The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Suggs Game, Bad Lakers Omens, Rookie of the Year Sadness, and Post-Vaccine Life With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss Stanford beating Arizona in the women’s NCAA championship, Jalen Suggs’s dagger 3-point shot to defeat UCLA in the men's Final Four, a great year for college basketball, NCAA changing transfer rules, Gonzaga vs. Baylor, and more (2:50). They also take a hard look at Rookie of the Year candidates, potential playoff seeding for the Lakers, Eastern Conference sleepers, and more (38:10). Finally they discuss Ryen’s trip to Mexico, and more non-sports-related stuff (1:37:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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as well as The Ringer Podcast Network. We have a new Rewatchables going up on Monday night. Lethal Weapon. You might've heard of it. One of the best action movies of the 80s. One of the early icons. We broke it down, me and Chris Ryan. So you got that.

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Johnny Strimsky, New York, New York. That is our new podcast. Speaking of podcasts, coming up, Ryan Russo and I are going to talk about a pretty fun March Madness, as well as some NBA stuff as we head into the stretch run here. It's all next, first, World Chip. All right. Taping this 5.30 Pacific time, Sunday night. Just watched the women's championship. Stanford beat Arizona. And the coach for Stanford hadn't won in 29 years.

I wanted more tears from her. I wanted her to be more upset. But, Rosillo, March Madness. It feels like it's back. I can't tell if it's COVID. I can't tell if it's COVID. I can't tell if we're just desperate for anything. I can't tell if we've been holed up too, too much, but that game last night, that Gonzaga UCLA game felt like a water cooler college basketball game of which there was really not been since the Villanova UNC title game five years ago.

But this is the kind of basketball I grew up with. Huge, awesome, momentous, well-played college basketball games, big stars, stars you could see in the NBA, and then an incredibly dramatic ending. I was fired up. I loved it. I want to start more with the women's tournament because I think I know that you were locked into the final. I want to see Romeo Langford play today, so I'll admit I'm... You were toggling between the Celtics and the Arizona game? I jumped on the Arizona bandwagon because I liked their point guard. She reminded me of Williams. She was like a little Isaiah Thomas against UConn.

She kind of won me over. I was hoping you were going to say she reminded me of you at Holy Cross in your pickup games because I was going to stop the pop. I was just going to be like, all right, we're done. We're done. Way faster. Do you watch it with your daughter? Because I imagine that's kind of the stage.

She's playing a ton of sports. Or are you just doing it by yourself? No. I really like the drama of the women's Final Four. And I was actually ready to come in here if that Gonzaga game was incredible. Just being like, what is happening here with women's college basketball versus men's college basketball? For me personally, just because I like the drama of it.

I like the fact that the players are on the same team for a couple years, that the coaches don't seem to change. There's a stability to it that I feel like with men's college basketball has really gone sideways over the last 10, 15 years, and especially now that we have this transfer rule in, but, but the flip side of that is what's happened with Gonzaga this year, where they have this traditional old school, you know, college team. One of the best players is 22. Uh, they have an awesome freshman recruit is probably one and done,

but, um, going for the undefeated season, the coach that's been there forever. And they're the type of team that I grew up with. Those, you know, those iconic college basketball programs where it just kind of makes sense. Some guys stay for a couple of years, other guys just come and go. Yeah, I definitely think too, this tournament, both of them have been awesome. And to not have it for a year, because it was, we sit here and we look at like the battle for the audience, at least in the United States, right? The battle for the audience and trying to figure out like how it works.

I've always thought the NFL was just going to have multiple games on during the week. And I think at one point it'll probably get there because it just expands the business platform. I think there'll be something maybe five, 10 years from now where it's like, oh, wait, we have Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Like, I just don't think the NFL is ever going to care because in the past it was, oh, you can't have Friday games because of high school football.

You can't have Thursday because it's good. I just don't know that the NFL is ever going to care because in the past it was, oh, you can't have Friday games because of high school football. You can't have Thursday because I just don't know that those guys are ever going to care. And I don't know that anybody running any of these businesses is going to worry about things other than growing there. I mean, it's easy to say the bottom dollar, but just, OK, what's what's our market share? I mean, Goodell's entire salary is based on, hey, revenues will be at this number. Here are these projections. So for baseball, it's been, okay, how do you hang on to this national audience? They're in big time trouble, but they know they still have the local,

the regional stuff. When you dig into all those numbers, you're like, okay, maybe this is who we are. And then we have our playoff moment. And for college basketball, who, you know, I used to split up the week on my NBA, my college viewing. And now with just how my career has gone,

I just don't really have the time to do both. And then I catch back up with college for two months prior to the draft, which is weird, but to own the tournament, to own those three weeks, at least they have that. And I think post of everything that happened in the last year, that's what it felt like again, especially being on the West coast now for the first time with the tournament where you're like, wait, the games are on when? It's usually those first four games are my favorite time of the sports year,

but this was just a reminder how awesome the whole thing can be because of, you know, look at last night with Gonzaga and you're like, how the hell is UCLA in the play-in game playing potentially for the national championship? And came, you know, 3.3 seconds left.

It just felt like it was coming to double overtime. The defender, it's funny because you don't want to commit the foul on the 40 foot heave, right? But on the other hand, it felt like, you know, they're so paralyzed that the worst case scenario of all time would be, I fouled this guy. But he did kind of give them a free look, right? There was a middle ground where he could have gotten in his way a tiny bit more. I felt like when Suggs let that go, he was trying to bank it and he felt like it was going in.

Everything that he did with his reaction. The other thing that was interesting, I loved him before this game. And I'm ready to have the Cade Cunningham versus Suggs argument with you now. Go ahead. Let's do it. But what I loved was when Juzai makes the follow-up to tie it. And Suggs is just kind of moving. And the way he moves just in general, but especially in that moment, is just a guy who's always been awesome at sports his whole life, right? He's not painting, glancing at the scoreboard, anything. He was at the top of the key when the ball goes in. He drifts over.

He knows what he's going to do. He gets it. Like he already had his plan. He knew pretty much exactly where he was going to shoot it from. And I just think that guy's special. The way his two-way ability, his competitiveness, I know he's like either third or fourth in these mock drafts. And I know

by the time we get to the draft, he'll be third or fourth, maybe fifth. But that guy to me is a lock. What he does on both ends, that is going to translate. The worst case scenario to me is he's another Halliburton type, where it's just an awesome guy to have on your team. Maybe he's not spectacular, but can do everything. Doesn't necessarily need the ball to have an impact. And you kind of want him out there when it matters. And, you know, he had the block too last night. I just love watching him.

The block and then pass in transition was one of the best plays of the entire tournament. I mean, the idea of freshman is going to do that. And yeah, you could debate, maybe it was a foul on one of the replays and then touching the net. But just in the moment, the recovery that. And yeah, you could debate, maybe it was a foul on one of the replays and then touching the net, but just in the moment, the recovery to make the play contain the basketball and then immediately out

on the break and then see all that stuff. He impacts the game in a way, you know, it's funny because we've spent so much time talking about scoring. It's never been easier to score in the NBA. There's all sorts of guys, certain nights where like, what the hell's going on here?

You're like, how many shots is this guy taking a game? And whenever you're looking at guys in the league succeeding i just think that it's more misleading than ever before being like oh no that guy's pretty good you're like is he or is he just scoring a lot and sugs is the antithesis of that because he's going to get buckets just because of his energy and his understanding but he's impacting games in ways that are winning ways and that that's what I think is the sales job on Suggs. If you're in a front office and you're sitting there

and you're debating all these guys, that's the sales job. The problem I'd have with this, I would say to you, I'm still Cunningham over Suggs, still have much more work to do on it because I think offensively Suggs appears, even as a freshman, more limited than what Cunningham could be. And that's why I think Cunningham still wins the argument and And then of course the size. Yeah. The thing with Suggs,

and you saw it a couple of times, even last night, you know, if somebody's draped all over him, it is a little bit hard for him to create a shot, but I do think he's such a good athlete. KOC had this in his draft guide. KOC only did the top 15 and I know he's got another thing coming and I'm sure Mitchell's brother is going to be there. There's going to be some tweaks, but he mentioned in that draft guide, like the two ways for Suggs to go up a level in the pros, which seemed conceivable are the three point shooting, just getting better, which I think I don't want to pencil it in, but I think it's really likely that he will become a better and better three point shooter over the next five, six years. And then some of that Steve Nash footwork stuff, can he be a guy,

because he's such a good athlete, can he be a guy that becomes a shoot-off different feet, off-balance, in traffic, floaters? Can he add that stuff to his game? The same way when you see how good Lillard has gotten at some of this quirky stuff to just being a great score as a point guard, as a little guy, the stuff he's added to his game year after year after year compared to where he was when he came in the league.

I think like it's just unbelievable to me. Like he has figured out a way to navigate tall guys all the time. Suggs has more size than him. And I think he's a bigger dude than him. And I just, my bet would be on Suggs. I think he's so competitive that whatever holes we're seeing now, I just think he'll add to them every year. And that's why I think this is such a tough one, because I get it with Cunningham, six foot eight. We talked about him a couple of weeks ago. He's

going to be a 40% three-point shooter. He might be a spectacular three-point shooter. And you talk about that kind of size who can run a team, can shoot threes. You don't want that to come back to haunt you. But I do think there's a potential that Suggs becomes the best guy in this draft. I would, you know, look, it's not like I talked to every team because I was working on something for my podcast where, you know, I'd had some front office people in different levels, whether it's the NBA advanced guys, you advanced guys that just scout NBA or in college and we were doing some different things

and it's just kind of hard to get all that information as often as I wanted to to the audience. But I had been working on something where I'd say five or six teams have chimed in and it's pretty consistent that it's a five-person tier draft unless you think kind of so good. And a major drop after five, right? People are like, if you're're six you're kind of fucked um i think it's just because there's less certainty of the

order i don't know that i'm ready to again this is so before i've done all my own reports on it which i just do to do but like davion mitchell for baylor who i can't wait to watch matched up in this game um he single-handedly turned that villanova game with balls you know he just went hey you know what like I know some guys may shoot it better than me and by the way the way Davion can get to the cup and finish on either side but he's 22 he's a junior but his three-point shooting has gone from like 28 at Auburn and then mid-30s to mid-40s now and there's that Suggs factor of, Hey, I know how we fall in love with the six, nine, six, 10 guys and the good stroke, but like, why are you invisible again in a big moment? Now, some of the times it's just straight up age and you're like, look, he's so young and we're

drafting your upside. You can get it. If there was one way to do it right, then everybody would do it right. And we'd have less mistakes, but there isn't. But the pro Mitchell and Suggs stuff that I think I'm not going to sit here and tell you you're wrong on is that there's stuff going on with these guys where there's an edge to them, where I know it fucking matters. And I know that some of the biggest mistakes that I've made is that you fall in love with the measurables and some of the stuff. And that's where those solo workouts screw up everybody where you're like, man, this guy's unbelievably talented, but you're like, okay, but where's, where's that edge? And if you're arguing for Suggs in the room, you don't have to convince

anybody because they've already seen it all year long, but it has been Cunningham one, Mobley from USC, probably two. Some people look at Jalen Green's athleticism, you know, one of the two G league kids and Kaminga who other people will say no, he might be the guy. Suggs is generally behind most of them. I'm not saying that every... There's probably a team that looks at Suggs as two or whatever, but Suggs has been closer to five of the teams that I've talked to

than he's been closer to one. Did you see the football stuff with him? I didn't know about this. He looked unbelievable. Minnesota? Yeah. I saw somebody sent me some clip of like some of his best high school. He was Mr. Minnesota, but it's like, oh, so you've always been the best. Yeah. Like at every point of your life. Oh, you're one of those guys.

I do wonder, like, you know, I think, uh, Edwards is like that too. The guy in Minnesota took the number one, Anthony Edwards, where he was just this amazing athlete who just eventually settled on basketball. But sometimes, you know, I do think when you think about worst case scenarios for players, like for Suggs, it's like, he's such a good athlete. He's so competitive. And I do think he just makes winning plays

that if he falls to five, I'm happy. Whoever is five, that could be like OKC. They could put him and SGA together. I don't know if I want to mess up OKC's rhythm right now. Yeah, that's true. You're taking shots away from Poku? Juzang was the other one who I know he's right-handed and Coutinho-Mobile is left-handed or was left-handed,

but it reminded me of Coutinho-Mobile. He was right-handed, but remind, remind me, remind me of Coutinho Mobley. He was like right-handed like his game where he had this kind of, this, this kind of freaky release on his three that teams were always kind of surprised when he was taking it. And then his ability to go into traffic over and over again with these little like fling shots, runners, stuff like that. He wasn't even in KOC's top 15. I wonder if he if he played himself uh into at least the top half of the first round because that dude clutch buckets all that stuff on the other hand we've been seduced by march madness guys like that before but i loved everything i saw from him in this

tournament well he had both he had nba level shots you know dribble stop turnaround fade away and and actually like looks good not just hey i'm going to take a turnaround fadeaway because it looks cool and I never make them. He was making them. And then that corner three late, and he answered. Because that felt like an NBA game. It felt like an NBA playoff game

because it was more about, all right, our best guy is going to go at your guy and we're going to see what happens. Now, Gonzaga really had more options than UCLA does. And that's why Gonzaga has been so much fun to watch because it feels like different. I mean, Kispert wasn't even that great towards the end. I think he missed like four shots in his last few possessions. He got touches. They felt like they went away from him a little bit. But, you know, Juzang came over from Kentucky. He was a freshman who didn't play a ton,

didn't shoot it well. Calipari was like, look, we had other guys ahead of him. And then, you know, his, his reason for transferring. I mean, you think of it, you're a freshman, you're at Kentucky, you're from California and COVID hits. And you're like, you know what? I just want to be closer to home, um, and get a few more looks. I don't think it's hard to understand why he would want to bounce and move on from there. But, you know, the rest of the lottery, whether it's Kispert, the kid from Tennessee, the moody kid from Arkansas who didn't really have a great tournament, who just felt like he was invisible at times. But I don't know that it's such a drop-off. I just think that that whole group is far out of order in comparison to the top five. It seems pretty consistent when you talk to teams.

I loved having UCLA in the mix. I like having at least one long-time impact program that has generations of fans. I personally know a few UCLA fans and this team snuck up on all of them. And then it was one of the all-time kicked in the crotch losses at the end where he misses rebound. Oh, he made it. Oh, we're going to double. Oh, wow. That went in, but it was interesting. You know, I actually went on Twitter. I don't go on Twitter that much anymore, but I did go on and see what some of the reactions were. And predictably it was like greatest game of all time, all that stuff. I do feel like these games happen in the eighties and

nineties pretty much every year. And part of it was, you know, part of what made last night special and what Barkley and those guys were talking about after was there was like real shot making, you know, there was a high level of basketball that this looked like NBA basketball, but condensed in a college kind of all the things we love about college, but with the NBA shot making, and this is kind of why we love college basketball and revered it so much in the 80s and 90s and you know for whatever reason

it was able to to get captured last night but I mean I wrote down I made a list of just like 12 games off the top of my head that were awesome I did

the recency bias with some of this stuff is nuts I think this game now deserves to be remembered along with those other ones but to say like greatest ever

like I'm just gonna always rebel against that but I do think like now deserves to be remembered along with those other ones. But to say like greatest ever, what are you like? I'm just going to always rebel against that. But I do think like, was it one of the 15 best college basketball games I ever saw? Like it might've been. Yeah. I think top 15, it's probably safe,

but best of all time. I mean, you look, I mean that, that Chris Jenkins Villanova game was off the charts. I mean, that was for the title. And if you watch NC State Houston, I remember my father doing some work in a house that he was building,

and he jumped off the ladder. Like, he jumped off the ladder freaking out while that happened. You know, the Villanova-Georgetown game doesn't have the moment necessarily that some of these other games that we're talking about, but that upset is unbelievable that that ever happened. So, look, recency bias is not new. You could argue my entire career was started by a recency bias segment. I was solo on radio, 2008, I think, and we'd had a stretch of about 16 months in sports where I'd heard it was the greatest Super Bowl, greatest NBA finals game,

greatest golf tournament major finish ever. And I just went through them all. I was like, there's no way we're this lucky. There's no way we're this lucky that we've had 15 of the greatest moments ever in like a 16-month stretch. So, look, I don't know if I'm comfortable saying that's the best college basketball game ever, but you know what I think it's great for? Because college basketball is really struggling, whether it's the transfers, whether it's guys leaving early, athletics that's far more critical, more aware,

and at times accurate, but just overall more negative. And it's completely off the radar until the tournament starts. So at least for the tournament in the college basketball side of the NCAA to say, hey, we've got two products here with a men's and women's tournament where we had a million of these moments where it's better than nothing. If we're capturing the American audience here for a couple of days and with big moments like this, that's far better than those down times where it feels like we're competing with football and nobody knows that we're even 20 games into the season. I wrote down a list. The best game I ever saw in my life was 92 Duke, Kentucky. I remember where I watched it. It was an incredibly high level of play.

There were great players in the game. It was unbelievably dramatic. It still holds up. But 91 Duke UNLV was amazing. Duke UNLV, I regret not saying it off the top because when you want to talk storylines in the perfect Hollywood script going into something in my lifetime, I don't know that anything tops that.

And it's funny because people eventually turned on Duke, but at the time there was a little Cinderella story. I still, there were a lot of people that were into it. Uh, NC state, Houston, Nova,

Georgetown, the, uh, the Indiana Syracuse game, key smart, Arizona, Kentucky in 97 was awesome. And I think has gotten a lot.

That was the game that I think people like me were like, my assignment pencil. I'm in 15 years, 15 here, a NBA career. It's going to happen. I didn't like him out of the draft. I had an early report on him.

Yeah. We would argue about it in Boston, Kansas. Memphis was awesome. Michigan seat and hall was awesome. Michigan-Seton Hall was awesome. UNC-Georgetown in 82, the Jordan game. You mentioned the Jenkins game. Duke-Butler 2010.

And then Kansas-Oklahoma, the Danny Manning game. That would be kind of my short list. And what's interesting about it is Duke-Butler was 2010. The Jenkins game was 16. Those were the only two from the last 12 years counting last night. And that goes to your point of like college basketball kind of needed this because I, you know, we'll, we'll talk about after the break, there's some, there's some other bigger picture issues going on with college basketball. And I don't know if

it's going to make it better or worse, but yeah, last night was amazing. Let's take a quick break and then I want to come back and talk about the rest of this. super, super strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising 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. So they're changing this transfer rule and it's going to make college basketball free for all.

And there's been a lot of talk about it this week. There's apparently over a thousand people are potentially might transfer. And people are saying it was one of the reasons Roy Williams decided that he wanted to step down. Who knows? And it could go one of two ways. There's the one side that's like, this is great.

The players should have the ability to control their own destiny. And then there's the other side who's like, this is going to ruin college basketball. Now, how do you coach a freshman? What if you recruit this guy? He doesn't get quite enough minutes. He just skips town, goes to the next team. I I've been pretty, pretty, uh, set on this one for the last 24, however long I've had a platform. I never understood why the coaches could switch teams and the players couldn't. And nobody was ever able to come up with a good answer, a good counter

on that one that a Syracuse guy like Jim Boeheim could be the Syracuse coach and be like, cool, I'm going to now coach Kentucky. I'll see you guys later. But if the players, the players basically had to stay an extra year before they left. And that just never made sense to me. So fundamentally, I actually liked this transfer rule thing. I like that you can only do it once. And I think it's going to actually make the sport more interesting. And it's, and it's an interesting opportunity for my school, Holy Cross, and these kind of fringe schools that don't really have a chance to ever get somebody, but now maybe they can grab the disgruntled seventh man on Duke

and make them the focal point. So I actually kind of like it. On the other hand, it feels like college basketball is now a snow globe that we're just shaking, and it's just complete chaos. The snowflakes settle. It'll be a five-month season everything will be different that'll end next season everything will be different again and i can see why some people are frightened by it but i personally like it what do you think i really don't think it's any gonna make it that much different this is basically just making legal what's already being done. Um, if you look at the transfer portal numbers over the last few years, they're absurd.

And most guys, if you find the right lawyer or you make the right argument that the NCAA does not want to argue against publicly, you get the, the wait period just basically, um, they wave it anyway. So I don't think it's going to be the free-for-all that everybody

expects it to be because it's already kind of a free-for-all. I have no problem with the transfer rule. I think when I was younger, maybe I was just more in line. Maybe I was more of a company guy where I was like, yeah, when you're younger, guess what? The guy in charge has options that you don't have. But as soon as you start going down that road, you're like, yeah, that guy gets paid and then this guy doesn't. All right? And I'm convinced that the NCAA is just like, look, we're going to put this off

as long as we possibly can. We probably should figure out a way to pay the revenue generating players. I would not argue for non-revenue generating players to make any money. So good luck figuring that one out. But the NCAA just is like, look, everybody hates us no matter what we do. out. But the NCAA just is like, look, everybody

hates us no matter what we do. I remember I was on Get Up once, Bill, and it was me, Jalen, and Greeny. Yeah, it was good. We cleared 300,000 viewers on that episode. There was some place that kept track of it. And so we were on, and they had a new thing where it was basically like, hey, if you go into the draft and then now you come out, you're still going to be eligible because college basketball forever was being controlled by these coaches that of course they were voting against anything that made their job tougher. All right. Let's face it. You make a lot of money. It isn't the great, it's a tough job. All right. And it's really tough to get to that point. But I mean, it wasn't surprising that people were voting for stuff in their own self-interest and they used to have these absurd rules where the NBA withdrawal draft date was a different date than the college one. And the college one was like, we need you back

a month before the NBA one. And the NBA is like, whatever, we're just doing this differently. So then college is like, hey, look, we can make this a little bit better where if a guy doesn't land somewhere and he hasn't done some of these things that he can come back. So I remember being on the show going, hey, this is actually pretty good. And you would have thought that I was arguing that players should have to pay for their own flights to games like jaylen was looking at me being like how can you say that this is good i was like do you agree that the thing before was bad and now this is better and greeny's like well you know jay billis said and i'm like look jay billis is amazing but he fucking hypnotizes all of you guys to the point where like you can't ever even admit that something

the ncaa did actually was like maybe good and Greeny got pissed at me on the show. And it was hilarious because the producers like, I've never seen Greeny get pissed, like literally in the face, pissed off at another person on the show. Like he did, he got so frustrated with you. He was mad at you. And I've never seen him do that in like 20 years. And I was laughing. I know I felt great. And they were like, we're going like, hey, can you come back tomorrow? And so I was like, guys, they did something that you think is better and you're still,

you turned it into something else that you don't like about them. So I understand what you're saying. I think what they're doing is reclassifying something that's already been happening pretty extensively. And people hate the NCAA,

I think, as much as anything in sports. Anything. Goodell used to have the title. I don't know if he kept track of the championship belt. This would be a good video breakout. The championship belt of just the single most hated thing for sports fans. I think Goodell had it for like three years.

But the NCAA has had it intermittent. The NCAA is like basically when Hulk Hogan would have the WWE title, then he wouldn't have it. Then we get it back again. They're always going to be a contender for it. And they represent a lot of things that people just fundamentally hate. And the whole thing about students should get paid to play basketball, that stuff, play football, they're getting taken advantage of.

That's just a thing online that you can't even argue. By the way, I agree. They probably should get something. But I think people make it seem like it's a lot easier than maybe it, you know, that it actually would be in practicality where you're paying how many, how many football scholarships are there? Like 75 per more than that. Yeah. 80. I don't, I mean, how you'd figure this out. I have no idea, but yeah, whatever. Um. People hate the NCAA. I think what's interesting is that women's college basketball, I think people really like and I think people root for and there's a positivity toward it in a lot of different

ways that I think has been one of the reasons the profile has risen. I also think like going to Friday and Sundays, of bookending the two, um, Saturday, Monday, I forget when they switched that. I don't feel like that was something that was happening. Like when I was in college that that switched at some point in the nineties, maybe when they were basically like, we want to own this Friday night. We want to own this Sunday. And now it does feel like it's like this four day event of both sports and it works.

So back to the paying though, as you said, it's certainly really complicated because there's... I'm not an NCAA anarchist. I think that there's still value in a scholarship for most of the guys. There's value in education. It's fucking expensive. This name, image, and likeness thing is long overdue, and it's been incredibly stupid. I've read stuff that is like vomit inducing, so biased that I'm like, you're not even making any sense. I remember reading one, the ultimate one that I always go back to is they were like, well, Texas makes this much for the football team.

So that means that every player should make $500,000. And you're like, no, the third string guard should not make $500,000. The school should not be cutting him a check. But when I look at the buyout stuff and the amount of money that college football wastes on coaches and then waste on buyouts, and then people try to argue there's no money, it's like, yeah, because you guys are spending it all. You're spending it in ways that you've never spent it before. And that's one of the biggest issues I think we should all have with different people that are in charge. It's, yeah, you can tell me you having more money and more resources is going to solve all sorts of

things. But ultimately what it usually leads to is you just spend more. Why is tuition up all over the place? Why have the tuition spikes been like on fire? Like the real estate market before the bubble in the early two thousands is because they've hired more administrators everywhere. Like look at some of the numbers on tuition prices and then go, okay, but how many people are being staffed at some of these universities? And you're like, okay, so you're just like tuition is up because it's up, but it's also up because you're like, Hey, let's hire more people. And then we can say, we're awesome. And we have all these people. So like, you just started creating stuff. And the same thing is happening with college sports where it's like, oh shit,

this guy's buyouts 25 million. Well, I don't know. The TV deals have been pretty good. And you know, we'll get a couple boosters to kick in too. And they'll write a check and the whole deal. So it's like, oh yeah. Hey, by the way, we're out of money again. You're like, well, because, because you guys spend it on everything else. Like, Hey, here's a football program. We've got a slide. We've got a barbershop man. Check out this new Dolby 5.1 i'm kidding that's old school surround sound people know what i'm talking about and you just go all right so you guys are just going to spend all the money to say that you're broke so you know it's like the summer of 2016 nba cap spike said the cap's up got that we gotta spend it evan Turner, $70 million. Evan Turner, $15 million. No, that's high.

$20 million. All right, so we got Gonzaga-Baylor in the title game. Gonzaga's trying to go undefeated. And I could feel this being a sports TV topic. Did Gonzaga's undefeated season, does it have an asterisk because it was a COVID season? Which I'm sure it'll have like a tiny bit of an asterisk because it was a COVID season, which I'm sure it'll have like a tiny bit of an asterisk. But at the same time, I do feel like this was a really memorable college basketball

team that I enjoyed. And I think multiple guys from the team will go on to have at least some sort of professional identity. I think Baylor is a really good counterpart for them. You said, I mean, on your podcast a bunch of times, this is the game everybody's wanted for how many months now? So what happens? What do you think? As much as I love what Baylor can do, whether it's running their offense

or just having four guys that can beat you off the dribble. I mean, even Joe Dirt there can handle a little bit. And Davion has that NBA gene of, okay, shot clock late. All right, I'm going to back it up. I'm going to go at you again. And Davion has this crazy thing where he finishes in a way at the rim. No one's Kyrie. I don't think he'll ever be Kyrie. But he has a way of finishing in the area. The release of the ball

to the rim is where you're not expecting it to be. And he'll get off on the wrong foot. He's got, just the way some of these guards now throw it high off the glass and these angles that you wouldn't even think of taking the shots 20 years ago. He's great with all that stuff. But I've just, I love that Gonzaga can go to Timmy in the post and he can finish with either hand when he needs to. Kispert can hurt you.

He's probably the best shooter in the entire tournament. Hasn't necessarily worked out that way stat-wise, but he's been awesome all season long. And then you've got the backcourt, like three guards with Gonzaga that can all kind of do their own thing at times. So, you know, nothing crazy there. But I like the Zags, even though I'm incredibly impressed by Baylor. I like the Zags.

I was surprised by the line being only four and a half on Fandel. I thought it would be like seven, seven and a half, something like that. I think there's a lot of respect for Baylor. Can I ask you, what NBA player does Kispert remind you of? I don't want to say, because this is just going to get turned into something stupid, and I'm, so whatever.

Welcome, welcome to the party. It reminds me a little of a Clay-ish thing when Clay was in college, you know, because remember, go back like clay was like, Oh, you know,

sorry, you know, who's the good shooters that clay Thompson kid. Um, he's Kispert's huge. He's good enough athlete. He's, he's not going to be the individual defender clay is,

but he's a good team defender. Um, but his release is quick. And the only reason I bring it up, cause I hate comps. I hate him. I love it., because I hate comps, I hate him. I like him. He's a limited dribble, efficient offensive player.

Where Klay, remember in the beginning, you were like, everything of his offensively is usually set up by somebody else. And then he finishes it with the shot. Then Klay figured out how to handle and get his own and could do all sorts of things. I just think there's something there between doesn't have to dribble very much and can hurt you because he can pull up so quickly. So there you go.

How about Timmie? Reminds me of a smaller pit snoggle without the range. And you think Mitchell ends up in the top 10? Yeah, I do. But he's older. He'll be 23 at the start of the NBA season. Yeah, I do. But, you know, he's older.

He'll be 23 at the start of the NBA season. I mean, he's like, I don't know. little Wesley, Wesley Johnson-itis? He's got,

he's got a little bit more, a little bit more. Remember that? Wesley Johnson was like, he's 20. The only negative, he's 23 right now as he's being drafted.

It's like, oh, that seems like kind of a red flag. But then, you know what I love? Lillard was 22 and he got drafted and that was fun. I always love the age thing where like if a guy who's older actually does all right. And then guys would be like, you know, I don't understand this. Like what, you know,

you know what you've got in the sky. He's been around, he's more mature. He understands these things. And you know, it's why don't you take him him and you're like, oh, you want to go over all the other guys that were old that didn't work out. Right. You know, so, yeah, I mean, look, it's not it's that he's 22 right now. So I'm rounding up, but I just, you know, his draft age will be 22, be 23. The season starts. Let's go to what's audible to the NBA. I have a fun topic for you. Somebody's going to have to win the Rookie of the Year award.

They have to hand it out. I checked. They've had one every year. They haven't said pass. And right now, Edwards is the favorite on Fando. He's minus 110. I think there's a case that he could be the worst. This could be the worst rookie of the year

season anyone's had if he ends up winning, unless he picks it up just because his team is horrific. His stats aren't even that good. He's scoring 17 a game, four rebounds, three assists. He's a 39% shooter. He shoots 31% from three. His PR is 11.9. His team is 12 and 37 heading into Sunday's games. And for some reason, he's the favorite. Hal Burton is the number two. He's 13, three, and five. He's almost a 50, 40, 90 guy percentage-wise.

48, 42, 87. He's playing 30 minutes a game. 16.8 PR. His team's 22 and 28. I test Hal Burton as the best rookie I've seen this year. I kind of can't believe Edwards is the favorite, but I think it speaks to this weird generation we're in now with like NFT one-for-one video clips and dunks on Twitter and 2K and how they kind of all canpire. And like, oh, Anthony Edwards had 38 points the other night. Nobody realizes he took 32 shots.

This kind of culture we have now where I'm not positive people are actually watching basketball. I don't understand how anyone could watch basketball and think Edwards is a better rookie this season than Tyrese Halliburton. I don't get it. It's confusing to me. Halliburton's a winning player like we talked about with Suggs.

I know it's going to come around. I know he's going to end up winning the Rookie of the Year, but I'm kind of appalled that Edwards is the favorite. What's your take? I'm convinced no one watches anything after I listen to people talk about the buyout nets for about a week, which I know we're going to get to a little bit later. As we've talked about on this podcast,

and I've done some of my own, when you take somebody like Edwards one and you're not sure, right. Cause you only get that one year, Georgia, the team stunk. He took a million bad shots, but he physically was doing some things and he can do some things physically on drives where it doesn't even look like he's trying and he's got the angle

and the size and the quickness. And he can kind of, he was doing some stuff that actually was, we were talking about Davion Mitchell, like he had some, I watched that full Philly, Minnesota game last night, and he really has these moments where you're like, there's really not much you can do with this guy. So those are all positives, and it's great, right?

Yeah, I agree. And the dunks, the night he had that sick dunk against the Raptors, and then people were mad when people were pointing out that he was having another awful shooting night. I'm like, hey, I don't want to be that guy. That dunk was incredible. That's not what the moment was about. I don't care about the rest of the shooting stuff.

But you're absolutely right. Because when you're talking about rookie of the year, okay, do you realize if you go like the last 15 games, I like sorting every now and then. The last 15 games, Anthony Edwards is taking the third most shots per game in the NBA. All right? Is that true?

Yeah. That's not true. And since the start of March, he's averaging 21 shots a game, which for the season would be second to only Bradley Beal. Beal leads the league in shot attempts per game at 22. Anthony Edwards from March to now has averaged about 21. And if you just go last 15... By the way, I don't want to turn this into an Edwards bash session.

I think this is what the team wants him to do. I think they want him to win the Rookie of the Year. I think some of his teammates would argue against that. Oh, yeah, maybe the teammates. But I remember being in Boston, Antoine Walker's rookie year, when ML Carr decided Antoine should try to win the Rookie of the Year, and they're playing him at center, and he was playing 43 minutes a game and hogging the ball and the whole thing.

And it's like, yeah, you can do that. You can try to win somebody the rookie of the year, but I just don't know how somebody votes for that. And I think he's in a bad situation. I think they're asking too much from him. And the whole stats versus, are you a winning player or not? He's not learning anything about being a winning player

on that team the way they're using him right now. And Halliburton, I know the stats aren't spectacular, but he's a winning player. He helps their team. You know, he doesn't necessarily care if he takes 20 shots. So for Halliburton to actually win the Rookie of the Year is going to take at least a few people like us

to point out that if you're actually watching the games, he's a better basketball player at this point in his career than Anthony Edwards. And to just take a lot of shots on a team that is on pace to go 20 and 62 in an 82 game season should not be a rookie of the year. Now you could say, all right, there's been a couple of times over the years where we have given the rookie of the year, right? Michael Carter Williams in 2014. I did not vote for him.

Who did you vote for that year? Wasn't him. And I didn't vote for... Very passionate about this. And it definitely wasn't him. I think I voted for Wiggins. Was that Wiggins or he was the next year? No, no, no.

Maybe McCollum? I can't remember. I did not vote for Michael Carter-Williams because his agent called me and was mad about it. 17, 6, and 6, 40% free throw or field goal percentage, and his team stunk, but he had the ball a lot, and they were trying to get him the Rookie of the Year, and it's like, all right, well, I'm not going to vote for that.

Brogdon won in 2017. He only averaged 10 points a game. There was no one. I mean, that was when people thought Embiid might get it with 30 games. And you were like, I don't know if you can do that. Go ahead. So that was a no one season. Tyreek Evans put up the 25 and six for a terrible Kings team. And he won it that year. Now, at least his stats were better than Edwards stats. The all all-time no-one season, though, happened in the last 20 years. Do you remember what it was? It was not Michael Carter-Williams. It was not Brogdon. I don't remember. Mike Miller won Rookie of the Year in 2001.

Won? 11.9 points per game on a crappy Orlando team. That was that legendary bad 2000 draft. There was just nobody had a good season. So they were like, all right, Mike Miller, you shot 40% from three. Here's your rookie of the year trophy. So I think this is a no one season, but I do like caliber and I think he's played well for them. And I don't feel like that's, I feel the same way with Brogdon where Brogdon was actually useful on that Milwaukee team. His stats weren't great, but at least he was playing like a winning player. I just feel like that's what we should do with the rookie of the year. Maybe I'm crazy. I also think the rookie of the year, I don't know that we should

turn it into the same standards that we have for the MVP either. Like when I look at the MVP, that's a more important award. This award is, Hey, who impressed you the most throughout the rookie year thing? So I don't, I don't really want to get caught up in wins and losses. Cause then what am I supposed to do? Get really excited. Cause you're a fucking 10 seed and the other teams, a 14 seed in their conference and not in. So, you know, is that really make a ton of sense? I think Halliburton has been steadier. It's clear. This isn't forced. I don't know that Minnesota is necessarily trying to have Anthony Edwards win the rookie of the year. When I watch Anthony Edwards now with the T-wolves this last month, as I pointed out these stats, I see the kid that I saw at Georgia. Tons of shots, tons of bad ones,

moments where he's easily the most impressive physical specimen on the court. But no one ever cares about the other little things. In that Philly game, he had two plays that stood out where I was like, okay, he doesn't get it right now. They had Tobias Harris going up against Carl Anthony Towns, and he turned to post him, and then Anthony Edwards leaves to double where Harris has no advantage whatsoever size at that point and leaves Danny Green. Leaves Danny Green to double where Towns already had him. And then another play where Danny Green's in the corner,

he leaves him in the corner weak side. The ball's obviously on the other side. He goes to linger around Dwight Howard as if Dwight Howard needs to be doubled in the paint when he doesn't even have the basketball. And then Edwards completely loses Green, and then Green runs baseline and would have had an offensive rebound had the play happened a different way.

Now, you can sit there and say you're young, but I'd also argue, like, so what, at 27, you learn to pay attention to your guy to box out? Because that seems weird. I've never heard that before. There are countless, countless losing plays with so many of these guys. I've never heard that before. There are countless, countless losing plays with so many of these guys. I mean, look, everybody's going to think it's because of the pre-drafting with Lomelo, but I remember telling you on the podcast when it's like, hey, he's going to be out there screwed. I'm like, I don't know. They are. They've gone

five and two without Lomelo with losses to Phoenix in overtime and the Nets. So the one seed in the East, the two seed in the West, now without Hayward and Monk. No Monk. They're screwed. They're going to start losing a million games. So they're up to the fourth seed and won a bunch of these games out. I would have still voted for Lomelo for rookie of the year if he were still healthy, and maybe I still would.

You know what I mean? Because I don't think the award – I don't know that we should get really caught up with some of the standings with some of these guys, even though, for the most part, some of the high- volume guys, like Edwards is going to have the best stats overall. And if somebody votes for him, I don't know that I'm going to get mad about it. Lamello is plus 210 on FanDuel, but he's, he played 41 games. He's going to miss 31. And I don't, he was 16 and six base, 16, six and six. I don't, I don't think it's going to be

enough. Um, the Edwards thing brings up the question I asked and six. I don't, I don't think it's going to be enough. Um, the Edwards thing brings up the question I asked you, which I can't remember if we've talked about on a podcast, how many guys in the league could score 20 points a game if they were on a team where they got enough shots. And I said to you, I thought at least 75 guys could do it. There's I think 400 guys in the league, four 50 plus four 80 play or something like that. I don't

know. 450. So that would be about one seventh of the week. The more I watch, I think it might actually be higher. I think my number might be like 85 to 90. I think could do it. The first time you said this, you said a hundred and just classic opinion guy who's been doing this as long as we have. You're just, whatever the reaction is now, whatever. That's stupid. Right. And then you're like, wait, wait, you were low at a hundred. I'm serious with the, this season.

If you said, Hey, go get 20. That number's over a hundred dude. It's it's over a hundred. It's just about shots. Like who's allowed to take the shots? And whenever I look at some of these games, I had a number the other day, Bill, because I always kind of keep track of it.

How many guys are taking 17 or more shots per game in the NBA right now, right? There's 39 players taking 17 or more shots a game in the league this season. It was less than half of that 10 years ago. Jesus. Well, the reason this came up initially was because Jeremy Grant was averaging like

22, 23 points a game and they're, and they're running plays at the end of games where he was like their closer basically. And people were like, wow, Jeremy Grant breakout season. And I'm watching it going, yeah, he's definitely can do a little more offensively than I expected. But I do wonder how many guys could be put in this exact spot as a swing man on a terrible Detroit team where basically somebody's got to run the offense or run it through them

at the end of a game. How many guys could do that? So let's pick a random team. By the way, let me clean up that stat. So 29 guys in the league, 29. Did I say 39? I think I might have said 39. 29 players in the league are taking 17 or more shots per game.

Five years ago, it was 15. 10 years ago, 12 players averaged 17 or more shot attempts per game. This season, again, it's 29. So yeah, I mean, if you just want to go through it, I mean, I don't know if you want to run through all 30. I'll give you the Pacers right now. Brogdon is averaging 21.2. Although, with the way Karis Levert,

you know, that must be the worst thing ever is trying to incorporate a young dude who's thinking about the next contract, who's like, I'm the big-time scorer. Like, Karis is so talented, but all the stuff that worries me about him, it's all happening immediately. Where now, if you're on the Pacers, you're like, I'm the big time score. Like Karras is so talented, but all the stuff that worries me about him, it's all happening immediately. Where now if you're on the Pacers,

you're like, so wait, this guy's just going to take 18 fucking shots a game? And we got to ISO him at the end of every game? Like, okay, this is fun. Go ahead. Their team chemistry is cratered. Well, Levert's another one. Sabonis.

TJ Warren could do it. That's four. Turner could get 20 a game if you wanted to TJ Warren could do it. That's four. Turner could get 20 a game if you wanted to run your offense for Turner. That's five. Could, if McDermott was on the Pistons and they were like,

Doug, you're our guy at the end of games. Could he get to 20? I think he could too. That's six. And then I think we're done unless you want to make a Jeremy Lamb case. I don't think it's impossible. So I just gave you six guys on a team that is,

I think 19 and 22 and 26. Six of their guys we think could score 20 points a game if they were the focus of an NBA team, which brings me back to my Edwards point. Yeah, he's probably going to end the season at like 18, 19 points a game, but his team's losing and they don't,

it's him Beasley in towns unless Russell comes back as scorers. So very, very, very bizarre rookie of the year race. All right. We're going to take a quick break. Come back to open our NBA. Let's talk about seeding stuff.

You're excited about the possibility possibility the lakers could follow a succeed but we should go through all the ramifications want to start there go why are you so fascinated by this lakers thing right now all right this is not i'm worried about the lakers uh they look terrible against the clippers that's to be expected no lebron no ad the ad thing is weird because it just becomes to be like it's almost like the Durant thing. We're like, hey, no timetable, no timetable. And then LeBron tweeted about how much he missed basketball, so that was covered.

And then four to six weeks out on that timetable, despite people were saying he might come back a little bit earlier. They've been really good still defensively, but it's not unrealistic that they're a six seed and they play the Clippers as a three seed in the first round. And then what? Phoenix in the second round? And then Utah in the Western Conference Finals?

The funny thing is that LeBron is absolutely right about the comeback against Golden State being one of the most difficult championships ever to win when you look at who Golden State was that year. No question. Then to say the previous title because the bubble was the toughest, you're like, eh, I don't know about that. The opponents. But this run of opponents for a Lakers team that you still want to give the benefit of the doubt to, especially after the way they turned around after the bubble last year. But that's a pretty ridiculous run of teams you'd have to go through just to get out of the doubt to, especially after the way they turned around after the bubble last year. But that's a pretty ridiculous run of teams you'd have to go through

just to get out of the West. No? Well, right now, so I wrote these down. I don't know if we had games tonight that changes, but Utah and Phoenix seem like they're

relatively locked into the one-two unless Phoenix goes into a tailspin, which could happen. Like Chris Paul could get hurt, whatever. But Utah's 38-11,

Phoenix is 34-14. Clippers are 33-18, Lakers 31-19, Denver 30-18, Portland 30-19. That's going to be our 3-4-5-6 in some order. Clippers, Lakers, Denver, Portland. But Portland's only a half game behind the Lakers now. There's no sign of LeBron coming back. There's no sign of Davis coming back. And I think you're right, especially with what Gordon, I think we all were hoping Gordon could

look like, you know, a rich man's Millsap in that spot. And for what we've seen so far, it's been a nice addition and it made them deeper. It gave them 30 minutes of somebody else, which I think they really needed. And I think the Lakers are going to be the sixth seed. I think this is how this plays out. Dallas is the seventh seed. Dallas is starting to come on a little bit. Two things are fascinating here for me. One is that the one seed is incredibly important because if you're the two seed, you have to play Dallas in round one. I don't want to play Dallas. I don't want to have Luka in a series. Fuck that. If you're the one seed, you're playing San Antonio, Memphis, Golden State, Sacramento, and New Orleans, which is great. You also get to have the Lakers

if you end up playing them in a playoff round. Game seven's in Utah. Utah's undefeated this season, by the way, at home. No, they're not. They're not undefeated. They by the way at home um no they're not they're not undefeated they lost their first two so they've won all of these games in a row how many have they won in a row is it 22 in a row 20 21 in a row yeah I think

they lost their first two at home so Phoenix who is like man we're riding high this is awesome and then it's like cool we get Luca in round one as a two seed, which just sucks. And then if you're the Clippers, I think I would want the Lakers in round one.

I think my best chance to beat them is round one with like, you know, we're only 22, 23 games away from the playoffs right now, right? It's going to be the end of May. So we're, I don't know, six, seven weeks away. I would want to catch the Lakers, right? As like people are still getting used to each other and LeBron and Drummond have only had a couple of weeks and Davis isn't 100% healthy. I'd want to get them right away. And then the other piece would be the four or five. It seems like we're headed for Denver, Portland again, unless Denver can jump the Clippers.

But Denver-Portland, you know, would be another epic one. So I don't know. Once you mentioned the seedings to me and I started doing the matchups, I got all fired up about it. You love them. No one. Well, I love that.

I think this West one's going to be really good because I think those seven teams are really fun to watch. I think Dallas is back. I don't think Dallas is going to win the title, but I think they're, they're at least to be taken seriously in a playoff round. Can we back up to something you said though? Because when you said the Clippers would want the Lakers in round one,

you don't, you mean that is what's the best time to get the Lakers because you can't possibly argue. You'd rather play the Lakers in the trailblazers in the three, six matchup. If you're the Clippers, right? I'm saying I would rather, if I have to play the Lakers in round one, two, or three, I'd rather play them in round one. I would rather just play Portland and then I'll see whoever I

see in the second round. Come on, dude. Think about what you're saying here. I know what you mean as far as the vulnerability and getting the start of the playoff, but as far as who do we face first, and I'm the Clippers, and all that history in this city? No. Sign me up for Portland, and I'll see you guys. But what if Davis is like 85% still playing his way back?

I think I'd rather take him. I disagree. Okay. You know I love to show the challenge? I do know that. I've. Okay. You know, I love to show the challenge and MTV. I have always, I've always been of the theory. Like just, I have to go through these guys. Anyway, I'm throwing CT in now in the first episode, second episode, let's just go, let's go down in the elimination. Now I'd rather get you when you're, you're just getting your legs back. You're just whatever.

I'd rather play you early. If you don't know who you are yet. I think this Lakers team is going to take a while to figure out what they are, how healthy they are, what their rotations are, things like that. Wait, so was that with the Miz? Yeah, he's not on it anymore. He graduated. I met him. Didn't go well. Didn't go?

A lot of testosterone. No, he was a prick. He was a total prick and I was like alright we got it cool so the seedings could be let's say

San Antonio advances Utah San Antonio Phoenix Dallas Clips Portland Lakers Denver

then you go to the east Philly Brooklyn Milwaukee are the top three in some order then the four seed is going to be Charlotte, Miami, or Atlanta. I think Charlotte's done. I watched them against the

Celts today. They've lost the Hayward thing. Hayward going out for four weeks, I think is a way bigger injury for them than LaMelo. They don't have anybody who replaces him. They ran a lot of the offense through him. He was playing really well. He was a 20 points a game guy. They don't really have a backup for him that does any of the stuff that he did for them. And now they're just a bunch of guards chucking up shots. I could see them falling all the way into the play-in. I think that's great for Miami. So then you have the Knicks, Boston, Indiana, and Chicago

kind of in that waiting for any of those four teams to wake up who would you pick to as a as a waiting to wake up team new york boston indiana indiana or chicago i think boston's probably the safest bet they're the most talented you know this team is is disappointing that win today against the hornets means nothing i I mean, look, the Hornets had a guy in there from Nova Scotia. They had another guy I'd never heard of. I mean, you know how hard it is, how rare it is? I don't know who that is, and he's in the game. I mean, it got so weird.

Romeo Langford was playing, and they took Romeo Langford out of garbage time. And then Carson Edwards is like, he's like, I don't watch adult films. I get into 30 point games like here we go i just carson edwards when you're playing pool with him and you're trying to rack the ball like are you taking them out does he just start smashing the cue ball in like as you're trying to set up and you go carson can you just stop for a second and let me let me rack the balls and then you can hit them anyway um i for charlotte they they they had one twin in they had one martin twin in and then he came out the other martin twin replaced him i was like

oh man it's gotten grim they're just rotated the martin twins this has gotten ugly uh celtics i don't i don't like them i don't like them but i mean talent wise between them and the next are you kidding and then i wonder if there's this Knicks thing that's balancing things out. Because the first half of the season, I saw a great stat somebody had that was going around where the percentage of opposing threes and uncontested threes was off the charts low. And it was just one of those things that didn't mean anything. It just, hey, people missed more open threes against you, maybe at the lowest level at anyone in the league.

So look for that to balance things out. You know, I could look at projected schedule strength and all that stuff, but dude, this is going to get really ugly. I mean, I was looking at last Saturday. Did you watch the games last Saturday? I go, is there another all-star break that I didn't know about that like select 30 guys just said, hey, we're out. We're not playing tonight.

So it even like if you start doing the playoff matchups at the end of the year being like, hey, they were they were two and four and oh against them or whatever. I'm going to be like, I don't know how much that's going to matter because when did you get him? Did you get him with a bunch of games in a row? You know, all these games where I feel like whoever wins the first one and then the 24, 48 hour turnaround, they always lose the second one. I feel that way. I may not be right about it, but that Pacers thing that we mentioned before, I think they're having

a really hard time with the Levert deal. Vooch has put up some nice numbers, but it hasn't necessarily worked for Chicago. They got their first win against the Nets

who were sitting a bunch of guys other than Kyrie. So yeah, I think through it all, unless maybe Atlanta is the better call because other guys

are making shots and they've fixed their defense here a little bit. I would say Atlanta or Boston. And the only one is because of Boston's talent, despite the fact 50 games in, I don't really like watching it. The Boston thing is grim, but there's signs of hope that they finally have all their guys together. Time Lord's starting to play more.

Fournier's starting to... I mean, you saw it today. Granted, they're playing Charlotte, but Fournier comes in, he scores 12 points in 15 minutes. Those were minutes that were being manned by Semi Ojale, Javante Green, all that stuff. He's worth a couple points a game. That trade was really important for them. There's some sort of weird energy with them that I can't put my finger on, where there's a lack. We were talking a couple of weeks ago about soft. And I don't even know if soft's the right word. Like there's a lack of pride in some of these games with them. But then I watched other games in league pass. It feels like we have a disproportionate amount of 20 point,

25 point blowouts, right? Last night, it felt like every game was not close. Last night was, was a special right you would have thought some kid was screwing around with dot com or something like wait a minute there's no way this team's up 40 already like what the hell's going on but that's i actually think as ugly as it's

been at times it's going to get uglier i want to throw this to you though i was told during the celtics struggles without marcus smart i was told told by the Marcus Smart militia that this is why he deserves everything. And him coming back, I just would pose the question to how come everything wasn't fixed when he came back. Solid question. He's not playing well. There's no other way to say it. So in the East, I saw an ad today watching the terrible Clippers Lakers. Poor ABC has gotten hammered on these Sunday games.

The Clippers Lakers, they ran an ad for the playing games, which are May 18th, April 4th. That's less than six weeks away. I got excited playing games. It's going to be unbelievable. You know, you think, say in the East,

where we could have like Boston could be the seventh seed. It could be like Boston, New York, Chicago, Indy, something like that. There are teams that, I like watching Chicago. Chicago's in a playing game. I would be excited. I like their nine. I've enjoyed Patrick Williams. I like seeing Vooch the early returns seeing my old friend Daniel Tice who drove me crazy now he's on another team I get to root for him

but I don't know I'm going to enjoy the playing games the West is a little more grim because other than New Orleans when you get into that

San Antonio Memphis Golden State Golden State looks like they might go sideways would they lose by like 50 53 the other night or 63?

They were down 60-something and they lost by 53, I think. And then you have New Orleans at 21 and 27, who is probably the worst coached team in the league, all things considered, out of all the teams that are actually talented. That dude dumb shit over and over again, and yet their best guy is averaging 62% from field goals. And it's completely unstoppable. And I just would not want to play him in a playing game.

I'm sorry. If they're the 10th seed, I'd be bummed out. You know, you're Dallas. You're like, cool, we'll get in there. We'll get the seventh seed. We'll play Phoenix. And then it's like, well, wait a second. You've got to play this team that their best guy makes 62 of his shots or you have to foul that's going to be

your opponent for the playing game good luck what if it's jj reddick revenge game if the pelicans get that 7-10 uh here's the thing though i would if i played the pelicans in the playing game i would if i coached dallas if i were carlisle i would just tell one of the guys i'm like every time brandon ingram you were on ingram be like man they don't run enough shit for you they're gonna get you the ball more like i can't believe all this zion stuff like you're better than he is right and then just be like this is gonna be perfect but honestly i don't i think dallas Zion stuff. Like, you're better than he is, right? And then just be like, this is going to be perfect. But honestly, I think Dallas is... I'm with you.

You're not picking Dallas to come out of the West. You're just saying, hey, the early stuff and feeling better about him and having a few more options, although it just feels out of central casting. They're like, hey, can we add one more really long kind of white guy that's a promoter dude? Like, yeah, we can.

Like, sick. Melly's one of those dudes he's like an actor who's just been in a series of terrible movies but you kind of wanted him to see and see him in this movie where he's basically maxi cleaver standing they're going to stay in a maxi spot so it's the joey pants? So I was watching The Fugitive on a flight the other day and they show up to the train scene where people didn't realize like, hey, this Tommy Lee Jones performance, get used to it because you're going to see this one for about 20 years

now. Not that he wasn't amazing when he did some other things, but he just nailed it. We're like, all right, you were so good at the train scene. We're putting you in front of a volcano. But Joey Pants gets out of the thing. And he's like, it's a circus. I immediately thought of you. Do you think a Melly?

Yeah. Cause I think you could call it the Melly award, but I don't want to change your, it's your, it's your show. We watch as well as yours. I just get an invite. So I appreciate it. I don't want to step on anybody's toes your show. Rewatches was yours. I just get an invite. So I appreciate it.

I don't want to step on anybody's toes. Let me give you three teams and you tell me if they're better off just throwing away these last 20 games and going for a top 10 pick. Not that they will because I think the playing game has properly incentivized a lot of these teams.

Indiana. Indiana. Are they better off just saying, yeah, this season sucked. TJ Warren got hurt. We had this weird old Depot situation. We kind of outsmarted ourselves. We brought LaVert in. He's a terrible fit with what we have.

And maybe we just punt on this season. I know they won't. I know they can't. They have healthy guys. It's not like they can, but I'm just saying in a, in a perfect world, if you're the Pacers, do you really care if you make the playing game? I'm probably going to say no to almost all these, so I don't want to ruin your segment. So maybe I should just, just pass it right back to you on it. But I'll only answer the Pacers one with, I kind of like what the roster could be. So I would rather not be in the play-in game and get lucky in the lottery

because I don't know that you're going to be sniffing in the top of the lottery anytime soon. Because I do like the team when it's normal. And yeah, it could be too many guys. And it looks like there's times where Brogdon is like, what are we doing here? And I know he's missed some games. I don't know how many off the top of my head

here. And even Thomas has probably looked at the Levert thing being like, you know, we had some nice rhythm here offensively, but at least Levert is still talented and maybe a piece and the way the contract and the control. So I'm not necessarily like, I know I've sounded anti-Levert here, but let me go back to you. Why don't you make the argument for it? Because I just think

there's so many times with young teams are like, oh, that playoff experience, it's so valuable. You're like, really? Getting your ass kicked in a 1-8? You're just going to grow from that emotionally? I don't know that that's really true. For the Pacers, I would want to be in the playing game and I would talk myself into

a reality of these guys just need to gel. We have talent. Brogdon and Sabonis are good. Fuck it. Let's see what happens the next team though Toronto to me that's a punt that's one where you go to Lowry and you go

hey man big free agency coming up for you last big contract there's a lot of money out there this might be our best chance to get like a top eight pick I know your knees bother you. I know your foot's whatever, whatever's bothering you. I know, I know something on your body is bothering you,

which is call quits. I know they won't do this because Nick Nurse has already come out and he has said, I want to make the playoffs. We are not tanking. I hate tanking. I'm just saying in the perfect world, if you're a Raptors fan, where are you going with this team? Yeah, maybe you could win a playing game, but you're not winning a round one. You're, you're, you're

so close to actually being able to get a top eight pick and you can write this. This year's a write off. This year's a sunk cost. You had the Tampa thing. You had your two big guys leave. It's a write off. I know they can't do it because you know, it's basketball, but to me, that's the team that should be thinking about how to weasel out of this. I would agree. I'm going to agree on almost all these. I think the only time that you're going to hear an argument against it would be so Atlanta makes it.

Now, they're the sixth. What if they hit a rough patch again here and they're in the play-in game or whatever? There's no version of them tanking or anything like that, but you could see them saying, us being able to come out of this year as a playoff team means something. And I think, I think Atlanta has to go for it. Right. Right. And they, they are. So, I mean, I'm just, I'm simply saying of

any of these teams, this is the, this is the group that you make the argument for. I think Chicago feels like, Hey, another year with Levine, we made the vooch trade. We want to be able to say we're a playoff team. Now, I think these are short-term wins that can be really overstated and in the big picture don't really mean anything. Like, just because you got in and you snuck in, it doesn't mean you always grow, all right? You know, some people get a – remember when Detroit made it

and they had that 1-8 matchup with Cleveland and it was like, you know what, look out for Detroit next year. Stanley Johnson, you see what he did against LeBron? And you're like, didn't they get swept? Like, you know, like what? Did they really, you know what I mean? Like, I think we overstate that a lot. So I don't know if any of it has any real value.

I like it when it's a young team. I think it really helped the Celtics to get in there in the 16, 17 range with some of those young guys. I think it helped Memphis last year just to be in that playing game and just have a taste of what it's like to have a real game with real stakes and real pressure and things like that.

So Atlanta to me is a no-brainer. Golden State is a fascinating one because you could argue they had the year from hell. Wiseman, I think, is more of a project than maybe we anticipated. Maybe this is his redshirt season. the year from hell. Wiseman, I think, is more of a project than, you know, maybe we anticipated. Maybe this is his redshirt season.

Draymond can't score anymore. Curry has an incredible amount of pressure on him in these games. Not that Dame Lillard doesn't, by the way. But, you know, the fact that they're

23 and 26 kind of seems like a miracle. It doesn't feel like a lot of things have gone right for them. So let's say that Minnesota pick is like fourth or fifth. And let's say that Golden State pick

is like ninth or 10th and you have Clay coming back. Were you winning the title this year without Clay? No. Fundamentally, they're probably better off not even being in the playing game. But I know that organization

is not going to go for that. No, it doesn't sound like it. And that's the whole reason why they did the Oubre deal. And again, some of these trades things, some of the things didn't happen because it was just tougher to figure out. Golden State couldn't take more salary back. The Lakers, it was really hard for them to take a deal back

where they were taking on more money, even if they thought they were close on some stuff. I think the biggest thing for Golden State is looking at their own pick now, the Minnesota pick, and then Wiseman, I think, is in a tough spot because if Wiseman were on one of these horrible teams with no winning pedigree,

without real guys, where Curry was arguably in the MVP conversation with the stuff that he was doing, Wiseman's held to a different standard. So when he screws up, it's's worse where if he were with some of these other organizations to be like hey why you know who got 20 and 12 again the other night Wiseman you know he's awesome and it might be worse for him long term for his career so maybe these bumps are good for him early on but uh you know a healthy curry in a playoff game is kind of

exciting but it really should be about about packaging those picks for the next mad superstar that goes, I'm going to play with the best backcourt of all time. That is a team in a playing game people would not be fired up to see. The Golden State thing, we got to do this quickly. There was this weird LeBron is recruiting Curry story that just seemed like sheer boredom from the media. I don't know where it was coming from. I don't know why anybody who's followed Curry's career at any point would think, A, he would ever leave Golden State. B, he would want to jump on the LeBron bandwagon

and be LeBron's sidekick. The whole thing was bizarre to me. I don't think it's been the tightest relationship over the years. I'm sure they'd get along better than maybe they used to be. But I't think it's been the tightest relationship over the years. I'm sure they get along better than maybe they used to be. But I thought that was one of the weirder fake stories that we've had. If he was ever going to go anywhere, the only place that makes sense is Charlotte to go home where his dad is and the place that he grew up as a kid.

And if he was ever going to leave someday to finish his career somewhere, it's going to be Charlotte. It's not going to be to be LeBron's lackey. It's not happening. Well, Windhorse brought it up and I believe the part of LeBron thinking he's recruiting Steph because it was odd.

I did too. Wait a minute. You like Steph? Because LeBron completely resented the idea that Steph was considered the best player in the world. And you know what? LeBron completely resented the idea that Steph was considered the best player in the world. And you know what? LeBron proved that it wasn't accurate. Steph had better seasons than LeBron during those years. He had better full end-to-end seasons than the back-to-back MVP seasons.

Like, Steph should not have been the MVP. But then it turns into, okay, Steph's the best player in the world because he was having better seasons. And LeBron's like, yeah, actually, there's stuff I can do in a playoff game that he can't do. And as much as I love Steph, the biggest Steph lover was having better seasons. LeBron's like, yeah, actually, there's stuff I can do in a playoff game that he can't do. As much as I love Steph, the biggest Steph lover has to admit that. LeBron resented it. But LeBron is

so powerful. He's arguably the most powerful individual athlete of our lifetime as far as team sports are concerned that he is always thinking of these angles. i thought it was weird when i'd see some of the interactions during all-star weekend where i was like wait so he he picked him and then he's like talking him up and you're like motherfucker you had a corpse

it is your halloween party that you walked over on the way in and so lookBron, when he took Giannis in the first draft, that was a way of now, this is, I think a comical waste of time that like Giannis would be a free agent and be like, you know what? LeBron did take me first overall in that first all-star draft. Fuck it. Let's sign with him. Let's do this. You know, like Curry going, you know, who was really complimentary of me all-star weekend

in 2021 LeBron. Yeah. I'm going to sign with the Lakers now. That was, that was really nice. He was always saying good stuff of me. All-Star weekend in 2021. LeBron. Yeah, I'm going to sign with the Lakers now. That was really nice. He was always saying good stuff about me. So I think I'll go do that. Curry goes home

and his wife's like, how was All-Star weekend? He's like, you're not going to believe this. LeBron was talking to me the whole time. I feel like he wants me to play with him.

That was the vibe I was getting. He kept saying how great LA was and how cool it would be if we could play together. And I, it was just so exciting. I just feel like I'm ready to leave golden state. He must've forgotten that I've already won three rings without him.

Yeah. Ridiculous. Um, all right, we're gonna take one more break. All right. Uh, some quick topics to take one more break. All right. Some quick topics to run through. Buyout guys.

I talked to Raja about this and I suggested that they should at least pass a rule with the buyout guys just to make it a little bit higher degree of difficulty. Where if you're paying, if you get drumming the rest of the year, whatever the prorated games for his actual salary cap number should go against your tax for that year.

So if it's like there, it's $8 million of his salary would be these Laker games. That should count toward a tax. Maybe that's a way to do it. Then I was reading some other stuff, talking to people like you, and everybody had the same attitude,

which is basically, why the fuck do we care about these buyout guys? None of them actually help teams. You planted your flag on this island. Make the case that we should just never talk about this. All right, here's the deal. There's a few guys, if you want to play exception game here,

you can argue the exception. You can argue that PJ Brown, Boris Diawiao not only helped the Spurs, but he became a piece of it, which should have set us up for the template for Nick hope the Celtics get him. I was on the TV broadcast for the pre, half, and post back then. And a month or so went by. He ends up with the Spurs, three points a game. We waited on Marbury's decision forever. He ends up in Boston. He ended up in China pretty quick after that. If you go through these, there isn't a high level of buyouts going to just major markets all the time. It's a little bit more split. Woj was great writing a piece about this, looking at it, saying, hey, if you look at the last 39 buyouts and how many guys actually contributed in playoffs, it's minimal. And how many guys are going to big market versus small market, it's actually pretty even. The point is this. Again, it's a recency bias thing that gets you really excited. It's hard enough to trade in this league. I'm pro buyout, adding

another piece, getting excited. Drummond's probably going to fit great with the Lakers if he's healthy because he's going to play off LeBron in the lobs and add some size there. But it's a big waste of time being worried about it because it's usually that player's last move before we realize he's done playing. Chris Anderson in 2013 was another one with Miami. And those were special circumstances, right? He had had some real issues. He was a little bit younger. For the most part, I mailed you this. Somebody laid out 10 years of signings a couple of years ago on the internet.

James Herbert, shout out to James. Great piece, James. But he had all the lists and I was dying reading these old ones. Like 2008, the Pistons signed Theo Ratliff. 2009, Steph Marbury to the Celtics. Joe Smith to the Cavs. Oh no, the Suns got Strohmeyer Swift.

That one I like. The Spurs got Drew Gooden. 2010, I blocked this out of my mind. The Celtics signed Michael Finley. The Bucs signed Jerry Stackhouse. 2011 was some classics. That was Jason Williams to the Grizzlies. The Celtics side Troy Murphy,

Mike Bibby to the Heat. Remember all the Mike Bibby pieces? By the way, there was a standing ovation for Bibby when he was introduced to his first Heat game. Yeah, Mike Bibby. Mavericks, Corey Brewer. Did he end up playing for them? I feel like he got...

I think he did. Because they won the title. Did he play? So that might have been a good one. Celtics signed Carlos Arroyo. You go to 2012. Oh, this was a great one. The Grizzlies signed Gilbert Arenas.

Yep. That was really fun. The Knicks signed Kenyon Martin in 2013. Derek Fisher to the Thunder was a half-decent one, although you could argue he actually played too many minutes for them. But yeah, going through some classics. I forgot about this one. The Pacers and Andrew Bynum.

I remember doing countdown segments that year talking about what kind of impact Bynum was going to have on that Pacers team. Little did we know his career was over. Mavericks, Amari Stoudemire, 2015. Cavs, Kendrick Perkins, 2015. On and on and on, leading to your favorite, the Darren Williams and Andrew Bogut combo for the Cavs that year.

That was the pinnacle. That was apex mountain for bad biotics. Quick Brewer update before we get back to that. He played three minutes, 25 seconds, eight minutes, one minute, four minutes, and then four minutes, and then we didn't see him in the finals during that Mavs playoff run. So actually not. No, so he did play, but he barely played for him.

I think he was 13 games overall in the regular season. The Cavs adding Bogut for a possession and then Darren Williams for essentially nothing. I'll never forget when it first started dawning on me. I should have learned the lesson after the Damon Stoudemire wasting a month on that watch because that's what we did every night on that celtics broadcast you'd be like oh damon stoudemire how would he fit in as a celt what number do you think he'll wear in case we retire here you know and i remember i'm not going to say his name but a very prominent national talk show host said once the calves

got bogut and will and Williams the power had shifted away from Golden State back to Cleveland and that was after you were like wait what like you think those two guys you're like oh Bogut's gonna have all the angles gonna figure anything out now again Bogut got hurt immediately in the first game can I make a small counter yeah the salaries are so high now that the buy that the quality of the buyout guys might be getting better just because it's impossible to trade somebody who's making $30 million a year. Kevin Love might be a buyout guy next year and his career will not be over if he's a buyout guy. So to me, it's not a question of what do we do about these buyout guys? To me, it's more of a

question of what do we do with the trade rules? Why do we have the same rules that we had before? Why can't we switch it so that it's only 50% of the salary that you can trade first rounders in four straight years? Let's make it easier to trade and then we won't have these dumb situations where Andre Drummond just goes to the Lakers for free. I think he's at a different level than Blake and LaMarcus because there's very strong cases that Blake and LaMarcus will fit onto that list of all the guys I just read year by year of the Gilbert Arenas type guys, that they might just not have a lot left to tank.

I think Blake has a better chance just because of his defense to maybe have an impact for them. But Drummond might actually really help the Lakers. And I do think if they made the trade rules a little different, maybe have an impact for them. But Drummond might actually really help the Lakers, you know? And I do think if they made the trade rules a little different, it would have been easier for the Cavaliers to trade him and get something for him versus just buying them out. And that's what they should fix. See, that's why I've never had a problem with the buyout part of it.

And part of the suggestion was maybe you have the buyout before, because the other dirty secret of the whole thing, it's not a secret really, but it's just something worth mentioning again, is that the agents can control it and then scare everybody off to trade for him by saying hey my guy's gonna get a buyout and i want him to get a buyout so that he can go to the team that he wants to go to and it may not even be just a winning situation it's we know we want him bought out here so he can go and play here and get more minutes because he's going to be free agent he's going to be up but then the buyout thing you start getting so excited when you're a fan because it's like cool i get to add somebody else. I remember there was a proposal

in Woj's piece for somebody who's like, we should have the buyout market expiration first and then the trade deadline after it. But it's just kind of like the NFL versus NBA free agency draft order. What does everybody seem to say about all the time when the NFL draft happens? It's like, if the draft were before free agency, we'd be able to draft who we want and then fill the holes in, in free agency. And people were like, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And then in the NBA, it's like, man, it'd be great if we had free agency before the draft, because then we'd be able to see who we could get on the open market. And then if we don't get who we want, then we can go ahead and draft somebody else. So no matter which way it's set up in order, people are going to complain about it. So because the league, I agree with you, it's so hard to pull off the trades, although it's been

a little easier than what it used to be on the trade on the money percentages that had to move around. But with the salaries going up and the apron and some of these restrictions, I'm okay with buyouts and they're massively overrated. And that brings us back to my final thought on the next piece of this bill is that this is where the coverage where, yeah, I'm just going to say it. Like I just look at so many of our colleagues and I think, do you want to tell the truth right now? Or do you want to lie to the audience? Because when you put up a graphic of Kyrie's all-star resume, Harden's all-star resume, Durant's all-star resume, that's an incredible resume. But when you put LaMarcus Aldridge's all-star game appearances next to Blake Griffin's all-star game appearance, then add them all up and try to sell me some bullshit, it means you either

are purposely disingenuous or you just are so addicted to the graphic looking cool when it's not what it is. And that's why Blake Griffin is great whenever he talks because Blake goes, I sucked for months. People were making fun of me every fucking game. Anytime you'd watch League pass, the new announcers on the opposing broadcast would be like, Blake Griffin ain't what he used to be. And now he's an all-timer who's awesome right now. And the weird thing about that argument, about all the all-star appearances now on that Nets roster, is that one, they're probably better playing Nick Claxton and LaMarcus Aldridge in the first place. So buying out Aldridge and then bringing them in may screw up a nice piece that you found

that was already on your bench because everybody should be able to produce offensively being the other two guys outside of those three when they have things going. Shit. Even when it's just Kyrie and Harden. But it then mutates into this other argument that isn't about the all-star appearances. It's, hey, I'm a LeBron guy, so I found a way to make a pro-LeBron argument about the Nets because that'll be an awesome argument where now I get to say, look what the Nets had to do to stop LeBron.

And you're like, wait, and I saw a bunch of people do this. And you go, this isn't even about the Nets. It's not even about buyouts you've created some stack of all-star games that make you feel better about your pro argument like your pro lebron position like what are we even doing like i had lost track five minutes into it can we talk about the paul pierce thing yes so it's like a little past eight, eight o'clock Pacific time now. Um, does he last a week at ESPN? What happens? This is a pretty rare case. By the way, I have no inside info. I don't think you do probably either. Um, this is a pretty rare case where a talent who's

on the air for them on a signature show, I would say he's a borderline signature guy for them. He just kind of said, fuck it. And did this Instagram live and there's strippers in the background and they're throwing chips at the strippers. He seems not- We've been to Turkey's. Not sober.

I don't know it was i don't know how like does he get suspended or fired what would be your pick uh i think in the moment everybody kind of loses their minds about punishment and it's like oh my gosh you know like this guy's never ever gonna stay and i think you and i probably have better insight from our time there is specifically me understanding punishment how about me you i also understand punishment yeah but you got punished because you were you were you were poking the bear um yeah you got punished because you were poking the bear. Yeah. I got punished because I embarrassed myself and I embarrassed the company because my room key worked on the wrong door at a hotel.

And then once everybody figured it out the next day... So me specifically, when I got into trouble, I was like, okay, well, this is what happened. And they go, okay, we know you're not lying, but you still did something bad. So you need to be punished. And I was like, yeah, I agree. I'm not fighting you on it. I agree. And then we're good to go but my i always i don't know enough about paul but usually if they want to get rid of somebody it'd be a culmination of things so if everybody's cool with paul and they think he just made a mistake i don't think he deserves to

get fired my see this is a weird spot to be in you know i my guess would be that he wouldn't be even though it's a bad look and you always have to remember you're working for disney you know like you're reminded of that quite a bit when you're at least on campus and that's why i always resented all you guys that didn't have to walk around bristol for a decade plus because you'd be like well i know what it's like like no you don't not in the hallway every day five days a week for five years. Hallways and cafeterias. Does that make sense to you?

It does. I think he gets suspended, not fired, because I think, for the most part, I think he's a light guy. So it's like, all right, was this just one really dumb mistake? Should we give him a mulligan on this? So maybe it'll be his mulligan. I will say this, definitely one of the top five or six

weirdest NBA social media stories, I think ever. Like ever? I just couldn't believe it. You sure that's not recency bias? I just couldn't believe it. It's the kind of mistake people made with the internet and with social media

in like 2008 and 2009 before people realized ramifications for things, how things quickly, nobody makes mistakes like this anymore on social media. And which leads me to think like maybe he didn't even think it was a mistake. Like I really, I try to shy away from a lot of these media stories because I just don't care. This one, I'm actually really interested to see how it unfolds over the next couple of days.

Like, what's he going to say? Is he going to go on the jump the next like two days are they gonna talk about it are they gonna address it because the way to really do it correctly is just to address it be up front about it make light of it you move on and people forget but they're gonna have to do that on a Monday or Tuesday on on a show unless he gets suspended. When you got suspended, was there ever like a... Didn't you get suspended from Twitter once? I did. I think twice. What was that?

I think twice. Think how silly that punishment is. Now I'm like, okay. Like, oh no. Yeah, that's weird. It took ESPN a long time. Will you suspend me from it? I wish I've tried.

I think ESPN, it took them a long time to realize that sometimes the punishment causes more news coverage than the initial story. And I think they've now unlocked that and figured it out. You know what, though? I don't think Pierce... There's another part of the story that's my favorite part that we haven't even touched on yet. He tweeted at 8 o'clock Pacificific time last night good morning right and after that like i wanted to buy his jersey because i don't think he thought he was making a mistake i think he's like look i'm ig live and i think we both understand this really well when you are a you know it's not like pierce is is

you know kobe or something like that but when you're at that level and you have a media job, you don't look at it the same way as 99% of us. You're like, all right. Yeah, I'm on TV. I chop it up for a little bit. This team's good. This one isn't. What's up?

You're right. No, you're wrong. And I'm an NBA guy who's worth millions in my hometown. And if you're in LA, come through and I'm going to post it because that's just what I'm going to do. And if he's cool, if people are cool with him and they like him, and I don't know that they are or aren't, I've never heard that they are. And again, I haven't worked there in a year and a half. I always think when people look at punishment the worst time to figure out how somebody's going to be punished is immediately after the act you know give it a

few days and it's like oh okay because he 24 hours later he didn't seem to be bummed out about it at all and i'm sure somebody had to have reached out to him at that point no i'm sure it's being discussed right now um jj reddick traded from the Pelicans to the Mavericks and then complained about it on a podcast that the Pelicans broke their word to him. Said they were going to either send him close to home or whatever. Felt like Griffin basically lied to him,

called him out. And then the next day, it was interesting that even on the jump, like Robert Horry, and I forget who the other player was, and both of them kind of laid into Reddit. It was like, hey, man, it's a business. You don't get to pick where you play. That's what the checks are for. I was actually surprised that he complained. If you're the Pelicans, cool, we'll try to accommodate you. But ultimately, they're going to do what's best for the team.

And he's going to do what's best for him because he's cashing big paychecks every year. Same way he went from Philly to New Orleans. That was what was best for him. I was just surprised because I think he's a really smart athlete. I was surprised he didn't see the piece that it's hard to complain when you're making that kind of money

and to, to just buy him out versus what new Orleans was able to get out of the trade, which is just better than a buyout. Of course they were going to do that. Yeah. Griff's job is Stan pointed out. Your first obligation is to the franchise, but there was something JJ said that was so specific that I tend to believe

JJ that JJ's argument was when I signed the two year deal at good money at that age that I was told, you know, we'll do this deal now, but we'll get you where you need to go. You know, so is JJ telling like, it's such a specific thing. Like whenever I think somebody is lying, I'll be like, okay, are you being vague? Are you being specific? And when it's really specific, I don't I think somebody's lying, I'll be like, okay, are you being vague or are you being specific? And when it's really specific, I don't think the person's lying. Now, is this version of the story like, hey, we told him we'd work with him and his agent, but we didn't promise anything? Or is JJ telling us the truth that it's like, no, no, they were so specific about it.

That's why I took the deal in the first place and signed down there and moved on. But I mean, in that spot as a GM, when you're looking at getting back something you kind of like, I think you're always going to rule that way. But that was a really weird one. I like that he's on Dallas. Yeah, I thought that was a weird one too. By the way,

the Pelicans just passed the Rockets as we're taping this. The Pelicans were going to lose to the Rockets, but I think the Rockets now win a new full tank mode. All right, before we go, do you have any non-sports shit you want to hit? Because this is the part of the podcast where we get weird. Oh, man. I love this stuff. I went to Tulum finally. So that was a real thing.

You actually did go. Yeah. People thought I was just screwing around on Instagram. So it's the first time that I've taken off since August of 19. And I'm just going to tell you on the way back, it was a little reminder. We're like, oh, this is why traveling out of the country, especially during COVID protocol,

isn't the easiest deal. So you got to get a test the day of, which I got a test on the way out. I got a test on the way back. But then the guy's like, yeah, you get your test results here. And I'm like, no, no, I came here because the results are quicker. Like my flight's in a few hours. And he's like, no.

I go, dude, there's a chance you're gonna i'm gonna be in a two-hour cab ride from the resort back to cancun and i'm gonna find out like hour 40 that i have covid and i can't get on the flight like i was like the hotel set up disappointment based on what my needs were and he was like yeah we'll figure it out man i'm just like okay so i get the test i hang out for a bit try to get the most the rest of the day in um you know i went to a couple art festivals i actually did a spoken word thing myself at this yoga studio but you know there'll be a video out probably later and once i got to the uh to the airport this guy immediately just grabs my bags.

He's like, I got you, amigo. I was like, all right, first class service. Let's go. Obviously, he wanted to tip the whole deal. So I tip him pretty well. Because that's the thing. It's like when you're in a spot like this and you don't really know what's going on, find somebody who does and just tip them. And I can't emphasize how much better your life is going to be for a very small investment

and just navigating all of it. So he gets me right up to the front of the line, the whole deal. And I bought it through Delta and the woman behind the counter barely speaks any English. And she's like, you still owe us money. I'm like, what do you mean I owe you money? She's like, you only paid for half the ticket. And I was like, no, I go, there's no version of an app purchase on a phone where they're just magically charging me for like half when you pick your origination and then the destination like i bought tickets before for a plane ride like that's there's no way this is the way it works and she's like i'm holding on to your connection because i had to connect and i'm holding on to your baggage claim which you've

already checked your bag and i'm not giving it to you until you pay the rest of the bill and i was like this is insane so i then have to go over. Right. Then I have to go to like a main desk and I'm over there. And the guy's like, yep. He goes, you know, you owe us $260 or whatever, you know, and he's in Spanish and I'm not being able to figure it out. I'm like, what are you talking? And he writes it down. He's like, you owe us $260 more. And I'm like, this is crazy. But you're looking at your watch and you're going all right what's the deal i've got my app open i've got my paperwork filled out passport tickets this sounds like this sounds like broke down palace too this is like the first 15 minutes of it

you owe me 206 dollars more all of a sudden you're in a jail in tulum i like my chances of breaking out of jail in Tulum, not Mexico City. That's just a vibe I got. That's a vibe that I got. Fair. I think I may have been in the prequel, The Unhinged, with Russell Crowe, where he plays a bear. Have you seen that?

Yes. You didn't see it, did you? Russell, yes, of course I did. You watched it? Yeah. The Russell Crowe, the road rage movie? Yeah. Yeah.

What'd you think? Give me a quick- I liked it. I liked it. First of all, I've seen every movie. Second of all, I'm so fascinated by this stage of Russell Crowe's career where he's just not the proof of life guy anymore, but he's kind of embraced it. And he's just playing these crazy middle-aged parts.

Like he's playing Roger Ailes. He's playing crazy road rage guys. Uh, I, I can't really describe a common theme other than he's entering a Nick Cage zone. It seems like I'm worried. I'm really worried.

Lost it. And you're like, wow, Nick Cage is in that movie. And then there was like five and it's like, Oh, this is just who Nick Cage is. I feel like wow nick cage is in that movie and then there was like five and it's like oh this is just who nick cage is i feel like russell crowe is inching that way i watched it on the flight and i gotta tell you it felt like lebron demanding a trade to the wizards because when i looked at the everybody else in the movie nothing against them but russell

crowe is one of the great actors of our lifetime and he's he's great in the role and he's up to what 280 290 he's a massive human being in this movie and it's gross um i didn't love it you liked it more than i did but i was i like road rage movies they always i even like that affleck road rage movie with sam jackson lock no changing lanes oh okay my bad so i needed to know more about the movie when i got home and i started researching it and then i was i love i love actors explaining movies i'm i just love it because then he was like i just think you know in today's time we're understanding in the western hemisphere that rage and the struggle of man but yet and i was like yeah yeah you just drove right in the truck five million bucks yeah you got divorced in the movie and you had a truck and you started smashing into

shit like you know i don't know that the western hemisphere needs to be used to describe anything of that 80 minute movie that i just watched so the lady comes over says my mistake after the hustle hands me the rest of my stuff and i go okay so i'm good to go and she's like yes and i go okay which flight and she's like oh wrong terminal so now i get brought to the right terminal as soon as i get off there a cab driver's like you're at the wrong terminal twenty dollars to go to the right terminal and i'm like so wait a minute i go there's four terminals here at this airport and i've somehow managed to go to all three of the wrong ones. I was like, that does, you know, something seems off here. I grabbed a security guard. I show him my ticket.

And then he points to the stairwell to my gate. And I look at the cab driver and I was like, you seriously were just like, do I have asshole shirts on today? Like I can't, I couldn't figure it out. And you know, look, there's, there's some more aggressive American looks in Tulum than anything that I was rocking. I was in shorts and a sweatshirt. So then you've got to have all your COVID stuff ready so you can show to everybody. And then I do this weird thing where when I go through security line, I pick somebody else that has to make the decision at the split. And then I'm in a competition with them, the rest of the security line. And that's my thing. Now is it?

Yeah. Almost like a Russell Crowe and Hinge road rage thing. Kind of. Because if I lose, it puts me in a mood for about an hour. I was like, you picked wrong. And that guy smoked you by like seven people. Does that guy know that you've picked him? Is he aware that there's a competition in the works? No, he doesn't know.

He never knows, whoever it is. Sometimes it's a woman. You know? Yeah, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I knows whoever it is sometimes it's a woman you know yeah it doesn't matter it doesn't matter i'll just be like okay i think i have the angle here i'll try to like rapid count like a fire clerk or something like that but yeah whatever um i made it back i would say tulum good good hang very quiet very laid-back vacation didn't didn't do much b plus just getting out of manhattan Beach for the first time in a year was kind of weird because I was like, you sat here by yourself almost solo the entire time. That was a long time, even for me. So when you talk about taking stuff personally,

like when in lines or getting like weirdly competitive for no reason at all yeah all the time so that's probably one of my biggest character faults is uh as a driver because i i don't know if you know this but i'm one of the one of the world's greatest drivers like i really am i've met guys like you know i love danny cannell is that way yeah i'm the guy you i'm the guy you want driving back from ve to LA. So, but my daughter said all these soccer games all over the place, like Arizona, Vegas, we've had, we did Vegas 24 hours back and forth, you know, four hours each way. And I've tried to calm down and not be that guy anymore, but then people will just kind of annoy me on the road

where it's like, what makes you a great driver? First of all, I love whenever any of you guys say this stuff, I'm always immediately skeptical. What makes you so great? Bill, the ability to go at a high level of speed, but, but it seems like you're, it's a smooth ride. It's not like a herky jerky changing, like, you know, like stop and start, hitting the brake. I like on those long road trips, the person who's in the passenger seat, not even to realize that we're going really fast or that we're just flying or whatever. It's just like, part of it should be, you're just gliding along going. Like there's a degree of difficulty on the long road trips where it's just, you're going fast, but nobody in the car is even realizing it.

But then sometimes you'll see these people who are like, they're trying to be the cool weaving through the lanes. And it's just like, they're bad at it. And they, they're going, they're trying to beat somebody down the right lane, not realizing that that truck is actually going a little bit too slow. They got to slam on their brakes, come back, go around. And I just hate those people. And then I take it personally and I end up like kind of pseudo racing with

them a little bit. That's my character flaw. I'm opening up here on the podcast. So what I've learned is, cause I was thinking after I got done with unhinged, I went, you know, it'd be a fun and people,

somebody's probably already done this before where you would review a movie on Twitter in just one post and get it wrong on purpose, where it'd be like, woman who has trouble with punctuality and holding down job aggressively annoys fellow driver. You would be like, well, that's not really what the movie is.

So what I'm learning here is that that's why you like Unhing is, but whatever. So you're, what I'm learning here is that that's why you like unhinged. Cause you agreed with Russell Crowe's character, despite the murdering part. No, I did not agree with the Russell Crowe character. Courtesy tap. That's all you want, Bill. I just think when you're on the road, you get bored. You start looking for little challenges, right? Like the guy who goes by and kind of gives you the look and he's like, oh really? You're okay. We're going now. We're going to drive. We're going to try to see who can weave through lanes faster for the next. And then my daughter's freaking out and go, dad, dad, no, no. This is why I said it's a character flaw. Do you think it's the vanity ringer plate

with a dollar sign on that green McLaren that you have? Where are you on? What vanityaren that you have. Where are you on Vanity? What Vanity plate would you get? Would you get? I bid on the Smoky and the Bandit edition Thunder the Firebird this past week. I'm totally serious. I bid on it.

And then when I lost, I was like, you know what? I just avoided a pretty big hassle there, but I was going to get bandits on, on a vanity plate and just be, and listen to David Lee Roth, not Van Halen, but solo David Lee Roth, eat them and smile and drive around Manhattan beach. And just be like, you guys think you're cool in your Broncos? Like I, I'm doing this all summer when things open up and I may even start smoking. Well, you know,

when I moved to LA, I was shocked by the amount of vanity plates. I've never had one. Have you way more than a Massachusetts? Well, Massachusetts, that's just another thing to get punched for. So that's why they don't have them there.

Not guys. Fair. Um, before we go, you want to hear about Drunk Kyle? Yes. Everybody does. Kyle, his approval rating on my podcast is through the roof.

On the life advice stuff, people actually don't even want to hear from me at the end of the pod that much anymore. Kyle's dad, stepmom, and little brother came up to visit for my father-in-law, mother-in-law's 60th wedding anniversary last weekend. So they're all together. Kyle and the family's together. He starts fast drinking. He's so happy and excited. He becomes like fast drinking Kyle. And it's my favorite Kyle. It's unanimous approval in the Simmons family for happy, fast drinking. Kyle is our favorite. Gets a little loud, but not too loud. I could see him being a great drunk. Cross like a little Ed McMahon tonight show.

Like he really sells your jokes. You feel great. You feel as funny as you've ever been. Just ready to go. Ready to make, ready to drink whatever mixed drink you're ready to make them. Just having a good time. Shout out to drunk Kyle. Kyle, you good time. Shout out to Drunk Kyle. Kyle, you want to follow up here?

Thanks. No, I love being Drunk Kyle and I'm glad you love Drunk Kyle. Drunk Kyle has really been a victim of the pandemic because it's not that much fun to be Drunk Kyle when you're just stuck in your apartment with your girlfriend and that's it. That's sad Kyle. Yeah.

That's drunk and sad Kyle which nobody likes. What people like are post-pandemic, the bars are back, drunk Kyle is back. That's where we need to get to. It's one of the many reasons

we're rooting for vaccines. Russo has no comment. No, I don't. I want to drink with Kyle at some point, but I mean, I haven't had, I'm like,

I'm like, go ahead. Are you a subscriber to, as soon as we're past all this stuff, it's going to be basically like what we read about in the 19 set, late 1970s when all hell broke loose for like three years. I don't know if it's going to be three years, but anytime somebody says like, oh, I'm worried about small venue clubs, like don't. Oh, I'm worried about some of these.

It is going to be unhinged. It's going to be peak people going like, hey, you know what? It was awful for a lot of people. It was a challenge for most people. I tried not to complain. I hope I didn't throw out at all because I didn't really have it that bad in comparison to so many other people. But I think that we are, by default, social people and we want to be around other people. I think most of us do. I may not want to be. I think it's going to be one of the most excited groups of people going out. And the younger generation is going to try to make up for this year plus in a way that we haven't seen. Now, we're too old for that, which is probably good. But yeah, whenever I hear from somebody around my age, it's like, oh, I think it's going to be kind of a slow. I'm like, no, it isn't. Once these vaccination numbers are higher, it's going to be a free for all. Well, I mean, the mask thing is the biggest piece of this right you can't even like think about facial cues and smiles and instant attractions

and just making somebody laugh and seeing their reaction it's like everyone's wearing a fucking mask it's like watching hockey not knowing what what players what was your i made some random regular season hockey game i kind of like it though because I started going bandana like cowboy thing. I may keep it. I like how it's looked. You might keep it long term just to keep it going? Yeah, they'll be like, that guy takes viruses seriously.

Well, now we're in this weird zone where some people have been vaccinated. So if you see somebody who doesn't have a mask on, you think, well, maybe that person's had the vaccine, but yet they should still probably have the mask on. That's what everybody says. But now it's just, before it was pretty clear, like, wait, you don't have a mask on. You're doing some power walk and some joggers just jogging right by you and they don't have a mask on mask on you're like all right what the fuck dude like show a little respect now now it's harder to gauge with this stuff we're not we're in

a weird tweener time yeah you know back to the very beginning we talked about this and this ended up being more severe and longer term than i ever thought at the beginning but i like everything i have a hard time with anybody that would be an expert about something new. But if the uncertainty was, hey, stay inside and wear a mask whenever you go out, that's not a hard thing to do. That just wasn't a hard thing to do. But I do wonder long term how we'll look at this and if it's just a different, hey, there's different strains of this and that's why certain things happened this way. And we didn't know this then. Or maybe this is something that we did. We didn't have to do.

But as much of this was a sacrifice, it wasn't that big of a deal to be asked to wear a mask all the time. And I think people that were policing it are probably going to get really mad about it. But do you also want to be in a position where you're screaming at somebody who's been vaccinated? And then they're like, hey, I've been vaccinated. And then you're like, how do you feel? So, yeah, I get the sacrifice people have made with all this but i think it's it's it's really hard man because people are still so worked up about certain elements of this that i don't know i would just keep it on until we feel like we're in the clear because i don't think it's that big of a

deal to keep it on but i also was going to tweet to everybody every fucking day in the beginning of this saying wear a mask wear a mask because that's not really my. Like you want to hear about me talking about Romeo Lankford, not, not to tell you what you need to do because now I'm a virus expert after a week. One benefit of it is I've noticed cause my parents are vaccinated now. You like, they,

they just are acting differently. I think no kidding. Like how so? My mom is a lot happier. My dad seems a little more relaxed as well but i think my mom was really worried like to get covid die alone in my condo like nobody would know you know and i've just noticed like a totally different kind of energy from her i think when you're over 70 this thing is like covid would look at you and you're done,

right? You're just living with that every day. And whether people were talking about it or not, I think there was real abject fear. My dad wasn't leaving the house. He wasn't really going anywhere. And then finally we got him to fly across countries, basically wearing a hazmat suit to come see us. This was like, what, five, six months ago. Just because he was he was like all right so i'm in my early 70s here i'm just not going to see my grandkids anymore this is going to be the rest of my life like i'm not going to see my family i think that i think there's a lot of internal struggles with the mortality of it with not being able to see people that you loved when there's like a time limit on how long you could see them, how many years you had left with whoever. And the vaccine seems to have removed some of that.

It's my armchair QB take. No, that's not an armchair QB. That's really well said. Because I'm by myself so much, sometimes it's easier for me to not think about that part of it. But I know the sound of my father's voice after his first vaccine shot where he calls me, he's like, Hey, and I'm thinking like, Oh, okay. You're right. Cause I left from the time my father was in the hospital for something going back to last year, which was fine. You know, it wasn't, it was fine. I didn't leave at all for, you know, a year plus. And then I went back one time and I took a test before I left. I took a test when I landed. Cause I was like, all right, and then I'll quarantine for a couple of days just to make sure. And my father was still a little bit like, hey, you know, if you come by, maybe we'll eat

outside or something like that. And I'm like, yeah, you know what? Like you, and even if your father's healthy or my, you know, lucky enough to have our dads around still in our lives that part to go hey the the end for me like i don't be wasting too much more time here because i you know i'm sure once you start getting into your 70s you start thinking about things in a different way we're like hey i want to make the most of this and then you're basically the end of your life was put on pause you didn't know when it was going to be you know when are we going to hit play again? So, uh, I don't think that's armchair QB at all. I think it's a reality of it was really well said. Sal, you know, when I shared an office with Sal and he used to torture me when I had to write jokes and he would just ask me these weird abstract questions that I would have to answer.

And I remember one time we were sitting there and I had to, I was working on something. He was just like bugging me. And, uh, he was like, Hey, do you ever think like your dad's in Boston, right? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, how many more times do you think you'll see him? Like 37 times. I think we've talked about this. I think I've told the story and I was like, no, I'll see more than that. And he's like, no, no, do the math. And now I'm like, fuck. So fucked up. Yeah. And now I'm like, wait a second. All right.

So if I see twice a year, go through. I'm like, you motherfucker. Why did you get me to think about this? But yeah, I do think, I think when you get older, you think a lot about that stuff. I'm thinking about it now with my kids. Like my daughter's about to finish 10th grade. Like she's going to be in college in two and a half years. And it's like, that's it. It'll that the relationship will, at that point she goes on,

you just won't see them as much. They're not going to be around. This is somebody that has been in my house since 2005 every week. And then, and now, yeah, but think about this on the reverse side of everything. We just talked to one spectrum about COVID. The other side is the extreme of the young kids that are like, all right, we had plenty of time during COVID. I'm out of here. I'm good. All right. We're going to wrap up because my AirPods are dying again. So we should mention you did an awesome two-part series with the ABA stories. Oh, thanks. That ran on the feed last week. If you missed it, if you love the ABA, I talked about it on the last spot I did,

but check that out. And then you have two more this week. And then I guess we're going to go every other week, probably until we hit that playing game weekend. And then we'll go every Sunday after that, the rest of the way. So that's going to be, I guess, the third week of May. And then we'll have a lot of basketball.

Hopefully it's high caliber. Anyway, Rusillo, good to see you. Glad you made it out of Tulum. All right, that's it for the podcast. I have two more coming for you this week. Don't forget, New York, New York, John Yastrzemski. It's up. The podcast has launched.

It is going full speed. And the Rewatchables, Lethal Weapon coming Monday night. See you then.