The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Warriors Strike Back, Kyrie Destinations, and Sacramento on the Clock With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Warriors' Game 2 NBA Finals win over the Celtics, the Warriors' defense being the story of the game, Draymond Green's impact, the best closing five for each team, Klay Thompson's struggles, officiating, and more (1:20). Then, they hit a bunch of other NBA topics including Kyrie Irving trade buzz, rumors of Phil Knight buying the Trail Blazers, what the Kings will do with their no. 4 overall draft pick, and more (1:17:21). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up on the podcast, I am live from San Francisco, California, where game two of the NBA finals happened. Ryan Marcel is going to join me. We're going to talk basketball. We're going to talk about NBA. That's all I got for you. It's all next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what

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stuff. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, taping this. It is 8.15 Pacific time. Just went to game two of the 2022 finals, a game that was very enjoyable. And all of a sudden it wasn't if you're a Celtic fan and if you're a Warriors fan, it was great. The big takeaway for me, let's go.

I want to go big picture themes first. Ryan Rosillo is here. This was a Draymond alpha male game. And I don't know if it translated on TV like it did in person. So I'm going to ask you, like, could Draymond put on cologne? He was wearing like a sleeveless t-shirt and he was chopping wood in the front of his house before. And he just went full alpha male. I've never seen anybody more charged up, more fired up, and more of a maniac who didn't get kicked out.

But it worked. It was great. It was just, he was all over the place. He was talking to everybody. He was talking shit. He was starting shit. I thought he was going to be kicked out by the second quarter, but he just changed their personality.

Could you see that on the TV? Yeah, we saw all the interactions, but I don't know that it can be appreciated on TV the way you would appreciate it live. I just don't because there's just other stuff that we're not seeing. And, you know, the first tech I thought was deserved. And then the interaction.

And inevitable. Yeah. Right. And the interaction with Jalen Brown, you know, the broadcast was going, Hey, every other version of this,

that's double tech and you keep it moving. And then that became an argument about, well, do you want some subjectivity in it? And then Javi came on and was like, look, if we know it's his first attack and that's going to lead him to being tossed, we're not going to do it.

Yeah, he shouldn't have gotten tossed for that. No, he shouldn't. I mean, it is shocking to know that other players don't love when your legs are resting on him after the play. So I wasn't surprised. Jalen's like, get the fuck off of me. Is Draymond almost trying to get his legs off of it?

No, but tell us actually what it's like. Obviously, we know every play you're talking about, but there's going to be so much more that we don't see. It was nonstop. It was standing next to somebody on the free throw line. It was when there was dead ball stuff. It was walking by Emei Adoka, talking shit to him. It was...

First, he started with Tatum, who, as you know, doesn't really talk any shit. And he tried to get it going with him. He really got it going with Jalen. That was about as mad as I've seen Jalen in a basketball game. That guy doesn't get mad ever. But he was just constant. Then Grant Williams came in.

And it was like a comic book movie. Where it was like, you've now made your match. One of the most annoying players of the week, meet one of the other most annoying players of the week. Why don't you guys go at it? And they were talking the whole time. And Grant was super physical with them. The second half, Grant was trying to get him

to get the second tack or get in the, you know, he was bodying him full court. They were talking. At one point, Draymond was just talking shit to him. He was like 10 feet away. A lot of this stuff is subtle, which is why it's so much fun to go in person because they do a lot of under-the-breast stuff

or a lot of they just plant next and they just start muttering to each other. But he was just determined to put his stamp all over this game. He finished with 9, 7, and 5. He took three shots. But one thing I heard from the Warriors side, they did the second spectrum thing for game

one. The hustle stuff, the energy stuff. They can measure how high is your energy compared to the average amount of energy on these plays. They have some sort of barometer of how hard were we trying, for lack of a better way to say it. There's also total distance travel, too, that can tell you how hard were we trying for lack of a better way to say it. There's also like total distance travel too that can kind of tell you how hard people are working, which is a little easier to consume. Yeah. So they can look at it and they can say,

oh, the stats tell us we were possessed in that game or the stats tell us we were dead or the stats tell us we kind of mailed it in. And I think the stats told them they didn't play that hard in game one for a finals game. And I think that message was delivered they didn't play that hard in game one for a finals game. And I think that message was delivered. And you saw it today. They were all over the place.

And the refs helped a little, which we could talk about later. But I think they wanted it to be like an Eastern Conference Finals Miami-Boston game. Way more physical, way more intense. And they tried to get in the Celtics' heads, and it worked. That's what I saw. Yeah, we saw it from the jump. But then I'll tell you, this is the weird thing about this series, now two games in, is I feel like the first quarter's been

the most misleading version of basketball that doesn't tell us the story of the rest of the game. So if you go back to game one, I'm thinking, all right, Boston is not ready to have to guard multiple guys. And even if you're thinking about Bam and the Jimmy Butler combination, you can always kind of see it coming, right? You know, like, hey, Jimmy's going to get to the middle, and he's going to work, and he's going to hit some impossible shots.

He's going to get free throws. Okay, Bam's going to get it at the elbow. Bam wasn't, I don't think, aggressive enough in the Eastern Conference Finals, but you still sort of knew what you were defending. And with Golden State, there's movement, there's cutting, which there actually seemed like there was less of in this game, which we'll get to. But Curry was uncontested

on six of his first eight shots. There was kind of like not a full transition, a sort of, you know, off a miss getting into the half court where Smart lost Curry because he went to Looney, I think. And it was like,

what's going on here? And that made me think after 12 minutes like boston has to realize this isn't miami yeah and then they did and it was absurd and then they make every single shot in the fourth quarter and you're left thinking for two days like okay what did i learn from this and so then the carryover in the game to that first quarter i felt like boston was getting their offense easier and Tatum's alive. So even if the message of the story is like, oh, Golden State took it right to him from

the jump, they traded baskets. That's not what happened. I actually liked Boston better after the first quarter in this game because I thought that Golden State was hitting, like it was a weird shootout the last minute and a half. Everybody made every three, but I left 12 minutes of this one thinking the opposite of what I thought in the first game. Yeah, Boston was up 16-9. Jalen started out great. He had nine points two and a half minutes in, and then, what, eight the rest of the game.

Yeah, and they just had a nice flow to them, and they seemed confident. And then Draymond had a play that was right in front of me. I was sitting under the basket where he drove to the basket and they called a Horford three-point play foul. And it was a terrible call. And all the Celtics, and it was Tony Brothers, who they have not had success against lately.

I'm sensing a tone maybe for later on the pod. Well, it was just one of those like, oh, okay. And the Celts were pissed. And from that point on, it seemed like all of a sudden the game got super foul heavy and it just kind of lost the flow because we were sitting there the first five minutes like man this series is awesome

it's so much fun to watch the refs just go just go back and forth do your thing we're going to try to stay out of the way and from the moment you go back and watch it because I'm sure whoever whoever's listening go back and watch when it because I'm sure whoever's listening, go back and watch when it's 16-9, the Draymond play, and how fucking

discombobulated the game is from that moment on. And the Warriors handled it better than the Celtics. I think that's great for the Warriors because if they're going to have a turnover contest with somebody, the Celtics are going to win it. The Warriors are sloppy with the ball. The Celtics are like, watch this. We'll be way sloppier. And the three-point

shooting, the Celtics were missing a lot of bunnies. At one point, I looked up the scoreboard because of the three-point percentage, two-point percentage. The Celtics were like 26% on two points, two-point shots. Do you know how hard that is to miss three out of every four two-point shots in a basketball game? All right, I'm going to give you the stat. No, it's historic. Oh, it was? I haven't looked at Twitter at all.

So at one point, it's maybe the only stat that I screen grabbed that I saw tonight. The Celtics were 9 of 34 on two-point shots, 26.5%. Now they finished about 35% on twos, but at one point, their 26.5%, which would have been the worst two-point field goal percentage since the three-point line was invented in an NBA Finals game.

That's how bad it was. It felt that bad. Am I crazy for thinking it didn't feel like they were just missing a million easy shots? I thought the Warriors defense was, no, the defense. I thought the Warriors defense was the story of the game. It was Draymond.

Because the Warriors had a stretch in the first half where they missed like six layups. And you're like, what's going on with you guys? It's still a close game. So go ahead. Clay was like 2003 Romero Mendoza. Looked like the mole. Like he was going to take off his jersey and he had a Celtics jersey.

He was that bad. Do you remember how pumped we were when they got Mendoza? Yeah, it was like, oh, I didn't realize he was working for the other team. The two-point stuff, I thought some of it was a result of how hard the Warriors were playing on D. And then it's basketball is so weird. A couple don't go in and then you start rushing a tiny bit and then it just like snowballs out of there and you could just kind of feel it unraveling. But then it just like snowballs out of there.

And you could just kind of feel it unraveling. But the Warriors weren't doing great on offense either. Poole and Clay. I remember I looked up on my box score one of the timeouts. They were like two for their first 13. Something like that. Poole looked terrible. I'll give it to you.

At the half. Clay was one to eight. Zero four from three. Wiggins was four of 11. And he had some moments in the first half where you're like, all right, man. And then Poole's one of five, and Kerr didn't bring him back

until 10 and a half minutes had gone by in the third quarter. And I tweeted out at the time, I actually thought Gary Payton Jr. had done a better job when he was matched up with Jalen. And Poole at this point had given you seven, or excuse me, six quarters of misses and hunting Poole.

They hunt him. He's a priority to hunt. It's it's pool season more than his Curry season. I was trying to get to the hunting analogy there. It took a little longer than that. We probably were about three minutes late on it. I'm glad you brought up Peyton because I thought the fact that he played today was the biggest difference in the game from game one to game two.

I mean that it was called a little bit different. Obviously the words were way more kind of flying around. But Peyton, just having him instead of Iguodala and then pulling some of the clay minutes away and giving those to Peyton, they just seemed the most comfortable when he's out there. And I think it makes sense why they reacted like they did after that Dylan Brooks play.

It wasn't just that their guy got hurt. It was more like, we don't know if we can win four straight rounds if we don't have this guy. And he couldn't play three days ago, apparently. He couldn't bend his elbow completely, but he was fine today. He hit that three, which probably just gets you going. You know what I mean? Just a guy like that hit one three. But he's another one who's not afraid, man. That guy's been through some shit like he really worked his ass off to get there and he's out there and when you have him and draymond together they're they the two of them feel like two and a half because they're flying around and i thought

even though i don't know i was surprised he was guarding tatum but i guess it worked so i felt like tatum could shoot over him but tatum finished what six for 19 so maybe it was the right move uh he actually ate a 19 yeah the final numbers are all right but the pool thing so a minute and a half left to go third quarter he hits two threes immediately the absurd one at the end of it hits another one a minute into the third so he's got nine points there in two and a half game minutes and you know each game has its own personality we've been doing this long enough that we should never freak out especially if we think both teams are good right there's other series you're like all right this this is a wrap and

somebody will pick off one when the other team doesn't care but you know i just it's always surprising to me how after like one game maybe because it's newer with this kind of matchup where it's like oh okay here's all these things that are going to swing it this other way and you're like man the games are just different this way the personality is different and here's pool who'd been awful for six quarters. He had, I think, the worst plus-minus in the first half,

which, again, is a little misleading. Tatum had a career-worst minus-36, which I don't think is a great reflection. Nah, that's why I don't like plus-minus.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. For Tatum here, I think that's misleading. Poole's confidence was way down at the end of that first half

because the Warriors, his teammates, were trying to pick him up. And that's when you know it's not going well. It's not just like you're in a slump. They were trying to move in. I was walking in after halftime with a friend of mine who's a Warriors fan. And just felt like the Celtics had missed their shot, even though it was a two-point game heading into the second half. You could kind of see where it was heading. By the end of that second quarter,

the Celtics were working so hard to get anything, and the Warriors, it just felt like there was going to be this moment when the shots started going in. We've got to talk about the Steph thing. It fucking sucks to root against him. I know I've said this now three straight podcasts, but goddamn, the two

threes he hit near the end of the third quarter, it's a 20, we're up, or we're down, it is 73-62, three minutes left. So very similar to game one, right? They're up double digits. He missed that three with three minutes left of the third quarter. Would have put him up 18,

missed it. Celtics make a little run, get it to 12 and they're able to flip in the fourth quarter. This time, 73-62 hits a 27 footer contested. Celtics miss. He comes back down. He hits another one. What was that like 31 feet? Is that like six feet past the three point line? It almost seemed like he was next to Steve Kerr. And I'll tell you this, man. When he makes those, when he has the right crowd... That was the 79-62-3 to the right side. Yeah. When he makes those, it is like electroshocking the crowd. The crowd goes fucking bananas.

There is no... I don't think there's a player that is as beloved by the home crowd. It's not even close for the connection that he has with this. I know there's other popular players. I know everyone in Milwaukee loves Giannis. Like we go out on the line. I know everyone in Philly loves Embiid.

The Curry thing's different. There's history. He's been on that team 13 years. They know when he's starting to feel it. They have a real ESP for like, Oh, here we go. And when he hits those two in a row,

they fucking lose their minds. And it feels, I honestly like a meaningful home crowd. That was my takeaway. The Steph conversation is always still strange for me because I think because going back to like, when we first started real, like it was so absurd when he first got started,

I had moments where I was worried it was fake. Right was like is this really gonna happen is this is this who this guy's gonna be is he really gonna do this and yes you know to start your career 44 44 46 45 42 44 45 from three you're just like this is ridiculous but now i feel like because that's what it's supposed to be anytime he misses they'll they'll be like, oh, you know, Steph's fucking up. And you're like, all right. Everybody has some bad games. He's getting older. But we hold him to the standard that I don't even –

I think it makes us not appreciate what he does. Everybody has bad games. Everybody has bad games. For LeBron, it's a little more rare. I think he had one single-digit point output in the last 100 playoff games or something absurd. So I'd say LeBron is in his own category. He's always going to be able to get to the line, LeBron.

Even if he's not hitting, he'll still be able to get 12 free throws. So Steph can still have a worse game in his worst game in a big playoff moment than I think even LeBron would have. Having said that, I just was having a conversation with somebody the other day, and they were like,

no, he misses everything, and it's not the same. And I'm just like, he's 42% for three against Dallas. He's 46% in the final so far. Against Memphis, he was only 33%. Before that, he was 41%. So for the postseason, he's just under 40% again. And it's kind of like, he's two of eight tonight before he gets it going again. And then he's five of again. And it's kind of like, you know, he's two of eight tonight before he gets it going again. And then he's five of 11. So it's like at the two of eight, you're going, oh man,

is Steph having a bad Steph game? And then even some of those bad Steph games end up with 26 points, eight assists, seven boards. And by the way, him being out there changes everything because when Golden State, when they didn't have him out there,

there was a stretch in the first half where it was like, oh, cool, a post for Andrew Wiggins. Oh, Draymond Green wide open again at the top of the key. At least Iguodala's not out there, even though he'd made some shots for him. So, yeah, those Steph moments, they feel like they're worth more because in the moment, it just is demoralizing. Well, and on top of what you just said about Steph's having a bad game, whatever, I was on multiple Celtic fan text threads where everyone was just so excited about how well Waite was

guarding Curry, which he was. And it was like, wow, they've really found something here with this Waite-Curry matchup. He's really making it hard for him. And then the third quarter ends and Steph has 29 points. And it's like, I guess it wasn't that hard. He's on pace for 40.

I thought that was about as well as I've seen somebody deal with Curry on a 94-foot court in person. He was with him. He was around him. He was fighting through picks. He was in his stuff. He was guessing his moves, and Curry still got his points. And to see all the. And he's to,

to see all the shit that he does to get open. And it's like, it's a, it's like watching one of those, like when, when like the Boston marathon happens and there's that first wave of guys and they're just different than everybody else. Like they're moving faster.

It doesn't even seem like they're exerting any effort. Murph's out there going, I'm catching him. Curry's like, he's just endlessly moving around and it's just fucking crazy to watch it's like how do you not how are you the only one not getting tired you know and then when when pool tries

to do it it's like watching a Stefan personation uh can I say one thing about pool I have one bitter pool comment oh yeah of course I want to see him make some of these when it's like they're not up 15. He's had those moments

though in the postseason. I know he has. This is unfair. I know he has. It was a little front-runnery today with him. I'm sure one of the narratives coming out of this is they got Jordan Poole going. My question is, did he get going? Or was the game over and he started making some shots

because the Celtics weren't playing good defense? I still think they like the matchup against him. And if you're talking about key random guys in the series, he's way up there because they have to buy the 10 to 12 minutes when Steph's not out there. And he's really the only other creator they have. Yeah, he came in, it was 81-64. Yeah, and that was when he started lighting it up.

And then Boston had its 16th turnover. I think the other thing we probably could have led the podcast with, this was a little reminiscent of Game 3, Boston-Miami with the turnovers, where they're live ball turnovers. And I just think when you watch games, turnovers are different. And there's so many bad

ones in this one. So if Boston's going to do that... What about the Marcus just thrown into the cameraman on the bounce pass to no one that hits the basket support? And the other thing that we've learned from game one, 47 points from Al Horford

and Derek White's probably not happening again. Al Horford's first shot attempt was a minute and a half into the second half. So if you look at the combined of the others in this one, and by the way, Horford's, there's another little adjustment. He was 9-12 a game one. The contest

uncontested tracking, which was usually pretty good. All 12 shots apparently fell into the uncontested part of it. And you could tell Horford was ready on the scouting report because he was shot ready. And then you're thinking, oh, well, if this guy's going to shoot it all the time, instead of maybe try it, because Al can at times

have a tendency to let the play develop a little bit more. You don't feel like he's a drive and kick out, spot up guy all the time. And that's what he was in game one. And I think have a tendency to let the play develop a little bit more. You don't feel like he's a drive-and-kick-out, spot-up guy all the time, and that's what he was in game one. And I think Golden State goes, okay, let's pay attention to that. Okay, there were times, I think they set three screens for Steph on that one that was right at the top of the key where he hit a three, and it was very little distance that he had to cover, but they re-screened and re-screened,

and Boston, I think, did a bad job of what was usually a pretty standard rule of no matter what, sell out, keep two with Steph, and Boston, I think, did a bad job of what was usually a pretty standard rule of no matter what, sell out, keep two with Steph, and make somebody else beat you, which wasn't really happening in the first half. But when you look at the others for the Celtics on top of the turnovers... Wait, can we stay on Horford for one second? Yeah. I thought they changed their game plan against him. They were swarming him at the top of the key. I think... They were on immediately. He had too much room in game one, and I think there was a little Draymond stuff because I think Draymond season,

here's everything. And there was some stuff out there about Al Horford's better than Draymond for the series. Al Horford's a better player at this stage of their careers. And Draymond seemed like he wanted to come out and be like, Oh really? Al Horford's better than me. That I did feel like that was a smidge of what they have, But more importantly, they were swarming him and they weren't allowing him

space and time. So that and Peyton I thought were the two biggest ways they changed other than how physical it was. So if you go Al, Rob Williams, Marcus Smart, the other starters, they made three shots total. It's bad. I want to talk about that starting lineup. We got to take a quick break. The NBA Finals are here. So is your chance to score big on FanDuel

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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. All right. So if you're the Celtics you got the game you want the Warriors are supposed to win game 2 especially with the way some of the ref stuff was going in the first half

do you want to just do the ref thing get it out of the way nah let's hold it for a second the one thing I think the Celtics are going to have to deal with is that the Horford-Rob together might not work in this series. And he may switch this a couple times during the playoffs where there was that one Miami game

when he started Grant in the second half with Horford so he could bring Williams off the bench against P.J. Tucker late. They'll mess with the starting lineups. I just don't know if this is the series for the Horford Rob combo. Maybe it's funny though when it works. It's funny when it works though. It's like look at all this size. It gets

a small Warriors team. Rob's not 100. I would say. Oh, he's definitely not and he got hurt again when smart on the layup. We're going to block him from behind. He landed. I don't know if you saw the replay. It was bad. It happened right in front of me. Oh, that's right. I'm going to give you my percentage. You can see that from Loge?

No, I was like right there. I was right there and Rob got hurt. My favorite thing, percentage. I'm going to give you my percentage healthy for Rob Williams. I calculated it during the game for you. Yeah, write this down. You don't get this

in Second Spectrum. We don't give out subscriptions for this. Do you have a login for Bill's percentage? Bill, talkingadamsasspercentage.com I'm going to say like 67%. I thought you were going to say lower,

but yeah, all right. I'll go with it. Who am I? Who am I to dispute that? He still has, he still jumps, but he's just, it's in his head,

and I think MMA's really pushing him. There was a moment when he went down and he got up, and I thought they were going to have a tall timeout to take him down, but you can see like, I don't think he wanted to call a timeout there. Yeah.

He didn't. Yeah. And I think all season season they've been pushing Rob to play through pain, play through adversity, play through whatever. And he may as well just pushing him, but he's not even close to the guy. We were watching that game because we had a podcast

that Minnesota-Boston game when Rob first got hurt. That guy, we haven't really seen that guy in a playoff game, I don't think in 2022, the guy who is completely demolishing Minnesota, you know, he's, you see it in pieces and flashes. I think he's been useful.

The words have done a good job of taking away the alley-oops and stuff like that. They're ready for him. They're really well coached and Kerr. I can't say Kerr was like right at half court, the whole game, like just locked in like a maniac trying to keep the intensity up.

But anyway, I'm not bullish on that Horford-Williams thing. From the Warriors side, this is almost a borderline Kyle turn the camera on. The Klay thing is a thing that is going to be a big decision for Kerr in one of these games where I don't think he's one of their best five players in the series. I think he's in a lot of ways helps the Celtics more than the Warriors. If he still feels like he's 2016 clay when he's not. And I said, I say this in the least inflammatory, most respectful way possible.

They're going to have a situation where there's going to be a game in Boston when it might not make sense to have him out there. And my question is, with all the equity that he's built in this Warriors relationship, how much his teammates value him,

the coach values him, all the shit that he went through. Is Kurt going to have to have that moment where he's just like, I need to win this game. You can't, I'm going to have to take you out. You're going to be sitting on the bench for this one.

It's tough, man. We've seen it in basketball how many times over the years? It's going to happen in this series. I'm telling you. I disagree. I disagree. You disagree. You think they keep them out?

Yeah. This is a guy 10 days ago had 32 points in the closeout game against Dallas. The closeout game against Memphis, he was 8 of 14 from 3 for 30 points. Those are the elimination games. Yeah.

We also know what coaches do. It's why Iguodala got a chance to run around in game one. Even though Iggy hit some shots over the course of how a defense is set up against you. There were just some possessions where you had Draymond and Iguodala out there at the same time, and it was like five Celtics with a foot in the paint, it felt like, except for maybe Klay on the other side in some of the non-step minutes. So coaches trust people. They trust these guys. They never want to give up on them.

I understand your point. I don't think it's a give up. I think it's a one night thing. They're going to have a decision where it's like, eh, I got to play these five guys and you're not one of them. All right. I think there were some weird, you know, some of the Memphis games, you know,

he had the 6-20 game in there. You know, he was 6-19, 5-19, and 6-20 in three of those Memphis games, he had the 6-20 game in there. 6-19, 5-19, and 6-20 in three of those six games. Today, he was 4-19. Yeah, he was terrible. What was his plus-minus? Not that it matters, but what was his plus-minus? He was a 0-plus-minus in the game they won by 19. I would say, I would bet you that the odds of him getting subbed out in a tight one where they feel like he's not giving them enough.

Because at no point will the Celtics stop guarding Klay Thompson. He could go 0 for 20 and they have to guard him. That's what we're looking for in playoff games. How many people do you have to respect defensively? And Klay can miss every shot and they still have to close out. They still have to guard him. I thought Klay actually did a good job on the closeouts, kind of driving a little bit more. I would bet you

we're going to get a real vintage Klay game that's far more likely than him being taken out of a closing rotation. This sounds like a bet for us. I'll tell you this. By the eighth miss with him today, or ninth miss, it was that awkward silent sound when the super electric home crowd and the miss followed by the, you know, it's like one of those sounds. It's, I watch out for it. I think, I think the Celtics were pretty comfortable when he was out there, but you're right.

He's such a threat at all times. I just feel like Porter and Wiggins, when they're out there together, I don't even know how many minutes they play together. Porter's on a minutes restriction, apparently. But when it was like those two together with Curry and with some size, that seemed like the toughest lineup for the Celtics.

I saw that Bielitsa played well in the limited minutes. He holds up, man. Yeah, I don't know why he didn't. Also, always kills the Celtics. I saw that Bielitsa played well in the limited minutes. He holds up, man. He holds up. Also, always kills the Celtics. So I don't understand the Iguodala thing, but to your point about why you think they wouldn't do that to Klay, that was why Iguodala played game one. And by the way, his knee's all sore now

and we probably won't see him again in the series. But Kerr felt like he owed it to him to give him a chance, I think. Yeah, I mean, of all the years we've been watching this game, the number of times where you're like, why is this guy playing? And, I mean, hell, even E-Made, the beginning of this year, you'd be like, why are you trusting Josh Richardson and Schroeder in these spots? It's like, well, because they have the resumes.

They're the guys. Remember the beginning of the year? Pritchard looked like he was buried you know Neesmith was was behind Langford and you're going all right you know the coach the coach you know is always going to trust somebody a little bit more that's done it before and even though Iguodala hadn't played since the opening series I was not surprised if he was cleared that he was going to give us some minutes. The problem was, even though he made shots in game one, it didn't feel like it was real sustainable to set your offense up with two people that the Celtics felt like they could ignore. And there was even a couple of times.

It's tough to hop into a finals game and just be like, okay guys, let me try to feel this out. Yeah. By the way, you're initiating a lot of stuff too. It's not like you're some spot up shooter. Clay by the round three point percentage.

He's four for 15 in this series. Last series, it was 32.7. The Memphis series, it was 36.8. Denver series,

42.8. But I'm throwing that one out. That was fucking... You can think about the guys on Denver versus who the Celtics have. I don't know. I think... I can't remember a finals like

this where I'm not sure as it evolves who are the crunch time guys will be when we finally have like a game and it might be game three. You know, you know, by the way, you know, Scott Foster will be there for game three. I'm already the extender will be in the house. I'm guessing. Yeah, I'd heard what it's

12 refs that are rotated into an NBA final. Yeah, so we'll see Scott Foster. So that'll be good for the Warriors. I could be wrong about that. I thought that's what I heard. But yeah, from a matchup standpoint, who do you think the Warriors' best five is in this series? Let's say it's 98-98 with five minutes left in game three.

Who do you think's out there for each team? Because I think for the Celtics, I think they have to play white and smart together. That's when they've had white, smart, brown. Al Tatum. And Horford. I think that's the five. I think white's with his defense

and the way his ability to kind of slash and kick and all that. I think he's one of their five best guys in this series. You would have said Grant Williams two series ago, but no more. I think it's white for this one. So who this series. You would have said Grant Williams two series ago, but no more. I think it's white for this one. So who do you have for the Warriors? Maybe, but that could change too. Grant could have a really good offensive name. He didn't do anything

tonight in 21 minutes. I actually think he was a little he had six points and one rebound tonight. I thought he got way too caught up in all the Draymond thing. I'd love to know what his total minutes were in the fourth quarter because it looked like he was a little bit more limited in how often they were going to him there. It's Draymond. It I'd love to know what his total minutes were in the fourth quarter because it looked like he was a little bit more limited in how often they were going to him there. It's

Draymond. It's Wiggins. It's obviously Steph. I'm not knocking Clay out of the top five. I think what we looked at was a version of... You go Looney or Bielitsa? No. Here's what I think is still in play here. Again, every game has a different personality.

With Poole, you want to call it front-running? Fine. But that's why they left Klay out there to get him some more looks late to try to get some sort of carry over confidence stuff, which I think is a real thing. Some people would argue against it. But now there can be some version of this where it's a closing group with Poole or Looney, which is something we were talking about before. You forgot one guy. Peyton.

Well, no, I'm not forgetting him. I'm just thinking. I think Peyton and Curry, definitely. I think it's Draymond, definitely. And I think it's Wiggins, definitely. So that fifth spot is between Clay and Poole and Looney and maybe Porter. That's why this is such a great series. between Klay and Poole and Looney and maybe Porter. That's why this is such a great series.

I don't... And it might be game to game. It might just be how... Maybe Poole doesn't have it this game, but I don't see them playing Klay, Curry, and Poole at the same time in a close game against the Celtics. Hey, can I ask you about Smart? Yeah, he is.

What are you seeing? Because this is... Remember, like, he may didn't bring you seeing? Because this is, remember, like, he may didn't bring him back until that game was basically over in game one. I didn't love how he played in game one. I just don't think, I think he has a badly sprained ankle, and I think he has a couple other injuries,

and I think he's, they'll never admit it, they'll never say it, but I think he's banged up. And where you're really seeing it is the stuff to the basket and some of the decision-making with that. Because that was something, he used to be pretty good. He'd have the no-don't-yes drives, but I just don't think he's 100%.

I think he's fine, but he's not 100%. And this is the point in the season when a lot of people are hurt. But White has looked better than Smart, which I was not... If you told me that three weeks ago, I would not have believed you. I need to correct something. Smart came in at 347. The game wasn't over. It was a six-point game.

Which game? And honestly, game one. Game one. No, no, you're right. No, no. That game was only a six-point game. And honestly, the guy that put it out of reach was Smart. But he stayed...

I know, but he stayed out of the game way longer than usual no no we're on the same page I'm saying he came back in at 347 because I remember seeing that clip of him around six minutes when the dry when they're starting to like holy shit it's like Golden State can't do anything but smart actually is a big reason why they even put that thing away

but I would say the two games worth of smart now is not you know not the good version that we've seen in this team's turnaround. In game one, he was out for almost a quarter. And out to the point where it was like six minute mark, thought he was going back in. And then he's like, I'm riding with these guys. I think the white smart combo will be important for them. But yeah, I'm trying to think other lessons going

forward for game three like it's same thing like we need more energy that's like whoever loses that's one of the narratives that comes out right I would need more energy gotta really want this the Horford thing I do wonder

if they unlock something with them a little bit about just like being way more aggressive with them his life was pretty easy in game one man it really was I went back on synergy and watched way more aggressive with him. His life was pretty easy in game one, man. It really was. I went back on Synergy and watched the whole game again.

And then you just find out so many other things, especially when you're looking. Once you know the result, so then you're trying to look for stuff that happens that leads to the result. It was just a funny game in that it felt like Boston was giving up these uncontested shots and then by the end of it the contest rate was absurd in boston's favor how much they contested shots and how bad like i have the number here not that i know you're dying for this but it was like

a really significant number where golden state had only contested like 20-something percent. Yeah, the contest rate, 42% of contested shots against Golden State for Boston. Golden State only contested 25% of Boston's field goal attempts. That never was the way up today. Right.

So once they sort through all this stuff, we can watch it again in the morning. We'll know that number. It's funny. Both teams aren't that hard to figure out. If the Celtics are going to turn the ball over 18, 20 times in a game, they're probably going to lose.

Yeah, when no one else makes shots and you turn it over that much, it's probably not going to work out. You're probably going to lose. To Golden State. And the Warriors, if the Warriors are going to miss a bunch of threes and not play that hard defensively, it's probably not going to work out for them. So the turn, like, yeah, if the Warriors are going to miss a bunch of threes and not play that hard defensively,

it's probably not going to work out for them. So the turnovers thing, this Celtics team, this is now, what are they? They played 4-7-7. So this is, they've got now 20 playoff games for them. And it's just, I was sitting there today going, I can't believe this team might win the title with how careless they are

in so many different ways. Just passes, trying to thread the needle through six guys on a bounce pass, screwing up four on twos, swinging the ball around when somebody's just like, you're basically hitting the defender in the head

with the pass. They're so ready to steal it. Just over and over again, such sloppiness. And yet, they're still three games away from the title. And then, I guess the Warriors fans would probably say the same thing, right? That was their big rep. Like, protect the ball. Well, the Warriors throughout this entire finals versions of these teams,

they're always a bad turnover team. They're like bottom five. Like, awful. So, there's usually even... I remember back in 2008, I think the Celtics always a bad turnover team. They're like bottom five. Like, awful. So, you know, there's usually even... I remember back in 2008, I think the Celtics were a high turnover team. But I think always

there was a handful of illegal screens from Perk. Well, that was another thing Draymond took full advantage of today was he was... I mean... Who was our starting five of guys who are like,

oh, this is how you're calling it today? I'm going to take full advantage, guys. Like, Lowry's got to be the starting point guard, right? PJ Tucker. Lowry. Lowry's coach player. Yeah, he's a player coach. It's like Bill Russell in 1969.

Draymond. By the way, I didn't realize that Koozie came back and played for the Cincinnati Royals as a player coach. He'd been retired for like four years. I was looking at Kuzi's numbers the other day because I feel like everybody was taking swipes at him for a while. So Lowry, Tucker, maybe Marcus.

Marcus probably has to be on this team somewhere. Oh, you're calling it this way? Great. Who else? Who are like the, I will bend the rules if you allow me, guys. Because Draymond was everywhere in this game. I'd say Chris Paul, but he wouldn't be around this late.

Oh, don't do that. No. Don't do that. Don't let the internet wear you down. Come on. Chris Paul wore me down. Chris Paul, where are you? He was in the finals a year ago, so I can't say that.

Third quarters, Golden State, 73-38. That's our score in the third quarters of this series so far. That seems excessive. Say that again? The Warriors are up 73-38 in the third quarter of this series. Yeah, the Celtics had 30 in the first quarter. They had 34 in quarters two and three tonight.

And it was the opposite. I really like what Boston was doing offensively in the first quarter. I was like, you know what? This feels like it's harder. The score can be whatever the score is, but you can just watch a game and go, I'll just sit at home and go, okay, who was that harder for? Who did you feel better about? The stuff they were doing, getting in

and out. Who did you feel better about their looks? You know what I'm over though is fucking post-ups. Nobody can do it. And just because the other guy's shorter. You don't like the Clay post-ups. Nobody can do it. And just because the other guy's shorter... You don't like the Klay post-ups? Out of the timeout? Klay Thompson?

Yeah, or like a guy gets Pritchard in a switch, and it's like, all right, post. But do you have any post moves? Or do you just dribble, don't get any advantage on ground, and then take a turnaround fadeaway? Everyone has the same two moves. It's either the jump hook or the one-step fall away.

It's just so funny to see guys, the big wings, they're like, oh, mouse in the house. It doesn't mean anything anymore because nobody knows how to play in the post. Sunday, that game seven, which I went back and finally watched during the week, and everyone's blaming Marcus after the game, right? He's all the Marcus smart shots.

Meanwhile, Brown's charge and Grant Williams' two-on-one were the two worst plays of that unraveling during that Miami game. Grant Williams, Tatum found Grant Williams in the baseline. And he had Kyle Lowry under the basket. And I think Jalen behind him. And all I had to do, if I told the story on the podcast, I apologize.

But all I had to do, I probably, if I told the story on the podcast, I apologize, but all I had to do is either shoot a jump hook over Kyle Lowry or throw an alley up to Jalen Brown. Instead, he saw Lowry. Lowry had them so psyched out at that point. He's so, everyone's so afraid of a Lowry charge that he just kind of gave, it just got stripped. And if you watch it,

you're like, I, this is in high school. Grant Williams would have known what to do. So I'm with you on the low post moves. Like people, I'm just constantly stunned by how, like McHale. McHale back in the day. He had 13 different moves just to get a five foot jump hook.

That's why I just, this is old Rosilloillo material here but the Hakeem camp bullshit that went on for years right it would be it would be some big and he didn't have any post moves that he never learned

in grade school high school AAU or college or went right to the NBA he's four years into the NBA I'm not even talking

specifically about Dwight and he'd be like oh send him to Hakeem's camp that's like buying your kid a guitar and saying spend a long weekend with Jeff Beck you know and like let's see.

We'll see you on Tuesday. It was just like, no. But you learned. You learned stairway to heaven. This is like a lifetime of work and footwork and hand that's different. And nobody, like, Sengoon right now is one of the five best post players

in the NBA. Okay? Sengoon has better post than almost anyone in the fucking league. When you were done talking, I was going to bring up Sengoon because he's like an alien has landed with this totally different way to play basketball that just doesn't exist anymore. He's got drop steps. He's got up and unders. He's got-

Timmy is better than 99% of post players in the NBA, and he's got up and unders he's got like timmy timmy is better than 99 of post players in the nba and he's gonna stay in school but this is where you get in trouble is like the omar sam han remember remember that guy who was lighting up that one march madness it's drop steps the uh the yannis this is one thing that i i really appreciate about him and you know i i think he probably works on his game as much as any superstar we've had last 15 years, but he actually had footwork moves that he'd even three years ago. I don't feel like he had,

right? Like he, he was doing some drop step stuff in that Boston series. I was like, Whoa, that was like a real thing. And bead has it. Jokic obviously is,

uh, and bead has a pretty full toolbox. Embiid has it. Jokic obviously is. Embiid has a pretty full toolbox of stuff. He's got a menu. Right. But, you know, nobody has the Mikhail stuff. Nobody has the Akeem stuff. And you have to figure out the angles. You have to figure out all this different stuff. And then there's times

you set somebody up, like you show them the first thing that then sets up all the other stuff. So you bring it across and it's just simple into a jump hook. show them the first thing that then sets up all the other stuff. So like you bring it across and it's just simple into a jump hook. Like give them a little shake and then you finish left shoulder turn, right hook. And then it's like, okay, that sets up the next one.

And I don't think anybody... And here's the thing, is if I were a post player, I don't know that I'd put the time in because somebody's just going to take a three anyway. I know. I was talking... This is not a name drop.

I was talking to Sharif Abdur Rahim for a while before the game. KFC and Logan Burdock were there at one point, but we were just talking about if you played now, you're just because Sharif was like 18 to 20 feet was his spot, right? He had that old school, just a two point jumper game where it's, you know, he could post up, but he could also, he just liked that was where he was comfortable. And we were saying, now, if you're 10 years old, you're just shooting threes.

Do you even have that stuff? He's like, yeah, I just would have shot threes. But Sharif scored, I think he was like 22 and eight for like six straight years. Just on like 18 footers. I thought he did more work. I mean, I don't want to start going up to basketball reference shot chart here. I think he did his work close to though. He did the boat.

He was talking about it. He, you could post them up or he had that face up little 18 footer. And that was, that was where that was his kitchen. But now he'd be in the corner or he, you know, or pick and roll, step back, waiting for a three. And would he even have that stuff? I don't know. That's why KD Butler is so fascinating.

He wouldn't because Abdulrahim was actually somebody you were like, you know what, he's got some perimeter skills for this big guy, which if you came up now, a lot of it's how tall were you early. But even then, it's just tall were you early but yeah even then you know it's just it's just different i just miss i wish there were post play only so i could have somebody suggest that a guy who has no post skills whatsoever would go hang out with the game a lot yeah just like why don't you just spend the week with the team elijah you want to be like okay so just match perhaps one of the best the the quickest most coordinated centers we've ever seen in the history of games.

Just a couple sleepovers with that guy. Dwight Howard should have a post-up camp. He just teach people the jump hook over and over again. We'll take another break. I want to talk about refs. When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others will do too.

Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly, so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See, safe riding sets an example.

Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. Ugh.

This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend that powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days and the ability to reach further with access to over 1400 airport lounges worldwide redefine possible with business platinum that's the powerful backing of american express terms and conditions apply visit amex.ca slash business platinum all right i really held that this is like 44 minutes of runtime for the actual pod, not counting all the stuff we put into it after.

Did you see Bill Burr's thing on Jimmy Kimmel's show last week? Last week, no. He went on and did this thing, but Kimmel, it was great. Kimmel asked him, do you watch Celtics, you're a big fan, do you watch these playoff games? And Bill Burden did this whole routine about, you don't need to because, you know, like if somebody's up 15 in the first half or they're,

you know, the refs are going to pull it back. They just want to get it to within five at halftime. And then the second half, oh, who's behind and get it so that it's a close game at the end. And the refs control it. He did this whole rant and it's great. I was thinking today that as we're even walking in the arena,

it's like, this feels like a Bill Burr game. You shouldn't feel that way, but it's hard not to. That rant, go watch it on YouTube. It is so fucking funny. Don't watch it now. It just made me think like I would have stopped the podcast

but it was like alright the Warriors see Tony Brothers they know that it's going to be like a more physical game and it's going to be all over the map so let's try to get away with what we can get away with but I just thought do you think the refs have too much control in these games?

I know we've danced around this. We've talked about it. But can you think of another sport? Because this is a point Bill Burr made on Kimmel Show. Football doesn't work like this, where depending on the game, Tom Brady's going to get... He'll get called for weird stuff in the pocket or he won't. Do we obsess over this too much or do we actually not obsess over it

enough? I know I'm in the minority, but I think we obsess about it way too much. I don't look the, the Jalen Brown foul on the layup. Was that on pool? That was a terrible call. Um,

the Grant Williams dream on dust up, I thought was the wrong call. Uh, I did think Derek white blocked the other layup clean. I thought he timed it perfect on the backboard, which is one of the other debatable ones. I got to tell you, man, there's even a Tatum drive where I think he got hit

and it led to a turnover. It points the other way. I just think one team's going to end up with more bad calls than the other one, and that's just the way it works. So I don't usually ever make it a focal point of how I saw a game, but I could be wrong. This is why I bring it up. It seemed like the Celtics just watching their body language, how they were talking to the refs during timeouts, during breaks, it seemed like they knew the game was going to go this way, that they probably weren't going to get

a lot of calls. And they were getting after, you know, there'd be a timeout and Ema was going out and just talk, talk to the refs or smart was going out and they were really lobbying and Ema was getting so mad. He finally got a technical and I haven't looked this up, but I don't, that couldn't have been more than like his third technical of the season. He's not like a get a technical guy, but he was so mad by the third quarter. There was this play when they called Marcus. Marcus had 2000 row really quick by the third quarter. There was this play when they called Marcus. Marcus had two fouls

in a row really quick in the third quarter and one of them was because he was defending Draymond really close and Draymond dipped into them and they called Marcus foul and the whole Boston bench

went nuts. Then it came down to the other end and Draymond was like mugging Marcus and the ball went out of bounds and they just said Boston ball.

They didn't call him the foul and Marcus was just screaming at brothers. He's like, that's the same fucking call from the other side. And the whole benches. And that was right around the time he got it. And it was just, it was, it was weird that the Celtics kind of knew it's going to be hard for us tonight. Like they do that going into the game, but the Warriors still kick their ass. I just, I just wish it was consistent every game. I love the way game one was called because it had a real flow to it. It was really fun to watch.

Now, maybe it had a flow because neither team was playing defense that hard. But anyway, that's my referent. Watch the Bill Burr thing. I know he's doing a comedy routine, but it also rings a little close to true in a way that I was a little alarmed by as I was watching it.

Right, but this is probably the point where I bring up that the Celtics actually took only three less free throws and were called for only one more personal foul, which maybe gets lost in the fourth quarter that wasn't really a game. Yeah, so there was a couple. At one point, it was 16 to 10 fouls, Celtics,

because I was looking at my phone. Celtics had 16, The Warriors have 10. And then it kind of went. But anyway, whatever. Listen, 1-1 is the right score for this series because the Warriors kind of fell asleep at the switch in game one. And I would say this is the right score, right? Right. But I do think to stay on the free throw attempt thing real quick.

It's just that people go to it way too often. You get a result you don't like. You look on the free throw attempt thing real quick, it's just that that's that, that is God, that well is just people go to a way too often. Like you get a result. You don't like, you look at the free throw attempts and then you're like, Oh, they have 12 more free throw attempts. We're getting screwed. You're like,

okay, but did you watch, did one team drive perhaps more was one team more aggressive. Was another team late on rotations? You know, like I just don't feel like free throw disparity and that stuff. I feel like too often people think it's the result

of poor officiating, especially when you're emotionally attached to the outcome as opposed to, I think free throw disparity is far more related to how

the teams play. Well, and also, I think some guys just don't get the benefit of the call. Like Wiggins. Absolutely. Wiggins doesn't get calls. of the call. Like Wiggins. Absolutely. Wiggins doesn't get calls.

Just period. Wiggins was going to the basket hard the whole game and wasn't getting anything. I think Jalen's like this too. Jalen goes to the basket. They don't call. Tice we've joked about before. Tice just doesn't get calls ever.

No, I mean, the war on Tice thing is funny because it's so true. Did you see today? Looney elbowed him in the head? They didn't call it a defense break? I don't know that I've ever seen a rotation player. Granted, because I watch more Celtics games than I'd say the Warriors, probably the other team I watch as much as Boston. But I don't know that I've seen a rotation player.

And it's probably more to when he was playing more often, the first time we were using Boston, as opposed to coming back because he's not in the rotation more. He will get open hand slapped in the face with a red mark and his eye closed and everybody's getting back. He's like, hold on, I got to pick up my eyeball. Did you see today when Looney got a steal and there's a fast break and he just whacked Tyson in the face?

There's a ref like two feet away. But yeah, they've decided. But Wiggins is like that I think for the Warriors. I really don't think that guy gets calls, period. Sometimes,

I don't know what it is. It's like some ways certain guys play, it just doesn't translate into the ref's brain. I don't think he drives the contact. I don't think he drives

the contact though. Like he, I think he's so athletic that he can kind of hang and float and try to figure out the angle where whenever I get ready for the draft, I'll watch guys and I'll think, hey, it's admirable that you're not seeking fouls every single time, but we're going to want you to seek fouls every single time that you try, especially in the NBA, because if you're a decent offensive

player, you end up getting the benefit of the doubt on all those things. You know another call I didn't like for Boston? The Jordan Poole-Derek White thing after the block where I did think the block was clean. They were talking about whether or not it was a goal 10 on the broadcast. Oh, and then Zach Zarbog stops it, stops a fast break for the Celtics, and then they have to rescind it. That was terrible.

Right, and I don't think they rescinded it. I think Poole was grabbing his leg. He definitely 100% did something. Right. But I don't think any of this has anything to do with the rest of the Celtics starters not making any shots, turning the ball over a million times, and getting a sampling of nuclear stuff

that puts you to bed early. The only thing I'll say is the whole team collectively got pretty frustrated there in the first half because I do feel like they had momentum and were playing well. And then all of a sudden, you know, the wheels came off a little bit.

I'm trying to think what else I learned from the two gold state games. You want to hear about the arena? Yeah. What's it like? So I'm convinced all these arenas basically feel the same when you're actually in there, no matter how much money they spent on them.

It's really nice. Like the underneath stuff's nice. All like the different clubs they have and there's more room and it's easier to move around. Like they fix all the little flourishes, like the, you know, how did the tunnels

and all these kinds of things. But the only arena I've ever been in NBA wise, where I honestly felt like it felt different was the Indiana one because they built it for basketball only. And you just feel, it just feels like the fans are on top of the court. The corners come way out toward the baseline. And it just feel it's, that's still my favorite. All these other ones feel like variations. They'll have the big scoreboard now. It's super nice. Like I get, they, they figured out how to fix the corners. They put the media up on the corners

up in seats that aren't that good, but they're still a really good vantage point. So they've mastered all that little stuff. The parking is always better, things like that. But ultimately, Indiana still figured it out the best. And I don't even know when they built that. Have you been to that Indiana one? Yeah, I love it. It's awesome. It's fucking incredible. So I know they have concerts and there was this article in Sports Business Journal about how much money

they're making that was like two days ago about what a cash cow that arena is for them and all these different ways they're monetizing it no but you stay up

with the trades you're good at that yeah I try to you know I try to see what's going on I'm not making fun of you right now but they built it for

everything right basketball concerts Indiana was just like we're building this for the fucking Pacers but they built it for everything, right? Basketball concerts. Indiana was just like, we're building this for the fucking Pacers and for college and for high school. And we don't care if there are any other sports or concerts here. This is a basketball arena. I wish one other team would do that.

I heard, I heard a crazy thing about the Clippers that I'm not, I'm not sure is out, but multiple people have told me this. Did you hear about Ballmer's idea for the wall? Like a green monster? Just ricochet it off of that? Apparently, one of the sides

of the Clipper arena that they're building is going to have no suites on it. And it's just like Rose Bowl style. Just rows all the way up. Nothing. And his whole concept is he wants a wall so that a little like how the Seahawks have it

with how they structured the field so the noise bounces off the one end. He wants to do that so that when the sound will bounce off and really be like a noise advantage. And there's going to be no sweets at all. I mean, if somebody's like, I don't care about the extra sweet revenue, it would be Balmer. It sounds a little bit like the potato chip at Autzen in Oregon.

Because when you're on the sideline, lucky enough to go to a bunch of Oregon games when it was rolling up there, and we'd stand on the visitor's sideline to begin. I'll never forget. It's one of the most amazing college football experience I've ever had. And Matt Barkley's a freshman. I think he was a freshman that year. And he's like, I go, you know, they're like, hey, you've never been to Autzen because Autzen's

half the size of some of these SEC stadiums. Yeah. And, you know, you'd be around, you're kind of like, which places are the loudest? And Barkley's like, oh, I like it loud. It was so loud their first drive down and you're going on a silent count which means your tackles are like looking at the defensive ends moving first and stanford steve and i were standing up because we were like let's stand on the usc side because the visitor side there's always more room and there's this massive thing

they joke and call it a potato chip that overhangs on the visitor's sideline and all that sound just comes back down on that sideline. And we're looking at each other. We could have been screaming at the top of our lungs to each other standing there. You can barely hear it. And by the way, that Oregon fan base too would sustain it. So a lot of it is, I would love to start,

I'm totally with you. I would love to start seeing some different stuff, but no one is ever about not maximizing every single square inch for every future dollar so that's why it never happens but if yeah there's a guy that'd be like i'll screw it i'll do it differently it would be him right that guy is steve ballmer they're building i hope this is true i hope this is true and i my intel is pretty good on this they He's building a basketball arena. So, there you go. He's going to try to differentiate it in whatever way. I still think it's

insane, but he's also so rich. What does he care? But it's insane. Yeah, but even every other person that's so rich, what does that person care? They never do this. But maybe it takes that one guy to do it so that the next guy goes, hey, you know what? It's really cool. This guy did it this it. So then the next guy goes, Hey, you know what is really cool.

This guy did it this way. And then they can get the city to pay for it. And they'll be like, this is awesome. Well, I think he's probably thinking of it. Like, how do I stand out from the Lakers? There's,

I'm going to lose the, who has more fans, Lakers or Clippers battle for the rest of the time I'm alive. So what are my advantages? I have money. Well, they have money too. I can have the coolest basketball stadium in the league

and a really awesome home court advantage. Maybe that'll help. That'll give us some sort of identity. So it's all part of the same thing. But anyway, the worst thing, the crowd is I think still really loud. I gotta say, I'd heard some feedback about that it wasn't as loud as Oracle. That say, I'd heard some feedback about that.

It wasn't as loud as Oracle. That's what I'd heard. It's not as loud as Oracle, but it's like, I don't know, 95% as loud. It's really, I mean,

it was deafening in there a couple of times. Um, the energy is a little different. Oracle is special. I mean, there, you're never gonna, you're never going to compete with that,

but, um, I thought it was pretty cool overall. The Celtics should be put, yeah, the Celtics should be putting me in a private jet to go to game five. going to compete with that, but I thought it was pretty cool overall. That was my shout out report. The Celtics should be putting me in a private jet to go to game five considering I'm 0-2 at Oracle during the playoffs

run. I don't know how many other people can say they've never seen the Warriors win a game during all of those years. I was 0-2 when I showed up. Wait, really? 0-2? I don't even know how many home losses that they even have. I was there for two of them, man.

You know, I was talking to somebody at the game about how dumb the, when people started piling on Durant with the Curry thing, when it just became

the talking head thing and then Durant got mad when they were talking about. Wait, back it up. Just give us the full timeline here so everybody understands what you're talking about. What was it, like a week ago?

People were saying it was Steph's team all along. Durant. It became a talking head thing and a Twitter thing and it was out there that, wait, was Durant even that important to those teams? TV shows, there are a few questions TV producers love more than whose

team is it though. Right. For the record, the 2017 Warriors is, I don't know, probably the best basketball team I've ever seen in person. And if it wasn't, it's in the top three. But I think I would probably take them over anyone. I think this whole thing where the players just get mad and they tweet or they do whatever, I think it's a really weird time. Nobody

else does this but players. The players have become... I don't even understand what the upside is of it. But in this case, I actually think he was justified to be like, what the fuck? We were awesome. Our team was awesome together. I was super important. I averaged 35 a game against LeBron. Why am I taking

shit? I don't know. I just didn't get that at all. I'm going to attribute it to the four days of not being able, not having games and trying to come up with things to talk about. Well, you know, it's funny because I always felt like I was always making these Steph arguments that, you know, I think a lot of people understood, but it still felt like so many people dismissed. Like you do not understand that it's not about every make.

It's not about every three. It's not even about the attempts. It's his existence. Yeah, it's the spacing and the pressure. When you dug through all those plus minuses, you make everybody's life easier. But to say that it was Steph's all along because they're in the finals now, well, guess what?

This would probably already be over if Durant was still on the team. This would be over. They'd be up 2-0. Maybe they'd lose one game along the way. And that's how special that group was. And I want to stay on that for a second because whenever we talk about that team,

like, I think it's one of the three best teams. I don't know if you have to go specific of one year and say, okay, 17-18, or, excuse me, 16-17. The first Durant year was the best year. Right. But, like, you would take, 18. The first arena year was the best year. Right. But,

but you would take it over the 86 Celtics? I just think, I think it's so hard to compare the eras. If you go back and watch the YouTube clips of that 86 team, the geometry of the game, you make your head explode. It's like, why are there 10 guys in the paint? No.

And I mean, there's still something to say about that with the Bulls. I think the, probably the sec, the first, second three Pete Bulls. I think probably the first, second three-peat Bulls team is probably the one

you pick out of the Bulls run. The Lakers, it's hard, but if I were to say like an era team and say the Golden State KD years,

this many years, the Bulls second three-peat team this many years, I think even though this is going to pain you, you have to take the magic Lakers and that collection

of what they did over the Celtics in the 80s. Yes or no? I think the totality, but I still think the 86 team was the best team. Was the best single team of any of the decades. They crushed everybody. I think that team, I would go 96

bowls or 97 bowls if you want to get a little spicy. If you just want to be like, well, Brian Williams on 97 bowls if you want to get a little spicy. If you just want to be like, wow, Brian Williams on 97 bowls, you want to go that route? And the 2017 Warriors, those are the three best teams I've seen in my life. Yeah, and then it's completely unfair to

some other generative, but I don't know that you would have many lists that would go beyond five teams that wouldn't have those three teams. Your list has to include those three teams. Totally agree. Then I would start getting weird. I still really value the 89 Pistons and all the lineup shit that they could

do and how unbelievable they were defensively. I still like the 82 Lakers as a playoff team. Some of the full-court press shit they were doing was basically like the original small ball team and you have magic and nixon and jamal wilkes is still great and kareem and mackadu and i that team was unbelievable so that'd probably be my five yeah i mean if you're going five though you know that 83 sixers team is

hard for me to if we're just going one single year the problem is they don't have the longevity around the edges of whatever year you're picking. I don't love that Ivarone part. I can't get over. Dude, they didn't lose to anybody. I know. They smashed the Lakers. I don't like how they defended the title either.

I did this in my book. I just feel like the title defense has to matter like 15%. Yeah, no, that's fine. And it's one of my arguments against the Heat with the first Wade one, where you go, like if you go through 20 years, 15 to 67. Uh,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, of these guys are just like the rest of us they just are way more famous and do cooler shit and have a lot more money and so when draymond goes at katie draymond's going at katie because what because katie got baited into something like let's let's just admit at this point katie will talk about stuff he will respond and it still kind of blows people's minds because you're talking about one of the best basketball players in the world you're like why would you care about this shit but as we've learned through history the most important people care about this stuff all right so um also katie's probably hurting after he got swept in round one and his nets things in total flux and these guys are bored i mean lebron

james announced he might have a podcast because he sees other guys making money on podcasts and he's like all right game two hey could be on a podcast soon that guy's just sitting around bored out of his mind too i mean what's he bored for he just they produced hustle that actually i enjoyed that movie yeah it was funny that the dream on piece where he was like hey man you can't get baited into that stuff it's like you mean like you did with the jaylen green thing with me where you took a one second two second snippet of something I said and didn't actually do the research on it. That's basically what he was saying KD did.

Anyway. Yeah. That was interesting. No, I don't expect these guys. And this is why I wasn't mad when German did that. I don't expect these guys to have the time to investigate the genesis of things and what's real and what's not real, especially in this social media ecosystem we have when stuff gets floated out intentionally to try to get

somebody mad at somebody. That's part of the game now. Look, that means that Draymond's even more equipped to be in the media because it's like, well, can I get a good segment out of this? Bill Simmons, this dick. What do you say about Jalen Green? Coming up next. Right.

And then a good producer goes, yeah, go with that. A bad producer would be like, well, do you know the full scope of what actually happened? Cause I'll never forget. Like when my first time's doing late night at ESPN radio,

uh, there was another host and he comes in, he's all excited. There was this coach who'd said something after a loss where he was, basically it sounded like he was ripping his own players for losing it could have been like a conference tournament or something like that and the guys like how you know and it was it's always funny with hosts i promise i'm not going to turn this into a long story but when you're thinking of a segment in your head and you're like oh i think i got this

and then you almost kind of like throw it at somebody else like you run in and you see me prepping and you go i got a good open tonight you're like you know f so and so can you believe the coach said this about his own players I'm like actually I watched the whole thing and he was saying it as a tribute if you listen to the full thing of like his team was overmatched but they fought all season long and they were pre-season pick this and it's remarkable and it's one of his favorite teams he's ever had and the guy kind of looks at me like yeah but i already wrote out the segment like yeah but still yeah but if i just take the one sound bite that's in this in in our in our touch screen the segment works the segment works if i just play that part of the clip and i was like this you know and i'm looking at the guy going like why would you want to do the job?

The point is, is that when Draymond did it to you, but I think the Draymond thing, like, I don't know if you want to do this topic, though, when he announced like with Pat Bev on TV, where I think he even said he didn't like it at first, and then he came around on him, and he was like, this is new media, you know, and you look at like

JJ's pod or McAfee having a platform and all this different stuff. But JJ isn't in the media. He's a retired player and he's excellent and really does his homework. And I almost don't think he counts. To me, the new media is, are you still playing the stuff like Iguodala or Racing Home and doing a podcast with Evan Turner after the game and that kind of stuff. But to me, it's just press conferences. It's like your own homemade press conference.

But I do wonder, and I don't wonder from like, people can believe me or not believe me. I don't wonder what the future is with my full motivation being behind my own survival because whatever. I think it could be perceived that way. Like, oh, what do these guys think they're doing? But I would say that as much as players

who are current players who are now, because this is all going to happen now, and ESPN, and it's not just ESPN, they're going to love this because the thing that they never liked about putting any of us on was that, okay, there's always going to be this credibility buy-in that you're just not going to have.

And even if it's a player people don't like, the guy played, if he's playing right now, there's an automatic buy-in that you're just not going to have. And even if it's a player people don't like, the guy played, if he's playing right now, there's an automatic buy-in. It's the way people staff TV shows. They're going to keep start doing this. It's just going to be more and more and more. I just wonder if it really, the product with active players being part of so many different media platforms, if the product is really going to be all that different from the way that we do it. You can think it's totally different, but they'll get the same shit wrong. They'll make the same mistakes. Hell, I'll tell you right now, I think the former players are way more biased than most people other than, you know, the cartoon characters out there that have

platforms that are non-players. So I don't know that it's this revolution that's coming. I could be wrong, but I also think that a lot of the guys like, you're probably going to do it the same, you're just going to have more money. Yeah. I think it's potentially additive or uninteresting.

I would say those are the two ways it goes. Yeah. To me, it just sounds like press conferences. What am I getting that's that much different than what I hear after a game anyway? Unless there's been some stuff. But see, that's the point is that there's some stuff that is like the peaks and valleys of it. When it's really good, it is really good. So that's like any other kind of media. Like I think some, all the smoke in JJ's pod were probably the first two that had players who

were playing where you felt like you were led under the hood. I think that's why I went. I think chicklets too. Did it does an awesome job. Yep. Oh yeah. The hockey. Um,

but like when I had to rain on, which was like 2017, 18, part of what made it unique was like, people weren't used to hearing players talk like that for an hour, an hour and a half. Now, two, five years later, it's all over the place. I think it's ultimately a good thing. I like that it's out there and we have 4 million podcasts. There's plenty of room for players. I don't think it's replacing anything. I think it's either additive or uninteresting. Those are, those would be my two lanes but where it's going to go

I think in just terms of like how it could go short term is you could see somebody really stir up some shit like there could be a whole shit storm that comes out of one of these podcasts

right like what if we don't know what Draymond's going to do on his podcast today but what if he came in and he just like ripped Grant Williams for like 10 minutes you know

and just told stories did and just like really went after him. And it would became a storyline in the series. That's where it's like, all right, this does feel like new media. This doesn't normally happen. No. And then there's going to be coaches like, yeah, something will happen. And it's not even specific to train mom. There'll be something that happens. You feel like a line is kind of crossed, but I just feel like the rules and lines and all this stuff has been blurred in such a very short amount of time um that it is a little unprecedented and it kind of just always reminds me and i've used this example before but when josh norman when it was announced that he

was going to be doing part of the pre-game for nfl fox on sunday while he was still with washington i believe people freaked out like even us like oh this is a topic all right yeah we'll do this and this is this is a good b or c block thing like what does this mean and it's like and then we realized like wait on this off day he's going to tape a little thing that runs on sunday but we were still so we weren't desensitized to the idea of it that at first it's like is this right can you have this in your locker room does this make any sense and then you know a couple years later you get antonio brown live streaming stuff that's not supposed to be live stream inside of a locker room, which I think was a different media product altogether. But we have, we're numb to the idea of all of this is happening now. And it's happening

like nobody is saying, wow, I can't believe these, you know, these guys are doing this, especially in season. Um, because it's, there is a demand for it. But I also think it makes sense with the way the celebrity culture is now, right? Think of all the people, all the reality stars, we, and all the real celebrities and all the actors and people who just go right

to their fans and they talk on Instagram or, you know, on YouTube or they do vlogs or whatever else. Like, this is just what it's like now. It would make sense to me that it would drift into sports in a real way. I just, I I'll be interested to see where it goes. I think this is

definitely a 1.0 version of this. And we'll see how much we actually learn from this stuff. I think the best case scenario of it is when the retired guys with the current guys seems like the most successful model. But even that,

it's really only worked with, I mean, the best, I think, with all the smoke and with JJ's pod, and then, as you said, with spinning chiclets. I haven't seen it work with baseball. But you know what, though? Here's the other thing, too, that I always think, and it's the same radio rule,

because we'd have people from TV be like, I'd like to start doing radio. And you're like, all right. And then you do it, and you're like all right and then you do it you're like holy shit every day with this and so podcasting is certainly different but it's funny how you can feel left out like well that guy i'm better player than he is and how much did he sign and he's just going to deal for how many million or whatever but it's like i remember there was an espn exec that we both know i'm not going to name the name but he was telling me the story because i was kind of

like how come you pay this former player so much? Or how come you pay this guy so much? Or how come you did this deal this way? And I wasn't doing it from a point of being critical. I just simply wanted to understand. And he goes, dude, it's so different from even 10, 15 years ago. He goes, guys retiring now have like nine figures in the bank. Yeah. Well, Wade's a good example. I think Wade would have been an awesome color guy for games if he wanted to do it. Yeah.

But he's not going to want to do it that much. $400 million. Yeah. So like, I'll, I'll drive by, do a little TNT, maybe for some of the playoff games.

Although Wade is working more because he's doing like the non Thursday broadcast. He did that a lot this season. He might've done, but that's still one day a week. So like a lot of guys, it's almost but that's still one day a week so like a lot of guys it's almost like podcasting it's not even in athletes like the number of people that are going hey i want to go ahead and do this it's like a lot of people want to do this they

want to say they have it but then to say like okay and i'm just telling you the guys that have millions and millions of dollars in the bank you you can get like yeah you know what i'm kind of sick of coming up with a plan and we don't have a guest next Thursday and this sucks. Or they're like cousins producing it or however. Nephew? Nephew. How dare you? How dare you attack one of the

three-headed prong of life advice? Drive-by shooting. Kyle knows how I feel about him. I went to, yeah, did you go to the frolic room like I did yesterday to hang out with Kyle no you went

I went I put in some Kyle time at the frolic room hadn't hung out in a while I own a thousand bucks too I hope he doesn't have a vig it was great hold on we have I have two basketball topics

just from like talking to different people things that are in the in the air yeah let's do it that I want to talk about, but let's take a break. All right, last segment, a couple basketball things

that are just kind of floating out there and it's all finals, finals, finals right now, but I do think there's a couple basketball storylines I'm interested in. One is the Kyrie thing. This seems to be a big topic right now of what's going to happen with him and where he's going to go.

And there was like, I know this is going to get aggregated. I don't really care. There is some Lakers buzz with him, which I'm trying to figure out even how it would happen. But I'm trying to think. A, would Kyrie actually leave the Nets? B,

what's the most money they would pay to keep him? And then C, if they didn't want to keep him and it was a sign and trade scenario, where would he go? So I came up with five possible destinations. How many did you come up with? Oh, I didn't know this was a homework assignment.

Well, how many do you have? I'll give you my five. Do you want to rank them? Yeah, why didn't know this was a homework assignment. Well, how many do you have? I'll give you my five. Do you want to rank them? Yeah, why don't we just do it that way? I'll do my five. I feel like the kid on the first day of class. Do you have a piece of paper you can pull out of your notebook for me? Destination number one. Dallas. If it was a Brunson double

sign and trade. And what's interesting about this is I thought about it and I kind of liked it for both teams. If you're Dallas, Kyrie is just a better basketball player than Brunson, even though he's not as reliable and whatever, Brunson fit in so well with Luka, et cetera, et cetera.

But if you're thinking like, how do we swing for the fences with Luka, who's this generational talent? What if we roll the dice and Kyrie in Texas? Maybe Kyrie makes sense in Texas for a variety of reasons. What does that mean?

I don't even know. Maybe he just needs a new state. But Brunson on the Nets, a little more stability, maybe cheaper contract. But who do you think is less likely to do Brunson for Kyrie? Total sports radio topic. Well, anybody on the Kyrie side of things. I just, I'm sorry.

There's a couple guys now I just would not give a dollar to. Okay, so you would rather have Brunson. This has been going on since Kyrie turned 25. You know? If he ended up, again, I'll wait until the Lakers want to make the Lakers point. And I'd also

say this about Brunson. A really good player is going to get paid. But there are some limitations to his offensive shot creation. Would you want to pay him $35 million a year? No, I wouldn't because I think once you started seeing him more, people being more prepared for him,

he's not comfortable in the catch and shoot. There's some things that you don't really notice unless you're totally locked into Brunson. Not to say he's not a really good player and he doesn't get paid, but to think then that you're replacing this Kyrie-KD dynamic with Brunson, although more available and less of a question mark about where he's at with his commitment. I think there are more limitations for him offensively than you would think for a guy that put up those kinds

of numbers. How about Lowry and Duncan Robinson for Kyrie and Joe Harris in Miami banking on heat culture? No, now we're talking heat culture. Heat culture, Kyrie and heat culture. Sky's the limit. I wonder if Spoh would be like, I'm in. I bet he'd say no. This would be a good segment. Either I'm in or I quit. Let's play another round of I'm in or I quit.

I think Spoh would say I'm in. Hey, we made it work with Jimmy. Let's just get crazier. What does Nash say when somebody who's really close to him for 20 years calls? Says, hey, we're close to doing this deal. Give me the truth. Long, uncomfortable silence.

Orlando is my third destination. What if it's just Cole Anthony for Kyrie and the Nets get like a $40 million trade exception or whatever it is and Kyrie just signs with Orlando and the Nets get Cole Anthony and then they get this huge exception to do something with?

Does that make any sense to you at all? I mean, I would say for Orlando, they're probably like, we're good. I just want to talk it out. I feel like it derails everything they think they're going to hope to be. With the number one pick coming in, another year with Suggs,

Fultz was good for them towards the end of the year. I would say that, you know, Cole's, well, he'd be out, so it's not like he's getting in the way of anything. They still have the Isaac piece. I always thought that people kept trying to just dump everything on Orlando because it felt like a stale organization. But with Wendell's improvement, the Bomba decision, which I don't know which way that's going to go. If you think you're kind of like it's step two of the five-part rebuild, do you want Kyrie around?

Is it actually worse in Orlando than it would be, say, Dallas or Miami where you're going into structure? Wouldn't it be better? Doesn't Kyrie have a better chance of success with something with established people that have already had – you're talking about two conference finals teams. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta kind of buy in.

Yeah. So I'm actually starting to retroactively like those better now that you presented me with the Orlando one. I don't think, I think Orlando says no to next spot, Houston back in Texas. You look number five, San Antonio,

Houston has the 17th pick from Brooklyn, ironically. And they also have those other Brooklyn pick swaps, all that shit. And could it just be Kyrie for Wall and we'll throw you a pick? And the Nets can either see if they get what they, you know, try their luck with John Wall or it's an expiring contract? Okay. My rule would usually always be, you know, there's only so many teams in the cap space. It's hard to get anybody to take it and you overpay for people.

And if you're a place that's not a destination, then you really have to overpay for people. And so, you know, Houston, although when it's good, it's probably a place NBA guys, it's not probably, it's a place NBA guys do like to go, but nobody likes to go anywhere by themselves anymore. So, if you're Houston. Houston's like, they're doing experimenting with Jalen Green, having the ball all the time. I think they're probably a no.

I just wanted a float wall. Right. It's a likely no, but I think you have to kind of factor in the pricing for Kyrie. You know, it's kind of factor in the pricing for Kyrie. It's kind of like the Simmons-Harden thing where you're going, which argument is Daryl making and which argument is Sean Marks making? And Sean Marks was going to win the argument because at least our guy plays in games. Your guy doesn't, and you have to pay a tax on that. If you're doing some Kyrie wall thing, which we both agree. Houston would say no to it. Would, would you make the argument that you're like, we have to pay Kyrie. So why am I giving you wall on expiring and the pit?

Wait, like I'm not giving you like you're getting a shorter deal. And you know, this is, that's why it's a no. Yeah. That's why it's a no. And by the way, like the wall contract now, although it's hard to add up to it, I wonder who'll try to pick it off and go, you know, John Wall for one year

and an absurd number. Is he terrible? Like he can't play basketball anymore. I don't think he's, you know, I think that's kind of an overreaction. Just haven't seen him play. This is my second favorite one. What about the Clippers?

What if it was just Brandon Boston? No, it's like a Reggie Jackson or Luke Kennard. One of those two. Plus like, I don't know, Powell. And the Clips just swing for the fences

and they say, we're going to have a team that has Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving all on the same team. And that's what we're going to go to war with against the Lakers. And a bunch of role players.

I think the Clippers would have the balls to actually consider a two-for-one, something like that, and roll the dice with Kyrie. Well, still, none of this happens unless we know where KD's head is at with it. And by all accounts, it doesn't seem like he wants any of this to happen.

Right? I think that's going to be a real issue. No, no, just I think the Nets are going to do what they want to do with this. KD's under contract. You know, he's under contract for the next couple of years. So if they feel like Kyrie kind of dismantled

any sort of cohesion the last 12 months and they just don't want to bring him back, it's their prerogative to do that. Last one. So you don't think the Clippers swing for the fences? I really like it. I think that's a possible.

I would mark that down. Then the Lakers. It's really tough. They would have to be, Westbrook would have to be involved. Imagine telling Durant, hey, we're trading Kyrie and we know you don't want to.

And by the way, you're playing with Westbrook again, who you left because you didn't like playing with. That's where the third team comes in, my friend. All right, good luck. Well, Sam Presti, OKC, former home of Russell Westbrook.

Taking the hometown hero home for a year. Get a couple Lakers firsts out of it. Lakers get Kyrie, and the Nets just get a huge trade exception. That's it. And then try to figure out what to do with it. I feel like the Nets would have to get something in that though. And I don't know what it is, but if I'm okay,

see, I get just, I'll take Westbrook's money for a year. Give me some more first. Great. Oh, I get more. I get Lakers first now in 2027.

I don't know who's going to be on their team in 2027. We'll take that. We'll take 29 pick swap too. Great. We'll take Westbrook off your hands. I think that's the most realistic one. And then Westbrook comes home conquering hero even though he didn't really conquer anything

other than some first round losses. Could see that one happening. Is OKC under the cap? OKC is way under the cap. Like comically, hilariously under the cap. They have the favors contract that's expiring.

And, you know, they're paying SGA. But yeah, they have a ton of money. They're way, way, way under. They got like a small Muscala contract.

I'm going to move on to the next topic I had for you. Phil Knight buying the Blazers. You know, made an offer, apparently, reportedly. Yeah, two billion? Here's what I heard. Here's my Portland intel, city of Portland. Apparently, everybody in Portland. Apparently, everybody in Portland

is like, really wants Phil Knight to buy the Blazers. And there's like a slight fear about how long, if it's the wrong owner, is that a team that could potentially move.

They know if Phil Knight buys it, they're set. It'll stay in Oregon. He'll throw money into it. This will be great. And I think everyone's rooting for that outcome. Is what I heard.

Yeah, we're talking about Phil Knight. I mean, you know. Yeah, but how do you feel about a guy who owns Nike running one of the 30 NBA teams? That's pretty weird. I've read some of the stuff. All right alright what do you think the problem is I'll just take the floor well I don't I don't think it's that much different than like if Michael Rubin owned Fanatics while

he also owned an NBA team I think when there's that big of a profit piece when you're supposed to serve all the teams, right? You almost shouldn't then be involved in one of the teams. Maybe I'm crazy. I don't know.

It just seems weird to me. I remember when Jordan got the Hornets, people were like, can you imagine how many free agents he's going to get when you're sitting across from Michael Jordan? I mean, and now imagine how many free agencies going to get when you're sitting across from Michael Jordan? I mean, and look, and now look how many they got.

I mean, they got like two. They got Gordon Hayward. 20 years. Probably not the one people were going to guess. They probably won't put money on that one to close the deal. MJ is unorganized. He's,

uh, you know, it's MJ. So nobody ever wants to give him shit about anything, but I don't know that it's the most owner-prepped organization in the NBA. He sold a big stake of it, too. Yeah, but I still think he's kind of in charge. And nobody cares.

Nobody cares. It's not an advantage. He's his own disadvantage as the point man. I know the real dumb one that's not the same thing, but when Jay-Z owned, what, 1% of the Nets? They're like, dude, he's going to close so many. 1%. It was like 0.001%.

Yeah, that's kind of like the Tim Conley equity thing that we've learned a little bit more about. Oh, yeah. We were like, wait, it's a bonus thing and a chance to buy back at this valuation, and then it could be worth this. It's not. From where that rumor started to what it ended up being, and look, he's still got $8 million a year. Good for Tim Conley.

Happy for him. But the equity part of that was a little overblown. And then how weird is it that lebron james has an agency but it's if you say that he has an agency clutch you'll be like it has nothing to do and you're like all right well it's different it's different okay it's not his agency it's somebody else's agency but then it's owned by uta but then you know or they own part of it you know i don't know all the full details of it. So I think it's... This is a very long way of saying

that I think we've done some of this stuff before. So you're saying conflicts of interest have been in the mix. I mean... The Jay-Z one isn't as much. It was just a silly thing that it was like... It was kind of weird. It was like an old white guy thing.

They're like, you know who loves rap music? Black guys. And a lot of the NBA guys 0.001% who's that Hove no calm

oh man yeah I mean the worst conflict of interest ever was the Stern running the Pelicans. They'll never top that. Stern was the owner of the Pelicans. Yeah, because they didn't have anybody to buy the team. So you're not going to just, you know, hey, everything's on 50% off at the team shop

because we don't have anyone to want to buy it. And by the way, the Bensons, they completely made out. Or was it George Shin shin at first and then benson had to buy it the disgrace george shin yeah that's right then benson had to buy it he got a franchise for what like in 200 million so you know that's going to end up working out for them too so i i just think there's been other stuff so i mean unless you have a stronger point of like what connect the dots for me that the guy behind nike i just want to talk it out i think it's okay i'm okay with it i think it's it's unorthodox i like it i think owners should be

you should have profile owners you know it shouldn't be mandatory but i think if somebody who is like phil knight wants to buy an nba team the nba should want to do that yeah um next topic i don't really have anything to add, but I think the Sarver Phoenix story is to be watched over the next couple weeks. Dudes have been watching. There's been a lot of investigation

and a lot of people talk to and it's a big topic now of how is this going to play out in terms of is he going to be forced to sell? Is he going to be suspended for a year, two years? What is going to be the outcome?

But I think it seems like we're heading toward the finish line. Wouldn't it be crazy if Sarver was forced to sell before Daniel Snyder would be? But again, I don't know the full scope

of the details. I read what I read like everybody else. I don't have inside information on this. So... I don't either, but keep an eye on it. And then, I don't know if you know. It's like rapid fire.

This is like the end of PTI right now. I'm just trying to give you all the dirt I heard. Empty in the sports desk. June 5th. It's now 9.46 p.m. It's officially the start of Talking Heads saying the draft starts at 4. Sacramento Kings. We're here.

We're in range. It's happened. That's like the very smart thing to say starting this week. You know the draft starts at 4. Because we know the 3 is going to go in some order. But I think there's a lot of buzz with Sacramento know the three is going to go in some order. But I think there's a lot of buzz with Sacramento and what are they going to do it for?

Because I don't think anybody thinks Ivy makes sense with Darren Fox. And yet, if you think he's the best player, do they take him? In a lot of ways, you'd almost rather be like sixth or seventh and fourth in this draft because that next wave of dudes, you almost want somebody making the decision. But or you go to making the decision, but, or you go to the counter like, Oh, let's just, we basically at the draft starts at four.

We have our pick of everyone. Let's, let's do our whole process. But I, I think people are really interested to see how that plays out. Will Sacramento trade out of that pick? Will they take somebody weird? Will they try to

trade up to two? I just don't know. It's a real wild card. For our purposes of trying to get content the next three weeks, Sacramento in the fourth pick is great. I think everything's on the table. I

hate when people, when bad teams worry about need. I hate when people when bad teams worry about need I hate it it's one of my number it's with Tenet just take your best guy so if you think Ivy's a superstar take him

I was listening to Smart List and they were talking about tombstones for the 1700s and I guess somebody came across one that said handsome and brave and they're like Will Arnett was like, that's awesome. Like we need to bring that back. We need to figure out a way like when you die that it would say something like, I think

he said he just wanted, he was a cool guy. Yeah. You know, so a hundred years later when people see your tooth stone, you're like, wow, that guy was a cool guy. Look at that. It says it right there. When I'm dead. By the way, that's a good production company name by the way it's handsome and brave productions

there you go you can have it got you take it so i need to get this thing off the ground all might have been taken so far so i was like man in the arenas taken. Somebody took double R. God damn it. Oh, it's that ranch. Is this out? Fuck. Adrian Griffin rules. Movies is taken. What?

Who took that one? Oh, Adrian Griffin did. All right. That makes sense. I'll let it slide there. I do want to throw a movie at you here a little bit later. But yeah, my tombstone, I wanted to say. Never draft based on need when you suck.

That's great. Never. Never draft based on need when you suck. Can I put a little asterisk underneath? Don't take three point cards in a row. No, but the tombstone should actually say, had he ever worked for a team, he would have screamed, we should never draft based on need because we suck.

You know, 20 whatever. Unless it's three straight point cards. Let's not do that. Let's because we suck. You know, 20, whatever. Unless it's three straight point guards. Let's not do that. That's true. So here's the deal. Like, combine. Like, you would, I think this is breaking news. Sacramento doesn't have the most respect around the league.

They don't. I'm still rooting for them, though. I still feel like they could turn. Year 10 is usually when it turns. I want you to be known as the one national guy that's like, you know what, I'm Pro rooting for him, though. I still feel like he could turn. Year 10 is usually when it turns. I want you to be known as the one national guy that's like, you know what, I'm pro Vivek. He's ready to go. Let's turn this around.

A lot of reps. 10,000 hours to own a team. I was afraid when they were watching Stauskas during garbage time, they'd be like, I kind of like this guy. Because Vivek had good seats. Sam Hauser was the one that was jumping out. Yeah. The way he was moving,

I was like, Jesus, this is the next Truce. Houser's like, what's the NBA record for PER in a game? So, anyway.

Truce is like, Houser, great job. You're next. When I was like, you know, hey, what do you think?

Everybody thinks Jabari's going one, right? Okay, hey, what do you think he was doing? You know hey what do you think everybody thinks Jabari's going one right okay hey what do you think Houston right you know how do you think this all play out and then you go man Sacramento

like what do you do what do you do and it would be other guys that I would talk to just kind of eye roll going like that is

because this here's the here's what sucks for Sacramento it's probably the one team that can't take Ivy based on the way the two guys play. So if they were to not take Ivy

and he turns into the best version of him, which could be really, really fucking special, even though I know nobody seems to like him now because of the way the tournament ended, at least on the media side of things, I shouldn't say everybody, but you get the point. He's not as hot a name right now. Yeah.

Imagine Sacramento's like, look, we kind of couldn't take him because of Fox, which other people would agree with, and then Ivy turns into a stud. Like, I'd almost feel bad for Sacramento on that one. They could point to the Fox-Sobona stuff and how good Fox looked when Sobona showed up. There's no reason not to take Ivy.

Well, I can't wait. I haven't... I just... I'm too preoccupied with the finals I'm gonna have to cram for the draft like the week before

but it's such a fun one because we still don't know the top three and then four through twelve everybody's got like legitimate favorites you know you go to that

second tier it's like a I guess a second and a half tier but everybody's got like two guys they just love those are always the best drafts I know I guess a second and a half tier, but everybody's got like two guys. They just love those are always the best drafts. I know I have a couple of guys. I love. Yeah, just like I'm the 20s. Yeah,

just all in. I have a movie recommendation for you. Well, that's because I have a movie thing. I want to throw your way here too. It's yeah. All right. We got to wrap up because we got to get this podcast up. So let's let's do this quick and we'll go. All right. What do you got? There's a movie with Alicia Silverstone where she's

on vacation with James Tupper from... Dated a girl who looked like her. James Tupper, I think from Desperate Housewives, maybe one of those shows. Never dated anybody. They're in Thailand on one of those hotel rooms that's in the ocean. It's like the six floating ones,

whatever. And needs to say there's a bad weather situation. You better like the ocean. Yeah, I've seen it. Like the six floating ones, whatever. And these say there's a bad weather situation. You better like the person. You really better like the person. There's a bad weather situation and you can guess how it unfolds. It's the funniest movie I've seen in like two years. My wife and I, we just kind of stumbled on it. And I can't tell you how many laughs I got

for an hour and a half and I highly recommend this movie to the general public so there you go okay this is amazing it's called like Luchin it's like a six letter name I'm going to say it's on Hulu it's on the Hulu

okay Hulu got it Alicia Silverstone go find it so she'sulu. Alicia Silverstone. Go find it. So she's back. Is Alicia Silverstone back? Is that what we're saying? I'm going to say coming off this movie. The, the answer is no.

Oh, okay. She's not back. That you said it's worth watching. Yeah, it's worth watching. I think I got you. It's worth watching.

Uh, it's called Requin r-e-q-u-i-n just give it 20 minutes and you'll see what i mean anyway what's your movie thing so this is actually based on smartless again two shout outs they were talking about the movie the worst person in the world yeah good one yeah Person in the World. Yeah, good one. Yeah, what's the matter with that? No, no, no. I'm not saying, like, really good job. Emotional, emotional dialogue. Drama.

Love that stuff. Different setting. Digging into that Oslo culture there a little bit. Yeah, let go in Oslo. Yeah, I still think people would struggle naming all of Scandinavia. I feel like Scandinavia in general right now has been a all of scandinavia i feel like scandinavia in general right now has been a hotbed of storytelling i feel like that's gone under

reported it's just nothing's hotter than scandinavia right now when it comes to dramatic films the swedish hockey show is good that's swedish hockey i gotta tell you though the script this this movie tries a lot of stuff tries a lot of stuff and i overall really like it i think the acting is terrific but there's a mushroom scene in there that i can't help but think if I ever wrote something like this where the first note would be like it little slow do you need it lose the mushroom scene did you get that part at all

and I gotta tell you were those mushrooms dipped in acid and kerosene I think we're in a really weird drug phase in movies right now. It's like they've run out of places to take it, so they get super crazy. You know, I watched all seven episodes of The Staircase this weekend. I'd been resisting it, but that was really good.

Did you watch it? No. I finished up. Somebody's wife is dead at the bottom of the stairs. What happened? Seven episodes later, it's really good. No, I ended up finding out. What was it? I was reading something about how the woman that was reporting

on it or was doing some documentary ended up dating the guy. Don't spoil it because people should watch it. But it's one of those where you're watching it and then there's a whole deep dive because there was a documentary. There's

features. It's a rabbit hole. Once you get into it, there's this whole other universe you go into. And it's the same premise of a hundred of these. Somebody's spouse died. What happened? That should be one of the scripts you write.

What? Just kill somebody and then whodunit? Somebody died. What happened? That does seem to work. People, that's popular. He seems really upset, but is he? Who is it? That's what I liked about Mayor easttown so much is that they just messed with you the whole time and then they gave you like a premature ending that was like oh is this it and like no it isn't that's not what it

is and so i mean obviously i'm i still murder for maryestown too where she's just a high school women's basketball coach. I'm pretty in the tank for Inglesby so I just, everything about it, tonally, that show. But yeah, I mean it's not, if you can do it well where you're guessing the whole time, that's kind of how TV

started in a way. Like all these cliffhangers. It's great. I'm glad it's back. We have to go. I just want to report from the frolic room that I'd never been into. Great place. I love the location. Everyone really likes Kyle and I was glad I went.

I can't believe you went before I did. I'm so disappointed in myself. I'll go back. When you go, you tell me. We'll go. All right. We're wrapping up. You're doing your podcast. It'll be up Tuesday morning. Yeah, we're going to get David Griffin of the Pelicans on here soon. So, looking forward to it. Oh, interesting.

A little momentum for him. Yeah. Nice little run. Excellent. Podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton, as always. Thanks to Steve Serti and Dylan Berkey as well. I'm not sure when I'm coming back this week, but I will definitely be back.

A new Rewwatchable is coming on Monday. We did Knocked Up, which is still really good. Enjoyed it. It's good to see all the characters again. Thanks for listening. See you on Tuesday or Wednesday. I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them. I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them.