The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Pacers Survive (Again!), Game 7 Thoughts, the Lakers Sale and KD Rumors 9.0 With Zach Lowe and Rob Mahoney

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Zach Lowe and Rob Mahoney to react to the Pacers pushing OKC to a Game 7 in the NBA Finals (2:01). Then, they preview Game 7 and discuss what the Thunder needs to do to win the championship before looking back at previous Game 7 Finals (23:31). Finally, they catch up on the Buss family selling the majority of their stake in the Lakers, the Kevin Durant trade rumors, and much more (56:22). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Zach Lowe and Rob Mahoney Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is presented by State Farm®. Dishing the assists you need off the court. State Farm® with the Assist. Get started today at HubSpot.com/AI The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. We are also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where I put up a new rewatchable. It's actually on Tuesday night. We did Marathon Man because we're doing New York City Month. Marathon Man, awesome movie with Dustin Hoffman and Sir Lawrence Olivier. That is up. You can watch that on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. Monday, we're doing Die Hard with a Vengeance, the third Die Hard movie in 1995, Bruce Willis, Sam Jackson, also a New York movie. It is the 30th anniversary of that movie too, this summer. So that's going to be a really fun one. It's going to be me and Van Lathan and Chris Ryan. And you can watch that as a video podcast on Spotify as well. You can watch this as

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Coverage options are selected by the customer availability and the eligibility vary by state. All right. We're live on YouTube. It's the Bill Simmons podcast. Zach Lowe is here. Rob Mahoney is there. It's the first time for the three of us together. It's a little, it's a little new, almost like OKC playing defense today where it looked like they'd never played defense before.

Zach, what, what was your big takeaway? Cause I don't understand what OKC was doing in this game with the tournament, the trophy, everything sitting two and a half hours away. And it was a no show. Uh, two big takeaways. Number one, the Pazers are awesome. I didn't see this coming. I thought OKC was going to clinch it today. It wouldn't have surprised me if OKC won rather easily in Indiana is like, no, we don't go out like that. Cav strain, whatever Tyrese Halliburton,

perfect balance between kind of being an off-ball decoy and then taking the reins when it made sense and just TJ McConnell doing T, got a McConnell, another McConnell. Uh, and they're just awesome. Second takeaway. Okay. See played like a team that knew what was at stake and was a little bit nervous. And I thought Shay forced it really like forced it early, some bad turnover, some bad

shot just weren't, they were just skittish and not in a rhythm. And you know what? It is the biggest game that any of them have ever played. And it looked like the biggest game that any of them ever played. They lost this game because their offense was miserable and Indiana won the turnover battle and they had no assists and no threes. Same formula for losing a lot of these games for them. Yeah. If their offense was terrible, it's because the Pacers made it terrible. And if

Oklahoma City didn't show up, it's because the Pacers frankly rescinded their invitation in this game. I think we talk a lot about the connectivity of the Pacers on offense, but I think this is just one of the most connected teams, period, that we've seen. Certainly this season, even relative to the Thunder, which is really saying something, but even in recent memory, like other teams have had more talent that have been incredibly connected. The Pacers are really talented. They're really capable. They're really smart. And they just figure out how to dominate a game like this on defense of all things.

End of the first half, Indy's up 22. OKC is one for 11 from three. They have three assists. They have zero steals. That's where I bring up the why didn't they show up thing because Zach, we were at game four and Dort and Caruso just put their imprint all over that game from the get-go and especially in the second half and Dort was such a beast and neither of those guys were there at all in the game today. When you take that out and Indy, Indy had some room to run. I guess the bigger question for me is where they rope adoped a little bit by this Halliburton injury situation.

It almost seemed like they were surprised that he had that in them, which I, which I didn't really understand. They weren't, they weren't attacking him. Like the game we went to game four, Zach, where they were picking them up full court and really trying to like, you know, bully them around, take them out of the game. It was almost like they didn't understand how he was doing what he was doing, which was kind of how I felt because by the time we got to this game, it seemed like he was going to be rolled out in a wheelchair and, uh, and was just going to limp around.

It wasn't like that at all. Yeah. Weird game across the board, right? Like the stakes, the pressure, the championship on the line for you, and not necessarily on the line, you have another chance, but it's there. It's sitting there. You know they're bringing in the champagne

and they're gonna have the plastic wrap over the locker. And you also know the best player on their team is injured to some degree, and is he gonna play? Is he not gonna play? How well is he gonna play? Is he gonna change the way that he plays? I thought they went at him a little bit. Uh, when Indiana was on defense in the first half had a couple successful possessions, I would just do it every single time.

Um, I, I thought they, they, you know, they poked around here and there with some interesting matchups and poked at different places, but I don't think they poked at him enough. But look, I mean, Indiana played awesome. This was an awesome defensive performance from a team that has gelled in to a really good defensive team And look Oklahoma City got its blowout win in game two This is the first real Pacers blowout win the first the biggest lead of the series was 12 they announced that on the first half of the broadcast and the series is now like

Pretty even I think the final margin going into game seven is Oklahoma city plus five over six games. Like it's a pretty, it's, they were up, it was plus 24 coming into tonight. They won by 19. So if my math is right, it's plus five. Like it, it's a pretty even series. And again, my takeaway, just as it was after game one is Indiana is just awesome. Something about the way they play, like the on paper gap might be, oh, they're plus four net rating

versus plus 13 net rating versus plus eight net rating. Whatever that gap is, their style of play shrinks it down to a minimal amount. They're just an awesome, awesome team. I think part of the reason for that, I was thinking about it during this game, is who would I want to coach a game like this more than Rick Carlisle? And it's the combination of when your star is injured, we've seen him coach incredible

runs with other teams, with guys at and out of the lineup. It's operating at a perceived talent deficit. It's operating against the best defense we've seen in modern NBA history. I just think that Rick Carlisle modulates better than any other coach out there. And he understands all of the trade-offs in the game better than almost anyone else. We saw it like with Andrew Nemhardt in this one, kind of scaling back his defensive pressure.

He plays huge on offense. And he had to be, like he had to be that big for them to be great. And they were able to pull that off because like I think Carlisle coaches everything on a sliding scale. Like nothing is too precious to change. And at the same time, they're able to adjust things in very controlled ways without giving

up who they are and giving up what the identity of the Pacers has been. With all that said, be honest, when OKC went up 8-2, 10-2, I think it was 10-2, wasn't it? 10-2 in Indie call timeout. And it was like, oh man, this is going to be sad. I really liked this Cindy team. And then all of a sudden, Nemo Heart had eight straight. TJ McConnell came in and had, did he have a full McConnell, Zach?

What if like, if, if McConnell were a free agent coming off this series, like $30 million, you could see some team like Brooklyn would be like, you know what, forget Giannis, we're throwing the max at TJ McConnell. This is crazy what he's doing. So NBA university, which is a very good Twitter account, he tweeted this and I have no idea if it was a joke or not. He asked if Brunson was used like Jalen Brunson

and an offense revolved around him the same way the next dude, you did the Jalen Brunson offense. Would it be a good offense? And I was like, I don't know if you're joking or not, but I'm going down the road. I'm thinking about this. He did TJ McConnell's shot diet is unlike anything in the NBA. Nobody takes these shots where he's like, you go under a screen because that's what you're supposed

to do. And he just dribbles and meanders and he takes eight foot, like full on jump shots, like eight feet from the rim, two hands on the ball, two feet off the ground, like with every burst of energy I can, he gets it and goes in like every time. Fallaways, he has those, he has the three point shot that takes two seconds to unleash. What a breakout star, but I mean,

we've, anyone who watches league pass and watches basketball, we've all liked them. Sure. It's always a question of, it felt like he was another guy on this Pacers team who was available for like three years, but not totally. And nobody went and got him. I remember arguing two years ago that the Spurs should have gotten him for the first year of Wembee.

And then it was like combo of, Oh, Indy would never trade him. And then it's like San Antonio can do better than, like nobody was happy with the trade idea. Him and then Nemhart, Rob. There's no other player in the league like Nemhart at this point that I can think of. Unbelievable. Yeah, his ability to raise his game in exactly these moments,

obviously throughout the playoffs, we've seen him just be a totally different player every time he gets to the postseason. But they needed both of those guys to do a lot of ball handling, a lot of creation. Like TJ McConnell has to not just take those crazy, improbable, like high vaulting shots, but he had just stir shit up constantly on offense

so that Halliburton could be a decoy, so that Halliburton could be, at some points, like more of a catch and shoot player. And I think the only reason any of that works, cause you have these other two ball handling guards just sitting there and you can scale up their minutes, you can scale up their responsibility. And I think Nemhardt in particular,

one thing he never gets enough credit for, he's such a great low risk ball handler. Like he just does not make a lot of stupid mistakes. He does not make a lot of crazy audacious passes, although he did throw a beauty, no look and transition to Miles Turner in this game, which is about as flashy as Andrew Nemhard gets and I salute it Those guys are absolutely essential in a game like this and they're gonna be absolutely essential again in game seven even with Tyrese Halliburton

Having a couple of days and a couple of icy hot patches and however many you know ad bill he can take between now And then I gotta do my thing right now I gotta do the thing that I do every Every Pacers game, every Pacers podcast. How many minutes are we in now? We haven't said his name yet. We haven't said his name yet. Nine minutes in. Pascal Siakam.

Just doing everything for this team. 16, 13, three assists, defended J-Dub a little bit, which we hadn't seen much in the series, defends anybody you need him to defend, got out and transitioned early in the game and kind of forced his way into the game and forced the Pacers into the league. This is what we do after every game. It's like Halliburton, McConnell, the best one game it's Mather and then it were 25 minutes.

It's like, Oh yeah, was he the best player on the Pacers again today? Maybe arguably, I don't know, but we just, we never lead with him and he's just always there humming in the background doing stuff. And especially in the first quarter, there was a couple of moments in that first quarter that looked a little rocky for them and he was like, I got this guys. It's funny. You mentioned Matheran. I'm not positive he played in the first half.

He did. He came in, I think. He come in for like a split second. Cause in the fourth quarter, when he came back in, I checked the stats and he had played six minutes. I thought you meant spiritually, you weren't sure if he had played in the first half. No, no, no. He literally played, I don't know, less than 10 minutes, but this was a guy who was the

star of the game in game three. But this is like a classic example, Rob, of how fucking weird this Pacers team is. This Pacers team has 15 playoff wins. This will be the 20th game seven that we've ever had and only four road teams have ever won a game seven. And they now have a chance to be the fifth. Yeah, if there was gonna be a fifth, I would think it would probably look a lot like these Indiana Pacers.

And they would do similarly improbable shit and they would do things like, for example, dominate a game in which they shoot 41% from the field. And if they just kind of hummed along and they wrecked this thing on defense, they have every single thing that they need somehow. I think one of the joys for me in watching this team grow and evolve and become who they are is like seeing the situational awareness of guys like Ben Matherin, like Aaron Neesmith, like Miles Turner, just like tick up and up and up and up.

And it's not that they don't make mistakes, but like Aaron Neesmith and Miles Turner are not huge passers. They're not pass first players. They certainly were not profiled that way for previous teams, whether in Indiana or otherwise. And yet you put them in this system for long enough and they just become a part of that DNA

and they just start making really smart decisions. And the Pacers are a team that does not make sense in so many different ways, including the fact that their offense, so many players running into the same spaces on the floor in a way that should not work for anybody else. And yet it's Pascal Siaka making a dump off pass to Neesmith at just the right time

that it becomes an and one. I don't know how else to explain them other than you have to see it to believe it. Well, and then you're getting, I mean, a pretty abominable shooting series from Turner, Zach. I don't know if, I don't know. He was one for nine today in the two Indiana games, games three and four. I think he was five for 20. So that means he was six for 29 in the three home games. That makes no sense at all. I felt like all his shots were open for the most part. Ocase he was happy to take them. And yet I thought he had some really big defensive moments in this game and was weirdly impactful, even though he couldn't shoot.

We blocked Shet on the three and I just thought Indiana's scramble rotations when they needed to get out in rotation were just on the money. They did not miss rotations. They were on time. They closed out. They closed out like to the level of the feet when they needed to, they closed out short when they needed to. They ran guys off the line when they needed to just a dialed in performance.

And like miles Turner and OB Toppin are like on the seesaw. Like one, it's like even Steven one plays bad. The other goes like five or seven from three or whatever. It will be top and second leading scorer in the game today. We'll be topping first leading scorer in the game MVP Shea Gilder Alexander led all scores with 21 points did not feel like it I mean he got a couple little burst of momentum when they got in the ball at the nail eight turnovers for SGA if you watched him back a

for SGA. If you watched them back, a couple of them were passes that you could assign like 60% of turnover to him and 40% of turnover to the guy on the other end of the pass. But just, I just didn't like his game for the most part today. I don't feel like he played a controlled like championship level guy. I thought JDub outplayed him in the first half and looked like the steadier of the two frankly. Yeah, I thought JDub was okay. Shea as you said, it just didn't feel like that kind of Shea game that you would want in the moment like this. And then there just wasn't any connective tissue. Like all the stuff that rounds out the Thunder offense, whether it's like a great Chet game or a good bench game or a good three point shooting game or any of that transition offense, none of it was there. But yeah, credit to Miles Turner, who I thought like just had Chet straight up in hell on

some of these possessions. And then also the Pacers Smalls, who Chet just could not exploit really at all in this game. He was missing, missing jumpers. He was missing dunks, could not make an imprint on it really in any, in any fashion at all. He's got to find some way. It doesn't have to be with scoring, but he has to be more of a force than this. Yeah.

I don't know if his contract run has been helped or hurt. Probably like slightly hurt, but on the other hand, like I think he's been a winning basketball player for a lot of stretches. Unbelievable defensive player. Even the baskets they got on him on switches today were like, he made those pretty tough looks. Like Nemhard had the one where he had to take the ball to the other side of the rim and loft it high off the glass. He was a great defensive player. Didn't have it on offense today.

Well, I don't know what relative of conspiracy build this is. Oh boy. And I got to come up with a name for it. There was two kind of non-basketball things going on with this three day rest between game five and game six. One was just a lot of smoke being blown toward OKC, which sometimes over 72 hours and then you're up, you got one more game. The best guy in the other team's hurt. You can get,

you can get a little comfortable, right? I almost feel like they would have been better off if this game was just Wednesday, the three day break and just being like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ties hurt. But like, we just, we just played defense. It's, we'll be fine. There's that one thing. And then, um, I remember somebody with the Celtics mentioned this to me last year,

by the way, it was 15 minutes for about the Celtics. Siakam beat the Celtics. Yeah, Siakam beat the Celtics. Uh, they were up up three nothing in Dallas. Game four, if they win, like, what are we doing if we win? Where's the party going to be? And you start like planning stuff. And it's not just the players, but it's the organization and teams can deny it.

They can say it's not a real thing, but I'm positive it's a thing. Cause I was in Dallas watching it happen. Your brain just started, like I think with the Celtics last year, their plan was to go to Miami after the game to do all the trophy stuff and then jet to Miami. And they had a setup and it's like, your mind drifts like a tiny bit. And all of a sudden your focus is off. And I don't know the OKC seemed to me like a team today that the focus was off from this team that was just a team of piranha.

They were not piranha today. No. And I don't think, I mean, honestly, Indiana can win game seven in OKC if OKC plays defense like that again. They can. Again, I thought the offense was, and the pain inflicted by the Pacers defense

was almost as big, if not bigger, of a story to me than Oklahoma City's shortcomings on defense. But a question I would ask you to as we dig into that very thing is, if you look back at this game, before you watch this game, the how of like, how did, in the actual non-garbage, the first three quarters, the non-garbage quarters, I think the Pacers had like five turnovers or six turnovers total. So as you watch that game, it's now 20 minutes into the rear view. How did they manage to protect the ball so well

against this defense? Like what were they doing or not doing to like, it's not like Oklahoma City is not trying to get turnovers, not swarming at the rim. Like what did they do to do that? I think, so it was almost, I think 30 minutes of game time before the Thunder had their first steal.

Like, even those minimal turnovers were all dead ball side out, like taking all the momentum out of the possession. I think a big part of it, and some of Indiana's most successful stretches in the series, have been obviously the kind of freewheeling way that they like to execute, wears down all kinds of teams, mixes things up for all kinds of teams.

The moments where they've kind of simplified and attacked in some straighter lines, and they are one of the most dedicated teams in terms of like feeding their bigs against smalls, for example, when Pascal or Turner get that seal inside, they are looking for those guys. But it applies in lots of different ways to attack. I think there's a way in which making Tyrese Halliburton the decoy and running some more traditional kind of basic action, weird as that sounds, against the defense as ferocious as Oklahoma City, kind of simplified things in a way that simplified the reads that they were making and led to fewer of those like, I'm just caught and don't have anywhere to pass

possessions that they were so guilty of in game five. So I agree with everything Rob just said. And I was writing this down over and over again in my notes as the game was going on there, okay, so he just wasn't pressuring them the same way. They weren't meeting them up at half court. Like they were especially in the second half of game four. And then I thought the first half of game five, where they were basically making them start the offense 35 feet from the basket. And that just, Indiana was starting the offense wherever they wanted in this game.

It never ever, the pressure was never an issue in this game. I wonder how much of that was, they got called for a lot of early fouls. And I wonder how much of that was like, they just started kind of pulling back a little bit, whether it was to avoid foul trouble or whatever you had to. Yeah. And ultimately it just kind of facilitated the flow of the game for the Pacers. My, we said that after game four, right? When we were talking about, or whatever you had to. And ultimately it just kind of facilitated the flow of the game for the Pacers. We said that after game four, right?

When we were talking about, once Dort and Caruso were getting away with the physicality, the game flipped once they realized that it was basically a football game. It was not a football game today. Caruso, by the way, in improbable minus 33 while he was on the floor, J-Tub minus 40. The Thunder just don't ever have that happen to them.

My answer to answer my own question. I thought they were like very smartly selective on throwing entry passes. Like, oh, Kason Wallace is fronting Pascal Siakam. You know what, we're just not like, let's pull it back out. They threw a few, but I thought that like, they were like much more cautious and just saying, this is like a 50 50 chance. They're going to steal this. Let's just reset the office, do something different.

Yep. That's a really good point. Cause we talked about this a couple of games ago when SGA or, or Wallace was on somebody in the paint, like a bigger guy and they would rope Indiana and throw in the entry pass and every time they would tip it or jump around. And, uh, and today we didn't see those passes. So that might've been part of it. I still feel like I promise you Dagnall. It was a pretty quiet guy.

I don't know if either of you have a feel for him, but I, he, he, he'll go nuts when he watches the defense tomorrow. It's like, this is just not who we are guys. We're going to win the title. We got to take it. Why are you making a face for it? I really think it was the offense more. Like, this was the worst Thunder offensive game.

That's not me hyperbolizing. That is the by the numbers, their worst offensive game of the entire season. Like, that's what the data says in terms of their efficiency in this game. And now some of that is coming from the other side of the ball, they're obviously bleeding into one another. And like you're not getting the free points

if you're not forcing turnovers in exactly the way we've been talking about. But they have to be better in the half court too. Like they have to find ways ultimately to score against this Pacers defense. And like you gotta give Andrew Nembhardt a ton of credit for that. You have to give the rotations as Zach was talking about pinpoint really precise

execution. Like that is that's what it takes to win finals games like this. And I thought they were just more on that level than the Thunder were. You know what the answer might be? It might have been their offense and their defense because they were down by 30 after the quarter. When you get down by 30, it's your offense, your defense, the other team playing awesome. That's how you get a 30 point blowout in the NBA finals. But they're, they're getting what 20 extra points a game off steals and. You know, all that, that I do feel like that would get them going.

I feel like Dort, Dort and Caruso to me are the engines of this team because they always know for the most part in the vicinity of what they're going to get from SGA and then Jaylen Williams has just gotten better as the playoffs went along his minus 40 today notwithstanding not to mention three days of Scottie Pippen comparisons including on this podcast after game 5 Scottie's like hey guys settle down let's have them let's have them win one first but as we head to game 7 I'm trying to figure out what OKC would have learned from this game from an off, from how do we fix the offensive side standpoint,

Zach, because SGA had a couple where he drove left and he kind of got swallowed up, which I haven't seen many times this year where he, you know, he didn't get the push off stuff. He didn't get his at the rim stuff. It was weird. So that's going to be a little mini battle is that the Pacers have toggled on and off throughout the series. We are going to double Shea when he gets to that spot on the left side of the floor.

Today they toggled it on and Oklahoma City with the exception of like one decent Aaron Wiggins kick out three, which he missed, did not look ready for it. They threw like, Shay threw passes late, like that got stolen. They just did not look prepared for it. And knowing Rick Carlisle, he might toggle it to like half off to start game seven, knowing that they're going to be looking for it. But just like more broadly, Bill, you and I have talked about this throughout the season.

It does make me a little nervous that we're in game seven of the NBA finals and it still doesn't feel like Mark Dagnall, through an old fault of his own, through fault of injuries and personnel choices, doesn't quite have a feel for like who should play with whom and for how long. So we start the series with Wallace for Hartenstein. We go back to Hartenstein and Holmgren. We start the second half today again with Caruso for Hardenstein. We get little dollops of like no big men at all, but only when we're down by 20 and the game is hopeless.

The Wallace version of the starting lineup, which is plus like a lot for the playoffs, I don't know if they even saw the floor at all today. It makes me a little uneasy that the Pacers are like, it's a little Mather in here, shepherd here, but for the most part, the Pacers know exactly who they're going to play and when. And we've been talking about all year and it hasn't mattered because they're just so goddamn good and their defense is so goddamn good. I just, I'm fast.

Like I don't, who's going to start for them in game seven, who's going to start second half for them in game seven? Who's going to be like Isaiah Joe got unearthed again today, but only cause they were down by 30, just makes me a little uneasy. That's all. Yeah. They did a little zone with an Isaiah Joe lineup. What was that in the third quarter?

Which it's like, I just feel like, okay, so you should never have to play zone. It's one of the better defensive teams we've seen, but that it felt like they were, uh, I don't know, with desperate. It's a good point though. I, I, you know, we didn't understand why they went away from the two bigs. Oh, we lost. We lost.

We can do it. We can carry it without Rob. That was Rob. That was Rob's impression of Oklahoma city zone defense. It popped up for one, popped up for one position, gone after that. Rob got hit by James Johnson. I heard one negative thing about Kacen Wallace. I'm like, I'm getting the fuck out of here.

I cannot stand this. So I'm with you that that lineup, that pit bull lineup, they would play with Kacen Wallace, like the numbers were actually pretty good for them. But we also didn't understand why they didn't start the two bigs when that had worked all year, they went back to that, but now they suddenly went away from that lineup that was plus a lot. So I don't know. I wonder if you had to guess, would they start two bigs in this game, seven

robber, would they go with the smaller lineup that they started with in a couple of the other games? I'm tempted to say if the Crusoe stint had gone better in the second half today, they would have gone to it. But the fact that it came out with no real impact on the game at all, I think might give Mark Dagnall some pause. Ultimately, that is, I think, functionally their best lineup. Like we've seen when Alex Caruso is having a maximized effect on these games. That's the Thunder really at their best. That's their best style.

Caruso, Dort, J-Will, SJ and One Big? I think they might do it. One Big. I think that's, I call that their A lineup, although the numbers are not spectacular. Right. Yeah. All right. We're taking a break for the podcast. We're going to keep going on YouTube. This episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Growing a business, it can feel impossible, but HubSpot's customer platform, I promise, can help you. It's powered by a suite of AI tools called Breeze, so you can generate more leads,

close more deals, and scale your service fast. With Breeze agents handling the busy work, customers are cutting sales cycles in half and saving hours on work each week. Best of all, you can see results in days, not months. Visit hubspot.com slash AI to learn more. I'm just gonna say this, and I didn't bet on, I have OKC series bets, so I didn't realize, I stayed away from the game today for the most part. I thought OKC had solved Indiana, and I thought they were gonna to win tonight pretty convincingly.

And, uh, I'm really surprised how that game turned out. And I guess I shouldn't be the legacy of this Indiana team is don't ever be surprised. Don't ever count us out. Don't ever assume it's over. And yet I just felt like the Halliburton thing, it felt like he was going to try to play limp around, it wasn't going to go well. Uh, and more importantly, I just felt like the Halliburton thing, it felt like he was going to try to play limp around, it wasn't going to go well. Uh, and more importantly, I just felt like, okay, see had unlocked something from the second half of game four on, and then they lost it.

And I don't, I, the only thing I can think of Zach is the rhythm of this finals with this, the fact that we're playing this over the course of 17 days with all these breaks, maybe it's really hard to get a rhythm in this new 2211111 that we have with all of these breaks. I don't know. Like what is the explanation? Well, I'd like to look back. Rob makes a great point about the early fouls.

I was aware of it, but I didn't maybe zero in on it as carefully as I thought, because you know, there, there were two ways the thunder could come out in this game. Way number one was what happened when they were just a little bit skittish and just sort of out of rhythm on offense. Way number two was just like, let's just pedal to the metal, fly on defense, take some risks, just take the force to them to a point that might almost be dangerous for us on some possessions. If a gamble goes wrong or whatever, we fly it, we hit somebody and there's a foul.

I thought they would just, let's just come out and overwhelm them with speed and force. And they didn't, they did not do that. They just, I mean, I don't know why, but again, credit to the Pacers. They played awesome and they took this game and I was with you. I thought with the Halliburton situation, I didn't think Indiana was gonna win the game. What about you, Rob? I thought the same.

I think frankly, the difference in what we saw from Halliburton was meaningful, not just in terms of how they manage those minutes, but how he managed those minutes. Like there was the possession where he gets ched on a pump fake on a three, does a jump pass to Neesmith in the corner. And in game five, that's like end of story

for Tyrese Halliburton. He was not moving well enough. He would have stopped right there. In this game, it turns into a give and go for a layup. And there were so many possessions like that for him where it's like he's continuing to play through whatever consecutive action Indiana is running. And now all of a sudden he is a decoy.

He's not just a standstill shooter. He's someone who's actually changing the flow of play and if he's able to do that that's a meaningful thing. But now that the Thunder are prepared for that how do they come into a potential game seven? I think there's so many weird little psychological elements of this like all the skittishness we're talking about for the Thunder. How skittish are they gonna be when their season is on the line too? Like how is that gonna change the way that they play? Are they going to have that force? I expect Indiana, Indiana just plays its game. Like I just expect Indiana to come out and play like Indiana in game seven and just like the

stage is the stage. They just play and it's, they just keep playing. It's why they win these crunch time games. I don't expect them to look any different or any, any, Oklahoma's season have to win the game at home. Hmm. Halburn had a really nice quick trigger three in the second quarter. That was a shot he wasn't taking a lot in these finals where he just had a pick. He had a split second open in a shoot one and he just shot it. And I remember thinking like, it's a pretty good sign. Like if he can at least do that, a couple threes, he got into the paint. Like the Indiana people always talk about the threes, he got into the paint.

Like the Indiana people always talk about the paint touches with him. Watch the paint touches. Can he get in the paint? So he did that. Um, so, okay. See big picture. This will be the second game seven out of four series. They are now 68 and 14 in the, in the regular season, 15, seven in the playoffs, 83 and 21.

So Rob, I know this is sad for you. They're now out of the 20 losses or less club. One of my favorite clubs that I created. I'm heartbroken. Uh, do you have a different arbitrary line you would like to create for them? No, I think this is the right line. Cause this includes the 96 balls, 87 and 13, 17 warriors, 83 and 16, 97 balls, 84 and 17, 86 Souths and 87 Lakers, both 82 and 18.

The 2015 warriors, 83 and 20 and the 2013 heat. Uh, oh no, they're not in there actually. They're out. Sorry. That that's the whole list. Um, and then it goes into the, like the under 80 win teams, like the 83, six, three to 71 bucks, et cetera. But, uh, they are now off that list, much like the Celtics last year got

bounced with, uh, that game for loss in Dallas. So historically, I think we were all struggling to wrap our heads around. Okay. See wins in six. What was this team? Was this a great season? Was it something more was the beginning of something, but now, you know, I get taken a seven by Denver and by Indiana where they're best guys basically on

one leg in the deciding, I don't know. Not great for their, uh, for their legacy. Zach. Look, I did the same basketball reference deep dives I got it all written out on paper right here all this list of teams the great teams of all time just just to have it just to have it ready and you know what I don't care it's in the garbage now the only thing I care about the only record 20 losses 80 wins whatever the only record I care about for the next 72 hours is

3-3 that's all that stuff is gone Now you got to win one game or your season is officially a disappointment That's that's where we are and you lose the championship at home. That's it Well, there's a little more at stake for okay see Rob sure I mean the little the three two lead blowing the 68 14 season and and Losing at home becoming the 15 ever to lose at home in a game seven. It's almost like there's more pressure on them, even though they're the home team.

I think you could read it both ways. And I think all of that is true. I also think if you were to bet which of these teams is more likely to be back in the NBA finals in the near future, I think the Thunder are probably the safer bet. That's no disrespect to the Pacers, but just like the reality of what the Thunder have built

and the way it is constructed to last, it's incredible. They're gonna be good for a long time. We have every expectation of that. I just think in terms of what is actually at stake, all this legacy talk, how we're gonna contextualize them, it's really cool if you can wrap up the finals

in five or six games. Winning a game seven in the NBA finals is pretty fucking cool. And that can submit you in a different kind of immortality than basically anything else can. And so when you're talking about consummate winners and we're talking about what stars do we compare Shea to if the Thunder were to go on to win or Tyrese Halliburton or Pascal Siakam, whoever goes on to win. There just is no bigger feather in a cap than this. All that matters is that you win in the end. All these discussions, it's like you either win or you don't.

And all that matters is you win. It doesn't matter how you do it. It doesn't matter what the margin is. Because it's hard to get one. I mean, it's hard. By any measure, this team is incredibly well positioned to get one. I mean, it's hard. It's like by any measure, this team is incredibly well positioned to get multiple titles. I just think people are writing that even with this team as well set up as they are too casually. Like it's hard to win a

lot of NBA championships. Like people are like, well they could win three, four, five. Like, whoa! Like it's hard to win that many NBA championships. You got to get one. Think about what the 2021 title means to the bucks. Like everything's kind of been disarrayed since then. First round losses, trade rumors, all that. They got one and that validates everything that came before. And it really lessens the pain of everything that comes after. No matter what it is, you got to get one before we start having these historical.

Boston, you know, I was the best shot at, you know, breaking the breaking the no repeat streak was going to be, I think a goal of theirs to really cement their to your point about historical context and not knowing how to place the 60 whatever win Boston team from last year that had this margin, but they didn't feel like the 86 Celtics or whatever. One way to elevate yourself and to stamp that first championship is to repeat, and they talked about how much they wanted to do that. They didn't get out of the second round of the playoffs

and their best player got injured. It's really, really hard. You just gotta win. Everything has to stop until you win one, because one is still really hard to get. Well, one thing about game sevens, at least recent history, and we're going back, if you go post ABA merger, we've had 1978, 84, 88, 94, 05, 2010, 13 and 16. They're usually pretty close games.

They're usually really tense. They're ugly. They're not like tense. They're ugly. Oh yeah. They're not like exceptionally well played. Um, you look up and you're like, Oh my God, is it the fourth quarter yet? And it's like two minutes into the second quarter. There's a weightiness to it. I was lucky enough to go to the 2010 one and the 2013 one.

Were you lucky to be at that one? That's, that's a lucky, I guess you were lucky. I was lucky from a loving basketball. I was absolutely miserable afterwards as the confetti dropped. And our fans are going, that was miserable. But yeah, there's a weight that you can feel in those that I can't really describe. Everybody who's in their seats, everybody who's on, on the benches, everybody who's on the court, they understand like, this is like life altering stuff now that if you win this,

this is the rest of your life. If you lose it, you'll be thinking about it the rest of your life. They usually come down to one or two plays. They usually come down to one random dude on one of the teams, just getting hot or making some shot. Like in 2010, our test just hit that three and that kind of decided the game. Nobody in the arena wanted to take him. He took it. In 2013, did you go to that one, Zach? The game seven?

No, I wasn't there. Which was an awesome game. Everybody remembers the Ray Allen shot, but the next game was, was really great. And Duncan had a little bunny from like five feet to tie the game with like 50 seconds left that he's made his entire life and it didn't go in and he couldn't believe it and they had to foul and he like sunk to the, I'll never forget. You smacked the floor, I think. It's back sunk to the ground, punch the ground. Like he just couldn't believe it didn't go in.

But a lot of times these games come down to that. So I feel like this will be a good game. I don't think this will be, usually in the earlier rounds, it's so-and-so wins by 30. I don't see that happening in this game. What do you think, Rob? I'm in line with that. And to your point about the random role player

or the random guy, this is a Lou Dort, Aaron Neesmith, Alex Caruso, Andrew Nemhardt kind of moment. Wiggins. This is a Wiggins six out of seven from three. Absolutely. And I think by extension, like in games that are that tense with that kind of physicality, they get that ugly,

that's also like a Pascal Siakam kind of moment. Like who is the most adaptable piece on the floor? Who is the guy who can do a little bit of everything? He's been in the finals before. Been in the finals before. Who's the guy you trust with three seconds left on the shot clock to hit a crazy turnaround that he has no business hitting,

just by the nature and the context of the possession? That's Pascal Siakam to me. Like those are the possessions that he manages to turn out through sheer versatility that almost no one else in the series can. Like, JDub has some of that. Obviously, Shay is like an incredible shot maker. Like, they're guys who can hit great shots.

But I will be incredibly shocked if Pascal Siakam does not have exactly that kind of Swiss army knife effect on game seven. Like, that's just who he is, is the impact he's had on these games. I'm going to throw out Matheran again too, who did nothing today and really hasn't done anything since that game three. But I, my guess is Carlisle who's been in situations like this. He'll just, he'll just have like multiple grills on the oven going. And he'll be like, I'm going to throw Matheran in the pan for two minutes here

and just kind of see what happens and what, what has Ben Shepard have going anything and he'll sprinkle guys around until he sees somebody that he likes. Whereas, okay. See, I think Wiggins would be the, uh, you know, especially at home and then the defensive Doran Caruso, I would say would be the other two, but you know, this could also be a situation where like, Shay is just awesome. Jaylen Williams is just awesome. Uh, I love game sevens. It's crazy to me. Can you name the four teams that have won one? On the road?

Yeah. Cavs. Right. Cavs is the most recent one. 2016 Cavs, the Festa Sicili classic. Oh, come on. Six straight points trapped, trapped 25 feet from the basket against one of the greatest course of all time.

Your 1969 Boston Celtics is one. The 74 Celtics in Milwaukee. Coming off Kareem Skyhook in game six, where it seems like they blew the series. Then the fourth one. I'm really trying to get it. Not a lot of buzz for this series. Might've even been tape delayed. The 1978 Bullitt Sonics. Wasn't going to get it. Not a lot of buzz for this series. Might've even been tape delayed. The 1978, uh, bullets, Sonics.

Wasn't going to get it. Classic. Uh, bullets went on the road. Dennis Johnson, 0 for 14. Pre Twitter. So, you know, I don't think he took a huge beating. Seattle comes back the next year, wins the title. Um, and that's it.

Those are the four. We've had some close ones. Like 2013 Spurs came damn close. 2010 Celtics, that was down to the last minute. Uh, that oh five Spurs Pistons game was. Was a rock fight, but was still pretty close. Nobody liked that series. The way we should make an all, we should do an off season project of like re

watching 2005 Pistons Spurs. Like everyone hated it. It went seven. It was super intense. We should do an off season project of rewatching 2005 Piston Spurs. Everyone hated it. It went seven. It was super intense. There's a huge Ori shot in there somewhere. The wrong teams are in the series. I mean, Indiana was the best.

Ironically, our test was in the arena tonight because the Pacers had everyone back, including our test. I guess there's no line anymore for who gets a bite of back because facts are facts. Like he started a huge riot in a game, got suspended for the season and cost them the title. And they're like, Ron, welcome back. Here's Pacers jersey. But I thought the 05 Pacers were the, uh, I thought they were probably the best team that year. And then Miami was really good too. And Wade got hurt. And we just kind of ended up with this piston spurs. Duncan was hurt. Like it was a weird, but it was just one of those years.

Zach, your idea is both a great editorial idea and also Spotify insurance does not cover the mental rewatchable 2005 finals is not, is not going to add. No, it was a rock fight. The horror game was really good though. Um, no, but I think that that was, that was one of those years where we were like, thank God for the sons. At least we get to watch one team run a fast break and do some stuff. Uh, the 94 Rockets next game was another one that was a rock fight.

Um, 88 Lakers Pistons is really fun. 84 Lakers Celtics was, pretty famous game. 88 Lakers Pistons, game seven in LA. Is that the controversial Lambeer foul on Kareem at the end of the game? Is that that game? By controversial, do you mean? Okay, which is easy. I was just teeing you up, okay?

Like an absolute abomination? A slight touch foul on a Kare a cream sky hook to decide the title. Let me tell you, because I've done it, if you bring that up to Joe Dumars, it's like you just be prepared for like 12 minutes of commentary. There's two terrible calls because there's that and then they have the ball, like five seconds left. They inbound it after two free throws. The fans storm the court as the final play is going on where they have a chance to get

a three off and Magic decks Isaiah and they're like, let's get out of here. They just kind of end the game. It's unprecedented. It's unbelievable to watch. Anyway, so 16 Cleveland was the last one. That was the last one in almost 50 years. And that had, you know, LeBron, one of the two best players of all time. Um, that had Curry who was hurt that had Andrew Bogut was out.

Uh, it was an absolute rock fight and it had Kyrie make one of the great final shots in the last minute. Um, and the Warriors still almost won that game. It was a rock fight for everybody but Draymond Green somehow made like a million threes. Yeah, Draymond had like made like a million threes. Yeah, Draymond had like 34. Yeah. Forgot about that.

So yeah, could Indiana be the fifth team ever? I guess what we've learned in the playoffs this year is do not count them out. I just I'm done counting them out. What do you think the line is, Rob? I think it's. You're not a huge gambling guy. I think the Thunder, our favorite for sure. I mean, one thing we have not said, the Thunder at home is a very different enterprise and

that is a home court advantage I do genuinely believe in that it actually does make a tangible difference on the flow of the game. I think they are probably favored by four and a half points. That would be my guess. It's minus eight and a half. I was going to go higher than four and a half. See, no one respects the Pacers, even Vegas. Yeah. Eight and a half.

That's probably the lowest they've been favored. At home. All right. So let's do a morning TV segment, Zach. Why? Who has the most at stake in game seven? The most at stake in game seven? The most at stake? Yeah.

Uh, okay. Okay. I'll take the bait. I'll take the bait. Yeah, I got you. Most at stake in game seven. Yeah. Uh, it's Shea Gilder's Alexander.

It's capping an MVP season with a championship and I think he's probably still the favorite to win finals MVP. And yeah, he'll have other chances, right? But nothing is guaranteed in this life. Nothing is guaranteed in the NBA. No one on the Pacers other than like Rick Carlisle maybe has this sort of like what, what would it like, they're also young in their careers. I guess you could say Halliburton immediately elevates himself into, into, or sets himself up to be

elevated into different kinds of conversations. It's got to be Shea, right? Was there any other answer to this? I think Shea makes sense. I mean, he's in a position if they do win, as far as guys who have won a title and an MVP before they turn 27, that's like a very, very select group of players. That's Bill Waltz, since the merger, Bill Walton, Tim Duncan, Steph, the underachieving Yana Santitucumpo and potentially Shay. Like that's, that is a rare class of player that he could thrust himself in with an achievement like that.

Any nominee, anyone want to name it? Paul George or the Clippers front office? Who's... Paul George rooting for Indiana, right? Paul George's legacy is all over this series. So I have one more name for a What's At Stake. Sam Preston. Sure, it's a good one. It's a good one.

That mean related to what I just said? The best GM of the last 20 years up three, two, he's been, you know, he's been knocking at the door really since 2012 in a bunch of different ways. And this seemed like the year was going to happen. And I do not think he's sleeping tonight would be my guess. What if they lose? It's more that what is the F to gain Like clinching, clinching his place in history. Like it's like if they lose game seven, you'd be like, man, he really messed up this team.

No, yeah, it wouldn't be that, but it would be more like, wow, who's done a better job in basketball over a longer stretch without actually having a payoff with the title. Although we learned from Lebron last week, rings don't matter anymore. Ring culture. Is that what he said? What did he say? Ring culture is stupid. I'm not letting you suck me into any of this. I don't think that's what happened.

So SGA right now is in this. If he wins the title. People who average at least 30 a game. And won the title. And it's not a long list and it includes Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Shaq, Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, Yanis Kobe and Jokic. Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I would say he is the best. 30 a game in the playoffs, right?

30 a game in the playoffs. Okay. Cause I was like, Hakeem 30 points a game. And I had that. Yeah. 30 game in the playoffs. So that's it. Um, there's a slight Jaylen Williams could do a big game. James Worthy in the seventh game.

That's true. And have that kind of, you know, why is that just slight? He just had 40 points. It's a game seven. It's, you know, I'm saying like James worthy had an iconic games, game seven, right? He won the, uh, did he win finals? I maybe I can't remember.

Um, but that's always been the James worthy game. Although I remember it the way Zach did as the, I can't believe they called that fell on Liam beer game and why don't, and it wasn't even fair that people are jumping on the court. So we'll see what happens. Zach, did you care about the Lakers selling for evaluation of $10 billion? Not actually $10 billion. I cared about the Lakers selling.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of tentacles to that and how it could go going forward and the gradual exiting of the bus family from, you know, total control of the team. I think that's, that's very interesting. I don't want to talk about it yet. Can we talk about the finals for two more minutes? Okay.

What else do you have? Give me more final topics. They just updated the stats on MBA.com. I just want to read the offensive ratings for the series. Indiana 109.5, Oklahoma City 110.5. That is about the equivalent of the Utah offense against the new Orleans offense in the regular season. I just want to tip my cap to both defenses because this has been a

defensive series and both of them have stepped up to the plate, including Indiana, like those are pretty stark. Like these offenses have kind of been ground into nubs in this series. Like that's pretty impressive stuff. That's all I wanted I just saw the numbers. I wanted to say that before we talked about the Lakers who Rob who do you think we I don't want to say underestimate in terms of the Pacers defense, but like Maybe weren't categorizing correctly because you look at the Thunder defense Obviously in the regular season the numbers were what they were their success what it was, it drove a 68 win juggernaut season that defense.

And you could look up and down, you know, JDubb second team, all defense, Lou Dort first team, all defense, or at least Worthy. And you know, that's not say nothing about guys like Caruso and Hardenstein who might have made it if they had been healthier. You never really hear any of that with the Pacers. You never really hear it about Andrew Nemhardt or Aaron Neesmith or Miles Turner or Pascal Siakam. And I'm wondering like, what is it that we are missing if it's in terms of individual

talent or is it just the kind of collective play and the way those guys are able to work off of each other? Like what is it that it's been able to elevate their defense in the way that it has? I guess my thought on that would be they try so freaking hard consistently, which I think is like, it was JJ had that quote during the season when they asked him, what did he learn coaching a team? And he's like, the number one thing I've learned is that you have to try really hard and when you don't, it gets really hard.

Like he had one of those quotes like that. It was like, I've learned that over everything else, how important effort is. It sounds stupid, but effort matters the most. In Indiana, for whatever reason, those guys play really, really hard all the time. So, you know, you look at the guys individually, Nemhart's not, he doesn't have a ton of size, right? But he's able to stay with SGA. Like TJ McConnell, you would never think of him

as like a lockdown defender. Toppin certainly has never been accused of being an awesome defensive player. You're going down the line and it doesn't really make sense. I do think Neesmith feels like he's finally moving the way he did before he hurt his ankle in that Knicks series. Cause he had a couple of those threes when you know, and Zach and I know this cause we've watched the highlights on Neesmith Island together.

Um, those threes he hit when he's running full speed stops in the corner with it and just put so much torque on his lower body, but then could still get off these threes and I didn't feel like he was doing that for about two weeks there with his, with his ankle and he seems healthy to me now. There's a statue of that on Neesmith Island, a contested like, like three leaning three. Yeah. Was, was there power on Neesmith Island or were these highlights like shadows on the cave

wall? Like how were you watching them? No, we had a generator. Okay. There's a drive-in theater right in the middle of the island now. You can drive your car up, sit and have a couple of drinks and just watch highlights of Aaron Neesmith. Is there another island we need to start after the success of Neesmith Island?

Is there anybody you had your eye on, Zach? How long you wanted this podcast to be? I mean, like- I don't know. Is there a number one draft pick on Zach? How long you want this podcast to be? I mean, I don't know. Is there a number one draft pick for you? I don't know. I have to, I wasn't prepared for that question. And you think hard about it. I want it like Pacers defense.

Two, three, four of their starting lineup, just rock solid across the board. Maybe not an all defense level player among them, although maybe, but just like rock solid. Haliburton is just amped up his effort to a new level throughout the entire playoffs. Like he's always gonna be the liability, the weak link, but he is just the way he rotates around the floor and contest shots, he's a different guy than he was last season.

And I would love to go and look at schematically exactly what Indiana is doing. Because if you look at like, people have stopped kind of talking about, because the Thunder have been winning games, how low their passes per game numbers are in the series. They've stayed super low, even as the Thunder appear to have taken control of the series. And over and over again, we see these games where they don't move the ball, they don't get assists, they don't generate threes.

And it's like, what is their team and their coaching staff doing? And what are they not doing to continue to coax the thunder into this like trap of mud where they just get nothing easy? And I don't know the answer to that. I do know that this is probably the reason why after all of the talk before the series was, well, Indiana, they'll spring a zone here and there. They've played no zone at all because I think they're just like, all a zone is going to do is give them easy passes all over the floor and space all over the floor.

And as long as they're not doing that against our man to bail, we're just not going to it. But it's much more complicated than that. But they have gummed up Oklahoma city in the same way. Every game to the point that if Oklahoma city doesn't get the 20 points in transition off of turnovers, like this is the kind of results you're going to get. And I would love to go deeper into, I would love to know more about what they're doing basically. Well, I think some of it is what you mentioned earlier, Zach, about the fact

that Rick Carlile can, for example, toggle how much they're doubling Shea. Game to game, moment to moment, quarter to quarter, stretch to stretch, whatever it may end up being. They're just one of those defenses that is not any one thing. And I say that even to mean like, who is their go-to stopper? One series is Aaron Neesmith, because Nemhardt doesn't really have as much of a shot guarding Jalen Brunson. In this series, even despite what you may think of, like who Shea is physically and the defenders

who profile well against him, Nemard's been great. And in some series, it's Siakam. And in some series, like you're just really relying on the help and the rotation of all those guys. And so I think there is an element of, you're never quite sure what to expect from them. You're never quite sure coming into a series between games, do we have it nailed down the way that they are going

to guard this exact action? I don't think anyone does and I think that's a huge part of what makes a bunch of really smart physical intuitive defenders be wildly successful in a run like this. Yeah, Zach's toggle thing. It's actually a football. It's like a cornerback blitz or like a safety but like where you kind of know a blitz is coming Maybe maybe it's not coming. Oh no, it's going to come a lot. Nope.

It's not coming anymore. And that seems like what they're trying to do to SGA and they're sending those late blitzes at them. It's pretty cool to watch. Um, Zach, my broker, I'll call you tomorrow that there's some opportunity on cam Whitmore Island, if he's in the Phoenix trade, I don't know if you're interested, maybe a. Maybe a cabin. I mean, he could average 20 points a game in a snap.

He might not win the middle that much. Rob, let us know if you want to put a little. He was, I want to say the first or second overall pick in our group chat expansion draft exercise this year. A lot of Cam Whitmore fans over on group chat, we believe. Did you want to talk about the Lakers? I rudely swayed the discussion away from the Lakers. Did you, it seemed like you wanted to talk about the Lakers.

Well, it was the most interesting thing that's happened since the last time I've talked to you and I haven't talked to Rob this whole finals. Um, just something that had been rumored for a while. And especially after Mark Walter, about the 27% in 2021, and he had the hammer if they ever tried to sell. And it was like, well, if they ever sell, it's going to be to this guy. And then the Celtic sale sale happens and it's like, Hmm. And there had been some buzz.

Um, and then out of nowhere it happened. And I don't not positive. It was out of nowhere because there had been some, some rumblings, but you know, for what, given the fact that he had the big stake already and then the bus family kept 18%. So he only had to buy another 48% to get that majority stake. So he slapped down the 4.8 billion. It seems like it's 10, but it's half that.

It's still like a crazy amount of money for a team that doesn't own an arena. And I had the same reaction with the Celtics. Like even though I knew the number was going to be the number, I'm still like kind of staggered. They have a lease that goes through Staples Center until 2041. I think the rest of the league, you know, already seeing stuff that being mentioned and written about. The Lakers notoriously really frugal for a team that was the signature franchise in the league. There were millions of stories. They are but a mom and pop franchise, Bill. Yeah. They're being run like the local drug store in millions of stories. They are but a mom and pop franchise, Bill. Yeah. They're being run like the local drug store in Pasadena.

And meanwhile, they're the biggest drug store in America. Um, and, and people are wondering, well, what if that changes? What does that mean? I still feel like they were spending a lot of money, Rob. It's not like they were cheap and out of luxury tax, but it will be interesting to see if what if what this group was able to do with the Dodgers professionalizes the Lakers in the same way, what that's going to mean.

I think it's pretty scary. Yeah. I think they're spending a lot of money and then there's caution to the wind level money. We're just going to try to blow this thing over the top and that can get you, as the Phoenix Suns can attest, into some really deep water sometimes, take you to some really dark places as a franchise. I think there is the Lakers element of the story and then there is the larger, like there is a whole class of NBA owners and governors who are now selling and migrating out of that

business. I think some of that is just those valuation numbers going up and up and up to a point where you just can't say no anymore realistically to something like that. But it's just something that a lot of people are getting out of the MBA owning business that this is the time that they have selected to say Lakers, Celtics, Mavericks, Hornets, who else, who else has sold recently? There's, I mean, the wolves, the skin of a kind of a protracted process. Sons of course.

I've heard this argument and I think if you go case by case, each one actually makes sense individually and doesn't seem like part of a larger trend. Like the Celtics one, Wicks dad wanted to sell and he owned the biggest chunk of the team and he's hitting his nineties and he wanted to get his estate in order. And that was it. They won the title. He wanted out the Mavericks thing was super weird for a bunch of reasons. They had a bunch of organizational stuff going on.

Mark Cuban might want to run for president. Um, I don't know if that was an, I want to get ahead of this whole media rights thing. This is the perfect time. I actually think he probably would have been better off holding on for a year or two more. Timberlip's thing, the guy regretted it. The moment he agreed to the deal was trying to get out of it for three years.

Yeah. The sons, they made Sarver sell. So this is the first one where- What is Portland's in that group too? Although that's been another kind of long gestating process. Yeah, that was like a family. The guy died and left it to the family. I think when you have these, a lot of siblings and a family

and siblings getting older and they start thinking about the estate tax stuff, I think it does change. Like they look at him like, Hey, we can cash in now. We split all the money and there's ways to do it. But Zach, you think going forward with the Dodgers owning the Lakers basically and Luka Donchich in there. This is a pretty safe bet to be a dominant franchise now, I would say for

the next 10 years, because they've proven they can do this with the Dodgers. Well, I mean, people are going to laugh at the idea that, you know, what, what did the, what did the, do the Lakers need more? I mean, they're the Lakers. There's a reason Laker exceptionalism, stars just fall into their lap all the time, like they already had this baked in advantage and the NBA is not baseball. You can't spend on payroll infinitely. Um, there's, there's a cap and a hardish cap. And it's not baseball. You can't spend on payroll infinitely. There's a cap and a hardish cap.

It's not baseball. But you can spend on all the other stuff, which is like something Bomber is doing right now. That's the point. That's the point is all of this stuff that the Lakers have not spent on commensurate with their place in the market, whether it's analytics, scouting, video, all the fancy stuff, it's kind of cute to make fun of that. Like, Oh, is that really going to help the Lakers?

Like the Lakers need help. Is it really going to help on the, on the fringes of the roster? Cause they'll miss on a lot of those moves on the fringes of the roster. But the point is like over time, if you set yourself up to just make better decisions on roster spots, five to 15 over 10, 20, 30 years, you will in the aggregate make better decisions on roster spots five to 15. And that is where all the spending, I think, will matter. And there's just, I think it's super, I think it's super interesting. I just think the Buss family game of Thrones thing is really interesting. I think the Buss, like,

family game of Thrones thing is really interesting. I think the bus like, like Jerry bus, obviously he's been passed away for a while, but that class of owner is, is leaving. And you talked about people getting out of the NBA business. These prices are like, there's only so many people that can even get into the NBA business right now. Even to buy like 5% of these teams is an enormous amount of money. And it just is going to open the door for like like what kind of funds are going to get more involved. They're moving more in that direction because we're just running.

You can only go to Larry Ellison so many times and be like, Hey, you want 8 billion? You want a team? Like there's just not many of those people. Yeah. And it seems, Oh, go ahead, Rob. I was going to say, it feels telling, you know, like the Lakers are in their own classes. We've decided or discussed in terms of what their appeal is to players and what their place is in the league. Like they're a unique case. But we're coming off a week in which Desmond Baines showed up at the

practice facility in Orlando and was like, this isn't what it's like in Memphis. And coming off a week in which there was a clip of De'Jonte Murray going around talking about how he couldn't even get time on the training table in New Orleans. The Pelicans are like a whole separate thing. Totally separate thing. But all of which is to say there is lots of room on the margins to do things that are meaningful to your bottom line as an organization, are meaningful to players, are meaningful to your success as a franchise that are right there. Like spending on training facilities, spending on a practice facility, spending on assistant coaches, spending on

analytics, like all of that stuff is within any owners theoretical grasp if they would care to do it and Everyone pinches penny somewhere and tightens the bell buckle somewhere else But like that stuff is right there for the taking for any owner who wants to do it Yeah, and I think I feel comfortable saying this I think they succeeded the last 20 years despite the ownership situation the Lakers. I also they succeeded the last 20 years, despite the ownership situation, the Lakers. I also think I really do.

I feel like. Well, was it all the litigation and like, well, if LeBron doesn't decide in 2008, you know, 2017 range, I'm going to go to the Lakers. I want to move all my operations there. They're just a mess. Like any other team, they would have had all these weird lottery picks. They would have had to try to figure out how, you know, they pick second three years in a row, then they trade all the rest of their picks for

Anthony Davis, like I feel like they succeeded despite the ownership situation. Now granted, they just made one of the best trades in the history of professional sports, so you can't criticize it too much, but I'm just saying like what the Dodgers have done and what that ownership group has done for that team. If they can figure out how to do something similar in basketball and the same kind of advantages, Zach, I just feel like this is going to be different. A couple of things on what you just said. I think because LeBron went there and then LeBron's agents basically got

Anthony Davis to join him there. Yes. The whole like five or six straight years when they were out of the playoffs and a total disaster and the Nick Young, DeAngelo Russell like thing happened and all of that. The Kobe extension. That was a long time. That was like a Charlotte Hornets, Sacramento Kings stretch

of like, what the hell is going on here? This is like 27, 35 win seasons. Like, and there was no guarantee it would end. And then LeBron came and then AD came. And to my earlier point, they got one. And that's a big deal to get one. They got one. And now they've been handed this life raft

to the post LeBron era in, in Luca. But like, they're going to have one, they got one and now they've been handed this life raft to the post-LeBron era in, in Luca, but like they're going to have to, it's not like the West is no joke. It's, it's not like they're guaranteed a title any, in the next five years, just because they got Luca, they're going to have to work to get it. Um, the other big thing that happened this week, since the last time I saw you, Zach, and we haven't talked about this at all, Rob, is we thought it, Kevin Durant trade would happen by now. By all accounts, the offers are not good. I'm checking my phone just in case every day.

When you see me looking down, I'm just looking for just, just in case. The word on the street is the offers have sucked. And they made the classic mistake of basically what happened with David Griffin last year in New Orleans, right? It's like, can't have this roster anymore. We've got to make some moves. And the rest of the league is like, oh, you got to make some moves, huh? Heard you had to make some moves.

Yeah. Oh, here's my crappy offer. I don't know how this KD thing plays out anymore, Rob. I would assume it's going to be Houston. And I would assume it's maybe it's going to be a shortened version of the, the trades Russel and I were talking about on Sunday, and maybe it's going to be a shortened version of the trades. Russel and I were talking about on Sunday and maybe it's just Jabari Smith and, and Jalen Green and Jalen Green gets rerouted somewhere. And maybe that's the entire trade,

but at some point the price becomes low enough that if you're Phoenix, you might have to go, look, KD, we, we try to trade you. There were no good deals. We're keeping you. I think that's easier said than done though with the Jalen Green aspect of that. Like nesting dolling the Jalen Green trade saga within the Kevin Durant trade saga and trying to find the 13 that's like super high on Jalen Green. Very hard. I think it's quite challenging. And like I can understand, like Houston, for Kevin Durant, I would love to see it. I think it makes a ton of basketball sense.

Granted, you know, the varying levels of agreement within that organization as far as like who is gung-ho about that move and who is more patient about it. I get all of it. I think they have proven defensively and in terms of the core of that team that they are ready to take a step forward,

that they're ready to consolidate some of that talent with exactly a player like Kevin Durant. And so there should be, I think there should be a lot of will on Houston's side to get it done. I understand why they might be like slow playing that market and why Phoenix would be kicking the tires on everyone to the point that like, have we already rounded the corner to Detroit being in this conversation?

Is that a thing yet? Cause I feel like they could be in this conversation if they care to be. I've been banging this drum for two weeks, three weeks. Why not? Come on. Well, there have to be some prize in there other than the Tobias contract. Of course.

Yeah, just a matter of who you like. Are you Ron Holland, Jaden Ivey? I don't know, I still like Jabari. It feels like a great ending. It feels like a great ending for Kevin Durant's sort of strange meandering career post-OKC is like this random franchise that's been kind of in purgatory to bad for quite a long time in this market that doesn't

draw free agents. What if Kevin Durant and Cade Cunningham, and Asar Thompson and Jalen Durin made the finals one year for the Detroit Pistons? It's a perfect ending. What if he saves the American auto industry? I think there's lots of options on the board for us that could be very exciting. The Chrysler Durantula coming in crisis. I'll tell you this, I'd want to be in the East if I was anybody who's, I guess Durant's

already won some rings, so maybe he's looking for basketball hats. You guess he's already won some rings? Well, no, I'm just saying, he doesn't have to chase some other guys. A burner account is going to tweet something just because you said that. I know he's won some rings. Sorry, Kevin Durant. Please don't at me. No, but I think he would, he's probably looking for basketball happiness more than,

I have one more chance. I need my third ring because so and so only has two. I don't think he thinks that way. The most interesting part of the Houston Phoenix negotiations to me, which I assume just comes down to Phoenix identifying two or three things they'd like thrown in and Houston trying to hold on to two of those three things or whatever it is, is the 2027 Suns draft pick. Because in trading for Kevin Durant,

I'm probably making your team worse in the short term, you know, for the next couple of seasons at least, and giving you a puzzle that you've got to build your way out of before that 2027 draft pick comes due. And I'd like to keep it. Like I'd like to keep that pick. And you know, I assume Phoenix is absolutely dead set on getting it back. And I just think that's a, that's a really delicious little piece of like, I don't know,

I would love to be on those phone calls. Well, we're at the point now where it seemed like there were three teams like, like leaving Indiana this weekend, it seemed like it was a three team race. He said he picked his teams. All right, here we go. Now it feels like eight teams might be involved. I'm prepared for anybody. Like you threw Detroit out. I don't think that's, that's crazy. I think they should be. I don't think it's. The Toronto Lurkers lurking around. The Toronto Lurkers, who knows? The Toronto Lurkers, the Toronto Lurkers. Zach, I wish you cared about the draft because the Ace Bailey saga is the other way.

I care. I've been on the phone for all of the last two days. The Ace Bailey saga. This has not really happened since like Amari Stoudamire 20 years ago where somebody's just refusing to work out for teams. Yeah. What level of no show are we talking about? Like are the restaurant reservations made and he's just like not going on the trip and they have to cancel everything? Like how far in the process is he getting?

Daryl Moore is just sitting by himself at a table. Sir, it's been two hours. I don't think your party's showing up. I think Daryl loves this. This is like, oh, this is your challenge. You made a draft. No, I'm going to do this. Think I'm afraid? You think you're scaring me, Ace Billy? Listen, it seems like he has a pretty shaky representation around him.

I'll say that. It seems to be the word in the street. They're doing things a little unconventionally, maybe in the wrong way. Conspiracy Bill's wondering if he's just trying to push himself to Brooklyn at number eight. And trying to. I don't think he's getting there.

Number eight. You don't think he's getting there. I don't think he's getting there. I don't think, you know what, look, Conspiracy Bill, there's a lot of. Custodom Irofelda nine. Conspiracy Bill should be just having a blast with the Ace Bailey thing,

because there's like seven different ace Bailey conspiracies floating around the league and the top 10 teams in the draft. And my net conclusion to putting all the conspiracy theories together and meshing them into a ball is I don't think you would get to eight, but maybe I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, I would guess. Someone in that Pelicans wizards is talking. The wizards have to take him.

They just have to. But, you know, on the other hand, that's the kind of selection that has ruined the wizards slash bullets for the last 40 plus years, but it's interesting. It's, it's a really fun old school, completely hit or completely miss prospect where you could see all these different scenarios for it. But yeah, that's been a talk of the league as well. And it'll also be interesting to see if I think people are expecting, maybe Philly will move backwards a spot or two spots to try to pick up some extra assets, dump a contract.

You know, that Utah, who knows with this stuff on social media, what's true and not true, but that whole moving back two spots with Utah, giving them Paul George, Utah moves up two spots. I just don't know why Utah would want to even move up two spots. So there's the thing. If Ace Bailey has gone from number three pick to where is he gonna get picked?

What is you, and so now the whole three to eight is just shuffle it up. You know, some guys will go higher. I think Trey Johnson's probably climbed a little higher or whatever, but like, if I'm Utah, why am I knowing the draft this year? Jesus. Look at that. If it's, if it's unpredictable, if it's unpredictable and I don't have a grip on

it as a GM, why am I paying a premium to move up if I don't know if the guy I'm paying a premium for might maybe I do it on the clock. I, you know, it could just be an on the clock kind of thing. And that it has to happen that way. You're doing it. If you love edge comb, that's the thing. If you feel like we have to leapfrog somebody to get edge comb, that's when you would do it, but I still think three years of Paul George.

Also putting Paul George in Utah. What if he doesn't want to go? I do think that way. Well, how many times can you relocate the podcast? P studios. It's a, it's like two you hauls. Like, I don't know. We'll see.

We'll see what happens. All right, fellas prediction for game seven. Do you have one yet? Okay. See by a ladder, by a little, or something else. Okay. Okay. See you by a little I'm gonna go okay. See rock fight Close game for three plus quarters and then

Maybe they pull away and went by the seven and nine range sack Okay sees up to with 10 seconds to go Halliburton takes a jump shot and the screen goes to black, like the ending of the Sopranos and I don't know what happens for like the rest of our lives. Just, I don't know, like I know some cataclysmic event occurs and the finals are over. Well, I'll tell you this. If Indiana wins game seven, it will be the first team mentioned when we talk about like

the Hickory High type craziest sports movie type teams that actually won the NBA title. They will be mentioned first. If they win game seven, I'm drinking on the podcast after the game. I will do the podcast with a drink because it'll just be such an incredible start to finish run of crazy finishes and you counted us out and shots that go up to the ceiling and go in. I'm drinking on the podcast if they win. Indiana wins and then they go ratings were the lowest it's ever been for a game

seven. And we have to do that whole thing. It's like, yeah, this was a fucking awesome basketball series. Fuck everybody. I think they, if they do win, they would be probably like the team of my lifetime, to be honest with you in terms of the run that they've been on. Like I, there's nothing like it. There is, there is no comparison. It only happens in baseball. We see it happen in baseball where an offense can just get hot for, you

know, three weeks and one pitcher is pitching well and they're like, oh my God, we just won the world series. Like the 2013 Red Sox were a little bit like that. Um, it never happens in basketball. Nope. I didn't make a real prediction. God, we just won the world series. Like the 2013 Red Sox were a little bit like that. It never happens in basketball. Nope, I didn't make a real prediction. I guess you guys did, so I should make one. I'll just, I'll cop out and go, okay, see when it's a very close game.

That seems to be the most likely of many, many different scenarios, but I'm officially at the stage where like, almost nothing would surprise me about this series. Nothing, no outcome. Do you like my revised final schedule of going Thursday, Saturday, three days off. Game three, Tuesday, game four, Thursday. You had three days off in there somewhere?

Just between game two and game three for the travel. So Sunday, Monday, and then part of Tuesday off. And then you're playing Tuesday night. No, uh, Thursday, and then part of Tuesday off and then you're playing Tuesday night. No, Thursday, Saturday. Yeah. And then we go Tuesday, Thursday, and then we just go Sunday, game five, Tuesday, game six, Thursday, game seven. Let's go. Unless I'm wrong, that's only two days off between games two and three, not three.

Sunday, Thursday, Saturday, and then Tuesday. So Sunday, Monday off. What I'm hearing is this sounds a lot like your podcast schedule. Like you just want to align the NBA finals with your podcast. That would be a great idea. I've been like that more now. I am on team 232 needs to come back. 232 makes the finals. I have a lot of arguments for it. I am pro 232. None of the... You've done this. You're the catalyst for this one. I've been on, I love 232.

And it allows you to have the two days of rest fewer times than happens in 22111. I think you could, I'm going to go through it at a later date, but I love 232, I never have really understood the two big arguments against 232, neither of which is Hollinger wrote about this 15 years ago, there's the argument that, well, it's unfair to the top seed because the top seed should always have game five at home and then it's like, well, it's unfair to the lower seed because it's impossible to win three straight games at home. Well, who is it unfair to?

The answer is it's not really unfair to anybody more or less than the two, two, one, one, one. Two, three, two. Rob? Two, three, two or two, two, one, one, one? I like, I- One, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one. How about we go the other way? I am but a media member,

so I'm always rooting for less travel, especially when as Zach said, there's no real actual reason for it to be 1-1-1 by the end. I like parking in a place. I like laying some roots. Let me hang out in a final city over the course of those three games on the road. I think there's a lot of reason for it. It is true. If it was 2-3-2, we would have gone to all three Indiana games and had a great time.

I like Indiana, I miss that place. Great milkshakes in the Garden Square Arena, whatever that place is called. I heard you compare it to a cocaine bump and I was just like wow. Yeah, if you have a milkshake at 10 o'clock at night, you're basically Vincent Hanna and he's just doing bumps at three in the morning at DJ's in Arborado.

Garden Square Arena is definitely not what the Game Bridge Fieldhouse is called. Just for the record. I like Garden Square Arena. All right. Zach Lo, Rob Mahoney, glad we finally did one of all three of us together. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back on Sunday with another podcast.

Zach, do you know your schedule yet or no? I don't know. It's just going to happen. Your schedule's up in the air, plus TV's a mess with the Prestige TV. Well, we got group chat coming tomorrow morning. I'm gonna go second watch this game, and then we're going right back to it, right back to it with more takes.

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