The Bill Simmons Podcast - Trae’s Breakout, Diva Luka, Bucks-Nets, a Ben Simmons Debate With Wosny Lambre and Marcus Thompson

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Wosny Lambre and The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson to discuss the Bucks’ Game 6 win over the Nets, Khris Middleton's impressive night, and a look ahead to Game 7 in Brooklyn (4:00). They also discuss coach Rick Carlisle's exit from the Mavericks, rumblings of unhappy young stars Luka Doncic and Zion Williamson, the upcoming NBA coaching carousel (25:45), the Hawks’ Game 5 win over the 76ers, the dwindling hope for Ben Simmons, Trae Young’s consistent excellence, other playoffs thoughts, and more (52:30). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Wosny Lambre and Marcus Thompson Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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the Len Bias Story, and the Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast. Also check out Flying Coach dot com on the ringer podcast network. We've been putting up new episodes of what if they'll end by a story in the book of basketball 2.0 podcast. Also check out flying coach with Peter Schrager and Sean McVay. They had, uh, Arthur, Arthur Smith. Yeah.

That's his name. The Falcons coach, Arthur Smith, Arthur Smith. Yeah. Arthur, the guy who used to be the Tennessee, uh, offensive coordinator.

He was on the show. They're slowly running through the whole coaching slate in the NFL. Check out Locker Room as well, which is now called Green Room. Spotify relaunched it on Wednesday. We did a ton of stuff there. We had a lot of breaking news in the NBA on Wednesday, which we're about to talk about in a second, which KOC and some others were on there. We had a lot of breaking news in the NBA on Wednesday, which we're about to talk about in a second, which KOC and some others were on there. I went on there today with KOC and Charks and Rosillo, but you got to sign up. Download the app, head in there. You can listen to rooms. You can try to speak, all that stuff. Green Room's cool. I like Green Room. It's very complimentary to the whole podcast thing. Coming up, Big Waz, Marcus Thompson. We're going to talk all things NBA, first Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this a little bit after 8.15 Pacific time. Just watched Milwaukee save their season.

Big Waz is here. Waz and Lambry from the Ringer. Marcus Thompson from the Athletic. And we've been making fun of Waz all day about falling on the Giannis sword after Giannis played a good game. You are not a Giannis believer. Giannis showed up. More importantly, Chris Middleton showed up.

On the other hand, I can't say that was like a must-win game for Brooklyn. They got their game five. They know they have game seven home. I'm sure Kyrie's going to be involved, and it was kind of one of those, you put your toe in it, you dip it, you shoot some threes, you feel it out.

You see what it do, right? Yeah, you're kind of like, could we steal this? And then the way Middleton was playing, you weren't going to steal it. Anyway, has your opinion changed of Giannis, Was? I don't have a bad opinion of the Giannis. The thing is, they got stops. Oh, come on. You were ready to cut his head off.

Come on. That's not the case is they got stops. Oh, come on. You were ready to cut his head off. Come on. That's not the case. They got stops. Giannis can operate in transition, which is where he's best at. That's peak Giannis when he's in transition. And more importantly, when they had the plan to have court, Chris Middleton was ridiculous. You know, he dropped 38 points on something like 16 shooting attempts.

So, you know, when Chris Middleton is playing like that, yeah, Milwaukee looks like a really incredible team. You know why Chris Middleton could play like that? You know why? Giannis took zero threes. Giannis is not – he ain't a punk, man. He ain't going out like that. He saw y'all talking about him crazy. He was like, all right, I got you.

Let's go. 20 shots, under control, 17 rebounds. Giannis is like, y'all not about to play me out here like I'm Pandemic P or something. Oh, that's right. You can't even say that anymore. You better recognize Giannis and G, man. Come on.

Two things. So Giannis doesn't shoot any threes. And Coach Bud basically goes, drops down to six and a half guys in this game. Yep. He plays for his bench guys. Connaughton played 22. Forbes played 11.

Nobody else played, really. And they got nothing from their bench. They got four points total. But I think the Bucs kind of finally realized who they were. They were like, we have six guys. Giannis shouldn't shoot threes. And if Chris Middleton isn't good, we're not going to beat anybody. Why is Bobby

Portis out? I don't understand that. That's it. Bobby, they put him on ice. They must have seen something. I just think they just wanted to if they were going down, they were going down with their best five basically. That was my takeaway. Yeah.

Bud was still Bud, right? He was still in the way right he was still hating uh and i i i think you're right i mean bill you could tell how they were playing the brooklyn was like if we get it we get it but if not like we had it we had it back so they kind of got i don't want to say lucky there was a moment where this was about to get tight it was teetering and then we would have really seen but like you said chris middleton saved him he didn't save him I don't want to say lucky. There was a moment where this was about to get tight. It was teetering. And then we would have really seen. But like you said, Chris Middleton saved them.

He didn't save them in a traditional way. He saved them from needing to be saved, which is how they needed to go out. That's actually how Philly needs to get it right. Like, they don't need a close game. Well, when did you text us? It was right at the end of the third quarter where it seemed like the throats were tightening. The crowd was getting deer in the headlights-y. And then Middleton made three plays in a row and kind of staved it off a little bit.

And after that, they felt safe. But he was the key tonight. And if you're looking at like, we were going to trade roulette heading into this off season with all these disappointing teams, right? It was going to be Middleton, Tobias Harris, C.J. McCollum, Ben Simmons, all the people who let down a franchise.

And Middleton might have been thrown in there. So at least he staved that off. What else did you see from the game, Wes? Well, Harden can't move, right? And so Doris pointed it out on the broadcast. It was a 26-4 advantage in transition. So, like, Brooklyn is playing the entire game in half court where their second-best guy can't dribble by anybody.

He's extremely limited. All he can do is go to the step back and pray that they call the three on the nonsense shots when he falls down all the time. So in half court, it's like KD or you're dead. They have nothing in half court. And Harden canD or you're dead. They have nothing in half court and Harden can't run. So they can't do anything in transition. Right. And so that's what I saw on the Brooklyn side. Wait, can you hold that thought? Because I have a follow up thought that's important. So maybe this is a total coincidence. I'm not sure it is. Milwaukee

only had four offensive rebounds in game five. Today they had 15. And I think it was because they saw what you just said. Brooklyn wasn't going to run because Harden can't run. Milwaukee does that thing where they, instead of going for offensive rebounds, they just try to get back on defense so they don't give up fast break stuff. But if Brooklyn's not going to run, well, why would we send everybody back? So they started crashing the boards, and they actually created some extra possessions and stuff from that. So I'm with you. I think it seemed like Milwaukee finally figured out that Brooklyn wasn't going to run, took advantage of it. Yeah, who's supposed to run on this team, right?

It's got to be James Harden, and I guess to a lesser extent, KD. But look, if you're a team who has struggled the entire postseason, save for the Miami series in half court, you know you got to get the extra possessions, right? So you have to crash the board. Those are the best looks you're going to get off of those putbacks and running in transition. So they did what they had to do to get the best looks possible. And I'm somebody who still thinks what they do in the half court is very shaky.

Drew Holiday remains a minus as a half court offensive player. But, you know, they got just enough today and then it didn't have to get tight. And you and Marcus are right about that. Brooklyn felt like they were like, look, let's just stay in the game, stay in the game, stay in the game. And hopefully we're close when it gets when it gets down to the nitty gritty within the last five minutes. And we would force Milwaukee to get into half court execution with their season on the line. And I would have bet that they wouldn't have got it done. But thankfully for Milwaukee and their fans, it never came to that.

Well, and they also knew they weren't getting calls tonight. That wasn't happening either. I'm not saying it was called in by the league because Milwaukee was going to the basket, but it was 28 free throws for Milwaukee, 14 for the Nets. Giannis threw it to himself at one point and then elbowed Jeff Green in the face. And they were like, ah, foul Jeff Green. I thought it was pretty shaky today In what universe does KD have two free throws

Yeah Being guarded by P.J. Tucker How many fouls did P.J. Tucker He had four fouls Yeah Durant was 15 for 30 for 32 points Which is That's not the kind of line he wants He wants to be like 11 for 20

And go to the line 15 times. Absolutely, yeah. Harden was 5 for 9. He took six threes, 16 points. I don't think he can move. He can't. First of all, the fact that he's getting up only nine shot attempts in a game where Kyrie's not playing,

that's kind of all you need to know about the limited nature of what he could do right now. You know what I'm saying? And KD, look, he dropped 50 the last game, had the best game of his life. You know, 15 for 30, that's pretty good considering the circumstances of who's around him and how much of the burden is going to be on him. You said 15 for 30 is high. That's pretty good. No, it is high. That's pretty good. No, it's good.

That's good. I'm not trying to say anything, Mark. But no, but look, last time I was on here with Bill, I said, I'm happy KD's finally, for the first time in five years, going to actually have to exert himself. And that's going to happen in game seven. They're going to win because KD was incredible and nothing else. Well, are we sure they're going to win game seven, Marcus? You know what?

Yes, because I think it's going to come down to late game execution. They're not blowing them out. And I don't know how you trust Milwaukee. Even when we're looking at Drew, I don't even know who Drew Holiday is. And I think some of that is the offense. All they do is basically take turns going one-on-one. They should have double the assists Brooklyn has. Brooklyn is full of Gs.

This is what they do is iso ball. That's not Milwaukee. That's why, look, this Middleton performance is sneaky to me because he's one of them dudes who will get some buckets one game and be like, yo, I got this. Like, yo, give me the number one spot. And next game, it probably won't work out that well. So that makes me nervous.

I don't know what Drew Holiday's doing. I don't know why he's one for 10 from three and seven for 11 from two. And like none of those were step backs, by the way. I don't understand what that is. But I do think part of it is they don't have any movement. They aren't passing the ball. And it's like, all right, it's your turn. Go, right?

And all right, now it's your turn. Go. I don't even know, like, you're talking about running on offense. They walk the ball up a lot. It's like a lot of whoever gets the rebound, I'm walking, I'm surveying. It's like, dude, you guys are not Kevin Durant. Like, pass the ball up the court. I don't trust this team in a close game where the other guy is Kevin Durant. Pass the ball up the court. I don't trust this team

in a close game where the other guy is Kevin Durant. I don't know if I can trust him in that situation. Think about this. They scored 104 points today. 89 of them came from three guys.

Oh, man. Look, Lopez might get maybe game 7 he's better but ultimately their ceiling for how many points

they're just gonna score with the team we're watching is somewhere in the low hundreds they got to 104 because Middleton was awesome today

I think that's you think they'll probably end up like in the 90s they don't have that one heat check guy they don't even have like not like in the 90s. They don't have that one heat check guy. They don't even have like, not just like the Lou Williams type. They don't have that anybody type who can just come in and score. It was two minutes.

And if you're Brooklyn. Y'all ain't buying Forbes? Oh, God. Come on. He had the one game. Wait, not it. But if I'm Brooklyn, I just feel like I have to get to 100 points in game seven and I'm going to the next round.

And if you get to 115, that's ballgame. Of course. And you know what's crazy is Joe Harris is so overdue. I don't know if he can pull this out. I don't know what's going on with him. But he's like four for his last 24 from three. He's shooting worse than Giannis from three. He's going to hit

five threes in game seven in Brooklyn. This feels like something's coming. If that happens, how does Milwaukee answer that when they're getting nothing from Joe Harris and America's getting nothing? He made one today and was yelling. He was doing the thing where he was just yelling at the scores table. He made one today and like was like yelling.

He did. He was doing the thing where he's just yelling at like the scores table. And then Mark Jones like Joe Harris is telling them and they show the replay. I looked at the stats.

It was his only three of the game, I think. Yeah, he's one from four from three. And it was like, what are you yelling at Joe Harris?

You haven't made a shot. You're like zombie Joe Harris. You should be yelling at his arm, his right hand. Like, what the hell is wrong with you? Well, so you have that on that side. And then P.J. Tucker, I just want to point out, scored three points in the last two games total.

In like 65 minutes. But, you know, if P.J. Tucker, if they're going to keep generating P.J. Tucker open corner threes, I'm fine with that. I have confidence that a few of those might fall. But I think what you're seeing with Joe Harris is directly tied to James Harden being limited, right?

When he's not able to blow by his guy and attract help in the paint and then spray it out, right? And then, you know, Brooklyn puts the defense in scramble mode in rotation and it magically ends up in Joe Harris' hands. That's a direct result of Harden being hobbled. Like who's going to generate those looks for Brooklyn when Harden is not doing it? And, of course, Kyrie is out, right? So the looks that Joe Harris is getting, he's trying to do it himself.

He's trying to shoot off the dribble, off the screen and roll, which is, you know, that 1-3 was off the dribble, off of the pick and roll, rise and fired, right? So Joe Harris, the fact that he only got off four threes shows you he's the weather vane for their offense. When Joe Harris is getting these spot-up looks, or curling off the screen looks, that shows you Brooklyn's offense is working the way it's supposed to work. But with Harden looking the way he's looking, it's tough.

But at the same time, you know, I think Milwaukee, you have to be satisfied with the way you play defense tonight. And, again, not like your assignment was the craziest. You have one guy and a bunch of other dudes, but you did it. You executed it. And it's going to, you know, not to belabor this point. People are going to say we're belaboring this point, but, like, they have to deliver in the

half court in tight spots and oh lord if i'm a milwaukee fan that makes me just very scared it's so ugly marcus can we talk about james harden as the old guy in the pickup game even though he's not old where oh that's totally right he's doing all the old guy tricks that you do where it's like i'm i just don't want to get hurt basically as I'm playing. He did like five smitties today. Yeah, you're going like three-point line to three-point line. But they ain't even smitties. He ain't hurting all the way.

It's like a heavy. How about the reach-ins? He had two reach-in steals, two old guy reach-in steals. I've actually admired him more after watching him basically play on one leg because this shouldn't be working and i still don't understand why the bucks haven't just tried to swallow him up but the problem is they tried to post him that's why he was like yo i don't need help like if i could just stand here i'm good if i don't have to move i'm good he need to take his shirt off throw on some jeans and some Timberlands, like tighten his belt.

You know what I'm saying? Find some old like Jerbo jeans. We used to wear Jerbo jeans back in the day. You got some Jerbo jeans. That's the old guy at the park outfit, Simmons. And sometimes it might not even be Timberlands. It might be some black on black Air Force Ones. No, that's a serial killer, brother.

Come on. Nah. Nah. It's some work shoes. It's got to be some form of work shoes. But you know what? People do underestimate Harden's basketball intelligence. We're watching one of the all-time like skilled smart players figure it out live you know even

while he's kind of even while he's super uh like limited and you know but that dude is what's he weighing right now like he's definitely the heaviest he's been there's no he looked i've never seen him like this i mean yeah he's, he's a couple Shake Shack burgers from Oliver Miller, if we're being honest with ourselves. It's a little Jimbo Slice. It's, you know. Yeah, I think taking his footwork away, which is the thing that made him great, right?

I mean, you can throw the southpaw stuff, the hand-eye coordination, all the great things he brings to the table. But ultimately, his footwork was top five in the history of the league. And now he doesn't have it. His step back to turn it to the electric slide. Right. And here's the thing about an ACL, I mean, excuse me, a hamstring injury, is that all you could do was rest.

And I don't think anybody's ever accused James Harden of being a LeBron Steve Nash type. Oh, right. This is the most hard injury of all time, right? Like, I can't even do nothing, man. I got to chill. And it's not like he's going to adjust his diet or anything like that to account for it. He's probably just doing all the same stuff he normally would do with absolutely zero activity. So I think that's where you're seeing the extra pudge.

But, man, he's going to have to come up with some miracles to generate some decent looks for these guys going into game seven. Did he play harder the last two games or during those eight Houston games this season? When do you think he was sweatier, these last two or the eight Houstons? I don't know. Bill, fat meet greasy. I don't know.

He got to be sweating somewhere. Trust me, I know. I think he played one hard game in Houston where he was about to be out. He was like, all right, we'll give y'all one last one. We're going to dance one more time and then I'm out. Yeah, they told him, James, we're sending this tape to the other GMs. Can you try it?

He's like, all right, fine. I have an important question. Let's go game seven. Let's think game seven. Bucks lose and Nets lose. Those two scenarios. What is more of a panic button loss? Because the Bucks lose, Coach Bud gets thrown under the bus,

but ultimately they bring this back. They just blame him. They say whatever. The Nets lose. They can, I guess, do the whole, well, you know, injuries, health. We get a whole training camp thing. But at the same time, like, you know, this is a league of windows.

And this was their window to win the title this year. They were the prohibitive favorites. I think they were minus 150 eight, nine days ago. And to have that in your hands and then have it fall apart because you can't keep your best guys on the court. You know, you think like, oh, they'll get it next year. You know what I'm saying? The way the NBA operates sometimes, sometimes there isn't a next year. You know, I was feeling that way with my Celtics. Oh yeah, we'll get them next year. Right. Now it's like, I don't know when we're going to be back to a conference finals,

much less a final. So Marcus, who has more pressure in your opinion? I'm going with Milwaukee because Brooklyn has dudes with championships already. In the end, KD could be like, I'm Kevin Durant. Kyrie's got one of the great moments of all time. And Harden is probably the one who needs the championship the most, but what's he going to do but run it back? I do worry about what's Milwaukee, what can they do? They might have to do something drastic,

because if you're Giannis is letting go of Bud enough, I mean, Drew Holiday, I think he's a free agent after the end of Bud enough. I mean, Drew Holiday I think his deal, I think he's a free agent after the end of this year. Well, he did his extension. Yeah, they extended it. He got a bunch of money. That's right. So they're locked in. They kind of are set, huh?

Yeah. That might be more of a reason to panic. You don't have any maneuverability. I just feel like Kevin, Kyrie, Steve Nash on his first year, I just feel like they have more running back potential. If Milwaukee goes down, they're questioning themselves. Giannis is going to get destroyed by Wads if they go down.

I know Giannis is so to get destroyed by Waz if they go down. He's going to have to hear that all summer long. I know Giannis is so worried about that. Wait, we're going to take a break, and then I have a couple more things for you on this. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring,

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That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. So we talked about this. We did a green room today right after Rick Carlisle got fired, whether it was legal for Milwaukee to hire Rick Carlisle

just for game six and game seven. If you're going to make the coaching change anyway, just could you bring in Rick Carlisle? But if you're Coach Bud, is this one of those things where you make a different flight on the way home because you just know, like, if you lose game seven, that's it. You might as well not even be on the team plane going back.

Maybe you're driving back to Milwaukee. I don't know. Bill, you know what it reminds me of? In 2014, the Warriors Clippers game seven. And Mark Jackson wore a black suit. It was like, he's like, it's a funeral. We didn't know if he was talking about the Clippers or his job.

It could have went either way. He had all his faces covered. He's like, hey, it's a funeral today. Something's dying. See, he needs to come out with a black suit, with a red tie. That's what he needs to do. Also, what he needs to do is immediately email his resume to David Griffin because I already feel like New Orleans is the ideal landing spot for him

because I think Coach Bud is like a great kindergarten teacher, right? He's going to teach the kids how to play nice. He's going to teach them how to read and write. He's really good at that. But you can't have him teaching ap calculus he's good at the building blocks yeah yeah he's good at the building blocks but when it comes to the big boy stuff he he gotta get up out the way and i think he would be ideal for what they're trying to do out there in new orleans he's just not suited for where Milwaukee is trying to take it. I think he's shown it time and time again, y'all. But I want to raise this question to you guys about the Rick Carlisle situation

because I think Rick Carlisle is actually a great fit for Milwaukee and what they need as far as offensive know-how and adjustments, et cetera, et cetera. He was the same one crying about Finch getting the job in Minnesota. He was like, yo, it's not right for coaches to negotiate deals while somebody's still in the job. Can he take Milwaukee's job after this? It would look a little dicey, right, if he left today? You better go get your money, Rick. Go, Jim Car Carrey get your brand

well he's probably looking at it like oh man look around I have Tatum and Jalen in Boston I have Giannis in Milwaukee I have Zion in New Orleans oh he's straight yeah and Dame in Portland where there's four jobs that

have you know, three of the best under-27 guys in the league, and then Dame, who's the top-ten guy. So, you know, if Luka was out on them, I'm sure there was certainly enough reports the last couple days about that seemed like a pretty chaotic situation. Milwaukee makes sense, too, because I feel like

if there are some players who are like, all right, we're gonna listen to you coach like like we kind of need you to save us yep like and you know clearly you know he has his ways right and you know if you know luca wasn't a fan of it you've heard over the years where you might Jason kid was Jason kid was like bro Jason kid i don't think i need to be micromanaged on how to point guard he needs needs some dudes eating out of his hands, right? That's what he needs. He needs some guys like, yo, please get us over to Hump.

And I feel like, especially if they lose this series, like, that's Giannis. That's Chris Middleton. That's these guys like, yo, help us, coach. We need you. And for me, that makes it a perfect fit because those dudes will be hungry. They'll be eating out. He ain't had that in a long time either, right? Like, Rich Carlow, it's been a while since he had

that. It's probably refreshing to thought of it. That ring is a nice thing to bring to a new team. Absolutely. I've won the title in 2011, guys. I'm here. Especially the way he won it too, right? Yeah. That's really it. Like, yo, look what I did. I had

Jason Terry, yo. An old Jason kid. But what's most important to me is that he's not going to – Giannis would never berate him in the middle of a game the way Luka was doing him, right? Like, Giannis is going to be like, yo, whatever my coach asks me to do, I'm going to let him coach and I'm going to play, you know? Even while the universe is killing him

for listening to his coach right why you ain't guarding KD coach don't want me to you soft right if coach lets me I'll do it I have an important question is Luke a diva does he get enough diva credit of course I don't feel

like he gets enough credit for that because we don't call white guys divas, Bill. Duh. Hello, that's reserved for wide receivers. Okay? When you berate teammates and you're Tom Brady's passion. When you're, you know, Ocho Stinko or you're, you know, Terrell Owens. Okay, Terrell Owens was a diva.

We can't call white guys divas. It's just like black dudes can't be hustle guys. You know the rules, Bill. Come on now. You've been doing this long enough i'm trying to think like who is it what are the other doppel diva doppelgangers for him where he gets mad at his coach he yells at teammates he's temperamental by all counts i'm just just for the record i love luca i love watching him i'm core luca i'm team luca i think he's just a 20 year old 22 22 year old kid. Yeah. Who's a hothead sometimes. Yeah. Um, at the same time, it seems like he has unprecedented power right now because he doesn't, he hasn't signed the super max yet. And we're still, and I covered this a week and a half ago. Nobody's done this yet. Nobody said, fuck it. I'm not signing it. I'm going to, I, all this extra money I can get signing right now,

I'm going to play it out. I feel like I, you know, I'll make enough money off the court and I have these potential other markets and I can call my shot and all that. I'm just going to wait. I'm getting a max no matter what happens. I'm going to play this out. I don't think he would do that, but there's also the threat of it.

And what's everything that's gone on in this league the last 10 years, we over and over again, we've been shocked by player player movement and at some point i'm just not shocked anymore dallas seems like they're responding to some sort of fear of going on the wrong foot with him and we're seeing the same stuff with the with the zion and the stuff that came out today and like the relatives don't they, some of them weren't happy with Stephen, all this stuff. These young guys now, they're 21, 22, and they're being handed the car keys to actually pick their coach, which, you know, this happened in 1981 with Magic Johnson. It's not like this is a new thing, but I think the way organizations are looking at this are different now.

I think there's real fear, even when these guys have just gotten to their team of just placating them, making sure they stay happy. And with this Luca thing, it sounds like he's going to be shaping this. What have you heard about all this, Marcus? Yeah, he's definitely the the bill. He's the guy calling the shots. And, you know, if you're're mark human you kind of don't have a choice especially dallas i mean they've been trying to get a superstar forever since they're clever right all these they were they were supposed to sign all these free agents

and next thing you know you get one on draft night in a trade like You cannot let this guy go. You just can't let it go. The problem is it's better when you kind of, I hate to put it this way, but put these dudes in their place early. And he wasn't, they weren't putting him in his place early. This is going to be a thing. I think the difficulty we have too is,

do we see international players like this? They normally come with this aura of appreciation and it's a little bit different they view the game differently we don't usually you know i'm saying like yeah i've been playing since i was 14 i played with grown men like right you know we we haven't seen a dude come from overseas with like the swag of a diva right of the guy who's like i'm calling the shots i'm mad so i So I do think he's unique in this case, but they can't do, you cannot lose Luka. You can't lose Luka.

You just can't do it. And if that means like, but they got to get somebody in there who can like put this dude in this place. Like it will work against you in the long run. If you don't show this guy, you got to buy in. And the bad part is i do think that's where dirk is going to be valuable because if if you're sitting them down with anybody right now

it's dirk here's how you do this hey because he'll listen to that he might not listen to uh what's homie name harold bob harold bob yeah all right he ain't listen to that guy he'll listen to dirt but he ain't listen to the other guy. I just don't know what you can do. You get a superstar in your franchise, you can't blow it. You just can't blow it. But see, this is my thing with all of this. And this whole idea of, yo, I'm going to offer you $200 million and you're going to play on a qualifying offer.

My thing is, as the Mavs, you have to understand, these dudes don't exist in a vacuum. They have people around them. They have agents. They have family members. They have girlfriends, wives, all of this stuff. It's hard to go back home and tell your people, yeah, yeah, yeah, I turned down 200 mil

yesterday. Like, nobody wants to hear that shit. You know what I'm saying? And if you're the Mavericks, I think this whole panic mode of like, there's gonna be a guy that finally turns down a max extension people keep talking about his jordan deal and all of this stuff that stuff is nowhere close to his max extension and you know you can say well kd tours ac I mean, KD tours Achilles, still got a crazy deal, blah, blah, blah. There's no injury anymore that will stop you from getting a crazy deal. That's all well and good, but it doesn't have to be an injury.

God forbid you get into a car accident or something. And this is what the people around you are going to be talking about. That's why I just find it hard to believe. Like, these guys are human beings just like us, Bill. If you came back home from a meeting with a potential business partner and you told your wife, nah, I think I'd

rather do something else. I'd just turn down $250 million. Your wife would be looking at you like, bro, are you sure? But you know how you're going to respond to your wife saying that? Man, I got another $ 200 over here, though. It's all good.

Yeah, yeah. It's good. Don't worry, honey. Yeah, right. I'm going to get 250 over here. But the problem, and this is what was brilliant about the CBA, there's this specific one year where the player costs himself like 20, 22 million. With Luka, it's going to be,

I think more than that. Cause he made the all NBA first team, but where it's like the final year of his, whatever that player option thing is, it's like 17. If he signs the new extension, it's like 35. Right. And it's just 18 million. He he's never seeing again. So he has to decide, can I can play this out? Can I make that 18 million back if I went to the Knicks or if I went to the Lakers or wherever? If I was in a different market, could I make more money? But these guys aren't thinking that way. I remember when Davis signed with the Pelicans,

when he signed his extension. And it was like, hmm, kind of a flaccid franchise, right? One of the most tepid markets in the league. I'm just using some SAT words. I wouldn't say the number one place I'd want to be if I was trying to be marketed as a top seven star. Team wasn't very good. And yet he signed the deal. And I remember talking to somebody about it who knew him. I'm like, why would he do that? And he's like, why wouldn't he do it? And whatever the number was, it's $180 million. Like, of course, you could just force a trade two years from now.

Yeah, that's the plan, right? And that's what it is. Yeah, that's what you end up doing. You just force the trade down the road. And so even if you say the Mavs don't have, like, so next year will be his fourth year. He'll sign an extension that'll be five with an opt out after four so you say

basically they have three and a half years to get this situated I feel like if you're a competent organization that's enough time to get things right in the way that they need to like that maximum extension with the TV contracts

being what they are is so enticing i don't know why we have to pretend that the mavs need to rip their hair out like until this dude actually doesn't sign that extension i don't want to hear this crap and also until he actually wins a playoff series right that's true it sounds like they're gonna hire his buddy he actually wins a playoff series, right? That's true. He's trying to get a win a playoff series. It sounds like they're going to hire his buddy, Jamal Mosley, who is the guy that he works out with after practice

and I think has been a real mentor to him during this first couple years. See, that's how you do it. If I hire one homie, he'd be like, alright, this is what you get, bruh. That's it. Right. This is what you wanted. You wanted some input. We hired your buddy. We'll see how he does.

It's going to be, I'm less interested in that one because I think it plays out with Lucas staying in Dallas. The Diva part is interesting to me, but I'm not really concerned about where he goes. Zion and how that's played out, where he's going to have his third coach in three years. The team's not really built for success. I think him and Ingram,

I don't like that combo. Um, I don't really trust David Griffin to make the right moves. They have all these future picks that don't help Zion right now. And now that's somebody who could say, Hey, if I went to the Knicks, I can make that money back. Now he has a more of an injury history than Luka does,

but I feel like they're on a clock in a different way. Hollinger wrote today that he thought they were the most likely candidate to switch cities because their lease is up in 24. The league is really, really against that. I think it's way more likely that they expand in the next year, which I've been talking about on this podcast for a while, that they have expansion teams in Seattle and Vegas, which would basically make it impossible for New Orleans to move. But at the same time, Zion could be the test case. It's going to happen. It will happen in the next six to seven years.

Somebody will say, fuck it i'm gonna play out my rookie contract and become a free agent um marcus could it be zion it should be zion i'll tell you that much i don't don't know like you you're not trying to ride this out in new orleans man like it's not good for him it's not good for the league like i don't know what we're doing but design these there's like 15 other teams that zion should probably be on and he he can't make the money difference up he will make the money difference up like dallas is different like that is a major metropolitan we don't want zion stuck in new orleans that's not what we as basketball fans want. You mean in New Orleans where the Pelicans get bumped off

of the back page of the local paper for LSU Gymnastics? Yes. You mean that, New Orleans? They're like the ninth most important team in the state. You could go two hours away and find a team that's more valuable than the Pelicans. But at the same time, Marcus, that same thing that I told you about with with Luca, about the external pressures. Right. And the people around him. Zion is the same guy who broke a contract with his previous agent so that he could go to CAA for like a minuscule amount of extra paper that was involved with that. Right? And then, so

you're going to tell me... Well, up front, on the front end. The back end is the New York money. Okay, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. But again, like, the people around him made that decision. So now you're going to tell me, they're going to be like, hey man, here's 220

something million guaranteed locked in no matter what. I don't know what I want to do. And I think people keep using the KD stuff as instructive. You know who should be instructive to the Marcus Cousins? You don't remember when he was up for the Supermax extension in Sacramento, told him to go go F himself. And then he goes to New Orleans and he's still in line to get some paper. And then what? His body blows up on him and he never gets his other big deal okay so this stuff could this stuff could flip on you in an instant don't be using kd as an example there's other

examples counter examples out there especially as a dude who's as big and burly as zion is so this idea that you could just poo poopoo a big deal, man. And go call DeMarcus Cousins about that. I love Waz turning into a team owner saying, man, don't look at KG. Don't look at Kobe. Watch Corleone Young. Well, Waz, you're right about the way Zion's style.

I mean, he just makes me i don't even like watching him jog come on man his everything about him is off balance and he's just you know that's what makes it so freaky to watch how explosive he is because he's just very atypical i i always worry about injuries with him plus somebody who plays up in the air like that we saw blake griffin um the wear and tear that can happen after a few years. So you're probably right. He should take it. I feel bad for him, though, because if you go back to a year ago

and you think of the assets they had from all the picks they got from the Davis trade, plus they had him, they had Drew Holiday, they had Lonzo, Ingram, And then you think like they trade Holiday and they end up getting all these picks from Milwaukee that I don't think are going to mean anything. And then they have to take Bledsoe's contract. And then they turn George Hill into Stephen Adams, give him more money.

And then in that athletic piece today, it was like, oh, the Pelicans are interested in trading Stephen Adams and Eric Bledsoe getting about their cap. It's like, these were part of all your big moves a year ago to try to, you know, contend right away with Stan Van Gundy and all this stuff. And, you know, when you're hiring a coach a year, that's not great.

I just think there's a lot of red flags. I feel bad for him. I want to see him on a good team. I thought he was amazing last year. You know, it was wasted. And, you know, the thing is, look, everybody around the league agrees that griff is somebody who's pretty smart and knows what he's doing but the fact that he's behaving this aggressively on the coaching front makes me raise my eyebrow because it's like damn you

already fired a coach last year yeah firing another one like that's two bullets now and 20 million dollars to the Bensons. They not Steve Ballmer. OK, like, OK. So so I think there is a little bit of smoke to the Zion thing because of the way Griff is behaving. It would seem like, you know, you just drafted this guy. You should be in, quote unquotequote rebuild mold or else why the hell would you have traded drew holiday um it just and i get they didn't want to pay him but then you pay steven adams and like drew holiday would seem like a guy that makes way more sense than steven adams does i'm just confused by what they do who knows what the intel is and the pressure that they're

getting from the zion camp but everything they do just seems confusing to me. Yeah. And you talk about all the picks they got. OKC's picks, we broke this down a few months ago in this pod. The OKC picks are like five times better than New Orleans picks. The New Orleans picks are basically hinging on LeBron's career being done within the next year or so. And then Davis not being able to stay healthy

and them getting lucky maybe with one of those. OKC is locked into, they have Houston stuff. They have all these Clippers stuff. What better pick to have than the Clippers? Who the F knows with them, you know, for year to year. Marcus, I got to ask you, your favorite coaching job out of New Orleans, Dallas, Boston, Portland,

Orlando, Washington, and let's throw Milwaukee in there just for fun. So the question I have is who am I? Am I an OG coach looking for one last ride? Good question. All right, Waz, who is he? Is he Rick Carlisle? How about John Calipari? John Calipari wants to be an NBA coach.

Where does he go? Don Staley. I'm Don Cal Perry wants to be an NBA coach. Where does he go? Don Staley. I'm Don. I'm Don. You be Don Staley. Do Don. I'm going with somebody. So I love Boston situation.

But I think I think I'm going to Portland. I think I'm going to Portland. I'm going with a legitimate superstar who I know can produce. I'm going with a GM who is desperate to make a move and will probably finally make some tough decisions they got to make. But Portland's going to get you into top four, which means you'll save your job, right? Like, you'll be straight. And if I'm a young coach trying to get my foot, like, nothing's better than inheriting a good team on your first job if i'm an og i don't want portland because i'm trying to win a title and it's just not going to happen right like that it's not set up for that structure so maybe that's where a team like boston is appealing to me where it's like okay what moves you making you might be one or two pieces

for making this happen but if i'm a young coach give me give me a superstar who's gonna keep me top four top five in the league and I'll be able to keep my job. I'm not trying to Stan Van Gundy this thing. You know what I'm saying? It'd be one and done. Hold on. But if I'm Rick Carlisle,

I want to go be subordinate to Brad Stevens. Yeah, that's a great point. Excuse me? I want a championship, sir. That's a great point. I was a better coach than you when you was coaching.

I'm going to go take orders from you was coaching I'm gonna go take orders from Brad Stevens I think somebody young and up and coming has to go into that Boston situation and cause again it's just the politics of it right it's like I'm gonna go to an organization that empowered and uplifted

this guy after he had a bad year so that shows you his standing amongst the decision makers I can never cut this guy's head off. I can never go, like, I'm taking orders from Brad Stevens from the jump. Right? So I think to an older coach, I don't see how that becomes, you know, that appealing to them.

So you get a young up-and-coming guy or gal. Nah, you need an old, old coach. You don't need, you need an old coach. But you want to get hubie out of retirement i need to be a young gm because i don't really know all this other stuff right but but let me give me out here with this team give me give me jaylen and jason i can rock some stuff bill who would you like to see in boston I think the Boston job is a good job because as we're seeing in these playoffs,

I can't win a title unless I have somebody who can create a shot in the last five minutes of the game. Right? Yep. Which after the break, we're going to talk about Ben Simmons and just how far his value has dropped. Tatum can do that.

Tatum can go toe-to-toe against whoever and especially as he gets better and better. So I'm just looking at that. If I'm coached, I'm like, I have those two guys. They're playoff proven already. I have a score for the end of games. I have an organization that's willing to spend money. I have a fan base that loves basketball. And that seems like a great job. And from a salary cap standpoint, Kemba's only two more years. Other than that, they're pretty malleable. I would say Giannis and the Bucs, I can win a title next year job. Portland's the...

I could get there and four months in, Dame might decide he wants to leave. That would be the part that worries me about that. He ain't going nowhere. How do I know? Because he ain't going nowhere. He can't. Dame cannot go and go sign with another player and join the LeBron after all that. He can't.

Why? Why is that? Because he's been against it. He got rap songs talking about I can't join another team. Okay. Which means he'll do it next year. What's the other job? Oh, the New Orleans job. That's the upside job.

Where if you're like, if you just look at Zion's stats and you watch YouTube clips of him for 10 minutes last year, you're like, holy shit. Could this guy average like 32 points a game next year? What is this? There's nobody in the league like this.

We could unleash him. Maybe I'll take Steven Adams out of the paint so he'll have more room. And, you know, that would be probably the most fun toy to play with. Out of all these guys? We're Dallas. What's the Orlando Magic job? Pick up a drug habit at a little age? Orlando Magic is the – Orlando is that I just graduated from college and I

got to take the first job to build my resume. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Orlando saying, Hey honey, I'm an NBA coach. You are.

Well, that doesn't matter. We were talking to green room today about it's not going to happen. Cause I think Dallas is going to hire Mosley, but Mike D'Antonio with Luca would be really, really interesting.

Basically, that's what Luca was doing anyway. They were doing some variation of the Harden-Houston offense. I just feel like Luca would have the biggest stats with him. But that's not going to happen. I think they're going to hire Mosley. I think he'd do something different anyway. We're going to take a break

and it's time to have the Ben Simmons conversation right after this. All right. So after the playoffs, we see a lot of reactionary trades. We see some stock up, stock down stuff happening.

Ben Simmons's value just in this Hawk series has pushed him into a whole other level. We were talking on Green Room. We were just, KOC was, I was like, I know you've been on the trade machine, KOC. And he's like, oh yeah. And we started batting around trades. And it got to the

point where it was like, Ben Simmons for Zach Levine and Patrick Williams. Chicago wouldn't do that. It's too much. Why the fuck would I do that? Yeah, Chicago wouldn't do that. Why the fuck would I do that? Yeah, Chicago wouldn't do that. So it's like, all right, would they do Zach Levine for Ben Simmons? And then we're like, hmm, I don't know.

And I'm like, wow, Ben Simmons, who was the focal point of a James Harden trade five months ago. And now we're wondering if Chicago would trade Zach Levine straight up for him. And it comes down to like, he's a 44 minute guy, you know? And sometimes this happens with basketball where you have your 48 minute guys, 44 minute guys. The Shaq was a 44 minute guy. You want a title with him because he always had

Kobe or Wade. He always had somebody for that last four minutes. Simmons might not even be a 44 minute guy. He might be like a 36 minute guy in the fourth quarter. He's just, he's not only out of the loop, he doesn't seem to want any part of it. And I don't know how that can be your second best guy on a title team. What do you see was second best guy on a like, okay. I've been off of Ben Simmons basically since like year two or three when it was so obvious that he just was not going to change or improve what he did, one. And two, your best player,

he takes away from him optimizing all of his skill set, meaning you're always hanging out at the paint, and that's where I'm best at. And the idea that Joel is stretching his game out to accommodate a dude who is way worse than him instead of the other way around. That's crazy. It would be like if LeBron was accommodating Kyle Kuzma. Kyle Kuzma made himself into a garbage pail type of hustle type of guy because those are the guys that fit well against next to LeBron.

You spot up. You get the garbage points you d up good wings that's the ideal fit next to lebron while he's orchestrating offense this idea that joel is developing jump shots further and further and further away from the basket to accommodate his quote-unquote running mate it's ridiculous and again offensively what has he added has he added a little post game a floater game, a floater game, a mid-range game? It's crazy. Nothing has been added since his second year in the league.

And so if you're telling me Zach Levine, excuse me, Zach Levine beats people one-on-one. Zach Levine makes free throws. Zach Levine is an excellent shooter. And he's added to his game. And he's added to his game. And he's added to his game. Yes, he's a sieve on defense. We know that. But I'm sorry.

Zach Levine has easily identifiable playoff traits. What is Ben Simmons doing for me? And I'll ask you guys this because I've been killing Ben Simmons for like two weeks now. I'll ask you guys this. Think of somebody like Mikael Bridges, who nobody would ever consider him, like, in the ballpark of being some second-best player on a title team, the way you just mentioned with Simmons. What team in their right minds would swap those two under any circumstances?

For what? Especially at the Simmons price. Like, Bridges' extension, he probably going to get to 100 mil. He'll probably get to 25 a year. Simmons is in the 30s. To do what? To do what for you? I'm sorry.

I've been off of this kid, and I'm going to remain off of him until he shows me an aptitude to do things that matter offensively in these big spots. The guy gives the ball up, Bill, and he's standing two feet from the basket the whole possession. He's a stand-around guy. You're basically doubling up anybody who wants to go

near the basket. Well, and then they say when he does the screen rolls and Atlanta's just dropping 12 feet back, they're not even near him. Marcus, what do you think? Where do you stand on the Ben Simmons thing?

I'm the more people are off him, the more I get on him. Mostly because I see, I see the potential in the June here, right? Like I am thrift shopping for talent, baby. What is he?

20, 22, 23. No, he's probably about 24 now. What is he, 20, 22, 23? No, he's probably about 24 now. I think he's 24 now, yeah. Yeah, so he's like four years in the league. I think he just needs to change the scenery. The reason I feel good about Ben Simmons

is because I think what bothers him is mental. I actually think he might be adding on to his game. And never using it? Yeah, he's never using it, right? I could see this dude balling in, like, LA in the offseason, right? Got all this stuff, and everybody's like, yo, why

aren't you doing this, right? Because something's up there. He needs to change the scenery. I feel like he clearly needs a better roster around him, right? Like, he needs way more space. I still have hope for Ben Simmons. It's not in Philly, though.

It's not in Philly at all. He's got to get off the court. You've got to take him off the court at the end of the games. And that excludes him from being a top three player on the team, on a championship team. It literally takes you out. You got to take him off the court. But put him with some right dudes. If you put

him with Steph and Klay, the problem is Draymond. Now you got two guys like that. Unless Draymond's in the trade. Yeah, unless Draymond's in the trade. What about... Can I talk a little more? So this superstar, alleged superstar

big time talent, there's one specific instance in the whole NBA that he could be effective in. Portland, if you don't trade CJ, but you got Dame CJ, he's that third three. I mean, look, you got to keep it. I just watched Andrew Wiggins for a year, right? Like, I feel like anything's possible. I feel like there's hope for players. Like, you know what I'm saying?

I feel like there's a rehab that can be done that can kind of matter. You just got to forget about the money. You got to put all that out the window and figure out how you can use them. I still feel like Ben Simmons is usable. He's not that dude. He's not the dude that we thought he was. And the faster everybody realizes that, the better off everybody will be. I wish that he had had two years on like how Devin Booker had a couple of those years on Phoenix where he just had to worry about scoring 27 a game

and not having to carry a team, do too much. Like the team was going nowhere. I wish Simmons had had a couple of years where he was just the do it all guy for a crappy team. There's something sometimes, sometimes with rookies, that's actually the worst thing. And you want them in situations, you know, like Kevin McHale in the Celtics, where you're coming off the bench for three years and working your way in. James Worthy was like that in the Lakers.

With Simmons, I think it would have been cool if he was just on the Pistons and they went 23 and 59 and he did everything. And he was covering everybody on one end and the whole offense ran through him on the other end. The Embiid thing has always been weird. I've just never liked the two of them together as a combo for reasons like we saw in that Atlanta game where it's like, all right, dudes, you're still up, you know, you're up 22. All right, now you're still up 15 and you just, the stagnation. And it was like watching this jigsaw puzzle where somebody is trying to jam

a jigsaw puzzle piece that doesn't work. It just got so ugly and said, I'm sorry, Seth Curry shouldn't be that important. They traded Jason Richardson straight up for Seth Curry and he's their entire offense when Embiid is double teamed. It's pretty rough. And the thing that Marcus brings up about, oh, the Warriors. All right, Draymond is a limited offensive player. He has those things that he's really good at, right? I think Simmons, you know, catching a ball on a four and three,

he'd be better at finishing at the cup, say. But he's not a better play say but he's not a better playmaker he's not a better screen setter he's not like he's i don't think he's that much of a better offensive player than draymond is on offense and then defensively draymond at times can be the best defensive center in the nba so that's the counterweight that you're dealing with when the context makes sense. Okay, so you're limited on offense and then

on defense it's like Trey Young putting 40 on your head top anyway. I don't know. I'm out on this dude, man. So he should be out the league? You just want to kick him out of the NBA? You got to find a place for him. He's a role guy here's the problem this shooting thing is a tale

like it's here the free throw, the refusal to shoot threes it's a tale that something's going on in his head you can't win a championship with players like that you can't win a championship while you literally have a mental block and one of your best players you just can't do it the difficulty is he shouldn't

be on this team right he should be in houston or you know taranto he shouldn't be on this team and now maury how do you trade ben simmons when you could have got hard for him and like now you know what you could have got once you turned down and now the value is way lower so does he sell low on Ben Simmons he might stick with him just because the value ain't even there

but that's the killer though I think they thought they had that trade I'm not defending Daryl but I really do think they thought they were headed toward a deal. And I think Brooklyn did the panic and just threw in a couple more picks and trumped them. But they

were willing to give up Simmons and a couple other pieces like Maxie Theibel. Yeah, but the price for Simmons was hard, right? It was like, alright, I was going to get hard for Simmons. That's done. Now you're looking at CJ McCollum and Robert Covington. That was KOC's idea. Or you're looking at C.J. McCollum and Robert Covington. That was KOC's idea. Or you're looking at...

Could you get Brandon Ingram for him? See, if you could get C.J. McCollum and Robert Covington for Ben Simmons, you need to do that deal yesterday. Like, there's a context in which those guys fit perfectly around what Joel Embiid brings to the table. Even with CJ as a super limited offensive, I mean, defensive player,

you got one of the best defenders, top five defenders in the league, helping you on the back end of all of that. Like that, the context actually makes perfect sense. You know, a guy that has one-on-one skills, you know,

he's going to be, be there in the clutch, incredible shooter, all of these things i mean like there's a context that yo that philly teams makes all the freaking sense you can see it of course robert covington is one of those three theoretical 3nd guys well he also gets he gets passed around every year yeah he just hops on a different team his deal is so tradable, he always gets moved. But were you guys surprised that they blew that lead yesterday? Because I was not.

No, I was surprised. I swear, I swear. My son came in. He wanted to watch Braves-Red Sox. It was like 10-10. And it was like 20-22 near the end of the third quarter. I was like, we can't turn this game in. I'm not.

Because first of all, Atlanta is one of those teams that can just put up points fast. And I don't trust Philly. Especially what I've seen from Embiid in these fourth quarters where it seems like the ideal length for him is 30 minutes, 32 minutes, something like that. It just seems like he dies in these fourth quarters. I thought it was so telling

when he had those huge free throws when they're down three with like 25 seconds left. They cut to him before he's shooting the free throws. His hands are on his knees. And it's like, this guy's fucking exhausted. I thought they learned from the previous game. I'm sorry. I thought Doc was like, yeah, no, we're not gonna

do this four speed and beat at the end of the game again. And they did it again. They did it again. They turned into like Bel Air Academy and he was Will Smith and nobody ever hit the ball it was ridiculous with that said when Collins banked in the three it set off all kinds of alarms

comeback alarms because it's like alright when that shot's going in you're in trouble because that cut it I think to eight the other thing I thought I thought Philly Atlanta really figured out something with Philly playing Trey and Lou Williams at the same time.

When, you know, which they had, they'd kind of been hesitant to do. Is that a figure out though? That seems kind of scary. No, but it was just like,

we're going to torch Curry. Curry's going to have to guard one of these two dudes and we're going to hunt him the same way Coach Bud was afraid to hunt James Harden these past two games. They were hunting Curry. And I actually, I just feel like Atlanta has figured stuff out

as the series has gone along, whereas Philly has not. Even playing the rookie yesterday, who I thought was really good. Yeah, he gave him some good energy. They have an eight. They know who their eight guys are and they don't have Hunter,

who I really liked. But I would be really concerned. And we should talk about Trey, too, because that dude is so fucking tough. And I think when you're a little guy like that, and you're the best guy on the team, and you're that eager and excited to win on the road, now you start dipping into the Isaiah Thomas, Steve Nash. No, he's a maniac. Absolutely. When your little guy is the toughest guy on your team, now you start dipping into the Isaiah Thomas, Steve Nash. When your little guy is the toughest guy on your team,

there's a lot of good NBA history stuff with that. And I'm just stunned by how much he's improved, how he was solving shit during the series. And I can't say enough about him. I'm so fucking impressed by that guy. And it's been said, I'm not the first person to make this point but like nobody like trey young hasn't been had having his ass kissed his whole life about why he's gonna be great it's been the opposite it's been the opposite of ben simmons quite frankly why he's not gonna get it done right like why this doesn't make sense that he would excel to this degree even when he was killing as a rookie second year guy people were, people were like, oh, man, is this going to work in the playoffs?

They're just going to hunt this guy. I was one of those people. A good stats, bad team guy. I was convinced. I was dead wrong. He's a guy who had to actually believe in himself the whole time. It's not like people were kissing his ass and talking about patting him on the head and saying, you're going to be so great, kid.

No, it's been the opposite. So the mental toughness is already there. That's what I love about Trey Young. And to get back to Joel, like, okay, he's clearly the focal point of what they do on defense. If they're going to get stops, it's because he's meeting dribblers out and contesting and he's dominating in the paint. And then he's exerting himself offensively as the only freaking constant generator of good looks offensively when it comes to one-on-one like i mean he could probably do one half of the game and have somebody support him the other half but to ask him to do both of those things for the duration of his minutes the size that he is and he's never been that great condition, you know,

it's a lot to ask this dude. It's too much to ask him. But it ain't too much to ask him to not be able to de-bow Clint Capella in the fourth quarter. I'm not letting him off the hook because he's got to create. Like, you can't be talking all this head and getting technical fouls and trying to be the tough guy there in the fourth quarter, you can't take Clint Capella.

And I'm sorry, I just watched Draymond shut up Clint Capella in the Western Conference Finals. You can't let Clint Capella best you. You gotta be able to dominate that matchup, even if it means you need to chill in the first half and stop trying to

show off and flex on everybody, relax in the first half. stop trying to stop trying to show off right and flex it around like relax in the first half like flip it instead of going all out early trying to you know i'm saying pace yourself and know you got to have a fourth quarter but but i do want to say about trey i think one of the things that has helped trey like you said he definitely has this leathery skin because he's been he's been hearing it all his life and i also think the steph curry comparisons help him people don't understand this dude is a he is like a point guard like this dude can pass he has counters right i know people think he's just a shooter in this range like that's not this dude like when his shot is not falling and he's not like

steph curry fishing either right he's not the dude who's shooting 45 from three but when it's not like Steph Curry fishing either, right? He's not the dude who's shooting 45% from three. But when it's not falling, he's got another option. He would just dime his team up, right? Like, y'all about to drive and just whip passes. Like, he's got a back door. Like, he's got a bag, like, in the real sense that's still developing. Like, this dude is like he's building something here. Like, this reminds me you know

travis schlenk and is the gm like the old warriors guy they remind me of the 2013 warriors where it's like what they're learning now but watch watch trey young in two three years when he's got this experience that dude went to the garden punk the nicks and now he's in philly in front of iverson punking the sixers like this dude is about that life. And he also has a whole bag that I think people thought he was some kind of shooter. And that was it like a shooter with Afro. And it's like,

nah, like this dude will dice you up and he will live in the paint on you. It's crazy. Like what is he? 120? Like he's half of James Harden right now. And he's, we know it's crazy. And he's not even shooting Harden right now and he's we know it's crazy

and he's not even shooting that well in the series like it feels like he has no level to go that's a great point about the 13 Warriors I would actually say this it's almost like the 13 and 14 Warriors combined like both of those seasons because the problem

solving that he's been able to do in this series like you talked about what's really makes him special Because the problem solving that he's been able to do in this series, like you talked about what really makes him special and something I just did not think he had in him was if he doesn't have a shot or if they're taking stuff away from him. Game four, he figured out how to get other people involved anyway and get people shots. He had 18 assists.

This game five, you could see him figure out what to do against Simmons and Theibel. The key play of the game was that three-pointer, right? When he drew Theibel in the air and got the three free throws. He set that up for eight seconds. He had that dude on yo-yo. He knew exactly what he was going to do. Set it up, set it up, set it up.

Then he went for it. And Theibel went flying into him. And then he got the three. That shit, when you talk about, like, the Curry comparisons, I agree with you. I think they're idiotic. He's Steve, to me, he's Steve Nash. He's Steve Nash 2.0

with basically less of a conscience, but the same kind of the way he controls the game. He's a psycho. The dude will not be, he will have a bad shooting, right? He's struggling with his shot, and then he'll go in, hit a couple floaters. What does every other shooter do once they hit a couple?

You take your butt back out there. It's like, all right, I'm good now. Like, no, I'm going to give you 78 floaters. Like, that dude is a maniac. Like, he's like, you about to stop it. And he was just like, I'm about to hit this every single time until you stop it. Every other shooter is like, OK, I'm good now. I'm working my way back out. I'm about to hit this every single time until you stop it every other shooter is like okay I'm good now

I'm working my way back out I'm out here back to the three he's like nah you gonna get this work and he's like 120 pounds in the lane like floater floater floater floater like until you stop it this is what I'm doing like this dude is a maniac it's incredible Waz I have an incredibly important

question for you that needs a break and then I'm going to ask you. Here's my important question based off our Trey Young talk. I'm starting to wonder in 2021 and beyond, are you better off having a six foot one guy than a seven foot one guy? If you could have somebody who is a franchise six foot one guy than a seven foot one guy. If you could have somebody who was a franchise seven foot one guy or a franchise six foot one guy, what would you pick? So the two sides would basically be, would you rather have Trey Young or would you rather have even a

healthier Joel Embiid? Let's say Joel Embiid, 20% healthier for the next 10 years, the way basketball is played in 2021, what would you rather have? I'd probably take Joel because he's more singular than a jitterbug guy who gets

buckets and gets his guys involved. I think the fact that Joel makes my defense good and legitimate just by showing up and is a plus on offense is, to me, that's just more singular because it's still, defensively, it's still a big man's league, right? And so I just think having that dude that you know, you know people can't just take it to the basket, et cetera, et cetera, on you. I'm still biased towards that. But factor the injury stuff in.

So you might get 5-7, Joel. You might get 12-14, but it's more likely you get 5-7. If I have Trae Young, I get 15 years of Trae Young. See, I thought you were going to go the Aiton route because they were in the same draft to which i'm like give me fucking trey young and he's showing himself to be a beast right now like i don't get it twisted but give me trey young all day every day right um but joel i think he's he's a singular type of guy like what the what like the what like the fact that he can score in all three levels on offense and be anchoring the paint.

Like I got to take Joel specifically. But if it's just random, really dope big man and somebody who does what Trey Young's able to do, it's Trey Young. It's definitely Trey. It's always going to be the wing. Yeah, it's got to be an exceptional. Yeah, it's got to be an exceptional big man. It's got to be an exception. I'm not taking

Nurkic. Because in the end, especially the way the game is played, basketball games are going to come down to crunch time, and you just got to have somebody who can make a play. Now, the reason I'm taking Joel is because really, Joel's problem is he just needs a point guard, a point guard who can shoot. play. Now, the reason I'm taking Joel is because really, Joel's problem is

he just needs a point guard. A point guard who can shoot. If you put a different point guard on this team, Atlanta's not close. This series is over. They're kind of uniquely misfit in that sense.

It wouldn't be a factor. With Trey, you need... If you ain't got Bogey, if you ain't got John Collins, you don't got dudes who are making shots. We've seen these guys, right? Like, we've seen Steph Curry when it was Chris Singleton and Mikey Moore. Like, it's incredible to watch, but it ain't get you anywhere. So I think Waz is right.

Like, the history of basketball still is going to favor size. But you better be good at 7'1". I'm not taking Lerner as Noel. Endurable. I'm not taking Lerner as Noel. There's 90% of 7'1 guys I'm not taking. But also, I'm not taking 90% of 6'1 guys, too.

Because Trey Young is different. He's not the same. If I told you that four weeks from now Atlanta is going to be the NBA champion, what's your reaction to that? We going to Atlanta. We out here. Why is we out here?

NBA finals in Atlanta would be, oh, my God. Oh, not like Atlanta ever closed. But, whoa. My reaction would be that, man, Philly blew this. You know, because. Or, man, Milwaukee blew this. know uh because or man milwaukee blew this yeah or brooklyn blew this because but brooklyn is like legitimately injured like kairi's ankle is cooked james harden's hamstring is cooked they're legitimately hobbled um philly is like, you don't got Danny Green. You ended up with the second best record in the NBA or something like that this year or third, whatever it was.

Top five in point differential. And the Atlanta Hawks, you couldn't get past them. And they would add home court in the finals against basically anybody but Utah. And Utah is one loss away from being out. So that's my reaction that, wow, Philly, you blew this. I'm dusting off my Clark Atlanta gear and we out. We hit Atlanta. It's going down.

Like, yeah, man, what? But Marcus, you were there for the 2015 Warriors that seemed improbable. And then all of a sudden they were winning the title. And you're like, oh, this is actually going to happen. This is now our title team. Now, they were way more successful in the regular season. But there was still a sense of like, ah, they can't actually win the title.

Keep in mind, Bill, I grew up in Oakland. And I've seen like all of that trash over all those years. I didn't think they were going to win a title until they got up 15 in game six you know those worries had this thing like once they got to 15 it was over it's like they won like 57 games straight where if they got up 15 at any point that was ball game and they went up 15 in game six and i'm like yo they're about to win this like this is crazy and you know people are blowing up my phone because everybody was at Oracle and it was like a party and like Too Short was playing.

Like, no, no, we didn't think this was going to happen. No, what? The Warriors? The Winston Garland Warriors? The Alton Liston Warriors? Like, heck no. We never thought that was going to happen. No, not until they got to 15.

That's where it was like, yo, the Warriors are really about to win a championship. This is crazy. That's what Atlanta would be like. Atlanta would go crazy. I'll tell you this. If they just beating Philadelphia, I think would be the greatest moment in Atlanta Hawks history.

Now, they won a title when they were in St. Louis with Bob Pettit. I don't know if we count that or not. No, we don't count that. But when you're talking about the greatest moments of the history of the Atlanta Hawks, you go to the Dominique Bird duel, game seven and second round in the East that Atlanta lost. That was always the go-to for the Hawks.

They were basically kind of the also ran in the East with all these other great East teams, Philly, Detroit, Boston. They were kind of, they could give you a good series, but ultimately you didn't take them seriously.

Was game the nineties. Was game five, the greatest moment now. I mean, that's what I'm saying. It might be the greatest moment right now. Coming back from 22 and, and Lou Williams,

Atlanta's own. In front of Iverson. Yeah. All that stuff. The disrespect to Iverson. Yeah, all that stuff. The disrespect to Iverson was out of pocket. Like, feel me, oh, man. So they made the Eastern Finals before, but they had no chance.

That was with going against LeBron. I really think it could be in the running for greatest Hawks moment. It's not a franchise that's had a lot of great stuff happen. The comeback and then them going home, the tendency is to think the series is over.

And yet, if Embiid really wants to, he could do the KD in game five routine on them. If he can, from an endurance point, play four quarters, they still have no answer for him. He could put up 45 and 20 on them, you know,

and single-handedly cut their hearts out. What do you think happens, Wes? I just can't believe the team that I watched in the first half of Game 5 is going to lose this series. Like, they're just the better team. You just have to stay mentally focused. And, you know, I got a few tweets about this because

I did a lot of killing of Ben Simmons and the rest of them on group chat yesterday. Tobias Harris, I mean, seriously, bro. Like, you also get paid $35 million. You're on a maximum contract. Please, score against

Lou Will. Score against Sean Young when he's switched out on you. Make a three-foot jumper. How about shoot? Take a shot. Shoot. I just can't believe that these guys in the biggest moment of basically all of their careers

up to this date, when it comes to Tobias, Ben, and Joel Embiid are not going to respond with some level of intensity and execution. Marcus, do you think they'll fire Brett Brown if they lose this? Oh, wait. I'm sorry. It's not the coaching words. It's not the coaching words. Sorry about that. Poor Doc. I got to see it, man. I don't know how you...

I'm not just going to give you the ability to come... I'm not going to presume you could come back from that. Like, no, you're done. They got to show me something. I think they're done, too. I don't know if you come back from that. What's the lead they're comfortable, Bill? What's the lead where Philly's like,

all right, we got this? 25. 40? It's got to be... They were up 25. 40? It's got to be. They were up 26 in loss. It's got to be 40 for them. Whatever lead it is, Bogdanovich will hit a three. John Collins will hit a corner three.

And Trey will hit a three. And then all of the panic will set in. And they're like, here we go again. Why would I believe they can overcome that at this point? I'd be so worried of Trey in this game because he still, he had a great game one. He's not had an awesome shooting game. He was good in game five,

but wasn't great. He hasn't had like the transcendent Trey young game. It feels like he's due and it feels like he's figured them out. The crowd's going to be out of control. That'll probably be the happiest, most electric Cox crowd. I would say they've had this century. And from what we've seen of Philly,

from a deer in the headlights standpoint, a couple other dudes get the deer in the headlights. You saw Ben Simmons, Tobias, some of their bench dudes. Doc Rivers gets that kind of frozen, oh my God, it's happening again face on the sidelines. I wonder if that helps Philly though. I wonder if they do. Well, though. I wonder if they do. Well, nah, they choked in Atlanta.

Dang, like, see? I was about to be like, maybe if they're on the road, it don't bother them as much, but it did. I have a couple small things, and then we'll go. If Klay Thompson doesn't get hurt,

could Golden State have won the title this year? This weird-ass season we just had. Yes, I think they could have. I think they could have too. They could have. I don't know if they would have, but they definitely could have. There's nobody in the playoffs right now

as presently constituted that I would say would be some overwhelming favorite against the team that I watched against the Toronto Raptors in 2019. Yeah. That team, I'd take over this field right now, 100%. Yeah, no question. The clips, it feels like once Mitchell comes out and says,

I can't get off the ground anymore. I mean, that was like a tie commercial. That flag was so white, right. That was like a tie commercial. That flag was so white. Right. That was like, I was like, I actually was, I was, I really liked that show. I was actually disappointed in that. That failed a bunch of different competitive things that you just don't do in a series. Don't let the other team know a, that you're hurt and B that you're mentally kind of checked

out with what you can do and not do. You know, I don't want to hear any of that. He clearly hasn't learned from the greats. You know you're supposed to do that after the series. Yes. Come on. Right. You got to wear the cast after game.

You know what I'm saying? That's how you need to do it. But when he said that, I was like, this is done. And then the clips just have this way of, you know, George, I think without Kawhi, you saw the guy that I voted third MVP two years ago. Like we know he can do that. You mean his MVP season? That's what he called his MVP season. Yeah, his MVP, his third.

And then they have this crazy Marcus Morris, Reggie Jackson thing where every game, one of those two guys plays great. And it's never both. It's always just one. And it's like, they flip a coin and decide in the game five, it was Reggie Jackson who was out of control game six. Maybe it'll be Marcus, but I just think they figured out the jazz and they're more athletic than them. And even without Kawhi, I think they can win at home. What do you guys think? I think the problem with the Clippers is that they are the 2021 playoff mascot team. You don't know what the hell is going to happen from game to game, possession to possession with these guys. Because you got to think about down 30 to 11 in game three, down 0-2 to Dallas.

It was like, this is over. They somehow managed to win that damn series. Kawhi goes out, who's probably the second best player this postseason after KD. And you're like, how are they going to beat the Jazz ever again? And they beat them. I don't know what to expect from this team. I just have to think Utah's just better. To me, even if Mitchell and Conley are hobbled, if they play, they have better players, man.

They should be able to beat this team. It's interesting. I think the Clippers have better players. All right, Marcus, you're the tiebreaker. Yeah. My concern is Paul George looked gassed at the end of that game, and this is not a role he's used to. I like him in this role.

I like him as kind of the point forward, not like, yo, don't go get me 30 and style on them. Like play a smart floor game, but he looked gas. And I have, I'm,

I'm a bank on the fact that Dwayne way put his arm around Donovan Mitchell. It was like, listen, we don't talk like this after games. And also, here's how you get through this. I'm with Wiles. The Jazz are bad. They should be better.

They should be better. I think they win game six. And then it becomes, how much does Paul George have left? Wait, Dwayne Wade says, here's how we get through this. And what does he do? Give some illegal medication? No, show him how to draw fouls like a hundred i have a hard time thinking and look this dude's been playing amazing i just didn't have it in the cards that reggie jackson beat the jazz like

i kind of i kind of need to see it first. I need to see it happen before I believe it will actually happen. But Reggie Jackson is beating the Jazz, the number one team in the West. It's crazy. Ty Lue, shout out to him, man. He's a good coach. I think it's a really weird team to coach.

There's probably 13 guys in that team who think they should be playing. But when he stuck with Terrence Mann in a game five and the jazz were like, cool, we're just going to leave him alone in the corner. You keep shooting Terrence, man. You could have those. And then Terrence Mann in the best play of the game was like, fuck this. I'm just going to pass up this open three, go right at Gobert. And that's why he's out there.

Cause I think Ty Lue does have a good sense of like, who's, who actually is not afraid of this moment right here, you know, which is the only kind of thing you learn when you've been in the finals and you're looking at your bench and you're like, all right, that guy's scared. That guy's scared. Oh, that guy doesn't seem scared. And he seems like he's just gravitated in this series to the guys who are not scared. And Terrence Mann, you know, they have this way, this Clippers team,

it's just a different guy in a different quarter. Did Rudy Gobert get dumped on by Terrence Mann in a crunch time of a championship? He absolutely did. It was a half dunk. Yeah. It's a semi dunk. The best thing for the Jazz is the Clippers history. Clippers have never made a round It absolutely did. It was a half dunk. Yeah. What a foul. It's a semi dunk. Yeah.

The best thing for the Jazz is the Clippers history. Clippers have never made a round three. Clippers have had storied collapses. They've lost all kinds of terrible home games that mattered. And it's all set up. And then, you know, to lose Kawhi when they did, taps in a bunch of Clippers stuff too. Before we go, LeBron blaming the season for all the injuries.

Where did you guys stand on that? He's still mad AD got hurt and so they're not going to win the championship this year. It sounds like he's just lashing out and, you know, you're out of the playoffs. Nobody's thinking about you or talking about you. Still got a movie to promote. So, like, he's just lashing out. LeBron, we know why everybody came back when they came back.

It was to save the money. How about this? You and Chris Paul run the league. What the fuck are you talking about? There's two guys who run the league and it's not Adam Silver. It's you and Chris Paul. I'm sorry. We're not not gonna act like

they were shackled and forced to play this season they had a hand in saying yo we're gonna do this I was waiting for the critical race theory

part of this podcast to come I'm sorry I know I'm not allowed to talk about this I'm sorry I'm sorry dude I hope you don't get fined

or nothing the LeBron piece of it where if they had won the title this year, then he would have gone into this is the hardest title I ever won. Ever. He would have gone the other way. But my thing with the injuries,

first of all, I feel like we have injuries every year. Second, half of these injuries were guys just landing on somebody's foot, which has nothing to do with the length of the season. Yeah, well, I was like, what does Kyrie injury have to do with it?

Like, does his ankle weep because of the season? Third, Kawhi played 46 games. It's not like he, it's not like he was Jokic, you know,

cranking out all 72 games of the season. Like, he was load managing the shit out of the whole season. So, I don't know. I just feel like

if you look at 2019 as the Warriors fell apart one by one and all the other shit that happened that year, we have injuries every playoffs. It was weird. I felt like part of the reason he did it was because KD had this incredible game and it was this big KD jerk test. LeBron's like, I got to wait in. I got to wait

in on this. I need some headlines. I'll buy the argument if they're champion a shorter season permanently. Then I'm like, okay, now you care about it. Come back, start talking about, let's do 72 games regularly now in the same time. Yeah, exactly. Then I'll buy it, but it's

a little convenient right now. By the way, that's what they should do. Yes. It should be 62 games. Yeah, I would what they should do. Yes. I mean, if you really care about injuries, right? It should be 62 games. Yeah, I mean, honestly. I would say it should be 60. Just round robin, two games each team. That's it.

Keep it going. Yeah, I'm with you. All right, I think we hit everything. Marcus, anything you want to plug? Yeah, my phone charger is dying. I should probably plug that up. Marcus got to plug his phone charger. Why? Is he doing group chat? You doing anywhere? No, I got a dying. I should probably plug that up. Marcus got his phone charger. Why?

Is he doing group chat? You doing anywhere? No, I got a book. I got a book. I forgot. Tell us about the book. I set you up. It's unbelievable.

No, you know, I wrote a book, Dynasties, and we got the 10 greatest teams of all time. You'll appreciate this, Bill. I absolutely love digging into the old You'll appreciate this, Bill. I absolutely love digging into the old Celtics. Oh, yeah. First off, the disrespect of the Celtics gotta stop, right? Like, I know

it's a different era, but them dudes was hoopers. But, like, and the climate where they were hooping? Right, right. You know, like, are you kidding me? The climate in which they were hooping? Like, but just digging into that like i had i gained such a great appreciation for them old celtics man like like we don't talk about like sam enough you know i'm saying like we don't we don't talk about these news and then we don't

next year is the 75th anniversary of the nba they need to make it a point we need to talk about the history of the nba people do not understand this league does not happen without george mikan it literally does not happen like they were playing in cages and nobody was watching and they're playing this dude around the league like like yo come see the seven footer right come see this gangly dude like play hoop and nobody cared except for george mikan like we it was amazing to go down that journey so yeah koozie was another one like that where he was the first guy who's like hey we should try to entertain the fans while we're here and they're like what what do you mean entertain the fans you know like dude behind the back passes he's like okay let's try it but yeah those guys

the 50s and then russell comes in makes the game vertical yeah the crazy part russell changed the game by deciding to jump on defense like if i just jumped i'll block that shot like no no no you gotta stay on the ground russ fundamentals he's like but if i jump like yo i'm gonna jump all right game changed forever like it's it's crazy like this stuff is like one thing i did learn it's all stacked on top of each other right we're we're comparing these eras but really they're all so foundational to one another you know i'm saying like you can't talk about the fast pace of the game and that's fast break and not talk about back then right like that's it was it was i have fun live reliving

that but those celtics man like that what they played under and that just the or playing professional basketball in that time yo like i i think we disrespected way too much like i would i i barely functioned this summer during a pandemic we're. While we were talking about race. I could barely function. These dudes was living, playing hoop in that? It was crazy. I got so much respect for that team, that era after doing this book. It was crazy. I'm glad you brought that up because I really forgot to plug

my book. Why don't we plug your YouTube show? Yes, sir. Full Court Fits on the ring is YouTube. We talk about NBA fashion. We talk about sneaker culture. We do little interviews with people. We're just having fun with it. I would implore you guys to check that out every

single Friday morning at 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. That's every Friday. And of course, every Thursday morning, we drop group chat which is on the Ringers NBA show. And you're popping out green room as well. And I'm popping up on green room after, you know, random games, give and takes after insane red wedding type NBA, you know, Wednesdays we're popping up.

So yeah, we're doing all of it. You got to do like a warning on the fashion show, man. Like on the, like, you got to tell people people be ready to spend money because you end up wanting to buy it. Like, I didn't know where it's like, Oh, what is this packet? My wife was like, what is this? And I was like, well, I was listening. Like when you, when you were three time bestselling author, I'm just saying, you can do that kind of stuff. You go like, this is an expensive pod. Like you go,

you go start shopping and wanting stuff. It's crazy. The one thing you'd be like, yo, I could afford that. I'm buying that. Speaking of NBA fashion, I was trying to think what would make Stern the maddest over everything that's happened the last five years. Kyle Kuzma, definitely. I was thinking the dress code

stuff, the way James Harden was dressed for a couple games. I just think Stern's like, Jesus, I thought, come on, guys. I thought we saw he's wearing a t-shirt. Come on. Come on. The players are supposed to look nice. What are we doing? But I can't imagine how many things would have driven him. Can you imagine

Stern? You think the coaches wouldn't have done it? The coaches and these little athletes? Yeah, him looking at Stern? You think the coaches wouldn't have done it? The coaches in these like, Oh, the coaches would have, yeah. Why him? Why him looking at Mike Budenholzer? Looking like Budenholzer,

looking like he's got a flask in his back pocket. You look like a gym teacher. I know. Like, he's gotta hate that, right? Like Budenholzer is like, it looks like he's about to like,

hit a swig and put it back. Like, all right, run the offense. Well, I was thinking like when LeBron said the stuff about the injuries, Stern absolutely would have had a sarcastic comeback. A hundred percent.

Last time I checked, I remember Mr. James voted for this season. He would have snapped back at him for sure. Adam Silver is just like, whatever, we're going to pass our new rules, do what we do. I don't do the game in the media with them.

Stern lived for that, though. He lived for the media barbs. He loved it. All right, guys. It was great to see you. Thanks for staying up late. Great basketball tomorrow night. Really excited for it.

And we'll be reacting on the Ringer NBA show as well. You can read Marcus on The Athletic. You can read Waz on The Ringer. And we will see you here on this podcast on Sunday night. Thanks. On the wayside On the brussel I never was And I don't have To ever forget