was a really good Seattle team. I mean, people were thinking without Jordan that they thought that team

was going to win the title. 100%. But most of them are kind of centered around heartbreak because I always think back to the 85, you know, Western Conference Finals where they were down 2-1, but the game was in Denver. The Nuggets were winning.

Alex English had 26 points in the first half. He was rolling. Kareem got kind of dirty with him, threw an elbow. He breaks his thumb, goes out of the game. So it's like if you lost Jokic right now. I mean, it was kind of like that. You lose your guy, your only hope,

which they had to play out of their minds to win that series in a way. But I think they were going to win that game to tie it at 2-2. And instead, they just bow out. They kind of go out of that. That's one of the memories. It's not a good memory.

It's a cheap shit from Kareem. He was playing dirty. I went back and watched that fairly recently. He's on the Secretly Dirty All-Stars. There's no question. He is playing dirty. I went back and watched that fairly recently. He's on the Secretly Dirty All-Stars. There's no question. He is, man. He did a lot of that sort of thing. He decked a couple people.

He did a lot of that sort of thing. So they're like that. I think from my personal standpoint, I know you've been to a lot of games. Your dad has been like a season ticket holder since the early 70s, right? So I don't know when you started. This is his 50th year.

That's crazy, man. The first games I went to were in the earlier 80s. I did get a chance to see like, you know, the Kiki Vandeway, like that those installments and they were a lot of fun. I think the best one for me, they were playing the Houston Rockets and one of those typical round twos in the mid 80s, like 86 with the Twin Towers and Elston Turner. I just remember Elston Turner was the guy who came through in the end with some three-pointers in overtime. They didn't really shoot a lot of threes back then, but he hit them.

I just remember Gary Glitter's rock and roll was pounding through. It felt like we were on the verge of being something. Now it's been, what, 30-some years? Oh, my God. Nothing much has happened, man. I thought for sure though at those in those moments we were on the verge of really breaking through it just never really happened yeah it was a lot of mistakes that because you weren't like a big city the mistakes never became

kind of magnified like they made one of the worst trades of the 70s they traded bobby jones for george mcginnis which was just the classic basketball trade that if it happened now, people would have a fucking stroke. Bobby Jones was like the ultimate awesome guy to have on your team. Like one of the best defensive forwards, just like all additive.

And then McGinnis was this ball stopper. So you had that. You had to trade David Thompson because, you know, he- For Bill Hanson, can you believe that? He pretty openly had a cocaine problem. Like, there was an SI feature about him where they're just asking him, do you have a cocaine problem?

And then some of the draft pick you mentioned Chiskavili and people like that. That's why when it seemed like when they did the Iverson-Carmelo thing and it was like, eh, this will be weird, but maybe it'll be fun. And they were fun. They were both scoring 25.

When they flipped Iverson, really at the tail end of his career into Billups, it felt like there was some momentum. That's when that was the closest they've ever come was that season. It's because Chauncey was in a second stint in Denver. It killed me to see him win a title. This is a local kid. He grew up

in Denver around the time I did. He was growing up. He went to George Washington High School. He should have been the guy he's growing up but you went to george washington high school he should have been the guy if you're gonna have somebody mr big shot you know he should have been the guy kind of leading them uh to that title to begin with he goes to detroit and wins when comes back but i felt like they needed this was always a problem with mellow he needed that kind of field general who was gonna yeah not take his shit a little bit and and kind of calm him down that was their best. That was their best version until this year, until this recent Jokic stuff. That was the best chance they ever had of winning a title was that,

was that year with Chauncey there. Well, and then you had two years later, Mello's like, you guys got to trade me. And they're going, no, actually we don't.

And he's like, well, I'm going to sign with the Dix. It was like, cool. And then it was this staring match for two months that I, I, I never thought reflected well on Carmelo because he just could have waited to sign with the Knicks, but he, it was more money for him if they traded for him. So he ends up getting the Knicks to give all these assets to the Nuggets. And that was another fun

Nuggets team. I remember I was doing countdown that year. It was the 56 win tie loss and team. Oh yeah. The dollar was there and it was like, Oh, what's this? And then they get, they got waxed in round one. Well,

let me tell you something, man. Just like being that, like, I think you've kind of nailed it. Like that Carmelo thing was a very ugly, uh, kind of acrimonious divorce from the nuggets. And I never felt like he truly embraced Denver.

Anyway, it was always more of an East Coast guy. I haven't gone to Syracuse, all that stuff. New York really wanted him. I felt like you guys were like a way station for him. We were. I saw some article about what happens. Yeah.

Who do you retire? Number 15, Jokic or Carmelo? I'm like, take a fucking poll of the Nuggets fans. It's going to be 100 to zero for Jokic. No shit. And look at the timing of that, too. Like, we finally get into a finals and then they like, they throw up this stuff i see george carl on there like hammering like who you know trying to give mellow his respect it's just the wrong time this is bad timing for him but

to to put into perspective what it's like being a nuggets fan you get a guy who wants out of town which we're not unfamiliar with you know we've seen this this act before but nobody with as big of a name as mellow. You get a trade. You bring in this haul, which included Jamal Murray in the end, by the way, so it all worked out. But they bring in this haul, and they proceed with almost no superstars. There are really

no superstars to get 57 wins, which was a franchise record for them with just the depth of team. They had 10 guys they could roll out there and just keep like, cause having two starting lineups of woodwork figures who are all very good, you know? Yeah.

And leave it to the nuggets. Like I felt, I remember thinking like, Hey, maybe they're going to show something the NBA hasn't seen, which is that you can win without like these superstars. They go into the playoffs. And of course,

this is the beginning of the Steph Curry, that whole thing. They, they run into a buzzsaw. And I remember because Golden State lost David Lee in the first game. And I thought, oh, this is going to be easy. And then it was just Curry and Thompson killing them from threes. The first time I'd ever seen anything like that. And then they proceeded to do that for the next decade. And then it all ends up on the Warriors. When was a kid, and I love basketball more than anything,

and it really wasn't on TV that much, but I knew about Thompson, and he had passed through. Once Denver came to the ABA, we got to actually see him. And I just had never seen anyone jump like that. His basketball card was cool. Sports Illustrated was covering him. And this guy was Michael Jordan before Jordan for a couple of years there. And you go back and you watch, um, I remember a researcher for my book though, they, they came really close. Um, you

could argue that the Portland Denver series is really fun to watch, but Thompson's like, I think he's like his second year in the league. He's fucking awesome. Yeah. That year, before he started to have the issues. But you think like you have that, you have Carmelo. It's not like they've never had good players, but then Jokic comes in and now Jokic is a top 20 guy.

I mean, if they win the title, he vaults into there. We're talking about fun moments though. Like to me, it was that one of those Portland series when they were throwing haymakers and he was so great, um, just like on a bigger stage with Murray.

And then it was like, oh, there's something here. And I think that's the last thing we should probably talk about is just, um, the Jokic and Murray thing together, how special that is. It's so hard. These super teams getting thrown together and these guys that spend two, three years together and that's it. Those guys are so attuned. I was able to, you know, I got to watch that with Bird and McHale in the mid eighties. And I got to watch that, um, a little bit with the, with the KG

Allen Pierce Celtics. By the time they'd been playing together five, six years, there was really like a know-how with those guys. I think the current Celtics team doesn't really have it as you saw against Miami. But when guys are attuned like that, it's such an advantage. I don't even know how you put a statistic on it. It's instinctual, right? Like the way they play,

and they've been playing together forever. And I honestly believe this is the only way it was ever going to happen for Denver. It had to be something like what has gone on here, which is that they've parlayed a completely miraculous second round pick into an MVP and then brought in this dude from Canada who

everybody knew could play, but somehow has the, you know, chemistry with this big man. And then they, they form this thing like this. Well, who, who, by the way, fell to the seventh pick. And if you go back in that draft, like easily could have gone fourth, fifth, sixth, and there weren't a lot of good picks either way. So that was lucky too. I mean, you need luck with this stuff and it was a great pick, but they finally got some luck with two picks. This is

true. I mean, I've seen this and I mean, it's been kind of interesting, like the national narrative because the Nuggets are never in the national, like the true national part of the national narrative. I was thinking about I tried. Yeah, I know you did. I mean, there's there are certain people who like Zach trying to tell me basically Zach and some are solo.

Yes. And I don't know. It's not really in the mainstream. You guys out because you're like, you guys are too deep into the league. They're like, I don't want to hear it. But the thing is, I'm like, there are some people, but very few. So it's been kind of amusing honestly to watch the dawning again and again of people like whoa these these guys but i mean their chemistry is ridiculous

there's times you know you're just you're watching them instinctually do that two-man game the little give and goes setting picks it's crazy to watch murray setting picks to spring you know yokich to the middle it's just weird man It's like a different brand of basketball. It's crazy to me that you even mention Bird and McHale or something like that, because I never thought that they would be able to have a tandem that would do this. And I saw, I believe it was Colin Coward who was saying something along the lines of,

hey, let's keep in mind that if Jokic wins the title this year, he'll be the first to do it without an all-star and I know whatever the, whatever the stat was, but I'm, I'm thinking, yeah, that's Murray should be an all-star, you know, like he should be an all-star. Like he's one of the best 25 guys in the league. Yeah, exactly. So I, I it's, it's all skewed and it's the process of discovery for the rest of the country, but this lineup and like these two guys have been doing it, that bubble run, I don't know how much you were, I know you were paying attention to it, but how well they

played there was cathartic. Watching Murray come to life and seeing that he was actually as clutch as he was in that Donovan Mitchell series, like with the jazz especially, seeing him become so clutch, you knew now that you already had the idea that Jokic was that good, that he would show up, he would be the guy but to see murray then fill in the blanks around him compliment

him on every level i was just like i knew at some point we'd have something but as a as a browbeat denver fan i could not shout it from the mountaintops because i was so afraid i would put the old hex on him and that would be that. I thought it was hilarious that you sweep the Lakers. You win these two games in LA against LeBron and Davis who were fucking healthy, by the way. I mean, LeBron had the foot thing, but I watched him play 48 minutes in game four. It's hard

for me to accept that he was like badly compromised. And you win and it's supposed to be the Joker's moment and like 20 minutes later, LeBron's like, yeah, I might retire. And everybody's like, later, LeBron's like, yeah, I might retire. And everybody's like, whoa, LeBron might retire. Meanwhile, there's no fucking chance he's going to retire. I thought it was a dick move by him, honestly, to kind of grab some attention for himself.

Just like pay tribute to Jokic, which he did too in the press conference. Just say, that guy's incredible. He's one of the best players I've ever played against. They beat us. We got to go to the garage and figure some stuff out. But then it turned into a LeBron retirement thing over a holy shit, Jokic. Where is he going to rank in the history? And holy shit, the Nuggets, they've never fucking made it, you know? And so I don't know, that was kind of a bummer, but you'll get your just due. I will say this. You're like minus 500 or minus 450, something like that to win the finals. This is the first

time the Nuggets are actually maybe getting a little too much respect. That's true. And I don't like that. I don't like the layoff. Now you can relate to this too. You remember when the Rockies were in that Rocktober thing, they won all these games, they swept all the playoff teams in baseball, and then they had to wait for the Boston Red Sox. In 07, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, this has a little bit of that feel where you're like, are they waiting too long? Are they going to show up as the same team? I do feel in my heart of hearts that Jokic won't allow them to do much else than what

they've been doing. Because if all goes through him, I feel like he always shows up. So I feel good about it, but not minus 500 good, man. They just don't. They're not as familiar. I know they've done well against the Heat in the regular season. They kind of had that bad blood, too, with the Morris thing. Remember when he knocked over Morris?

There's some contention there, which would be fun to see how things are going to play out that way. But I think that the Nuggets should win the series. But, man, I don't know if it's just because I've seen so much with the Nuggets over the years that you're skeptical until it actually happens or if it's, I don't know what it is, but I, I think they'll win, but I think it's going to be a series. I think it'd be like, some of these games are going to be very close. Maybe like go to six games, something like that. I think you guys are fine. You got home court, you got altitude, you got Jokic.

It's looking good, man. So how do I, You're probably going to at least one of the games, right? Maybe? That's where we're at. I want to take my son who hasn't been to a finals game and he hasn't been to a playoff game in general. I think I'm going

to try to head out to Denver for game two. I have to see at least one game. I thought about just doing Miami because it's cheaper. You could go out to Miami and do this whole thing cheaper, but I'd rather be around the Nuggets fans, I think. So game two is the one we're circling. Well, good luck. Thanks, man.

Thanks for coming on, Chuck. All right, my buddy Nathan Hubbard is here. You can hear him on the Every Single Album podcast with Norm Princiati. You can hear him on Fairway Rolling with Joe House. He is a, I'm going to call you a music business veteran, music industry veteran, even though I always feel like that's insulting. But you've been in the industry for a long time. I was out with some people last night and we were talking about, they were in the music industry, talking about this Taylor Swift tour and that it's actually

becoming a cultural phenomenon and i was like cultural phenomenon like in what context like michael jackson the 80s level and they were like bigger i'm like wait what so then i was like i gotta get nathan i gotta really crack what's going on i just don't anecdotally in my life the tour feels like the biggest thing possible my My buddy, Jacko, my college roommate I've had forever, who never asked me for anything. We just talk and he's like, hey, can you help me with Taylor Swift tickets? And I was like, whoa, this is like really becoming a thing.

The tickets are super expensive. Culturally, she's having a moment. You came on this podcast, I think five years ago and you were saying you thought she was the biggest star, maybe since Michael Jackson. Set the landscape for us now in 2023. Where are we? What's happening? Well, I thought in Taylor's case that in 2015, she had a year that was on par with Elvis Presley in 1956 when he broke on the scene, The Beatles in 64 with Hard Days Night. Yes, Michael Jackson in 1983. Thriller came out at the end of 82, but 83 is

when he did the iconic Billie Jean. It's when he put out Thriller, the video, everything. Exactly. She, at that point, was breaking all kinds of records. Now she's broken through and had this moment.

And the thing that I pin it to, Bill, is she's actually won over the alpha male. She's had Miles Teller. She's got Jack O asking for tickets. Miles Teller, Top Gun. J.J. Watt releasing videos talking about how he can't believe that she's up there for 44 songs in three hours and 15 minutes.

What a great threesome that is. Jack O, J.J. Watt, and Miles Teller. How often do those three get thrown together? She's got Aaron Rodgers. She's got Mac Jones going to both shows at Foxborough. I mean, she did it. You and I talk about the best stars in music are also the best brand managers in music, right?

Sean Carter is the CMO of Jay-Z. Bono is the CMO of U2. Taylor Swift is the CMO and CEO of Taylor Swift Inc. And she has, in a very intelligent way, broken through that last wall. In 2015, if we went to a Taylor Swift show, you would have had dads who were there with their daughters, moms who were there with their daughters, their daughters, and members of the LGBTQ community. Now it's everybody. And it started in quarantine with Folklore. That album, which was the Grammy winner for Album of the Year. She is one of only four artists to ever win Album of the Year three times. That is Frank Sinatra,

Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, and Taylor Effing Swift. And that album struck a chord with people who were all locked down. It just, it was a moment of authenticity. And it came after

what is now, has now ended, which was a six-year relationship that she was in out of the scene of paparazzi. She wasn't getting her picture taken.

She kind of killed the drama of, oh, she dates all these boys and writes songs about them. It made her more accessible and more authentic in the eyes of men. And now coming out

and touring for the first time since 2017, it's breaking all records. I mean, she effectively broke both the primary and secondary ticketing infrastructure in this country when she put this tour on sale. So two other things. Post-pandemic,

somebody was going to become a phenomenon coming out of the pandemic, so it turned out to be her, but she's probably also the odds-on favorite. The other thing, she's been around long enough now that you have... So she's getting all the girls, right? She's getting the high school girls and the junior high girls, but she's also getting these young adults who were like eight, nine, 10, 11 when she broke onto the scene who have been with her now for a generation who are now people with money, people out of college, people who their best friend from junior high and that, oh, we got to go see Taylor or their whole group.

So she's hitting basically every demo you'd want to hit. Right? The girl, ladies in their mid twenties with money, dads and daughters, moms and daughters, the OBGTQ community, but then also the little kids now also coming in. So she's like gaining fans. She's adding.

Yeah. Now she's like a behemoth. There has never been anybody in the music business who understands the internet the way that Taylor Swift does. She goes into the deep corners of Reddit and participates. She likes things on Instagram from fans. She knows how to mobilize the army that has gotten her to where

she is. And then on top of that, she's created a cinematic universe around her that is an entry point for everyone. That album Folklore was made by Aaron Dessner with The National and Bon Iver, like two high quality icons in the dad rock community. When she did a re-record of her album Red, she had Chris Stapleton, one of the most authentic real guys in the country music community. She just had Ice Spice, who is the hottest thing. It's so hard to break an artist right now. If we're going to break one this year globally, it might be iSpice. iSpice, she just re-recorded a song with Karma. She brought her up on stage for three nights at Giant Stadium in New York.

She just understands how to bring people into that cinematic universe and to create an on-ramp for everybody. So who are the people she learned that from? Mostly rappers, right? Yes. Yes, exactly. But she also... Madonna is a great example of an artist who was able to create new chapters and to sort of latch herself onto others. But with this tour in particular, I think there's two people that she learned a lot from. The first is Harry Styles. And she learned from Harry Styles, watching him do these mini

residencies, that fans will pay and travel, that they will come to you. And that's why she hasn't even announced her international date. She's not playing every town. She's posting up in cities and playing stadiums and then moving the show to the next town. She's posting up in cities and playing stadiums and then moving the show to the next town. It's a lot more cost efficient. It also creates these moments in a city where mayors are bending over backwards in the same way that senators bent over backwards during the ticketing hearings earlier this year. Mayors are bending over backwards to create some new gimmicky Taylor Swift day to just sort of increase the buzz and raise their own standing. But she learned from Harry to set up... Taylor Swift day.

Yeah, exactly. She learned from Harry. She's using Harry practice money ball and then she stole it. That's it. That's it. But then what she learned from her, who appears to be new boyfriend, Matty Healy from the 1975... Oh boy, controversial. ...is that you've got to create a show that's not really for the people in the building, but it's for the people on the internet. And that every night,

there should be some random thing that happens on stage that is worth checking back in for. And in her case, she's got a 44-song, three-hour, 15-minute tour. But every night, she's going up and playing two songs,

just acoustic, that are unique to that show. And so every night, the fan base has a reason to check in and see what did she play? Did she bring out a special guest to do them? And so it's creating this online virality that is keeping people paying attention every night. It's a TV show in a box. I remember you came on, we talked about the shelf life of a star. I don't remember when we did this. It was sometime in the mid 2010s. How long does somebody have before they become Lesko and they get replaced by somebody else? And we were talking about different examples where you can be a good quarterback for 20 years. LeBron's going to be year 21 next year. If you're in sports, you can last. Comedians, it gets tougher. They have the eight to 10 year shelf life. And then if you can make it past that, you're really doing something. the mega stars in pop,

the shelf life just isn't there. And this is the one person who we were saying five, six years ago was already like beating the odds. And now how many years are we at now? I mean, your first album came out in 2006. Yeah. So we're almost,

this is like a LeBron like run. Nora, who grows up, your co-host for every single album, who grows up as a Taylor Swift fan, and now is an adult living in New York City and has kind of grown up with her in a real way. Yeah. She went to the show in New York the other night and texted me, I've cried seven times.

And it was like 20 songs in. We were halfway through the set. But yeah, this is... Look, she is the only artist to have five albums open with over a million copies sold. She's the only artist to have 200 million Spotify streams

in one day. With this last album, Midnight, she occupied the entire top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. All 10 songs were her. She's got 10 albums right now in the top 100 albums on the Billboard 200 chart. It 10 songs were her. She's got 10 albums right now in the top 100 albums on the Billboard 200 chart. It's just

unprecedented stuff. And the only question for me is is it sustainable? Is there a pendulum swing back? And now that she's single and back out in New York with paparazzi photos running around with a bad boy

rock star, this sounds very, very much like the mid 2010s, the John Mayer stuff and Calvin Harris and again and again and again. It's helped propel her fame. But one thing about this woman that people forget is that she was a child star. And you and I have spoken about this a million times over that in so many cases when people become famous, what happens? They get frozen in the age where they were famous. And so here she is back on the market after being in a relationship for six years. Here come more of the rumors. Here comes more of the social buzz. In the short run, it's definitely helping propel her fame. The question is, in the long run, is this a tragedy or a comedy in terms of her personal life? For those of us who like her music, you know what would be a good next boyfriend for me is the, oh no, my fans are going to be so worried if I date this guy boyfriend. Yeah. And this would be like six to nine months

of them just really being worried that, oh my God, she's got to break up with him. He's not good for her. And then it'll lead to a good album. That's what's happening. And there's weird shit going on. Like she mouthed the same words, this song is about you,

you know who you are, I love you, that Maddie Healy had mouthed at the camera on stage like a week earlier. There feels to be some very delicate coordination and choreography happening here

that has led some to think that maybe this is a rehearsed plan thing. But there's a lot of people who are also saying they've had a crush on each other for 10 years. They were caught wearing each other's shirts 10 years ago.

Who knows? Why do I know this? But we're back to the Taylor Swift relational drama. And to your point, I don't think she needs it for her career is the thing. Her career is doing just fine. So the hottest take would be, I think she's going to get married before Christmas.

I think if it's real, maybe she's just taking the gloves off. She's done with... She spent six years with a guy. She just put out a song last week called You're Losing Me, clearly about the relationship. In it, she says, I wouldn't marry me either, which is a very brutal thing to say out loud. And if this is a real thing, maybe she's married by Christmas. Who knows? So, on a scale of one to Britney shaving her head at the L'Amortage in 2005.

I was there. From a concerned scale, we're only at like a three still. Yeah, we're only at a three. I was there. From a concern scale, we're only at like a three still. Yeah, we're only at a three. When she was first coming up, her dad would call me and she was opening country shows in amphitheaters around the country. And he would call me incessantly and tell me, sure as Sunday, my daughter's going to be a star. These are all the things that are wrong. You're not selling the merch in the right way. And the food should be this. And here's how you should... And I used to take the call and he was right. And so I listened to him, but he understood so fundamentally the

essence of what it took for an artist to be successful. And this runs through her body. She is the best CEO, I think, in the history of the music business. And so every time something new that feels like a zig or a zag happens, I'm always mindful. She knows what she's doing. So the Harry Styles piece of this, where he has this big tour and it becomes kind of a thing, right? For six, seven months. I was surprised by how much of a thing it became.

But I wonder, did she go into psycho-competitive gear when she saw the Harry Styles stuff? Like, oh really? We're going nuts about Harry Styles now?

Watch this. I think it's a fair question to ask. They've now traded Grammy Album of the Year wins. Harry Styles won just this past year. Here's what I would say.

I saw, I'm sure that she watched that Harry tour and thought about how to create residencies. Harry has been touring a lot. And Harry's show has been the same every single night until recently,

where he has started playing a broader variety of his old One Direction songs. I'm pretty sure that that was him looking over his shoulder and saying, the Taylor surprise song thing is working. Let's interject a little bit of random variety into each night's show so that there's something for the kids

to go back to the internet and to TikTok and look and try to find the moment from last night. It keeps you relevant as you continue to go out and play what is effectively the same show. By the way, why did it take till 2023 for people to realize this? It's not fucking rocket science.

Do two new things in each show, especially in the social media era. Like, oh my God, I can't believe Taylor Swift played Better Man. Yeah. I mean, look, you and I have been watching Pearl Jam do this forever, Dave Matthews band. It's a different... It started with The Grateful Dead. Totally

different set every night. And so that's why people would come out and go to multiple shows. Harder to do in the high dollar production environment that is these tours. Taylor Swift, this concert is a show. Well, that's why she does it acoustic, right? Yeah. Exactly. There's this whole video screen that is the entire stage. I mean, it is incredible to watch. And if you're in the upper 400 level, it's a totally different show than if you're in the 100 level around the bowl. Totally different show than if you're in the floor. You can't even see the stage if you're on the floor. You're just looking at her. So there's multiple ways to experience the show.

But yes, you're exactly right. Her ability to play guitar and piano on her own and to create that intimacy within a song makes it possible for her to do that night in, night out. All right. So if she's Tom Brady, this is now like her, Tom Brady is somewhere between Super Bowl V and the VI one. There's some good Tom Brady parallels with her actually, where she wins early,

but doesn't really, people always think, oh, the different people are better. Yeah. As soon as she's off the market, everybody starts, as soon as she's back on the market, everybody starts linking her with everybody possible.

But there's always a better QB. This guy's better. That guy's better. And then Brady has the second run. And people stop and go, wait a second, what? So who's Harry Styles in this analogy? Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow?

Yeah. He's the coolest. Everybody thinks he's cool. I was thinking more Matt Ryan. No. I think that's a disservice to Harry. Because Harry's... You can't underestimate the power...

The Aaron Rodgers? Of the wonder... Well, no. He's not quite as weird as Aaron. Maybe... No, because he hasn't won enough MVPs yet. It all could be. You know, he's got

an MV... He's got a Super Bowl appearance, which is the Grammy album win. He's got a very, very big, powerful fan base that he's

pulling in from even like Joe Burrow is pulling fans in from outside football. Harry's sort of pulling in people from outside the universe. Mahomes?

He's got the moms. He might be Mahomes. He might be Mahomes. The only difference is it's not clear to me how much of a songwriter Harry Styles really is versus the greats that you and I put up on that pedestal. Taylor Swift has a catalog of over 200 songs where if you walked into a restaurant or a grocery store, you're likely to hear any of those 200 songs. Harry Styles is not there yet and he hasn't penned them all. He's worked with a lot of songwriters to get them there.

So it's not clear that he has the McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Taylor Swift-esque gene. Definitely doesn't have the, should I be in this movie gene. Well, he's available. Maybe even that terrible terrible Olivia Wilde movie that my daughter claims to like for some reason. Yeah.

Which I don't know how I feel about that. He's gravitated to Emily Ratajkowski apparently now. So his personal life, to be honest, is a bit more intriguing than Taylor's if you're into that sort of thing. So the Taylor fans who I think are a 10 out of 10 on most rabid fan base. Yes. Notice how I didn't call them crazy.

I called them rabid, passionate. That's right. It's them. Crazy they might've taken personally. It's them, the beehive with Beyonce and BTS fans. But I really do believe that Taylor's are the most, she is the general of that army. So you do this podcast where you break down every single Taylor Swift album. And then at some point the Taylor community kind of accepted the podcast,

right? They even like shared some links and yeah, they came up a little bit of a thing with the Taylor people, but Taylor has never come on the podcast, even though it'd be a great career move. It would. Taylor has not come on. She needs that career help. Yeah. No, the fan base has been amazing. But going back to what you were saying before, how she's the CEO, she's aware of everything.

How aware is she? Do you think she knows about that podcast? Yes. I know she knows about that podcast. Yes. I know she knows about that podcast. Do you think she reads different things? There was a New Yorker piece about the lead singer from 1975 that she may or may not be in a serious relationship with. Do you think she reads that? Do you think she's one of those, I don't want to know anything, keep me out of this? Or is she secretly at two in the morning like on Reddit? It's not even secret. She is so deep in the weeds of what is said about her from the fan base, but also from the outside. To this day, she is on the internet when she's done.

I mean, she had, I can tell you, she had Marcus Mumford as her first guest in Las Vegas. He came up and sang the song Cowboy Like Me during those surprise songs. She was texting him into the night about the fan reaction. She goes in and experiences it. It's like any great CEO. She's in touch with the customer base with her finger on the pulse of how they're feeling. She has absolutely read that article. She goes in and favorites somebody with three followers who says something funny about the show. She pays attention. I mean, here's the latest example. The fan base complained. She put out a song, Snow on the Beach, on this last album, Midnights, with Lana Del Rey. It said, featuring Lana Del Rey. If you listen to the song, you got to really squint to pick up that Lana's even on it. She's almost not present.

That's how I always feel about Lana Del Rey, but go ahead. Fair enough. Last Friday, Taylor released a song, Snow on the Beach, featuring more Lana Del Rey. That's what it was called. So she literally listened to the fan base say, hey, why isn't there more Lana?

Grabbed Lana, went back into the studio and redid it. This is what she does. It is, in many ways, wonderfully crazy. Jesus. So this is now the year of Taylor Swift and AI and Nikoli Okic. It is. It is. And let's hope that they all aren't linked in some capacity in page six before this is all said and done. And Brooks Koepka, your guy, he's back. He is back. I'm thrilled. Let's go. We got US Open in two weeks. He won the French Open of golf, the PGA Championship, which I barely acknowledge, but that we actually have the US Open here on our home turf.

We are. And I think we're going to go see a little bit of it, Bill. Okay. As you know, I'm available. I love nothing more than hanging out in one of those golf places that just has drinks and pigs in a blanket, watching golfers walk by. One of my favorite things to do. Love that. I have a nice short sleeve vest. I think House, when we were at the Masters's house, did the golf shirt with the vest over it that I've now adopted as my dad look. I'm going to be the dad of Taylor Swift with the vest on, with the polo shirt underneath it. And I'm just going to... I don't have young kids anymore. I'm just going to have to borrow somebody else's nine-year-old kids. Drinking ranch waters and eating pigs in a blanket.

I love it. I like that you care the same about all of this as you do about the fall of the Clippers, which you've had to experience with your son. It's been horrible. You've been texting me about all of the things that I should be worried about. You tried to convince me to go in on season tickets. I rejected your offer outright. You did. You just rejected it. I know too much about the secondary market, but it is a good deal. I'm in for five years in the new arena and I'm not even sure what happened.

Well, I love the Clippers. I'm there to see the other teams. I love the Clippers. I actually love a number of the people involved in the organization. I just don't get down there enough, but I will go to many games. I don't know. Well, the coach go to many games. I don't know.

Well, the coach is definitely coming back. I don't know where all those stories came from, but they're not letting go of their good coach. So that's not happening. It'll be interesting to see if Ballmer cares about the second apron, this new salary cap thing that just demolishes people

that spend too much money. The real question is, how much longer do you want to go with Kawhi and Paul George? And do those guys even have market value if you decide not to? I think the real question is whether this arena that he's building, which he has traveled around the world, capturing all kinds of ideas about how to make the fan experience amazing, will be equally great for music. Because if it is, it's going to shake up the scene in Los Angeles. It's going to pull concerts away from downtown LA. It could dramatically shift the landscape of music in

our hometown. Yeah. It feels like they have crossed a lot of T's and dotted a lot of I's with some of the stuff people are worried about. And it's a way smaller arena than the football stadium. So maybe it will be easier to get in and out of. If you're a sports fan, all you can hope for is that you have an owner with I don't give a fuck money who's going to do whatever it takes to win. And in some cases, that can be a little catastrophic.

See Mr. Cuban. But in other cases, it can be heartwarming. And I do think that, I do believe that Steve Ballmer is going to figure it out. We live in a world where the Cronkies are four Nuggets wins away from winning the title in three different sports in the span of like 18 months. It's- That's a thing that's going to happen. It is an unbelievably under-celebrated thing about what they have done for their franchises. Because the problem is Stan Kroenke, not like a good self-marketer, doesn't care.

Doesn't want to be out there. Doesn't want to be, wants no part of anything. Like, can you imagine if Joe Lacob owned teams that won titles in three different sports? We'd never hear the end of it. Or pick any other owner. I mean, it's amazing that they've laid back. You would think, it took a lot of shit about, especially like the Arsenal piece of it and the stadium cost two, three times as more than they thought it was going to cost. Absolutely. And the St. Louis stuff and they have... Yeah, that wasn't great. No, Mr. Kroenke is as humble and laid back a human being.

And he's a long-term patient investor. That's how he made his fortune. And that's how he runs his teams. He hires people who he trusts and plays for the long run. And they've done it the right way. That's like in... What's that called? The EGOT?

When they win the Emmy, Tony, Oscar. Yes. Grammy. And Grammy. This is like three out of the four team sports is kind of an EGOT. I don't know what the fourth would be. I guess it would be the Premier League. Yeah. And they almost won the Premier League this year. They fell just short. They had a good chance to go win it. Crazy. Nathan Hubbard, we can hear you on Fairway Rolling as we head toward the US Open

and every single album as well. When does Taylor Swift come here? August 3rd to the 8th. She's playing five nights at SoFi Stadium. Not a mistake, not a coincidence because BTS currently holds the record

with four nights at SoFi Stadium. I feel like this is really stealing attention from the Doobie Brothers 50th anniversary tour that Tommy Johnston had to leave recently because of health issues. Our Counting Crows show that we're going to next week. It's it. The Doobies are down to Michael McDonald,

Patrick Simmons, and one other guy. They're just cranking out 50 years of hits. Taylor Swift demolishing them. Nathan, good to see you. Thanks, Bill. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Joe House and Raheem Palmer and Nathan Hubbard and Chuck Mendenhall. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing.

Thanks to Steve Cerruti as well. Don't forget, new R rewatchables coming on Friday. We're doing a Bond movie. Get ready. And then I will see you back on this feed on Sunday night. Enjoy the rest of the week. Congratulations in advance to my beloved daughter, Zoe Simmons, who's graduating high school tomorrow.

This is a legitimate sad, Bill Simmons. Celtics one was like whatever we lost. This is high school graduation, different animal. Anyway, congrats to her and everybody from the class. And I will see you here on Sunday. I don't have a few years with him on the wayside on the brimstone never once

I don't have a few years