The Bill Simmons Podcast - The NBA’s Wild Wild West With Haralabos Voulgaris

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Haralabos Voulgaris to discuss the NBA teams in the Western Conference who might be inclined to make an in-season trade, including the Mavericks, Lakers, Warriors, Pelicans, and Kings. They also discuss Haralabos's purchase of the Spanish soccer club CD Castellón. Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Haralabos Voulgaris Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, if you heard Matt Bellany on my podcast on Sunday talking about Bob Iger and Disney, you can also hear him on his own podcast. It's called The Town. And you can hear him on Plain English with Derek Thompson because he went on there as well. And Derek talked about Elon Musk and SBF as well. We have smart person content on The Ringer Podcast Network. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite.

I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that

tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can.

So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking,

I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch a pass, same game parlays,

highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff, it's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit FanDuel.com to download America's number one sportsbook.

The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-Help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. We have a lot of World Cup stuff for you. You know about Stadio. They're potting, obviously. It's the World Cup, for God's sakes. It happens every four years. You know about Wrighty's House. Did you know about Counterpressed?

That is our brand new soccer podcast with Flo Lloyd-Hughes and friends. They did their first one on the America-Wales game. Team USA, yet again. Just can't get it done. This is where I talk about soccer and you go, ah, you never talk about soccer. Don't do this.

Don't go. Leave it to the pros. Look, all I did for 13 years was go to my daughter's soccer games. I have soccer opinions. I'm sorry. You're going to have to hear them. I thought my buddy Hopper, who knows more about soccer than just about anybody I know in my life,

not counting the ringer people we have. I thought he had a great point about Team USA. He thought it was an adrenaline game, that we had too much adrenaline. That led to a lot of the hard fouls. That led to the hard challenge that ended up with the penalty kick that ends up leading to the 1-1 tie. But just in general, adrenaline, the touch was off. Pulisic, who had an unbelievable run to set up the one goal, he was off the whole game. The corner

kicks, the crosses, that's not him. Corners were awful. So bad that I was watching with my daughter and we were wondering whether Rapinoe is better at corner kicks than anybody on this team USA. It certainly felt that way on Monday, but the touch was just off. It felt like they left a lot of opportunities on the table. They only had one shot on goal. They had a header that missed the goal. They had a shot that went over the goal, but for the most part, just couldn't finish and had real chances and then blew it near the end. But it just felt like they were too wired. And I want to see what happens. Now they blew it near the end. But it just felt like they were too wired. And I want to see what happens. Now they got that under the belt.

They know what it's like. A lot of those guys had never been in a game like that before. And now they know. So let's see what happens. I'm not getting too pessimistic yet, but it was super disappointing. 1-0 against that Wales team. Come on.

Wales has like 3 million people. We have 340 million. Ah, 2022, we should be beating Wales. With that said, I can't wait for Friday. So listen to our podcast. Go check those out. We have new rewatchables as well. We did Body Heat.

That is the end of Naughty November. We will have another rewatchables next Monday that will not be naughty. That will be one that you'll be happy with if you like movies. Just telling you. What else do we have? Oh, the Ringers Philly Special which has been on fire with Eagles content and Sixers content.

I taped my podcast before all the Tuesday night games tonight. Chris Ryan is going to be on the Ringer Philly Special. I think with Raheem Palmer, they'll be reacting to Ben Simmons' dramatic return to Philly. And if, by the way, if something absolutely bonkers happens, I'll probably pop in on my own podcast

and redo the top. But I doubt it because none of the Philly guys are playing. It had so much promise on paper. We'll probably have the payoff down the road. But they're playing. The Lakers are playing. We took a chance. I have Haral Bob Valgueras coming up and we're talking about the West, basically what's going on in the West. And then about the Spanish soccer team he just bought and some crypto stuff as well. Hey, look, this is what happens right around Thanksgiving. Haral

Bob comes on and we talk hoops. What can I tell you? It's going to be good. First, ouring this Tuesday afternoon. It is before Ben Simmons' dramatic return to Philly and a couple of the other Tuesday night games. But we had a chance to lock down the world's most mysterious man, Boral Bob Valgueras. We haven't seen him on this podcast since the finals in June. He's mysterious, as always always since we talked to him. He now owns a Spanish soccer team.

What's the team's name? CD Castellon. 100-year-old team, by the way. What kind of stadium? Regular run-of-the-mill stadium. Seats around 15,000 people. So, yeah, it's a decent little team. At the end of this

podcast, we're going to talk about it. People want to hear us talk about basketball. I have not, you've done some tweets, but I have not heard you really weigh in this

season. We're at almost the quarter game mark. Didn't stop my friend Zach Lowe from doing an MVP candidates pod. Zach, you've been Bristolized.

What's happened to you? You can't do an MVP thing until the midway mark. What is the biggest storyline that's popped out for you so far? Just the West being a complete clusterfuck of teams. Some of the teams that people thought were tanking are doing good. Just the surprising standings in the West, I think, is probably...

You have first place team is... The gap between first and 10th is like two games, which is pretty insane. Well, that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about trade targets. And what do you do if you're these West teams? So right now, Utah Jazz, 12 and 7 leading the West. Probably not going to last for much longer. Minnesota's 9-8.

They're only a game back in the last column. The Lakers are 5-10. They're second to last, but they're only three games out of the last column. So everybody's kind of in it. And there's also, I think, in my opinion, some trade targets out there. Whether you could go high, high end

if the Nets just want to say, screw it and trade Durant. I still feel like you could at least knock on the door. But then there's some other ones like Zach Levine with a bad knee and a 15% trade kicker. Probably not that enticing, but DeRozan two years, 27,

28, not one of your favorites. That's a good contract, actually. Yeah. I don't mind DeRozan. I think a lot of people I definitely didn. I don't mind DeRozan. I think a lot of people... I definitely didn't like Raptors DeRozan. And then when DeRozan was playing in San Antonio with LaMarcus Aldridge, that was not a good fit,

just from a spacing perspective. But there was a point in time when they went with DeRozan and five shooters where that team was... It was very capable. They were a very good offensive team. And where he was, he was very capable. They're a very good offensive team and he was very,

very, very efficient offensively. So, it just depends on role and who you surround him with. Well, I'm going to separate these into a couple categories,

these West teams. Because some teams can't really do anything but still might kick the tires. But, let's go to desperate in the West. Okay.

And I'm going to start, this is in no particular West. And I'm going to start, it's, this is a no particular order, but I'm going to start with the team he used to work for the Dallas Mavericks who are nine and seven. Okay. They're ninth in the West. They have one of the best players in the world.

Who's having a crazy usage rate stat season. He's in the running for whatever your early, early, early version of whatever your MVP list is. The team around him. Isn't that great? for whatever your early, early, early version of whatever your MVP list is. The team around him isn't that great. They've blown some games late for a combination of reasons, but one of the reasons is

they rely on him so much during the game that at the end of the game, they get a little predictable. The weird thing with them is it's really hard for them to make moves. They don't... The drop off from him to the second best player is so dramatic. Who to the second best player is so dramatic. Who is their second best player?

Who is it? You tell me. Who's their second best player? Yeah, that's a good question. I think going into the year, you would say that Brunson was probably the second best player. They lost him in the offseason. Now, is it Dinwid the offseason. Now.

Is it Dinwiddie? No. Maybe. Is it Finney-Smith? Probably Dodo, Dorian Finney-Smith. Some combination of like Dorian Finney-Smith, possibly Dinwiddie, possibly... I mean, yeah.

It's a... I mean, post-December, Reggie Bullock, when he can shoot, is a decent player. Pre-December, Reggie Bullock. It's interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, their second-best offensive player is most certainly Christian Wood. He's most...

But he's probably not their second-best player. Maybe he is. I don't know. There's some funny stuff going on there with him. He's not getting a lot of minutes. He's an unrestricted free agent. Well, let's talk about that. There's different theories for why he's not getting a lot of minutes, and Kidd's throwing some side-eye quotes at him.

He's coaching him. He's doing some Bush League motivational techniques, I think, is what's happening. Some Phil Jackson coaching in the media, it seems like. I don't know. I'm not positive that's going to work with Christian Wood. Let's see. The defense with him,

he's one of those guys that if you just look at the stats, like, oh, Christian Wood, he's been great for them. I might want to watch the games. I do think there's been some fun screen roll stuff with him and Luka. He's a good three-point shooter, the games. I do think there's been some fun screen roll stuff with him and Luka. And he's a good three-point shooter. But for the most part, he's somebody who's just never really been in important games ever. And you're counting on him. The stuff they need from him might be outkicking his coverage, to borrow a football term. He's,

to me, not their second best player. And I'm with you. I don't know who it is. And I don't think there's an answer. Yeah, I think you have to look at okay, what are... Who has the most upside to be this? He could certainly be their second best player if he defended at an adequate level. He would certainly be their best player. I'm not buying that his defense is atrocious.

I'm not buying that his defense is like, okay, so let's... I would probably agree with you he's not playing because of some missed defensive rotations or not being as locked in defensively as the rest of the squad is or what they expect I guess from their center but you kind of knew what you were getting when you

signed him like you weren't signing this guy thinking he was a rim protector I think then you were mistaken because he's never been a rim protector, I think then you were mistaken because he's never been a rim protector. I think the idea was they signed him because they wanted him to come off the bench and be a second scorer

because they lost some scoring with Brunson. They thought, oh, we'll do it a different way with the big. But almost all their best lineups are featuring him. So to say that he has an empty stats guy, I don't think that's accurate. Almost all their best lineups feature him. And so... Yeah. I'm sure

at some point in the season, they will get to the point where they play him more minutes or they just cut bait because you can't have a situation where... And I don't think they've given up on him. I just think it's a little bit of tough love. And I'm speaking as an outsider. I have no idea. But he is probably the only guy

who can create his own offense on that team with the exception of Luka and possibly Dinwiddie. Well, you have Hardaway has been just shot like dog shit the whole season. Bullock, you mentioned, hasn't hit yet. But for some weird reason, it's a season late bloomer. Powell and Wood are their two expirings.

11 million for Powell, 14.3 for Wood. Bullock's a semi-expiring. It's 10 this year and then 5 million guaranteed next year. So they have contracts they can put together. They have a weird

first round pick situation where they owe the Knicks a top 10 protected pick from 23, 24, 25 that just holds them hostage. It means until they get rid of that pick, they can't trade the next pick. I would hate those deals if I was a GM. I would never want to make those deals. You have so much uncertainty with what you can do. So they basically, they own their own first 27, 28, 29, maybe 26. If for some reason that pick gets delivered to the Knicks early. Josh Green has a little value,

and Jaden Hardy for a young team, maybe. There's not a lot of moves here. And this is the first time I've ever wondered, if I'm Luka, if I'm the people around Luka, what are you saying? What are you looking at? What is your three-year plan here where you're kind of locked into these contracts, the rest of the league's gotten better,

there's more responsibility than ever being put on Luca, and they're like an above 500 team, but they're not a contender. And I just wonder how many years in a row does he just swim in that pool before he starts to get anxious? We know how this league works. The stars get anxious. How many years of this will he have? I don't know. Let's not forget they did make the Western Conference Finals last year. They did. Let's not over react a little bit to 16 games

or however many games they played. I don't know. That's a question for him, I suppose. I'm not sure. Never really got a feel for that sort of thing. I think a lot of this is do you like where you're playing? Do you like the people you're working with? Do you feel there's a plan?

I think it's premature to say that they don't have a plan or they don't have a future. They have some assets. The problem with the assets they have, like both Maxi, Kleba, and Dory and Finney-Smith are on very good contracts. But there are also two players that you could argue are indefensible to their team.

So it's like, okay, so you get rid of one of those two guys. Now what? So yeah, the real path is, in my opinion, is to make Wood a positive defensive contributor and roll with it or live with the warts defensively because he creates some problems offensively. Certainly more than like Val Maglia or Dwight Powell.

I mean, let's just be realistic here. Do you think they would do that Porzingis trade over again? Because it did help them get to the Western Finals last year. He has played all day, every day. Yeah. I was like an albatross on that team from the moment almost the deal was consummated, was how do we extricate ourselves from this deal?

From the moment he started playing, I would say, and maybe the quarterway point of his first year in Dallas. And it's not to... It's just, how does that fit? You know, what type of, can you have your second most expensive player on that type of contract be a player that plays that role when Luka has the ball the whole game? Is that really what you need? So yeah, they would certainly do it. I mean, I don't think that there's any question. Well, you know

who's glad they did it? The Wizards fans. Porzingis is having a good year for them and that team's been pretty good. Yeah, he's nice. He's doing some stuff year for them. And that team's been pretty good. Yeah. He's nice. He's doing some stuff there for sure. He's basically 20 and nine, 38% from three. No less than Joe House recently said,

eh, he's good at basketball. That was a Joe House actual comment, but he's like, I know he's probably going to get hurt soon, but when he's out there and he's healthy, it's pretty good at basketball. It's nice to have a center.

It gives you a 20 and eight every game. Yeah. He's so look when he's healthy, he's pretty good at basketball. It's nice to have a center who gives you a 20 and eight every game. Yeah, look, when he's healthy, he's definitely, when he can move laterally and fend, he's a very good rim protector. Like you mentioned, his issues have been just kind of unfortunate history with injuries and mobility,

but he seems to be playing quite well right now. So I think Dallas might be a little more desperate than you is where we're going to leave this one. I don't think they're the most desperate team in the West, but I do wonder, as you know, I'm a windows guy. And when Luca is this good, and I don't feel good about the team I have around him, even though it's a bunch of nice role players, and there's guys under, for the most part, good contracts.

They really, Hardaway is probably the only bad contract they have other than Bertans. I just get antsy because I just like, am I throwing away a year with this guy? Like the Celtics had the junior version of this with Paul Pierce where there was like three, four Paul Pierce years there where it's just like they didn't have enough guys.

And it's just like, that's it. guys and it's just like that's it. The years evaporate, never to be seen again. And this is like way bigger stakes because Luka's a generational talent. So I don't know, it'd make me nervous. And I don't really know what their moves are. I think you're right. I think they almost have to figure out can Woody either be the guy

or at least be good enough that maybe we can flip him for somebody else's expiring and whatever. Maybe he has some value. I don't know. It certainly seems that way. I think impatience is probably something that has been a hallmark of that team for a while.

So it wouldn't surprise me if they did something soon-ish or this year, I suppose. But yeah, it seems like, like you said, they don't have a lot of moves in terms of what they can do and they don't have a lot of assets. So like, how are they going to get in the mix here? I don't know. Unless they take like a ridiculous gamble

on like a Zach Levine or something like that, who is falling out of favor, you know, coming off of an injury. Someone like that, who's kind of fallen out of favor in his team, that the team that owns him, sees him differently than how you might see him. I'm glad you mentioned him

because I sent you a list of possible trade targets for all these West teams. That included Durant, Anthony Davis, Towns, Butler, Beal. I don't think those guys are realistic, but they have to be mentioned. Levine, $37.1 million this year. It's a five-year $250 million deal that started this year and a 15% trade kicker. DeRozan, Vucevic, and then you kind of move into

glass. You'd have to go glass half full with some of these guys. Tobias Harris, big money. Gordon Hayward, always hurt. Julius Randall, four years, $117 million. Draymond Green, Mike Conley, Buddy Heald, John Collins, Terry Rozier, Miles Turner, who I think is actually a nice one. And maybe that's a possible move, right? Where it's like Christian Wood and a future first for Miles Turner. But then it's like, does that even put Luka any closer to the finals than it would have before that trade? I don't know. So it's a tough one. I wouldn't give up a first for him. Yeah, I'm saying a super protected one.

I don't really know what their move is, and you're right. It might be like Zach Levine. That's a huge contract. Fuck it. Maybe we should try it, but that's how you get into the Porzingis mess. Some of the funnest trades are the fuck it trades, right?

Let's just do it. Let's try it. Why not? Okay, let's go for it. The Lakers are in this too. We're taping this. The Lakers are 5-10. They're playing tonight so we don't know what's going to happen. They got Davis going the last couple games. There's some good Davis stats now with him. 90% of his stuff is

in the paint around the basket, which is what everybody's been saying. They've also played a couple of bad teams in a row, which I think might've, might've helped out, but he at least looks engaged. He's playing well and he's healthy. And the Lakers can go one of two ways.

Either, either you move in now because the West is wide open or you move in on trading Davis right now while he looks great. And you're like, what can we get for this guy? Here's our chance to rebuild. He's been healthy for a week and a half. They have their own first in 27, 28, 29. They can trade two of them. They owe a pick swap to New Orleans this year. They owe an unprotected first to New Orleans in 24, 25. And then they have a ton of expiring. So they can really make any type of deal. Like if Chicago says, wow, we suck. This isn't working. We're cleaning house.

The Lakers are sitting there with $70 million worth of expirings that they could be like, here, you can basically clean the slate. Give us DeRozan or give us Zach Levine and Vucevic. We'll give you our two firsts down the road and whatever else you want. Like we can just get you out of this. What would you do if you're running the Lakers? I would just try to figure out what your goal is. I mean, is their goal to win right now? Is that what they're trying to accomplish

with the stuff that they're doing? I don't know. It seems like it, right? Yeah, I don't know. What would I do? I would be... I mean, look, they owe a pick swap this year to New Orleans, which is unprotected, I believe, which is pretty risky.

Yeah, it's unprotected with a capital UN. That's a little risky. So yeah, this could be like your candidate for the effort trade, right? I mean, what would I do? Pray? I don't know.

I'd break out Genesis, whatever, whatever it is, whatever book it is that, what's his name is always quoting from, um, the point is always quoting from, and I would try to find some,

a path forward. They look, the team is awful, like categorically awful. But even like I was watching last night, I was watching Utah play last night. And just the idea, like the moves that they made around the edges. You remember they didn't want to trade Taylor Horton

Tucker before. That was a guy they didn't want to get rid of. And now somehow they've managed to get rid of him. He seems to be playing okay for Utah. They have Beverly, I guess in place of him. I don't know. The Westbrook thing was obviously a disaster. And they're just trying to recalibrate from that.

I mean, that's what doomed the franchise was the Westbrook trade. I mean, I think it hasn't been a fit thus far and doesn't purport to be a fit going forward, I would say. Well, he would be involved in any trade. $47 million expiring. Big expiring.

They're playing the Suns after we taped this tonight in Phoenix. Probably a loss. Home and home with the Spurs. Pacers at home. Oh, I'm sorry. That's not a home and home. That's two straight games in San Antonio.

Pacers in LA. That's a nice team to play when things aren't going well, the Spurs. I mean, that team might be one of the more garbage-y teams I've seen in recent memory, the way they're playing right now. They've somehow managed to cobble together six wins, but they're 1-9 in their last 10. If you watch them play, it's very hard to think that team could ever really win any games.

They're a very bad team with a bunch of players who are, I guess they're tanking, obviously, but they don't seem to have any real plan for what they're doing other than just, let's get a season over with and hope we get lucky with some lottery balls. So that's a good, nice little two-gamer for the Lakers. And then they're home for Indiana and home for Portland, who's already banged up.

So they might get out of this three and two, next five, which would put them at eight and 12, kind of lingering. Then LeBron can come back hey, man, if we do this extension, we promise to go trade some assets. He even mentioned he did the Manning Brothers rip-off thing last week on Thursday night, and they joked about, well, Rodgers, if you have that guy, you got to do everything you can to put more talent around him. And they were like, ha-ha. I think they'll get more stuff.

It is funny, though. Like, if they did a Chicago trade and they got two of their good players and you put them with Davis the way he's playing right now and LeBron the way we know he can still play even at an old age, they'll linger. You could talk yourself into that. I personally wouldn't do it. I think

it's insane. But when they were 2-10, there was nothing to talk themselves into. That looked like they were going to be the worst team in the league or one of the worst. Yeah, they just don't really... I mean, LeBron's amazing, obviously, but I find it hard to believe that this

team, no matter what deals they could construct, would be competing for a championship in modern basketball, just with the way they're constructed in terms of... They don't have enough shooting. So even the guys you mentioned, they're not shooters. Lujan Pichandolo isn't going to help them shoot. And so the way the pace and space modern NBA has gone, for the most part, you mentioned, they're not shooters. Luja Pichendoros can't help them shoot.

And so the way the pace and space modern NBA has gone for the most part, it's tough to have LeBron at his age and then AD who's not a floor spacer and is surrounded with other guys who can't shoot. You need to really think that through how they want to play going forward.

They're kind of screwed, unfortunately. I would say they're screwed. Unless... Unless Davis just goes on a bender. That would be the only kind of variable that... If he plays... If he shoots like 70% effective field goal percentage

for three weeks straight, that's like the... That was a mirage. I'm pretty sure... that... happened again. That was a mirage. I'm pretty sure that happened again. I'm talking about the bubble Davis, right? The one they ran the championship run.

He shot some absurd percentage. If you look at his shooting percentage outside of that bubble year, in the bubble, it hasn't been fantastic. We're going to take a break and come back with the other Desperate team. Hey, you know it's holiday week.

You know, you have Fandle new customers, $125 in free bets. That's what they get guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. I've been messing around with the same game parlay for the Patriots. You can do the adjusted line to plus four and a half. You can do the over for Ramondre Stevenson passing yards and then the over for KJ Osborne passing yards. And it's like plus 430. Go check it out. I think that's a good one. FanDuel now live in Maryland. Congratulations, Joe House. Get in on the action now with great offers, boosts and more. download the FanDuel Sportsbook app

it's safe, secure super easy to use plus when you bet at NFL same game parlay from now through November 28th all customers can get up to $100

in free bets win or lose best of all you'll get paid your winnings instantly so don't miss your chance to get $125 in free bets

win or lose when you join FanDuel with promo code BS, make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. You must be 21 plus in select states. First online real money wager, only $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable free bets that expire 14 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers,

host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. Last desperate team in the West. Desperate by, I don't mean desperate, desperate. I more mean like you have this great asset in Curry who's having the best individual season of anyone in the league. You're under 500. You have some assets you can move. They have Wiseman, Moody, Kaminga, Patrick Baldwin, maybe somebody's interested in him. They probably have to use Clay or Draymond in any bigger deal. Wiseman makes 9.6 this year.

Moody 3.7, Kaminga 5.7. That's not really going to get you to a major guy. From a pick standpoint, they own their own first this year, which so they can pick swap because they are protected first to Memphis next year, which is top four protected, which I didn't realize. That's a curry and you're away from being a dangerous pick. It's top one protected in 25, unprotected in 26, and then

they own all their picks from 27 to 29. This is a team that clearly needs to do something. So what is it? I don't know. Their starting lineup is probably the best starting lineup in basketball. If you look at what the results have been so far, their history... So they have a very, very good starting five. And that doesn't include Poole, right? So that's like with

Looney, Green, Wiggins, Thompson, Curry. Now the question is, how do they build around that? It doesn't seem like they have any capable backups, the exception of Poole, who's only capable on one end of the floor. So I don't know. Look, I didn't think they would win last year. I thought they made a pretty big blunder in trying to do a dual rebuild slash, but still go for it.

I thought they should have optimized for the current future, but they managed to win a championship without having to get rid of all of their young assets. So that's an accomplishment. But I think it's pretty clear that they lost too many key contributors last year. Going into this year,

they had guys who came off the bench who played good. They don't have those guys anymore. Now they're depending on Wiseman, who's not an NBA player. It's great that he's in the G League. He's just not an NBA player. He's probably the most destructive high-minute player to your team's chances of winning in the last two or three years.

Just based on the data. No, just based on the data. His on-court numbers are destructive. Your chance of winning goes down a large amount when he plays. No, just based on the data. His on-court numbers are destructive. Your chance of winning goes down a large amount when he plays. That's just what the numbers say. I don't know anything about the guy personally. I don't know what his situation is, but he's got

a very, very poor on-off rating. Kaminga doesn't seem like he's really ready to play. Moody doesn't really seem like he's ready to play. I'm not a fan of Baldwin. I'm not a pool guy. Pool is a great offensive player and a liability on the other end. So he's good in a role as a six-man off the bench, whatever.

First man off the bench, six-man player. But yeah, what would I do? I don't know. I guess, again, I would maybe like, is Klay washed? Is he not washed? Every time people say he's washed, he comes back with a big game, had a good run last year in the playoffs. Try to

get some bench help. I would look at around the edges. They picked up DiVincenzo. I think he's a good player. He's very capable. But some of the guys they lost last year, I think, just around the edges are just kind of hurting them a little bit. Well, it feels like

at the very least, they could trade Wiseman for Jakob Pertl, right? Santonio is doing that. That would be like such a, I mean, they could do that, but. Well, I'm just trying to think, you say they need to build their bench, right? With reliable guys. I don't know if they'd want to sell that low on Wiseman,

but as you said, and I, listen, I still own Wiseman stock. I have a couple of basketball cards. I do. I bought some Wiseman stock. I own a couple of stocks trading at right now. What is the market on the buy and sell on Wiseman stock? What is, how do you get paid up when you, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. Wiseman, bigs take a while to develop. He's definitely athletic. No, the on-off is a disaster. Look, when he went to the G League, the stock cratered. I'm not going to lie. It was a rough day with my basketball accountant. The bigger thing to me is,

I actually, I would try to trade for him if I was another team that wasn't going anywhere. Because I just wonder like, was this just the worst possible team for him? It's this high IQ basketball team that plays this specific way. And I just don't know if it's the right team for him. It's this high IQ basketball team that plays this specific way. And I just don't know if it's the right team for him, whether he's talented or not at basketball and is somebody that could be an impact starting center. I just don't think we're ever going to

find out on this particular team. So if I'm seeing San Antonio or pick anybody who sucks, I'm super intrigued by that guy. The draft was two and a half years ago. You know, this free chance. He didn't play really in college. He didn't play a lot of games in college. He got injured. Like, he's still, it's a little, just to be clear,

I'm not saying that he's future most destructive player in basketball. I'm just saying like his current iteration as a player he is now. So yeah, maybe. Would I be buying stock? I don't know. I think there's just a misalignment

and I don't think Golden State is ready to give up on him. And so any team that would want to take him would want him on a flyer and I don't know that they would get fair value for the number two overall pick or whatever it was that he was at the given time they picked him. Well, NBA history says

you end up with the trades like the one Sacramento made with Marvin Bagley where the trade Detroit made with Darko where it's always like you get either one like bench asset back and maybe like a protected number one pick and that's all you're looking at but

in football they're way more cutthroat with this stuff like if a first round pick doesn't work out they'll trade him for a third round pick a year and a half later I think it's tougher in this case when it was a first round pick doesn't work out, they'll trade him for a third round pick a year and a half later. I think it's tougher in this case when it was the number two pick. Mahoney and I talked about this last week on the pod. We didn't mention

Lamello as a possibility. We were just talking about what a weird draft that was. I think they looked at Lamello and I think that interview with him was so bad. It was so hard to assess the New Zealand stuff and they had a point guard already. I think they interview with him was so bad. And it was so hard to assess the New Zealand stuff. And they had a point guard already. I think they were more prone to take Halliburton

over instead of LaMelo. And I think they were worried about taking Halliburton too high. And Wiseman, they were intrigued by. And there was very little game footage of them. They're doing everything during a pandemic. You worked for the Mavs that year during the draft. That was one of the most bizarre drafts we've ever had. There's no March Madness.

There's no way to interview people in person. I'm not making excuses for them, but they might have just really missed the pick. It's possible. Drafting is hard. You're drafting sub-20-year-olds and trying to predict what they'll do in the future. It's pretty difficult. In the best of

situations, it's difficult, let alone a guy who hasn't really played very much. So, yeah. They probably, to be fair, they probably fucked that one up. But it happens. I think they did. Halliburton would have been the ballsy. If they were trading backwards, five picks, but I don't think anyone wanted to trade up.

Yeah, I don't think anyone was really super excited to move up. I mean, even Edwards, people were mocking that pick when it went down because of the interview he gave where he said he doesn't really even like basketball. I don't know if you remember that. He said, I just kind of like football more than basketball. People thought that was hilarious. It's funny because it turned out to be a pretty good draft. If you look at all the players that went down, you had Maxie, Bain, even Devin Bissell is pretty good.

All these guys that went later on. Halliburton. Yeah, Halliburton. But top three, still to be seen. Okay. I think we agree on Golden State. I don't think,

even if they're going to do anything, it won't be in the next two months. And the fact that they're starting five, the numbers are so good with them. And the fact that Curry's having the season, they'll probably try to improve around the fringes before they do anything major. All right. Let's talk about the most fun team to talk about here. What do you do if you're the Utah Jazz? Whether they thought this was a tanking season or not, I don't know. We'll never know.

I mean, they clearly, they got a shitload of stuff for Gobert. I think you and I probably valued somebody like Vanderbilt more than maybe the general public did in that trade. I really liked that guy. And just that they got him for Gobert, I was like, all right, that's interesting. I didn't expect them. I think we went under when we did this just because we thought Danny was going to tank

when we did the over-unders, me, Roussel, and House. It was like, well, they have a plan. They must want to tank. And then you watch them and you watch what happened to Markkinen, who finally found the right team. And they have a bunch of guys who in space can kind of beat people off the dribble. They have a guy they really trust at the end of games. They have great three-point variance. The defense is pretty dicey against certain players, but for the most part, they can get away with it. And they have the most picks really of anybody. Utah has, they have their own pick. They basically have every pick except for one that's owed to OKC,

which is protected from 24 to 25, 26, one to 10. They have three unprotected firsts from Minnesota, three from Cleveland. They have a least favorable first, Houston, Brooklyn, Philly in 2023. They have a pick swap with Cleveland or many in 26, a pick swap with Cleveland in 28, and a pick swap with Minnesota in 29. And they have Vanderbilt and Marketing and Kessler, Jordan Clarkson. They have all these ways they can go. I just don't know if they're going to do anything. I just wonder how long does this last before they look at each other and go, holy shit, we can be a top three seed.

Maybe we should actually get somebody. So I don't know. I don't know. What do you think? I don't think there's any chance they would go that route. Look, the reason they are in the place they're at, I think, is because... People forget the year of COVID, the bubble year before COVID,

they had the best record, I think, in the NBA, certainly in the West. And they were crushing teams in the regular season. And I think... But they didn't have that one star that you needed that could take over a playoff game. You could argue that Gobert also. There wasn't the chemistry between Gobert and Mitchell, but they were crushing teams by a lot. I remember just prior to the shutdown,

they had either the best record in the NBA or one of the best records in the NBA. And they certainly had one of the better point differentials in the NBA. But yeah, I don't think they're pivoting from their plan here. I think they're more likely to get rid of some players that maybe they try to get rid of Conley. Get rid of some players that maybe they try to get rid of Conley, get rid of some players that can maybe pick up some more assets down the road. I think that's what I would do if I were them.

Because even the players that they have, they're a fun team. And they're fantastically well coached. If you look at from their strategy offensively, they show their style of play offensively is very... It illustrates how potent five-out offense is and how cheap code if you have ball handlers and shooters across. So they play a lineup, a five-man lineup, where every single one of the players can handle the ball and shoot and drive. And that's when the Linux out there with Markanen

and then they've got them with three little guys. So, yeah. I don't know. They're a fun team. They could certainly make the playoffs. It's not a fluke that they're doing good is what I'll say. The way they're winning is not fluky at all. They're getting up a high volume of very, very good

open shots. They're getting a ton of threes in transition. They do things that other teams don't do well, like crash, get to the rim. They have some very, very good early offense stuff. They're like

the third highest crashing team in the NBA. You look at that small lineup and you're like, how's that small lineup crashing at the third highest rate? In other words, going after offensive rebounds with Clarkson, Beasley, Conley, playing all these smaller players on the perimeter and not even having

a traditional big and being the third highest crash team in the NBA. That's pretty interesting. But that shows that they're very well coached in some ways. Well, that was my guy, Will well coached in some ways. So, well, that was my guy,

Will Hardy. I was the guy. Yeah. I was a voice crying in the wilderness, upset that they poached Will Hardy. And then all of a sudden we lost our coach, but it turns out our coach is good too. Pretty good too.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, John Schumann of NBA.com. He had a really good stat that over the last 20, 82 game seasons, 192 of the 211 teams that won 12 of their first 20 went on to reach the playoffs. So if the Jazz beat Detroit, they lost last night, they beat Detroit and they go 13 and

seven, that percentage then goes up to 95%. 13-7 and better makes the playoffs. That was pre-play-in. Now we got the play-in. It's hard to play that style of basketball and be an awful team. Especially, not just the style. It's one thing to say,

oh, you just play this style. But the fact that all of those guys can shoot. Mark can shoot. Olenek can shoot. All the guys, even their bigs are shooting, with the exception of the big Kessler that they play. They all can shoot. So it's pretty hard for them not to succeed

to have that kind of an array. Compare their guys who can shoot. The only guy they play a lot of minutes who really can't shoot is Vanderbilt. He's the only non-space guy. And they just plant him in the corners. And he's shot, I think, maybe 10 to 12 threes this year. And he's probably made 50% of them. He's the only non-space guy. They just plant him in the corners and he's shot maybe like 10 to 12 threes this year and he's probably

made 50% of them. He's not shooting. He doesn't shoot any above the break. They're mostly all from the corners. So having that type of style of basketball is a cheat code and it's very difficult. They're very difficult to lose when you have three ball handling small guys and you add in a couple

bigs who can handle the ball as well. And Olenek and Markkinen, it's a, it's fun to watch too. So. I really like Vanderbilt. Well, I was thinking like the guys that might be available,

does Vucevic fit into what you just laid out with what you like about Utah? No, right? No. I'd rather have Olenek. I would, I would, I would certainly rather have Markkinen

and I'd rather have a Lennox, for sure. Just because Lennox is cheaper, he doesn't demand the ball, and he can handle it. See, what they do is, another thing they do is, all five of their guys can initiate the break. If you watch them play,

whoever gets the rebound usually goes. They don't stop and try to get it to the point guard. So because of that, they're scoring at a very, very high rate in transition. And so Vucevic doesn't really fit in that mold. He's not the spacing guy in terms of... He can shoot pick and pop threes, but he's

not going to pump fake and beat someone off the dribble and make a pass. He's not going to do some of the flip stuff that they do with their guards and bigs. So I would say no. How about Gordon Hayward? Is he fit? But why?

What is your... I think they just roll with what they have. And if they make the playoffs, that's cute. And they have all these other swaps they can use. That's not fun. I mean, I guess. They're not... I don't know.

Maybe... Do you think it's that wide open that some of these teams can make one or two moves? In my opinion, it's wide open in the West, but Phoenix is still a very good team. You still got to mess with Luca in the playoffs. If he, if they make the playoffs,

that's a tough out golden state in the playoffs. If they have their five man roster going and they can just make, make one or two moves. I mean, Utah's not there. I don't know. It's fun. They're a fun team,

but they're not there. Yeah. They're not. Their destiny is probably like that 2019 Clipper team that took, I don't know. They're a fun team, but they're not there. Yeah, they're not. Their destiny is probably like that 2019 Clipper team that took the Warriors when KD was playing great, that took the Warriors to six games and Lou Williams had a career year and Gallinari was on there

and they were just super fun to watch. I think Gallinari was on there. I can't remember. No, maybe he wasn't. Carol and Lou Williams and that whole crew. Yeah, you know who I'm talking about. Speaking of Phoenix, so they own all of their first round picks.

They have Cam Johnson, who I don't think they would trade, but he makes 5.9 million and is an asset. They have Crowder, who's just not playing for them. He makes 10. They have Sarich at 9.2 and Craig at 5.1. So if they wanted to patch together and try to get like a 24 million range guy, they could.

Payne makes six, 6.5 million extra, only 2 million guaranteed. So that could get them in the 30s. So they could make a move if they wanted to. I don't think they have enough for a KD trade. I think if KD goes back on the table, it's going to have to be somebody

whipping picks at them. What would you do if you were Phoenix? Anybody intrigue you? Gobert got what he got. That's what ruined all these trades. Gobert getting, Utah getting that much for Gobert. If Gobert is worth that much, how much

is KD worth? Or could you just add KD to a team and now you're a championship contender? So, I don't know. Yeah. What would I do if I was Phoenix? Yeah, that would be... That's a team that could win, for sure. They need probably... I mean, you're always worried about Chris Paul's health.

A couple pieces away. I don't know. They kind of got... I mean, the Aiton thing was kind of interesting. Is that like a piece you want going forward long-term at that rate? I don't know. I'm not sure what the move is there, if there is one. Tough to trade because he just got an extension.

You can't until, I think, January. I'm not sure when. Yeah, it's like February range. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I think, January. I'm not sure when. Yeah, it's like February range. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I would just keep going. They're good. I mean, look, they've changed the way they play a little bit this year too.

They're another team that's decided that offensive rebounds are worth something all of a sudden. And so they've increased their crash rate by like, I don't know, 30% or something. Something ridiculous. So they're one of the top three or four teams in the league in offensive rebound rate. They still take fewer long twos than they have in the past, but they hit a decent clip with

Booker and CP3. They're a fun team. They're a team I wouldn't want to play in the playoffs unless that was Dallas, because it looks like Luka's got those guys in his bag. They're probably the best team in the West, I would say. I have a lot of questions about the Chris Paul piece of it.

Okay, let's hear them. Well, I just think he's old. I don't think that's a hot take. He's old. He's definitely old. And that's why the West is so much fun, because even a team like Phoenix, that I agree with you,

they've looked pretty good, and it looks like out of everybody in the West, they're one of the teams that you know what their identity is. But the Crowder thing's weird and they still need to replace that somehow. I don't trust campaign at all. Like at all. Like at all.

I don't blame you there. And the Chris Paul piece of it, you know, and I know they're going to be super careful with them, but I still don't know what I'm getting. And if I was them, I would want like a Rozier type. Just one more really reliable guard who's been in some big games that- Like a Tyus or something like that.

Yeah, somebody, I want a guard who's been in big games. And if I could turn Crowder into that, a guard who can play point and play two guard and bounce around. That's why Rozier's at like 20 million. He's on that Charlotte team that's a train wreck. And I think you can get the guys from that team. Like him and Hayward, even PJ Washington,

who I think is coming up for a bigger contract. But Rozier is somebody like, that guy's been in big games. And he's not afraid. And I think he would fit in. So that would be what I did if I was them. What would you say about his health, no matter how much they manage Chris Paul's health,

the ridiculous TV deal that they have in the conference finals, whereby every game is played with one day off, including the travel days, has gotten... I mean, if you look at the Western Conference Finals historically, that games four, five, six, and seven

with one day off in between, that's just a tough, tough, tough situation. And it goes all the way back to the Houston Golden State year. It goes all the way back to last year with them. Although that wasn't the Conference Finals, it was just the semis.

But yeah, it's very tough to maintain that health when you're in the conference finals, no matter how much you rest the player going into the year because the grind is just too big. So two more teams that I think are right at the fringe. One of them can't really do anything is Denver. Okay. And I wish they could.

But they owe a protected pick to Charlotte between 23 and 25. I honestly can't remember. They have three trades where they owe, and then they owe a pick to Orlando that's one through five protected between 25 and 27.

And then they owe a pick to OKC that's one through five protected between 27 and 29. And none of those things can... They have to wait. Each one has to wait two years until the last trade. So basically,

there's no way for them to trade their picks. They can do weird kind of conditional pick swap stuff. That's it. Bones Highland is the best kind of cheap asset they have. They're not trading that, too.

That guy has been immense. Yeah, he's good. And they're a fun team. I don't know. It's so interesting because if you take away... I mean, I think they did a pretty poor job this offseason in terms of adding pieces. They...

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sold on DeAndre Jordan as your backup big. And then they don't even really have a small ball five unit that they can play that's playable. Jokic is just so good that you just overcome so much with him.

He's just that good. And as long as he's playing, you have a chance to compete. But the pieces around him... I mean, I like Murray. I like Porter. Health, obviously. But the rest of the... And Highland. But the rest of the team is just very poor. Very poor. Where do you stand on Aaron Gordon? Because

that's a piece, potentially. He's basically $20 million a year for the next four years. I think it's a good contract. I think he's a very good defensive player. I think his thing is his basketball IQ maybe isn't on par with Jokic in terms of as a

fit for the two of them. He doesn't space it particularly well, but he's good because he's one of the few players who you can stick on a one point guard all the way to a five. He can guard all five positions. There's very few players in the NBA that can do that. He's one of them. He does that at a very high level. But offensively, he's suited best

in transition with open space and it's just tough when you're playing with some of the guys that he has to play with. It's not a bad fit, but it's not a spectacular fit. I like Aaron Gordon. He's just capped because he's never going to be a basketball savant in terms of offensive creation or anything. Denver's interesting.

They win all their close games. When they get blown out, if they're down 10, it's over. If they're within whatever in the last five minutes, you even saw it the other day with our guy Bones, they have a way of pulling these games out. I don't know.

I thought they were going to be the one seed before the year. That was my pick for the one seed. You haven't talked about my sneaky exciting team. That's very good for the one seed. You haven't talked about my sneaky, exciting team. That's very good. We're probably getting to them. We have a couple teams left. Let's take one more break. When you ride transit, please be safe.

Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See?

Safe riding sets an example. Yeah. An example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay. Give it up. Give what up? Really? Really really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. Alright, the other Really, really. This message is brought to you by Metrolinx. All right. The other team I had as a contender that's close.

So we did desperate. These are like contenders that might be one away. Memphis, even though they've been banged up, Ja got hurt already. Bain, who's playing awesome, got hurt. But that team has a ton of assets, right? They have Brooks is an expiring 11.4. Green's an expiring at 10.0.

Danny Green is not even playing. So there's 21 right there they can put together. They have all their own firsts. They have that Golden State pick we mentioned earlier, which is one through four protected in 24, top one in 25, unprotected 26. They also have a shitload of assets. I mean, I think Bain, I don't want to say

he's untradeable, but they're not trading him. Zaire Williams, Laravia, Conchar, Santi Aldama, Tillman, they could patch together some massive trade. And I do feel like they should be considered a KD team if KD ever was officially on the table. I think this would be a team out earmark. I noticed a couple of weeks ago, conspiracy bill, noticed KD going out of his way to praise Ja. I just filed it away. No, you can go Google it. KD out of nowhere just had heap praise on Ja. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I'm going to file that away. So this is a team that could put together a pretty big deal

for any type of contract. It would have to just be based around picks. They only have the Golden State pick and their own pick. They can't trade all their picks because they can trade two of them. No, they could do two picks, two pick swaps.

They could put that Golden State pick in there. They could put Zyre Williams in there. They don't really have any, I mean, no one's getting excited over Zyre Williams. Let's be real. besides actual players, they don't really have anything that's exciting

that they, that they would want to give up with the exception of Bane, which you said they're not going to give up. So I think like any team, I don't know. It just depends on what Brooklyn wants, what Brooklyn wants and what their goals are which you said they're not going to give up. I think like any team, I don't know. It just depends on what Brooklyn wants and what their goals are and when people start

bidding, I guess. They're definitely one of the teams that if you went there and they were able to keep Bain and Morant and some of the other guys, but I would say Brooks would have to be in there too. They'd probably have to keep him. Otherwise, they would be very good, obviously.

I'm not super sold on Morant and KD together, but I'm sure they'll make it work. But yeah, that would be fun. Why not? They've just done such a good job drafting. They've probably been the best drafted drafting team in recent memory. They do such a good job drafting. They do such a good job drafting.

They do such a good job on their exhibit, whatever, 25. The players that aren't drafted, that they're able to get and turn those into play like Contra or turn them into players who actually play and contribute a little bit. Their second round picks have been good. Yeah, they're a very sharp team. I could certainly see them competing for a very, very long time as long as that front office remains intact

because they're just very sharp. I don't think this would be the best KD trade, but if they did some version of what the Cleveland trade was for Mitchell with the three firsts, the two pick swaps, Brooks and Green are in there, you get Zaire Williams, you get, I don't know,

Conchar. It's something. That's at least an offer where the Nets are having a meeting about it. But New Orleans and Utah could top that. New Orleans especially could top that offer in five seconds by just putting Ingram on there. What would Utah, what would be the point? I don't see. Well, I'm just saying for people who have the most assets.

New Orleans has a chance. But New Orleans is a weird team too. They can't guard anybody. Let's talk about the team I know you're excited about. Is it Sacramento? No, you just glossed over them. The New Orleans Pelicans. Oh, you want to talk about New Orleans? Okay, let's talk about them. I like New Orleans. I was not to like

about them. I mean, I guess the Zion thing is the injury stuff is obviously the biggest concern, but they're really good. You say their defense isn't that great, and yeah, they're not spectacular defensively. Obviously,

they're giving up. They're not awful defensively. They're in the top... By the way, they're not even that bad defensively. They're in the top 10 in defensive rating, so that's not bad. Yeah, they're just... Look, I like Ingram.

I like CJ McCollum. I love Zion. They have a way to bruise you, which a lot of teams don't. They have a way to space you out as well. They've got good defensive guards. They've got Herb Jones. They've got a ton of picks.

All their picks from 2023, 2029, all this Laker nonsense picks that they have. They got the Bucs pick. Two picks from the Bucs, all this Laker nonsense picks that they have. They got the box pick, uh, two picks from the box. Yeah. This team is stacked.

Hold on. You glossed over the Lakers nonsense pick. They have a pick swap at the Lakers this year and their unprotected picks next year. I didn't mean to gloss over. Those are some jewels. No, I just meant to say it was nonsense that that happened.

I mean, that they basically traded all this for a championship and they luckily won the championship in the bubble. Otherwise, that trade would have been an unmitigated disaster. All the younger players that they gave up, even just the younger guys, if you packaged all those guys together, like Lonzo, Ingram,

who am I missing? Kuzma, although I'm not a huge Kuzma guy. He's not bad, but just those three guys alone for Lonzo Ball, Ingram, those three guys alone. Would you trade Anthony Davis right now if you had those three guys? Maybe you would, but then you're going to throw in all these

picks too. Yeah, interesting. We went big on the over with this team. I've been watching them. To me, I'm with you in this sense that they're only 10-7. There's been some weird stuff, right? Ingram's missed some games.

Williamson's missed some games. I'm not sure they're healthy at all. They started very poorly. Herb Jones missed a couple. McCollum is having a really bad shooting year. Really bad. I don't know if it's a slump or... I don't know if it's a slump or... I don't know. He had one good game near the beginning and for the most part, the stats on him are

really bad. His two-point shots and stuff like that. And by started poorly, I meant they started 4-1. I guess they didn't start that poorly after all. But yeah, all the things he said are true. They haven't had a lot of health.

And they played a... I mean, I look at their schedule here. They played a relatively tough schedule. They played like... I think they played somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 of 9 on the road or something like that at one point for one stretch and held up pretty well during that stretch.

I like them a lot because I just think there's very few teams who have a guy... Count on your hand how many teams could match up with a guy guarding Zion for a seven-game playoff series. I used to think about that back when Shaq played for the Lakers.

The first two games were just Shaq bruising you and trying to take every last little bit of strength and will you have left to compete for the first two or three games. They just pounded the ball into Shaq. It's kind of similar to Zion. I don't know if they match up with a team like Dallas.

That's a lot to ask Maxi Kluba and Dwight Powell. And maybe Reggie Bullock's going to guard him some in the playoff series. Zion's a problem. And then you have Valanciunas to go there too. He's an offensive rebounding machine. He's pretty efficient down there. Then they have the shooting. Ingram is

just a lo-fi version of Durant, but not that lo-fi. Pretty close. Pretty similar games. I like their team a lot. You didn't mention they have multiple glue guys that I absolutely love. My favorite, pretty similar games. I like their team a lot. Well, you didn't mention they have multiple glue guys that I absolutely love. My favorite, Herb Jones. Alvarado has just turned into an awesome role guy

who I think is going to be, who's really turning it, like he's really embraced his full dickness. And I mean that as a compliment. Like he's really owning it now. Last year, he was the precocious rookie, just being bothersome now he's like oh this is actually my gimmick i'm gonna own this and then nance has been um the good version of dance we've seen all different versions of nance so i'm looking at their schedule

they beat golden state by a lot on monday night but golden state rest everybody at san antonio at memphis home okc home toronto at san anton, home Denver, Detroit, Phoenix, Phoenix, back to back. There's a world where they just rip off a streak and everybody goes, oh, New Orleans. I want to see them get stops because I just watched them play the Celtics. My dad and I actually watched it. And we just felt like we could get any bucket we wanted on that team. So they need to fix that part.

Yeah, but like I said, their defensive rating right now, they're in the top 10 defensive rating in the league. So you might have caught them on one night where their defensive rating wasn't great. I mean, they're tied. They got 1.11. There's a handful of teams

that are giving up around 1.11. League average is like 1.13 points per possession. So they're above average defensively. But you know, they've... Yeah, they don't have like... league average is like 1.13 points per possession. So they're above average defensively. But you know, they don't have great... I mean, it just depends on who they're playing.

Obviously, Nance is a very good defender. Zion's not a great defender, but Nance is a very good defender. Herb Jones is a very good defender. Alvarado is really good defending small little guards. But guys like Ingram and McCollum are not good defenders. Zion's not. So it's kind of like a pick. They have guys who are really good on small little guards. But guys like Ingram and McCollum are not good defenders. Zion's not. So it's kind of like a pick. They have guys who are really good on defense and guys

that are really good at offense, but very few that are good on both ends, I guess is what you might say. They gave CJ an extension and ironically, and again, he hasn't shot well this season. He would have been the best trade piece for the upgrade, but I think they want

to commit to him. He's a great guy in the clubhouse, all that stuff. Looking at their assets, we mentioned all the picks. They still have four bucks picks coming. They have Dyson Daniels, who I think, I've been impressed

by the small sample size of them. Rosillo loved that guy. Trey Murphy was another one that I just think, I think he would have real respect in a trade package. So they can put together different things. Jonas might have to be in it 14.7 this year. And then Devante Graham would be the salary they would throw in. He's 11 and a half this year. The problem is if they get rid of Jonas,

they don't really have a center that can really play a ton of minutes. They don't have enough minutes to go around at center with their current roster. I mean, you can't really play Zion at center and expect to defend at all or expect him to hold up. I don't know what the move is.

Yeah, it's tricky. I don't know. It's very tricky. Maybe they wait a year. I do not think this next team will wait a year what's the next team light the beam baby the Sacramento Kings you don't think

they'll win the number one offensive team in the league right now which is amazing because the Celtics were like historically great

five days ago um Sacramento has 2023 and 2027 first but then they owe a weird protective pick to Atlanta for the great Sacramento has 2023 and 2027 firsts, but then they owe a weird protective pick to Atlanta for the great herder trade they made

that kind of ties up the mid-2020s for them. They have, as assets, Barnes expiring, 18.3. Davis, Lynn, and Lyles, that could get them to another 10. They have the Holmes contract. Holmes has kind of fallen out of the rotation. He's 11, 12, 13.

If they really wanted to get Frisky, Murray, and Mitchell, is this a stealth KD team or am I crazy? I don't think you're crazy. All these teams are stealth KD teams, I suppose. Especially if he wants to be moved.

The thing about them is they are clearly shooting out of their minds. Especially Fox. Did you see Fox's stats? Yeah. Fox is like 57%. So they're shooting 1.17 points per shot right now. So every shot goes up as well.

And the EV of those shots, I have calculated just based on our model at like 1.07. Now, could be the players have really, really improved their shooting and eventually the model will catch up. But league average points per shot is 1.07. But then they'll be shooting 1.17 through however many games. There's some shot luck there, for sure. That being said, they play a very, very specific style.

They're very fast with the ball. They make very quick decisions. They do a lot of actions initiated by Sabonis and Fox in the pick and roll, which seems to be working really well, which I was never a huge Sabonis guy. I much preferred Halliburton than Sabonis,

but they seem to be making it work. Yeah, I don't know. They're fun to watch, man. They're not just putting up... Like you mentioned, they're the best offensive team. They're not just putting up fun numbers. They're putting up absurd offensive efficiency numbers. Both them and Boston at 1.20 points per possession. That's

ridiculous. That'll have to come down. The thing about them is they're getting the free throw line a ton as well. They're getting a high number of shots in high value locations. Maybe that will continue, but it's not going to be...

Their shot selection is not going to... Their shot points per shot is not going to continue at the 1.1, whatever. It's just not going to happen. It's impossible. It's like a mathematical uncertainty, unless Curry's taking all your shots. You know what's interesting about this? Barnes isn't even shooting well. He's shooting 27% from three this year.

So, and Mitchell's 33%, but Herter is almost 50% from three. As a team, I thought this was crazy. And I looked like a couple of times because I was like, this can't be right. They're almost a 50-40-80 team percentage percentage wise. 50% field goal, 38% three, 79% free throw. And I don't know when you watch them, it passes the eye test. I think they have a real home court advantage. Their fans are great. It's a top five crowd this year for whatever reason. And that there's a real energy.

And I got to be honest, cause I have their're over so i've been watching all their games um they're nine and six but they really could be like 12 and three they they kind of gave away a couple games early where that brought up the whole dearon fox is he a crunch time guy or not thing and i my feeling was always no but i don't know he's been awesome like really like i i never thought he would hit the point he's hit. And then mock as like this wildcard dude off the bench where like two out of every three games, like he really brings it, you know, hurt or somebody I've always liked. I w I wanted over the summer. I wanted the Celtics trade Grant Williams for him. Now I didn't realize we had Sam Hauser just in the garage waiting to be unleashed. But I think the Kings are for real. I do. I think

the offensively, even though it's not going to be at this level, I think a lot of what they do is sustainable because you mentioned like the Sabonis Fox thing really works. And I think Murray's going to get better as the year goes along. And I think they're good at home. I think that matters. How many teams have a good home court? You watch Miami and Miami's home court is so depressing. I feel like it's counterproductive. You go around the league, like Houston, same thing. Sacramento, those fans are ready to roll. They show up and they're loud. So I don't know. There's an energy with them that I like. I think that the style of play they play in terms of the speed at which they play, not just in transition, but also in the half court, the decisions are very quick.

It kind of reminds me a little bit of the Spurs 2014 or 2015. I forget which year it was. Uh, or no, 2014. Yeah. 14. Yeah.

Um, a little bit, but faster, uh, and a lot quicker in their movements. Yeah. They're fun. I didn't expect,

you know, everyone was, I didn't expect them to be this good, especially when they started out the way they did. But yeah, they've been fun. The beam thing is kind of cool too, where they light the beam up every time they

win a game. I don't know if he's anything about that, but that's kind of cool. And yeah, I'm with you on Herter. I don't even remember Herter playing versus the Sixers in the playoffs when he was with the Hawks that year just going off. It always shocks me that he was available

for what he was available for. It just seemed like to me that was a guy that people were underrating for whatever reason because he's like a light... He's a very good shooter. He's not a bad defender at all. He can handle the ball and he has a very quick release and he moves good without the ball. So, yeah.

Well, and as you know, the good shooters tend to even get better as they hit their mid-20s, late-20s, right? They tend to mature into even more reliable shooters, the three-point guys. Yeah, they work on their craft and they add things like better off-ball movement, better shooting off the move, that sort of thing.

Like there's a lot of guys who just take standstill threes and hit them. And then there's the guys who are ripping off screens and hitting. Those are the guys that are the real shooting problems because they create all kinds of havoc defensively. I really like this team. And what's really, really, really fascinating about them

is that Barnes spot they can improve. And that's probably the easiest spot in the league from a trade target standpoint to just go after a better version of Barnes. Now, Barnes, I think they really value as a chemistry guy. Maybe they don't want to do anything. But if the Nets hit rock bottom with KD and it's like, make your best offer,

and it's like, here's some picks, here's Keegan Murray, here's the Barnes expiring, we could take a bad contract bat, that might be it if nobody else gets involved. I want to see Sacramento make moves. I want to see them add one more fun guy to this team, but I really like this roster. We were raving about them. We all had them as a lock over when we did our over-under podcast because we were all like,

we like all the guys in this team. It just makes sense that this would be a good team. All right. We hit everybody except, well, Clippers are kind of screwed. They still owe picks out. They have, you know, they could patch together. They have a bunch of guys

making between like 16 and 40 million a year. Not a lot of picks. They don't really have any assets. I think they're kind of stuck with the team they have in this weird Kawhi situation. I didn't go last night, but my friend Mike Tolan did.

He got to see Kawhi from the fourth row and was left a little lacking. He was like, it's going to be a long haul with Kawhi. Kawhi got hurt a year and a half ago and we're not even remotely close to him being Kawhi yet. Yeah.

They're an interesting team because they just have a bunch of similar style of players. They remind me of the Portland Trailblazers back when they were competing for the Western Conference finals. They just had way too many guys. And the coach is just sitting there like, okay, do I go with Rasheed Wallace or Steve Smith?

Do I go with Pippen bringing the ball up or do I go with David Stoudemire or do I play Greg Anthony? It's kind of like that. They just have too many pieces of these... You can never have too many wing defenders, but they might have too many wing defenders. Yeah.

Maybe they can make a trade and pick up a decent guard who can actually create some offense for someone other than himself. Walls may be that guy every now and then, but then Wall will also have two or three possessions where he just gifts the other team two points on a turnover that he throws

at 10 yards behind a guy and it's a layup the other way. He plays at a speed that the rest of the team isn't really accustomed to playing at yet. So, I don't know. They're on paper, possibly. If you said on paper, they might be the best team in the West on paper, but then you look at their roster and you roster and like these are just a bunch of guys who on paper

is one thing but the way they play together is another thing i don't like the too many guys thing it's noticeable when you go there's always five guys who are kind of like i should be out there yeah like it seems that way yeah it's it's it's definitely hard to get continuity and um unless you have a great group of guys, it's difficult for guys, especially in the NBA, who don't play and are watching other people play in their place. It's really tough to swallow that. So they have Norm Powell, Covington, Morris, Kawhi, PG. Those guys all play relatively similar roles. Well, not similar roles, but they play similar positions on defense at least. By the way, just to put a bow on that, I think they can't even think about doing anything until they see where Kawhi

is eight weeks from now. To me, they're a pause button team. They're hoping and praying Kawhi comes back and then you figure it out. Portland's the last one. Portland's already starting to fade a little bit. They've had some injuries. They own six of their next seven firsts.

They have one protected first to Chicago that's lottery protected basically all the way through 2028. So whatever year they make the playoffs, that pick just goes to Chicago. Then they have all their picks they have Jeremy Grant is an expiring 20.9 and

Winslow 4.1 they could get the Simon saying I don't think this team does anything I think they they probably wait and see it would be my

guess with that said this is another stealth Durant team because Simon's I think could be the centerpiece of a Durant trade and you could do

Simons, Grant and some first round picks pretty quickly and be at least in the conversation. Maybe, yeah. I would like to see Durant and Lillard play together. I'd like to see Lillard play with someone capable who doesn't, aside from McCollum, he really hasn't played with anyone capable.

So that would be fun. I like Lillard a lot. I think he's a guy that in the playoffs just takes it. He's one of the players who can perform at a very, very high level. Seems to have another gear. Can we see him play for three weeks in a row, you think? Or is that too much to ask for?

Yeah, he's definitely been stung a little bit by the injury bug. But also, I look at that team and I look at I don't really know what they're I guess they're going for right now, just based on some of the moves they've made. Yeah. Grant, etc. Below Grant and expiring. I don't

know. It's yeah, the issue I have with them is that it's very difficult to play Simons and Lillard together. It's almost like the same thing playing McCollum. Only Simons is much worse defensively than McCollum was, in my opinion. Maybe he's a better shooter, pure shooter, I don't know, or scorer. But I also don't think they're particularly well coached when I watch them play. And I thought that last year as well. So that is interesting to think about. The level of talent you have as the head coach and then

also on the coaching staff, that's really underrated, I think, in the NBA. But you can kind of notice it just based on decisions teams are making game to game, who they're choosing to exploit, what their plan of attack is, what weaknesses they're trying to curve up. Their end of game strategy is pretty bad also.

So yeah, I'm not big on Portland. I think even if they got Durant, I don't see it being enough for them to be one of the better teams in the NBA, but I could be wrong. I don't know. I did say earlier that

you add Durant to any team and they're a title contender, so maybe this would be the proof of that. How many times do you think they've been behind by double digits this year? How many games? Nine. The answer is 12.

Oh, wow. I always think that's a bad sign. If you're just falling behind over and over again, and they had some end-of-the-game luck, especially twice early in the season against the Suns and the Lakers. Then they had that

other crazy win in Phoenix. They kind of pulled three wins out of their butt. Now they're 10-7. They also could easily be 7-10. And I think that's one of the teams that falls out. I'm trying to figure out what eight teams fall out or what eight teams stay. And I think this is the hardest year ever

to try to guess this. My guess would be Portland falls out. I think the Lakers probably fall out. I think Sacramento might stick around. I don't know whether I'm too bullish on them, but the way the league is this year where it's all about, can you just keep up night after night? Can you score points? As weird as that sounds, can you just get your points in every night? Because we have all these guys missing games, guys missing weeks. I like the teams that can just continue to put up offense

during the regular season. I think what we're noticing in all underlying theme in all of these conversations that we're having with teams that are performing good and teams that are not performing good is the teams that have shooting in this day and age, like the Pacers, for instance, teams that just

have shooting. That's all they have is shooting. You look at Sacramento, they've got Herter, they've got Monk. Monk can't defend. He's not a good defender, but guess what? He's a very good shooter. Fox is shooting at a really, really high level. They got a bunch of guys who can shoot. And then you have...

Why wouldn't they hang around? Anytime you can shoot the ball that well, and you play a style that emphasizes shooting threes. You had teams that couldn't shoot and didn't shoot threes. And you had teams that shot a lot of threes. You have teams right now that shoot a lot of threes, but can't really shoot, like the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City and San Antonio.

But then you have teams that can shoot a lot of threes and actually make the threes. And those teams are just tough to beat on any given night. And they're also hot in the playoff series because you can get hot in a playoff series. And so spreading the floor out and having guys who can shoot is just such a... It sounds like such a simple thing, but it's really underrated even now in this modern day

where people know that the three-point shot is like a cheat code. Indiana is a good example of that. We all thought Indiana was going to suck, and they just fire threes. What do they shoot? Like over 40% of their shots are threes at this point? Maybe even higher than that?

I think it's... Yeah, I think it's even higher. It's got to be way higher. I mean, league average is 38%. Yeah, they're like in the 40s. Yeah, 46%. Like Indiana, 46%. It's like the top five teams, Boston, Dallas, Goldens. Yeah, 46%. Indiana, 46%. The top five teams, Boston, Dallas, Golden State,

Indiana, Sacramento, Utah, Milwaukee. Those are the top teams in terms of three-point rate. And then you look at the dinosaurs and you have... It's kind of interesting. You have Atlanta at the bottom, which is weird because you wouldn't think Atlanta would have that low of a three-point rate with Trae Young,

but they do. New Orleans, Chicago, Lakers, Denver, Charlotte, those are the teams that are all at the very bottom of three-point attempt rate. You can be very good in the NBA just by taking a large amount of threes and having guys who can hit them at a competent level. Yeah, I said this last week. Verno and House and I were arguing about Miami, and I was like, I think Miami, I think it's over.

I don't think they fit in with the way the league is right now. Their guards don't fit in. I think they're too slow. We're already watching them play like zone and as like a gimmick, basically, that's become kind of how they play defense most of the time. And I just, I don't think they fit in with this season. I want guards. I want spacing.

I want, I want to attack. And I think the best teams, like that's what I'm watching with the Celtics every night. They always have it spread out. The ball's really moving. Tatum, who finally started missing some shots the last couple of games, but he's still been able to move the ball around. And it's just like guys get good shots.

They play with a certain pace. It seems like pace is more important than average. You see some of the pace stats? How it's like two points higher than usual just across the board? I don't know that it's that much higher. So I look at time to half court and then time from...

Yeah, I don't think it's that much higher. It's definitely... Or point and a half, something like that? Point and a half is a lot. The average possession is 14.5 seconds right now. So if you were to somehow shave 0.5 seconds off of that, that would be a lot.

I get where you're coming from. It is faster, but I don't think it's as fast as some... I'm not really... I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I don't think it's as... It's faster, but not that much faster. Does that make sense? I think that goofy rule, get rid of the ability to foul people on

fast breaks. I think... I noticed, I talked about this last week, it feels like the flow just feels better in these games this year, at least for now. Maybe I'm sure they'll find a way to screw it up. There were some teams that were really, really good at exploiting that. Every turnover was an automatic foul. Turn the ball over, foul.

And so it really slowed the game down. And then all the clear path nonsense. Yeah, I'm with you. That's probably having somewhat of an impact as well. The other thing is, all these young guys that come into the league, they just they've been playing this way their whole careers now, right? Because this is like

the Curry Effect starts basically 2012-2013 range. So anyone coming like the Curry effect starts basically 2012, 2013 range. So anyone coming in the league now is they're 20, 21, 22. They're playing this when they're 13. This is how you play. So they're coming in now and they've kind of mastered that style that you watch a guy like Matherin and he's

just like, that's how he plays. It's condition. Before we go, tell us about your Spanish soccer team. Before we go, we're sneaking this in at the end of the... No. I'm just kidding. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it's very exciting for me. So I bought a Spanish football team in the summer. Third division team in Spain. For those people unfamiliar with how Spanish football and football in general works, European sports in general work, there's a promotion and relegation aspect. You're a third division team, but you're not a third division team for life. You can move up, you can move down. We're currently in the

third division. The goal is to try to get up to the first division in six to seven years, I think is our goal. The first division for us would be La Liga playing against Barcelona, Real Madrid. That would be the goal. That would be very cool for us would be La Liga playing against Barcelona, Real Madrid. That would be the goal. And that would be very cool.

And that would be a very fortunate thing to happen. It wouldn't be... It's not a guarantee, but it's something that I think is a realistic goal. Yeah, it's been fun, man. I mean, look, I have always wanted to own a franchise of some sort. And the promotion and relegation aspect of this made it really, really attractive because we were able to buy almost a distressed asset.

In some ways, the team was flirting with bankruptcy when I bought it. It's a team that's 100 years old. So this is the 100th season. So it's the centenary. That was exciting. Fast forward, we're about a quarter of the way through the season and we're first in our group.

That was fun. A fun little first little bit of the season. It's interesting because all of our decisions in terms of what players to sign have been data-based, have been based on data. And I'm a huge believer in that as I'm sure people may have gathered. And I think a lot of people think that that stuff doesn't work. And I obviously believe that it does. And so that's not to say we discount the human component of the sport because we don't. I just discount our ability to predict it accurately, I think. But I do know that there's a way to evaluate players from a pure statistical standpoint. In soccer? In all sports.

Certainly in basketball. You could do this in basketball and have a very successful team as well. Basketball is just different because no matter how much... Everybody knows who the best players in basketball are. That's the thing that people don't realize. It's not that analytics is a failure.

It's just like analytics tells you that LeBron, Luka, these guys, KD, these are the best players in basketball. Of course, how do you get them? And so, and in the NBA, it's like 20% of your five guys are on the court and you have the best player in the world. You're just going to be great no matter what. We talked about Dallas

surrounding Luka with a bunch of... We don't even know who their second best player is. Football is different because you have more guys playing. Soccer. We're going to use soccer. It's different because you have more guys playing and one player doesn't have that big of an outsized impact. And so there's lots of decisions around the edges you can make to strategize.

And so it's funny. I bought the team in July. We had to cancel some of our preseason games because we didn't even have enough players under contract. Wow. Yeah. And I got very lucky. I'm working with some people who really helped us with our modeling and player evaluation. And so to make a long story short, we turned over around 70% of the roster in 30 days. So that means players who are under contract, we basically paid

to cut their contract, sign new players. We bought some players from other teams in our division who we deemed to be high value and we were able to buy them out of their contracts. It's been a lot of fun. And the one thing I didn't realize

is how much more soccer translates to my style of thinking more. It's a much more strategic geometric game. Like basketball is simple. Like five out spacing was solved a long time ago. Five out, you know, space the floor. Like every day,

a coach Carlisle would ask me, Oh, what are we doing differently? What can we do better offensively? Oh, space the floor. Um, soccer is a little bit more nuanced than that. There's all

kinds of little patterns you can create up and down the pitch. It's been fun. I get to live out my analytic... I don't want to say fantasy, but just my thoughts on, okay, this is how I want to run a franchise. These are the people I want to surround

myself with. We all have the same DNA in terms of how we operate. And let's try to make good decisions. And that's kind of what we do. It's been fun. So as part of when you don't have to give all the secret sauce, but as part of it, like... I don't have a secret sauce, but yeah, go ahead. Well, but it's like part of it, like these three players, if we put the right wing with the right back and a right mid and those three would mesh really well together because they all do these specific things together. Yeah, that might

be part of it. I think we're not even at that point yet where we're thinking about that because this league was brand new to me. These players are brand new to me. I didn't really I just, they were all, you know, they're just a bunch of, we just looked at how we rated them like percentage wide. So, okay, these are the positions we need to fill.

Left back, right back, whatever. Who are the best available players based on our model? This guy maybe is top 10% of the league at his position. Oh, can we get him? Well, he's under contract. Well, can we offer to buy him? That sort of stuff is what we did. And so, yeah, that's part of it for sure. Then I think you get more

into the nuance of how players play well with each other. And I think that's something that we'll need to solve for eventually, but we're not quite at that point. We just want to get... The one thing I think that people in that market are like, oh, this is a super team because they spent so much money to acquire players. That's not true at all. Our salary is about league average in terms of what we're spending. We just were able to sign a bunch of players this season that we thought were undervalued

relative to what they were getting paid. Well, it's like Billy Bean with the Oakland A's 20 years ago, right? When he's just like, well, this guy's undervalued and this guy, and because nobody else in the league's doing it, you have these inefficiency things. Or the NBA in the late 2000s was like that too, I think. Yeah, that's probably exactly where it's at. There's still some inefficiencies strategically that are very, very, there's very, very few of them in the NBA. They're still there, but there's very few of them. They're getting there. But we're at, I think,

especially in the Spanish market, not to disparage the Spanish market, but they haven't really necessarily gotten to the point where they really embraced data or strategy or analytics like they have in England. If you look at how the average Premier League team plays versus how the average Spanish team plays, they're playing entirely different sports.

And I think part of that is because there's been more of an emphasis on foreign investment in the Premier League geared towards finding every small edge that you can mine. One of the sharpest teams in the world is Liverpool. And they were owned by private equity guys came in there and bought them. And so they've embraced analytics. They spend a lot. Arsenal's another team that now has been spending a lot on analytics.

There's just a lot of different... It's fun too because you have... There's so many things you can glean. When I was working for the Mavs, we would just... Anytime I was unsure of what to do, I would just... Strategically, I would just... Okay, what are the Raptors and the Bucks doing? Let's

see what they're doing in this scenario. How are they guarding the sky? Because you just copy from them. And in football, you have way more opportunity to do that because you have Scandinavian leagues, you have the Danish league, Danish teams are doing certain things. You have the Premier League, you have then the national teams, then you have some other... There's all kinds of stuff you can glean from. And there's a ton of data as well that you can get. So it's been a lot of fun. I've really been enjoying it. And the people have been great.

The people at Stan, the people in the team, the team itself is a lot of fun. And then the people who support the team are great. The community is great. So it's been really rewarding so far. So the goal is top four in this third division, and then you get to move up to the second division because you made the top four?

What is the number? So there's two. So the third division is made up of 40 teams, two groups of 20. If you finish first in your group, you automatically get promoted. So top one in each group automatically gets promoted. We're currently tied for first in our group.

So that's good. And then two through five in each group, group one and group two of the third division play up at 18 playoff where two other teams get promoted. Ooh, there's all kinds of weird rules. Like I didn't realize this, but the playoff, the way the playoff, think of how crazy this is. The way the playoff works is you play a home and away versus that team. And then if it's tied after like, in other words,

the aggregate goals in both games is tied after however many extra time of the second game, you'd think, oh, they go to shootouts or something like that. Nope. They go by who had the higher ranking in the regular season. So if you're the second place team and you play the fifth place team and you're just tied in aggregate after two games, you just win. So imagine the game theory behind that where

a draw is a win for you, but the other team has to beat you by one. That type of stuff is interesting. And then... I kind of like that. I don't like it. It makes the lower seed really have to be aggressive by 30 minutes of the game, right?

It certainly rewards the 38 games that you've played prior to that. But even the way they do the points is funny. A draw is worse. Think about this. If you went undefeated in soccer and you didn't lose a single game, but you just tied every game,

you would get relegated. So that just shows you a tie is useless. And this is something I'm having a lot of trouble communicating to our coaching staff. It's not great that we have all these ties. Basically, we bought the team, we lost our first game, and then went undefeated for 10 games.

But we had some handful of draws in there. And it's like, you really want to play a high-variance style because you get three points for a win and one point for a draw. And so that's a massive... Forget about a three-point shot versus a two-point shot. Three to one, that's a massive 300% increase. It's massive. So it really rewards

people who are risk takers and aggressive. And that's kind of been my nature in life anyways. Um, and so I like that it's kind of silly, but as long as you understand the rules and that, hey, we should be going for wins. It rewards the teams that are more aggressive. So that part's fun. What was your best move? Um, second, no, I'm just kidding's fun. What was your best move? Um, second, no, I'm just kidding. Uh, what was the best move? You know, we, we, uh, I don't think that it's like, I've said this, I said this to a friend of mine, like, he's like, oh, what's your, like, what's your philosophy or what's your, see, I'm like, my secret sauce has like been exploiting lots of small edges. And I think our best moves have just been lots of small moves around the edges. Nothing spectacular.

But there's no awesome player that you put or somebody that you just kind of stole that became... I'm trying to think of the NBA parallel. I mean, I don't know. It's hard because, look, there's like 23 guys on the team. I think the last thing any one player wants to hear

is that this other guy is like... Was their best move. Yeah, that's fine. Look at you. You're like a good owner now. You... Was their best move. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, you know what I mean? Look at you. You're like a good owner now. You know how to answer questions. No, I'll be fair.

Really, honestly, we picked up a couple... I would say we signed four players that we were like, man, if we can just get one of these guys, that would be great. They were all rated top 5% to 7% we thought in the league by the people that are assisting us and our own methods of evaluating players. And we ended up getting all four of them. And so that was cool.

But we have a pretty balanced squad, I guess you'd say. Alright, so what's the team's name? CD Castellon. Is it on ESPN Plus or any of these weird streaming services or no? No, it's on something called insports.tv, but you can follow them on social media

at CD Castellon, C-A-S-T-E-L. Or you can just follow me and just see I retweet this nonsense all the time. So, but yeah, the team, you can follow them. You can watch the games. They're all streamed. The thing I was really shocked by is how good the quality of play was I was like oh third

division Spanish soccer how great can this be because my goal was to buy a second division team and get them up to first division but the second division teams I wanted to buy couldn't they were just not transactable so we pivoted to this team at the last minute and I was kind of like this is even better in some ways right because you can get them up to second division,

hopefully, and then you're right where you were wanting to be anyway. Exactly. Yeah. You lose money in the third division, but you make money in the second division and you print in the first division. This is all very exciting. I'm not going to ask you about everything that's going on in crypto. We can do that the next time.

Yeah, I'm out of crypto. Yeah, I appreciate that. Crypto's been fun. I mean, look, crypto, this is what crypto does. People are just kind of like to the day four years ago was the last collapse almost. Or in other words, every four years, there's like a...

But this has been especially different because it's been... The word contagion has been used a lot. So yeah, I appreciate you not asking. It's been, it hasn't been fun from that, from anyone who's been involved. Any crypto believers

are not feeling particularly great right now. Do you feel like you were wrong about crypto or do you feel like something was exploited that you didn't foresee? I mean,

nobody thought this was, I never thought it would be a straight line up. If you don't go from, like, let's talk about Bitcoin. You don't go from zero, something being worth zero to being worth a trillion dollars in a smooth straight line. It doesn't work that way. And I don't think this is the one interesting thing about this, and maybe this might go over some of your audience's head and they maybe have already tuned out at this point. But this isn't really a crypto failure. The cryptocurrencies and the decentralized exchanges have all functioned as

normal. What this is, is centralized entities that have created these massive, for lack of a better word, Ponzi's in crypto. And that's been the failure. FTX collapsing wasn't Bitcoin or Ethereum collapsing. It was a bank or an exchange deciding to steal their customers' funds to gamble on crypto and fund democratic causes or political causes and fund lavish lifestyle. And that's what's happened in the FTX case. The other case was, prior collapse was, again, I mean, the only real crypto collapse was, you could argue the Luna collapse was a crypto collapse. That was a stable coin, or excuse me, a coin that was tied to a stable coin. That was a crypto collapse. Everything else has been human beings building businesses around crypto and fucking over their users.

And so that's the part that's a little bit. So to answer your question, I didn't expect Bitcoin was going to go from zero. I got into Bitcoin when it was at $100, so around $100. I didn't expect it was going to go from $100,000 to $60,000 in a straight line. It went from under $1,000, $200 to $17,000, then back down to $3,000 all within a year.

And this time it went from $,000 sub 10,000. Well, really, prior to COVID, right when COVID hit, it was at 4k. So it went from 4k to 70k in a year, mostly because of macroeconomic, Fed printing millions and trillions and trillions of dollars, and everything economy booming, tech stocks, people were trading, remember the G&B thing and people were on their phones and there's just like a massive bubble. And then people got greedy, people took on more leverage and it collapsed. And so it's now trading about in the range of its lows for each cycle. So there's probably some more

stuff that could bring it a little bit lower. But I don't know, to me, Bitcoin and Ethereum are pretty decent buys. If you missed out, just be prepared that you have to maintain the volatility of it. I'm too old for the volatility at this point. That's the one thing I realized.

I'm just like, this was all cool when I was in my 30s, late 30s, but I'm like, I'm old now. I can't be embracing 80% volatility day to day. That's not fun for me. So I'm a little bit subdued when it comes to that sort of stuff. All right, last question.

Did the poker lady cheat or not? Did the poker lady cheat or not? I don't know, man. I really don't know. Anyone who has an opinion either way, like a strong opinion either way, is just not... That's not how uncertain things...

I have no idea. Do I think she... I will say this. Do I think she misread her hand? I don't know how much you followed. Do I think she misread her hand and thought she had jacked three? I do not think that.

Now, I don't have any proof of that, but just based on observing how she interacted with people afterwards and the stories she told, etc. The poker lady, I forgot about the poker lady thing. That was my fault. Poker lady? What an incredible internet deep dive that was for like 10 days. That was fun for a minute.

I would go back to that over determining where the FTX billions and billions of dollars went. Because that's not as exciting, not as fun to talk about. So, yeah. All right. Good luck with your Spanish team. I'll be following.

Good to see you as always. See you too. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Bob. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing.

And I will be back. I think we're going to put the third podcast of the week up Wednesday night because we have some million dollar picks going up for trying to get the Thanksgiving picks in. So there'll be one more for me Wednesday and then you can just enjoy all of those. Don't forget about the rewatchables. Prestige TV, White Lotus.

Me and Joanna will be recapping episodes four and five special guest Mallory Rubin we had to bring her in because it is a very very sexual fifth episode so the queen of

ribald sexuality Mallory Rubin had to join us and then and then actually on Prestige Sex Lives and College Girls which is an excellent show

Juliette Jodi and my daughter are breaking down episodes three and four. So stay tuned for that. That's going to be Thursday. And that's it.

I will see you on this podcast, probably late Wednesday night, early Thursday morning for the third episode. Until then. On the wayside, never once said I don't have feelings within. On the wayside, never once said I don't have feelings within.