The Bill Simmons Podcast - The NBA's Best Players Through 20 Games With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 448)

Episode Date: November 28, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to examine a puzzling NBA season. They put in way-too-early ballots for first- and second-team All-NBA after 20 games, generate fake trades, and try to figure out Western Conference playoff implications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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download the SeatGeek app go right to SeatGeek.com we announced a new podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network you can subscribe now it's called Winging It it is hosted by Vince Carter

and Kent Bazemore yup yeah it's happening they're gonna talk about life on the road they're gonna talk about basketball Vince Carter and Kent Bazemore. Yep. Yeah. It's happening. They're going to talk about life on the road. They're going to talk about basketball. They're going to talk about, I don't know, all kinds of old guy.

Vince is, shit, he's almost my age at this point. No, he's 41 or 42. Baz is in his 20s. Talk about the young old thing. Great stuff. Very excited for this one. Subscribe right now. It's called Winging It. It about the young old thing. Great stuff. Very excited for this one. Subscribe right now. It's called Winging It.

It is on The Ringer Podcast Network. Check out theringer.com, the best website in the world. Coming up, we're going to talk to Ryan Rosillo. We're going to try to figure out through the 20-game mark, we're at the quarter mark here of the season, we're going to try to figure out the all-NBA teams and also talk about Luka Doncic

and a whole bunch more. that's coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this. It is Tuesday afternoon, West Coast time. So if anything happens in the NBA tonight before you hear this, our apologies. Ryan Rossell is here, the host of Dual Threat. Before Hawks Heat. Hawks Heat, yeah, there could be some dramatic things happening in Hawks Heat. What else is today?

We got Knicks Pistons. Pistons aren't in first place anymore. That's not affecting us. I do want to watch Lakers at Denver, though. Yeah. Because I'm kind of excited for that one. Tuesday's almost like the NBA got together collectively before they do the schedule and they go, let's have Tuesday suck. Yeah, but I don't understand why they did that.

I always kind of enjoyed the 12-game Tuesday. I didn't like that they threw it away. I don't know what's going on. It's felt light. Like a lot of times I'll go, you know what? Look at this schedule. I go, I'm going to get out of the house. I'm going to do something.

You know what I do? I never do it. Yeah. I was going to watch college. Watch a little Pac-12. Blow deck. Like blow deck. Dirty John I was excited about.

I watched the pilot for that. Okay. Okay, you don't seem to be impressed. Well, I want to get to the— I hate when we promote things on podcasts and then we don't get to them right away. We were close. We both—we had the eyes. We are going to circle back and do the stupid talk at the end of this.

All right, no problem. Save those because I have a lot of dumb things. I want to talk about Equinox. I want to talk about you've been in LA for a while, the weightlifting scene here. Yeah. Have you started drinking? I thought that's why I was coming on.

Have you started drinking weird juices yet? Just how LA have you gotten? What's your sushi intake? We'll get to all that later. Great. We're at the 20-game mark. And the reason I wanted to do this pod was because it struck me that it's a very strange 20-game mark.

There's no signature team. There's no signature player. The all-NBA teams, like if I was forced to send in my votes right now, I'd have no idea who to pick. And on the one hand, it's a small sample size. We have Nikola Vucevic looks like the second coming. Can you run your offense around him? Doc Rivers is the coach of the year. Like there's some things that probably aren't sustainable, but on the other hand, it's like, all right, at some point, somebody's got to own this season and I can't figure out who it's going to be. So who would be your candidate right now?

We're going to look back at this season. Who is it? Who does it belong to? What would be your prediction? For the teams? No, for a player. So we're 20 games in. So let's say we're now let's fast forward to about game 68. Are we just saying MVP here? I feel like I'm not following you right now. Ownership.

Ownership of the season. Ownership of the season. Just the narrative. Because it felt like it was going to be Curry there, and then he got hurt. Yeah, right. And I think it still is at this point because of the West. Like, I was looking at the West standings last night. Yeah.

And the Lakers are two games behind the Clippers for the one seed, okay? That's, like, the Lakers feel like a disappointment record-wise because of the slow start. They played better as of late. And then you take it out even further. Like, where's the terrible team? Is it Phoenix? Okay, they're probably terrible. But Utah can't be this bad, even though they get smoked now in some games.

They got smoked again by the Pacers. And even though Donovan Mitchell didn't play, Oladipo didn't play either, I can't believe they're going to be this bad. But as bad as they are, they're five games. They're the 14th team in the West, and they're five games behind the number one seeded Clippers. So Denver's had a moment. The Memphis thing doesn't feel real, even though it's impressive. Oklahoma City got off to the bad start. They've turned things around, even though they're playing a little different.

So I know it's like the same answer with a different path to feeling like Golden State should feel great about where they're at right now because of what the West. Yeah, there's no second good team. There's no Houston. Yeah. And I think for the first two weeks, people got really excited about Denver and Utah for some reason. The Denver thing I thought was surprising. I didn't understand the Denver thing at all. They don't get stops. No.

The Utah thing, people are like, well, you know, and for whatever reason, they're just not the same team, which is weird because they have the same team. That was the point I was making last night because I watched the Celtics game twice knowing I'd be on with you today. I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. The Pelicans game? Yeah, it was a good win. They came out. They were aggressive defensively.

But I think as frustrating as Boston is, Utah's a bigger disappointment than Boston is because it's the same guys. And now they don't play defense. And I know Mitchell's missed a couple games. as Boston is, Utah's a bigger disappointment than Boston is because it's the same guys. Yeah. And now they don't play defense. And I know Mitchell's missed a couple games. Boston, when you see them struggle, like, you can watch them not know what the hell they're supposed to do with each other.

Yeah. Like, you can physically see it at home on TV going, oh, these guys, like, half of them are totally lost for what they're trying to do. Utah just gets smoked. Yeah. Boston is like watching this giant jigsaw puzzle thing of pieces and knowing that there's some answer to the pieces, but nobody can figure out the answer. It's like a white puzzle.

It was just as white. He's like, I know this one goes somewhere. The lineups, it was like, well, what if they tried this lineup? And how about this? And then last night he starts the two Marcuses, Tatum, Horford, and Kyrie, and they immediately look great. They go come out to big lead. It's like, oh, we found a lineup. Okay. So now let's start from here. We have the five. Now use the bench to kind of maintain the lead when you have it. See, you like this. And Dr. Bill loves this too. Happy birthday to your dad. Yeah, thank you.

He's big on the Marcuses getting in there because of toughness. I don't know that that actually is the solution. I don't think it's a toughness thing as much as an energy thing. And I think... Their defensive energy was great in the beginning of the game, which is the opposite of what they've been doing.

I'm not even talking about defense. I'm talking about a personality thing. So you put Kyrie out there with Tatum and Jalen and Horford and Hayward, and those are like five passive guys. None of those guys are like, yeah, let's go. Unless it's Thanksgiving. Might get in a technical foul, might get in a fight. Yeah, you need one crazy guy.

I mean, that's why Matt Barnes had five extra years in the league. Yeah, you need one cannonball in there, one loose. I don't know what that guy's going to do. I've always believed in that theory. So the five guys together, I just didn't like the energy. I saw it in person because I went to the Orlando game. I was sitting a couple of rows behind you. Oh yeah, you were there. And it was like, why are we dead? Dead. So whatever that lineup does long-term, I don't know. But I know that it felt like they had some fire to them. And so going back to Utah, I watched the Utah thing, and it's like they're comfortable with each other now. They have their five.

But the five doesn't make as much sense this season as it did last season. I don't think it makes sense to play favors and go bear together anymore. Do you believe the rumor that Joel Ingles supped his teammate's wife? Stop it. That's the go-to anytime something's wrong with the team. That's always

the teammate's wife somehow in sex. Have you heard that a teammate wants to trade because Ingles... I'm just kidding. Joel...

Joel wouldn't do that. He's like, come on, mate. I would never do that, mate. I didn't know you did impersonations. Yeah, I did an Australian impersonation. I was like Shaq. I think what we learned is that.

Can we get in trouble on this podcast for doing that? To Jingle Juice? Yeah, no. Jingle Juice? Yeah. Joe Engel's nickname. Oh, no. Give you some of that Jingle Juice.

You're clearly joking. All right, good. Because I don't think it's true. Stop it. The Donovan Mitchell has been disappointing because the six foot two guard

jacking it up as everybody else stands around is just not a great long-term look. Isn't it amazing how quick we turn on these dudes? I think he'll figure it out,

but what he's doing now is not going to work. Okay, but it was one of the great stories of last year's season with all sorts of great storylines. Okay. And then it's, man, he just showed up at a barbecue on 4th of July.

Is he, he just, he loves the community and he wanted to go to a pool. Look at the Instagram posts. Like he's funny. He gets it. Yeah. They start losing,

they start losing a little less posts. You know, have your own 4 Fourth of July parties. Stop crashing other people's barbecues. And we turn on these guys so fast. And I'm not telling you, like, when you're watching it, hey, this is really good. What, did they lose to Dallas by 50? Yeah, they lost to Dallas by 50.

I think with the Celtics, it wasn't going well, but it really did seem like too many guys who need to play and everybody's unhappy. It just had to shake out. The Utah thing, when Jay Crowder's playing crunch time for you and when Joe Engels is your second biggest playmaker. He's their second leading scorer, I think. Yeah, those are more significant. I like them, too. Go Bears. I'm sorry.

No, go Bears, Adam. I don't know if I want Joe Engels deciding games for me. I like having too. Go Bear. I'm sorry. No, Go Bear's ahead of him. I don't know if I want Joe Engel's deciding games for me. I like having him out there. So the Lakers are the one that I was kind of waiting for them to, you know, everybody, they had that fight. And then what were they like two and five, three and six? You're more bullish on him than I was. But just because of LeBron.

Yeah. Because he's fantastic. But I'm trying to think who I've been surprised by. The Clippers. are you kidding yeah but i'm i can't say i'm that surprised by it because if you take them player by player all those guys play really hard and i really think that matters with the way people treat the season now where they throw away the first 25 games clippers aren't throwing away anything no and that's you have a group of guys that are all out to prove something collectively.

They'll have a chip. And I think that Doc is good with that stuff. I think Doc is good. You know, Popovich is always, like, I ask people, I'm going, like, what's up with Pop? What's up with Pop? Like, Pop does this thing where it's this militant kind of bunker mentality where it's like, let's go out there and let's, you know, take these dudes out. Yeah.

And people buy into that. Like, he really has that. And people buy into that. He really has that. And I think with his background, he really gets people. And I think Doc has some of that too. And when it doesn't go right, then people can make fun of Doc and everything.

But I think that's what you're seeing with this group now because it's been guys that are like cast-offs. You are the filler in a trade. Yeah. And it's pretty easy to sit there and tell a guy who's good enough in the NBA, you need to go out there and bust it and show everybody because this is what the league has thought to you at this point. And that's what easy to sit there and tell a guy who's good enough in the NBA, you need to go out there and bust it and show everybody because this is what the league has thought to you at this point. And that's what the whole team feels like.

And they have contract year guys. Right. Which I like. And they have this other team gave up on you guys. And it's just a nice mix of everybody is competitive and has something to prove. I also think, you know, I have a tortured history with deciding whether Doc is a good coach or not. Aware. But he has been coaching now for 20 years and there's certain types of teams he can coach and succeed with. And this is one of those teams.

Yeah. The hard thing for you in Doc's history, because I remember it from the very beginning, I remember talking to the Celtics after, you know, one of the sources that I had with the team back then, after you wrote the piece, I thought, what was it, just the front? I think the first line was, Doc Rivers can't coach. And it really...

Yeah, it didn't go over that well. It rattled some cages there. But I think the weird thing was that there might've been people that agreed with you. And I felt like Doc was always, whenever it was a young team, it just wasn't a good fit I felt like Doc was always, whenever it was a young team, it just wasn't a good fit for Doc. Doc was, he was a vet

when he wasn't a vet as a player. But that's what makes it amazing what he's doing with Shea Gilgis-Alexander. But see, I've always thought he was a much better coach than you did. But I think your point back then was that he wasn't, the young point guards,

all of them had the hardest time with him all the time. And to your point now, Gilgis is somebody that has been entrusted to run this thing pretty early on after his year at Kentucky, and that doesn't really happen. And also, they lucked out because Gallinari showed up in shape. He was not in shape last year. No, or if he was even healthy. He was just tan and Italian and handsome this year.

Tobias Harris, contract deer. Something to prove. But, you know, the contract here thing, I would almost want to look for guys in a contract here or heading toward a contract here if I was like

looking to shake up my team. Because I really do think there's something to it. I think you're getting like 15% more production than maybe you normally would. Like if Tobias Harris gets $100 million, is he going to do this next year?

I don't know. He might. And that was like the Nicholas Batum thing. Or Aaron Gordon. Why is Aaron Gordon right now in Orlando? He got a contract and like he had zero points last night in Golden State. Yeah, I watched the whole thing last night. I forgot he was on the team again.

That's always bad. Like I know that Aaron Gordon's on the Magic. Right. But it's bad when you're watching a game and they go in and you're like, oh, that's right. Right. Well, the other thing is with the Clippers,

they have no guys that you forget they're on the floor. Every single guy, it's like, oh, that guy. Oh, he's doing stuff. Oh, there's Harold jumping over somebody's back. Harold's one of my favorites. You know, and you always go,

all right, will it work? Because how many high energy guys that may be a little undersized for front court, how many are great in college, and then you forget they ever existed? And he found a way, and I think the league is going smaller too helps. But he's always been one of my favorites. I loved him in college. I was, the draft that year, I had left ESPN like the month before. On good terms?

No, it wasn't on good terms. I don't know if you heard it was bad terms I really wanted to tweet during the draft and I didn't wait a minute what? I was just like I was kind of keeping a low profile I was waiting until some of my stuff got settled and I just was kind of you couldn't even tweet about it you could have

I just didn't want to and Herald started dropping and there's this world in which I have four Harrell tweets out there just for posterity, where I'm just like, oh my God, the Celtics are going to pass on this guy for RJ Hunter and try to get him at 33. No, he went 32. They basically, RJ Hunter and Jordan Mickey were two Celtics picks and Montrezresoro was sandwiched in between them. And my whole thing on that is energy guys work in the NBA.

They just do. Go find the guys in college who are jumping over everybody and doing chase-down blocks. Unless that guy is super insane, he's going to be okay in the NBA. You can play him as a ninth man. So it hurts. It hurts that he's doing well in the Clippers. RJ Hunter had a good run, though.

Man. Not with the Celtics. By the way, what is... Before we get to... We'll do a break, and then we'll do the All-NBA teams. What is the most Philly can get for Fultz? Incredible that you just asked me about this.

He makes $7 million. So it has to basically be somebody that matches his salary within 15%. Okay. You know why it's really funny that you asked me this is that I just got off the phone with Van Pelt. And we were going over his one big thing for tonight. And he's doing it on Markel. Okay.

Okay. And he asked me the exact same question. Because I think the easiest thing is for all of us collectively to go like, oh, it's so bad. This is unprecedented. Okay. And if you had to do this thing where you go, you know, if you had to bet money on how this ends. It's not unprecedented, though. This happened with Darko. This happened with Hashim Khabib.

Okay, but you're talking about the actual transaction itself. I'm talking about the story of somebody who was so good. And, you know, I even asked some people that were at the top of the draft, you know, looking back on it, where they could have done that thing where front offices, they do the Hugh Jackson, where they take credit for stuff after the fact.

And that would be something we do on Dual Threat today. Yeah. But, you know, there were people going, dude, he was sick. He was sick. Okay? So it was an injury thing with him or whatever. It makes all the sense in the world that Philly took him number one. But I can't believe you just brought up Darko because that's what I said to Van Pelt because I think what happens is when you're that kind of a pick, and it can be disastrous.

Now, it's disastrous for different reasons. Darko was immature and just never developed, and Fultz, I have no idea what's going on upstairs with him or how hurt he may really be or maybe not at all. But you're still going to get a first-rounder for him. You're still going to get a first-rounder. So Darko fetched a first-rounder. Darko ended up getting you the first round.

Yeah, so that was what? Chris Wallace traded for him. All roads lead to Chris Wallace. Yeah, so 15. So you ended up getting a pick, and I don't know what the protections were on it in 2007, and it was a disaster, by the way, on that trade. Like Orlando was over it.

So you're talking about what Chris Wallace with Memphis I think it was I think the first trade there is Orlando maybe well false it is oh Orlando that's what yeah right he ended up in the stocky deal later right oh that's right Orlando so false makes 8.3 and I was trying to think like like if the Bulls I guess they would need an expiring contract to get thrown in but if they offered

Antonio Blakeney in a second rounder for Fultz would Philly at least have a meeting about it? We should do a pod later this year.

They'd at least cut off Blakenee's offensive possessions because I actually like him. He's one of my favorite league pass guys. Him and Aaron Holiday would be my backcourt on the all underrated backcourt. But if you offered me Blake Knee in a second, I'd be like, you know what?

That makes us better. Let's do it. We'll get a high second from the Bulls. Why the hell? It'd be like the 35th pick. All right, all right, all right. And if you're the Bulls, you'd throw Fultz in there, and now you basically ended up with the number one pick in a draft from 18 months ago.

I would do that if I was—I would try to get him if I were the Bulls. I think that's the team for him. League pass to me would be Levine, Fultz, and Jabari out there at the same time. That would be incredible. Poor Jabari. I think you and I could score on Jabari. Jabari's told us. You know, I always think you and I could score on Jabari. Jabari's told us. You know, I always think it's funny when fans argue about guys.

You're like, no, no. In this case, the dude said he doesn't want to play defense. Right. So don't argue. And can't move side to side. So he can't play it either. Because there's always that thing when somebody gets beat up on one specific point publicly, then all of a sudden the media will be like, actually, a lot of people tell you Jabari's a little underrated

right like no actually he said he stinks at it doesn't care so that's kind of the end of the argument what are the faults

on Chicago Phoenix I think Phoenix would do anything and I do think that the dumber teams well I see here's the thing

is are you a dumb team for taking the chance if we're talking about a guy like Blakeney in a second that's not really that much to give up is faults for Josh Jackson a fair trade no you can't move Josh Jackson for faults Are you a dumb team for taking the chance? If we're talking about a guy like Blakeney in a second, that's not really that much to give up.

Is Fultz for Josh Jackson a fair trade? No, you can't move Josh Jackson for Fultz. Josh Jackson's like in witness protection right now. He plays eight minutes a game. And they're terrible, again, by the way. He's the third string small forward on that team. He took a huge step back. Huge, because he finished, he kind of did that thing that I'm always scared of,

is big numbers at the end of a season. Garbage time, tank of Palooza. Remember Gerald Green's one run there with Boston? You were like, all right. Bassey Telfair had a couple games that season. Will we have enough numbers left here for the Celtics organization? Gerald Green. Hold on, let's take a quick break.

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Just go to newyorker.com slash BS. All right. So you think Fultz can get a first-round pick for somebody? Yeah. I do. I think there's four teams I would trade for him, and I'm not positive any of them would give up a first. If the Celtics gave him up a first for him tomorrow,

you'd be like, okay. You'd be like, all right, I'm talking myself into this. Is that on the table? We can bring him back. All I know is I was there for the playoffs talking to people that work for the Celtics, and Fultz was a done deal. They were taking him, and then all of a sudden they were trading him. So one of my dreams is to find out what happened.

Ainge is really good at not telling everybody around the team what he's doing. I mean, imagine at some point he tells his son who's terrific, but, uh, that was, that was always the thing with Ainge in the beginning is that it felt like people always knew what he was going to do.

Marcus Banks, he loved Robert Swift. I think we've been over this before on the podcast. So I know like, but it just, he does a, he does a much, whatever he does now, there's a lot of times where you think, you know, what's going on it just, he does a much, whatever he does now,

there's a lot of times where you think you know what's going on there, and then Ainge just does whatever he wants, which I think is good. I think it's the right way to do it. Do we have to treat Fultz like a child actor? Where, or like a celebrity who's had a hiccup where he just needs to go away for, like, a year

and then come back fresh with, like, a new narrative but the thing for him faults is back but think about him like he hasn't even done anything wrong he just hasn't been good i know i can't explain it you can't get to the point where you're being ironically cheered because you made a free throw and like a professional basketball game like once that starts to happen you just have to stop playing you need to regroup reset the amari cooper thing where he celebrated a touchdown by practice.

All of it is like... I tried it the other night shooting around. He turned into Rudy. It works. Oh, you tried it? Yeah, where you just throw the ball back and forth

and then you go right into the shot. You don't have enough time to even think about it. Like his whole thing is... So it knocks your head out of being nervous about the free throw?

Whenever... And I said this to somebody and I think it was one of those things where if you point out something to somebody who's doing this professionally, they those things where if you point out something to somebody who's doing this professionally, they just have to tell you

you're wrong. Yeah. But the times I've noticed that Fultz looked good is when it would be the end of the shot clock and he didn't have any time to think about it.

So that's, I think, what the hope is. But I, you know, it's easier when it's just somebody's knee. Right. It's easier when it's somebody's knee and you go,

okay, hey, you're going to look better in nine months. Like he has no ACLs. Yeah. And they'll be like, ah, we'll make it do. This is different. DeJuan Blair, no ACLs.

I think this is probably the single strangest situation in the history of the NBA that doesn't involve drugs or gambling or guns in the locker room or any sort of sordid anything. Just a straightforward, really bizarre situation. What if Oklahoma City said we'll give you Schroeder for him? I stand by Schroeder. If you watch OKC, Schroeder's good at basketball. He might not fit into your little advanced metrics world. You might not like his hair. Are you talking to me right now?

I'm talking to people out there who didn't like that shade. Because I haven't liked him. I haven't liked him. But I do think it's really weird what they're doing at closed games where Westbrook's off of him. Yeah.

And I'm like, man. I mean, they had a, I think it was, they had a three-guard lineup in one game I was watching where Russ watched two other point guards play alongside him. Make it weird.

It is weird. Russ... Gotta do it. I don't know what the screen numbers are for Russ in today's NBA, but... Well, do you see Russ's three-point stats this year? I haven't seen them yet. I think he's shooting like 18%. It's really bad. And he's taking like four plus a game.

In today's game, that's low. It's not great. Not what you're looking for. I wonder if game. In today's game, that's low. It's not great. It's not what you're looking for. I wonder if there's some buyer's remorse with Paul George. I had this thought, I tweeted it out when it happened. I had like, Oladipo had one of those just motherfucker games.

Yeah. And it was the same night as on the other TV. I had, is Paul George on the Thunder games? Oh, he is. He's not inactive tonight. Kind of like the Eric and Gordon thing. Yeah. The Warriors game. Is he out there?

I understand positional fit. I understand complimentary styles. I understand being beta to Russ's alpha. And this is not the Oladipo that the Thunder traded. No. But in a vacuum, I'd rather go to war with Oladipo than Paul George. No question. Well, this version of Oladipo, of course. Right, yeah. Okay. But they also got Sabonis

in that trade. I know. Who is the second best player on their team. He's incredible. I love it. Should I put him in the top 60 trade value?

Well, we're talking contract, right? Yeah. And he's, what, a mid-rounder? So, what was he, 11 or 12, something like that? God, I really enjoy Sabonis.

He's their guy. And look, they kept him in the game last night. They were still up 30. Yeah. So, they wanted him to get his numbers. He's the second-leading scorer for the Pacers. We'll get to this a little bit later, but it's Bogdanovich. Right.

Which surprised me, because Miles Turner's taken another step back. The only thing I really don't understand that's going on in the league this season that just flummoxes me, and I can't explain it, and I watch them and I don't get it, is Orlando. Like, went to that Celtics game when the Magic beat them.

I didn't understand it as it was happening. Watch last night. They're just hanging with Golden State. They're going toe-to-toe with Durant, who's got 49 points, ends up with it. And Klay went crazy. Klay had to go crazy in the fourth room to win that game. That was a tough game.

Vucevic was incredible. They were fighting it out. And then whenever he got doubled, he kicked it out to Terrence Ross, and then Terrence threw down a reverse. What is happening? Why do they suck? DJ Augustine's out there.

The guy's been on 40 teams. Is it because of that? Do we just answer the question? I can't get past that. I can't. DJ Augustine, Terrence Ross, they have dudes. What if offered isaac in a first for tatum unprotected i'm not trading tatum i just want to see how much you like isaac i do like isaac although he did the classic not isaac haas i can't believe guys do this it drives me nuts where the words are up one, Durant has the ball on the top of the key.

And if you just pause it, I would, and we're watching TV and I just pause the TV, I'd be like, he's going to pull up from three. We know the spot that he shoots from. We know what he's going to do. Isaac goes four feet beyond the arc and Durant just pulls up and shoots the three. I would just, just take your layup. Take the layup. I don't care. Go buy me. I'm not giving shoots the three. I would just, just take your layup. Take the layup. I don't care.

Go buy me. I'm not giving you a three. You make a three or a four. But Durant, over and over again, he does this. I was watching the Orlando broadcast, too. He ropes these dudes into it. He, like, Jedi mind tricks them. Yeah, there's just nothing you can do because of the release on it.

Just let him go buy you. The Orlando broadcast is like, oh, he wants a screen. And he didn't. He didn't want the screen. No. No one showed. And he just, he just was like, all right, wants a screen. And he didn't. He didn't want the screen. No one showed. And he just, he just. All right.

Who do you think? Speaking of last second shots, did you see Zach Levine shot last night for Chicago? I ended up not seeing it somehow. Okay. So they're down one to San Antonio. Yeah. And he has it. Yeah.

And he just dribbled it out and took a three. Down one. And it was so bad. Like they didn't run anything. and i thought the wizards were bad like they won an overtime chris paul didn't play for the rockets i mean harden and gordon went nuts but they had a play where they ran it with wall where they screened harden off of him so then wall had to take it they ran a jeff green john wall pick and roll deadly to get harden off of wall and get wall into tucker And then they both ignored green smart.

Shockingly didn't work. I can't believe it. But Levine took this shot where it was just, I, all I could think of is like, we need to do a group of who would be the worst guy to play pickup hoops with in the NBA. And Zach Levine's first team that it's,

it was such a terrible shot. They're down one. Good fantasy guy. Definitely one of your team. 25 and five. A lot of opportunities. High usage rate. Jimmy Buckets took one

of the worst threes I've seen. And it went in in Brooklyn. Yeah, right. They're down one. And he does the step back 26 footer with a hand in his face, and he makes it. It's like, oh, Jimmy Buckets. I'm like, that's just a terrible shot.

Yeah. See, I thought— Take that shot every time, Jimmy Butler. You know what's great, too, is it's like— What an asset. You know, and like all this stuff. And like, look, you want Jimmy Butler. He's awesome.

He's awesome. But I didn't realize how bad of a shot it was until like an hour of it living on social media. It was immediately bad. Right. And the ringer's Tommy Alter, who's a Bulls fan and still loves Jim Butler, he's like, no, Jimmy makes those. I'm like, really? Makes 26-foot fallaways from the head of his face?

And then it's, I don't know, in the playoffs that's not working. And I'm pretty sure at some point Embiid is going to be looking side-eyed at this. I worry. That is Embiid's team. That is Embiid is going to be looking side-eyed at this. I worry. That is Embiid's team. That is Embiid's city. It's so his team. It's funny because people were making a big deal last night on the internets about how the fans never chanted MVP for Durant when he had 49 in the Warriors game.

Just give him the token, you know, drive-by MVP chant. Nope. If Karis LeVert can get it in Brooklyn. Karis LeVert can get it. I mean, Kyrie gets it in Boston. Here's the thing. Curry is—the Warriors belong to Curry. That fan base, that stadium, it's Curry's team.

And that's the roadmap for Durant to lead because he knows now after being there two-plus years, that's Curry's team. Even though they did— It felt like they tried to make it Durant's team. It didn't work. Do you remember, though, when they did that? Like, not the groundbreaking that we recently saw,

that awesome picture of Durant hooked up in the construction gear with the hard. No one looks cool in a hard hat and an orange vest. You might. You might have the right kind of outfit. Yeah, that's a good call. I appreciate you saying that. Right after a nice little two-hour session. Maybe just some welding, some spot welding.

But – start smoking again. I actually never smoke. But I would – I think there was this transition where they tried – they almost tried to make Durant feel like he was the guy because I don't – was it Ethan Strauss who's really good, wrote – I hope it was him that wrote this article, and he's just so good at writing about the Warriors that I just assumed it would have been him. is it was kind of going like, Curry's

the one that put this thing on the map, but it feels like ownership is, I don't know, I don't think it's the right thing, but flirting with the idea that it was Durant's team, and you know, they're showing Durant, and they're showing him like, look at the new building, you know, like, hey, isn't it going to be fun to take jumpers in here, Kevin? Yeah. You know? You can live in San Francisco and take a five-minute walk to the games. How great is that?

We're going to have Chick-fil-A. You know? And you're like, do you like Chick-fil-A? They're like, yeah, man, cool. And Katie's got Rich in his other ear going, you're going to own New York. You're going to be the biggest thing that's ever happened. You're going to be bigger than Jeter. And they're like, hey, check out this stadium.

Do you want to put money on it now? I don't want to bet against. Wait, hold on. Before we go to that, because I do want to go to that. Okay. The MVP thing, there was a reason I brought that up, the Curry thing, but then it went back. Oh, Embiid.

The Embiid-Simmons thing. Yeah, let's stay on Embiid. Just quickly, I think Philly is Embiid City, and I just don't see Embiid and Simmons staying. I'm not trying to start shit. Don't pull this out of context for your blog post. This is just a gut feeling. I just think they love Embiid,

and if he's going to be there the whole time, Simmons will eventually. He's not going to be happy being the sidekick. I don't think he's wired that way. I think he's competitive, and you can feel it. You can feel it when you happy being the sidekick. I just don't, I don't think he's wired that way. I think he's competitive and you could feel it. You can feel it when you go to the games there and beat is the guy for them. He's the process. He's the guy they nurtured.

He's the plant they watered for, you know, four years and that's their guy and that's not changing. And he's the better player. And this year it was putting up shack numbers this year. It was, I mean, when you really break down those in bead numbers and I did it all night last night when you asked me to come on and

do this podcast the mvp like i i wanted to write down mb as mvp i wanted to but it's just there's a case there's a case but there's also a case to be made that he's on the second team all nba okay so i'm going all right if you're gonna if you're gonna try to be different i'm like don't be different you know see how you feel but there's so many nights where I watch Embiid. It is so clearly his team. And the Simmons problem at this point, I don't think it's an Embiid-Simmons problem. It's a Simmons problem. Because there are nights where I watch your son and I think, what's he really going to be?

Best case. I will say his— I still want him. It could still be awesome. But he makes me nervous based on top 10 player expectations. Right. And that's like his expectations. He's living in such a rare air that there's too many nights for a guy that's supposed to be a top 10 guy, and he still could be all those things, that I don't think it's a lock that he's going to be there. He's only 21. I think

from a floor generalship standpoint, he's definitely gotten better this year. He definitely feels like he's managing the game and where the ball's going more than he did last year. But he's a bad basketball fit with Embiid. To have a point guard who can't shoot to play off of Embiid is not what you would write

down to-do list. Let me walk you back to the early 80s. Please do. Magic Johnson couldn't shoot for like four years. He had no jump shot. Kareem was, you know, the spacing was screwed up on that. Magic eventually was able to extend his range and became a decent shooter from the outside. A little bit of a three-point shooter. Keep you honest. Keep you honest. There's like one attempt at game back then. I just feel like I'm not writing off Simmons' jump shot at age 21. We were there for Jason Kidd in the 90s when he shot 37% every year and, you know, was just an abomination.

So you're saying like in 12 years, Simmons can start knocking down some threes? I'm saying it could be three years. It took Kidd forever. It took Kidd forever. All right, does Simmons look any better shooting this year? No, but he was class of 94. And on the 0-1, he got traded to the Nets in 0-1. And 0-1, 0-2, 0-3 was when he blossomed.

And he became one of the best three players in the league. So I think with Simmons, I don't even care about the outside shot as more as I want him to get more creative around, like posting up, running jumpers, all the stuff we talked about last year on the podcast in the playoffs. He's got to get more creative in transition and just being more of a scorer, which doesn't necessarily mean, oh, you got to get a 25-foot shot. You got to get a 20-foot shot. But going back to the original point, though, I just think it's Embiid's team.

And Embiid, if you look at his numbers, they are Shaq numbers this year. This is like an Orlando Shaq season that he's doing. It's incredible. He's like 29 and 13 a night. And not just that, really tries to hurt people's feelings. No, that's what I love about it. There's an old-school mentality in him where

he's like, I don't want to just beat you. I you to like go into a funk for like a week after we play there's so many empty numbers in this league now and you can sort through it and go wait a minute how can we not talk about this guy a little bit more and as we do this exercise of trying to get first and second teams like i started going with guys that i've watched a quarter way into the season be like oh how many guys like feel real though? In big moments where like Lou Williams, how Lou Williams feels real. You know, it's one game,

but what MB did to Davis. Yeah. In that, that game couple of weeks ago, like that factored into how I, I feel about him. I don't think he's ever, I actually thought that was the most interesting game in the entire season.

I love that game. Yeah. That was a great one. And Davis did redeem himself a bit there, but there was a long stretch where he wasn't defending Embiid. Yeah. Like, they didn't want him on him. I also, like, did you watch Embiid versus Gobert?

I thought that was really interesting, too. Kept going at him. The Gobert thing's getting weird, too, because I think teams, like, I hate when I see a guy that I like and go, do you have to bench him in certain playoff matchups now? And that's what they're doing. It feels a little Hibbert-ish. Remember that?

Where all of a sudden, Hibbert wasn't as much of an asset anymore. And Gobert, I remember last year, the Celtics really abused him in a regular season game. They just kept pulling him away from the basket

and then beating him off the dribble. And it seems like more and more teams are trying to do that with him. The Hibbert thing would be like DiCaprio being in Caddyshack 2. Like the lead. And you go, what the fuck are you doing? And it just never was the same. I mean, he almost made the finals.

And he was considered the guy that was stopping. Like he was the reason that Miami wasn't going to get to the NBA finals. I think we wrote about him at Grantland for like a year and a half straight, just how he was revolutionizing basketball. And Portland made an offer on him. I think he was restricted and then it was matched. Yeah. So it was big money.

And then it's just, can you do a Hibbert podcast? The game, he's available. He's around. The game changed on poor Roy Hibbert. Let's take a break. Then we'll come back. Let's talk about our old friends at stamps.com. The holidays are the busiest time of the year, especially at the post office. That's why we use stamps.com to save time during the hectic holiday season. Stamps.com brings all the services of the US post office

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Let's do our all NBA teams I have Embiid as my center so we might as well start there we can go back and forth it's so close Embiid's

I mean I'll just do it because we referenced it real quick I don't want to do this with a ton of guys oh just the center crop yeah let's give all the choices

Marc Gasol's in there Gasol is so off the charts in some of the defensive numbers. Like, some of it's nuts. Now, I don't put, I think the extremes on defensive numbers work. I think there's a lot of stuff in there that doesn't make any sense that's super gray.

It comes down to watching guys. I went back and forth. I flipped on this because you realize the Pelicans are actually a really good offense this year too. Yeah. And having said all those different, The Grizzlies.

I wrote down... No, I'm talking Anthony Davis. Oh, yeah, yeah. When I look at that team, I go, okay, well, who does Davis have? But Miritich has been good. Randall's been terrific for him coming off the bench. And I think it's another indicator of how important Drew Holiday is for them. So you can't keep doing the Anthony Davis has nobody thing. No,

by the way, I agree with you. I think that team has talent. Etuan Moore's good by the way. So that's another better. I agree with you. I think that team has talent. Each one more is good, by the way. So that's another guy. I like Brando. I like Meritage. And Drew Holiday

is one of the best two-way guards in the league. I think I voted for him for third team All-NBA last year. God bless you for doing that because I've always liked him. He just never,

look, he's just not available. So all of those things include, I'm giving him bead and it was a really dumb tiebreaker for me, but it was that game. I was going to, I was going to vote for Marc Gasol.

I had it written down. And I'm like, eh, fuck Embiid. How good is he? And then I looked up the Embiid's actual numbers. I was like, holy shit, okay. 28, 13, three and a half. The only thing Davis had, Davis is getting five assists a game. It's just nuts.

I mean, he's incredible. Because I do, there is getting five assists a game. It's just nuts. I mean, he's incredible. Because I do, there is a weird caveat this year. The West is so much better than the East that, you know, for Gasol to be doing this night after night when you're playing two-thirds of your games against these other West teams that are all good versus, Embiid, let's face it, he gets, you know, he gets kicked the shit out of Hassan Whiteside. He gets kicked the shit out of Jan Mahimny.

And, you know, just going through the East, what's that, 20 extra games of just him kind of boning up? Because there's really only four other good teams in the East. I think there's people listening right now going, it's still Anthony Davis. So they don't want to listen to anything we're saying. The efficiency stuff. If they're saying that, they're wrong. Because it's Embiid. And they don't want to listen to anything we're saying. The efficiency stuff. If they're saying that, they're wrong because it's Embiid. I think it's

really close, though. I've changed my mind on it, but I'm going with Embiid. So you'd go Davis second team and then Gasol third team. I love how we're doing this after 20 games like it's a real thing. It is. Can I give Gasol props for a second? Yeah. He's having the best season of his career. He's

33. he's averaging 18 almost 10 rebounds a game 4 assists a game he's shooting 40% from 3 this year now to put that in perspective in 2015 when he made first team all NBA

he averaged 0.13 a game or 0.23 a game and made 17% of them. He just was not even in the cards for him. That's how long ago? That was four years ago. He was that bad four years ago? He just didn't shoot them.

He didn't shoot them three years ago. He didn't start shooting them until the 17th season. And now he has turned into, right now he's a 46-40-73 guy for shooting splits. But then the defense, I really like watching Memphis. I love Jaron Jackson. I like those three guys. I don't know. Slo-mo hasn't been good for them this year so far,

but I still kind of like, kind of makes sense in that team. I'm not giving up on him yet. Right, but years past where I watched Memphis and be like, you guys, especially with all the injuries over the years, there'll be nights where I go, I can't believe three guys are playing this many minutes in an NBA game. And when you watch Memphis now, I'm not telling you it's the deepest team, but it feels like they've gotten really good production from like seven guys, which is, you know, kind of hard to

do. Like you look through the whole thing and you're like, oh, this guy's doing it. All right. He fits in. They're adaptable here. I love that Conley and Gasol are reminding everybody how terrific the two are. It's awesome. But it's just I think we both know when you look at it, you go, what do you really think realistically this seed will be at the end of the year? But they play really well together. There's a real history with them. And I got to say, like, Conley, I know he's not the best point guard in the league.

But he's the number one guy you would pick if it's like, all right, we're going to run and try to keep the court for three hours and we need somebody who's going to make everybody happy and just make all the right decisions. Zach Levine first. But he's just, he's so much fun to play with. He doesn't care if he scores.

He makes the right move every time. All he wants to do is set everybody else up. He's like the kind of point guard that we grew up with. Now the word point guard has gravitated to like the Kyrie, Devin Booker, David Lillard type guys. Yeah, and it's like kind of get out of my way, let me shoot. It's also an incredibly deep position. So like somebody can sit there and go, oh, man,

do you think De'Aaron Fox could be this or that? And I go, you know, I like De'Aaron Fox this year. The Sacramento's whole thing I really like this year. Like, look how competitive they are. Look how hard they play. Like, Dave Yeager, like, the whole reason, like, oh, Dave Yeager's in trouble.

Well, one, that's because it's Sacramento. And two, what's the problem? Because Marvin Bagley's not going to win MVP. I don't like Marvin Bagley's chances of winning the MVP like he predicted

before the season started. But you can't get pissed at Dave Yeager when this team's actually competitive with still all these different pieces. Like, Buddy Heald's good. He's like, you know, he's- Their backcourt's good.

Yeah, and it's not a diss to look at De'Aaron Fox going, I don't think I'll ever be a top five. It's more just a compliment to that position. This position is so insanely deep. I actually, I think he does have a chance to be a top 10 guy. At the position? I'm not ruling it out.

At the position? No, I'm saying I think he can make a second team all NBA at some point in his life. Wow. I've been wildly impressed by him because he's still really young. I get it. I don't even know if he's 21 yet.

I'm going to say he's 20. But the leap that he made from year one to year two, the thing that I love about him is the spirit that he plays with. And like, he's just like a natural leader, good energy, just kind of there to win and doesn't care about anything other than let's win. 21 next month. 21 next month.

New Orleans. Born. I don't know where he went to high school. I like Fox. So I got a – I have Gasol one. I have Gasol as my number two. I know that's not going to last. So wait a minute.

What did you do then? I have Embiid, first team all-NBA. Gasol would be my second team all-NBA. So where's Anthony Davis? Forward? No, I'd either make him a forward or put him third team. Just for the first 20 games. He's not going to end up there.

Okay, but the assignment that I got last night when I said yes, and then I spent too much time on this. Yeah. The assignment. I didn't mislead you. Okay. How did I mislead you? I just don't know how you leave Anthony Davis off.

I wanted to put him on team, the first team, and then I said, you know, I'm going to go with Embiid. He might end up on my second team. I didn't want to spoil it. Should we just start over then from? No. No. So we both have Embiid for the first team.

Who are your two forwards? This is a great question. Because here's some of the forwards we have. This is even harder than the second. Giannis, Kawhi, Kevin Durant, LeBron James. And LeBron has been first team I think every year since 1974. Okay. It's Giannis.

Giannis, I think, is the easiest one. Yeah, he has to be in there. Which is saying something with this group, that Giannis is the easiest one to put in there. Durant and LeBron are an absolute coin flip. But... And Kawhi might be the MVP.

Yep. Which doesn't necessarily mean he has to be first team on the BF. No, but, you know, MVP I think is more of a story where LeBron and this kind of stuff, I think it's what we've seen. There's been moments, maybe the first half of the season, I felt like LeBron was really coasting. I thought he was terrible on defense.

I think he's cranked it up a bit defensively. Yeah, I'm not following a recency bias with LeBron. There were some games when he was on autopilot. Absolutely. I mean, I've seen him coast in games, and then you still look at the box score at the end and you go, oh man, he's still at 38 and 7. I'm going to go with LeBron first team over Durant, even though I'll accept any argument

that Durant's there with Giannis. So Kawhi's not even in the discussion for you? I didn't have him. I mean, I got him second team. I did like that he's only played 15 games. Kawhi? Yeah, he basically is not. Has he played a back-to-back this year? That's factored into some of the other guys that I went with. Yeah. Like Steph Curry, I mean, eventually, okay, if it were a week ago and he was like three or four games shy, like there was a couple guys that I was like,

oh, I'm okay with Oladipo when we get to him at some point. But with Steph, if you missed, what, eight? I can't do it. Yeah, he's missed too many. Durant's played, I think, all 22. And what's crazy is Embiid has played 22 games, and Embiid's averaging 35 minutes a game. And if I'm a Sixers fan,

I would be paralyzed by the fear of my terrible front office and the whole Colangelo disaster combined with, are we sure Brett Brown knows what he's doing? I just don't. Embiid has already played 700 minutes. I think because they've been so bad at closing and the hope was Jimmy, but I think there's these stretches where I watched him play

and you go, Brett's so frustrated that this team's going to be bad offensively again to close a game. Brett starting faults and bringing Redick off the bench was the dumbest thing in like three years. You said that this summer too. I just thought, what are you doing? Start Redick. He stretches the floor. Ben Simmons who can't shoot.

And now you're going to put another guy who can't shoot? What are you doing? It feels like they were trying literally anything to inspire some sort of confidence. Like it was all a mental play, I think, with every single Fultz decision. Well, including talking to reporters during the preseason, the joke we had the last time we were on. Some people think Fultz might be an all-defense guy. I don't know about you guys. People at the Sixers, they're thinking Fultz might be a 2010 guy.

I've talked to people with the Raptors that think Jamario Moon is the best two-way guy in the league and you can never say it emphatically it always has to be like

yeah you know one of the things that I think about Chucky Atkins that a lot of people are missing Chucky Atkins

I say Chucky Atkins a lot if you talk to the Celtics like they think Rob Williams could make an all-NBA team what's his nickname Lord Time that he didn't know think Rob Williams could make an All-NBA team someday. What's his nickname?

Lord Time? That he didn't know about? Rob Williams? Yeah. I don't know. Robert? So I have a... Kawhi's missed five,

he's missed six of 21 games. So, yeah. Want to factor that in there? I, uh... There's a lot of people around the Raptors. I tell you,

Lorenzo Brown's the real leader of this team. Lorenzo Brown. I put, uh... God, I'm going to take shit for this, but I have Durant as first team. I have Durant and Giannis. Here's why. Durant's played every game. That team's had a lot of weird shit going on.

I just – watching last night, I like this guy's the 49 against Orlando I was like this guy's one of the best three guys in the league I can't not have him on the first team all right

but think about how you're taking off you're taking LeBron off I'm taking LeBron off but I just told you why I took him off because I watched so you were already

planning on the Durant thing that's why you said that I watched him coast during games and you're right and he did but the stats are almost identical across the board for the guys. I just felt like Durant's played harder for those 22 games.

And if Kawhi had not taken off the back-to-backs and stuff, Kawhi would be my choice for first team. But I just— Okay, but as weird as the Warriors thing's been, he still has—up until the Dre thing recently, he still had Draymond. He's got Klay, who I don't know what he finished with in the fourth quarter, but at one point he had 19 in the fourth quarter against Orlando. He may have gotten another bucket somewhere at a point it might have been over. And LeBron has a collection of guys he can't wait to trade for somebody really good. So that's why I gave the nod to LeBron.

Do you like the team Durant's playing with right now? He hasn't had Draymond for five games. He hasn't had Curry for eight. No, I don't. Clay Thompson has taken more shots than I think he's taken his whole career.

And then they have these random dudes. They brought a guy out like three weeks ago and I'm like, wow, I'm stumped. I don't know who that is. I hate when I have to

Google the dude. Yeah, it's like, I feel like I'm slipping. It's like, wow. Yeah, because it immediately makes me feel like I'm old. It's like, this is my job. I don't know who this is. Yeah, but I don't think like I'm slipping. It's like, wow. Yeah, because it immediately makes me feel like I'm old.

It's like, this is my job. I don't know who this is. Yeah, but I don't think, what, Marcus Derrickson? He was like, what? I think that's okay. Let me run a Durant theory. Can I throw this at you? And I want you to answer it so it's not a monologue here.

Yeah. But other than that Westbrook injury run where Durant played by himself. Yeah. Which is a while ago now, and then transitioning into a warrior system that really is, and I hope the Steph people that, well, there's plenty of pro Steph people, but the anti-Steph people see how different this team is without him. It's so obvious that defenses freak when he's out there, especially with the start that he got off to this year, that it just makes everybody's world easier. So you're ready to give him MVP after two weeks, but then he got hurt? I can't stop doing this Embiid thing. But then again, I didn't even pick him for my guy. You love Embiid, man. I just love all the things you said, though.

I love that the points matter. I love the fierceness. I love that he feels like, you know, he should be embarrassed about what happened last year against the Celtics because they still had going into it what thought to be the two best players in that series, and they couldn't close anything. I mean, they looked really bad in that series. And whatever, they were young, and despite the fact they had this great regular season that, again, I never thought was going to happen that quickly. But is it at all possible that this is tough for Durant

and it's tough for the Warriors because it's been such a long time where he's absolutely had to be the number one all the time? Because as great as Klay is, he's off of other people. He's not going to control the ball a lot. Draymond maybe gets you into transition, but he's still setting you up. It's still, despite Durant being one of the two, three best players in the world, he hasn't had that offensive carry the burden every single possession, night in and night out, since going all the way back to the Westbrook injury year.

I feel like he has it more than ever this year because of, like, Draymond's just terrible from the outside now. Yeah. I don't know if this is an aberration anymore. Like, this just might be, he might have gotten fluky and gotten hot for like two years there,

but now might just be a bad three-point shooter again. And it really hurts him. It was, yeah, it hurt them all. I mean, think how weird it looked when Houston defended them the way they did

in the Western Conference Finals. They just ignored everybody else who couldn't shoot. My question is, would you trade him? Traymon? Yeah. Well, it's not likely

that he's going to get the 226. Right? 226 million unless he wins defensive player of the year. Would you trade him right now? Like, what if the Celtics call him? For what? I'm trying to think of like Fultz? No. Fultz? Jared

Bayless? No. What if the Celtics were like, we'll flip Al Horford for Draymond right now? No, I wouldn't do it. You wouldn't do it if you were going state? No, no way. Who would you trade him for? What if Utah is like, go Bears and play? I don't want Go Bears.

I don't need them. So they're stuck with Draymond? I think if they win it this year and they're moving into a new building, and depending on what Durant ends up doing here, and despite that absurd tax bill that the whole salary could be, like we're talking well over $300 million, I think. Every time I look it up, it seems to go up,

and I think it's just a writer trying to make it more impactful. It's just you'd be breaking up one of the greatest groups you've ever seen in the history of this game and you do it just because of finances when you're moving into this new building and it's really a real estate play as much as anything uh what if i offered you cody zeller and frank kaminsky are there any other big white guys white guys the draymond thing is really weird though like what's a good draymond trade because i wouldn't or any other big white guys. Two white guys. The Draymond thing is really weird though.

Like what's a good Draymond trade? Because I wouldn't want to do it. I wouldn't want to take away. I was trying to figure this out with my trade value. He's worth so much more to him than he would be worth to any other team in the league. Right. Like if Atlanta gave, like let's just say after this,

Golden State's like, we don't want to sign you. And then Atlanta had a ton of cap space. And then Atlanta's like, all right, this is amazing. We have Draymond. Golden State's like, we don't want to sign you. And then Atlanta had a ton of cap space. And then Atlanta's like, all right, this is amazing. We have Draymond. I don't think he's even close to being the same guy on a team like that.

Like, what are you going to do? Start giving him 20 shots a game? Can't do that with Draymond. Like if – yeah, there's really not a trade either. So it's a stupid – like – all right, let's say San Antonio said, we'll take Draymond. We'll give you LaMarcus. And so what do I think I've done? I've solved – what's LaMarcus got?

I got to look at the contract. Is it two more years? I think he's a free agent after this year. Oh, is it? I thought they extended him. What if OKC said, we'll give you Steven Adams for Draymond? Then I would do it. You would do that?

Yeah. Because I love him. I would do that, too. You know who wouldn't do that? OKC. No. I think Adams has better trade value than Draymond. Oh, that's right.

Yeah, LaMarcus is a free agent after this year. Yeah. Maybe that would be part of the appeal for Golden State to get out of that Draymond contract. I don't know. Yeah, but I don't think he's even in that thing of, like, all these, like, the Kemba thing, the Kemba contract, what it could be. And that's just the whole, you know, I don't even think it's unintended consequence. The intended consequence of these super maxes is to stop these players from moving all over the place. Right. But the money's so much, the players are like, oh, whatever.

It's not that big of a freaking deal. But then the teams are going, why do I have to pay you $200-something million when no one else can come close? It's like the Jimmy Butler, Minnesota thing. Like, hey, we like you. We don't have to give you $190. No one else can.

I have a newsflash for you. I'm not sure Kemba should be making $200 million either. I love him. I love him too, but— First-team point guard. But— I have him on my first team. They're 10-10.

All right, let's do the guards. I have Kemba and Oladipo. Oladipo? I know he's missed like four games, but their second— Like I said before, their second and third-leading scorers are Bogdanovich and Sabonis. Turner's worse. Thaddeus Young is an all— I forgot he's on the team.

First-team guy. He's, I just am so impressed with Oladipo. You know, I don't want to, let's not make the last four games that he's missed overshadow who he was the first few weeks of the season. And the shooting guard thing is always a little light,

even though there's two other names that, you know, I had to debate for the second team, but I just went with Oladipo. Cause you know what? I'm not giving it to Jimmy Butler. When you sit out four games against uncool opponents, and despite your overall numbers being really good,

arguably good enough to be first-team All-NBA, I'm not going to do that. Now, if it plays out and Jimmy's this good and he keeps hitting shots, then he's probably going to end up being first-team shooting guard. DeRozan's numbers are incredible. So I went Oladipo first team, and I went DeRozan second team. DeRozan's numbers are sick. And the eye test has also been sick with him. What's weird is they're – so that is a team that Terry Rozier could really help.

Yeah, especially with DeJounte out. They're just, I know they're point guards statistically, like they're hitting threes and stuff, but when you watch them, they just feel like a guy short in crunch time. It never feels like it's like, oh, that's your crunch time?

You know, they got like LaMarcus and DeRozan. Terry, though, I don't really know because everybody knows you're not going to sign them. Yeah, true. I don't know. But they need something. Whatever they have isn't working. They need a guy with a little more attitude.

Kind of back to your passive thing with other teams. Marcus is passive. DeRozan is passive. What they really need is like Marcus Smart. Yeah. To put with DeRozan. Would you do DeJounte for Marcus right now? I was thinking, would you do DeJounte for Terry Rozier right now?

I wouldn't if I was saying Antonio. I just like DeJounte. I would do it in the second if they were the Celtics but I like DeJounte for Terry Rozier right now? I wouldn't if I was saying Antonio. I just like DeJounte. I would do it in the second if they were the Celtics, but I like DeJounte too much, even if it was wishful thinking. Are you sure you wouldn't put Mike Conley? If I put him on my first or second All-NBA team, would you get upset? For point guard? For first or second All-NBA.

I can't do it. I can't. I went with Kemba. I can't do it. I can't. I went with Kemba. I didn't do it either. Kemba's a couple days removed from leading the league in scoring. I don't have Harden

here. I didn't either. Which seems stupid because he's, again, going off. But I feel like they coasted for way too long and they've played better.

I'm not holding the Washington. Listen, this is... Because he was awesome against the Wizards. This is the 20 game awards. Yeah. All right.

So here's my first team. Kemba, Oladipo, Giannis, LeBron, Embiid. I think Kemba is the only lock as a guard. He's been awesome.

And I don't really like that team. No, that's another team. I mean, their second leading scorers are Jeremy Lamb and Malik Monk. They have, those are the other two dudes. And my favorite guy in that team, they barely play, Bridges.

I want them to just play Bridges, Monk, and Kemba and just— I don't even care who else is out there. Batum, I don't know what happened to him. They have the contract. Parker, once a week, will look good for like a quarter. They'll be like, oh, Tony, and the announcers get excited. Oh, Tony, oh my God, oh, the old guy still has it. I love when a guy that has been written off, oh, Tony. And the announcers get excited. Oh, Tony. Oh, my God. Oh, the old guy still has it. I love when a guy that has been written off, though, who deserved to be written off, has a moment.

And then, I mean, it happens anything. I mean, this isn't specific. But then the home announcers be like, they said he couldn't play much more. You know? Hank, they said he was done. I am going Dame Lillard for my other spot. So we have the same point cards. Yeah.

So wait a minute. Oh, you have Kemba and Lillard. You just went two guards. I went two guards. So you don't have Jimmy Butler on anything? No, he's on nothing. I would have had Oladipo if he had him missed. It really came down to his missed games.

It was the wrong week. Yeah, it was just the wrong week. A week ago, he's on it. If he'd done 15 games in. It really came down to his missed games. It was the wrong week. Yeah, it was just the wrong week. A week ago, he's on it. If he'd done 15 games in. He's also such a good defensive player and he's such a good two-way player

in the last two minutes of games. That's what the thing that always jumps out with me is. That's why I love him. He can run the offense on one side and then the other side he'll guard the best guy

on the other team and take him out. Nasty. Edge. I think he'll end up being a top five MVP. The thing is, I'm worried about the knee.

I'm not positive he's healthy. I don't think he'll end up being a top five MVP. The thing is, I'm worried about the knee. I'm not positive he's healthy. I don't think he comes back like tomorrow. Other than the LeBron thing, first team, which I understand why you did second team, I didn't want to just go, hey, here are all the names and whatever with this exercise, and I didn't want to reward the dudes that were just, you know, I've had moments of taking time. And I don't really blame Houston for not coming into this season all locked in and fired up. Yeah, they had a devastating—

Devastating. When you get that, it's not much different than the Jaguars thing. The NFL Jags? Yeah, I was saying like the Jags where you get super close and then you don't make it. Houston, they get super close, they don't make it. And then the next year, you just got like, fuck, we're so close. It's like when you're in a video game and you almost won and then you didn't. You're not going to get.

Yeah. That's a really good call. Man, now I got to go through every level again. I almost got there. My memory card didn't work. Let's take one more break and then we'll do the second team and MVP. Let's talk about my friends at Framebridge. They just mailed me a framed picture that I sent them. It was a Breakfast Club poster.

I needed the Breakfast Club in my office. It's a great one. I found this old school Breakfast Club poster with the letter that they wrote on the side of it. Framebridge posted, they framed it for me. Looks fantastic. They make it ridiculously easy and affordable to custom frame your favorite things from art prints to photos on your phone. It is the easiest way to send truly one-of-a-kind gifts to everyone on their holiday list. Go to framebridge.com, upload your photo or mail in your physical piece using their safe packaging. That's what I did with the breakfast clip photo. Preview your item online in any frame style. Choose your favorite or get free recommendations. Their expert team will

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You'll save an additional 15% off your first order. Go to framebridge.com, use promo code BS, you'll save an additional 15% off your first order. Go to framebridge.com, promo code BS. Check it out. Alright, we're back. I have, I know it's not going to end up this way, but just a shout out to Gasol. I'm giving you the spot over

Anthony Davis. It's not going to be long-lasting. By the time the season ends, I don't know how Davis is going to be squeezed on these first-team OMABAs unless Embiid would have to get hurt, or he would just cheat and give him the forward spot, which I'm fine doing.

Zach Lowe is like a maniac about being really scared about getting creative with positions. He just has a fear of being called out about it. I mean, we always talk about it every year when we're doing our ballots. I am like, I just want to get the five guys on the team, and if the lineup makes sense,

and I'm working within the parameters enough, that's fine. So Davis could be a forward, in my opinion, if you really want to do it. Well, he's listed as power forward, you know, which is just, it's the dumb Duncan thing. And you go, really? I is just it's the dumb duncan thing and you go yeah uh really i mean yeah who's who's the who's the center then you know like oh wait there is julius randall right it isn't he's coming off the bench or all those years all those years where you know

duncan i don't even feel like bringing all this up because whatever spurs fans get really mad about that like it's the dumbest argument to be passionate about the kiyoko splitter actually averaged 22 20.2 minutes a game that year. Are you kidding me? I mean, go through every one of those guys and it was just... Duncan was the center.

They didn't play. They'd start some games and it didn't matter. So for... Roshan Usterovich. Roshan. So for my second team, for the forwards,

I got LeBron and Kawhi. And I kind of am regretting... got LeBron and Kawhi. And I kind of am regretting not— I have Durant and Kawhi. I'm kind of regretting not putting Kawhi on the first team. So are we going to go Giannis, Kawhi, and then you're going to put LeBron and KD on the second team? Yeah, I might switch my pick. What do you think, Kyle? LeBron and KD on the second team, huh?

Feel good? Nah, I'm going to keep KD where I was. It'd be a good tease if you're ready. I like Kyle. Coming up, my first and second team all-NBA, 20 games in. Both LeBron and Durant, you won't believe where I have them. That was great. You see the greeny teases?

Guy, that was so good. I know. Coming up next, we'll get to the all-NBA awards. Your weekend doesn't start until you hear we have on the second team we have a little surprise in order for a guy by the name of lebron james i used to love when the guys would do like these those facebook ones yeah like hey you gotta check it oh my god i'm so fired up like wait until you see my millions of fake facebook viewers because this is... Yeah. People are going to know.

All right. So, second team. I'm going to stick with Kawhi and LeBron, but only because Kawhi missed multiple games. And then for guards, Harden has to. I mean, come on. Harden has to be one of the guards. He just has to.

I can't hold the Houston thing against him. Kemba Oladipo, and then I got Lillard. By the way, Harden's record is the same record as Kemba's record. Like, we can't, like, reward Kemba

and then not reward Harden. Yeah, but I expected less of Kemba. It's fine, but it's not about expectations. Hmm. I just feel like,

look, who do you think's been the better player? You think Harden's just actually been better than Kemba this whole time? I think if the roles were, if you just switch those guys. Kemba gets 70. Yeah, at night for the Rockets.

So wait a minute. Do you have DeRozan? You don't have DeRozan. I don't have DeRozan. I ended up putting, I put Jimmy down. I crossed him off. I put DeRozan down. I crossed have DeRozan. I ended up putting... I put Jimmy down. I crossed him off. I put DeRozan down.

I crossed him off. Then I crossed off like three different times. And I did a really... Maybe it's petty. I don't think I would do this after 82 games. But I have... I have DeRozan in because he didn't sit out four games to sabotage an entire franchise. I have Harden.

I like what you were thinking with that. I have Harden. I like what you were thinking with that. I have Harden and I have Mike Conley. You love the Grizzlies. They have three guys. Is Dylan Brooks your most improved? They have three guys. Who would you want on that team other than the top three?

I like Dylan Brooks. Okay. Then you got four. You got four guys. And Jaron Jackson's like, he's like eight years older than my son. Seven years older than my son. He's like 18. He's like a baby.

I think he's the youngest guy from that draft. Does he remind you of your kid a lot? When he doesn't switch a D? Are your kids any good at sports? Yeah. I could see that. Are you intense though? No, I'd mellowed out.

I think I was too intense early on. Now I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. I do enjoy flag football with my son, though. Has it dawned on them, like this thing you've created? No, probably not. I don't know what I've created. It hasn't dawned on me.

Who do you have for MVP? Giannis. Shout out to Embiid, who I crossed off. But Giannis has done every single thing. And what I love the most is, as good as it was last year, even though he's allowed to travel and carry the ball every single possession, he took it to that next level that we hope so many of these guys can achieve and never get to.

And that's what I've seen from him. I agree. I have Giannis one. I think there's a case for Kawhi if he hadn't, if he had played more back to, I just want my MVP to play back to backs. That's what I love about Embiid. I have Embiid two.

I have Kawhi three. Because I love the fact that Embiid is fucking playing every game. And this is a weird situation where you have no GM for the entire offseason. You make this weird trade for Zaire Smith, Zaire Smith who has a peanut allergy. It kind of sounds like they almost accidentally killed Zaire Smith. They gave him a nut bar and he wasn't supposed to eat it, and now he's out for the year. I don't have any kids, so I know this peanut allergy thing. It's a big thing. Yeah, it's a big deal.

It's a significant thing. So you try not to kill your draft picks with that. Try not to kill your draft picks. Yeah. So they have no GM the whole year. They have this crazy situation. I'm not sure Brett Brown's a good coach. I'm really not.

I love his accent, though. I like that. I'm not sure he's a good coach, but somehow he's one of the most powerful coaches in the league. It has front office saying it. It's like, I'm not even sure he should be the coach of this team. I just like that Embiid's been reliable night after night bringing it. And I think he's gotten better.

I've been impressed. Yeah, I don't think it's just, hey, how many points did you have last year and how many did you have this year? I just, I think sometimes you can just see it on guys. You can see their comfort level, and then their, I mean, look, I'm just going to make it real simple. Like, I like guys

that play the game with a fuck you mentality. Yeah, and he is the number one fuck you now. Yeah. I wish Tatum had more of the fuck you mentality. Yeah.

That's my biggest issue with Tatum where it's like, don't, you're settling on a 19-footer against, you know, Jonas Jurebko or whoever. It's like,

go to the basket. He's 6'3 guy in here. Just take him to the basket. Nobody can stop you. There's something to be said of having, you know, I know you've always talked about like the irrational confidence thing, the Dion Waiters stuff where like there's this level of confidence and then you get to Dion Waiters.

But like there's a reason Raymond Felton's played in the league this long because his face, Raymond Felton plays with a face that says, I just fucked your mom. Right. And he's always had that look. And there's certain players. That's why I like Marcus Morris has been the best Celtic this year. And that's even though my frustrations was smart, I realized how important he is to this thing.

Right. Because Tatum gets really passive. And I think. And he'll get down on it. He'll make one dumb play and he'll really get down on himself for like five minutes. It's like, snap out of it, dude. You're the most talented guy on the court. And then Kyrie will make me miss NBA players talking about which member of TLC they'd want to date after he talks.

Yeah. Where I go, oh, that's an interesting quote. He's way too transparent. He's kind of turning into the Lena Dunham of the NBA. It's like, just don't give interviews anymore. You're a genius. Just stop talking. I remember the genius of you.

Like, I always knew you were good, but I was like, why would he interview her? She's great. She's one of the smartest people I ever met. Right, but I didn't realize that you were doing it because of how smart and how successful she is and that she also, there's an audience listening to that podcast

that's never listened to you before. And look, the first season of Girls I Absolutely Loved, I think some of her quotes over time have been like, made me go, what the hell? But that's the same thing with Kyrie. And it's side note, like, what happens to the guys when they go to Duke? I don't know.

I don't. Can I defend Lena Dunham for a second? Because she took shit this week cause there's this big magazine piece about her uh you can you can definitely like I also realized

I just gotta have that 10 second defense well I don't wanna make it sound like I'm shitting on Lena Dunham no no I'm not I'm not saying you are right I just think she's

I think she's a genius and if it was somebody else if it was some movie director who made fucking came out of nowhere to make some weird movie every three years

and was a genius. It's like Alexander Payne or whoever. He'd be like, that guy's a genius. She just is very available and she's like a product of this whole social media era. And you know everything that's going on with her. Right. Being plugged in 24-7, which is almost – it feels mandatory now. Guess what?

She's a crazy genius. We have lots of crazy geniuses in Hollywood. She's one of the most accomplished under 30 female creatives we've ever had. And don't get upset because she has weird quotes. Like, guess who has weird quotes? Everyone who's talented, you know? And I think with Kyrie, he's a genius.

And he's, like, the stuff he does with the ball, I've never seen anything like that in my life. He's a weird guy. They ask him after the game, what's going on with the team? And he'll give some like really thoughtful, like too honest answer. Where it's like, we got to get this together. This team's going to blow up. You're like, what?

Why are you saying that? So I don't know. I just, I like to give. Did you defend Lena there or Kyrie? I'm defending both of them. But in both cases, I just wish that they would kind of zip it for two months for the betterment of themselves. But they can't help it. That's kind of what makes them who they are.

Is Jalen Brown kind of like that girl in Showgirls? Elizabeth Berkley? Hot start, slow finish? I'm sick of this shit. I'm doing this on my own. I have one Giannis thing because I also agree that he's the MVP. They had a stat. John Schumann, the NBA.com.

He writes a really good Monday power rankings thing where he has all these cool stats in there. And he had a stat about Giannis is averaging over 19 points a game around the rim. And nobody's done that since 2003 Shaq. And then Zach Kram wrote a piece for The Ringer today about Giannis, how many field goals he has at the rim he's on pace to set this record, or not a record, but the most since Shaq in 1999 or something. What he's doing every night without the ability to score,

to actually shoot, is dumbfounding. I've never seen anybody get more layups and dunks when the other team knows that he can't shoot. He can't shoot. And I think, I wonder like professional coaches, you know, I wonder if Mark Jackson ever watched the Warriors after, which he obviously did. Yeah. Like, did he ever have a private moment where he watched the offense that Kerr and these guys were running where he went?

Ah. Fuck. Damn. I was sitting there the whole time. So I'm not, like, to go all Joe Prunty here, but. Except we were saying this on the podcast, on my podcast last year and on other places, they were like, wow, the Bucs are just, how are they not doing more? So Budenholzer comes in and you can just see it, that he's the centerpiece of what they're doing,

which he should be because he's one of their, look, he's not one of their, he's arguably the best player a quarter of the way into the season. So it's a little Houston-y where you feel like you never want to leave anybody, right? Yeah. They actually had a nice roster to play this kind of east version of what Houston was doing without that real defined second guy.

But Middleton's terrific, and now Lopez stretching the floor. Well, the Lopez thing is insane. Right. Bledsoe I don't love. I love their signings. I like Connaughton. I don't like Eliasova for what they paid, but he's still nice to have on your team as a ninth man.

I still think they overpaid, but whatever. I've always liked him. Multipositional, can stretch the floor, can bang a little bit. Not like Veragiao, peak Veragiao. But Veragiao was one of those guys who always made it hard on everybody else. And I feel like Iliasova is kind of one of those fighter types. They added three guys who can play in a playoff game. Yeah.

They didn't have three guys in those spots last year who could play in a playoff game. Yeah. They didn't have three guys in those spots last year who could play in a playoff game. To see it play out, you're right. But I do think there's something to be said of, like, he gets away with everything. Yeah, he does. I don't know what you're supposed to do. This is what happened with young LeBron, though. I don't know what you're supposed to do when you go, okay, well, we know he can't shoot, but he's at the hoop in two steps. Yeah.

And then he's long enough to— it's not like he's 6'6 and getting to the hoop in a couple steps, and then we can still contest it. So, look, I'm not knocking him for it because it's incredible, but I don't—there's nights I watch him and go, I don't know what you're supposed to do with this. He's almost averaging 10 two-pointers a game. Makes.

Makes. He's 9.9 made two-pointers a game, and he's taken almost nine free throws a game, but he's only shooting 68%. But it's like he's shooting 12% from three. He takes two and a half threes a game. He's making 0.33s a game. So the three is just not in his arsenal at all, and he's still scoring 27 a game.

It's like Pete Maravich at LSU. Exactly, but I mean it's kind of back to that Ben Simmons thing. It's just nuts. But Ben Simmons could never score 27 points a game. That's my point. That's kind of what I'm saying, though. Like, imagine, hey, Ben Simmons stays the same as a shooter, which is nothing. Magic never scored 27.

Jason Kidd never scored 27. Ben Simmons needs to get to, like, 22. I think Giannis, all he has to do is get better at free throws and get to the line just a tiny bit more, and he's at 30 pretty easily. And I could see he's my pick like january february march you know those guys roll off those months where it's like janice in january 35 yeah right 12 and 8 it's like whoa those were his stats for the whole month he's would be my number one pick for that where is he in the queue of give me the fuck out of here what What do you mean? Oh. Yeah.

I don't know. The guys who didn't grow up here, I think, are just wild cards and have to be treated individually. Like, how do we know? The guy was in Greece. He was, like, basically homeless for a couple years there. Like, Milwaukee might be the greatest thing that ever happened to him. I don't know. He loves it. Remember, he tweeted about the smoothies.

After Paul George stayed in OKC, I've given up trying to figure out anything. That's what I can't wait, though. If Kawhi stays, this is my prediction. Kawhi stays in Toronto. No, but if Kawhi does stay, you are then going to see some of the dumbest trades ever. Where other teams are going to go, well, I think everybody just stays now. Yeah. No, we can't trade for him.

He's a free agent. No, no, no, no. Everybody stays now. That's the new thing. George stayed. Kawhi stayed. So you'll see some dumb GMs. I think actually most of these guys, I don't like saying it that way because I think the

job's impossible. It's not that hard. No. Well, I think it's really hard. You can't just sit there and say, hey, let's be awesome. It's more luck than anything else. I do think that. So I don't want to sit there and talk about 30 GMs and act like, I don't like when people

do that. We're like, oh, these guys suck. They're all stupid because it's just not true. There's a lot of smart ones. But on the other hand, a lot of those guys suck and they're stupid. I think ownership has more to do with it. I think there's ownership people out there that get new owners. They freak out.

And what you'll see is if Kawhi stays in Toronto, you will see people moving out major assets for guys that are going to be free agents and teams are going to get burned by it. That's my bold prediction. If New Orleans called the Celtics right now and said, we'll do it for Horford and Tatum and all of your picks, that's not the Kings pick. We're not calling anyone else.

That's what we want. What do you do if you're the Celtics? I would counter. No, they're like, there's no counter. Here's the trade. Horford, Tatum, we want your Clippers pick. We want your pick. Just not the Sacramento pick.

And throw in Yabasele. What if I said, can I give you the Sacramento pick and Jalen instead of Tatum and all the other picks? I'm saying go to hell. I'm not trading Anthony Davis unless I get Tatum back. The things with stuff that are new is we all want it to be something we've never seen before. And that's what happens with Tatum. But the idea that you would say no to get Anthony Davis because of Jason Tatum is stupid.

Here's why you would say no. Because I don't know if I can resign him. Well, okay. All right. Well, that part of it. I called Davis and Davis says, if you do that, I will resign with you. That's one of those deals where you figure that out ahead of time with clutch, and you go, are we getting him or no?

And if they can't, find a way to make sure that you know. They love Tatum. I love Tatum, too. I love Tatum, too. I don't want to trade him, but you're right. If you're telling me that he could still bowl as a free agent, then I say no. I say no to it. But if I know that Anthony Davis is going to be a Celtic for five years,

yeah, I would. Because, look, Horford, as much as I've always defended him, he's been kind of bad this year. The three guys who were really bad in the Celts this year so far were Horford, Jalen Brown's been a travesty, and Gordon Hayward. Like, just way worse. Rogier was totally predictable with less minutes, said he wasn't going to play well.

But Horford's actually been bad until last night. Yeah, and that's all right. Like, I still think he'll figure out, he's smart enough to figure out a way to... Wait, last question. We're running out of time. I wanted to ask you, the Kings are not going to make the playoffs right

I don't think so let's agree I'm just going to go through the West oh this is going to suck just quick yes or no answers hold on I got to pull it up do the Clippers make the playoffs they're 13-6

that's not that great of a record you know what I mean That's not that great of a record. You know what I mean? It's not like some insane... Look, I understand it's almost 70%, 80%. You lock in your playoff teams. Just like, oh, they're going to make it unless something bad happens.

So Clippers, you say not necessarily. Look, these are the teams that are out. The Spurs, the Pelican. No, don't do it that way yet. I want to do like, let's grandfather some teams in and see how many spots we have left. Warriors are making it.

I think Denver makes it. Yep. OKC, I think, makes it. Agreed. Portland's going to make it. Lakers. I wouldn't put Portland in there. I would put the Lakers.

I only have four teams that I think are guaranteed to make it. So you have Golden State, Denver, Oklahoma City, and the Lakers. That's it. I would add Portland to that. All right, so now I have three spots left. Right, and I've got to figure out a way to get San Antonio, New Orleans, Houston, and Utah in there. See, I don't— I don't think San Antonio's in.

I don't think Utah's in either. I can't. Unless they made some trade. They're only a game and a half out of the playoffs now, as bad as it's looked. Would you put New Orleans in there? How about Houston? We can't count out Houston. They're not going to miss the playoffs.

So Houston's in there. They're six. Right. Is it crazy to think Dallas could make the playoffs? We didn't even talk about Luka. No, rookie of the year. We should end on that. Aiton's numbers are better than you.

If you're Dallas, do you flip Wesley Matthews expiring for Tim Hardaway Jr.? Just go for a playoff spot. Take Tim Hardaway's contract for next year. Hardaway's good. Hardaway's good. And if you're the Knicks, you have to do that. I just got rid of Tim Hardaway's contract. Great.

Sign me up. That would be a Dallas move. Dallas move. Yeah, I would see them do that. Atlanta has their pick. You might as well do it anyway. So, I think Dallas can make the playoffs if they flip Matthews. But what's the point?

To do what, though? Like, if you want to trade for him, but you got to use the expiring. Well, you don't have your picks. You might as well try to make the playoffs. Yeah. Why not? I Well, you don't have your picks. You might as well try to make the playoffs. Why not? Let's end it on Luka because he's one of the highlights of my year. You're getting weird about him, aren't you?

Come on. No, I'm not. What qualifies as weird? You had a glow as soon as he started talking about him. I do love him. Here's what I love. I'll give you three things I love. He could be one of the best players, if not the best player in the game

and take 11 shots. How many guys in the league can do that? He can go 5 for 11 and be the best player in the game. Playoff Rondo. Ben Simmons. LeBron if he just decided not to shoot one game. A few third quarters this year.

Right. But yeah, I just think it reminds, you know, I just, I always used to love that about Bird. That Bird could go five for eight and be the best part in the game. Right, Kid could do that. Jason K could do it. But like the guys right now, he's kind of an anomaly. I think the passing that he's able to do out of his driving kicks and

the angles that he's seeing are kind of... I've never seen it before. It's almost like if Bird had come out of a time machine and you'd be like, hey, Larry, you're going to have way more space. One of the goals now in basketball is just to do the craziest passes possible to guys who are going to shoot

threes. He'd be like, cool, okay. But some of the stuff he's doing, I'm like, holy shit, he's 19. How has he seen this? I love Doutridge. You know what I always love about, there's always that part of you where you go, is it really going to work? We can watch all the tape, we can interview him, we can see him do the workouts. Yeah, we're going to get over the hump with this.

But until it's real and you're out there running around with nine other NBA guys, I think there's always this part of you where you're going, let's see. I'm trying to think of like the perfect analogy. And too many times I think of like a guy's weekend or something like that. But, you know, just go like, you'll have a group of friends. Oh, like the brother-in-law who tags along for the bachelor party. Like he's a good guy, but you don't know for sure until it's 2 in the morning. You know you have to do it. Nephew Kyle has him outside the casino, and you're like, oh, God, where are they going? Yeah.

Oh, no. And then he may try really hard early to fit in. And it's like, look, we're all going to get after it, but we don't want to chug Drambuie on the way over to the airport. Cancel the Jagermeister shots. What are you doing? We got it. We're going to stay out late. We're going to feel terrible tomorrow, but don. What are you doing? We got it. We're going to stay out late. We're going to feel terrible tomorrow,

but like, you know, don't rush the inevitable here. You know, like we're, we got it. Or that guy shows up and he's like, hey, just, just let you guys know

I pulled kind of an executive move and he's got a back room at some six steak house at like the best place in Vegas. Yeah. I know the guy. Right. Because he's 10 years older than your crew

and he's been through the wars before and he's actually the best. And I think that's what happens with some rookies. Like, Aiton's out there, and you go, holy shit, he's even been fine. Like, DeAndre Aiton's going to be fine. Like, it's going to work. Not sure about him defensively. Oh, I'm not worried about that.

I'm not. Because I go back to the Arizona stuff that he was doing. Can I be worried? Yeah, you can. I'll send you some clips from Arizona. It's a little too easy to just drive down the paint and score on him. I think the things are— He's not even averaging a block of game yet.

Well, I don't know what race has to do with it. A block of game? Oh. That makes way more sense. I think the same thing about Luka, though. And Rubio had that a little bit in there, too, where you go, what's it going to look like? What's it going to look like? And with Luka, you're And Rubio had that a little bit in there, too, where you go, what's it going to look like? What's it going to look like?

And with Luka, you're like— He's so far ahead of Rubio. This is ridiculous. Luka's like, Dallas, we can't make enough about that trade. Two teams passed him. Atlanta had him and traded him for this extra pick. They thought they were super smart. And Dallas— And then the dude from Migos came on and said that Atlanta,

he wanted to be a good fifth. Dallas is picking fifth and ends up with, like, this transcendent guy. And it was crazy. It was just happening. It was like, oh, my God, they're going to get Luka. Just think, like, a year or so ago, people were pumped about Dennis Smith Jr. in Dallas. That's how desperate they were. And now you go, that's terrible.

He and Levine, they'd be good picks for our all-pickup team. He's – I'll say this. I don't think Luka's team in three years will have a lot of the same guys on it from this year. I think there is a certain – No, no, sign with Kalach would be great in the Lakers. Lakers. He's never leaving Dallas. Cuban's already putting security camera, like secret cameras in his apartment.

He's going to get all the goods on him. He's like, hey, we have a new deal with Ring. Set these up. You could just tweet out from Instagram your new Ring stuff. And then we almost just did an ad for them there. We didn't even mean to. I'm really interested to see. I think they were on Shark Tank, so that makes sense.

I'm really interested to see. He doesn't really speak English that well. Right? Chicks love that. Giannis doesn't really either. And Anthony Davis doesn't speak. You have a situation now where three of the biggest assets in the league and three of the guys who are potentially the future of the league

have a personality that is not exactly Magic Johnson. Are you worried about like an LPGA thing? No, which is what makes Embiid so important. Embiid has enough personality for everybody and has this chance to be such as polarizing under-25 guy. But compared to these other guys, he looks like he's Rodney Dangerfield in 1975. He must have been

subbed before electricity. Like, Luca's personality is like the Bill Murray cheeseburger cheeseburger, like, just that guy just nodding in the back.

He doesn't say anything. And eventually he will. He's 19. But, you know, he's in a new country. Durant hates everybody. Trying to think.

Yeah, this is a really good, like the personality future bets. Well, Steph Curry is like that's Steph Curry. Yeah, but a lot of guys don't like him. Yeah, but he's too. He's cool though. Look, I love Steph. You don't have to.

There's this thing where he's not like you know, he's like the positive rapper. Yeah, true. Steph's the positive rapper where guys are like, hey, De La, that was cool. But like,

I like when I go to the gym, I want to hear about dudes getting shot. Kyle liked that. Yeah. He got that one. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be interested to see

what kind of team they put around them and how fast they do it. Because if I was Dallas, I would want to have a good team now. I would use that Wesley Matthews expiring because he's terrible. I would try to get another good guy, and I would try to put Luke in a situation where he can be the eighth seed in a round one and get his feet wet.

Because you saw what happened with Tatum and Jalen last year, and you saw how great it was for Jalen. Oh, wait, that didn't work at all. Jalen took a huge step back. I don't, I think that getting your brains beaten in in the first round of the playoffs

is totally overrated. But I don't think they're going to get their brains beaten. I don't think anybody is that good anymore in the West. Golden State maybe. Maybe.

Are they going to be healthy or are they going to be happy? Like, what else is going to happen with that team? I don't know. I wouldn't write them off yet. Not writing them off.

I'm not saying, and like the whole joke about Luka being gone in a while. Basically, all his dudes are locked in for, you know, seven, eight years anyway. So, I don't know. Why isn't that a Davis destination, just out of curiosity? Dallas? For when he's a free agent. Like, everybody's just like, L.A., Boston. Because there isn't, I mean, you can love Luka.

Like, he could sit there and love him and the whole thing. But, like, the L.A. thing's ready-made. Boston thing's ready-made. The guy's just spent almost a decade in New Orleans feeling like they don't have a chance. The Dallas thing could be, though, because a year, the summer after this one, they're going to have, like, basically a whole roster of cap space. And I don't want to make the joke that everybody else makes. It's not even a joke. It's a fact that, well, all the years that they had all this cap space and the no stay i don't know if you knew that texas has no state tax uh that cuban ended up

never getting any of those guys true and i don't i don't know if that's fair i mean my thing is that might be just because he's annoying or it might just be that like a lot of teams you just all don't get the free agents that you think you're going to get because you have the cap space and now it's more about does the team have somebody that you want to play with? I wonder if there's going to be a Durant backlash where if you set up your perfect situation for yourself and look like you're latching on to

an already really good situation that you almost can't win. Like what happened with Durant, where he wins two titles and he still feels like he's getting no credit. Whereas Davis could go to Dallas and he's be like,'s getting no credit. Whereas Davis could go to like Dallas and he's be like, yeah, it's me and Luca and some free agents

we're going to pick up every year. We're going to be awesome. This is our team. We'll be great. I'm, you know, the whole thing of like, if I lost that much though, the last thing I'd be going, all right, where can I go and win?

But make sure that, you know, at least like on social media, everybody knows that I'm the man. We're talking 2021 now though. We're not talking about the summer. He's still under contract for a couple more years. Two more years, but he can— I think this is going to be the year that—

Well, I don't want to say too much. Here's my point. I don't think we should confine the Davis sweepstakes to two teams whenever it happens. I think there's like 10 teams in play. But that's why New Orleans— I'll tell you, though, New Orleans is not going to be one of the teams. play. But that's why New Orleans. I'll tell you though,

it's not going to be, New Orleans is not going to be one of the teams. They weren't even sold out last night. You had empty seats all over the place. Well, that would be the ballsiest thing as you go. You trade them before the deadline this year. They should, but that's what they should do. Let's just go get a three.

Let's not get ourselves stuck in some sort of, even though Covington's been good for them, but let's not do a Covington-Sarge. Hell, let's not do a Markhaminen-Levine and Chris Dunn deal. Let's go, hey, everybody, you're going to get him a year plus. It's the Boogie Cousins strategy. Right? But hope to do better than Buddy Heald.

Buddy Heald's good. Yeah, he is, but I mean— They got Buddy Heald. They got the 10th pick in the draft. That was a good trade. They could have kept that pick and taken Donovan Mitchell and gotten Donovan Mitchell and Buddy Heald for Boogie who's leaving in a year and a half. It's a good trade. They could have kept that pick and taken Donovan Mitchell and gotten Donovan Mitchell and Buddy Heald for Boogie who's leaving in a year and a half. It's a good trade.

And it's not like Boogie had a shitload of trade value. The Celtics didn't even want to trade for him, remember? Yeah, I wouldn't. They wouldn't go near him. Everybody's like, people are like, no, no way. Don't want that guy in my locker room. He's like the leader. You want Chris Clack too? Chris Clack. Alright, we're going to wrap it up. Who's on

dual threat? Colin Cowherd. Woo! What? Yeah, he's texting me right now. He's very upset. We're running behind. Oh, I might stay on for the first five minutes. All right, do it.

All right. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. All right, thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Allbirds. They're tree runners. They're comfy shoes made from trees.

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